Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Magic Never Dies
Chapter 13
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The next day was national pretend-no-one's-home-and-recoup day at #12 Grimmauld Place. They all slept in and even Hermione straggled down to the kitchen in her pajamas and a pair of unlikely fuzzy slippers. Harry cooked breakfast and they took it into the sitting room, conjured up an enormous pile of cushions and ate on the floor in front of the fireplace, unwilling to take their places around the kitchen table again just yet. Replete, Ron settled down to the Quidditch scores, Hermione to the front pages and Harry to the back of his eyelids. The only sounds for quite some amount of time were pages turning, the fire snapping and infant Fawkes cooing in his nest of ashes.
He hated to spoil the peace, but an idea had been pressing itself on Harry since the previous day and he felt it best to get it out.
"I don't think we can wait until All Hallows to visit Godric's Hollow," he said. "I think we need to go soon. Maybe even tomorrow, if we can manage it."
"Hmmm," said Ron absently.
"Why?" asked Hermione, because she was actually paying attention and didn't like his sudden sense of urgency
"I can't pin it down logically," he said slowly. "It's just a feeling, really. I mean I know we aren't supposed to go on my feelings after Fifth year and the Department of Mysteries and everything, but this is different. It's not a dream or a vision or anything like that; it's nothing to do with him. I just really feel like I need to, and soon; or something might be lost. And before you ask what," he said, raising his head and opening his eyes to meet hers, "I don't know."
Hermione was silent a moment, thinking about Ron telling her about their quest for the wand.
It was bloody amazing, Hermione,' he'd said. `I mean Harry's just always been Harry, right? It's sort of like what Snape said is almost true, not the way he meant it, you know, but there's been an awful lot of luck going on. He's always where he needs to be because his heart's in the right place, but like fourth year when the TriWizard cup turned into a Portkey, he was just lucky he didn't come back like Cedric. It's like there was always something or someone looking out for him.
But today, I don't know, it was fantastic. I know he spent a lot of time with Dumbledore last year, but he always made it sound like they were just traveling around in the pensieve watching Tom Riddle. I didn't think he'd learned all that much else. Hermione, he knows all this stuff about blood magic and reading hidden spell signatures and all kinds of spell structure they never came close to in school and I'm willing to bet they're not covering this year, either.'
She wanted rather desperately to see that for herself; she was deeply curious, had been thinking about it ever since Ron told her. He had seemed to her, aside from his newfound ability to express himself physically in ways that could make her shiver, pretty much…Harry. Was something actually changing within him? What Ron was talking about had been before the horcrux in the wand had come into play. What if that changed things? Threw off the balance of something Lily had set into motion? Was she, Hermione, helping Lily protect her son, or fumbling in her own efforts and helping Voldemort instead?
"Okay. Tomorrow's good," she told him.
His eyes closed again in relief, his head dropped back against the pillows. "Thanks."
She was about to shift from the Prophet to her book of the moment when the flames of the fire turned emerald green and a head popped into view.
"Ah, the life of the unemployed, Fred," it said.
"A beautiful thing, I'm sure," its twin said, invisible in the background. "They're not doing anything they shouldn't, I hope."
"Not at all," said George. "Lolling about like the Romans, peeling each other grapes. Actually making each other a bite of brekke from the look of it."
"What's up," Ron asked his brothers, cutting off further debate about their lifestyle.
"Well, you might remember that little favor you asked us for?"
"You're not calling it in already? You haven't even returned Malfoy yet. What do you want now?"
"That's just the thing, little brother. We're going to have a bit of a problem returning him, because…."
Harry groaned. "You haven't killed him or anything?"
"No, no no no. Far from it, although you can't say the little turd doesn't have it coming. No, we've sort of misplaced him. He's all tied up and everything, but we were playing a little game of `Where in Great Britain is Draco Malfoy' with Lee Jordon and the boys last night and we think we sort of forgot where we hid him."
Ron began to laugh hysterically, until he noticed Hermione and Harry seemed to find it less funny.
"Oh lighten up, you two. It is funny; you at least have to admit that. Just think of all the places he could be!"
"Well, when you put it that way," Harry said, grinning. "I guess it sort of is.'
"The only problem with that theory, Ron, is we have no real idea where Voldemort has strongholds of Death Eaters, either."
"The only problem with that theory, Hermione, is that it would sort of make you think we care," Ron informed her.
"Snape wants him. We want to keep any sort of a rein on Snape we can. Ergo, we do care, Ron."
"Oh, bloody hell. I suppose that means we've got to go find him, doesn't it."
"No, that means that you have to go and find him, because it was your brilliant idea to have Fred and George watch him in the first place."
"So the two of you can have a nice comfy shag in front of the fireplace while I'm gone, you mean,"
"We'll be working, for your information," Hermione informed him. "If you'd been listening you'd know that Harry thinks we need to go… somewhere. We'll be working out the details of that."
"We can apparate, Hermione. Remembering your three D's and thinking `I want to go to…' should do it." Ron informed her back.
"You don't actually still do that, do you?" Harry said with a laugh.
"What do you mean?"
There came a howl from the fireplace, and the sound of ash-choked laughter. "Fred, you'll never believe it! Ron's still doing Twycross's three D's to apparate!"
"Destination, Determination, Deliberation!" expounded Fred in a wicked imitation of Wilkie Twycross, poking his head into the flames next to George's. "You great goof. That's for total gits like Perce."
"Really?" asked Ron, amazed. "No, you guys are just putting one on so I splinch myself or something, aren't you."
Even Hermione had to join in then. "Honestly, Ron. It's like training wheels on a, no never mind, it's like…" she tried and failed to find a Wizarding equivalent to training wheels and was laughing too hard to try harder. "Just trust us."
"Absolutely," Ron told them both, with a look that meant, `what do you take me for, an idiot?' "I'll be over there in a bit, you two; I just need to go change."
"Better apparate, Ron," Fred said, his face artfully deadpan. "We've be having terrible trouble with the Floo connection just lately."
George nodded earnestly. "I always went with Deflagration, Dancing Shamrocks and Drooble's Best myself, mate, and never a single problem."
"Except for leaving your brain behind somewhere," Ron told him. "Shove off. I'll be over soon as I'm dressed."
"Ta, Harry, Hermione," the twins said in unison, and disappeared from the flames.
"Don't even start," Ron warned as he climbed to his feet and made for the stairs. "I don't want to hear it. You guys better make a whole lot of progress on the reverse horcrux thingie by the time I get back, or someone's going to be sorry. The last thing I planned on doing today was hunting for Malfoy."
They listened to the sound of his footsteps disappearing up the stairs.
Harry lay back and closed his eyes again, trying to force the last vestiges of the horcrux-induced throbbing from his head. He had found that if he lay very still and focused carefully he could sort of push the pain around, from behind one eye, say, to the other. He felt if he could successfully push it back somehow, or down, that it would subside. He lay, breathing steadily, concentrating on his goal. Slowly - how long it took he had no real idea - it began to recede.
He heard Hermione crawl across the cushions to where he lay.
"Harry?" her voice was soft and low, and suddenly struck him as incredibly inviting. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he reassured her, "just waiting for the last of the headache to go."
"Can I help?" she asked.
He sincerely doubted it, but what was a little headache when he had a chance to go for the really big one?
He opened his eyes to find her propped on her elbows beside him, and couldn't help but smile. "Okay."
One of the best things about Hermione was that she was turning out to be nothing like he would have expected, if he had actually gotten that far. Never having dreamed she would actually return his desire for her was throwing him for a loop now that she was. If pressed, he might have imagined her to be slightly clinical and determined to do everything right, which, had it been true, would probably have put a serious cramp on his ability to do it at all. The reality, that her intellectual curiosity was equaled or excelled by its physical counterpart, and that the physical counterpart liked nothing better than to make a sort of experiment out of figuring out what sent him over the edge, was well beyond any expectation he might have had.
Since the Dursley's had made literally no attempt to make him happy throughout his first eleven years, it was not a process that came naturally to Harry. When no one has bothered to ask if you like chocolate or vanilla better because you're not going to be getting any ice cream at all while your cousin downs his usual double scoop, you easily blank out a bit on the whole choice thing. As a result Harry tended to find expressing any deep desires a losing battle; he was usually just fairly accepting of whatever came his way. This trait had made him something of an exceptional Boy Who Lived for the first four years or so for Dumbledore, and the best birthday present ever for Hermione now.
"Where does it hurt the most?"
Now there was a loaded question. Best to start slow, though. If he was going to get slammed by
a jealous Voldemort, he ought to make the before bit last as long as he possibly could.
"Behind my eyes," he admitted.
Hermione continued gazing down at him, her eyes thoughtful, the little furrow between them that indicated she was thinking deeply making its appearance.
"Hmmm," she said.
He felt a sudden rush of blood through his veins. Funny how a single word, more of a sound really, could do… that.
"Well," she continued, "I could try here," and she began to gently circle the sides of his forehead with her fingers, "Or …"
"Okay," Harry decided for her, pulling her down next to him. "Plan B it is."
And he kissed her, and then he kissed her again, just because he could, and then he kissed her again, because now she was kissing him back and her lovely, ink-stained, capable fingers were starting to explore him in a totally less than scientific manner. And whoa, there went her lips, after them.
"I love how you sort of shiver just before I get there." Hermione noted.
"Thought you might. `Cause I've got total control over that, mind you," Harry said.
She laughed, but Harry was well beyond caring at that point,
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"Harry it's… Oh!" the voice in the fireplace said.
"Are they not home?" came another, deeper voice behind the first.
"No, they're home. Come see!"
"What is…Tonks!"
"They're so cute."
"Good Lord, Tonks, have you no shame whatsoever?"
"Nope. None. I'd have gotten nowhere with you if I had."
"Get your head out of that fireplace young lady."
"Doesn't that just make you want to have little witches and wizards of your own?"
"Merlin's beard, Tonks, his parents were my best friends. It doesn't seem possible that he's old enough to be doing that. No, that sight just makes me want to have a nice stiff drink."
"That's a start…"
"Out! We'll talk to them later. When they're awake. And… in clothes. Fully. Preferably coats and hats as well."
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Hermione stirred, lifted her head and gazed around the sitting room. The fire, being magical, was still burning cheerfully; the rest of the room, and the house, seemed still. The clock on the mantel revealed it to be two in the afternoon, and she did not expect Ron had any hope of returning before evening at the earliest.
Funny, she'd thought she'd heard voices.
They had fallen asleep exactly as they'd… finished, both exhausted. There'd been no retribution this time; she had seen him growing tense again after, moving tentatively, waiting. She could feel him slowly unknot in her arms as the minutes ticked by and nothing happened.
"Maybe I was supposed to die a virgin and he was just peeved because you'd screwed it up and now he's got to find another one," he'd told her, grinning gently, green eyes dark and heavy.
She'd laughed at that. "He's got Pettigrew right there; you can't honestly tell me anyone ever found him attractive."
"Or Snape. It'd explain so much…"
Being a perfect gentleman, Harry had sleepily conjured a blanket for them which, as soon as he was fast asleep, practical Hermione had exchanged with a smile for a much more comfortable puffy down quilt. He'd half kicked it off and that, combined with the unusual (for nightmare prone Harry) boneless quality of his splayed limbs made it pretty evident what they'd been up to - if there had been anyone there to care.
Since there wasn't, Hermione snuggled back down under the quilt and nestled contentedly against Harry's peacefully rising chest and wished you could stop a time turner mid-spin and just freeze things for a little while. Was that really so much to ask?
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Malfoy had been in Tonbridge Wells. Thankfully not a Death Eater hotspot, as it turned out. Unless they couldn't be bothered with him either. He had - not without at least some reason, as far as Hermione could see, been royally pissed off and extremely verbal with it. Since they were once again planning something he just couldn't be party to, he was promptly dispatched to Lupin's for safekeeping.
Despite Ron's assertion that all they had to do was apparate to Godric's Hollow, Hermione spent the better part of the evening preparing things. It wasn't so much a matter of packing, but mentally inventorying for what they might - or might not - find, and the potential effect on Harry either way.
Hermione liked to be prepared, to think things through and be equipped with answers before the questions were asked. They were about to go back to the place where it all began, where Harry was born just like any other child and lived for twenty months safe, secure and loved. The place where he became, in a single flash of green light, unlike any other wizard child before and lost all that he had known.
She was eager and dreaded it all at once, and knew that the ground was shifting beneath their feet once more and their world would likely never be the same.
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Godric's Hollow turned out to be pretty much as Hermione had imagined it. The property was on the outskirts of the village, overgrown and deliberately forgotten; the sort of place Muggle children would send one another on a dare to prove their bravery. It practically screamed its past as a place of violence and shattering despair before the house even came into view. And the house…
It had obviously been little more than a cottage, and far from in its heyday even when Lily and James had lived there. Its blown-out windows gave it a strange sense of blindness, an air of perpetual waiting, while its collapsing roofline gave away its hopeless defeat; the sad admission that it had failed to protect its inhabitants.
She bumped shoulders with Harry as they made their cautious way down the overgrown track that led on from the road, and his eyes when he glanced her way were so apprehensive that she broke her own rule about unnecessary contact in front of Ron and felt blindly for his hand. The fingers that slowly curled in answer around her own were stiff and cold.
It was a grey, blustery day, a storm clearly in the offing for the not-too-distant future. A gusty wind snuck through trees thickly hung with encroaching creeper on either side of the path.
Harry stopped, abruptly, listening. "Something's not right," he said, his voice low and cautious.
"It's just the wind, Harry," Ron said, but Hermione could see he wasn't entirely convinced even as he spoke the words aloud.
"Wands out and stay close to me. If anything happens, try not to get separated. If he really wants me alive they won't risk anything yet."
They made their way the rest of the distance to the house without incident and tentatively circled the structure, picking their way through tall grass that obscured items seemingly blown or thrown from the interior. Some were beyond recognition after fifteen years exposure to the elements, others oddly incongruous but easily identifiable. Hermione's trainer crunched on something and she froze, heart thumping, only to find the shards of a child's pottery cereal bowl decorated in a pattern of dragons beneath her feet. Harry's, surely. He spotted it, a flash of sudden recognition in his eyes.
"Sorry," she mouthed, and he shook his head, staring for a moment before moving on, as if fixing the image in his memory.
They arrived back at the front door without any sign of danger and were about to enter when Harry drew up abruptly and pointed his wand at a pile of firewood near the corner of the house. There was a sharp squeak and the woodpile collapsed around the suddenly too-large figure of a man crouching within it.
Wormtail.
Peter Pettigrew's uncovering was all it took to bring a flock of Death Eaters from the interior of the house, and suddenly the scene took on the nightmarish quality that Hermione had been both dreading and expecting for so long. She moved behind Harry as he had asked, but managed to stun one even as she did. They were hard to count in their swirling robes as Harry, Ron and Hermione moved as one to try and find cover, but Hermione thought there were six of them, including Pettigrew.
"Bind them as you soon as you hit them with something so it takes longer to get them back in the fight," Ron instructed quickly. "It's two to one counting Pettigrew. We can do this."
Cords snaked around the arms and legs of the one she had stunned.
Hermione heard herself gasp as something that stung and burned connected with one of her shoulder blades; she whirled around but Harry had already felled her attacker with a Reducto, and Hermione finished up after him with the tying up.
Two down.
Unfortunately, the other four turned out to be quite a bit harder to deal with. Curses flew and were blocked or blasted other than their intended targets; something struck an abandoned wooden-handled shovel propped against the side of the house and it joined the fray temporarily until its rotted wood gave way and Ron banished it into the woods. Hermione saw Harry's eyes flicker toward the trees as it went and then gleam; a moment later a flock of bats swooped into their midst like a cloud.
"Run!" he instructed them, and took off into the swarm, wand flaring. "He didn't say which way," Ron said, and followed him. Hermione circled the flapping, fluttering cloud, realizing that while Harry had clearly called them, he kept them with a swarm of insects circling a particularly vicious Death Eater who kept aiming for Ron. Their natural instinct would have had them sleeping this time of day, and yet they were happily feeding on midges in a most distracting way. For all rats and bats might share a common ancestry somewhere, Pettigrew didn't seem very fond of them.
She managed to hit another Death Eater with a tripping jinx but before she could secure them the nasty one tried a Relashio to drive back the bats; a jet of fiery sparks burst from his wand, scattering the flapping bodies but lighting the tinder-dry woodpile on fire. Her victim yelped as his robes burst into flame and jumped to his feet, cursing and spinning in circles as he attempted to douse them. Ron hit him with a leg locker and quickly bound him, then sent him rolling across the grass to extinguish the last embers. Harry had cornered another but was gesturing desperately to her, pointing to his mouth; she realized he'd been Silencioed.
`Finite Incantatem' she cast, and yelled warningly, "Non-verbal, Harry."
"The house!" he croaked out.
She and Ron spun around to see flames licking at the ruined house and quickly taking hold.
"Shite!" Ron howled, jumping back and dragging Hermione with him; the heat was swiftly growing intense.
"Aguamenti!" Hermione cried, and steadied the stream of water from her wand at the fire.
"Ron, you take over there!"
She managed to keep the flames contained where she was, but could not manage to put them out. She glanced over hopefully towards where Ron should have been.
Should have been; but wasn't. Because he was stretched out on the ground, hopefully please, please, please, only Petrified. And Peter Pettigrew was standing over him, clutching his wand.
"Harry!" she screamed, unthinking, and saw him turn to her in panic only to go down to his knees as a Reducter curse blew away the very ground beneath his feet. Fury, with his attacker and with herself, for her idiocy, claimed her consciousness and she heard herself shout Sectumsempra! as her wand found the one who'd cast the spell. The flare of the spell cut across the Death Eater's forearm, and to her abject horror his wand hand fell, severed, from his arm.
His howls followed her as she ran to Harry, now struggling to rise, his eyes on Ron and Pettigrew.
"Oho, Harry Potter!" the watery-eyed little wizard chortled gleefully over the snap and hiss of the flames. "Look what I have!" He waved his silver hand over Ron's still form.
Hermione saw one pale, red-blond lashed eye blink through the encroaching smoke. Ron was alive, but clearly stunned rigid. She leaned down to help Harry to his feet, grabbing his arm and whispering "he's alive, I saw him blink."
Harry came up slowly, breathing heavily. His jeans were torn open at the knees and bloodied and he seemed not to want to stand too long on one leg, his hand clutched hers tightly but his attention was totally focused on Pettigrew and Ron.
"What you have is lost," Harry said clearly. "There's only one of you, now, and three of us."
"I didn't spend twelve years as his family's rat for nothing!" Pettigrew smiled, an unpleasant glitter in his eyes. "I have him. You won't leave him. Master will be pleased with me this day!"
"Your Master," Harry told him, releasing Hermione's hand and limping closer, "couldn't give a rat's ass about you. Your own, as a matter of fact."
The balding, pasty little wizard clicked his teeth; Hermione could have sworn his nose wiggled. Clearly nobody was meant to spend twelve years in their animagus form.
"The Dark Lord will reward me handsomely for Harry Potter!"
"No he won't. Because if you want to live, you're going to get your scabby little foot off my friend and run for the nearest sewer."
Pettigrew pointed his wand more firmly in Ron's direction. Like he could miss, at that range. Hermione saw both Ron's eyes blinking furiously now.
"No closer. Come no closer or he dies! Drop your wand!" he squeaked.
Harry's fingers loosened and dropped his wand without a moment's hesitation, never taking his eyes from Peter's face.
"I don't need a wand for you to die, Peter," he hissed. "And what an appropriate place for you to do it."
Hermione's blood ran cold at the sound of his voice; she had never heard Harry sound quite like that before. And why in Merlin's name would he willingly drop his wand? She raised her own.
"Get away from him, Pettig…"
"Expelliarmus!" the rat-like little wizard squealed. Her wand flew from her fingers into his. Clearly he'd been paying more attention then she thought.
"Come here, Potter," he snarled, showing his yellowed teeth in a parody of a smile. "There's a good boy. Time to meet your fate."
"It's alright, Hermione," Harry said softly, not turning back. "Stay here."
Two of the hardest words in the English language under the circumstances.
She watched as he limped his way quite close; it became clear how much he'd grown with each step as he drew up to his full height before the smaller man skulking over his friend. Harry wasn't thirteen anymore. Pettigrew's nose twitched again.
"You owe me a little debt, Peter," Harry informed him conversationally. "Do you remember that night in the Shrieking Shack, when Sirius and Remus would have killed you? You thanked me when I stopped them. You told me that night that it was more than you deserved. I learned how very right you were a year later when you killed Cedric and stole my blood to give your Master a body for that stinking scrap of soul that keeps him alive. Well, I'm calling it in now. Step away from Ron and you can still live; I hear Azkaban's lovely this time of year."
He laughed; a high, slightly panicked sound. "Don't be a silly little boy. I don't owe you…."
"Oh yes," Harry said without the slightest trace of hesitation. "Yes, you do. Go on. Try it. It's not me you need to be afraid of, is it, it's bigger than that. A wizard's debt… that's the kind of magic Voldemort's been playing with, right? The kind my mother used that night. Old Magic you didn't learn at Hogwarts. Go on, Peter. Cross that line."
Hermione watched, fascinated, as Pettigrew faltered and his eyes took on the same darting, trapped look they'd held that night in the Shrieking Shack.
"No, it's not real. He told me. Not real," he muttered, agitated. Hermione noticed Harry shifting closer still to Ron. Behind them the fire moved on to engulf the second floor with a triumphant howl of sucking hot air.
"Your Dark Lord thought he could kill me too. He was wrong. He's been wrong about a lot of things, actually." Harry said. "Bit of an eff-up, your Dark Lord."
Pettigrew's eyes widened in horror, as if even hearing Harry's words implicated him in their meaning.
"No! You lie. Avada…"
"Aequitas Grandaevus Meus" Harry cut in softly.
The burning building behind him, Harry's childhood home forever cursed by the betrayal of its family, reached out with fiery arms and drew Pettigrew hungrily inside. He glowed, burning brightly for a moment, and was gone in a dropping pillar of ash. There was a faint, metallic thunk as Voldemort's shining gift dropped and began to melt somewhere inside.
"Finite incatatem," Harry said gently, crouching over Ron. His wand lay still where he had dropped it, but Hermione noticed the spell worked first time around, and he seemed unaware of its absence. Ron groaned and pushed himself upright, staring at Harry's proffered hand.
"I don't know whether to buy you a firewhisky or beat the snot out of you," he said, shaking his head. "What in Merlin's name was that all about? You almost…"
"I would never let anything happen to you, Ron. I would have taken the AK if I had to," Harry said. "I just didn't want to… he made a choice."
"How?" Hermione asked, moving forward and taking hold of Ron's other arm. "How did you know he would? What did you do? That wasn't a curse, or a hex or a spell. It was just… you said…"
"'The old justice is mine'." Harry agreed. "It's what you say, to call in a Wizard's debt. Dumbledore told me once."
"Hell, Harry," Ron said, still white-faced. "Remind me never to owe you anything."
Together they hauled Ron to his feet, but once standing Hermione reckoned he was doing more to hold them up then the other way round. One of Harry's legs shook when he tried to put his weight on it, and she…
"Sweet Merlin, I cut off someone's hand," she said wonderingly. "Right off. Wand and all!"
"He was a Death Eater, Hermione. He'd have killed us both if you hadn't. I'm sure Voldemort will make him a new one. Clearly he knows how." Harry said tiredly.
"You did not! Wicked!" was Ron's contribution.
Behind them, what was left of the roof fell in on the little cottage, consuming it. They stood watching for a moment, entranced by the flames.
"Well, that was a bust," Harry said regretfully. "I was really hoping this whole thing would go… well, not like that, anyway."
"I think we ought to get out of here before Death Eater central sends reinforcements." Ron reasoned.
"Oh, he knows,' Harry said, lifting his fringe and wincing. His scar literally pulsed; they could see the skin shift and contract. "But you're right. We should go. And I guess we need to tell someone about them." He motioned to the still bound Death Eaters scattered about. Of Hermione's there was no sign.
"Wait!" Hermione begged. "Just give me one minute."
They watched her run toward the burning building, but just when Ron could feel Harry start to stiffen, as if to call her back, she crouched down and seemed to pick through the grass. They watched as she waved her wand at something and rose again, returning to them. In her hand was the small china child's bowl she had stepped on when they first arrived, pieced together as if nothing had ever befallen it. The dragons round the brim flew bravely on.
"I thought you might want it," she explained. "For some day."
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