Harry Potter and the Compass of Desire

Harry Potter lay on his bed in the smallest room at Number 4, Privet Drive, staring at the stars out of the window. It had been four weeks since Dumbledore had died. Four weeks of agonizing reflection and sorrow. Nobody had come to see him in that time. He knew they were giving him space to mourn, but he really needed to talk to someone right about now.

Hermione would have been his first choice. She always understood what he was thinking and how to talk to him about it. But right now she was probably at the Burrow, with Ron. He knew that their relationship had changed right after the funeral, but they had been too scared to tell him about it. They tried to be discreet about sneaking off to snog or whatever they did alone, but he always noticed. Not telling him, more that the fact that they were together now was what made him feel so betrayed.

There was not sound in the house at this late hour. The Dursleys were all asleep. They surprised him when he got back this summer. They were not nearly as bad as previous summers and avoided him most of the time. He assumed that an Order member had come and told them what had happened.

There was only a week and a half left until his birthday. Bill and Fleur’s wedding was the day before, and he was going to the Burrow two days early. Ginny would be there. That thought was what finally caused him to stop staring out the window and go to sleep.

The next morning he rose as usual before the Dursleys and headed downstairs to fix breakfast. When he arrived in the kitchen, he was shocked to see he was not alone. Sitting at the table was Remus Lupin. He looked tired, most likely due to the previous full moon. His robes were new, he noticed, probably because of Tonks. The thought of the two of them together made him happy. Remus deserved to be happy.

Remus looked up and smiled as Harry entered the kitchen.

“Good morning, Harry,” he said brightly.

“Good morning, Remus. What are you doing here?”

Remus’s smile vanished at that. He beckoned Harry to sit down across from him. Once he had done so, he continued.

“Harry, I know this is going to be rather hard, but it is time we discussed Professor Dumbledore’s will,” he said.

Harry sighed and nodded.

“It took us a while to find it. We were surprised when we did, however. Everything Albus owned was left to the school he so loved. Except for one thing. That thing went to you.”

Harry looked up quickly. “Me?” he asked.

“Yes, you. Albus thought a great deal about you Harry, almost as a grandson.”

“What...What did he leave me?” Harry asked tentatively.

“Albus owned many rare, curious, and powerful objects. One of these objects was the Compass of Desire,” he replied as he took out a small black leather case on a string. It was very worn and the edges were battered. He gave it to Harry.

“The what?” Harry asked, as he looked over it.

“The Compass of Desire is a very curious object. You see, it is not an ordinary compass that points North. It points to the deepest desire of your heart, whatever that may be.”

“Kind of like the Mirror of Erised?” he asked.

“Sort of. It points the way, but does not show you the object. I do not know why he left this to you, but I know I can trust you to use it well.”

He stood up and made to leave, but turned around and walked back to him.

“I almost forgot. Professor McGonagall asked me to personally deliver this to you.”

He handed him his Hogwarts letter and left. He knew what was inside the letter. An offer to become Head Boy. It was Professor McGonagall’s way of bribing him to come back to school. It wasn’t going to work however. He had a job to do. He knew the other letter was going to Hermione. This saddened him. She had worked so hard over the years to become Head Girl, and he was denying that to her. But he knew she would never stay behind and let him go off alone to face Voldemort. That was who she was.

He cooked breakfast and quickly headed back up to his room to think. What was his deepest desire? He thought about it for the rest of the day. When he went to sleep that night, he still had not reached a conclusion. But after he woke up during the night, screaming from one of his nightmares about Voldemort, it came to him. All he really wanted was to be free from the threat of Voldemort so that he could live. And to be free, he needed the Horcruxes.

---

Two days before the wedding, Hermione arrived to pick him up. She had Apparated from the Burrow and they were going to go to Diagon Alley to pick up some new dress robes for him. Hermione was very cautious as to what she said around him. She avoided talking about school and what they both knew was coming in the next few months. Instead, they talked about the wedding, Ginny, the weather... It was when they reached the weather that Harry knew this had to stop.

“Hermione, just get it over with and say it already,” he said suddenly.

Hermione stopped talking and looked at the ground.

“Harry, me... me and Ron are... are dating now,” she said very quietly.

“You know, it would have made me feel a lot better if you had told me that last week at school, instead of sneaking off.”

She looked up sharply at this. “You knew.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

They were silent for the rest of the time. They bought his dress robes and she Apparated them to the Burrow.

There was never a moments peace at the Burrow, with all the wedding preparations going on and everyone running around. He tried to avoid Ginny as much as possible. He knew that seeing her would hurt, and it did. He mainly stayed inside the house, reading some of Ron’s old Quidditch magazines and thinking about what they were about to do.

The morning of the wedding was beautiful- not a cloud in the sky and it was warm with a slight breeze to keep it comfortable. Fleur looked so happy, as did Bill. His face had healed some, but it was still scarred horribly from Fenrir’s attack. The ceremony went off without a hitch and the happy couple left for an extended honeymoon in southern France. As the garden was being cleaned up, Ginny cornered him.

“You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” she asked.

There was no point in hiding it, and all he did was nod. She obviously had accepted it, because she said nothing as she walked off. Hermione and Ron joined him a minute later.

“Did you tell her?” Ron asked.

“Yes. Hermione, I’m giving you one more chance to back out of this. I know how much you want to be Head Girl. I wont think any less of you if you chose to stay.”

“There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing. I..” she started to reply, but was interrupted by:

“I love those moments. I love to wave at them as they pass by,”

They turned around quickly to see Fred and George standing there grinning at them.

“Fred! George!”

“You can’t say a word!”

“Hermione, memory charms!”

Fred held up his hands and said “Easy there. We come to offer our help. We, of course, have known about your plans to escape for a while now, and for what reasons. Never fear, you secret is safe with us. We offer our assistance to you three in your most noble of deeds.”

George continued, “We are giving you access to any and all of our products at any time that you might need them. Plus, we are currently working on some advanced defense products specifically for you. Here try this for example.” He pulled a jelly bean out of his pocket and handed it to Ron. “Our best product yet! This, my dearest brother, it the easiest way to instant invisibility! Invisibility Beans! Try one!”

Ron looked at the jelly bean skeptically. It looked amazingly like a Bertie Bott’s, and knowing the twins, would taste like their worst flavor. He reluctantly ate it. And disappeared.

“It worked!” Harry said.

A voice came from the direction Ron had been standing in “It really did work! And it doesn’t taste bad either!”

Fred and George looked offended. “Of course it works! Our products do that quite a lot, yet people are always surprised,” George said.

“With good reason,” replied Harry.

Hermione turned to Harry and said with conviction “Harry, there is no way I am going back to Hogwarts without you and Ron. What good is being Head Girl if you are dead because of Voldemort?”

Harry just shrugged and said “We leave tonight. Take only the essentials with you. Pack you trunks with all the other stuff and Fred and George can take them to their shop for storage.”

Fred and George nodded and Dissapparated. “Midnight in our room,” Harry said to Hermione, who nodded and walked off. He could feel Ron’s presence next to him.

“How long does it take for these things to wear off?” he heard.

“I don’t have a clue.”

---

Ten minutes before midnight Harry and Ron were all ready to go, with a small backpack apiece filled with clothes and other essentials. They would be able to get food along the way and they were only waiting on Hermione to sneak up to their room.

She arrived five minutes early. She had on a slightly larger pack, that Harry knew to be full of notes, books, and healing potions shrunken down.

“Are we ready?” she asked.

Harry nodded. He laid a note on top of his bed. There was already one on top of Ron’s, and Hermione nodded when he looked at her. They had thanked Mrs. Weasley and said goodbye in them.

Harry walked over to Hermione and grabbed hold of her arm. Ron took the other. There was that annoying feeling of being squeezed thru an extremely small rubber tube and then they were standing outside of Fred and George’s shop in Diagon Alley. The door quickly opened and they rushed inside. The door banged shut behind them and a light came on.

Fred and George were there, with three identical packages in their arms. They each took one and placed them in their packs and were gone again, walking swiftly down a deserted Diagon Alley. They Disapparated in the back of the Leaky Cauldron and arrived in front of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

---

Mrs. Weasley heard a small pop from the upper levels of the house and immediately sat up. She knew that sound. It was the sound of Apparation. Her husband beside her stirred and sat up as well.

“What’s the matter?”

“Some one just Apparated,” she replied.

Arthur immediately got out of the bed and grabbed his wand. He snuck out of the bedroom and headed upstairs. He came back several minutes with three letters in his hands, and a worried look on his face.

“Harry, Hermione, and Ron are gone, and they left these,” he said. Mrs. Weasley took them and read each one. With each letter she got more and more worried. When she finished Hermione’s rather long letter, she looked up at Arthur.

“They’ve gone after You-Know-Who, haven’t they?” she asked quietly.

Arthur nodded and said “I’ll alert the Order in the morning. The only thing that we can do is try to keep track of them. We can’t interfere. This has something to do with those secret meetings Dumbledore and Harry had. It would be best if we left them alone.”

Molly, recognizing defeat, slowly nodded her head in agreement. They both went back to sleep, wondering where the trio was now.