Disclaimer: They belong to JKR, I'm only playing.
A/N: Let me just say thank you once again to everyone who's been reading and reviewing, especially the previous chapter; trust me, I was beyond nervous about that one. I haven't got around to answering all the reviews, but I will, so in the meantime, thanks, you guys are awesome.
About this chapter; some of you have already figured some stuff out, so what happens here will not surprise. Still the same, hope you enjoy!
And thanks as always to miconic for the beta, for she is the best.
****
Chapter Eight
Ron shut the door to the Hospital Wing behind him and leaned against it. He took a deep breath and held it.
They said she could talk. They said she'd just remembered what had happened to her. The Prophecy, the Charm. They said Malfoy had tried to attack her. And now, she lay on a pale, pale bedspread under pale torchlight, sunk in the bedclothes, her face a pale grey.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. It was full of everything and nothing, racing at Firebolt speed but turning round and round in muddled, frantic circles.
They finally had all the answers but in his head a voice kept shouting why? why?
He pulled away from the door and set off down the corridor, planning to find Harry. Professor Tiresias had said that Harry was in Dumbledore's office. He had just turned the corner to mount the stairs when he collided with someone rushing down.
"What the--Harry! Merlin!"
Ron felt the blood drain from his face. Harry hardly seemed aware of where he was. He clutched the wall, breathing hard, bloodshot eyes blinking against the sweat pouring down his face.
"Bloody hell, Harry!"
Ron dragged him to the first stair and pushed him down on it. Harry slumped with his knees pushed into his chest, hands clutching hair.
"For heaven's sake, breathe!" To Ron's surprise, Harry obeyed. He lifted his head and took a deep breath, then another. Then he looked up at Ron.
"Ron…" His voice was hoarse. "Ron…she…they--"
"It's alright mate, I know what happened. Professor Tiresias told me."
Harry dropped his head in a half-nod. His hands were shaking. Ron sat down next to him.
"Harry, listen to me, she's all right now, that's what matters. Harry, just…look at me." Harry raised his head. Ron tried to summon more strength into his voice than he actually felt. "She's okay now, she's safe. Professor Tiresias told me what they'd done…and…I'm so sorry, Harry--" He swallowed, flailing for words. "But she's okay now. I just saw her, she's asleep. She'll be okay."
Harry buried his head in his hands again. Then he raised it abruptly.
"For how long, Ron?" He got to his feet. "How fucking long before she's dragged away again and hurt or killed?"
"Harry--"
"How is she okay when she's been shown exactly what would happen--"
"But it didn't happen, Harry!"
Harry pounced on him.
"IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE! NOW SHE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN ONE DAY!"
They stared at each other. "You can't say that, Harry, you can't. No one can live with that." Ron growled. Harry moved away with a hard laugh.
"Oh, yeah? Well, that's exactly what I've been living with for the past four months." He dropped back down on the floor.
"What're you talking about, Harry?"
Harry didn't say anything for a long time. Then he raised his head, looking ten years older.
"The Prophecy, Ron. According to it, I'm marked for death."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Harry clenched his jaw and recited the Prophecy in a single breath.
Ron stared at him.
For a few moments, he could think of absolutely nothing to say.
"That--that's not right--you won't just drop dead, you'll fight." He kept shaking his head. He began to pace up and down. "And, what did it say, neither can live while the other survives--well, Hermione will know exactly what that means, but it doesn't say it'll be you, does it? And, surely you idiot, you don't think Hermione will just stand around and watch?" His voice became stronger. His errant hands punched the air. "And what about me? What about Dumbledore and Professor Lupin and, and my mum and dad and the twins and--do you think we'd just let you walk into--"
"You just don't get it, do you?" Harry's voice came from far away.
"What?"
Harry sighed. "The war hasn't even started properly, Ron, but they've already taken Hermione and hurt her. Imagine--" He swallowed. "Imagine what'll happen once it does, imagine the danger you'll all be in and, and it's all because of me, because I'm Harry bloody Potter who's going to die anyway!"
Ron made an impatient noise. "No, Harry, you don't get it. Look, I'm not the person who knows how to say this best, but you're more of an idiot than you look if you think we hang around you because you want us to. Mate, you're our friend, not our keeper. You're not responsible for what we choose to do. And you can't just tell us to go away to keep us safe. We're not cowards." He scratched his head. "There, I think even Hermione would agree that's a pretty okay way to put it."
Harry snorted.
Ron sighed, slightly relieved. That'll do, that'll do for the moment. He sat down next to Harry and tried to stay calm, to pick up strand by strand everything he just heard and weave some sense out of them.
But when he looked at Harry with his head down on his knees, his shaking hands hugging his legs, his heart began to shout unfair unfair unfair until his ribs ached.
They sat quietly for a long moment. A few students walking downstairs stepped around them, dropping curious glances. Ron watched them walk past, chucking Chocolate Frogs at each other. Such a normal day. For everyone else.
Finally, he stood up. "Come on, we'd better get changed. And you'd better go see Hermione." He brushed his jeans. Harry staggered up, clutching the wall. Ron shifted on his feet. "Maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey first."
"No, no, I'm fine. I just need a shower."
They took the shortcut to the Gryffindor common room that led through an empty classroom. Harry shuffled behind him. Halfway down the classroom, his footsteps stilled. Ron turned around.
"What?"
Harry looked at his feet for a moment, fingers drumming on a desk.
"Are you still mad at us?"
Ron dropped his head.
"No. No, I'm not."
Harry nodded hastily. "Okay. Good. We, er, we did mean to--"
"Yeah, I know." Ron shrugged. "Hermione said."
Harry nodded again.
"Oh. Right."
They turned and began to walk.
**
The colour of quiet was yellow. A lesson learned from all those days spent in the Hospital Wing since first year. A deep, dark yellow that sputtered and swayed and made him sleepy. Sitting up in bed after Ron and Hermione had left, trying to listen to the rest of the castle go about their business far, far away, he'd fall into the heart of that yellow and drift off almost peacefully.
But today, the yellow was singing. Quietly, of course, or she'd wake up.
She lay curled on her side, hair in tangles, mouth slightly open. Her pillow lay abandoned. There were many things that would take time. For the moment, he made himself a cocoon walled with the steady rise and fall her breathing and lit up with the sweetness of relief.
He drew a long breath and stroked her cheek. He paused just beneath her lip, at the tiny spot that wasn't quite a dimple but which hollowed when she pursed her mouth just before telling him or Ron off for something.
Soon she would wake up and smile and say his name; properly, out loud.
Everything else could wait.
"Harry?"
He looked up, startled. Professor Tiresias stood on the other side of the bed.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. How is she?" He looked much calmer than he had before, although Harry thought he glimpsed a certain stiffness around the eyes.
"She's still asleep." Harry slid his fingers in her hair.
"Harry, I'm sorry about what happened. I know how hard it is for you. I really do." Harry didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
"But that's not all there is to it."
The calm into which he had sunk more out of exhaustion than anything else, began to throb.
"What do you mean?"
Tiresias clasped his hands. "Harry, did you not wonder why all their curses and spells failed to touch her?"
Harry shrugged. "They still hurt her."
"But they couldn't hurt her as much as they wanted to." Tiresias's voice was soft.
Harry shook his head. He wished Tiresias would leave. He just wanted to be alone with Hermione.
"It was because of you, Harry."
He raised his head. "What do you mean? I was nowhere nearby."
"You didn't have to be. You never will." Tiresias sighed. He walked to the window and stared out. Harry vaguely wondered what he actually saw.
"There's a rare kind of magic called Cariad, Harry, and it's very powerful. I've only ever read about it, never actually…sensed it." He paused and turned around. "You see, with us magical folk, the strongest force in our bodies is our magic. There are only two other natural forces that can--but not always--overpower the magic in your body. Those are death and love."
Harry stared at Tiresias's wide eyes, wondering where this was going.
"Cariad magic is when your love for someone is powerful enough to direct your innate magic to do its bidding. This magic usually happens spontaneously. It's not a spell or charm, and so--" He waved his hands. "--It cannot be cast as such. It takes place without the witch or wizard having to do anything to initiate it, often without them even knowing."
"So what does it do?"
Tiresias looked at Harry, flame-shaped shadows shifting in his eyes.
"It keeps the loved one safe, Harry."
Silence fell. Harry glanced at Hermione.
"What--what do you mean?"
Tiresias paced back and forth along the bed. "The way it works varies according to the situation, no one can predict how the protection manifests itself." He paused, eyes turned towards Hermione. "In your case, it formed a shield around Hermione to block curses and any other actions meant to harm her. That's why the Death Eaters or Voldemort couldn't touch her, physically or magically."
Of course, he wasn't hearing right. It went against the grain of everything he assumed about himself. Tiresias walked around the bed and stood in front of him.
"You kept her safe, Harry."
Harry swallowed, looked at Hermione and shook his head. "That--that can't be right. I put her in danger in the first place. It was because of me and that stupid Prophecy that they took her."
Tiresias ran a hand through his hair, his voice low but urgent. "Don't you see, Harry, it's the part of you that you cannot help, that puts her and everyone else you love in danger. But where it mattered, you kept her safe." He backed up and walked round the bed. "Yes, he did hurt her in a way that you couldn't prevent, but you stopped her from possibly being tortured and used as a bargaining chip to get to you, and then killed--for that would have been his plan."
Tiresias picked up a bottle of potion from the bedside table and put it down. Then he went to the window and turned around. "The strange feeling you had at the Burrow while Hermione was missing, as if you were suddenly, viscerally aware of your own blood flowing, that was part of your mind--perhaps still without your conscious awareness--realising what she meant to you. And the sharper the realisation, the quicker the magic activated. And Hermione felt it too--there's no doubt that's what she meant when she kept saying you were there that whole time. By the afternoon the following day, Voldemort couldn't even get a simple binding hex on her. What's more, all his minions were getting injured whenever they tried to touch Hermione. And he didn't realise what was happening." He smiled thinly. "As Dumbledore would have told you, Voldemort disregards certain types of magic that he derides. He thought that whatever was protecting her would also make it possible for the Order to track her down. So he had to let her go as soon as he could. That's why he resorted to Virtualis, to have the last word."
Tiresias laughed, a hard laugh. "What he didn't know was that he was part of the protection."
Harry stared.
"As I said, this is very powerful, spontaneous magic, and when I first mentioned it to the Headmaster, he was skeptical. I don't blame him. Cariad has only ever been recorded in witches and wizards much, much older than you and who had been with their loved ones for many, many years. So, while the magic was powerful enough, since you both are still very young, it wouldn't have worked unless it had a carrier. Some kind of connective tissue that allowed it to pass along to its target."
Tiresias paused and drew a breath. "The Dark Mark was that carrier, Harry. You see, Voldemort is connected to you through your scar, and his Death Eaters are connected to him through the Dark Mark. That's how the protection got transmitted."
Harry swallowed and looked at Hermione. She seemed undisturbed by Tiresias's urgent voice. He ran a finger along her jawline and rubbed her neck lightly with his knuckles.
"So--so how did Malfoy get that binding charm on her this afternoon? Dumbledore said he'd become a Death Eater."
Tiresias spread his hands. "He didn't, Harry. It wasn't him who cast the binding hex. It was Crabbe. That's why it held. When Malfoy tried to throw the Silencing Charm at her, he was thrown against the wall."
Harry ran a hand through his hair and stared out the window. The wind gasped and heaved in dark, blurred shapes.
Tiresias stepped closer, voice soft.
"I'm sure you're quite overwhelmed, Harry, believe me, I am overwhelmed myself, and I only just feel it through you."
"You feel it?"
Tiresias sighed. "Yes, I do. I've felt it since your very first Defense class." He smiled. "It's every Sense's dream--something so rare, so precious, something most of us know only from musty textbooks. But--" He made a vague, disjointed gesture with his hands.
"It's wearing me down, it's so powerful that it's hindering my Sensing abilities. It's gotten stronger and stronger. But I don't need to tell you that." He inclined his head. "And Harry, all your teachers have reported that your magical abilities have improved quite noticeably. Well, this is the reason. I wish there was another way to say this but love does make you stronger."
Harry looked out the window again. He groped around for something familiar, something he understood, a familiar window out of which to look into this strange place.
"My mother--Dumbledore's always said the reason Voldemort's never been able to touch me was because of my mum's protection. Is this--is this like that?"
Tiresias shook his head. "It's different. Yes, it is still love, but a parent's love is different. Between a child and parent the bond, the bond of blood is there from birth. But with Cariad, a bond has to be forged between two people who have no such connection. It grows from nothing. But--" He raised a hand. "It doesn't grow in nothing. It has to be looked after, it has to be given time and space to grow. The right kind of conditions." He slid his hands inside his pockets. "There will come a time, Harry, when you will not need a transmitter for Cariad. Neither of you. But of course, you have to make sure you've put enough into it for it to be strong enough to stand on its own, to work on its own."
Harry sighed and hoped he'd remember those exact words by the time Hermione woke up. She'd know what they meant.
"Harry, once we had it all figured out, Dumbledore and I discussed endlessly whether to tell you or not. And how much to tell you. It's something very difficult to grasp, to carry around. But we also know that you blame yourself for everything that happened. Well, now you know you shouldn't." He looked directly at Harry. "What you do with that knowledge is up to you, Harry. Whether you take it as a gift and ease your guilt, or whether you continue to torture yourself with something that's not true--that's your decision to make."
Harry swallowed. The torches burned low. It was quiet, except for the faint hum of life outside the Hospital Wing and the shuddering wind outside the window. And of course, her breathing. He stroked her hair, caressed her temple and touched her lips with a finger. Her warm breath tangled around it. He wondered how something so frail as a single breath could hold him so strongly and make everything else weightless, making them fall away from his shoulders.
When he looked up, Tiresias was gone.
**
"Already preparing to leave, Tiresias?"
Tiresias turned away from his trunk and towards the door.
"I must Headmaster. You know I must. Or I'll be useless. And I can't afford that." He ran a hand over his face. "There's much to be done."
Dumbledore stepped into the room. "I hope you don't think I'm pressuring you, but when do you think you can return?"
Tiresias sighed. "The last time I felt this way was when I got caught up in the middle of a battlefield, in the last war. And that didn't feel half as strong as this. I had to stay away for two months." He ran a careful hand over the desk and picked up a quill. "I don't know for how long."
"I understand, Tiresias." Dumbledore sighed. "How is he?"
Tiresias searched for one word to describe all he felt while in the Hospital Wing. He failed.
"He's like someone who'd never known what it's like to walk on solid ground. And now he's almost resigned to it, always waiting for a fall." He waved the quill absently.
"He's finally found his solid ground, but he's terrified to let go and just…stand on it."
"You can't blame him."
"No. But it scares me."
"What about her? What do you feel?"
"That's my consolation. I have faith in her. She won't let him drift." Tiresias laughed softly. "It's almost against her nature."
Dumbledore smiled. "Well, I'm glad to hear it."
"But she'll need support. She probably will have nightmares for quite some time. And now that she remembers everything, she might begin to dwell on it, although she's not the type to brood." Tiresias sighed. "I will be back as soon as I can, Headmaster."
He began to move around again, picking things up and laying them in his trunk. "So, what will happen to Draco?"
Dumbledore sighed. "I'm expected to expel him, of course."
"But you won't."
"No."
Tiresias turned towards Dumbledore.
"I believe the boy is in danger if he leaves, Tiresias. I am not quite sure of the entire scenario, but I have a feeling he was being used. From what he told me, he hadn't been instructed to try and learn the Prophecy, that was his own initiation. He had only been told to 'do his worst', whatever that meant. Besides, he knew nothing of his father's--or any other Death Eater's--injuries."
"You mean he was being used to learn more about the protection?"
"Possibly. I cannot be sure. In any case, I think it is appropriate to keep him in the castle, under strict supervision of course."
Tiresias shook his head. "What I don't understand is, say he was being used to learn more about the Prophecy, maybe to see how much damage it can cause, how were they going to get him back? I mean, surely Voldemort realised that if Draco tried to attack Hermione, he would be apprehended and discovered to be a Death Eater? Therefore giving the whole thing away?"
"That is what worries me the most, Tiresias. It shows complete confidence on Voldemort's part that he could get to Draco before we could after the boy did whatever he was planning to do to Hermione. Get to him and whisk him away. He may have failed this time, but what it means is--"
"The castle isn't as safe as we think."
Dumbledore sighed heavily. "Yes."
Silence tripped over objects scattered on the floor, clothing, shoes, books, a miniature globe, a skeleton packed neatly in a compact glass case.
Finally, Dumbledore spoke.
"I am old, Tiresias. I cannot see as clearly as I did." He paused and glanced around the room.
"Or maybe nothing is clear anymore. Maybe nothing ever was. Perhaps my entire life I have been looking for explanations, for sense where there were none."
**
She was very, very warm. But light. Like a cork on a body of still water with the sun on it. But if she moved, if she so much as turned her head, it might all change. The lightness might be pulled under where the sun couldn't reach.
But she could feel him nearby.
She remained still for a moment longer, listening to the soft noises around her--the hissing torches, the wind far away--trying to separate the tiniest sighs and rustles in the room.
Ah, there it was. That was him breathing.
She stirred, her hands and feet pushing against the bedclothes. She felt him stiffen next to her. A warm palm touched her forehead, fingers skimming in her hair.
"Hermione?"
She opened her eyes and blinked. He ran his thumb beneath her eye and over her cheek. She opened her eyes fully and looked up at him. He looks tired, she thought, and his shoulders are aching. He'd probably been sitting here for hours and hours waiting for her to wake up. His eyes stood out in his face, so anxious but so hopeful, aching to smile but afraid to.
"Hi," he said.
She lifted her arms and held them out.
He slid his own around her waist and pulled her up to sit on the bed. They looked at each other for a moment, faces so close, her arms around his neck. Then she pushed her face into his neck, his arms tightening around her.
She knew something was different, very, very different, but she wasn't sure what it was. There was a taste at the back of her throat she kept swallowing down. It was as if something had been cut open, the way a wound is cut open to let the poisoned fluid drain away and heal.
She rubbed her face against his neck and shoulder, wanting to climb under his skin, to pull him up over herself like a warm, heavy blanket. She felt his mouth against her skin.
"Say something." His voice was hoarse.
She drew back and smiled faintly. Then she opened her mouth to form the empty shapes of words as she'd done all these weeks.
She froze. Her eyes widened. He grinned.
"Yes, you can." He touched the corner of her mouth.
She clutched his shoulders and opened her mouth again. Harry reached over and picked up a bottle of potion from the table nearby.
"Here, this'll help."
She took a sip and tried again.
"I--Harry--"
Memories marched behind her scratchy words, too insistent to be turned away.
She fell forward and clung to him, her heart beating fast. "H--Harry…I remembered everything, didn't I?" He held her tight, his eyes filling up.
"Yeah, you did, but it's okay. It's going to be okay now."
Hermione closed her eyes against his neck. She knew she was almost strangling him but she was suddenly caught weightless in a spinning gust of memory and she needed something to hang on to. She was frightened by the lightness but felt the sweetness in it, the freedom; if only she could find her footing she could let go. And only he knew how tightly to hold her, how to pull her so completely into himself with his hands and his whispers that she couldn't possibly be blown away.
"Oh it was awful, Harry…"
"I know, I know…"
"I don't want to remember it, Harry--I want to forget it all again…"
"But that won't make it go away, Hermione. You tried, it didn't work…"
"But I can't walk around with it all day, it's too much--"
"Then we'll put it down, let it go, it's in the past--"
"How can it be in the past, Harry, I saw what might happen…"
"You saw what might happen, not what will…"
Both their faces were warm and damp with tears and his throat worked with the effort to swallow down the sobs. She clutched him still tighter and slid her hands in his hair.
After what seemed like a slow, tremulous eternity she pulled back and ran a palm down his wet face. His hands drew muddled, urgent circles at her back. She touched her lips to his and whispered.
"What did the Prophecy say, Harry?"
He tugged at her lips and whispered back. "That I--that I must kill him or be killed myself. That it's up to me. That--that there's no other way…"
"Oh."
Harry drew back a little to look at her. "You knew, didn't you?"
She leaned her face against his. "I just…guessed it must be something like that. Who told you about it?"
"Dumbledore. He was the person who heard it."
His voice had dropped beyond a whisper, his lashes glistening afresh. Unable to hold out any longer, she reached again for his mouth.
"We'll find a way around it, I promise."
Beneath his trembling breath, his mouth opened for her.
"Yeah."
Minutes wound around them in a slow, heated dance, the steps to which were all their own.
"Harry?"
"Hmmm?"
"Nothing. Nothing. Just…keep doing that."
His lips shaped into a smile.
"Sure."
The world slipped and sank into silence around them. Midnight struck in a distance, so faint that it might have been in a different universe. Droplets of rain flirted with the window, dancing up against the glass, now pulling away in the roguish wind. And after weeks and weeks of aching for sound she suddenly thought this silence--this silence was where things made sense. No matter how crooked or broken or imperfect, this was where everything always made sense, this quiet where neither of them needed to speak.
****
A/N: So, that was the final plot-related chapter. But there is an epilogue on the way, much shorter. So if you still have questions, chuck 'em over, I'll try to answer them in the epilogue, which will be posted sometime next week, hopefully. (No, I won't keep you waiting for four weeks *grins*)