A/N: I must apologise for the length of time it took for you to get this chapter. I must also apologise for the foul language you may use during parts of this chapter. And lastly, I must apologise if it is not up to the standards of the rest as my imagination was on a temporary hiatus with schoolwork and left me struggling. And even though they say that we are our own worst critics, I fear you may agree with me on this one.
*mocking self* Supposed to get easier I say. I love this part of the story I say. I am a bloody genius. Oy vey!
But then, on the bright side, at least I tell you what the chapter title means, and hopefully not too much to give out end of story. *nervous, hopeful smile*
Disclaimer: The characters, except Emmeline, are JK Rowling's. The plot, which at this point most certainly sucks, is mine. There, that should clear a few things up.
*****
Perlustro ut Mortuus
The heat was gone, but it took the darkness with it. That was the first thing she knew as she finally came out of it into the world of noise, and flashing light and dead boys with white-blonde hair. The darkness had parted and she was no longer hot, but then she was also no longer safe.
She could hear him nearby. He was walking, pacing the floor, muttering to himself and anxiously flipping the pages of some book grasped in his hands. Every time she came out of the darkness since that night she would find him like this. Pacing, muttering, and breathing, heavy, furious breathing, it was incessant movement that knew no end.
She wished he would go away; she didn't like him at all.
She didn't like his icy, clammy skin. She didn't like his wild, tangling red hair. She didn't like his dull brown eyes. She didn't like his black robes, and now very audible breathing, and ceaseless pacing and most of all, she didn't like the way he made her fear.
Every time the darkness crept away he was there and he made her afraid. He was the bad man in her nightmares with that pointy stick and the bright light and those words. They were bad words, very bad words, and she had heard them before and they always did bad things.
Avada Kedavra, they always repeated themselves in her mind. Avada Kedavra, if she said them aloud she wondered if they could do bad things too. Or maybe she needed a pointy stick?
Hermione had a pointy stick. It was a carved one, with ivy leaves all along it and buried in the bottom of her trunk. She never let her play with it, but then she didn't use it anymore anyway.
She wished she had that pointy stick. When she said those words aloud the green light would come out and the pacing man would stop. He would stop because she had said those words, waved the pointy stick and the green light hit him. Like with the blonde-haired boy. He would fall right over, just like the blonde-haired boy.
She wanted to move, to turn so that she could tune him out and his pacing, but she couldn't. Her body felt heavy, her eyelids were barely open and she was tired. She was so very tired, always tired, and the darkness was so easy to fall into because of it. Being tired was good, but he always made her wake up.
She wished she had that pointy stick.
He had stopped pacing now. She noticed it only because she suddenly felt some of that heavy breathing, horribly icy cold like his skin, against her warmed cheeks. Lazy eyes turned slowly to his and he gave a sickly smile.
"You sleep too much; it's been two days," he said.
Emmeline could care less how long it had been. She wanted that pointy stick. A wand it was called, a magic wand, like the ones that birthday party magicians had but real. She wanted her sister's wand and then he would go away.
"You soiled your clothes too; if you wanted to go to the bathroom you should ask, not sleep all the time. I cleaned you up, these robes are better than what you had, warmer."
Her eyes shut themselves and when opened again they were looking down her languid form, now dressed in robes like his… but different. They were a violent crimson red, slightly clinging to her very boyish frame, and against her shockingly pale skin, they stood out brilliantly.
She shut her eyes again at once. She didn't want to think of him cleaning her up, his clammy hands on her skin, she didn't want to think of him touching her at all.
As if sensing her thoughts though, he said then, "I used magic; I have no intention of hurting you. It's your sister I want."
She tried to reply, willing the words, "Harry will never let you take her, he promised he would keep us safe!" out of her mouth. All that came though was a murmured groan that her sluggish lips barely parted to allow.
He gave that sickly smile again and told her simply, "Harry can't save you love. Only your sister can, and the sooner they figure that out, the sooner you go home again."
Emmeline wanted to protest. She earnestly wanted to, but she couldn't. The darkness suddenly beckoned and she immediately obeyed its call.
*****
The exact recount of everything Bellatrix had told them, including added information from Draco, took just over an hour to relay. There wasn't really that much to begin with, neither had lived long enough to give it all to them. But the fact that Hermione, Mrs Weasley and Ginny had not been present most of the time meant that they had to pause to explain, and in the case of Percy's death, repeat. Once the story had finally been told though, Hermione immediately wrapped her mind around the most important question, "None of this makes any sense at all! What does she mean `not him'?"
Moody agreed with her, halting his own pacing in the behind them, "My sentiments exactly! There are too many dead now for us to look at anyone else. She was a powerful dark witch; she must have found some way around Veritaserum. She was leading us on! Since when has Bellatrix Lestrange been helpful?"
"She helped me once," said Harry bitterly from his place in a corner, "she was instructing me in the proper usage of an Unforgiveable. It's too bad I didn't get to thank her personally for it though."
"Harry!" scolded Mrs Weasley, though it was noticeably feeble. The woman had killed her son and her husband after all.
Hermione, seated on the loveseat nearby, just stared at her hands; she was once more lost in thought. Swirling in her mind were frightened thoughts of Emmeline, that cryptic message and the fact that nowhere seemed to be safe from Percy. No matter where they hid he found them, Bellatrix may have been right….
Lupin reasoned from the sofa.
"Even Voldemort can't get around Veritaserum… if he's given strong enough doses… she may not have been the most willing of captives but she spoke. She told us the truth."
Hermione rose from her place on the loveseat, walked to the fireplace and said, "And then there's that bit she told Harry, that he should know about this, what should you know about this? What do you know of Percy Weasley becoming the living dead?"
She turned to look at Harry and then quickly looked away. He had been staring at her so intensively just then that she was quite surprised that her clothes hadn't caught afire yet. Or that she hadn't noticed either. Her action though, brought him out of it and he said slowly, "Nothing, I was with you and Ron."
"Well of course we know that!" Hermione said quickly, her cheeks reddening and her eyes never turning to him, "B-but, what I meant was… well… it was a rhetorical question. I-I… oh for goodness sake, we're wasting time! Emmeline's with him and he just killed Draco… we should be doing something!"
"We are doing something Hermione, calm down." Said Lupin clearly surprised that he had to be telling her that, and looking around at them all, "Whatever we think of what Bellatrix told us, remember, with her dying breath she fought to tell us that we were looking at the wrong person and that we were supposed to be looking to someone else. It's curious enough that she used the same words as the message Percy sent us, we have to know what she meant before we rush off chasing after him. In it could be the key to stopping him altogether."
"I know that!" Hermione snapped, which brought out a shocked pause. Harry's brow furrowed as he looked at her.
She sank her head and sighed, "I'm sorry… I… it's just that he has Emmeline… I know I should be calmer than this, that I should be in control… but I can't be… he has Emmeline…. She's all I've got left of my family and he has her."
"And we'll find her," Lupin said, his unchanged expression showing that he understood, "it's just going to take a while… and possibly even until we figure out what's going on here… do you have any ideas?"
She mutely shook her head. Her mind, for what was probably the first time ever, drawing a blank. But she did manage, "I guess we'll just have to keep looking at Percy then… something somewhere must be able to explain what happened to him… what could stop him now… no one just survives the Killing Curse…"
She felt Harry staring at her again and chanced a look in his direction before turning her eyes down to the bodies on the ground. It was getting later in the night, thin light filtering through the windows unto them, rigor mortis would be setting in as soon as their blood completely cooled. The expression on Draco's face, grey eyes open, blank, hollow, so much like Ron's… And Dobby, she couldn't bring herself to look at Dobby.
"And as disagreeable as Draco Malfoy… was… even he didn't deserve to die like this… and neither Dobby. First he was forced to work for wizards, got his freedom and then gets heartlessly killed by the ghost of one. It's not fair. We have to stop him."
She internally cringed at the sound of Harry's voice then as he replied, "Yes, we have to, and we will."
It was distant, as if he was not really there paying attention to what they were doing. A long time ago she would have rejoiced at the thought that some declaration of love would have thrown him. Now though, she wasn't sure. All she wanted now was Emmeline back, and even though Harry had insisted that they would talk, she feared what he would say. She didn't want to tell him in the first place if it meant him breaking her heart. With everything that was going on now, she knew she couldn't stand it.
With two days gone now though, they still had not made much progress from where they last were.
Going through and over Percy's files, interviewing his colleagues, for they surely could not be called friends, and trying to get to the photographer who had survived, and therefore witnessed the argument, proved useless.
The photographer wouldn't speak, not even under threats from various Aurors and Order members and one very furious Harry. He had had the audacity to be upset too, that they had come into his house at four in the morning, merely hours after Bellatrix's death, to question him. Harry never more missed Colin Creevey. They left with the warning that when next they came he had better talk or the Man-Who-Triumphed would show him exactly how he defeated the Dark Lord. The look on his face as they left told them that he understood.
Percy's colleagues knew nothing of use, and there was not one suspect meeting, project or note that would tell them a thing. The only thing all of this achieved in the end then, was to keep Harry, Ginny and Hermione awake, and the Order busy with rechecking the security of Headquarters and the damage control over the death of Draco.
The Daily Prophet headline just yesterday though, proved that this was a hopeless cause too: "Malfoy Heir Killed in Custody!"
They had to be thankful that they hadn't seen yet: "Potter Friend Stalked by Deceased Madman!"
Otherwise, no one had slept, eaten a full meal or rested much.
Mrs Weasley had visited, but with Fleur and the new baby and the Delacour relations who had come over from France, and the fact that Hermione took these times to bury herself in Percy's files, she didn't stay often. Ginny avoided her at all times other than to scowl, and when the other Weasley sons came over to see her, after learning of Emmeline's kidnapping, Hermione shut herself up altogether in her room.
Though, it wasn't as if she didn't spend a lot of time there anyway.
When forced to by Mrs Weasley or Harry, Hermione would just go to the room she shared with Emmeline, lie on her sister's bed and stare at the shadows floating round the room while silent tears streamed down her face. She couldn't sleep, how could they expect her to sleep when Emmeline was gods know where with an un-dead madman?
Once or twice Harry would come to check on her in the night and she would shut her eyes tightly then.
She didn't want to face him, she didn't want to think of him, and she especially didn't want his comfort if he saw her cry. It was best they were apart.
If she broke down now, in this state, she was not sure what would happen. He didn't think of her like that, he surely didn't, but of late her thoughts had wandered to places they shouldn't be.
She was a mess of emotions and then sometimes felt rather numb, which was when she went to "sleep" in the room on Emmeline's bed. Then she could feel the pain, and then she could stay awake trying to find her sister… but then, that was when those thoughts assaulted her.
Oh she had read of it all in a book somewhere. That when someone felt like she did they would look to something to feel alive again. That was probably what Harry did before with firewhiskey and the shed, but she couldn't do that. There was no firewhiskey here she could find, no books she could throw herself into reading without picking up disturbing knowledge of the Dark Arts, and no shed. She was simply not like him and she didn't want to be with him like that, not now. Not when they were like this.
The fact that their long appointed talk had not been held yet either helped this immensely.
More than once Hermione remembered with embarrassment her declaration and wished that she had kept her mouth shut. What was the point of telling this to Harry if it gained them nothing more than awkward glances? What was the point of telling him then, just as her sister had been taken, of all times, when any reaction he had would be coloured by pity? What was the point if none of this would help them get Percy?
They all pitied her, she was sure of it. And this more than anything, must have slowed her progress.
She couldn't stand the pity, she couldn't stand the scowls and she couldn't stand Harry's staring. His eyes followed her every movement as if trying to find in them the answer to her obvious insanity. After all, she had to be insane to be in love with her best friend and go to such lengths to keep it from him.
How could she then concentrate on the words on the pages before her, sometimes in the worst of handwritings, when all this rushed through her mind?
But two days were gone and Emmeline was still missing. Today was another day where she would have to endure all of it with her head buried in the completely tedious world of Percy Weasley.
She may have been a swot but even she did something with her life every once in a while. Everything he did was Ministry related: parties, dinners, holidays… he hadn't been killed by Voldemort, he already had no life. They should have suspected Percy before just by the lack of attention he paid to his Friday nights.
She snorted at her sense of humour, it sounded like something Ron would say.
Lovely, now she was channelling him.
With a yawn that mocked her, she rose from her warm place on Emmeline's bed and made it with a few tugs. She had barely even stirred there the night before. Of course, much stirring can't be done if one is awake.
Her stomach grumbled noisily. Okay, so maybe she hadn't eaten at all since Emmeline had been taken. She yawned again to stifle it, which didn't help, and shuffled to the door and out into the cool, dim hallway.
The house was mostly silent, as it always was, but it could have also been that someone had finally found sleep. She would have to make some noise on her way back, sleep got in the way of finding Emmeline.
Coming down the hall to the library though, Hermione finally found the sounds of life. There was shuffling from within. Harry and Ginny were already at it, at least whatever they felt for her they could put aside for Emmeline's sake.
She took a deep breath then, trying to suppress the mental images of the scowl and look of concern that would greet her, and that last touch of sleep, and blithely stepped in.
The sight of them shocked the sleep out of her.
Harry was pushed right back against a shelf with the books above him leaning precariously over the edge. A few had fallen off altogether and lay splayed on the floor at their feet. Ginny had gripped his shoulders as if to hold him up but was kissing him as fiercely and earnestly as she could. In the dim blue morning light that filtered into the room though, it didn't at all look as if Harry wasn't doing the same.
Hermione felt the bile rising to her throat with her anger.
How could they? Now, when Emmeline was missing and that man had her and she could be dying?
How could they, how could she, how could he after what Hermione had told him two days ago?
How could she have been so foolish to think that he cared more for than her best friend? That he was not angry over the way she had used Ron to save her own heart?
This was her punishment wasn't it?
This was how she would continue to suffer for all the things she had done. Go against your nature and this is how you would pay for it.
But how could they now?
She put her hand to her mouth to fight the urge to gag, knowing all the while that it was her insomnia making her ill and not the sight of them. No, the sight of them brought anger… and pain.
She took a step back from the open doorway of the library, determined to escape to cry and rant unseen, and then had the sudden feeling that she was falling. It was confirmed a second later when her head collided with the floor, the deadened carpet doing nothing to prevent the painful blow. Her head swum temporarily, her dizziness and light-headedness added to by her lack of nutrition and rest, and it made the pain feel worse. She could only hope that there was no blood.
And then she was aware of Harry's voice calling her name. There was stumbling and shuffling in the library and he was upon her and leaning over and asking repeatedly, "Hermione! Hermione are you okay? Hermione say something! Hermione…!"
She struggled to stand; she wanted to slap him again. She wanted him to feel her hurt in every one of those stinging resonating pinpricks that would follow her handprint on his face. She wanted him to suffer, but then she just wanted to cry.
He forced her to lie still though, while his hands anxiously but gently searched her hair for any sign of an open wound. Finding none, he asked again, "Does your leg hurt? How did you fall? Do you feel any pain anywhere?"
His hands flew down her sides and legs and then up to her arms again without waiting for a response.
But she could not stop herself from replying, "My heart…"
He looked at her confused a moment before realisation dawned in the depths of his green eyes, and with it horror. He struggled to explain.
"Hermione… listen, I'm sorry, what you saw in there… I didn't… she just… Hermione I'm sorry, Herm…"
Just then though, she finally got him off her and rose, the pain in her head becoming much more acute, to get out of there. She would go to her room, go to sleep, and pretend that what she saw never happened.
That little cliché she had stumbled upon pushed up against the shelves in the library.
Wasn't that how it always went in those soaps? The girl declares her love only to discover him and another going at it later on and when they are discovered the boy apologises profusely to her fallen form?
But this was no soap. She could hex Ginny later on or something, or maybe him… and then she would go get Emmeline… and all of this as soon as she was able to use her magic again…
And that was when she began to cry.
After all her suffering, after all she had gone through, she finally told him the truth and this was how… this was how he reacted. He didn't care about her at all; he cared only for him and Ginny. He probably didn't care about Emmeline. She would have to find her sister all by herself.
Why oh why didn't he die that day against Voldemort, she wouldn't be suffering now.
Oh gods what was she thinking?
She pushed herself off the ground, horrified, and tried to get away from Harry, vaguely aware of Ginny somewhere in the background while he pleaded with her to say something.
She could hear the apology in his voice as he saw her face, the pain, just as she could smell the mustiness of the old house, taste the dust that had made its way into her mouth and was choking her slightly, and see the mocking portraits on the walls.
"Hermione… Hermione I'm sorry… Hermione…" he repeated, he would beg soon, she could almost hear it.
"What are you apologising for? Didn't you hear what she did to my brother? What kind of person does that to their friends?" Ginny said nastily behind them.
Harry reached for her and she swung an arm out to stop him, but he caught hold of her and continued to reason, and all the while in her mind her thoughts ran wild.
You should have died; you only lived to make me suffer. You should have died. That sick bastard should have killed you. You should have died after you killed him. You shouldn't have lived.
She couldn't believe she was thinking such things but she was and guiltily, she didn't want to think otherwise. After she had told him her little secret instead of simply rejecting her like some normal person he outright tried to hurt her.
Why hadn't that dangerous ambitious bastard taken his life?
"Hermione listen to me… we have to talk now, Hermione I swear that I never meant to hurt you. Hermione…" he said and then he was leading her down the corridor and she was not fighting him and they were going somewhere with Ginny scowling behind.
That bastard should have killed you and spared Ron. I would have been happy. That ruthless, murderous, ambitious bastard who knew no loyalty other than to himself should have taken you and left me with Ron. Why didn't he leave me with Ron? Why didn't he kill me too?
Harry stopped suddenly and turned to Ginny, "Just leave us alone okay, I have to talk to her and you don't have to be there."
"What for?" she demanded, as if surprised at this.
"Go away Ginny!" he snapped.
He should have killed you, and taken her too. You should have both died! That worthless bastard should have taken you both! Or done something to you, something nasty so that you would never show your face to anyone ever, and then I would forget you.
She could feel the tears burning in her eyes now. She didn't want to stop thinking those thoughts though. She loved him too much, she had told him so and now he had hurt her. She really, desperately, honestly, earnestly wanted to hurt him, but she couldn't, and in her mind she could do it.
Who knows what happened to him? He changed himself a lot before he met Dumbledore again, Horcruxes weren't the only damage he'd done. He wanted to live forever and Horcruxes weren't just it. He must have done a million other horrible things in between. And he could do them to you, and you would go away and I would be happy. I wouldn't be here suffering, I would be with Emmeline and our parents and we would be safe.
"I love you! I've loved you for so long, and then when we finally get our chance it's taken away. She comes in now with this and all of a sudden you want to talk? WHY DON'T WE TALK? WHY DON'T WE TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WE SHOULD DO NOW? WHY DON'T WE HARRY?" Ginny was screaming at him.
"BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO, I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS WITH YOU NOW GINNY!" Harry nearly roared back at her.
She looked completely unaffected as she replied through gritted teeth, "Why not?"
"I DON'T KNOW! I just don't feel like I used to for you anymore! That, in there, I didn't feel anything! I don't want to do this now… and especially now; your brother is out there with Emmeline!" Harry raged.
Face twisted with fury she shouted back, "HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? HERMIONE TOLD YOU THAT! FOR ALL WE KNOW SHE COULD HAVE KILLED RON!"
"And then kidnapped her sister while at the hospital with the rest of you and Fleur?" he asked with forced calm and arching an eyebrow, "Not even Voldemort could be two places at once!"
Voldemort, which was all you wanted me for in the first place. To help you stop Voldemort. I was right there all along waiting to get my heart broken because all you cared about was Voldemort. I was doing the right thing with Ron, you're as mad as he is.
Too bad you don't have the ambition.
Percy had that.
The ambition to be Minister of Magic while all you had was stupid, dumb luck… and me. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort, I was only there to help you stop Voldemort. And my sister's paying for it too.
They had gotten to the landing of the stairs and Harry was leading her down, and all the while arguing with Ginny behind them. In the usual stillness of the house their raised voices seemed to thunder, but Mrs Black's painting held her tongue. She had been so in fact since Harry informed her, and with surprising pleasantness, that her eldest niece was dead. But it did attract the attention of Lupin.
Appearing from the kitchen below he looked up at the three of them and asked, "Hermione, what's going on here?"
She did not answer; she just turned her tear-filled eyes down to him and stared blankly.
Voldemort, all this is ever about is Voldemort.
"When I asked her how he was different she said that `I should know', what do I know of Percy? I hadn't seen Percy since Sixth Year then."
That's all he cares about. Voldemort, and Ginny too, mustn't forget his `darling Ginevra'.
"What do you know of Percy becoming the living dead?"
I told you the truth, I should have done it sooner so this shouldn't hurt me after your rejection but I didn't. I didn't keep it to myself and now I'm paying for it. Logical girls don't get their hearts broken… who was I kidding?
"She must have made the Unbreakable Vow; you should have seen the way she was dying…. But even then she actually fought to tell us `not him', if not Percy then, who?"
I hurt Ron, and yet he wasn't upset about it. I didn't deserve that.
"Perlustro ut Mortuus, that was the message he gave me, whatever that means."
"She insisted that she killed him."
"What do you know of Percy becoming the living dead?"
"Perlustro ut Mortuus,"
"… the living dead?"
"Not him…"
"… who else we're supposed to look for, Voldemort?"
"Oh gods… no…"
She didn't need the sudden silence that descended to tell her that she had said that aloud. She didn't need the confused, anxious or irritated looks on their faces to tell that she had startled them. She didn't need to say anymore than what she did next to change everything.
"I know who we're supposed to look at," she declared.
Lupin came out into the hall and Harry actually tightened his grip on her arm, she couldn't see Ginny's face and didn't care to.
"Bellatrix was right… or at least partially. No, we're not supposed to look at Percy because we may never find anything there, but we would if we looked at someone else," she said.
"Who?" asked Harry, while releasing her arm and coming to stand before her, his eyes showing a reluctance to have his question answered.
"If you want to know what happened to Percy, you have to look to someone just as ambitious as he," she said, "but more so, and with less blindness. Someone you did in fact know more about, thanks to years of experience fighting him. Someone the Killing Curse would have injured but not killed. There is only one person I know of who would fit that, no matter… no matter how much I don't want it to be… Tom Marvolo Riddle."
"Lord Voldemort?" asked Harry, though his eyes showed that he already believed her.
The scoff behind them told that Ginny didn't believe a word of it. Lupin started up the stairs to them then. She was quite sure that each believed she had lost her mind.
"Hermione," Lupin began, "are you sure? Are you sure that Percy… is him… that he's not dead?"
"No-no, I'm not saying that. He's dead, Lord Voldemort is really dead, we got the Horcruxes, there couldn't be more and he's gone. But Percy, Bellatrix killed him, before an unseen witness and he's still alive. Alive enough to kill others… he's not Voldemort but he's something like him." She hurriedly explained.
"I'm sorry but this is ridiculous…" said Ginny finally coming down the stairs from behind her. "My brother is dead; you have no idea what is going on and why this man wants you… stop making these things up!"
"YOUR OWN MOTHER SAW HIM! HE KILLED YOUR BROTHER! HE WAS THERE AT THE FUNERAL! HE CAME HERE AND KILLED DRACO AND TOOK EMMELINE! WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO CONVINCE YOU! WHEN HE KILLS SOMEONE ELSE… WHEN HE KILLS YOU?" Hermione screamed at her.
Surprisingly, Ginny seemed to take this to heart and bowed her head as her cheeks began to redden.
Harry had actually taken a step down when she screamed and now came back up, asking tentatively, "But Hermione… if he's like… like Voldemort… what does he want with you?"
"I don't know… this is all a theory really, I mean… it's just that… who else? He could have a Horcrux like him… or something, that helped him survive his death… he may not have even realised what had happened to him… but who knows how far he would have gone to become what he wanted… he disowned his family in favour of Cornelius Fudge…. Something… in his blind ambition… I don't know… but I think they meant Voldemort. Voldemort who died because of you…" she said.
"But he doesn't want me, he wants you…" Harry told her.
"I know, but he must think that I know something… or he probably doesn't want me to help you stop him… but I didn't do it alone, we had Ron, the Order, and Dumbledore…" she replied, and her brow furrowed as she sank into thought. She was right before, this was all just confusing nonsense.
Harry though, turned her again to make sure that she was looking at him and said, "If you say that he looks like Voldemort… that all of this is a somewhat less evil version of him… then I believe you. And more than that just like before we're going to stop him."
"We don't even know where to begin to look," said Ginny, her voice conveying a strange, subdued new mood.
"After Dumbledore died we didn't either," Harry told her, but still staring at Hermione, "that changed nothing, we still stopped him. But now we at least have a lead… I don't know why he told us, why he felt the need to, but its something."
"There's no prophecy binding you this time, you could die," said Hermione, and was dismayed to hear her voice break. She didn't want him to know that fear; she had already said and done too much before.
"I could've died the last time too…" Harry said nonchalant, though the smile that came with it was false, "but for Ron, for the Weasleys, for you… and now for Emmeline… I'm not going to. I'm not going anywhere until I stop him." Harry said firmly.
There was a moment where they all just remained there, Harry staring at Hermione intently as if trying to get a silent message across, Ginny quiet and Lupin looking on at them, before it was broken and Harry said, "Now if I recall correctly, all wankers like Tom and Percy have one thing in common, a big ego. You said something about ambition needing to be coddled once in a while? I wonder what that argument in the Ministry was about. I think we should have a chat with that photographer first, and we better be quick, I think we can all agree that we want this end and Emmeline back. All of this before breakfast; this must be a record…"
He turned away from her and started down the stairs, trying his best to lighten the mood, when Hermione said something that shocked them all.
She had made to follow him and the others down but had stopped and while staring absently at the house-elf heads on the wall said, "Poor Percy."
"Er… come again?" asked Harry, stopping on the last stair.
"It didn't have to be this way…" she said, her voice almost in a whisper.
Harry looked at Lupin; Ginny distinctly avoided looking at any of them. When Hermione offered no explanation though, Harry said, "I guess not…?"
She smiled sadly and looked down at him, "Harry, I don't think he would have killed any of his brothers or his father no matter how ambitious he was… don't get me wrong, anyone is capable of anything… it's just that, look at me… I think he got in over his head and couldn't come out again."
"I can't say it enough Hermione, I'll help him out of it when the time comes," said Harry, half-joking.
"But it's still sad," she insisted, "because in the end, the last thing Ron saw before he died was his brother's face as he killed him. And no one should ever have to see that. No one, ever…"
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