Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Magic Never Dies
Chapter 15
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"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked incredulously.
"That," came the voice from the Chocolate Frog card still in Hermione's hand, "was Harry Potter's long overdue declaration of independence. Much in the way it is celebrated in the United States, I believe fireworks will shortly follow."
"Long overdue?" Hermione felt like screaming, she was only holding on to herself by the constant reminder that panic wouldn't bring him back. "Would you care to explain that?"
"I take it that Harry confessed to you at some point this evening that he has been feeling the effects of the absorption of the third soul fragment?"
"That's right," Ron said. "He made me promise to stun him and take him to Lupin if he did anything strange."
Dumbledore's likeness sighed.
"Harry is a very potent wizard. Rather, let me rephrase that; Harry is a very strong magical force. He is a potentially potent wizard. We were arguing about what it meant to care for Harry when he left us, but in great part what makes us appreciate him in the first place is that he himself is more concerned with those around him than the concentrated development of that latent power. "
`Not that you ever gave him a real choice,' Hermione thought. She knew that Harry believed Dumbledore had liked and to an extent trusted him, but she had never gotten any sense that Harry thought Dumbledore believed him to be anything but curiously unpredictable due to the connection of his famous scar to Voldemort. Dumbledore had always praised his human qualities rather than any specifically Wizard ones.
"Tom Riddle never knew the distraction of sympathy or empathy for another," the card continued, "his attention was always on his own magical abilities. His deep disdain for emotional attachment of any kind comes from the belief that it diffuses the focus of power. You will remember from all your trophy cleaning, Ron, that although fit and athletic enough Tom Riddle never played Quidditch. He scorned it as a game for children. You and I know, however, that Quidditch has done much for Harry. I believe it gave him a great deal of confidence, taught him both to be a part of a team -something Voldemort could never bring himself to be - and, over time, to lead. They are as different as night and day and yet both carry a tremendous power within. Harry is living proof that sort of magical power need not corrupt.
To finally defeat Voldemort, however, Harry will have to come to terms with being Harry. He can not fight my fight. My strength was age and experience and the knowledge that comes with those, things Harry does not have the luxury of developing. It is time, therefore, for him to blaze his own path. That would be the slight… burning smell you might have noticed when he left."
"To be honest, Sir, I think he was just right pissed off," Ron said hesitantly.
"Yes, Ron," Dumbledore's portrait smiled. "That sums it up rather nicely. And at this stage of the game, I believe that when Harry is… pissed off, as you say, it is rather overwhelming for him. His more positive emotions are still his own, it is the negative ones, ones which Voldemort possesses in such abundance, that will become amplified."
"Excuse me, Sir," Hermione said, with exaggerated and careful politeness, "but how exactly did you mean for him to cope with that? Harry's past is hardly full of touching moments of family members setting him sterling examples of emotional control. You sort of chose to let him grow up in a place where he was basically abused, neglected and relegated to a closet most of the time. What else have you given him to draw on before deciding to expose him to this?"
Those blue eyes actually had the nerve to, to… twinkle at her.
"Harry's and Voldemort's experiences growing up are not fundamentally different, and yet they themselves still are. In that sense the Durselys turned out to have been a gift of sorts to Harry; that he did not blow them all up like Aunt Marge by the time he was three proves there is an innate capacity for control. He has had to learn to rein in his emotions, far more thoroughly then either you, Hermione, or Ron. And with some few exceptions, he did so."
"There is a rather vast difference," said Hermione furiously, "between repression and control."
"Trust me when I tell you, Hermione, that you would be equally glad to have Harry repress or control what will begin to fill him now. Either may save your life… or Ron's. Which leads us nicely to the point at which he left us." Dumbledore stroked his beard with a reminiscent smile.
"Harry must now embark upon his own personal journey to understand and control both his magic and his destiny. I am sure he has felt it all start to overwhelm him, and he has chosen the time-honored path of those whom life selects for greatness. He will have retreated to a place of great comfort to him and will likely spend the next several days and weeks mastering and coming to terms with the changes within him, and finding the source of his power. You and Ron will have to shoulder on without him for the next bit I am afraid, but he will return stronger and more determined then ever to do the right thing. I highly recommend using this time to call a meeting of the DA and take Mr. Longbottom up on his kind offer of support."
Ron and Hermione looked at each other.
"Er…." said Ron. "What?"
Dumbledore smiled wider, if possible. "Harry is on the path of great Wizards throughout time. I am quite sure that even as we speak he is reaching the shores of his own Avalon, about to begin his great journey to explore himself and take charge of the magic within him. I remember my own journey well, as if it were only yesterday…"
"Sounds like there were some questionable potions research going on to me," Ron mouthed behind the card.
"Exactly what powers do you think Harry is… exploring?" Hermione asked, crossing her eyes at Ron.
"Have you noticed him doing anything unusual lately?" Dumbledore inquired.
"Like disapparating without a sound? Wandless magic he doesn't realize he can do? Talking to Fawkes? That sort of thing?"
The portrait of their old Headmaster seemed impressed. "Really? He can actually talk to Fawkes?"
"No, well, he talks to him quite regularly, it's just that he seems to understand him, and Fawkes seems to agree, so he can't actually be making it up. They made a deal with each other earlier this evening."
"Fascinating. Harry has never had time, nor indeed progressed far enough in his transfiguration classes to discover if he has an animagus form, but that sort of connection suggests he might. Perhaps that is one of the powers he will pursue. That could come in quite handy if he could manage it."
"What, a phoenix? Harry? I always thought he'd be a stag like his patronus. Or a dog, like Sirius. Harry seems more of a dog sort of person, really,' Ron said.
The urge to scream at both of them was almost overpowering. No wonder Harry had lost it... They were both barking mad, really. "Animagus transformation is a really complicated and difficult thing. It took Harry's Dad three years to figure it out outside of classes and he had Sirius to help. Harry hasn't got three years. I shouldn't be surprised if he's got three months the way things are going, and he's got a couple of other things on his mind to cope with."
"Precisely my point, Hermione. You must put aside all that you think that you have learned from your books; it simply no longer applies to Harry. Pressure is a fascinating crucible. You never know what is going to come of it. The diamond, for example, begins as a simple lump of coal before pressure is applied."
I've got it, Hermione thought. Dumbledore is the most powerful and famous wizard of his age. He must have quite a few magical portraits to inhabit. Perhaps he's horcruxed his brain, just ripped the whole thing into neat slices and left one tiny piece for each. Because there must be at least some reason that he's making absolutely NO EFFING SENSE!.
"I really, really have to get some sleep now," she told them; Ron, the Chocolate Frog Card and the silently fuming Malfoy.
Harry Potter, you'd better make this good, she thought. If you don't come back like a, a…. Wizard Ninja with a huge sword and some seriously deadly spells I'm going to hex your lovely bum into the next millennium. Right into the jaws of a hungry Horntail. So be okay. Please?
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So it was, then, that Hermione was nothing less than stunned hexless to finally drag herself up the endless stairs and enter her bedroom only to find Harry Potter obviously freshly showered, clad in a pair of clean, un-ripped jeans and her favorite green sweatshirt and waiting cross-legged on her bed. Her traitorous cat gazed gloatingly from his lap.
They'd been listening to Dumbledore… and he'd been having a shower.
He raised his head as she entered; his expression contrite, eyes full of apology.
It would be like kicking a puppy to try and stay mad at that face.
"Aren't you supposed to be in some monastery in Tibet mastering your inner magic and your outer swordsman right now?" she asked suspiciously. "Dumbledore just gave us the shores of Avalon speech about how you needed to be free to find your magical core, or something."
"I'm rubbish with swords," he said slowly. "But I'd love it if you'd consider helping out with the magical core bit. Mine's a little… tense at the moment."
Good lord. Nothing looked the slightest bit tense that she could see. His hair was still slightly damp and he'd obviously healed his own knees from his ease with Crookshanks on them. Green eyes met hers through a veil of dark fringe and her heart melted.
She moved slowly to the edge of the bed. "Do you want to tell me what that was all about?"
"What, downstairs?" he asked, giving the cat a gentle push and crawling over the bed toward her. Hermione felt herself flush just watching him.
He came up on his knees and their eyes were level.
"Yes," she said. "downstairs. That was quite the little outburst. Dumbledore called it your declaration of independence; he made a joke about fireworks afterward."
One of his hands found its way to her face, traced her cheekbone, pushed her hair gently behind her ear. "I hate that he always thinks he knows what I'm going to do before I do it."
Hermione felt herself leaning into his touch. "Well he was completely wrong this time. He had Ron and I convinced we wouldn't see you for weeks."
His eyes flicked away and back again; rising to meet hers.
"I keep thinking of the night he died. Trelawney had just told me it was Snape that had overheard the prophecy and I was so furious with him, that he knew and never told me, that he let him go on teaching there after what he'd done. I wanted to have it out with him so badly… but I wanted to go with him after the horcrux as well. It's always been like that with Dumbledore and me, always two sides. He couldn't just come and help in the Chamber, or send Fawkes along with a note, it's always pulling swords that aren't there out of hats or the stone the homicidal maniac beside you wants out of your pocket and realizing you don't have the first bloody clue what you're supposed to do with it once you've got it.
I was just so angry all of a sudden that I couldn't hold on to it, and with all the extra stuff in me right now I was afraid I was going to make something really…destructive happen. I knew I couldn't, not with you and Ron there. I apparated away without really thinking about where I was going and I did end up somewhere I never actually intended. Luckily enough in one piece. No great guru or Lady of the Lake or anything. The giant squid sends his regards, though."
Harry ducked his head and grinned; her already puddled heart gave a wicked off-rhythm thump.
"Hogwarts?" she asked.
He nodded. "The lake. I guess I thought I needed to calm down, but when I got there I couldn't stop thinking about you and Ron. Mostly about you, to be honest. I wasn't there more than five minutes, I'd wager. I knew what I'd done as soon as I left, it was just like being fifteen again, and I know I'm not anymore. I didn't mean that about not having let myself love you, Hermione. You'd just proved you could hold your own with us not an hour before and there I was falling into that same old thing, being responsible for everyone and everything. I'm so sor…"
Well, she couldn't let him finish that. Not that she hadn't been waiting long enough, mind you; she'd gradually accepted the fact that it was all so deeply ingrained in his nature that he probably never could or would say those words and mean them. It was actually the happy realization that Dumbledore had been wrong for once; the wisest, most powerful wizard she'd ever known had vastly underestimated his protégé. The very fact that he had returned could mean only one thing. Well, two things, perhaps, both equally good. He really did love her. And he wanted to live, was determined to survive his confrontation with Voldemort because of it. Because of her.
Sentimentality and teenaged hormones is it? thought Hermione Granger as she took complete and full possession of Harry Potter's lips, and from the sound of it most of his self control with them. I'll show you what teenaged hormones can do. Old lizard heart will never know what hit him.
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It came to her later, after, that despite his enthusiastic response he'd kept a fairly tight rein on himself and had to be… encouraged to let himself go in the end. Not that she was complaining, his reluctance had extended the natural course of things a good bit, with happy consequences for her. She was fairly certain, though, that he was being cautious in light of the changes he had spoke of and was uneasy with losing control.
There had to be something they could do… Her research had turned up comparatively little, and most of it was useless given what they were attempting. Dumbledore certainly had a point about being on the frontiers of magic, although Hermione was still deeply unhappy with the blithe way he had lead Harry there, knowing Harry's nature as he did.
He stirred in his sleep then, shifting closer, his eyes moving rapidly beneath their lids. Dreaming. No boneless sprawl of limbs this time; the sinuous ripple of muscle under skin, while lovely to watch, bespoke a restlessness that would leave him waking exhausted instead.
Identify the problem, Hermione.
Three fold, as far as she could see it.
Find a way to help Harry cope with the soul fragments already inside him. Find out how to destroy the others without having them join the ones in already in him, if possible. And last but never least, figure out how to get close to Voldemort and use his demise to rid Harry of the last bit of corrupting soul forever.
It was the last bit that was really starting to worry Hermione. Her initial idea; to find out how to make a horcrux and have Harry use Voldemort's death as the instigation to rip his soul apart from Harry's own was no less theoretical now than it had been in the beginning, and so no closer to being useable. The fact that it was predicated on Harry's ability to kill Voldemort while containing more of his soul then Voldemort himself possessed was a rather enormous potential pitfall, to begin with. There was no predicting, really, how the two of them might react to each other face-to-face. Other than the blind need to kill each other, of course.
Harry groaned and stiffened beside her, shaking his head.
That's not good.
"No," he muttered. "No. I… won't." Whatever was being asked of him in his dream clearly made him anxious; she could see his breathing quicken and the head shaking became more adamant.
"Harry, wake up," she said softly, taking his upper arm into her hands and jostling him.
"No, please, I can't," he begged, but she could see he was still deeply asleep.
"Wake up, Harry, you're dreaming. It's just a…"
The realization that it was more than a dream came with his heartsickening scream as his back arched helplessly off the bed. His muscles seemed to convulse under her fingers, the vibration of the over-stimulated nerve endings like an electric current through him.
Cruciatus. She'd memorized the signs in Snape's class last year; he'd taken such pleasure explaining the marked difference between it and other torturous spells and, well, it was what she did, wasn't it? Memorize the details. Harry wasn't dreaming, and the pain wasn't isolated in his scar this time.
Is it Voldemort? How? And how do I break it? she thought frantically as he cried out again. How do you fight someone or something you can't even see?
Ron crashed through the door, the sudden illumination of his wand blinding her. Harry's eyes flew open but he didn't seem to see either of them; he was entirely focused on whatever was going on inside him. Even as the convulsions of the Cruciatus subsided and his breathing settled into a ragged panting his arms shakily pushed against the bed and his legs swung over the side.
"No, no, I won't." he groaned, sitting on the edge of the bed and shaking.
Ron moved closer, raising the light from his wand out of Harry's eyes. "Won't what, mate?" he asked nervously. "Alright there, Harry?"
"Ron, I, stun. Won't. I…"
Hermione saw Ron's eyes shift to her, as if asking `what the hell is THAT supposed to mean?' when Harry convulsed again, falling from the bed to the floor with a solid thump. She scrambled after him, trying to hold him still as the spell ran its course. His skin was cold and slick with sweat, muscles taut with the agony of resistance.
"It's like he's being crucioed," she told Ron. "I've never seen him like this, it's usually his scar but this is just like the real thing, as if …" His hoarse, tearing scream drowned out her words and Ron swore, as panicked by the urgency in it as she.
"What do we do now?"
Hermione shook her head, uncertain. "I don't know."
The invisible caster seemed to cease his curse and almost as soon as the convulsions ceased as well Harry was on his knees and heading toward the door. Or his body was anyway; if possible he seemed to be fighting himself, struggling against every movement. Hermione froze, unsure whether to help him or stop him.
"Ron, ffffor fuck's sake will, will, you just stun me already," Harry panted.
"Stunning you's not going to do a thing to stop a crucio from the inside, Harry…" Ron said, crouching over him. "What if it makes things worse?"
"Don't care about that," he gasped, rocking on his knees. "Just keep me away from that bloody locket."
The horcrux. He was going for…'
Harry suddenly staggered to his feet and charged for the door, careening off Ron and knocking him to the floor as he ran.
Ron rolled and aimed his wand after him, shouting out the incantation to stun him just seconds after Harry made it clear of the door. They scrambled up and ran after him, heard his feet thumping down the stairs. The door to the kitchen was off its hinges when they reached it; he'd simply run through it. They heard another resounding crash from within but Hermione was hopeful to note it sounded like wood rather than the tin flour canister the locket was hidden in.
They cleared the door to find Harry sprawled on the floor with Malfoy's still-bound hands triumphantly around his neck, throttling him as he pounded his head against the leg of the chair he'd been left sitting in.
"Silencio me again you Gryffindor goat's ass and I'll put your wand so far up your…" he was crowing.
"You, I can stun," Ron gasped, out of breath. "Stupefy!"
Malfoy slumped on top of Harry, who was blinking dazedly.
"Alright there, mate? Better?" Ron asked cautiously.
Hermione didn't like the look in Harry's eyes. Perhaps because they didn't actually look like Harry's eyes; there was a coldness and calculation there that he had never had.
"Yessss," Harry said, nodding vigorously.
"Ron…"
"Right," Ron agreed, making his way around Harry to place himself in between him and the horcruxes' hiding place.
"Give it to me," Harry told him, struggling to his feet. Blood dribbled from a gash on his forehead where Malfoy had managed to clock him with the chair leg and purpling bruises were blooming around his neck yet he seemed oblivious to everything but his desire for the horcrux.
"Er, sorry Harry. I don't think…"
"GIVE IT TO ME!" he hissed, and threw himself toward the cabinet where the flour container was stored.
"Stupefy!" Ron shouted. It took three tries for the spell to bring Harry down; in the end it was Hermione and Ron together that did it and he hit the floor hard just short of the cabinet.
It was as Ron had feared however; even stupefied, Hermione could see his body stiffen to the attack of some internal enemy. Harry might be unconscious, but whatever had awakened inside him was definitely not.
"Use the fire," she said, crouching over him. "Call Lupin and Tonks. We need help."
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"I hate to say it," said Lupin, watching Harry's seemingly unconscious form shudder and twitch, "but you need Snape. He could manage something to stop it, I'm sure."
"Or something that will kill his last bit of resistance," Ron said. "And how will we know which he's doing until he's already done it. It's not like we can trust him or any thing. Especially not where Harry's concerned."
"We may have to," Lupin reasoned. "What's our choice?"
"He's no genius," Hermione said suddenly. "You know what makes Snape so good at medicinal potions? He's just so utterly heartless that it doesn't matter in the slightest to him if he ever gets it wrong. He certainly wouldn't hang back for fear of killing his subject, that's for sure."
Her voice grew stronger. "Well, if he can do it, I can. I know enough not to hurt Harry, and anything else has to be better than this. I don't care if I give him hooves and a tail as long as this stops."
"That's the spirit, Hermione," said Tonks.
"That's insane, Hermione," said Lupin. "Look, it's not that I don't think you're brilliant with potions or anything…"
"Then stand back and keep out of the way," she said grimly. "And somebody find me a cauldron."
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Hermione had her doubts about each of the cauldrons she unearthed in Grimmauld Place; they had the pitted, battered, poisonous appearance of having brewed some truly nasty stuff and never having a detention-suffering Harry or Ron forced to clean them. Nothing you'd want to take a chance with, anyway. In the end she had the twins bring her over a new one.
"And none of those cheap thin-bottomed imports Percy's always raging on about," Fred informed her as he deposited it in front of her. "This is a Welsh one, the real deal. Black market, of course, but that's neither here nor there in the end, is it?"
"Good God, woman," George said, surveying her ingredients quizzically. "What ARE you brewing?"
"A potion for Harry," she said without losing her place in `Ingrid's Ingenious Ingredients for the Potion Arts.'
"What's he ever done to you to deserve this?" he said, holding a piece of desiccated Grindylow gallstone to his nose and shying away with a look of fascinated disgust.
"He's, well, having some problems. I'm trying to help him out a bit," she explained distractedly. "Make things a little easier on him."
"We've done a good bit of experimentation for the Wheezes," Fred said. "Perhaps we could be of some assistance if we knew a little more about the problem. We've certainly put a whole range of ingredients to purposes for which they were never intended."
"Well he's sort of… going stiff all over, shaking and moaning. It's like he wants to stop himself, but he can't."
"So you want to keep him from going stiff all the time, is that it?" George asked with a grin. "It may not be a potion you're wanting after all, Hermione. I'd highly recommend you just give the boy a good…"
"Stop RIGHT there," she warned him. "I knew better than to talk to the two of you seriously about anything, I really must be losing my mind over this."
And to her abject horror, two tears escaped her eyes and ran free down her cheeks. She wiped them away furiously and returned to her book.
Missing Fred and George's exchanged glances over her head entirely.
"Look, Hermione, we know you and Ron and Harry have been up to something over here and we missed the Order meeting where it all came out, although to be honest I don't think most of the others are entirely clear on it either. No one could actually explain it well enough that we had a clue what they were on about. Far be it from us to get into anything smacking of seriousness or work, but well…" Fred started.
"… you're like another sister to us, and we feel like it's our responsibility to teach you what brothers are all about, just in case you and Harry ever have any delirious ideas of reproducing or anything. Much as we tease you, we're in for the rest of it, too. We honestly want to help. Especially if we can blow something up, or have a hand in helping Harry take down old Red Eyes," George finished.
"You'll just have to tell us the actual problem," Fred told her.
"Because Ron's led us to believe Harry's stiffness hasn't exactly been an issue up `til now." George concluded.
"We think Harry's got three pieces of Voldemort's soul inside him," Hermione said simply. "One from when he was just a baby and Voldemort tried to kill him, and another from when he saved Ginny in the Chamber. The night of the Order meeting he took on a third bit that was hidden in the wand he and Ron got from Mr. Ollivander. It's starting to be too much. He says he feels things happening and tonight he woke up screaming and showing all the signs of being exposed to a Cruciatus curse. Ron and I think the bits of Voldemort's soul are finding each other and uniting in Harry, and Voldemort is gaining more ability then he's ever had before to reach and harm Harry as they do. I've got to find something that will help Harry keep them separated so that Voldemort can't hurt him until we've got all the pieces together and can finish him for good."
The twins whistled; one lower and one high but still in harmony.
"So thanks for your offer of help, you two, but…"
"Now, now, Hermione," said Fred.
"Just a minute, my wicked little witch," said George. "Let us converse a moment."
Two shaggy red heads bent together, whispering. Hermione's eyes made their way back to her book; she was anxious to get going. The thought of what Harry was going through in the other room with Lupin and Ron and Tonks was almost more than she could bear.
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Much to her surprise, in the end the twins had come up with what Hermione considered a positively brilliant idea. It really was quite amazing the way their minds worked. With a small amount of applied practicality and tweaking, they had created a potion uniquely keyed to Harry's situation... and they had done it without a single banned dark arts ingredient.
On the one hand she was elated, because the combination of ingredients should, on parchment at least, provide Harry with some relief from Voldemort's assault through the soul fragments. And if it didn't? Side effects were an unknown factor, but there would doubtless be some. The only question would be if they were worth bearing or worse than the affliction itself.
She measured a dose into a small goblet and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and running over ingredients, stirring directions, and brewing time once more in her mind. It should work…
Lupin had used Mobilicorpus to move Harry up to his own bed where he lay now technically stunned but still twitching from the battle within. Tonks and Ron were with him; Lupin had gone to talk to Professor McGonagall, taking the Horcruxed locket with him for safekeeping. Hermione knew that if the potion was ineffective Lupin wanted Ron to contact Snape. He was afraid to try and take Harry to Hogwarts and Madam Pomfrey could only be spared from the school for brief periods. No one wanted to think of St. Mungo's.
"Do we have to ennervate him first?" Tonks asked, looking doubtfully from the swirling orange brew towards its intended target.
Hermione shook her head. "Just lift his head up a bit, so he won't choke. It shouldn't take much. We should be able to see if it has some sort of effect without even ennervating him, although there's no guarantee the effect will be as strong when we do.'
Harry's head pulled fretfully from side to side after she poured the measured portion of potion into his mouth. His face screwed up involuntarily; she'd know it wasn't going to taste good.
The sound of her own heartbeat reverberated deafeningly as she watched, and waited.
The restless movement began to slow, the taut muscles almost imperceptibly to let go.
Tonks was the first to voice what Ron and Hermione were desperately wishing.
"It's working. Merlin's beard, Hermione, I think you've gone and done it! I'm going to go use the fire to let Remus and Minerva know. Back in a jif!"
They heard her thump excitedly down the stairs and crash through the kitchen door.
Ron looked to Hermione. "Do you want to do it or shall I?"
"You do it, Ron. Please."
Ron fumbled for his wand and aimed it between Harry's eyes. "Ennervate!"
They opened, feverishly bright against his pale, drawn face.
"No…" he whispered hoarsely. "Not yet. I was almost there…"
"Almost where, mate?" Ron asked gently.
"I can see where he hid it, the last one," Harry said, and then hesitated, tensing himself as if waiting for something painful. After a moment he seemed to decide to make the best of it and continued hurriedly on. "It's both ways now, he can get to me, but I can get to him as well. He's not very happy about that. If I work at it I can get to places inside him no one's ever seen, not even Dumbledore. I think I found the memory of the cup. And I know where he is now, he knows I know and he's moving fast but Ron tell Lupin it's…" a guttural cry cut him off, clearly ripped from his own throat against his will.
Hermione measured another dose of the potion and guided it toward his lips. He seemed to see her for the first time and his eyes bored into her intently as his lips closed firmly against it. Three clear thoughts began to ghost their way through her mind, but she knew they were not her own.
He's near Hellesley, in Scotland. Tell Ron.
I love you. I know you're trying to help me.
Let me go. I need to do this. I'll be alright, I promise.
It brought her back to the night he first kissed her, the cup passing from his tongue to hers, the way she'd heard him say `don't tell' inside her somehow, without a sound.
Yes, he whispered in her mind.
`I can't do this, he's hurting you, it's too dangerous,' all flew through her mind as well, but she knew these for her own thoughts. Her heart screamed `No!' even as her mind reminded her that he had already come back to her once today, already proved that he had learned, listened, understood.
Had she?
"He said to tell you Voldemort's in Hellesley, in Scotland, but he's ready to move on. Still, they might find something,' she said slowly, and set the cup of potion back down on the bedside table. Harry's eyes fluttered closed again.
"Can't he have any more?" Ron asked. "That was awful, he looks as if he's been mauled from the inside."
"He wants to go back," Hermione told him. "He thinks he's seen the memory of where Voldemort hid the final horcrux. He wants to be sure. We'll give him an hour at most and then I'm upping the dose, whether he likes it or not. He'll need a break then. I know I will."
"Is that safe?"
"No Ron. It's not safe. He's apparently wandering around in the subconscious mind of the most evil Wizard any of us can imagine with bits of the evil Wizard's evil soul inside him trying to phone home. Not what I'd choose for him to be doing just now at all."
"Then why?" he asked, clearly puzzled. "Let's just pour the bloody stuff down his throat. I'll stun him again if you want, now that you can stop it."
"Because he's close and he wants it to be over. He's starting to see the end of this whole thing, Ron, and we need to help him get there if we can, even if it scares us to let him go."
"He's said it, hasn't he," Ron said shrewdly, settling back in his chair. "I knew he would."
"Divination always was your subject," Hermione settled into hers as well. "Sooner or later you had to get something right."
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A/N: Sorry this took longer than I intended to get this one up… thanks for reading anyway.
And yes, JG, Chapter 16 is when I FINALLY get to play with Harry in the snow. That's where all the good stuff ended
up. `Til next time, then ~ Lynney.
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