Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. All credit belongs to her. I'm just playing with them…. `cause she made them so fun to play with.
Magic Never Dies
Chapter 11
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Harry woke up to Crookshanks insistent kneading on his bladder, as if the big orange furball somehow knew it was the one way to claim a larger share of the suddenly diminished space in his mistress' bed.
A quick trip to the loo later he was wrestling the cat for his spot back. Crookshanks grudgingly allowed Harry to reclaim the warmth he had left beside Hermione but insisted on climbing onto his chest for a thorough ear-and-chin scratching in repayment, eyes slitting in pleasure as Harry's fingers worked their way through his tufty coat.
A rumbling purr, like a contented motorcycle, ensued.
"He really likes the way you do that," a drowsy voice informed him from the pillow. "He actually made me jealous he was so happy the night after Tonks and Lupin brought you home."
This was followed by an enormous yawn.
"He really likes a good work over," Harry said, grinning at her. "I don't think the `me' part matters at all."
"Which only goes to show I'm not a cat," Hermione said softly. "The "you" part certainly matters to me."
He leaned in to kiss her and her sweetly sleepy response was entrancing enough that he wasn't really conscious of anything else until a persistently nudging nose managed to get his hand going on its owners' ears again. It was an entirely different rhythm and range of motion than what his mistress was receiving with Harry's other hand, until he realized it was a lot trying to like walk and chew gum at the same time; he'd never really been good at that, either. He picked a single cadence and went with it with both sets of fingers. Neither seemed to mind.
Just when the wonderful sounds beginning to emanate from a no longer lethargic Hermione made Harry mindful it was time to lose the cat, there was a sudden popping noise and a feathery woosh above them.
Hermione started; Crookshanks yowled and leapt off Harry, his claws digging into Harry's chest. Harry hissed reflexively and glared at the red-gold bird perched on the footboard.
"Even Phoenixes can knock," he said sourly, examining the welling claw marks now running across his abdomen.
Whether or not phoenixes can knock, they can certainly smile. Or Fawkes could, anyway. His beady eyes seemed to almost… twinkle.
"Isn't it your time of the month in some other time zone?" Harry hinted.
Fawkes preened, drawing his beak along one gleaming red gold wing feather. He'd never looked less like bursting into flames, Harry thought glumly. He was primed and ready for the meeting that evening, and seemed to think it was time for Harry to get his game face on as well.
"They won't be here until tonight you know," he reminded the waiting bird.
Fawkes trilled a single liquid note imperiously; he clearly had things in mind for Harry before then that did not include the activity he had interrupted.
Harry turned back toward Hermione, wondering how one managed to explain that particular difficulty in an acceptable manner to one's significant other when he noticed she was watching them both intently and didn't actually appear angry. Yet, anyway.
"How do you do that? Talk to him like that? I can see he understands you, and you seem to have a pretty good idea of what he's thinking as well," she said wonderingly.
"I don't know, exactly. I don't know if I can really tell what he's thinking at all or whether I'm just sort of filling in the blanks," Harry told her. "Guessing."
"He wants you to go do something else, doesn't he," she said with a sigh, sitting up and drawing her arms around him.
"Er… unh, yeah. He does," Harry admitted. Bloody bird. Her skin felt like liquid silk on his and she was all lovely and warm. Fawkes just didn't quite measure up.
"Go on, then," she said, and gave him a gentle push. "We'll get back to this later. Trust me."
The day stretched before him; Fawkes' errand, whatever that turned out to be, working on figuring out how to destroy the horcrux within the locket, the Order meeting. It seemed endless. On the other hand, compared to facing Voldemort, even the illusion of endlessness wasn't such a bad thing. Especially if when it finally did end, it did so with Hermione.
"Okay. Do you want your tea up here?"
"Thanks. That would be nice," she said, and snuggled back down into the blankets. Crookshanks jumped up, glaring at Fawkes, and nestled between her legs.
Harry groaned, and went off in search of clothes.
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Ron was actually up already and down in the kitchen, looking a tad lost by himself. He had a plate of something in front of him, but it hardly looked like food to Harry.
"Hey. What are you doing up?" he asked, as he plugged in the kettle for Hermione's tea. The sink was full of blackened pots and cooking utensils; how, he wondered, do you burn food beyond recognition cooking with magic?
"Bloody bird of yours came and got me. Wouldn't rest until I got up and came down here."
Fawkes flew from Harry's shoulder to the back of the chair across from Ron and made a sound less like a trill and more like a chicken losing tail feathers.
"There. That's it exactly." Ron said.
Harry cracked two eggs and scrambled them while heating the one uncharred pan he could locate.
"Sorry. Did the same to me. Something on his mind, for sure."
"So did Hermione get over the whole Malfoy thing?" Ron asked, picking at the blackened lumps on his plate.
"What is that you're eating? Do you want some actual food?"
"Yeah!" Ron said enthusiastically, pushing his plate aside. "But mind, that doesn't change the subject."
Harry added three more eggs to the mix and found some bacon and a tomato. "I'm not. And yes. Well, actually, I said I was sorry and then Malfoy didn't really come up again the whole night."
Ron grinned and Harry let the subject drop with that; the thought of explaining Hermione's conclusions from the night before was so overwhelming he wasn't sure where to begin. Or if he wanted to try. The kettle boiled and he poured Hermione's tea to steep and turned the rest over in the pan.
"Do you think he wants us to go somewhere? We can't go out and leave Hermione alone with Malfoy in the house." Ron asked, looking suspiciously at Fawkes.
"Don't know," Harry said. "But we aren't doing that, I can assure you. He'll just have to come, or we'll park him with Lupin or something. No matter what he wants, though, I'm not going anywhere until I've had a coffee. That bird owes me."
Fawkes trilled like a perfectly agreeable canary, not his usual sound at all, and bobbed his head solemnly as if in agreement.
Much as he would have liked to take her tea up to Hermione, Harry wasn't facing himself with temptation again. He placed an inverted saucer over top of the still-steaming mug and sent it upstairs with a wave of his wand and a `see? I DID remember I was wizard for once,' look for Ron. He dished up the eggs, divided the bacon and tomato between two plates and came to sit across from him in the chair next to Fawkes' adopted perch. The bird edged closer and eyed Harry's tomato hungrily until he cut it into bite-size pieces and held them out one by one with his free hand.
"Have you talked to your Mum and Dad?" he asked Ron as they ate. "Did they say anything about coming?"
"I haven't," Ron admitted. "Not a good sign. I would have thought Mum's head would have burst out of the fire the moment she got word it was you, so no news is bad news. They must be rowing away over it for some reason. My guess is they'll come, though; I can't see them not. Bill's said he's coming, and Charlie and the twins."
"I was hoping to talk to your Dad a bit about the whole Snape thing first. Do you reckon we could have them come over early, for dinner or something?" Harry asked.
"Never hurts to try, and Mum'll take over the cooking then." Ron finished the last of his bacon and looked hopefully at Harry's. "We can Floo them when we've finished. Are you…"
"Yes, Ron," Harry sighed, pushing his plate across the table. "I was going to eat that. But go ahead, I can't now that you'll be watching me like a starving baby Norbert."
"Thanks. Growth spurt or something, I reckon," Ron said.
"Maybe if you ever left something I'd catch up," Harry said darkly.
Fawkes, seeing empty plates, began to agitate for action.
"Hang on, you," Harry told him, and threw a handful of Floo powder into the hearth with a request to talk with Lupin.
Emerald flames leapt and he crouched down and thrust his head within them, bracing himself for the spinning bit. He opened his eyes when the sensation slowed, and promptly wished he hadn't.
"My eyes! Dear Merlin my eyes!" he said, only partially teasing.
Tonks and Lupin pushed away from each other over Lupin's kitchen table with a panicked scramble and a plungerish sound worth of Ron in his Won Won period.
They'd been enjoying a peaceable breakfast alone together and Harry felt wretched to have disturbed them; if anyone deserved a bit of happiness it seemed to him it should be Lupin. And Tonks, who had been so evidently miserable last year and so equally evidently over the moon this. If ever he'd had a question about the power of human love after the transformation in his parents from the two in Snapes' pensieved memory to the couple he saw in his few photographs of them together, it ought to have been answered with Tonks and Lupin.
"Erm, morning there, Harry." Lupin said with a rueful grin.
"Wotcher, Harry." Tonks greeted him, wearing its twin.
"Sorry to, well, anyway…" Harry fumbled, "It's just that we had to bring Malfoy home from Hogwarts with us yesterday, and Ron's got him spelled up nicely in your old room Prof…Remus. Only Fawkes seems to want Ron and I to go somewhere with him and I don't want to leave Malfoy in the house alone with Hermione. We weren't sure what to do with him."
"You had to bring Malfoy home from Hogwarts with you?" Tonks repeated incredulously. "Draco Malfoy? Well that's an easy call. He's wanted by the Ministry for questioning about the night… that night… you know. I'll just take him in."
"He said that Snape's been hiding him, that he's been doing stuff for Snape while he's with Voldemort. I think that we should be the ones to talk to him, the Ministry can't tell their… from… well, anyway, I was going to tell you tonight at the meeting. I think we should hang on to him a bit longer."
"I've got the day off," Lupin told him. "I'll come round and see everything's alright as soon as we've finished breakfast. Hermione's nobody's fool and she's got some decent curses up her sleeve, Harry. She'll be fine. Go on. You'll be alright with Fawkes, and I'm glad you're taking Ron with you. Just think before you act, the both of you."
"Yes Sir," Harry said. "Enjoy your, erm… breakfast."
"I would be, if you'd just get your head out of my floo, there, Harry." Lupin informed him.
Harry fled, backing out of the hearth at Grimmauld Place and rubbing his knees.
"Everything all right over there?" Ron asked.
"Bloody perfect if they'd only just remember to close their floo," Harry told him. "Lupin's going to come check on Hermione. So where are we off to?" he asked Fawkes, as Ron started up the dish-washing spell.
Fawkes extended a wing to Harry, who looked at it a moment and then slowly extended his hand to rest along the bony ridge. The other one came out toward Ron; who followed suit.
There was a rush of air and a loud crack, and suddenly they were in the familiar kitchen of Grimmauld Place no more.
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"Harry?…"
They were in a small, dimly lit room that reminded Harry distinctly of those at The Leaky Cauldron, although he knew somehow without asking that it was not there. It was shabby but clean enough; comfortable in a tatty sort of way. There was a four poster bed, a chest of drawers and two wing chairs facing a bow window with a small, spindly-legged table between them.
"Where are we?" Ron finished nervously. Fawkes made his way up Harry's arm to perch on his shoulder and warbled one clear, liquid note. A figure Harry had not noticed before stirred in one of the arm chairs.
"Ahhh," it said in a soft, slightly wavering voice. "Fawkes, old friend."
Fawkes eyed Harry and bobbed his head, clearly trying to start Harry moving round to whomever awaited them there. Harry swallowed and made his way slowly past the bed and in front of the first chair. A slight, silver-haired figure swaddled in an assortment of quilts and blankets awaited him. Pale moonish eyes lit up when they took Harry in.
"Indeed. Mr. Potter. Thirteen and a half inches, holly, phoenix feather core, was it not? I believe our mutual friend Fawkes himself was the donor. Remember it as if it were yesterday," the quavering voice declared.
"That's right," Harry said. "How are you, Mr. Ollivander?"
"As well as can be expected under the circumstances, thank you, Harry. And this must be Mr. Weasley with you, is it not? Fourteen inches, willow, unicorn tail hair, a replacement wand, I believe."
"That's right," Ron said. "Third year. Brand new and all mine. The first was a hand-me-down."
Mr. Ollivander nodded sympathetically. "Of course, you never get quite the same results with another's wand, do you. Quite a relief to work with one that chose you first."
"Lots of people are worried about you, Mr. Ollivander." Harry said softly, taking in the old man's seemingly diminished stature. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Sit down, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said, gesturing at the chair. "And you, Mr. Weasley." He fumbled a wand out from under the blankets and conjured a chair. The extent of his diminishment became evident when the chair topped out hardly large enough for a house elf. Harry tried to be subtle about enlarging it; yet another example of how handy nonverbal incantations could prove to be.
Ron sat, gingerly.
"The fact that I am alive at all," Mr. Ollivander told them, "is a credit to Albus Dumbledore. I was quite… despondent is the only word, when I learned of his passing."
Fawkes trilled understandingly, the very notes he sang a comfort, and Harry saw the well of tears subside in the old wizard's silvery eyes.
"Yes, well. And Fawkes as well, I owe you credit for delivering the message, don't I?"
"What message?" Harry asked curiously.
"Your Headmaster wrote to me last spring, requesting any information I might have on possessions of the original four Founders of Hogwarts. He reasoned I did such a lot of repeat trade with families, kitting out their children for school, that I might have heard of something. Well, I knew of one, but not in quite that way. You see, the wand that has served as my sole advertisement for so many, many years, sitting on its cushion in the window for all to see, belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw. My mother's family were direct descendents of the Ravenclaw line, and she confirmed my father's family's claim. I remember it well."
Rowena Ravenclaws' wand. Harry thought desperately back to when he had gone to pick out his own wand at Ollivanders. Mr. Ollivander might remember it as yesterday, but it felt a lifetime ago to Harry… he had only just learned he was a wizard then. He thought of traversing the streets of Diagon Alley with Hagrid, heart swelling at the thought of a real magic wand. They had traveled down to the end of the street, to the narrow, shabby shop with peeling gold letters spelling out the proprietors' name and occupation. Makers of Fine Wands… There had been a dusty window, and a single wand on a faded purple cushion.
Which might easily once have been blue; Harry knew how sunlight had faded Dudley's early boxing ribbons on the wall of his bedroom and turned the blue ones purple and the reds to pink. He'd fussed and sulked until Aunt Petunia promised to dye them all back again and have a special case made to block out the sun. Of course Harry had ended up doing the dying.
Blue was Ravenclaw's color.
But a cushion meant nothing; really, it could have been just what happened to be around when the wand was set out. And even if a member of Ravenclaw's own family had confirmed it was her wand by some means or other it was still a long shot…
But Harry had had a feeling when he first walked in to that shop. At the time he'd chalked it up to the excitement of getting his wand, but as he'd passed through the door of that shop for some reason the back of his neck had prickled. He remembered feeling as if the very dust and silence of the shop had seemed to tingle with some secret magic.
Had he been feeling it then? The call of one Horcrux to another, of Voldemort's torn soul seeking to rejoin the piece within him? If he really had two sevenths now, with the scar and the diary, how much stronger would the tingle be? He hadn't destroyed the diary then, had only just learned Voldmeort had killed his parents.
Harry raised his eyes to Ron's and saw the idea he was considering slowly dawn on his friend as well.
"Did you tell Professor Dumbledore about the wand, Sir? What did he say?"
"Of course, of course," Mr. Ollivander told him. "Straight away. He asked me some rather curious questions about whether Tom Riddle, the young Lord You Know Who, had noticed it when he first bought his own wand; or whether he had ever come back and asked to look at it. Amazing mind, Dumbledore, you sometimes had to wonder why he bothered to ask questions at all, he always seemed to know the answers anyway. He was right on both counts with Riddle. When young Tom came in to buy his first wand it was most unnerving, a clearly Muggle-raised boy alone in a magical shop like that, so determined to do it all himself. He was sure the first wand he picked up would be the right one, and of course, like you, Mr. Potter, he was something of, well, a riddle, to fit. He became increasingly agitated as I offered him a series of wands to try, becoming infuriated when none was quite right. I think he was afraid I was going to tell him it was all a mistake; that he was not a wizard after all. I explained to him what I told you and all my customers; that the time to let the wand choose the wizard is well spent because the magic is never quite so focused or strong with another's wand. I showed him Ravenclaw's wand and explained who she was, then did the same spell first with it and then my own. To show him, you see, that even the mighty Rowena Ravenclaws' wand was less powerful in my hand than my own. He seemed to take that quite to heart, and was more patient until we located the wand that chose him. The brother to your own, of course."
Harry nodded. "And he came back?"
"This was some years later, shortly after he left Hogwarts, I believe. He was working in Diagon Alley, in Borgin and Bourkes. He attempted to buy the wand, purportedly for Borgin, and became quite agitated again when I would not part with it. He had a little… magical temper tantrum. Not a loss of control, or a failure to control, but a deliberate unleashing of magical force, like a warning. Sent wands and boxes flying everywhere, and I have a very accurate categorization system in the store. I scurried round collecting up some of the more difficult ones, then realized I had left him alone with the wand! Well, I caught him in time. I can not precisely say he was in the process of stealing it, but he was most certainly doing something quite like it, or thinking it. For a moment the look in his eyes… it was murderous, I assure you. But the next he seemed to calmly acknowledge that his purpose for the visit was not to be fulfilled and took himself off, saying he would explain my position to Mr. Borgin. I never heard from either again."
There had been plenty of time then, for Voldemort to do something to it. Several minutes, at least. They had no idea how long it took to make a horcrux or what the process yet was, but there had certainly been a chance.
"Mr. Ollivander," Harry said cautiously, "what happened to the wand?"
"Dumbledore advised at the time that I take it and flee, as much for Riddle's previous interest in Ravenclaws' wand as what was likely to become his new obsession; finding a way to defuse the brother-wand effect of your two wands. The atmosphere in Diagon Aley was becoming increasingly lawless and the Ministry had little idea what to do. Albus Dumbledore was a wise and powerful wizard. I fled."
"Where exactly are we?" Ron asked, attempting to peer out the window. The landscape was imprecise, fog shrouded and shifting.
Ollivander smiled. "Please do not take it in any way personally, Mr. Weasley, if I decline to tell you that."
"You knew we were coming though, didn't you?" Harry asked. "I don't think you were surprised to see me."
"Fawkes appeared to me, which led me to believe it was the right time to speak with you, Mr. Potter. Dumbledore said you'd likely come if anything happened to him. He thought very highly of you, you know."
"Mr. Ollivander," Harry said slowly, trying painfully to control his emotion at this new discovery, "where is the wand?"
"Ahhh," said Mr. Ollivander. "That."
The momentary resemblance to Dumbledore made Harry want to scream; it was not his favorite memory by a long shot.
"Yes," he said. "That. Where?"
"I'm afraid I was quite taken aback by Dumbledore's response to Riddle's reaction. It had been so long ago, the wand had laid without incident in the window for many years since. Perhaps I overreacted, but I… hid it. Quite safely."
"And you don't remember where?" Ron suggested hopefully.
Ollivander glared at Ron, outraged. "I may be old; Mr. Weasley, but I can assure you I am nobody's fool!"
"Of course you aren't," Harry said, crossing his eyes at Ron. "He just meant…" Harry cast around for some innocent explanation but came up short. Thankfully Mr. Ollivander didn't seem to notice.
"I will tell you how to find it, of course," Mr. Ollivander said. "I trust Dumbledore implicitly and I have heard from trusted sources that you were indeed his man, through and through."
"Yes," agreed Harry. "I was. I am."
"Ollivander nodded and pursed his lips. "Listen closely then," he said. "It will not be easy, but this is how you will find it."
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It was also how Ron and Harry managed to stumble in to the all important reforming meeting of the Order at Grimauld Place that evening late, spell-shocked, filthy, and with one thoroughly pissed-off Phoenix.
The kitchen table was ringed by wizards and witches young and old. Mad Eye, Tonks, Lupin, the many Weasleys, now including Fleur. Kingsley Shacklebolt. Arabella Fig. Professor McGonagall, Hagrid, Hestia Jones. And of course, Hermione. In a towering temper, no less.
The fact that Harry was holding two wands was of no import to her, and there was no time to explain, anyway. He was reeling on his feet with tiredness and the after effects of a range of spells such as he had never imagined, let alone thought to experience all at once. There was a streak of euphoria just in having survived, and a certain punch-drunk quality between the two boys that a small, dispassionate part of his brain knew wasn't going to fly well with her.
"Good, erm, ahh evening." Harry said to the room at large, staggering and clinging to Ron for support.
"Good night," said Ron, and promptly did a face plant, taking Harry with him. Fawkes, who just this morning had seemed so very ready for a long and serious meeting of the best minds prepared to defeat Lord Voldemort let out one plaintive cry and burst into flames.
"Coward," mumbled Harry from the floor. The room was spinning, and Fawkes' ashes made the most fascinating patterns as they fluttered through the air.
Hermione and Molly Weasley were on them in a flash.
"Where have you been?" Hermione hissed.
"Can't tell you," Harry said with what appeared to be honest regret. "'S secret. Can only tell ermi, Hermieie, Hermionmione. Dumberdore said so."
"I'd say they'd been at the firewhiskey," said Tonks, joining the other two women over them, "but they smell way too bad for that."
Molly nudged Ron sharply between the shoulder blades with her wand and muttered a spell. He jerked, as if a bolt of electricity had passed through him, and quickly sat up.
"Erm, Mum? How's it going?" he asked nervously.
"Never you mind, just go upstairs and wash the stink off of you and get back down here as soon as you can," Molly informed him. "You've quite a lot of explaining to do, young man. Off with you."
He went, quickly, still staggering slightly. Harry slid sideways as he moved and hit the floor with a thump
"What was that you used?" Hermione asked interestedly.
"Navitas," Molly told her. "It's an energizing charm for when you're tired out but not ill enough for pepperup potion, or strictly spellbound, where you'd use an ennervate. Very handy for getting your average teenage wizard up out of his bed and on his way in the summer term, for example."
"Navitas," said Hermione, her wand trained on Harry.
He heard a strange, terrified cry and thought it was a warning; turned his tired eyes first to Mrs. Weasley. She was looking at him in what appeared to be horror, albeit soundlessly; and he realized the voice that had screamed was utterly unfamiliar to him. Her expression was mirrored on Tonks' face, and looming in and out of his range of vision, Fleur's and Mrs. Figgs' as well.
One of the wands in his hand shook and tugged as if with a mind of its own; he tried to control it but it jerked his hand against his will up into the air. He attempted to open his cramped fingers around it only to find that they might as well be glued for all he could move them. He heard Lupin shout something, saw Bill Weasley pull his mother away. He began to struggle desperately then, unsure what was happening but sure that it wasn't good. He rolled over, trying to force his arm and the wand within his hand beneath his body against the floor and away from those surrounding him; he felt sure now he could not stop it. He couldn't tell whether someone stunning him might halt the wand or set it wildly free, but he knew enough of the wands' history to not want to risk that path.
"Incarcerous" said Charlie Weasley evenly, wand extended, a look of apology on his face. The spell struck Harry and flared, reverberating back on Charlie, who suddenly found himself tightly bound at the hands and feet.
"Stu.." began Mr. Weasley, but;
"Cease!" a voice rang out. "Or you'll kill him. And much as there are decided benefits to a Potter-free universe, this is neither the time nor the place for it."
It was Snape. Harry had set the wards to admit him, following Dumbledore's request, but had planned to greet him quite differently. They had all been thoroughly oblivious to his coming, he could easily have done exactly what Ron had first suggested and finished them off without a fight. Of course who was to say he wouldn't still?
He strode forward in his usual flourish of unrelieved black; robes swirling, eyes fathomless.
"It is too late, Potter. What lies within the wand has been awoken and seeks its fellow. You can not stop it now."
It dawned on him what Snape was saying and he looked up in fury and disgust from the twisted heap in which he still lay upon the floor, wrestling for control of the relentless wand.
"It is one, then…" he said accusingly, entirely forgetting in the moment who knew, or should know, or might know, what. "It is one, and you think it wants to…"
"The compulsion to become whole again is what drives the entire process, Potter. It is a force too great to counteract or control. Since you have been so inestimably foolish as to track down something you know nothing about without consulting anyone who might be able to help you, you shall now reap the results. I should warn you, they are unlikely to be pleas…"
Harry's scream cut him off as the wand flew to his forehead, thrust its pointed end against his scar and began to glow red-hot. He could hear the agitation of the surrounding Order members; they seemed almost equally divided between wanting to come to Harry's aid and staying wide of Snape. It said a tremendous amount about the esteem in which they had all held Dumbledore that no one had done more than train their wand on Snape. Yet. To his credit, Snape appeared unconcerned at the number of wands pointed his way as well.
It hadn't been like this before, with the diary. There'd been nothing to that; once he'd stabbed the basilisk fang into the diary Riddle had disappeared cleanly and completely. He knew what was happening, Snape knew what was happening. Another seventh of Voldemort's wretched excuse for a soul was contained in the wand and it had recognized the two-sevenths residing in Harry when the spell energized it. An innocent person had died so that Voldemort could attempt to sidestep death; it was their scream Harry had heard and now the spawn of that act was bound and determined to force its way inside him.
"Do NOT fight it," Snape instructed him. "You are closest, nearer and so more powerful than he. But if you resist, it will go on and seek him out. Take it. You can not afford to be… fastidious now."
He saw more faces start to swarm round him and began to feel panicked, trapped. The wand burned, the pain so like that of Voldemort's displeasure the night of Hermione's birthday, only in reverse. Trying to split apart his head by forcing its way in, rather than out.
"I can't do this! I can't," some part of him panicked. A hand touched his shoulder, and then another on the other side, holding him down; he started to struggle against them but realized they were Hermione's. Almost as soon as the recognition struck him the small, calm voice inside his mind that had helped him resist the imperius curse in the past spoke again. It was not Hermione, he knew. But it was more familiar than ever, more powerful in its insistence, more persuasive in its tone, and it was saying exactly the same things inside his head that Hermione was intoning aloud.
"Listen to him, Harry. It will be okay, you can do it. You know what it is now. If you take it, he can't. You'll be one step closer to the end, Harry, to finishing him forever."
"Mum?" Harry heard himself cry aloud, and knew no more.
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AN: Sorry that so many of you feel it's too long between updates; this is fascinating stuff but it takes a lot of thinking through, at least for me. I am shooting for at least once a week, trying to update Sunday nights, if that matters. Obviously didn't make it this week! Mea culpa.
I also want to truly thank all of you who have been so kind as to leave reviews; you are the BEST.
I really do appreciate them. I do read them all, but lately I've found that the only ones that seem to be
getting answers are the ones that appear to have clicked the wrong link or something and think it's my fault. Which
is, of course, not fair, since I'd much rather be writing to those of you who GET it. There have been many
wonderful, intelligent reviews and I am doing my best to incorporate your comments and insights where I can and will do
my best to answer specific questions. Please just know that I find your comments helpful, your excitement
energizing and your praise makes me blush. And unfortunately for me, since I bear a striking resemblance to
the Weasley clan, it shows… Perhaps that's why I love the internet so much. No one can see you blush unless you
click the icon.
Lastly, this is MY take on the subject, it's not "right" or "wrong", not meant to annoy anyone (which is why it's only posted here, at Portkey.) It's a work of fan fiction, meant to be enjoyed as such. It's all spelled out in the very fist author's note on page one where this is going; I am constantly searching for tighter, better ideas but this story DOES have a planned structure and end. Supportable opinions are GLADLY discussed (it's just come to me that there's someone I really need to get back to from right before my computer bit the dust who really had me researching in intriguing, unresolved circles. If you are still reading I WILL email you!) But if it's just your personal opinion that Ron is a hero and writing Harry/Hermione makes me incapable of getting all the canon inferences about him, why are you bothering to tell me? Am I supposed to learn the error of my wicked ways? It's just my take, for crying out loud. Move on.
Rant over.
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