Aftermath

A/N: Hi, me again, with a second fanfic and hopefully, less confusing than Deluge.

This is supposed to be a mystery; I hope you'll forgive me for it, for I certainly doubt I will.

That being said, there's not much to tell. This fanfic was actually inspired by Demosthenes' Into a Darkened Room, which I loved even though I apparently read it months late. Updates will not be speedy, as I have some school stuff to deal with too, but I'll try. If anyone is OOC, I demand to be flamed for it, and one more thing, major character death ahead.

Disclaimer: Ha, ha, ha, if this was mine… ha! *serious voice* You know full well I don't own this, if I did we would have enjoyed HBP, heck I wouldn't be here now.

*****

The Prophecy Fulfilled

When he finally opened his eyes again after that bright light, it was to a still night. A clear, inky black sky sequined by infinite sparkling blue diamond stars hung above him and the mildly swaying tree tops. Once or twice, the cry of an owl resonated through the stillness, followed by the saccharine song of a nightingale to comfort him under this dark canopy. No wind blew, it had done enough of that earlier, but he could almost feel a slight caress every now and then that kissed his warmed skin.

It was beautiful.

He was so tired that he barely wished to move, seeking comfort on his cool, earthen bed instead, but he could not remain where he chose to lie. No matter how much he just wanted this moment to simply absorb what was surely, finally peace, he had to go back to help those still fighting behind.

Propping up on his left arm, for his wand arm was throbbing with pain from a nasty gash on his shoulder; he felt the world swimming round him.

He was nauseous, bile rising quickly to his throat in this moment and he was forced to roll over to expel it. He retched painfully, noticing now that he must have bruised a few ribs in a fall he could not remember taking. But he had every right to be ill; his body was now accepting all that he had undergone, all that he had had to deal with in those past… years that he fought the husk lying merely feet away from him.

And it was seeing him that ended his illness.

There he laid, the so-called “Dark Lord Voldemort”, “You-Know-Who”, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and he was dead. Killed, by a scrawny eighteen year old boy with messy black hair and vivid green eyes behind round-rimmed glasses; the same boy he had tried to kill seventeen years before and instead marked with the lightening bolt scar of his attempt; the same boy whose existence he had haunted like a vengeful poltergeist worthy of Peeves to his own end.

It was pathetic.

How miserably his attempt at immortality had failed, how horrible it must have been for him to realise that his soul was once more completely within him and when he died this time it would be for good. How terrible it must be for him now as he descended into the depths of hell and his lifeless, disfigured corpse lay unnaturally sprawled mere feet away from his enemy, to the mercy of those he had made suffer. Those red, snake like eyes knew fear the moment the spell's light touched him and tore through his body to his soul.

Harry could not help himself at that moment, he had to laugh.

It was raspy, gasping and hoarse, his laughter, as it echoed through the night and this clearing in the forest, but it was there.

He laughed until water sprung to his eyes and his throat clenched and he knew he was crying but could do nothing to stop it. He laughed until sobs forced their way out and his body rattled as he cried and cried and cried for all those who had had to die for this night to come true.

His parents, Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore and hundreds of nameless, faceless others whose only crime was that they were in his way… He cried for they were not here to see this moment, and then his rage built, he rose from the ground with sudden vigour in his fury and attacked the corpse before him.

He kicked and cursed and spat upon the body, expounding all his pent-up agony on that which had haunted his existence before he was even born. And then he laughed again and cried, “You bloody monster, even hell is too good for you!” before he fell back on the ground, exhausted in his effort but content for his victory.

He had to help the others but now, for now he just needed this moment of peace.

He could not tell then, how long he lay there after, just listening to the sounds of the night, his own breathing, feeling the touch of the night air on his skin and smiling up at the sky.

Eventually though, he rose from where he lay again, this time with more effort as his blood had cooled and his injuries began to reveal themselves and began to stagger away. But not entirely before turning round and in one last surge of fury, shouted, “INCENDIO!” at the corpse and watched it burst into flame and slowly burn to nothing.

No need to befoul the earth and creatures round with the filth that was it.

He put back on his smile as he went away this time, stumbling wearily through the small forest that surrounded the village of Godric's Hollow.

There was nothing but silence now, the sky above was paling to a clear blue-grey, though the stars were still just visible, and the creatures of the night giving way to those of the day.

Life had probably not changed for them, but it would for the human inhabitants, they would soon understand that they were safe when the day came and they were still alive. Around them would be littered with the bodies of their attackers, well, not literally speaking, but they would be soon all captured or dead. And that made him grin now.

He emerged at the end of a street near what had once been his parents' home. The overgrown ruin looked as forlorn as ever, but its ghosts were at peace now, now it would be silent. He had to stop a moment then to just look at it.

This was where it had all begun for him and this is where he had ended it. In the living room just downstairs, his father had fought valiantly for his wife and child, and was struck down mercilessly. In the bedroom upstairs at the back, his mother had given her life to protect him. In that same bedroom he had been marked with a scar that cursed both him and his enemy. And now, in the forest behind, he had won.

The emotions that began to fill him now, elation, despair, anger and hope, brought tears he refused to fight to his eyes. He cried all the way to it then, painful sobs and gasps for breath and all.

He never made it to the door though. The pungent smell of blood cut through the air and drew his attention back to the reality of the situation.

This was no time for quiet reminiscence.

Two bodies lay in the front lawn, one a Death Eater with sleek blond hair, Lucius Malfoy, the other, his wife, also with light blond hair, and now open lifeless eyes, Narcissa Black Malfoy.

What was this?

What had happened while he was fighting?

He wanted to drag them away, how dare they desecrate his parents' home in their death? And when did Narcissa get here? But he did not; he turned round and looked for evidence of what may have caused this end for the pair.

Their son was nowhere in sight, but slumped against a tree, just across the road and barely out of his view, was Peter Pettigrew, as dead as they were. He had been so violently killed that he had been eviscerated so that Harry had to turn away again before he was made ill.

What had happened in this street?

And then, as if finally waking from a dream, he remembered his friends.

Ron and Hermione, engaged in a fight with a few Death Eaters who had been attempting an ambush. Ron had been hit by a spell, he had fallen, but he was alright.

He and Hermione had been shouting for Harry to go on, “Don't come back, don't look back, you have to stop him!”

“Don't just stand there looking like an idiot, he's coming here, now!”

“We'll be right here waiting for you when you get back!”

“Run Harry, now!”

So he ran, and he headed away from the house and into the forest, almost drawn to the dark wizard in there awaiting him. But where were they now? Their absence was unnerving as the first reaches of lancing white sunlight traced the horizon behind him.

He thought to go into the house, but he did not go past the gate. Instead, he tore off the last of his tattered robes and began heading up the street away from the house, past a few more mutilated bodies of some familiar enemies.

Each death was seemingly worse than the one that came before it. Someone had lost their limbs, another had seemingly been splinched while attempting to Disapparate, or probably torn limb from limb in a fight. Someone else had endured the Dementor's Kiss; a woman he hoped was Bellatrix, lay in a bloody heap beneath tattered robes still clutching her wand; a smouldering pile of ash was the remains of another still. A few just lay there peaceful, as if asleep, and save for the absence of the rise and fall of their chests, you would think they were. But they were all dead, quite dead, and with no master to come to their rescue anymore.

These were images he would surely never forget, but finding Ron and Hermione was more important at the moment than to dwell on them.

He did not want to think of it but he had an idea of where they were, where he had last seen them, the graveyard.

His fear for them meant that he managed to run all the way there and did not stop till he was past the gates and along the main path looking on in horror.

Someone had raised Inferi, someone else had stopped some of them, but now they were all spread in their fetid glory for the world to see. The smell of the rotting corpses was nauseating and he hated the thought of finding Ron or Hermione in there among them. He could not deal with that, face that thought; he suppressed it quickly and weaved his way amongst the bodies and tombstones looking for even the smallest trace of fiery red hair or bushy brown.

The more he walked, the less he saw and he began to hold a building hope that they were not there.

Maybe they had stopped the Inferi and then went off with the Order to find him. Maybe one of them had done in the Malfoys. Maybe even they were still engaged in a fierce battle that would end when both friend and foe caught sight of him alive and above them ready to join the fight.

It all fell apart when he saw them slumped against his parents' tombstones.

Ron looked as if he had fallen over sitting; his wand tightly gripped in one arm behind him while the other stretched forward and supported his head as he lay on his side. Hermione was seated, arms limp, wand loosely in her grip, legs drawn to one side and her head lolled back onto the marble.

As the light of the approaching sun turned golden and warmed parts of him he had not known were cold, he advanced to them. If they were dead or merely sleeping he could not tell, and he did not want to, but he rushed at them nevertheless.

He grabbed onto Ron first, shaking him as violently as he could, “Ron! Wake up mate! Ron! Wake up, wake up Ron!”

But the red head did not respond, his head merely fell back and his blue eyes looked strangely hollow. His body was cold, but that could have been from the night air, there was nothing wrong with him, he just was having trouble waking up….

He dropped him at once and turned to Hermione, she would know what to do. She would wake him.

The moment he gripped her and started to shake her she groaned.

He stopped shaking her at once, and said, “Hermione! Hermione, come on, wake up Ron! I'm shaking him and he's not moving, Hermione wake up Ron!”

She began to flail about in his arms, unaccustomed and not at all appreciative of his vice grip. She forced her head up and opened her eyes, saw him and began to scream, struggling all the while with enough noise to wake Ron….

“Hermione, it's just me, Harry! Come on, we need to wake Ron! I did it Hermione! But we have to wake Ron so I can tell him too!” he gasped painfully as he shook her.

The activity was taking its toll on him.

To his surprise though, as she began to calm and coherence came to her, she began to cry. He did not know what to make of it.

She gripped onto his arms and cried and sobbed, muttering all the while in between. He just knelt before her, smoothed her hair from her face and wiped her tears away. But she would not stop crying and he did not know what to say.

“Come on Hermione, come on, stop crying, we have to wake Ron! Hermione, come on, we have to wake him up, I can't tell you…” he was saying and then he stopped.

Somewhere in him, thoughts unbidden were forming themselves in his mind, warring for control. They were all the same, all clearly whispering sadly, “You won't wake him… he won't wake… he's gone… he won't wake…”

He refused to listen to them, they were wrong, but then, they were strangely coming from Hermione's mouth too….

He gripped her arms so tight he was sure that he was hurting her and she gave a tremulous gasp. When she looked up at him now, eyes wide and fearful as he said, “Hermione stop saying that, you have to help me wake him, stop saying that Hermione!” he began to feel his resolve ebbing away. As much as he would not admit it, for all the noise they were making it was enough to wake the dead… and Ron was still sleeping….

He changed tack, “No Hermione, he's not dead Hermione! Stop saying that!” and then began to cry too.

She suddenly freed herself from his grasp and drew him into a desperate embrace as he cried protests into her shoulder and hair. She was crying still, but softer now as her arms pressed him to her and he clawed at her back until he had managed to expose her neck to the air. She shuddered at the cold wind on her warmed skin but she would not move.

All the while he cried, “He's not dead, he's not… he's just sleeping… we have to wake him… Hermione…” He stopped, unable to convince himself anymore and came anew, “You don't leave me too, you can't leave me too, you have to stay with me… promise me you won't leave me too… don't leave me… don't go away… don't leave me….”

And she gave only her mumbled assents to his shoulder, and any around who cared to hear.

In the shadows of a mausoleum nearby, someone did.

A hooded figure in dark grey looked on numbly at the scene unfolding at the tombstones of the late James and Lily Potter. The two teenagers crying over each other amidst the gory battlefield of the graveyard and the greater fight that no doubt was still going on in the distance seemed oblivious to it.

All it took was the death of the Weasel and they fell apart.

If he had known before how easy it was to fell them he would have done something sooner. But he had not time and he did not want that psychopath to win, so this was all he had, the aftermath.

Funny, he pitied them.

He could not stay here for pity though, it was getting later in the morning and the bright daylight would make escape difficult. The faint mist of the still breeding Dementors was barely covering; soon the Aurors and others would be banishing them to Azkaban. There would be many others, though human, to follow after that. He had lived this long in freedom; he had no intentions of giving that up.

Granger had risen, and got Potter to move with her.

He seemed so weak, and he knew that she was hurt but she was apparently concealing that. Such courage, Gryffindor courage, even Weasel had had it, though it had not done much for him in the end.

Someday he would have to tell them about that.

He slipped out of the touch of the spreading light and walked silently away.

A/N: Yes, I know what I did. So please, be brutally honest when you review, okay?

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A/N: Okay, this chapter is supposed to be filler, and therefore difficult to write, and therefore took me forever, and therefore I apologise. All mistakes are mine. I promise to be much speedier with chapter three.

Disclaimer: *falls off of chair laughing*

*****

Loss

Hermione was sleeping. A veritable non-event, it was true, but to him at that moment, it was, indescribable.

With curfew just ended, Harry had stepped out a bit, tired of the restriction of the house, and returned to find her lying on the sofa beneath the window, bathed in the burnished gold of the morning sunlight.

She was clad only in a camisole and pyjama bottoms with her long, bushy hair in a very messy ponytail and curled up in the squashy cushions of the sofa for what clearly looked like comfortable sleep. Her breathing was slow and rhythmic, though occasionally hitched by something in her dreams that seemed rather pleasant so far. Her body was relaxed, though her brow was slightly furrowed and her cheeks lined by the sticky tracks of earlier tears. Under the light of the sun her brown hair was streaked with gold and long, honeyed eyelashes on heavy lids shut out the cruel reality of the outside world.

When last was it that he had seen her like this, he could not tell, but there she was and he had not the heart to disturb her. Neither of them had slept probably since… and now she was just, in a word, peaceful. He stood then, carefully surveying her, recording her appearance for fear it would slip away in another instant, before finally moving over to shut the blinds above her.

It was a clear morning out, with wisps of clouds visible here and there in the pale blue sky. The rich green earth was sprinkled in light dew, the last of the mist slowly departing, and had just soaked his toes and pyjama bottoms accordingly. It was also rather cool, as it had been throughout the war, with each morning seemingly mocking them. Now they could enjoy it though, but she did not.

His hands halted their progression over the lace though when he stared down at her again. So little had really changed between this morning and the day before, but then so much had. And strangely, his mind ran it over again, like some eerie, internal playback.

Hermione was crying.

Pooling at the corners of her eyes, the salty liquid glinted as it blazed tracks down her face where it shook loose unto her clothes with the shudder of her sobs. Her bushy brown hair was wild about her head, a few stray strands sticking to her face with her tears, which every now and then were wiped away as she dried her tears. Somehow or the other, she had managed to cocoon herself into her black dress robes and this was how she lay with him on the floor in what had once been Ron's room at the Burrow.

The funeral had ended hours ago, just in time for curfew. A solemn affair on a bright day of clouds like billowing white sails, a deep blue sky and sweetly singing birds Ron should have lived to see.

The sun was now disappearing beneath the horizon in brilliant colours of orange, hot pink and violet and a silence was descending over the countryside. As it went though, it had a haunting effect of leaving the bright orange, zooming Chudley Cannon poster covered room strangely bland and the pair leaned against the bed on the floor looking rather out of place.

Harry was numb to this though.

He was only aware of the silence; Hermione's echoing sobs, the unnatural sticky warmth of her forehead under his palm and a slightly hollow feeling in his chest. It hurt more than losing Sirius and Dumbledore had. It felt like someone had stuck a knife in his chest and continued to twist it until they tore his heart to shreds and left him cold. He could not cry, not anymore, his tears had stopped flowing the moment they had commanded Ron to his finally resting place. But Hermione would cry for the both of them, she had the strength to do that.

This was not the way he had intended for them to begin their lives after the war. Not with Ron dead and he and Hermione left crying on the floor of his room with his family. As a matter of fact, he had not really thought much of life for him after the war.

He had usually thought of Ron and Hermione marrying and having a lot of children like Ron's parents. Or maybe one, he was not sure of what Hermione would want; he had never really thought of what Hermione would want.

He had thought of Ginny marrying some famous Quidditch player and living a comfortable life somewhere close to home, Mrs Weasley would never allow them to move far.

He had thought of Neville opening a horticultural shop somewhere in Diagon Alley or becoming a Herbology teacher like Professor Sprout.

He had even thought of Luna Lovegood taking over The Quibbler from her father and finding a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

But not this, he had never thought of something like this.

Suddenly, Hermione stopped crying and sat up and looked at him. Brown eyes puffy and red, her face flushed, hair damp and wild, she gave him her most piercing gaze and then asked, “What are we going to do now?”

She sniffled a bit and then looked down at her hands.

He did not know what to tell her.

He had been thinking that same thing for all of the three weeks they had spent at St Mungo's. Two weeks of that time was for recovery, one was probably just to get over the shock.

Lupin had told him that he had done enough, that the Order had the upper hand now so that he should rest. A Ministry of Magic official had advised them that it was best to remain there until they had prepared the Burrow for their arrival, and that they would be out of the reach of the reporters. They could not deal with those reporters now, not now.

A soft moan from the sofa beneath him cut into his reminiscence and he dropped his hands from the curtain.

The rest of the Burrow was still asleep, even the ghoul had given it a rest, in the silence her moan seemed to echo.

Hermione was stirring but did not wake. She turned instead, onto her left side, turning her face into the sofa and twisting just that much to get comfortable but also allowing him a view of a scar she had unfortunately acquired during the war. It was only once they were out of that graveyard that he noticed the still bleeding wound that led to it.

He moved closer to her on the sofa, watching as the light captured and warmed his pale skin, and then hesitantly sat down. Even more hesitantly then, he reached out to her and carefully traced the crescent shaped outline to where it stopped just above the pyjama waist line.

He did not want her to have that scar; it was his entire fault that she had that scar.

But there were other scars too.

Like those newspaper stories they had managed to read in the hospital in their last week there. Someone had managed to get them a few and they found, rather to their disappointment, that they were all the same. All printed two days after the event as they had been awaiting confirmation that he had lived in the first place, and then also because they were just that afraid that the Death Eaters would get them.

The Daily Prophet ran bold, “A Prophecy Fulfilled: Harry Potter Defeats the Dark Lord!” and followed it with, “The Chosen One Victorious: Showdown at Dawn!” It made him think of those old American Muggle westerns Dudley sometimes watched, seeing as he would look at anything anyway.

The Evening Prophet continued his titling then with, “Boy-Who-Lived becomes Man-Who-Triumphed!”

Perfect, a new moniker to haunt him to his grave.

The Quibbler, in classic fashion, was the only one who failed to actually run an entire story on him. In fact, under the banner, “Conspiracy in the Mist: The Ministry's Secret Weapon!” he was briefly mentioned somewhere in the middle in connection to some obscure power-sapping disease to explain the fact that the trio were still missing from view.

This earned them his lifetime subscription and he cancelled Hermione's subscriptions to the previous two. It would hurt her to read them when they all acted as if he had defeated the Dark Lord alone, and even completely disregarded Ron's death. It was best for her that he had to do it. She may not like The Quibbler, but she could learn.

Witch Weekly went with tradition as a woman's magazine, with a headline that earned a brief smile from Hermione, “Harry Potter: Boy-Who-Lived Reinvents Knight-in-Shining-Armour!”

Seeing her smile again, though only briefly, was wonderful. But her smiles never stayed if and when they came; there was another more pressing concern. As he drew down her top to cover the scar, promising to teach himself a proper spell that may remove it, he slipped into his thoughts again.

He failed to notice the slight quiver of an eyelid as Hermione peered curiously up at him from her vantage point on the sofa.

Their third night there, significantly rested, Harry rose from his bed and wandered down the darkened corridor to Hermione's room.

He found her lying under the light of a silvery white moon, staring blankly out at the night sky. She looked as lost as he felt, as lonely as he was, and all the same, as if she was relieved that it was all over. They had survived the war, Ron had not suffered, the remaining Death Eaters were being rounded up, they should not be sad.

And yet they were.

That was when he first thought of it.

Now that it was all over, that he had fulfilled the prophecy and saved the Wizarding world, what exactly was he to do? What were they to do?

He had not had an answer then.

The reporters had finally gotten to them at the funeral today. They had been everywhere, staring and recording and snapping their photographs. For the first time in possibly ever Harry found himself wishing they were still under the government control. He could almost see the headline now, “Harry Potter Grieves in Arms of Muggle-born Friend!” followed by a no doubt sordid tale of secret affairs and love in the midst of war that would make Rita Skeeter proud.

Mrs Weasley and her remaining sons were furious. Losing Arthur and Percy was difficult enough, but now that Ron was gone too, could they not just bury him in peace? She eventually just broke down and had to be comforted by Ginny and Fleur, various other Weasley family members looked either indignant or grieved, and Hermione shook so much that he had to hold her.

They had always been so welcome with the Weasleys, but this was a family grief. No matter what they had told them, he and Hermione were not really part of the family and so they clung to each other.

And then he thought of it again.

And now Hermione had given voice to his thoughts, “What are we going to do now?”

He tried to form words to a reply but found that none would come. Nothing he could think of would fit, and he dared not say that he had never really thought of his future when it came to the aftermath.

She was not the smartest witch of her generation for nothing though.

She interpreted his silence and replied simply, “Oh,” and after a moment turned her head away to the window.

Now he had a multitude of replies and tried to give them all at once, surprised at how loud his voice sounded in the silence.

“It's not what you think… I just… I never really had much to hope for… that's not right… I was doing this for you all… I didn't need to think past what was at hand or I would never…” and then he gave up. She had risen from the floor and was walking to the window.

When she got there she stood for a time just staring at the deepening twilight and then said, “My parents want me to go with them to France… I think I should…”

Before he could stop himself Harry replied, “What… no! You promised… y-you said that… that you wouldn't leave me.”

The last part came out quietly as he realised how childish and selfish that must sound.

He began again.

“Oh… when… when do they want you to go?”

To his surprise she turned on him angrily, “Why are you in such a hurry to get rid of me? Is it that when I'm out of the way, your ever-present burden, you'll be finally free to run off to wherever you please? Silly, useless Hermione, packed off with her parents to France…”

A surge of anger flowed through him instantly and he snapped, “Don't be daft; I was trying to be a friend!”

“Some friend you are then, why don't you stop me, I would never let you leave when you made a promise to stay!” she shot back heatedly and then suddenly, alarmingly, began to cry again.

“I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… I just… I can't…” she stopped and walked back to where he still sat on the floor beside Ron's bed.

He opened his arms and allowed her to embrace him and cry into his chest.

“Fine, you don't have to go, we'll stay here,” he told her as stroked her hair like Ron did at Dumbledore's funeral. He was not really sure of how to comfort her; this seemed to have worked before.

He swallowed as he thought of Ron.

Her voice was almost terrified when she replied, “No, not here, I can't stay here.”

“What do you mean, Mrs Weasley…?” he asked but she rose away from him, leaving a curious, sudden sense of loss.

Her eyes looked strangely frightened as she said, “I can't stay here… we shouldn't… they have…”

She stopped and looked at him pleadingly.

He replied, “But Mrs Weasley, I mean, she won't let me… not now… not after losing Ron, and especially not after today.”

“Then I can't stay here with you… I can't take this… I don't know what to do tomorrow or next week or any days after that, but I do know that I can't stay here,” she told him.

He took a moment to think it all through and found only one reply, “Why?”

Her eyes seemed just that more frightened from moments before, “Why? Because there's too much of Ron… this is Ron's room, we're in Ron's house with Ron's family and Ron is not here… I don't want to be here if he isn't.”

She started sobbing again and he drew her back into his arms.

The strange thing was, the moment she said that, he realised that he thought the same thing too.

Looking at her now he wondered if she even knew that he had spent half the night after thinking of an answer to that question.

For a reason as yet unknown to him, he needed to have one, but there were many others now anyway.

He needed it, for he did not want to see that pained look in her eyes again when she realised that he had none to give. He needed it for the strength to let her go off to bed alone when it always appeared to cause her physical pain to leave him. He needed it, to quell his own storm within. The one that raged on two sides, the former blaming himself for not arriving fast enough, and the latter reminding him that he could not have known, but begged the same question overall, “What are we going to do now?”

Suddenly, Hermione's hand reached up to his arm and he started. He had slipped off into a daydream and had not even noticed when she turned right over unto her back with a slightly worried look on her face.

He looked away to recover his expression and then said, “I went out for a walk, found you sleeping here… if Mrs Weasley had seen you, she would have been upset.”

She seemed almost disappointed by his answer.

She turned her back to him and said, “I was worried about you, I woke up and you weren't in the room with Charlie, I thought… I…” and she could not finish.

He tried to turn her back to him, but she would not. If he wanted to continue this conversation he would have to do it with her back turned.

He took a moment before saying, “I'm sorry.”

That got her attention. She turned her head back to look at him.

“I didn't mean to scare you… I mean, I begged you to stay with me and most of the time I'm… I'm always going away… wandering off.” He said this all while averting his gaze, not wanting to see her expression when he said next, “But you see, I have a lot on my mind now… and yesterday… there is so much… I mean, with Voldemort gone, where do I go now? Can I still be an Auror? Can I play Quidditch? Can I just have peace? And Ron's not here… how am I… how are we supposed to go on with all our plans if Ron is not here with us? It's always been the three of us… we're incomplete when it's just two.”

He knew he was trying to be strong for her, like he always did. But his heart was still raw from the wound of losing Ron and his voice broke in his speech. He was sure that he choked a few times too and this meant that Hermione was soon sitting up and gathering him in her arms so that his head rested just beneath her chin on her chest.

“Oh Harry,” she began, “I didn't, I never meant to upset you, I just… yesterday I was sad, really sad… I still am too… but you don't have to worry about those things anymore, as long as we are together, like I promised you, nothing is going to hurt us.”

Very much like a child, Harry asked, “Do you mean it?”

She tightened her arms around him a bit and said, “I think we're together forever Harry,” and then after a pause, “No, I know it. Nothing is going to take me away from you. We'll hurt, we'll cry, but then we'll move on, like he would have wanted us to, and nothing, is going to stop me, from being with you.”

Strangely, he believed her.

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A/N: Alright, back to the mystery part of this story. Longer chapter ahead than previous two and much more action packed… I wish.

Anyway, for the kiddies, alcoholism is not best and only used in chapter as plot device. Secondly, this was a lot of fun, and especially since I decided to bring Ginny (unfortunately for her) along for the ride. Thirdly, this may not be up to the standards of the other two, I don't know, I tried. Shame too, I had a lot more time. And fourth, I don't know if the… ahem… misbehaviour, (as I like to call it) is too much for this rating, I doubt it, but if it is, tell me and I'll adjust it accordingly.

Okay folks, have fun. I know I did.

Disclaimer: *now rolling on the floor still laughing, developing stitch in side*

Danger at Dusk

“Hello Auntie,” said the sallow young man standing at the window of the dilapidated shack at the sound of a “pop” from within. The tall, gaunt woman who had just Apparated in, scoffed, “Don't you dare “Auntie” me, why weren't you at the meeting?” Her voice was shrieking, sliding between hysterical and childlike, but her tone was harsh, she was angry. Her nephew made no attempt to deceive, “I decided, in light of recent events that it was a rather tedious waste of my time. The Dark Lord is dead, accept it.”

Somewhere behind him he was aware of her snatching something from a table and throwing it at him. It whizzed by before slamming into the wall and tumbling to the floor, an old book. He rolled his eyes.

“You ungrateful little bastard, after all that I have done to keep you alive, after all that my sister sacrificed to spare you the punishment you deserve, after all that has…” she began heatedly. He cut her off.

“Yes, yes, after all that has happened, how could I be so obtuse, so gullible, so worthless as to think that when the Dark Lord is dead, the war is over… unless you haven't noticed, it is.”

He turned to face her for the first time since her arrival and found the pallid dark-haired woman with the cold grey eyes staring angrily at him. She looked every bit the witch of those Muggle Halloweens.

“The “Wizarding world” has been celebrating for weeks now. The Ministry of Magic has announced a holiday on the day your “Dark Lord” was killed by Potter, their hero. Potter himself has gone into hiding with that Mudblood someone failed to kill in the graveyard when they got Weasel. Doesn't it look to the rest of you like it's over, you lost, time to go home or run away before they kill you? There are Auror patrols every day now and the curfew is still up, but that means nothing because a few have already begun breaking it. What is the point of a meeting to discuss a new strategy when we know that tomorrow more of you are going to be captured and posted to Azkaban? They've already got Snape and everyone knows he was hard to catch, whoever's next, I don't want it to be me.”

The woman was furious.

She stood glaring at him throughout the speech and when he was finished and had calmly returned to the window to look out at the black cover of the night, she said, “I didn't kill that Weasley boy, so the person who “failed to kill” the Mudblood was you!”

He snorted.

“I didn't kill him either, I found him dead and stunned the Mudblood, Potter was coming and looking fierce, I had no plans of dying that morning after surviving the night before.”

“You coward, you should have died then! My sister had just sacrificed herself for you… to spare you…” she began ranting again but he tuned her out.

He did not need to be reminded of that incident.

His father had been deceived, told that Voldemort merely wanted to “see” his son to “hear” his side of the story of a botched ambush. He knew full well that he would be killed if he went, that his explanation of, “I recognised them, they're on our side,” would not save him or Pansy and her family.

His mother must have known this too, for she tried to warn his father, but he did not listen. He said that he would understand, that he would give him another chance and that all would be well. But he had given him another chance before; this was the end of it. In the end his mother formulated the excuse that kept him away while she went to attempt deception on Voldemort.

He killed them both.

So no, he had not forgotten, he would not forget, but he would not die for a cause he had come to realise he did not truly believe in anymore. He would not die for some half-blood madman when he could have been living free now.

Granted, it would be with grudging thanks to Potter, but at least he would not be hiding in a grimy old shack with her, in the seediest part of Knockturn Alley instead of the finery he was used to at Malfoy Manor.

In reality, he bore no animosity to his aunt. She may have been slightly insane due to years at Azkaban prison under the Dementors, but she was still his aunt and he did not really know her. Since he had gotten to know her though, he had come to find that riling her up was a wonderful idea. The fact that she had sworn to her dying sister to protect him, and made the mistake of letting that slip in a rant once, did not help her any either.

Suddenly, her voice came sharply at him, “Were you listening?”

Again, he did not try to lie to her, “No.”

She gave a scream of frustration behind him and he bit back the urge to comment on it. Instead, he waited for her to calm again before asking, and with an exaggerated sigh at that, “So… what did you all discuss at this “meeting” tonight?”

“Oh ho, so you want to know now do you?” she demanded.

“Yes, I want to know and do be quick about it, I have a feeling I might have to refuse and after I've done that I would like to get some tea.”

In the glass of the window he made out a thin, sickly smile on her face, “Oh no, my dear nephew, this is one plan you won't refuse.”

He was almost afraid of what she was to say next.

*****

Harry Potter was angry.

No, he was not angry, angry was too mild. He was… he was… he was absolutely livid, completely irate, positively fuming and if he did not find a way to release it soon something was going to explode.

He could not believe it. He would not believe it, or them. How dare they? How dare they even for the slightest moment think that he could find sitting around the Burrow when there was still a fight going on relaxing? How dare they think that they knew what was best for him anymore? How dare they try to imprison him here when it already hurt him to stay? And how could they dare to patronise him again? He had had enough of that at school under Dumbledore.

All he had wanted that morning was something to do. They probably would not be hunting Death Eaters for the rest of their lives, and if that was the case, then so be it. Ron's funeral had been a week ago and even though it would pain them, he could not stay at the Burrow “recuperating” anymore.

He was finally seeing what Hermione had already seen; as usual she left him to play catch up.

Waking up in the mornings was hard. For a few fleeting seconds he expected to hear some snappy comment of Ron's or be woken by him yawning or just hear him snoring nearby. Then reality would set in and the fact that he would never hear those things again would hit him and off he would go for breakfast.

Bill and Fleur had their own home and Bill would be gone off to work, but Fleur, who was heavily pregnant, would be there. Charlie was helping the Order and therefore not there. Fred and George would be at their shop, rarely stopping by the house anymore in fact. Ginny was finally graduated from Hogwarts and therefore home, but Harry was not in any mood, form or fashion, prepared to restart any relationship with her. Hermione would be awake, but she did not go down to breakfast until she saw him emerge from the bedroom, as if to make sure that he was still there. And Mrs Weasley would be down there making breakfast for them as enthusiastically as she could manage.

Sitting there with Fleur, Ginny, Hermione and Mrs Weasley, he often sarcastically thought of them as one big, happy Weasley family. The perfect little family, they were, full of warm breakfast, smiles, hugs and love, and missing three members in the worst way.

And the rest of the day would be spent this way too.

After breakfast they often went their separate ways, but never away from the Burrow unless it was important because it was too dangerous for Harry or Hermione.

Though he was worried for Mrs Weasley, for she seemed to be throwing herself into making him happy and treating so very well, he did not care what she or Fleur did after breakfast, lunch or dinner.

He would spend that time with Hermione, deciding now that they would wander off together, while she read and he played Wizard's chess with Ginny; or just outside in the grass where he would have a few uncomfortable conversations with Ginny, attempting to regain some normalcy, and Hermione wrote a letter to her worried parents assuring them that she was safe but could not come home for their safety; or just sitting on the floor of Ron's room, with Hermione's head in his lap while she slept and he stared out of the window bored out of his mind. All wandering was now confined to his head.

This had to stop.

During those times he had had enough time to think about their recurrent question. It had extended to the point of invading his dreams, filling them with claustrophobia as he was locked in a small room and hundreds of voices demanded an answer to the same question. He had never in his wildest dreams thought that staying at the Burrow would ever feel like this. For now it felt like someone had made a mistake somewhere and that he should be dead and mourned and Ron here living the life he was supposed to.

So it was why he had finally gone down to breakfast that morning before the others and managed to catch Mrs Weasley having a discussion with Charlie, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks and Mad Eye Moody.

Tonks had seen him first, and gave her characteristic greeting, “Wotcher Harry!”

She was smiling as bright as ever, possibly happy to be “engaged” to Lupin as it was, and her hair this morning was a brilliant green accentuated by the light in the window behind her, the kind he had last seen in the jello Dudley so loved. Of course, Dudley had also loved everything that was edible, and he doubted that she was… well, except to Lupin.

He forced that image out of his head and cursed his imagination.

Lupin and Mad Eye looked up after that with Mrs Weasley and Charlie.

He replied quietly, “Hi.”

Tonks failed to notice the rest of the room had yet to respond to this, and continued, “What're you doing up this early?”

“Nothing, actually, I wanted to talk to all of you,” he said, deciding that pointless small talk was unnecessary at the moment.

Finally, someone else spoke, this time Lupin. “Oh, what did you want to talk about?”

Harry stepped into the kitchen to find that his one-time Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had a bit more colour than usual. The war effort seemed to be going better than usual, or maybe it was his relationship with Tonks that was doing him some good, but there were still a lot of grey hairs invading his dark brown. Mad-Eye Moody looked as, well, mad as ever, and Charlie and Mrs Weasley were rather silent. Perfect, a captive audience, and they seemed to have been expecting this conversation. It grated on his nerves.

“Well you see, I've been thinking about going back out there to help you,” he began and was pleased to find that his voice was steady and stating rather than requesting.

“Bellatrix and Draco are still free, there are other less dangerous Death Eaters and their helpers running about too, and I want to help you stop them. Hermione needs to see her parents, but it's not safe for them. My being here could draw trouble here if anyone ever found out, and I can't sit around waiting for them to either. I want to help the Order again.”

For a full five minutes after he finished speaking the room was silent. Even though they seemed to be taking the time to think this over amongst themselves, it was not good. When Lupin cleared his throat eventually, and began in careful speech, he knew that they were refusing him.

“Harry… Harry, you're eighteen years old, barely nineteen, and you've been through more than any of us could imagine since you were a year old. And despite this, you are a good person, you saved us all and we are grateful. But we believe that the time has come that you just, lived. You are living now, we know this, but we want you to live, play Quidditch, see your friends, go to a party if you want, your fight has ended, we will deal with the rest.”

With a sense of irony he realised that weeks before they had had this same “conversation” while he was at St Mungo's. Then they had used different words but it was the same thing, they still wanted him out of it.

He knew that he should be happy about it, but his anger was building. Immature, hormonal retorts and protests were quickly forming in his mind but he restrained them. There was nothing to say to change their minds, and so he decided not to.

Without a word to any of them, he turned around and went back up the stairs to his room.

He barely heard Mrs Weasley call his name as he went.

And that had been hours ago. He had not even gone down for breakfast.

Now, pacing his room in irritation, becoming increasingly incensed as the moments passed, he sorted through a flurry of thoughts in his head for something decidedly childish to do in reply. If they were going to treat him like a child, he would just plainly act like one.

And he made a point of ignoring that little Hermione-voice harshly scolding him for this regression in behaviour. The real Hermione was for some reason sleeping late this morning and therefore not there to do it in person.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. He wondered who it was; he had locked it for a reason after all.

Not bothering to answer, he continued to pace until Ginny's voice came from behind, “Open the door Harry, I want to talk to you.”

He was not in the mood for this now. He walked to the door anyway and pulled it open only a bit, just enough to see her face and demand, “What?”

“Don't give me that tone I…” she began to retort.

“Listen, I don't want to talk right now, I don't have time for this, and frankly I've had enough of talking!” he snapped.

“Well, you're going to talk to me!” she said and pushed past him into the room.

Whatever happened to the shy girl who wouldn't talk or the one who understood him perfectly at Dumbledore's funeral?

He turned on her the moment the door was closed. She was standing there glaring at him, nostrils flaring slightly and red hair almost bristling as she demanded; “Now I don't know what you're up here moping about, but whatever that lot told you this morning is no reason to do it!”

“You're right, you don't know, you never knew a lot of things and what they told me is none of your business now! What they told me gives me the right to be up here, and for that matter, I was not moping!” He delivered the last bit through clenched teeth and glowering at her.

She did not move, she never did back down from arguing with him. Instead she shot heatedly, “Then tell me what it is! Maybe I can help, all we want to do is help you!”

He laughed.

“You can't help me!” he shot back, “Whatever use you think you could be to me, you're not, so go away Ginny!”

She would not, but came at him from a different angle now, “You're not the only one who misses him you know, he was my brother!”

“This has nothing to do with Ron!” he replied, not even believing that she had gone there, “Just leave it alone Ginny, go away!”

Finally, she threw off all reasons she could come up with and said, softly now, “Harry… Harry talk to me… why won't you? You've come back and all you're doing is avoiding me. What have I done? What have we done to you that you don't even like being in the same room with me?”

“Don't pretend that you know anything about offering emotional support,” he said dangerously, “you'll just embarrass yourself.”

She looked stunned, but he did not stick around for the rant that was surely coming, he turned his back to her and then Disapparated.

When Harry finally reappeared at the Burrow it was late in the afternoon.

He had not really intended on leaving it altogether but somehow or the other he had Apparated to Hogsmeade. Their beloved, now slightly vacant, misted over, Auror-patrolled Hogsmeade with Hogwarts castle on the hill overlooking them. And that meant that it was his first time out of the Burrow in days which gave him the opportunity to stretch his legs in long forgotten surroundings while he thought.

And that meant that he came across his familiar haunts, like The Three Broomsticks, Hermione's beloved Scrivenshaft's, Zonko's Joke Shop, which was still closed but the twins were thinking about buying, Madam Puddifoot's, the site of his disastrous first date with Cho, the Shrieking Shack, and Honeyduke's.

And somehow or the other, that led him to The Hog's Head.

That trip to The Hog's Head had not taken long; it was the last place he had visited. He had not intended on going in, better judgement reminded him that he would be seen, identified and then the next day the Daily Prophet or some other rag would be running the headline, “Harry Potter Down's `Em at The Hog's Head!” complete with a manufactured photograph of him in a drunken stupor. But he ignored it and went away.

Moments later he was out again with three bottles of firewhiskey stored away in his jeans pocket, as he had not come with robes and Disapparated to the Burrow.

The very minute he Apparated into the front yard, he was assaulted by a near hysterical Hermione who babbled with frightened, tear filled eyes, “Harry! Where were you? I woke up and you weren't here! Ginny said that you argued with her and then you left. Why did you do that? It's not safe Harry, isn't that the reason I can't go home, how could you forget that?”

She was both angry and relieved and all he could do was smile at her.

After a few minutes of him doing it too, Hermione stopped her ramblings, which had extended to checking him for any spell damage, when she felt the bottles in his pocket and drew them out with a shocked expression on her face.

She stared at the bottle and then at him, and back at forth for a while before asking, “H-Harry, is this… is this firewhiskey?”

“Well, actually, it is. I went to Hogsmeade you see, and after walking about a bit, seeing all the old places- it was a bit deserted- I went to the Hog's Head and got us some,” he explained, still with the smile on his face.

She was not amused.

“Harry… the Hog's Head… you could have been seen, don't you remember Fifth Year?” she began to protest.

That cut the smile from his face.

“Yes I remember Fifth Year,” he told her quietly and she blanched a bit, “but I don't care, it's not like if I can leave the Burrow now is it?”

She was now completely confused.

In the fading light of the sun, she furrowed her brow and looked up at him for explanation while the light played glints of honey-gold in her eyes.

Choosing not to though, Harry simply took her arm and led her away from the house, ignoring Ginny looking at him from the doorway, and round the back to the broom shed Professor Dumbledore had Apparated him into before Sixth Year.

He shook his head a bit, trying vainly to push those thoughts away; he did not want to remember that either.

With the door closed behind them in cobweb-filled shed (another thought of Ron crossed his mind) he turned to her and said, “How large do you think the glasses should be?”

“What?” asked Hermione, now even more, if it were possible, perplexed.

Disregarding her reply, he drew his wand and cast “Engorgio!” on the interior of the shed and the insides magically expanded for them. He then conjured a blanket for them to sit on, two medium sized glasses for their drinks and then enlarged the bottles and set them down. Looking around a bit to ensure that everything was right, he sat down on the blanket and then turned up to her with a smile and patted a space beside him for her to sit.

She just stared at him shocked.

It did not last long though, for she soon sputtered, “W-what? I-if you t-think that I… that I am… that I would… you're insane!”

He reached up and pulled her down unto the blanket and thrust a glass into her hand.

“No, just tired.”

He said this with more weariness in his voice than he had intended and chose to distract himself from it by pouring them both some of the warm alcohol. He could feel her eyes on him all the while.

“Of what?” she asked meekly, he knew she would.

“Of trying to answer your question,” he told her simply.

She was confused again for only a moment before realisation hit her and she began to protest, “But Harry I never meant that…”

“No, just let it go… cheers!” he told her and raised the glass in salute before bringing it to his lips and swallowing some.

He instantly sputtered it out.

“Ah… too warm,” he said, eyes watering while his throat burned, and then chilled it before trying it again.

Hermione silently stared at him a while before drawing her own wand, chilling her glass and then drinking it too.

*****

This was a bad idea. This was a very bad idea.

Even though first time drinkers, they had already consumed the first bottle and were into the second, laughing foolishly at nothing and with the beginnings of slurred speech, having the time of their lives.

And then it happened.

It was just an accident really. Hermione had suddenly jumped unto him to give him a peck on the cheek for some nonsense he had said, he was not really sure, but he had moved his head (and how cliché was that) and it ended on his lips.

She was startled by this, not yet drunk enough not to blush, but his reaction probably startled her even more.

Instead of pulling away in horror, as she had no doubt been planning to do, Harry pulled her closer and kissed her back. And this was no accident.

And then suddenly she must have forgotten the embarrassment because she was kissing him again. And this time it was filled with all the emotions pent up in her. And they flowed ever so easily to him when he opened his mouth and deepened the kiss.

Soon she was straddling him and his hands were clawing at her back and her collar, uncomfortably pulling her shirt up in the front to her throat while her hands found their way into his hair. When she gasped at one point, almost being choked, he lifted her up against him and laid them both down unto the blanket and without once breaking the kiss.

Now that they were lying down though, he found that he did not like the way their clothes seemed restrictive and he knew that this was a bad idea.

But he could not stop himself.

The sound of her ragged breathing, the slightly saline taste of her skin, her hands now climbing his chest under his shirt, the moan she gave when he reached her neck… was undoing him slowly. It would soon take all his strength to stop this from going further.

Into the fading light of dusk, something had gone wrong. They forgot that they had been “just friends” for seven years now. They forgot that they had just lost their best friend no more than four weeks before. Or maybe they had not forgotten and were trying to forget. They forgot that they were at his house, with his family and he was not there with them.

Not that they would have wanted him here, now, with them while they were… well, doing whatever it is that this was.

Hadn't they just been talking about something? If he recalled correctly, hadn't it involved what she wanted? She had said something about “Wanting nothing and having everything she already needed?” And what did he say? How had they gotten to this point where she had pre-empted the clothes idea and was pulling at his jumper. Oh gods this had to stop, no matter how much he wanted to, this had to stop.

Thankfully though, something else stopped them for him.

It was soft at first, as if from far away, the popping sound of Apparition as someone unknown arrived at the Burrow. It was not enough to entirely tear his mind away from the fact that she was not stopping him from almost ripping away the buttons of her shirt though. But the louder, closer, following “pops” did.

He drew away from her neck and looked up, squinting in the dim light of the shed as she had at some point removed his glasses, and told her, “Shh!” when she looked up at him puzzled.

A few more had Apparated in then and he was very sure that they were not Weasleys or Order members either. Those voices sounded… sinister.

He was quickly sober.

Rising off the floor and lifting her with him, he found his wand and she handed him his glasses. She came into focus looking frightened, but mussed and with swollen lips. Strangely, he was rather pleased at this, but the sound of a definitely unfamiliar voice sharply hissing without, “They're all inside, move quickly but quietly, remember she wants Potter!”

He moved at once, drawing Hermione behind him and walked to the door, taking care to avoid the bottles and glasses at their feet. He listened for the sound of them, making sure that they were gone, before he carefully opened the door and peered out at the Burrow.

The sight that greeted him was of a group of Death Eaters, of no more than twelve, all in masks and black robes, marching towards the house. The lights were still off within; someone must have seen them for he seriously doubted the women would really be sitting in the dark. As if to confirm this, what was surely the ghoul in the attic began to raise an unholy din.

The element of surprise, for them at least, was lost.

Some of the group stopped, one ripped off his mask and Hermione took in a breath behind him. In the front was none other than one Draco Malfoy.

He would recognise that white blond-haired wanker anywhere.

He rushed out of the shed behind them, not really thinking about it, and shouted “STUPEFY!” and dropped him first.

When Draco fell the others split up.

Some headed to the house where Ginny had appeared in a window and was now rushing back into the darkness, while the rest turned on him and Hermione ready to fight. Harry was more than happy to engage them.

Two came at him at once while the others took off after Hermione who took off towards the orchard round the back of the house. One of them suddenly Disapparated before her, but this was something that had happened once too many times in the war to faze her much. She almost immediately stunned him.

The ones on Harry immediately attempted the Killing Curse but he dodged them and said, and rather haughtily so that he scared himself, “Don't you learn, your master tried that once and look what happened to him!” before casting, “Petrificus Totalus!” on the first and stunning the other.

Vaguely, he was aware of a patronus rushing out of the house before a scream that sounded rather much like one he had heard somewhere echoed into the darkening evening. And today the sunset was anything but bright, it was simply blue.

Hermione suddenly called, “Fleur!” and he knew where he had heard that scream. It was at the Triwizard Tournament in Fourth Year just as Viktor Krum, under the Imperius Curse, stunned her. It was worse now to know that they had stunned her and she was pregnant…

Hermione raced on to the house and he attempted to give her cover.

Then someone shouted a curse that he knew only too well. It was not an Unforgivable, but to him it just as bad, “Sectusempra!”

A truly, blood-curdling scream came from the house and he forgot all about the Death Eaters he had been fighting with as he raced after Hermione.

He could hear the remnants of the battle that ensued as he approached, and cursed himself for not Apparating in to warn them. By the time he got there though, Hermione was screaming too, and he begged every deity known to man that it not be Fleur they had attacked. He shook like a leaf in the wind as he uttered “Lumos” and his wand lit up.

Fleur was on the floor in the kitchen, looking slightly like a beached whale, eyes shut but thankfully with not a trace of blood in sight. Mrs Weasley was nearby, and apparently had been trying to protect her daughter-in-law and unborn grandchild when she had been attacked too. But Ginny… pretty little Ginny, with her flaming red hair and bright brown eyes, lay in the middle of the living room.

There was blood everywhere, soaking through her clothes and into the carpet beneath her, mixing into her hair and coming out of her mouth. She was bleeding from many deep cuts in her arms, legs and one at her throat, almost as if she had been locked in an Iron Maiden and then suddenly set free.

The gurgling sounds she made and the blood that still flowed meant that she was still alive, but if they did not help her soon, she would die. But there were still Death Eaters round the house and he had no real hope of fighting them off alone no matter that he had stopped Voldemort. The longer he stayed here too; he ran the risk of drawing more of them.

Acting quickly, he did the only thing that came to mind. He cast a freezing charm over her body, which cooled her blood and slowed the flow. Then he shot off his patronus, wondering how he managed to find a happy memory then, along with a flurry of red sparks, and then snatched Hermione, who was now crying hysterically, trying to help Ginny, and Disapparated.

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A/N: Here cometh another chapter before the week begins and I'm back to busy school. I am trying to get updates in as fast as possible but alas, life for a lazy, first year university student is no fun.

This could be more filler, but it shouldn't be, enjoy anyway… and do review too. Thanks.

Disclaimer: *too exhausted from laughing to care*

*****

Defeated

No sooner than had they Apparated into the small thicket near Godric's Hollow, than had Hermione freed herself from Harry's grasp and retched violently onto the cool dark earth.

Harry felt a little sick himself; memories of that day in the bathroom in Sixth Year were swirling in his head, and with the firewhiskey they had drunk, making him dizzy. He held it in though, for he was more concerned with seeing to Hermione, and while at that, finding out why he had come back here.

When last he had been in this same place he had been fighting with Voldemort.

Then it had been alive with the multicoloured spells of a wizard war, the sounds of his footsteps on the undergrowth, his laboured breathing and his heartbeat pounding in his chest, now it was eerily silent. With no moon out, it was blackest night as they stood amidst the slender, towering trees and he raged a minor battle with himself as to whether or not he should light his wand.

He could not even hear the sounds he had heard in those first beautiful moments when he had awoken after the battle. The bird, the cricket, a night wind, all apparently gone as the sun went down and he missed them. It seemed all creatures were made to obey the Ministry curfew.

Hermione, who had now stopped retching, but was sitting there on her haunches and giving what could only be described as a gasping cry, noticed nothing.

She had not seen Draco that day, but had been there after to argue with him. Ginny had stuck up for him then, and he was pleased, the “monster” fully approving, though he knew full well that he did not deserve it. Now she knew why Hermione had argued; now she knew why he did not deserve to be supported.

He could have killed Draco in that bathroom; he would have been sixteen and a coward who had attacked his victim unprovoked in the school bathroom just because he did not like him.

He could only hope that she was not dead now.

Finally, Hermione's crying slowed and she asked, “W-what… what was that… what was that spell?”

He dropped to the earth beside her, immediately capturing the acrid smell of her alcohol-laced regurgitation, and cast, “Scourgify!” over her and the ground. She mumbled her gratitude and he let her rest her head on his chest and sat down so that she was almost curled up in his lap before replying, “Remember in Sixth Year… that spell… the one I used on Draco?”

She knew it. She knew it the moment she had seen it, and he could feel it when she simply closed her eyes instead of pressing further.

He continued anyway, “That was it, that was Sectusempra… but I think they modified it or something… she was cut all over… Draco had only one slash… but, oh gods… Hermione… what did they do to her, how did they find us?”

“We have to go back…” she began now, and tried to rise off him but he shook his head.

“It's not safe, me being there with them… I told Lupin that this morning… and now… we can't go back… you got your wish.” He said the last bit without a trace of malice and she took none from it.

“Harry… we have to, Mrs Weasley and Ginny and Fleur, they're hurt… they could be…” she began to protest.

“No, if we go back they could be hurt even more; we'll wait a while, probably until sunrise… Hermione, Malfoy was there…” he told her.

As he said it though, his voice became unsteady. The fear he felt was overtly evident now. If Malfoy had been there, Bellatrix had to have known and would not have been far behind. Hadn't one of them said “Remember she wants Potter”?

He was completely unafraid to shield the fear in his voice though. It was something he and Ron had learned against in the war, if you were scared, it was best to tell the truth than try to hide it when you felt it anyway. Hermione always gripped one of them if she was afraid and then eventually she had even stopped doing that. But tonight, for some reason, she held on as tightly as she could when she heard him speak. The unspoken question understood, “Hadn't we ended this war?”

Harry was quite sure that he did. He, Ron and Hermione had found and destroyed the Horcruxes, save the diary and the ring, and he had faced Voldemort in this wood and saw the abject look on his face when he realised his greatest fear.

He would die.

And he did die and Harry lived.

One hand took the life of the other so that he would survive, but no part of the prophecy mentioned for how long. Those Death Eaters at the Burrow had not cared that he had killed the Dark Lord. That he had had to suffer through the deaths of countless friends including one he considered his only family. That he just wanted some peace, escape, freedom to be an ordinary eighteen year old young man.

No.

“Don't look back, don't come back, you've got to stop him!”

“Don't just stand there looking like an idiot, he's coming here, now!”

“We'll be right here waiting for you when you get back!”

“Run Harry, now!”

“You won't wake him… he won't wake… he's gone… he won't wake…”

He sank his face into Hermione's hair to escape the thought, what had he done to them?

A soft wind blew upon them in the dark of the thicket, encircling them in the pungent smell of bark, and suddenly Hermione pulled away from him and asked, “H-Harry… where is this place?”

She had finally noticed their surroundings.

He drew his wand and lit it, “Lumos.” Then pointed it around them and said, “The forest… where Voldemort died.”

She was on her feet in an instant and lit her own wand to look around her. Her eyes were wide with fear and he found now that she was shaking and it had nothing to do with cold.

“Harry… Harry I want to leave here… let's get out of here now… please, I want to get out of here now!” she managed in shaking breaths.

He stood with her now, “Hermione? Hermione what's wrong, are you okay? You're shaking again… Hermione, talk to me…”

“Why are we here Harry? Take me back, let me go back to the Burrow, please, I don't want to be here… anywhere but here, please Harry! Harry, don't let me stay here! Not here!” she continued as if he had never spoken.

She looked decidedly ashen, and near faint so that he walked to her and gripped her arms.

Almost immediately, as if his touch revolted her, she began to struggle in his arms and scream. Her terror filled the void of silence and made him very aware of the fact that they were alone out here. It was well after curfew at sundown and the only ones who would be out were Aurors and Death Eaters. Someone was going to hear them…

However, Hermione's reaction was troubling. He had seen her panic countless times before, something she eventually lost as time went by, but now… This, whatever it was, as she clawed at his arms, kicked at his feet while pulling her body away from him and screamed and cried and begged to be set free… this was… almost against her nature…

He had to calm her down, silence her somehow. If he didn't… he didn't even want to think about what would happen. He did not at all fancy seeing Hermione covered in those cuts.

He did the only thing he could, he drew her into his arms, tightly, forcing her against him so that her face was pressed into his chest, and hoped that she could breathe.

“Come on Hermione, calm down, shh Hermione… come on… be quiet, please be quiet… they're going to hear us… Hermione…”

He begged her to be quiet, willed her to be silent, and wondered if she would ever forgive him if he stunned her.

The Order was probably at the Burrow attending to the women now, gasping in horror at the sight of Ginny in the living room… No one would be looking for them, they would be too busy, and they could not possibly defend themselves against a full assault by Death Eaters.

And then Hermione became still and limp in his arms.

He released her in horror, wondering for a few nightmarish seconds that he had smothered her. He nearly dropped her in his panic but when he caught her he felt her heartbeat, and drawing her up again brought her breath to his neck. It tickled, much like it had earlier that afternoon in the broom shed in fact, but there was no time to think about that now…

In one smooth movement, he slipped a hand under her legs and lifted her up, taking care to pocket her wand and Disapparated again.

When they appeared once more they were out of the thicket and into a grimy old, run down street.

He did not want to bring her here, back to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, but this was the only place he could think of where she would not be heard if she screamed. It was safe from Death Eaters, prying eyes and possibly, whatever it was that haunted her in the woods. And, it would make the Order's job of locating them much easier.

He had no Put-Outer, so he hoped the darkness would cover them as he walked nervously along to it, every now and then pausing to hear Hermione breathe. But as before, no one looked out their windows into the dimly lit streets. Music played, voices were heard and life went on as it had before and would after.

Why had he not listened to her? She had told him before that she did not want to stay at the Burrow. He had protested then, with some feeble excuse about Mrs Weasley and the later added “for your own safety”, knowing that it was just her grief speaking.

And then he was such a hypocrite too.

He knew that he did not want to stay there and instead of saying something, anything, he had simply remained. He allowed them to confine him to the house when he could have left before. He allowed them to make decisions and acted like a child. And now he had brought their deaths to them.

How could he have forgotten that he would never be safe?

He was the Chosen One, the Chosen One to defeat Voldemort, the Chosen One to be admired, adored and then killed by the vengeful supporters of his victim.

No, Voldemort was no victim, but he was still a murderer.

As if to protest this, Hermione groaned in his arms and began to stir. He whispered quickly, “We're okay now Hermione, keep your eyes closed, we're almost there.”

She did not move again.

He went to the lawn space between numbers eleven and thirteen and concentrated on the address of the Unplottable headquarters. Slowly, it came into view as many times before, forcing itself up between the other two as if it were always there.

He walked up the steps with Hermione in his arms, tapped on the doorknob and watched it come open before him.

But then why wouldn't it? It was his house after all.

No sooner than had he entered, and captured the musty smell of decay that seemed to naturally permeate this grim old place, Hermione awoke.

She simply slipped into a standing position, though still leaning heavily on him and murmured, “H-Harry… where… where did you take us?”

“Shh, come on, you need to sleep, you're very tired,” he told her.

He refused to remind her of the horrors she had just witnessed or the breakdown in the woods, or even, for he was quite sure now that he did not want to think about it anymore either, what had happened in the broom shed.

It was a mistake, a horrible one, which though it spared them, had somehow broken some sacred covenant of friendship. She would never forgive him for reminding her of that.

She did not protest as he led her along the hall with the threadbare carpet, up the stairs past the house elf heads and into the bedroom she had last shared with Ginny in Fifth Year. He laid her down on the bed, hoping that they had cleaned it recently, and then proceeded to shut all the windows and draw the curtains.

She had to sleep this off, in the morning it would be better, the world always looked better after a night's sleep.

He remained in the room then, for as long as it would take to hear her breathing even and know that she was asleep before stepping out into the hall, locking the door and heading out.

He knew he was leaving her alone, she hated that, but he had to know what was going on back at the Burrow. He had to make sure that once again he was not responsible for the death of those who cared about him. He could not go through that again.

As he stepped out of the house, which was as apparently as vacant as he had earlier thought it, a strange thought came to him.

Just before Disapparating, he was almost overwhelmed at the memory of slightly saline skin, and soft, willing, anxious kisses, and a heartbeat that seemed to fall in step with his own. And he wanted more.

*****

The Burrow was still darkened when Harry Apparated into the front yard, but it was not completely deserted. There were black-robed Aurors combing almost every square inch of the grounds of what had once been the reasonably safe Weasley family home. The Death Eaters stunned in the fight were nowhere to be seen either, all possibly on their way to interrogation, trial and then Azkaban prison. It was a pity that he did not get the chance to personally question Malfoy, he had a few things he wanted to “speak” to him about.

Overall, the place looked as it had before the attack, serene, homely and the broom shed was now closed. He hoped against hope that it was not anyone who knew them personally that had shut the door. He would not have been able to withstand the embarrassment.

From within he could just make out the sound of Mrs Weasley demanding frantically, “Harry? Where's Harry? Hermione… she was with him. Where are they, what are you keeping from me… where are they?”

She sounded more terrified and undone than he had ever heard her before. He could not bring himself to allow her to suffer through the thoughts that he himself had been thinking since he left the Burrow. Ignoring the stares of the few Aurors who now took notice of him amongst them, he walked to the house.

Mrs Weasley was seated at the kitchen table looking decidedly worst for wear, being comforted by Lupin and Charlie. Fleur, Bill and Ginny were nowhere to be seen, though he doubted they would be. Especially Ginny… so much blood… all those cuts…

As he stepped into the house she looked up and with a shriek, flew out of her seat and enveloped him in a bone-crushing embrace.

“Oh Harry! Where were you? Are you okay? Remus and the others came and could not find you! Where did you go? Where is Hermione? Don't tell me she was hurt too, where were you two before? Ginny said that… Ginny…” and she could not finish.

She felt a lot like someone who had lost a dramatic amount of weight in a short period of time, almost a skin hanging off of bone in his arms and her hair was wild. In that respect her hug did not really hold the force of those before but the emotions were unchanged. She began to cry so heavily that she had to be seated by Lupin and Charlie again as Lupin explained, “We've sent Ginny and Fleur to St Mungo's, but Fleur looks fine. Can you tell me what they attacked Ginny with? How did this happen? And where is Hermione?”

In contrast to her and from a week before, Lupin looked a bit more ill than he should have weeks from the full moon. But then today's attack would have wreaked havoc on anyone's nerves. Charlie Weasley too, looked weary, but not too much, and he was more preoccupied with his mother's condition at the moment to care that his shirt was inside out.

Harry, however, was more preoccupied with finding out about Ginny and replied, “I left her at headquarters, she wouldn't calm down, I left her asleep… is Ginny going to be alright?”

Lupin looked down at Mrs Weasley and after leaving her to the care of Charlie, took Harry aside and said, “We don't know, she lost a lot of blood but she's stable, do you know what they used on her?”

“It was Sectusempra, a spell from the Half-blood Prince, also known as Professor Severus Snape,” he spat the name bitterly, “but they must have changed it, altered it, it usually caused one cut but there were so many… I saw it used once… on my father in Snape's pensieve.” He took care to exclude mention that he had used it once as well.

“Yes, I remember that… well hopefully they can help her… what about you, are you alright?” Lupin asked this while staring carefully at Harry; it did not fail to make him nervous.

“I will be… it's Ginny and Hermione I'm worried about… the Weasleys, they don't deserve this, I'm only bringing trouble to them here…” he told him.

“No Harry, they would have come after them all the same, they are your friends, your family, you once told me, and in these times… Voldemort may be gone but his supporters are not, they are like the wounded old animal, weakened in death but nevertheless fiercely defensive… but I fear the Burrow may no longer be inhabitable.”

As Lupin said this, Mrs Weasley raised her head sharply, “Absolutely not, this is my and Arthur's home, I'm not leaving it!”

Lupin sighed wearily and looked to Charlie for support. Charlie gave a look that said plainly that persuasion would be useless and he turned back to Harry.

“Am I to assume though, that Hermione will be leaving us now?” he asked.

It was an unusual question; Harry had not told anyone of the conversation that he and Hermione had had that afternoon in Ron's room.

He looked at him puzzled, wondering how he could have known.

Lupin too, appeared confused now, “Didn't she tell you? Her trunk's packed upstairs…” and then he stopped.

Harry's eyes had widened in surprise and then alarm. He looked back to Mrs Weasley for explanation, but she was still crying and could offer none. When did that happen?

“What…?” he began to ask and then stopped as something in his head clicked.

Hermione, who was still having trouble sleeping, was usually up in the mornings before he was, not counting that one after the funeral when he found her downstairs. She almost never slept late anyway, and this morning, for some reason she had. But she had not been sleeping at all had she? No, she had been packing her things, and Ginny, who was her roommate here, had not even bothered to tell him.

Without another word he ran up the stairs, past Tonks who was now coming down, (“Whoa, Harry!”) and to the room Ginny and Hermione had shared. As he burst into the room, the light from the now-lit hallway flowed past him into it and unto a small trunk in the centre of the floor. Everywhere in the room were Ginny's clothes, books and other stuff, but everything, every trace of Hermione was gone, and no doubt secured in that trunk.

She had been planning to leave him, after all she had promised, they had talked about, that afternoon, she was leaving him. That half-crumpled sheet of parchment on her trunk now, no doubt addressed to only one person…

Without bothering to go back down to tell them that he was leaving, Harry Disapparated from the bedroom, heading back to Grimmauld Place.

He had to make sure that she was still there for he was now struck with the irrational fear that Hermione had not been sleeping when he left her. As a matter of fact, she probably waited no longer than it took for the door to close before she was gone again. And she could have done it too; he had left her wand behind…

When he Apparated unto the lawn at last before headquarters, he found that the house could not appear fast enough.

He did not care if any of the Muggles round saw or heard a thing. He did not care that it was past curfew and twice already he had broken it. All he cared was that he found Hermione and fast.

Finally the house came up before him and raced up the steps, impatiently tapped the doorknob and then raced in and up the stairs. He did not call her, for some reason a part of him was shouting in his ear, she's not here… when you ran in she would have made a sound… she's not here…

He forced it into silence as he came to the door, nearly shouted, “Alohomora!” at it and watched it swing in before him.

The moment it did though, his heart sank.

She was not there.

He stood before the door to the unlit room staring blankly at the empty bed slightly dazed. A million thoughts rushed through his head at once, the strongest being that he had merely taken the wrong door and she was in another room or that she had gone to the bathroom. But they were to no avail.

No matter how he would try to rationalise this, convince his racing mind, it always remained that she was gone. She was definitely gone, and possibly not coming back.

In that moment, for the first time all day, or was it since Ron's death, he felt defeated.

If he had lost to Voldemort he wondered if this was how it would feel. If that hollow, constricted feeling in his chest, bleak thoughts filling his head and a sudden, overwhelming weakness was it. If this was simply, defeat.

And he knew he had felt it before too. He had known it too many times when he should not have, and now, for some reason, it felt worse. No, it was worse; he had lost his best friends.

He sank down then onto the floor in the corridor, legs beneath him, and arms limply at his sides, staring into the room. First Ron had gone away, and now it seemed, Hermione too…

-->

A/N: I'm back and I've got a new chapter. It's time we got down to some intrigue here; it isn't labelled a mystery for fun. It's longer than the others, but just by a little bit. I apologise in advance for my attempt at the French accented English too.

Nothing more to say other than it's really nice when you review at the end and thank you so very much to everyone who has and are still with me now. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: *whiny child voice* Aw, do I have to? Fine, I don't own anything other than the plot.

Ghosts

The snowy white owl was seated at her perch in the study when Harry finally came in. It was late in the evening, the as yet to be lifted curfew was still up and about to set in and he had had a long day. But despite the fact that he had not seen his familiar in a while, her appearance did not startle him. Without looking her way he knew where she had come from, and he was not ready to deal with that just yet.

Casting a smile instead, he greeted warmly, “Good evening Hedwig, back from a visit?”

The indignant hoot he received in response told that she was not amused, but he simply walked on past her into his bedroom of the house.

He did not fail to notice though, that the magnificent creature, his first real birthday present and “pet”, looked a bit weary. Her feathers were slightly ruffled, her large amber eyes drooped, and the weight of the package tied to her legs was no doubt beginning to get to her. She was clearly not that young anymore.

Of course, flying all the way from France had the tendency to do that to you too.

He could not be too cruel; he pitied her, as she was sometimes his only companion, but not too much. He had not sent her to France. She was a traitor and she would be treated as such.

He emerged from the bedroom some moments after, on his way to the bathroom now, and made a show of passing before her. She hooted at him twice and nudged at her feet and the package. He stubbornly pretended not to notice.

Halfway through his shower he heard her hooting again and near shouted into the living room, “I'm coming!”

She hooted twice again as before and this time he heard her flap her wings.

If he was not quick about his “coming” she would go to him and though she loved him dearly, in her current condition he was not above being pecked.

It took him less than five minutes then, to finish his shower, throw on a bathrobe, walk into study again and free her of her burden with an owl treat. She offered him a look of greatest disdain in return before flying off into the dusk, bathed in the soft rose and lavender colours of sunset.

Left alone to the package now, Harry walked into the kitchen and set it down there before returning to the bedroom to finish his dressing.

Going through those packages always took a substantial amount of time. He guessed it was no real fault of the sender, for them it was surely a family trait. The subject of them all was well known for her inability to limit her quill; she had to have gotten that from somewhere. And no explanation for the actions of one Hermione Jane Granger could be expected to be brief.

Three weeks, two days, fourteen hours and twelve minutes.

That was how long it had been since Hermione abandoned him in panicked flight. It was a wonder no one in the media had discovered this yet.

Add a month and a give or take a few hours and you would have the length of time since Ron Weasley breathed his last breath.

But Ron's mother was not there with him to send bi-weekly packages detailing concerns over the strange behaviour of her son. Ron's mother was not there to ask anxious questions about what happened so she could try to help. Ron's mother, and father, by default, was not there to plead with him to tell her something, anything that would explain why her child had come home late one night, smelling slightly of alcohol and impatient for the family to set off to France. No, she wasn't, but then Ron's mother was no Dr Alice Granger.

Mrs Weasley would have come over to demand the truth.

When Harry received the first package, somehow gotten to him just three days after Hermione left, he was understandably surprised.

He had never had any real form of communication with the Drs Granger before. As a matter of fact, he had often wondered if Hermione had any real communication with them herself. Since their days at Hogwarts she invariably spent more time with him and the Weasleys than her own parents.

But those times were often during the war and he hated to think of the fact that because of him she was away from them.

Well, here she was with them again, and for some reason, they were more worried than when she had not been.

To be perfectly honest, he could not say that it was “for some reason”.

Ron was dead, which a traumatic event for them both. He had been their friend since First Year; he had hurt them both and then bound them together. He was actually the most optimistic one of them throughout, always talking about what they would do after even when it annoyed them. He was just, Ron, and he was dead.

They had to live with this grief, this pain, and then the Death Eaters attacked. It must have been hell for her, in those moments as they fought, to think that this nightmare would never end. She had been planning to leave before this, and according to the wear of that wrinkled note she had been writing in the bedroom, was both unsure of how she would tell him and if she wanted to do it at all. The note was actually unfinished to, cut off undoubtedly by his return, and never finished because of what happened after. And then finally, somehow Hermione had been hurt or scared enough of something after this to flee.

He often found that this was not the normal behaviour of the Hermione Granger he knew.

The one he did was stronger than that, never too scared of a challenge, never afraid to do anything, never really one to run from her feelings. Her emotional range was capable of taking anything.

Or so he thought. So they all thought.

Her mother writing to him now was proof that they were all wrong.

Dr Granger's first package contained a series of letters that had no doubt been written over a period of time. They were actually dated as such and referenced a number of things long past. But there were a few that were clearly recent, and rapidly penned at that.

She must have been recording her daughter's behaviour since the end of the war and when Hermione came home and demanded to go off to France at once, she quickly scripted the rest. Whatever made her send them to him though, or even send them at all, he would never know, but they were always clear on their purpose.

After quickly getting through the formalities- apologies for the surprise and expressed regret over never really speaking to him before- she got down to the details. Something was wrong with Hermione.

For weeks before she came home, she always wrote a letter to them detailing her condition and they were generally, well, light. They were almost the journal entries of a carefree individual who had never seen or heard of the war they had been through.

Her mother was suspicious about this, as was her father too. She had earlier mentioned that “a friend” had died, and since Hermione had not really spoken of many friends, they hoped that it was no one close. Her tone in the letters though, was rather light, even about her being in a Wizard hospital too, and so they did not press for details.

Then somehow, something changed.

That last week, Hermione's letters were filled with what seemed to be constant ramblings about her trouble sleeping, and the “red-haired” man who haunted her dreams and her pain at the thought that she may have to break a promise. She wrote pages upon pages about them too, sometimes in frighteningly vivid detail, and even left in the scratches as she corrected them.

It was a cry for help, and they had to do something.

They tried to reassure her, comfort her, get her to come home even, but as they lacked certain details they were not of much assistance.

And then Hermione came home.

She smelt slightly of alcohol and her clothes were a mess, but she was more than ready for them to head to France despite what looked like terror in her eyes. All inquiries about her sudden appearance were dismissed with rushed answers that were somehow incomplete. She was impatient like they had never seen before, but after not seeing her in so long how could they refuse?

It was then, that with no real protest or answers to appease the questions they were bursting to ask, they made ready and they left.

Once in France though, Hermione's behaviour became, and no doubt still was, even more erratic.

Sometimes she was very excited and smiled and laughed and moved without a care in the world. At other times she would sit at the window looking out into the darkened night and they were sure she was crying. And at other times still, she just lay in bed and slept for hours. She did not read, she did not write, she did not even attempt to go out unless she had to. As a matter of fact, she had so far spoken to only one other person than her immediate family, a neighbour, but still was a hermit of sorts.

With all this in mind, Dr Granger believed that something was wrong and she wanted answers.

Harry had so far steadfastly given her none. If Hermione did not see the need to tell them more than necessary then neither would he.

The packages did not stop coming though, Dr Granger seemed determined to write until she got what she wanted.

If for nothing else, he would have to give her credit for her persistence.

He walked into the kitchen now, as the rising full moon cast an almost eerie light blue glow through the dimly lit house, fully dressed to find something to eat. He tried not to look at the package on the table; he was still not ready to open it yet.

But if he was perfectly honest, he was always anticipating them now. They were a strange sort of comfort.

Without seeing her he could still know where Hermione was and how she was and evaluate his opinion of her actions as the details were supplied. They kept him sane, reminded him that she too had a life and had been suffering in her grief and gave him hope that she would one day come back. He was almost as grateful them as for a meal by Mrs Weasley.

He had then, on more than one occasion, contemplated sending a reply to ensure that Dr Granger constantly sent her packages.

But of course, that was all shot whenever, in bouts of what he took to be insanity, his mind would be flooded with the image of Hermione's breath on his neck, her anxious, greedy kisses, her heartbeat against his chest and her hands in his hair.

At those moments neither Hermione nor her parents knew how close he would come to kidnapping her.

He had even gone so far, on one occasion, as to plot the entire thing out.

In order, he would go to Gringotts and collect as many galleons as he could carry, then set up an illegal portkey, rush off to France, burst down the door of the Granger home there and vanish with Hermione to someplace remote.

But that was nonsense.

And if that were not enough, there were the dreams too.

It was always the same; he would awaken to find her lying beside him, with olive tanned skin kissed by sunlight and a smile on her lips. She would only be dressed in the sheets and the light, her hair and eyes streaked with it too, and always staring at him as if waiting for him to wake. He would always smile back then and ask “Why did you go?”

But that was a fatal question, for then her face would sadden, the light on her would dull and she would vanish.

Left with only the light on the sheets, he would turn away to find Ron standing beside the bed asking, “What took you so long mate?”

That question, though spoken in the dream without malice, always haunted him long after those ghost dreams had ended. If only he had been sooner. If only he had rushed off to them instead of lying around in the grass. If only he had figured out that something was wrong with Hermione before. He could go on asking those questions forever, finding new ways to add to his guilt until it drove him to something drastic.

But there were also other, more important concerns at hand.

Ginny was now lying in a coma at St Mungo's.

The wounds were deep, she had lost a lot of blood and though she was fighting she just was not strong enough yet to win. There was talk of even more therapy to be done after for there were some things even magic could not fix.

Mrs Weasley was down there every day to the point that she almost had her own room. But she alternated between her daughter and Harry too, and especially since his decision to leave the Burrow had been carried out, she had a tendency to show up unannounced at the house.

Fleur was unhurt, and back at home with Bill going through the last weeks of her pregnancy. From all reports, the only things wounded in the attack were her pride and the belief that no human being would actually really attack a heavily pregnant woman. He and the other Weasleys now knew by heart her statement about her attacker, “'E was not a man who attacked me! I am weet child, `ow can you attack a woman weet child?”

As for him, when he thought about it, he had not really been physically hurt in the whole thing so he would be fine too. When he moved out of the Burrow and found himself a place, of all places, in Godric's Hollow, he was even better. The large three bedroom house in the now very quiet village suited him perfectly. Especially since, and ironically at that, a Potter once again had found it a good place to hide.

But Ginny, everyone was worried about Ginny. And the person he held personally responsible for all this, one Draco Malfoy, was yet to confess his sins in that area.

As a matter of fact, it was the same Malfoy who was responsible for his late and fatigued arrival home. Malfoy had stated that he only wanted to speak to him, which clearly proved he was insane, and Harry had been thoroughly interrogated by both Mad Eye Moody and Lupin as to why this was the case.

Well, Moody had more or less really run him over with innumerable revealing charms and his magical eye, the twirling of which still had Harry a bit queasy even now. But with no answer to offer them though, they had finally released him in time to get back before curfew.

Tomorrow he would see Malfoy in person though, and he knew he would get answers, even if he had to pound them out of him.

He had nothing to lose, one friend was dead, the other had abandoned him and he was still forced to live in exile nearly two months since the war's end for his own sanity and safety. Going to Azkaban might actually provide some excitement.

His thoughts cleared like mist at sunrise when he looked down at the package at the table.

Going to Azkaban might bring Hermione back in a hurry.

He scoffed at that thought.

No, she was “happy”, “safe” in France; she probably would not come back until well after his funeral.

He was being cruel and he did not care.

Taking a long swig from the butterbeer he had gotten in the refrigerator (he was a wizard but he still needed some Muggle comforts) and drew the package to him. He might as well get this over with.

*****

A “red-haired” man, that was all the description Dr Granger could provide. A tall, red-haired man in dark robes who had come out of Hermione's nightmares to haunt her while she was awake. As a matter of fact, he scared her so badly that she had had to be sedated, much to her father's displeasure.

All of this was in the package Dr Granger had sent.

Well, there was more to the story of course, but that was the main detail.

The entire story was written, that Hermione had come home that afternoon, after taking a second, rare walk through the small village they were staying in and went to her place at the window. She sat there for hours as she always did, lazily perusing a book, pretending the world around her did not exist, until something caught her eye.

Somewhere in the shadows of the bushes, a “red-haired” man was staring at her.

She knew him at once; she would know him anywhere in fact too, for he was the man who stalked her dreams.

Her father nearly fell over the couch rushing to her whilst her mother shut the windows. Ten minutes would pass before her mother finally realised that they needed to end her hysteria and she forced her to drink two sleeping pills. Her father then led her up to her room and for the rest of the night they took turns watching over her. Never before had they seen her like this.

The whole time this happened though, and even with the curtains drawn, they felt as though watched.

She could not know how reading that letter had disturbed him. It was the only one in the package, so there was nothing to assuage his rising fears that Death Eaters were after Hermione. Nothing to relax his nerves for hours before he finally fell into an agonised rest. Nothing to prevent the increasing rage he felt towards Malfoy or stop the violence he was surely going to inflict.

The coming of dawn did nothing to change this, but at least there was one distraction, today he would get his chance to vent some.

For the first time in two years he would be in the same room with the man who had facilitated their headmaster's death. For the first time in two years he would be staring into the face of that pointy-faced bastard for whom the Killing Curse was too good. And, to put it in its simplest terms, seeing that Hermione had run away and he had nothing to lose, he was going to use it on him anyway.

Well, maybe not, but at least cause enough grievous bodily harm so that he would wish he was dead. And if Remus and Moody were fool enough to let him alone with Malfoy for as long as he wanted and looked the other way to boot, he was not going to be responsible for his actions. As a matter of fact, the cover-up explanation could be that he hanged himself in shame for all the pain he had caused.

At that thought Harry stopped thinking. He was beginning to scare himself.

If Hermione were here she would probably narrow her eyes at him or ask in a worried voice “Have you lost your mind?” or even still just plainly ignore it.

After a while she had actually stopped questioning his morality on certain affairs. In light of Sixth Year, where Malfoy was concerned, whenever he or Ron detailed their “elaborate” plans for his murder (by elaborate really meaning hit him with the Killing Curse at the next opportunity) she simply tuned them out or held whatever protests in.

Somewhere along the way she had really stopped fighting him, and maybe that should have been his first clue. It was probably why she had been so easily able to leave him before.

He stopped that bitter thought right there, he needed to be focused on one thing and one thing only right now. Discovering exactly why the last human being he wanted to see alive only wished to speak to him. What Ron would have said was so much more inviting now too, “It's time we got back at that slimy git!”

He had just Apparated into the front yard of number twelve, the only place considered safe enough to interrogate Malfoy in, and then suddenly found that he was reluctant to go in. For some reason now, after all his musings, and he knew Hermione would roll her eyes at this, he could “see” that he would not like this.

Well maybe not really “see”. It was simply that he and Malfoy were not friends. The only reason he would want to see him was to relay something that would no doubt hurt.

And whatever it was he hoped he would get it out fast; he had a murder to commit and wanted to be quick about it. With all the Death Eaters already on trial, he really didn't want to further set the Ministry back with his own. If all went well, he might even run away to France and save them the trouble. He and Mrs Dr Granger were friends now; they might even take him in as a second son.

He mentally apologised to Mrs Weasley.

It was early in the morning, not yet sunrise as Harry walked up the steps to Headquarters and entered as casually as if he did it all the time. This time there was no need to rush; he was not carrying around a fainted young woman.

As the door closed behind him and the darkness within consumed him, he became once more aware of a never-ending gloom. Grimmauld Place seemed to have more ghosts than ever today or maybe it was just him, walking around trapped in painful memories.

Why couldn't he be haunted by ghosts like the ones at Hogwarts like everybody else?

“We'll be right here waiting for you when you get back!”

“You won't wake him… he won't wake… he's gone… he won't wake…”

“Harry, Harry I want to leave here… let's get out of here now… please, I want to get out of here now!”

“You should have seen her face… the look on her face… Hermione was screaming so much, I had to sedate her… I had to give my daughter drugs to calm her down. What happened last year? Which of your friends died? Who is the “red-haired” man, and tell me, above all Harry Potter, why is he haunting my daughter?”

The sound of Lupin's voice at the end of the corridor drew him out of them though.

“Harry, you've come… good, Moody is bringing Malfoy soon, but I wanted to talk to you a bit,” he said and Harry peered into the deeper darkness to find him.

He nearly fell over when the lights came on and he found that Lupin was actually a few feet away. Recovering quickly though, he asked, “About?”

Lupin stood a few minutes carefully surveying Harry's appearance before replying. Harry did not too much appreciate the attention; he had just grabbed the first things he found in his wardrobe to wear. He was no doubt still sleepy, as per that letter the night before, and he was yet to have breakfast, which at times made him miss the Burrow even more, but he was sure he was mostly presentable.

Lupin ended his examination quickly though, and asked, “Harry… is there anything you want to tell me about the day Malfoy and company attacked the Burrow?”

Harry suddenly felt rather nervous, like a child caught in the act of something terrible by his mother. He managed to conceal what could only be described as a gulp and asked in turn, “Why, is something wrong?”

Now Lupin just stared at him. Harry now knew that he knew that he and Hermione had been in the shed drinking. He did not know anything else; he could not know anything else. Harry tried to remain casual.

“Listen, about what you saw… I mean, I was just bored and tired of you treating me like some child, and then I felt like a prisoner. It was a stupid thing to do but…”

Okay, so much for being calm.

Lupin cut him off. “Listen Harry, I don't care why you did it, sometimes I feel like doing something like this myself, but you can't afford to be so careless. If they had found you drunk they could have killed you both, don't give me that look, I know they didn't warn you about their attack but you should be more careful.”

He stopped and sighed while Harry found himself staring him straight in the eyes, and at the same time, marvelling at the fact that he was doing so.

“I know,” Harry replied. It was all that he had left to say and then asked, “When is Moody bringing Malfoy?”

“Shouldn't be too long… but Harry, have you heard from Hermione, I know that you may not want to speak to her now, but, I only ask because Mrs Weasley is worried. These times, the war is over but it's not safe, especially…” and he allowed his voice to trail off.

Harry knew that he was probably going to add “for the friends of Harry Potter” or something like that but he was not bitter for it. Yet, Harry was also not in the mood to discuss Hermione, who, he now realised, really had not written to him after all this time. The one who had done any writing so far was her mother, and he was not in the mood to share this either.

Instead he asked now, “So, where are we going to hold this interrogation?”

For someone who had just spent the last two years of his life on the run from Aurors, the Order and now Death Eaters too, and spent the last three weeks in a temporary holding cell, Draco Malfoy looked rather well. As a matter of fact, seated across the table from Harry and Lupin in the cavernous kitchen of number twelve, with Moody pacing the room behind them, the former Slytherin looked for the life of him as if he had been seated in Malfoy Manor all along, sipping chilled mead and casually perusing the business section of the Daily Prophet.

Grimmauld Place was still making its strange noises around them. The dank smell of the long vacant kitchen played havoc on their nostrils and Harry strangely found that he missed Kreacher. Mrs Black's painting was still upstairs just waiting on the opportunity to pounce at them from behind her moth eaten curtains. The sole, weak fire they had lit in the fireplace softly burned at the dust covered cobwebs of the chimney. The three men were uneasy and their prisoner was not. It barely seemed to matter to him that he had never been to this house before.

He seemed completely unfazed and unaware of the danger he was in too, for at the moment he was staring at the cover of the Prophet and laughing.

Today's headline ran, and three weeks late at that, “Fallen: Malfoy Heir under Arrest!” and beneath was a wonderful photograph of Draco being dragged to his temporary prison. His usually sleek white blonde hair was falling about his head wildly, his grey eyes were wide and looking suspiciously at his jailors, his robes were dirty and tattered, and Harry had to wonder what on earth was so funny. After all, there was nothing that amusing about being arrested.

Finally, Draco stopped laughing and said, “I reckon Auntie must be so upset, I can just see the look on her face now.”

Lupin and Harry exchanged a look briefly before Harry, trying his best to be civil, for the time being at least, asked, “Why did you want to see me Malfoy? Hoping I would vouch for you not killing Professor Dumbledore?”

That wiped the smirk off of his face.

He became grave, grey eyes stormy, but said calmly, “Don't waste time do you Potter? But no, I don't want you to “vouch” for me, as you called it; I rather think I could help you.”

Lupin leaned forward in his seat, Moody continued to pace and Harry asked, almost stupidly, “Help me? Last time I checked Malfoy, you were not in any position to help yourself, innit?”

Draco brought out his smile again, “Yes, well… minor problem, but as I said before, I can help you… don't you want to know what Auntie and her “friends” are up to… or who killed Weasel?”

Almost at once Harry rose sharply from his seat and made a move to attack Draco. Lupin was on his feet shortly after too, trying his best to restrain him while Moody abruptly halted his pacing to train his wand on Harry.

Draco, yet still, looked completely untroubled by this.

“Listen Potter, I didn't kill Weasel, as much as I would have liked to… when I got there he was just about to die, I did stun the Mudblood though… probably saved her life too… but I didn't kill Weasel.”

He sounded as sincere as a Malfoy would ever be.

“I'd like to believe you Malfoy, but unfortunately I don't have a high tolerance for…”

“What Harry means to say, I'm sure,” suddenly cut in Lupin, “is that we find your claim suspect, for weeks you have told us little, if anything at all and now you're more than willing to help? Does this have anything to do with that article on the fifth page about you “cooperating” with the Ministry? And for that matter, you claim that you saved Hermione from, I'm to assume, apparent murder, what did you see?”

Draco was smiling again, and it was widening by the second as he stared at Harry now glowering down at him and trying to break free of Lupin's grasp.

“No, I'm not afraid of Auntie or those idiots she orders around like her dogs, she can't hurt me. I am cooperating now anyway, at a price of course, I can tell you exactly what they were planning right up until you caught me, and not only that, I could help you find the person who killed Weasel, as I said before.”

He gave them a moment to muse over this before continuing, “I do know that you probably don't want to help me since the attack on the rabbit hutch,” Lupin made a show of relaxing his grip on Harry before finally forcing him to sit, Draco barely registered it, “but it was the only way I could escape. I'm not too fond of running around and hiding all over the place when I could have some peace and quiet. I should thank you for stunning me Potter, it was the best sleep I had in days.”

Harry was not amused, “Do you know that because of you Ginny is in St Mungo's, that because of you she could die?”

“Yes, I heard about that, pity, but what, pray tell, if she's your “companion” as these rags claim, were you doing in the shed with Granger?”

Harry did not have to look to know that his cheeks had reddened. He could feel them burning and the fire was too weak and far away.

Draco ignored this though as he continued, “Anyway, as I was saying before, I needed to leave and this was my only opportunity, I'm tired of running for a cause that died when Scarhead here killed the “Dark Lord”. I can help you find most of them, and in exchange I want your protection…”

“Ha! I thought you weren't afraid of them?” demanded Harry, obvious glee in his eyes.

“I'm not, but not every one of my Auntie's “friends” cares about family sentimentality,” said Draco somewhat bitterly.

Lupin spoke now, as Harry was still revelling in the thought that Draco was running scared, asking, “We already know most of what they're doing… (Draco rolled his eyes) but what about you knowing who killed Mr Weasley?”

Draco looked confused for a moment before finally replying, “Oh yes, that. Well you see I was already on my way out of the graveyard when something caught my eye… Weasel was on the hill with Granger. Granger looked hurt, but Weasel was still walking around, then this man wearing robes like my Aunt's “friends” came up and they talked for a few minutes. Then Weasel went down and he went on to Granger, but I couldn't let him have all the fun, so I stunned her. And when I did it he got upset, but he didn't see me, and instead of killing her anyway he ran off.”

“You would have let him kill her?” asked Lupin, looking a bit surprised, Harry was not.

“Let's not have any pretences, I've never liked her, but no, I wouldn't have, that's my job,” said Draco casually, “but it was the strangest thing. When I first saw him I thought he must have been one of Weasel's family members.”

“Oh, why is that?” Lupin asked, and never once did his eyes leave Draco's face.

“Well that's the thing you see, anyone would think that he was, he had a head of hair like the rest of them, bright red.”

A/N: Rather naughty of me, ending like this, but I couldn't resist.

-->

A/N: Okay, hi there. *fidgets nervously* I, I um… I did something at the end of this chapter, which maybe I should not have… but this is where story is leading me… and henceforth I go with it. And no, do not scroll to the end of the page to find out what it is… read the whole thing.

There's a more detailed note at the end.

Just a hint, remember that JKR said that she was going to do something… and then she kind of… didn't… well… okay read on and you'll find out.

Disclaimer: Just checked with JK Rowling's lawyers, yep, still hers, but she nicely said I could keep the plot.

*****

To Come Home

For a full five minutes after Draco had spoken Harry just sat there gaping at him. Unless he was mistaken, and he was quite sure that he wasn't, Draco had just described the man haunting Hermione's dreams. The man, who, it now became horrifyingly clear, must have followed her to France. The man who had killed Ron in the first place which led to that action…

There was no possibility that he had simply misheard either, for just as he was about to question him, Lupin said, “Red hair?”

Draco nodded, “Just like the rest of them, flying about his head wilder than Granger's.”

“Did you see his face?” asked Harry, breaking his silence.

“No, but his hair suggested that he was one of them. When he did in the Weasel though I realised that he wasn't, and I stunned Granger, he got mad and ran off. I went up the hill, poked Weasel a few times to be sure he was dead, poked Granger for good measure and then went back to my vantage point, I had to see if he was coming back.”

“Did he?” asked Lupin, he was clearly intrigued.

In the background Moody had stopped his pacing and was now staring at them, his magical eye trained directly on Draco as if to assess whether or not he told the truth. He didn't trust him anymore than Harry did, but had agreed to this interrogation nevertheless. He was probably glad that he did now too, he was getting more information without unnecessary force in the space of a half hour than they had gotten in three weeks.

Harry knew now that he would have to tell them about the packages from Dr Granger though. If the Order wanted to talk to Hermione, and after this how could they not, they would have to know about them.

This nightmare was determined not to end.

Draco was speaking again, “No, and I doubt that he would, the sun was coming up, and before you knew it Potter here was coming up the hill. I decided to leave them to their own business and took off, of course, as luck would have it, I ran into Auntie and her “friends” and well, you can guess the rest.”

Harry had found his voice again, “You speak of her “friends”; you forgot that you're one of them already?”

Draco looked slightly offended, “I am not one of them, I used to be, and nearly being killed by a raving lunatic because you didn't do exactly what he wanted has a tendency to open your eyes.”

Harry scoffed, “You still haven't given me a great reason for why we should protect you, and all you've got so far is a reason for me to come out of retirement.”

“Well I was getting to that you see,” said Draco, “the plans that I can tell you, even if they change them, still have one main goal. Kill you, exact revenge on the Ministry and take over the Wizarding world, nothing's really changed. If you help me, I can help you; personally I'm sick of curfew, how about you?”

As he spoke he still appeared absolutely calm but Harry was sure that he had seen the first flickers of… something… in his eyes.

He knew they didn't have to help him; he had given them too much already as it was. The three of them were well capable of taking the information and then turning him loose to his dear “Auntie”. Harry would personally hand him to her too if she wasn't so determined to kill him as well.

As Draco had just said, nothing had changed really.

But Lupin seemed to have different ideas.

“We'll consider it, but I'm not making any promises, the Ministry of Magic is determined to send all of you to Azkaban. What you tell us now may change their minds, but only just,” he told him.

Harry turned to stare at him, “What? We're going to help this git?”

“Yes, we are… am I right Moody?” Lupin replied.

Moody just grunted.

Lupin then said softer to Harry, just out of Draco's hearing, “Harry, we need to stop this war now, it's been two months and we still live in fear. Granted, no one was really expecting the war to end and the world to go back as if it had never been, but we always hold on to these dreams to keep us sane. He may not be exactly worth our time, but we cannot leave him to die, we just might be able to help each other.”

Harry couldn't believe this, was Lupin mental? Did he forget that Malfoy was part of the reason Professor Dumbledore was dead? Did he forget that his poisoned mead had almost done the very thing this “red-haired” man finally achieved on a hill? Did he forget that Harry hated him?

But then, he did have a point too. He could not leave Draco to his insane aunt and the other Death Eaters; he was the only one who was going to kill Malfoy.

Well at least they both agreed that they would be the only ones to kill each other.

Warring against himself he replied, “Fine. Do what you want, I don't care. Just keep him away from me, if he so much as bleedin' breathes at me the wrong way I can't promise I won't finish “Auntie's” job for her.”

He took the time to glare dangerously as he said this. Draco, who had been eyeing them with suspicion as they spoke before, looked mildly amused.

Deciding to end this pissing match before it started, Lupin asked, “What can you tell us about the Death Eater attacks, why haven't they stopped yet?”

Draco finally sat up straight, not even attempting to disguise the earnest look in his eyes, “What do you want to know?”

*****

It was not until he had finally left number twelve that Harry realised something. Lupin and Moody had actually allowed him to remain there while Draco informed them of every detail he could remember of the Death Eater plans. As a matter of fact, he had also been repeatedly asked his opinion later on as they made their own. It was almost as if they were trying to include him now.

Whatever had changed their minds?

As he Apparated into a shaded alley outside of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries though, he knew why. It was the Death Eater attack, it had to be.

It was the only reason for any of this at all. If it had not been for that they would have found, imprisoned and forgotten about Draco without him ever knowing until the Daily Prophet was cleared to release the story. The Death Eater attack had awoken them to the fact that the “Chosen One” was going to be a target for a long time to come.

If they wanted his help all they had to do was come out and ask for it. If they had been weeks earlier too, he would have willingly obliged.

Moody was probably dragging Malfoy off to his prison cell right now, wherever it was the Ministry of Magic were holding their Death Eater prisoners. Lupin was still at Grimmauld Place, it was the time of the full moon and he could not be out until it passed.

Guiltily, Harry realised that he had not spent a lot of time with him in a while. Even though Lupin was in the Order and had work to do, Harry could have been somewhere around.

There was something else he had to get to first though, the “red-haired” man who had killed Ron and was stalking Hermione. As soon as he was finished here, he was going to send a letter to France; the Grangers had to be warned.

Dr Granger would be surprised no doubt, but not too much, he was not going to tell her everything. There was no need to scare the woman half to death when a few simple lies could cover it all up. Hermione may not approve, but then, what did he care, she wasn't the one writing to him.

Once he was done with that then, he would try to go over everything Draco had told them. And while he was at it too, wonder why he was so calm after learning that Ron had been murdered.

Without knowing exactly how he managed it, Harry found himself standing before the entrance to Ginevra Weasley's room. From the alleyway licked by the heat of the summer sun to the cool interior of the hospital and all the way to this floor, he had wandered by practically unnoticed. But then he had also come all the way up to it without realising it in the first place, so deep was he in his thoughts.

From where he stood he could hear low voices within. Mrs Weasley was most likely already there conversing with one of the Healers and some other family member.

Harry had hoped to be alone, a short visit to Ginny was all that he wanted, after that he could go home like he wanted to. Of course, when he thought about it, Mrs Weasley never really left Ginny “alone” anymore.

Taking a short breath, Harry took hold of the door handle and pushed. The sight that greeted him though, stopped him in his tracks.

In the light of the bright, clear day without, now filtering through the windows, Mrs Weasley stood with her sons and the Healer. They were all around Ginny's bed, looking across to him from their interrupted conversation, but not at all too displeased at the sight of him. And then there was Ginny.

She was sitting up in bed awake, long red hair cascading down her shoulders and pillow, and smiling brightly at him. She had woken up, and save for the thin scars of her injuries, she was sitting there as pretty as ever, alive and awake.

“Hello Harry,” she said.

He could not reply, he had gone slightly numb, and suddenly wished Hermione was here to help him save face.

At that thought he reflected bitterly on the fact that Ginny had awoken and Hermione was not here to see her. And that led to another thought on the fact that Ginny had known about Hermione's plans that morning and told him nothing. And that led to the terse reply, “Hello Ginny.”

No one seemed to notice this though, as they quickly left their places round the bed to greet him.

“Hey Harry, we haven't seen you in a while.”

“I hear you have a house now; do you know Mum's been going completely spare since you left?”

“Why haven't you come to the shop yet?”

“Fred!”

“Have you heard from Hermione?”

One by one the questions were coming at him, and he peered, somewhat sheepishly, over and around them to look at Ginny who was just smiling warmly at him. Mrs Weasley looked near weak with joy; her only daughter was finally safe again. Bill, minus Fleur, Charlie and the twins were equally as pleased. This time, for the first time in a long time, a Weasley was going to walk out of something alive.

No one even wanted to think about the situation that had brought them to this point though. No one wanted to reflect on how dangerously close they had come to another funeral. They had already had three; they wanted and needed no more.

It was just a perfect family moment, and without warning it became a nightmare in broad daylight.

At first it was the sudden feeling of being suffocated.

There he was, standing in the doorway of the room, being “assaulted” by the family as each came over to greet him and lead him closer to Ginny's bed, and he felt as if someone had placed a pillow over his face and were pressing down.

He was trapped in a sea of flaming red and bright smiles and freckles while the bare, white walls of the room suddenly began to close in around him. The colours and daylight actually began to fuse and flash confusingly in his head, forcing a violent throbbing into his skull. Their laughter and voices rattled at his brain, their touch repulsed him, and their very presence invoked an unreasonable fear. He had no control, he felt as though he were losing his mind, and then the room changed completely before his eyes.

Suddenly, terrifyingly, he found himself lying on the cool, dark earth of the forest floor looking up into the cold, red slits of the Dark Lord's eyes…

Voldemort was not dead yet, he was standing there smiling evilly, mere moments from death and did not even know it. Harry had smiled up at him then, something in him trying to convey that he was not afraid, that Voldemort would not win.

And then the image changed.

Suddenly Voldemort became a tall, smiling, red-haired, blue eyed nineteen year old with a freckled face and goofy grin when the situation required one. He took one look at Harry and asked, “What took you so long mate?”

And then Harry lost it.

With more violence than he ever thought he had, he pulled himself free of their grasp and backed to the door. They all turned to stare at him stunned, but Harry could not see it.

Instead of the concerned, frightened faces of the only family he had ever known to appreciate him, he saw them all transformed into strange cloaked, red-haired figures, faces shrouded in darkness and wands at the ready. They were no longer his friends, they were his killers.

He backed further into the door in panic, someone was screaming, something was wrong.

An image of Hermione flashed before his eyes and he went pale, the look of utter terror on her face was enough to rip the air from his lungs.

He could hear someone, who sounded a bit like Ginny or maybe Mrs Weasley, calling to him alarmed, “Harry! Harry! Harry, what's wrong? Harry! HARRY!”

Hands were seizing at him, the world of white was back but swiftly turning to black. He took great, gasping breaths for air and fought with all the strength he had left, for his had suddenly left him, before everything fell away and he knew no more.

*****

When Harry awoke it was dark, and still. No more red-haired killers, no more flashing colours, fading into white or black, nothing, his world was silent and he was back in his own bed. It had all just been a horrible dream, it must have been.

Why then though, did something not feel right now?

Although Harry's house was generally quiet at night, and especially since he lived alone and Hedwig was free to move about as she wanted to, somehow tonight, it was strangely quieter. There were some sounds, like the creatures of the night, the wind in the trees or the hum of the refrigerator, but still, it was just, still. Like the calm before the storm, night just before dawn, the house of someone who has just… died…

Almost at once Harry was sitting up in his bed with his glasses on his face and discarding the covers as he tried to stand. Something was wrong, he knew it, he could feel it and almost with every fibre of his being.

He did not even attempt to question how exactly he had gotten from the hospital back to his own house. He did not want to know what that… daydream… or whatever it had been was. Too many unnatural things had happened in his life already, and his scar wasn't hurting. All he wanted to do was find out what was going on.

Taking no time to cross the floor to the door, nearly stumbling over a fallen pillow, he opened it shyly and peered out into the hall. It was dark too; no one had turned on the lights.

Where were house elves when you needed them?

After taking a few moments to decide whether or not he should go on, he stepped out into the hall noiselessly. His bare feet prickled slightly at the touch of the cool hardwood beneath them and he finally wondered who had changed his clothes to the pyjamas he wore now. Not that he minded of course, it was just that, he hoped they had used magic, or at least had been one of the men. He wasn't exactly comfortable with the thought of Mrs Weasley, as much of the mother she was to him, seeing him even mildly starkers yet.

The sound of a low whispering just down the hall though, coming from the dimly lit living room, shoved those thoughts away at once.

“What happened? What happened? Why won't anyone explain? What happened, he's going to want answers.”

It was Mrs Weasley, he was sure of it, and it was no surprise that she was worried too. Her voice was so distressed that it broke and creaked as she pleaded with someone out there.

“We're not sure… I… I don't know… I…”

That was Charlie, he was sure of it.

So they brought him home and changed his clothes. Okay. But why did they want to explain to him about what happened at St Mungo's? He was the only one to tell them and he barely knew himself.

“Alastor, what did they tell you?” It was Mrs Weasley again.

“Not enough! They barely understood themselves, they're useless!” he growled.

Harry was now completely confused. What did Moody have to do with a, well, panic attack, at St Mungo's?

Oh gods, Ginny.

He had gone there to visit her and frightened her. She had just woken up too; could he never give his friends peace? But still, what did Moody the Auror and not the Healer, have to do with Ginny?

The next words out of Moody's mouth though, stopped him cold and that feeling of the air being torn from him resurged with a vengeance.

“The Grangers didn't stand a chance! If that Malfoy boy had spoken sooner something could have been done. When we got to the house they were already long dead.”

Harry's breathing suddenly became restrictive and forced itself out of his throat in low gasps. His blood was running ice cold in his veins and he felt as if he were going die when his heart began to skip in massive beats.

What they were saying… it wasn't… that's not… it wasn't… Dr Granger had still sent her package… Hedwig… Hedwig had brought it… this… it's not… true…

He sank unto the floor in the corridor as his legs refused to support him any longer and all the while thoughts screamed through his mind.

“Harry, Harry I want to leave here… let's get out of here now… please, I want to get out of here now!”

“What took you so long mate?”

“What happened last year? Which of your friends died? Why is he haunting my daughter?”

And then it was all over.

Charlie had spoken again, “Is Hermione alright?”

Hermione was alive? The feeling of his heart being lifted was so intense that he was light-headed all over again and had to lean against the wall in the hallway. She was alive.

“No. She hasn't said a word since they brought her, she hasn't moved and she hasn't… it's almost as if she's not even alive. The little girl was just as…”

At this Harry sprang to his feet and without thinking of any form of excuse rushed into the living room and demanded, “Where is she? Where is Hermione?”

The look of surprise and concern etched on the faces of the three staring back at him was summarily dismissed. He did not care about explaining what had happened earlier. He did not care about the details of what had happened to Hermione. He just cared about her being back now and where he could find her.

Mrs Weasley though, tried to placate him.

“Harry… you should rest… we'll…”

He cut her off, “Where is she?!”

Charlie seemed to be the only one of reasonable intelligence present for he said quickly, “The first bedroom, I think she's asleep, we put her s…”

But Harry did not hear the rest for he had turned and now headed back into the darkened hall. He went to the first door he found and wrenched it open and then stopped.

As they had left him on the same day, they had come back.

Hermione was lying in the centre of the bed, barely visible in the darkness save for a faint outline provided by the light from without. He could not see her but he knew she was there.

Wrangling with himself for a moment, he finally decided to switch on a light, and actually held in a gasp at what he saw.

Hermione was wide awake and staring blankly out of the window of the room. Her long, bushy hair, still wet from an apparent, recent bath, was spread out on the pillow beneath her head, tangling slight like a spider web. Her lithe, slender body, now clad in a shirt (he hoped that there was more beneath it) lay ever so gently on the only just disturbed sheets of the bed. Her chest rose and fall rhythmically with her breathing, as though she were asleep, but those blank, dull brown eyes showed that she was not. In summary, with the exception of that blank look and the deathly pale skin slightly illuminated in the light, Hermione was alive, and she was back with him, back home again.

He did not think twice about closing the distance between himself and the bed if only to touch, to know that she was real and this was not some bizarre hallucination. But once there he could not bring himself to do it. He just stood there staring at her, not quite believing that she was back and trying his best to stifle the thoughts of the reason why.

“The Grangers didn't stand a chance!”

Wonderful, yet another thing to add to the long list that being connected to Harry meant for those around them.

Of course, this was not really his fault. Hermione herself had told him before that being Muggle-born was her first mistake in the eyes of Voldemort, being the “brightest of her generation” as everyone praised her, was her second, and being his best friend was merely the third.

He had laughed then at her calling it “merely” but he couldn't laugh now. She was lying on a bed in his house in only a shirt with wet hair and a blank expression eerily reminiscent of Ron's and she barely seemed to know that he was there.

Someone had come to the door behind him. They did not attempt to come closer though, just seeing him there was enough. He did not turn to acknowledge them either; his sole interest at the moment was the girl on the bed.

When Harry decided to sit at the foot of the bed now, taking care not even to touch her, but just look, the person spoke.

“Harry…” it was Charlie, “she hasn't moved since we brought her here, she hasn't spoken either… we had tried to take her to the Burrow before… but she just started screaming… so we brought her here instead… we hoped you wouldn't mind…”

“No, I wouldn't. She's my friend, I'm responsible for this, and I'll take care of her.” Harry told him.

Charlie surely wanted to protest this statement, his long silence at this told him so, but eventually he said, “Well then I should tell you… she isn't here alone.”

Harry stopped staring down at Hermione and turned to face Charlie.

Neither man saw when Hermione closed her eyes and allowed a glistening tear to roll down her cheek.

“What do you mean… one of her parents…?” Harry asked.

Charlie dropped his head and looked to his feet.

“No,” he shook his head, “they're both dead… but… her sister isn't.”

Harry's mouth opened and his brow furrowed, “W-what… sister… Hermione doesn't have a sister…”

“S-she… she didn't tell you… well, it was news to us actually too… but we thought you knew about Emmeline…”

Harry rose from the bed at once and walked towards Charlie as if to say something but halted. What?

All thoughts of the day's events rushed out of his head immediately. He would have laughed in Charlie's face, called him insane, turned to Hermione and shake her into coherence to prove that he was lying. But Charlie was just standing there looking sadly; even a little guiltily, at him.

He finally found the voice to ask, “W-where is she?”

Charlie stepped a little into the room and indicated at the sofa across from the bed where a bundle of blankets lay. So focused on Hermione had Harry been when he first entered that he hadn't even noticed it. But then anyone would have, on first glance it really did look like a bundle of blankets.

He changed his direction and headed over to it but nearly fell over when he realised that the blankets had hair. It was a mess of bushy sandy blonde peeking innocently through a space in the bundle closest to an armoire and lamp. In the dim light anyone would have missed it had they not known what they were looking for, and Harry couldn't believe his eyes.

Hesitating for only a moment, he almost crept to the bundle on the sofa, found a loose end and drew it away to reveal the small, round face of the child who was presumably Emmeline Granger.

She was Hermione's little sister and he had never heard of her before.

But then, if he really thought about it, there were a lot of things about Hermione that he didn't know, this was just another one of them. Of course, it also made no sense to him at all. This was madness.

From where he had left him he could hear Charlie's whisper, “We thought that you knew… I mean, I'm sure she would have told you eventually… but…”

“Hermione had her reasons…” Harry said, now looking away from the sleeping child to the woman who was once more staring out the window at the cloudless, navy blue night sky, “and when she's ready to share them she will.”

“Are you mad at her? I mean… if this is going to be a problem for you… Mum will be glad to take Emmeline… Hermione too…”

Harry raised his arm and waved it weakly, “No… I just want answers… a lot of answers…” he managed a little laugh, “Maybe they adopted her…”

Charlie did not laugh. He stood looking at Harry, then to Hermione and the small child in the bundle of blankets. They had found her in Hermione's arms when the Order entered the Granger house. Both had been hiding in a closet, Hermione had not even attempted to Disapparate and they were sure that she could have. She did not even offer explanation or apology either; she just remained silent, clutched Emmeline to her and left with them.

Well, at least they hoped Emmeline was her sister.

“This should not have happened,” Charlie said finally, if possible, even softer than previously.

“No,” Harry said with a sad sigh, “but it did.”

A/N: Alright ladies and gentlemen, if you're reading this author's note now and going WTF…? It probably means that you're bearing with me for an explanation, Harry wants one too, I believe I have one, and it's good.

I know canon does not include a sibling for Ms Granger, which probably makes this AU, and that it's probably too late to include one now, but the plot bunny that brought on this development bit me hard and unfortunately continues to do so. Like I said above, there is a reason for this development and I promise to give it to you, as well as more information on the red-haired man and Hermione's behaviour.

If you do not wish to continue reading after this, well then, I'm sorry.

Oh and, one more thing, to any and all who have read Die With Me and asked that I continue it, I will, but it's harder than I thought. It really was meant to be a one shot but I do have a vague idea of how I could continue it and when I do, you'll be the first to know.

For flames, comments, suggestions, or questions? Please review.

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A/N: First of all, I would like to say thank you to all those who have decided to stick with me even after last chapter. I was hoping that it would not have been that big of a deal but I was still very nervous at the idea. (For proof just read author's notes of last chapter, I have abandonment issues, forgive me.) But if no one has left me yet, I hope, thank you so much! Also, hello to all those who have just discovered this little story of mine and decided to read too. I greatly appreciate it.

As to this chapter, well, there is an explanation ahead; I can only hope it satisfies. I thought this over for quite some time while I was being bitten by my bunny friend and I think it is quite good. If it isn't, well, I tried.

Disclaimer: Yep, lawyers still say it's hers but permission has been granted to play.

*****

A Reluctant Houseguest

The first exchange that was to occur between Harry Potter and Emmeline Granger would happen early the next morning after her arrival. It was to be expected, after all she was a guest in his house and they had not been formally introduced. However, as circumstances would have it, this exchange, would be far from pleasant.

Harry would not know how long he remained in that bedroom just watching Hermione lie there, bathed in light and unmoving. He could not tell when at last she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep or when he drew the covers over her supine form and turned off the light before climbing in beside her just to listen to her breathing. He would not know when finally he rose from the bed and returned to his own room for the rest of the night, resigned to question Hermione when he was sure that she was alright again.

If she would ever be, that is.

But he would know the first sound he heard just before sunrise the next morning. It was a small, terrified, shrill screaming, a panicked child calling, “Mister! Mister! My sister's not in her room! Mister, my sister's gone!”

He was awake in an instant and stumbling to the door and the shrieking child. A part of him was not entirely sure of what she was talking about, or who she was for that matter, but then another part felt the fear in her voice to his bones.

As he swung open the door before her, he had barely enough time to be startled at the fact that this was Emmeline before she screamed at him, “Mister! My sister! Hermione's not here, I woke up and she's not here! Where's my sister?”

Well, that answered that question.

“I… I don't know…” he said slowly, and then asked, “did you check the rest of the house?”

“Yes, and she's not here! She's not here! Where would she go? Where's my sister?” she shrieked again.

Her wide brown eyes were teary and slightly reddened and her hair was almost as wild as her sister's. Her nightgown, another of his shirts, was hanging slightly off of her shoulders and she was barefooted. He imagined that she had just woken up and ran through the house in panic when she did not see Hermione. He could not say that he blamed her, this was a reasonable reaction, one he himself had undergone, and after all, her parents had “disappeared” last night too…

“Calm down,” he decided to stop her screaming first, no need to bring the neighbours about. “I'll help you find her, I know Hermione, she wouldn't go far, and she wouldn't leave you.”

As he said this, he was reminded, ironically, of the fact that Hermione had sworn that she would not leave him and then did it too. With a sudden fury he could not help but think that she must have done it again. Gone and left him behind with her younger sister while she ran away to “find herself” without Ron. If she had done that, he didn't care what they did to him after, he would drag her back kicking and screaming and lock her in the house.

The child was speaking again, voice squeaking slightly, “The door was open, when I was looking for her, the door was open!”

He looked down at her, slightly confused before it finally cleared and he asked, “Which door?”

“The back door, I thought she went out there but it's empty, where did she go? Do you think she went back to Mum?” she asked.

She looked so earnest in this question that he feared that she didn't know that her parents were dead. It would be just like Mrs Weasley to try to cushion it for her and not answer that question. He didn't even want to think about it himself anyway, self say form the words.

“No, I don't think she's gone with them,” he said, “but how about I help you find her, she probably went for a walk, let's see if she's really outside.”

The child still had the terrified look in her eyes, he doubted she was reassured, but she allowed him to take her hand all the same and lead her out of the dim hallway, through to the kitchen and then out of the house into the cool morning.

The air was chilly and immediately nipped at the warmed skin of his arms and feet. He too was not wearing any shoes, and in her shirt he wondered if the cold was just as bad for her. But Emmeline did not complain nor show any acknowledgement of it. She was scanning the horizon and the length of street she could see from the front steps of the house and asked timidly, “Do you think she's gone far?”

But Harry was searching too and barely heard her.

In the clear, light blue-grey sky above them, the waning full moon shone a luminescent silver-white. The dark green deciduous trees and overgrown bushes of the village were still, barely disturbed by the gentle early morning winds. Around them he could hear the sounds of the first birds calling to the air and the nocturnal creatures taking in the last moments before turning in for the day. But nowhere around did he hear Hermione.

No movement, no breathing, no footsteps, no sound.

Emmeline asked again, “Mister, do you think she went far?”

Trying his best to reassure her while suppressing a mild, rising panic, he said, “First of all, Emmeline, I want you to call me Harry, not “mister”, I'm eighteen. Secondly, no, she can't go far, I don't have a car and there aren't that many around here. Third, she doesn't have a broom…”

Emmeline cut him off, “Are you a wit-wizard too, like her… Harry?”

What exactly did Hermione tell the people around her?

First he didn't tell her or Ron for that matter, about Emmeline. Then she apparently didn't tell Emmeline about him, or seeing that her parents at least knew who he was, probably not much. (This, when he thought about it, wasn't too much of a bad thing, for he tended to have many pre-pubescent fan girls and really didn't need one living in his house.) Why was she so secretive, what did she have to hide? Who was this person he had called a friend for eight years now?

He turned his attention back to Emmeline, “Yeah, I'm a wizard, but we'll get to that later, let's find your sister.”

She nodded and he led the way out of the front yard. He now had an idea of where she would be.

It had come to him as he stood there pondering the Mysterious Hermione Granger. It was the first and last place she would ever want to be once she realised, and no doubt to her horror, that Harry had taken a house in the same place she also didn't want to be.

The site of Ron's murder and his parents' graves- the graveyard of Godric's Hollow.

As they left the yard he headed right and up along the street that would head to the graveyard. There were no inhabitants about, there were very few in this stretch of street anyway. That was good; he did not want to see them.

Even though most of the inhabitants were Muggles, the fact that a strange, single, eighteen year old had moved into the lovely, single storey Queen Anne house with the vine covered wall and gate was enough to draw attention. The addition of a young unmarried woman and a small child, whose age he was yet to ascertain while he pondered Hermione's reasons temporarily the night before, would no doubt add to it tenfold. The sight of him and the aforementioned child, walking just before sunrise down the street to the graveyard, dressed only in pyjamas and barefooted would just be too much.

Emmeline said nothing at all along the way. She was too busy taking in her surroundings, looking frightened and nervous all the while, to speak.

A small child of probably seven or eight, with bushy, sandy blonde hair, wide brown eyes and slightly tanned skin from her stay in France, probably somewhere in the southern half, she slightly resembled her sister. But only just, and for someone who had just been through a traumatic event, like her sister, the one he remembered, she was calm. How long this would last though, he could not tell, but there was still plenty of time for that. Then he would see exactly how much alike they were.

At their arrival at the graveyard at last, Emmeline stopped glancing around long enough to look on among the grass-buried and rusting metal tombstones and exclaim, “There she is! Look, Hermione!”

Harry snapped his attention from her to look out at it and then stopped, releasing a shaky breath, when he finally saw her where he thought she would be.

She was at his parents' grave, just standing there looking down at them, a slight wind picking at her shirt hem (he was equally relieved to find that she did have something under there after all, his boxer shorts) and her hair, most likely thinking to herself.

She had just gone for a walk, she was alright… she had not gone too far… she was alright.

Turning to Emmeline he said, “Can you do something for me?”

She looked away from her sister to ask, “What?”

“I want you to go home, close the door and get yourself something to eat. Can you do that?” he asked, somewhat nervously.

It was strange to tell the child to do something when considering that was her parents or sister's domain, but he had to do it. It was equally strange to speak to her and refer to his house as “home” for her too. But he would have to get used to it, and besides he needed to talk to Hermione alone and Emmeline did not need to hear some of it.

“B-but what about my sister?” she asked, her attention returned to the figure in the graveyard.

She was scared, she had just met him, she barely knew him, and here she was supposed to leave him alone with the sole living close relative she had. Even if she didn't know it, or plainly didn't want to believe it, Hermione was all she had left. Harry tried to assuage her.

“I'll take care of her, we'll be back soon,” he said with what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

She was silent for a while, clearly warring with herself as to whether or not she should leave him to her, but then finally replied, “Okay.”

She turned then without another word and he watched her go until she was out of sight. Hoping that she would get back on her own alright then, Harry turned back to Hermione.

She was still there, she had not moved. It was almost as if she were waiting for him, he thought with annoyance, he might as well not keep her any longer.

With a resigned sigh he pushed open the gate to the graveyard and headed in up the hill towards her.

*****

“She was two years old when I went off to Hogwarts and met you and Ron,” said Hermione as he finally got to her on the hill.

He was right, she had been waiting, and her voice told that she had prepared this speech beforehand. For some reason though, Harry still felt the need to forestall her.

“How are you doing Hermione… last night… are you okay?” he asked, taking a tentative step to her but maintained the twenty pace distance between them.

She went on as if he had not spoken.

“I didn't have any friends at first, knew that I wasn't the only Muggle-born but then I knew no others too so I had no one to share much with. And I was an insufferable, bossy little swot who was too grown up for her own good so I was guaranteed not to have any friends in the first place.”

“Hermione…” he feebly tried to cut her off.

The wind continued to play with her hair and the hem of the shirt. She remained where she stood though, allowed the chilly assault on her skin so that it blushed slightly. Her bare toes nervously dug into the earth and she tried her best not to wring her fingers. Despite his emotions being torn between enmity and empathy, he could not help but find her nervousness alluring.

“But then I met two little boys on the train,” she continued as before, “a tall red-head with dirt on his nose and his new, scrawny best friend with green eyes and a famous head injury. For some reason known only to… well, I'm not too sure who or what knew… I decided to watch them, no matter that they didn't need or want me around. What was it going to hurt anyway? Swots needed something to do when they weren't engaged in a book and you two were prime targets. But when those same two boys begrudgingly saved me from a mountain troll at Halloween, I knew that I had also, accidentally, made the right choice and managed to finally have friends.”

She did not look at him, he did not try to come closer, and she went on.

“We were good friends, best friends, and close friends… family even. The danger that being your friend meant paled in comparison to the safety I felt with you. But, as First Year always is, and new friends always are, I didn't tell you both everything and you two didn't tell me. That we would begin to do later on, when we had learned to trust each other, when we had spent more time together, and when I finally allowed myself to believe that you stood a chance.”

“I know I should never have doubted you, but I'm a logical person, and it would take two years before I would actually accept that a small boy that was not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed stood a chance against a lunatic who had years of experience on him. I'm sorry.”

Her apology was unnecessary, for that at least anyway.

“Third Year, we were getting closer than ever, but then, how could we not be? We had been through two years of what hell must look like and came out okay, nothing was too wrong and my family was fine.”

“Of course, you weren't, you would never be and when it was thought that Sirius Black was out and trying to get you, I put my family behind me to help you. Emmeline was forgotten, a step up from being carefully left out while I got to know you two to just plainly being shoved out of sight to focus on keeping you safe, I think. And since we were yet to even know what Death Eaters were and that they still existed and could hurt you, and she is Muggle and no threat to anyone, there was nothing wrong with this.”

She stopped, sighed and sank to her knees before the graves, not once turning back to look at him.

“Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Years, and even during the war, my full focus was you, and Ron of course, but mainly just you. We had to protect you, keep you alive, keep you fighting; there was no need to talk about me. My parents, my sister, my family, they had no place in your world, not when they were just boring dentists no one cared about save to fix their teeth when they needed them to.”

“When they protested my lack of time with them, and they did, especially since they had somehow managed to learn a bit about Third Year, I decided not to burden you with my problems. They were minor compared to yours, everything else is minor when it comes to you and for some reason a whole human being became part of that “everything else” too.”

“And then it was over, but at a price, and grief superseded Emmeline. She was safe anyway, she was with my parents, and I was here with you. But I wanted to go home; I needed some time to think that was away from everything Ron. A bad idea I should know, I read about everything on the subject somewhere once, but I needed it. And now, I can't run away anymore. Emmeline, who wasn't really a secret, just a left out detail, is here and my parents aren't. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about her sooner, but then, I guess I never thought that she would become a part of this existence. I'm sorry, so very sorry.”

She turned to look at him now with tear filled eyes that glistened as the white sunlight and the now hastily approaching sunrise touched them. Her eyes were red and puffy so that he was quite sure that she had been crying a while, it was a wonder that her voice had been so firm in her speech.

He made to go to her, to comfort her, but then paused and said, “Do you blame me? Am I some kind of excuse?”

He did not attempt to disguise the anger in his voice, and he was not sorry to see her flinch.

Her expression became one of surprise.

“What? No! Harry I don't blame you for this… I chose to keep Emmeline and my family in the background because you needed both Ron and I to help you. I didn't want you worrying about them or if I should be with them when I felt sometimes more comfortable with you and the Weasleys, people like me. I made a conscious decision to keep them out; I just wanted you to know why I never told you about Emmeline before. She just wasn't that… important… in light of what was going on.”

She explained this as quickly as she could, in turn making no attempt to conceal her anxiety for him to understand. But he had to be stubborn.

“Knowing about my friends, that they had happy lives away from me sometimes, was important to me!” he said in a firm voice barely above a whisper, “You didn't have the right to decide for me what I did or did not need to know about you.”

“They were my family!” she snapped.

“You were my family, you are my family!” he retorted heatedly, his voice rising with his anger.

She did not reply, she simply dropped her head and began to cry.

He didn't want to care that he had hurt her, he didn't want to care that she was crying, but it was tearing at him when he remembered what she had just lost. He closed the distance between them immediately and drew her into his arms, though a bit against her will, and allowed her to cry into his chest.

She was seated in his lap, her long, bare legs drawn up so that her knees pressed at his thighs and he secured her body in place with his arms around her waist and back. She felt so small, so weak, and so vulnerable that he was almost afraid that if he clutched at her too hard she would break. She was Hermione, his Hermione and she was in pain.

And then after a while he rose from the ground with her in his arms. She did not protest or even attempt to get away. She just let him carry her down out of the graveyard and back to the house.

*****

Hermione had only just stopped crying before they were back at the house, and simply remained in his arms watching cautiously round her. When Harry carried her in through the open front door, she stood shakily on her feet and allowed him to lead her to the kitchen. She did not even say a word when he sat her at the table and brought a bowl from the cupboard or dragged across the cereal and milk from her sister, who was quietly eating already. But when at last he sat down with them, she asked, “Are you angry with me?”

Without hesitation he replied, “Yes.”

She fell into silence a moment, contemplating this before asking, “I would have come back you know?”

He looked up at her for just a second before turning to take the milk and poured it liberally into his bowl. He could feel her eyes on him as he rose from the table to get the sugar and then came back to sprinkle some over this. He drew the silence at the table out for as long as he could before replying, “No, I don't know that. Your mother wrote me, you barely left a note and even though…” he paused a moment to carefully choose his words, “you were… suffering… you stayed there. I don't think I should have allowed myself to believe that you would come back. Not even for Ginny.”

Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears again, tears which ran smoothly down her cheeks before she said, “I would have… I promised you…”

“And you broke it.”

He said this not daring to look up at her, if he saw her face he knew that his anger would not last. He so desperately wanted to rage at her, but the events of the day before were still raw in her. She was being remarkably strong so far, but he remembered that blank look of the night before. She would break eventually; this conversation with him was a distraction.

“Harry…”

“Don't Harry me, I don't want to hear it,” his voice was harsh, cold, “I don't want an excuse, it's over and done with now anyway. Have some breakfast Hermione.”

She looked as if she wanted to say something to this but didn't. Instead she addressed Emmeline, “Hurry up with your breakfast, when you're done we can go home…”

“What?” Harry asked sharply.

“We're going home… we need clothes and things… our grandparents will be expecting us…” she began to explain.

“I'll be damned if you think you're walking out of here as if nothing ever happened, you left me once and even if I have to lock you in that bedroom you're not doing it again!” he snapped.

“Harry!” she protested.

“I don't care, I'll go with you to get your things, or I'll buy you new things, but I'm not letting you off on your own,” he said simply and still refused to look at her.

He could hear her breathing hitch as she struggled against the desire to cry. He looked to Emmeline who also had the beginnings of tears in her eyes, but she said nothing. She instead twirled the cereal in the bowl while propping up her head with her palm. She largely seemed to be trying to block them out.

Hermione was speaking again.

“Harry… Harry you know I can't stay here… I don't want to be here…”

He turned to Emmeline, “You can use the bathroom now if you like.”

Emmeline was up and out of the kitchen at once. He hoped she wasn't afraid of him; he didn't want her to be afraid of him. As for her sister… if fear worked he would use it.

He turned on her at once. “Who's the red-haired man Hermione? Is that why you lost it in the forest? Why didn't you tell me you saw something that morning? Why did you keep it to yourself? Why do you always do that?”

Before he finished speaking he was sure that he was crying too. He could feel the foreign tears, slick and warm, running down his face. Yet, stubborn person as he was, he refused to stop, he had to release his anger.

“Harry…” she began, trying her best to get through to him, but he didn't want to hear it.

“You just left me and pretended that I would be alright when you did, but I'm not! You were wrong Hermione; for once in your life you were wrong! Yes, I have this house, and yes everything seems to be alright, but no, I'm not alright Hermione. I'm eighteen, I killed a bad wizard but I'm eighteen, what do I know about being an adult and responsible? What do I know about anything when it comes to how life works? All I had was you and your promise and then you broke it! You broke your promise! How could you do that to me!” he cried.

He could hear her sobbing where she sat and still would not look up.

“You called yourself logical. You were always considered the reasonable one. Everyone called you the smartest, brightest, cleverest witch of your generation. Where was your logic? Where was the reason? What happened to that brilliant person I thought I knew, that I could trust?!”

He spat each question with every bit of bitterness in him and not one trace of regret. But oh, he knew he had gone too far.

“Harry, please…” she protested when he finally sank into silence, “I was hurting too… I couldn't… I… I'm so sorry… please, Harry… I… I…”

And then she began to cry, really began to cry.

“Oh my… gods Harry… they're dead… my parents… Harry…”

Her voice broke as she spoke; when he finally looked to her he found her staring at the table as if in shock at the sight of it. Her tears ran rivulets down her cheeks before dripping onto her shirt and her fists were so tight her knuckles were white.

And from the doorway Emmeline suddenly screamed, “They're not dead! Stop saying that! Stop it! They just went away! We have to go home and they'll be there waiting for us! Stop saying that Hermione! THEY'RE NOT DEAD!”

She ran towards them but to Harry instead and began pounding her small fists unto his side.

“You made her cry! You're lying! They're not dead! They're not! STOP LYING! Stop making her lie! Stop it!” she shrieked.

Her voice was shrill and terrified, no doubt as terrified as it must have been that night as Death Eaters stormed her house and she and her sister locked themselves in the closet…

With no other options Harry opened his arms to envelope the still protesting Emmeline in his embrace whilst moving across the table to her sister to do the same. As he touched her, Hermione collapsed into his arms, her head falling to his chest as she swooned. He near fell over under the weight of the pair as they cried unto him on the kitchen floor, reality, as ever, finally sinking in.

Strangely, he wondered how they had not brought round the neighbours with their disturbance this morning. The front door was wide open and twice already had their peace been disturbing by loud voices. But there was still time for that later.

At last, after what felt like several agonising hours, Emmeline stopped struggling against him. She gently tugged herself free of his embrace and said, “She should go to bed, she's not okay yet.”

He looked down in his arms to find, and much to his surprise at that, that Hermione had fallen asleep. Emmeline, even in her grief, had noticed and seemed to pull herself to all her nine years and taken charge.

It sounded so grown-up it scared him. What were the Grangers feeding their daughters?

“Okay,” he told her, there was nothing else to say.

He slipped his hands beneath Hermione's legs once more, her skin now strangely clammy or maybe it were his sweaty palms, and lifted her off the floor to head to the bedrooms. Emmeline followed silently behind.

As he got to the door of the room Hermione had shared with her sister the night before though, he stopped. Vivid images of a scared, crying girl struggling against him in a darkened forest flooded his mind and he paused.

This room had a view of the thicket of that night. The forest that thrived round this area heavily was most prominent on the northern end of the house. He could not let her wake to that.

Not even thinking of the implications of such an action if Mrs Weasley ever came by for a visit, and no doubt would, later that day, Harry turned round and took Hermione in to his bedroom instead. Emmeline followed still, as he spread Hermione gently out onto the bed and drew the covers over her form much as he had done the night before. When he finished this task, he went to the windows and drew the blinds to shut out the daylight. She needed time to sleep, but this time, he thought rather guiltily, he was very sure that she would wake up still here.

Stepping away to the door, he found himself once more alone with Emmeline. She was not crying or afraid this time though, instead she looked at him and asked, “She's not the same anymore, did something bad happen to her?”

It was ironic, considering recent events, and yet so fitting a question. He told the truth, “Yes, something bad happened to all of us.”

Emmeline considered this a moment and then walked over to him and said, “I'm Emmeline Alice Granger, my friends call me Emmy, it's nice to meet you.”

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A/N: Sorry this took so long, but school got in the way. They finally found a way for me to do homework. Damn! Anyway, next chapter shouldn't take as long, I'm hoping, and here's to my lame attempt at stepping up the action, slowly.

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, still not mine.

*****

A Day without Mirth

When Mrs Weasley finally arrived at the house just after lunch that day she found Harry and Emmeline in the midst of a fierce game of Wizard's Chess. As per usual, Harry was losing. Ron's worthy opponent had finally been found, though she was a bit startled at the “violence” and at once fascinated by the moving pieces.

“This is much more fun that what I usually play, Dad plays it with me all the time!” she exclaimed as her knight took one of Harry's cowering pawns.

“Why didn't you tell me that you played before then? Why am I always stuck with the good players? And I'm sure you're cheating!” Harry protested as he tried to think of a way to save his queen.

Emmeline laughed, “You stink at this.”

In his bedroom, Hermione was still asleep, the sheets now half off her form revealing her smooth legs and her hair spread out on the pillow behind her. When he had last gone to check on her, he was guiltily reminded of that afternoon in the shed and carefully drew the sheet up further before going out and shutting the door.

Mrs Weasley came in then, bringing heaps of clothes, food and advice and dropping hints every now and then about the “loneliness at the Burrow” and the fact that Emmeline “needed a mother”. Harry took care to make as much noise as possible when she spoke then; the last thing he wanted was for Emmeline to be upset. Sometimes Mrs Weasley could be too kind.

On sighting Hermione in his bedroom she had nothing to say. She merely commented that he should wake her in a while for something to eat though it was clear that she was dying to say something.

Eventually though, she could take it no longer and asked, “Harry dear, where are you going to sleep?”

“Oh… in the next room, she can have mine,” he replied casually while hoping she wouldn't ask why.

No such luck.

“But Harry, why don't you let her sleep in there, this is your house and that's your room, she would be just as comfortable.” Mrs Weasley told him.

Wondering if there was some way he could get out of this without explaining some of the finer points of the situation he said, “It's nothing Mrs Weasley, I don't really like that room anyway, too close to the street… I like the back bedrooms better. I actually wanted one of them to be my room instead.”

“There's plenty of privacy at the Burrow,” she pointed out, “and plenty of room and people for you to talk to… Ginny will be home soon, they say in a few days in fact.”

Harry had nothing to say to this other than to offer a nervous smile. Mrs Weasley then must have taken this as affirmation that he knew he was doing wrong and said nothing more.

She was content to let him muse over it for the rest of the day while she helped Emmeline into some clean clothes (some of Ginny's old things) and left fresh laundry out on the sofa for Hermione. She warmed their food and tried to get him to wake Hermione, but he refused. And when the phone began to ring with anxious calls from Granger relatives, as all calls to the family home in High Wycombe were being diverted to his house, she was there to help him go through them.

The inquiries followed a distinct pattern as each caller asked first if the reports were true, (it had even made the Daily Prophet under the headline “The Nightmare Continues: Attack in France Claims Parents of Friend of Harry Potter!”) then if the girls were alright and then finally, the arrangements being made for the funeral. They came in an exhausting flurry that made Harry wonder if this was always the case when someone died. These were questions Harry had never had to answer before.

For his parents, Dumbledore and Ron, the arrangements had been made by others. For Sirius, Percy and Arthur there were no bodies to bury, and the Weasleys had held a simply memorial service. The only thing that Harry had had to do in the case of each was either learn that he had inherited money or some other thing, or suffer silently at the shock.

This was very, somewhat frighteningly, new.

Of course, if he thought about it, he was the one who had stated that he would take care of Hermione and Emmeline. This was just a part of that, the part that no one outside of it really saw. He was very glad then, that Mrs Weasley was there, and especially when one Granger relation enquired as to why he was the one arranging everything when he wasn't a member of the family.

Just before she left though, Mrs Weasley once more brought up the topic of the emptiness of her home without the people who once filled it. Harry still offered no reply to this and with a sad, but optimistic glance back at Emmeline, who was now sleeping on the sofa, she was gone.

Gone, to her home full of life, whilst Harry sat in his filled of stifling gloom, and waited for the hours to pass for the day to end.

When the day did finally end, Harry immediately proved a lie the story he had told Mrs Weasley about the sleeping arrangements and climbed into his bed beside Hermione.

She had slept all day, not even waking to eat and he was quite sure that she would be hungry now. At least, and thankfully at that, Emmeline had fared better than her sister.

But when he turned under the covers to face his roommate, it was to find that Hermione was wide awake now and staring listlessly at the window. It was much like that night he had slipped into her room in St Mungo's, her expression was blank.

And then the question was with them again, between them on this very bed, as they lay in the darkened room where slivers of the moonlit night crept through the curtain every now and then. “What are we going to do now?”

And just as before, he had no answer.

The next morning, Harry awoke alone. The sheets had all been piled unto him and all that was left of Hermione was the faint scent of parchment, sweat and a soft perfume.

In an instant he was up and heading out of the room to find her. He was not at all keen on heading back into the graveyard again; it was not so easy to go past his parents' graves as she would think. It was hard enough standing there trying to argue with her the morning before while wondering if he was committing some great wrong.

He did not have to go far though; Hermione was standing in the kitchen before the sink staring out at the daylight-bathed street.

As he released that breath he had been holding and tried to draw out of the room before she noticed she asked, “Why do you live here?”

He was surprised, that was not the first question he thought she would ask. Something about the funeral perhaps, or maybe the living arrangements, why he had not bothered to wake her or even if he would allow her to leave to visit her relatives with Emmeline, he had thought, but not this. But then it was very like Hermione to want to know the reason behind everything that he replied, “It's my home Hermione.”

She said nothing for a while and continued to stare out the window. He wondered at what, though he was sure that he could hear the sounds of children in the street. Then she spoke again.

“Doesn't it hurt to be here?” she asked, her voice tentative and yet firm.

He replied at once, “Hermione, if this is about yesterday, I was not joking or lashing out… (A blatant lie, he knew.) I don't think it's a good idea for you to leave. Forget the promise, it's already done with, this is about your safety, Emmeline's… you two won't be safe with your relatives…”

She turned away from the window and he fell into silence. She looked so tired he had to wonder if she had slept at all the day before. It would have done quite nicely for her to lie in bed all the while and pretend to be asleep as they came in just so that she would have time to herself. He was sure that she had slept though; most of this weariness was in her eyes.

“Why do you want to live here? Your parents' house is just on the next street. Their graves are just down that lane. Their hopes, everything died that night at Halloween. Why would you want to be surrounded by that?” she asked.

Harry looked at her and suddenly found himself hoping that this was not about Ron. He knew that they had been a couple during the war but he had not seen much, and if he wanted to be honest, he didn't want to see. If this was about Ron then too, was this why she ran, why she kept running? Their hopes and dreams dying in the seconds it took for Ron to breathe his final breath? He didn't want to know that, it would make everything worse.

Somehow though, he found the voice to reply, “Because I feel safe, I guess… this was where I might have grown up, this was where, if they had won the war instead of I being destined for it, they might have lived out their lives. This is home Hermione.”

Before anyone else he was sure that he would have been embarrassed to say it. Before Hermione though, it was almost the most natural thing in the world. It was also good that most of his anger to her had dissipated somewhat.

And then she completely surprised him.

She unsteadily made her way over to where he stood and wrapped her arms around him. He could feel almost every contour of her frame, shaking slightly from her hunger, and that faint scent from the bedroom, though now a fragrance enveloped them.

He tried a joke, “Why Miss Granger, I believe you need a bath.”

She ignored it as she said, “Then if this is your home, I'll stay here with you, because you make me feel safe too.”

And before he could react she freed herself from him and headed away, just as Emmeline came into the kitchen for her own breakfast.

“Is she okay now?” she asked, peering at her sister's retreating back.

“I'm not sure,” he replied, wondering slightly, what had brought on her change of mood.

“She will be, you'll see, she always is,” Emmeline said confidently, and for the smallest of moments, Harry was reminded of Ron.

When next she would appear though, it would be much later after she had showered and changed to some of the clothes she had abandoned at the Burrow. She didn't have the decency to show guilt about it either.

She only took a sandwich and juice and then headed off to his study, there were dozens of books there and he was quite sure that she was going to look at a few. Emmeline settled herself before his television set, which had before been a useless decoration, and he took a seat at the window watching them.

Looking at them then, it was almost as if the world had gone away and nothing at all had happened in the last few days. There was no Draco confessing, no Ginny waking, no strange panic attacks, no red-haired man stalking and no murder in France.

His lips formed a half smile.

If they added that grinning, moving picture of Ron on the fireplace that Emmeline was yet to notice, this little “family” would be almost complete. And strangely, that thought both terrified and pleased him.

As with the story of his life though, he would not have the liberty of dwelling on it for long.

When half an hour passed and Hermione had not turned a page, Harry rose from his place at the window and went to her seat in the study.

Just as before she was staring out at the street, the book in her hands still open on the first page and she did not notice when he approached. When he clasped it shut before her and pulled it out of her hands though, she did.

“What?” she asked.

“Hermione Granger does not sit in a chair with a book in hand and not read it. What's wrong?” he asked seriously.

She did not take her eyes off the window.

“Nothing, I didn't feel like reading that's all.”

He laughed, “Vairy funny, Mees Granger,” a near perfect imitation of Fleur in Fourth Year, “now what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she replied as before, “I…” and her voice trailed off.

Harry turned to the window now for the source of her distraction only to have his heart temporarily lodge itself in his throat. He was not sure, for the next second it was gone, but he may have caught a flash of someone standing in the shadows between the houses across the street. A figure shrouded by them and dark robes but with a head of bright red hair…

At once he was on his feet and drawing the heavy drapes shut. In a second then, he rounded on her and demanded, “Was that… was that him?”

Hermione suddenly came alive and flashed a nervous look to Emmeline. Thankfully though, the television had been loud enough to conceal his voice and Hermione's following reply, “Him…?”

He was angry in an instant, “Don't play dumb with me Hermione!” he forced his voice into a low but fierce whisper, “Was that the red-haired man you keep seeing?”

Her eyes widened in surprise, clearly she did not know that he knew this. It took her a while then, to stumble out her reply, “N-no… how-how did you know about that?”

“Your mother told me Hermione…” he explained irritably, “Was that him? Did he follow you here?”

“I was just looking out the window Harry… there's nothing wrong with that…” she said firmly though her eyes were brimming with tears.

He went to her on the sofa and roughly drew her up, and with a quick glance at Emmeline he dragged her off to the bedroom. She did not struggle, she just allowed him to lead her. She did not even attempt to cry out at his vice grip or the way he pulled on her arm or even when he walked into the bedroom and shoved her in before locking them in the room. But when he demanded again, “Who was that Hermione?” this time she spoke.

“He's no one, he's not real Harry, I thought him up to deal with this, I know I did,” she quickly told him.

“He can't be a figment of your imagination if Draco, your parents, and now I think me, saw him too, who was that Hermione? Does he have a face to you? A few days ago I learned that he scared you, now you're calmly staring back? What's going on here Hermione?” he asked as sternly as he could.

But she was in too much shock at learning that not only she could see him to say much else. As a matter of fact, in what was fast becoming a pattern for her, Hermione fainted.

In the days that would follow, Harry made no attempt to breach the topic again. As a matter of fact, for the rest of that day he spent much of the time scolding himself for attacking her like that without getting most of the facts.

There was clearly more to this story than Hermione was letting on, and apparently there were parts of it that she herself did not know. He could not even bring himself to sleep in the room with her either, for after that incident she once more retreated into herself and the sight of that would be too much. He was only grateful then that Emmeline noticed nothing.

As a matter of fact, Emmeline seemed to have entered her own little world in the house. After that first morning in the kitchen, she never cried again, and as a matter of fact, displayed not one sign that she was grieving.

He found it strange, when Cedric died who was someone he barely knew, he had had nightmares for months. With Sirius he had been so depressed he had stopped eating, and for Professor Dumbledore, after days of sadness and shock the realisation hit him and it hit him hard. But Emmeline, he had inklings that something was wrong with Emmeline.

Back to her sister, Hermione seemed to be in two worlds. One was dominated by the grief at the loss of her parents, and the way they had died and for the fact that she had been somehow incapacitated during the fight.

Moody had actually come round and told him that Hermione had offered little to no resistance at all to the Death Eaters, they would have killed her and Emmeline if they had ever breached the closet. When they had burst down the door she must have just run with Emmeline, that, or her parents, and Harry hoped, had chosen to conceal their children for their safety. If not, then it would add to the strangeness of Hermione's behaviour since the war's end.

Then Harry had noticed himself that Hermione also made no use of her wand. She did everything the Muggle way, and as a matter of fact, he had not seen her wand in a while.

He could only hope that it was not lying around somewhere in France.

The other world though, was scarier than the realisation that she was now an orphan with a younger sister to raise and no clue as to where to start.

This was the world dominated by nightmares of a red-haired man in the shadows. A sense of failure for not saving Ron, a guilt (he hoped) at breaking her promise to him and the nightmares of someone who had had to grow up too soon, see too much and learn too fast the many ways to survive in a dangerous world.

And somehow, everything in that world had to be connected to one moment, though for the life of him he could not tell what.

Harry wished he could pull them both back to whatever was normal for them before but he couldn't. In the first place, he didn't know how to begin to do that. Secondly, he was now setting up the final arrangements for the funeral with Mrs Weasley. And in particular, in the midst of dealing with Hermione's now sometimes belligerent relatives, none too pleased that a stranger, a teenager, was in charge of the funeral of two of their members and taking care of the two girls, he also had to fight with Mrs Weasley about the date.

The conversations always followed the same format.

“Why that day, of all days Harry… they could wait, they can wait!” she would protest.

“No, they can't. Hermione and Emmeline can't, you said it yourself that we should take care of this, too many questions to answer, we can't keep the Grangers waiting any more than we have them now.”

She would let it go at that but then remain slightly fuming for a while, clearly peeved that she could not influence Harry anymore as she would like to, before changing to a dreaded topic.

“Why haven't you been back to see Ginny, she's so worried about you, especially after what happened the last time. She must think that it's her fault.”

Harry would sigh slightly, feeling guilty as he replied, “Ginny's alright, she's awake now, she's going to be okay, but Hermione isn't. Her parents made it through the war alive only to have their lives taken from them after. I have to deal with them first.”

Mrs Weasley would not accept the excuse though and the badgering would continue for the rest of the day. Harry tried his best to be a good “son” and pretend to listen to her while praying she would leave. But he was grateful, very grateful. She was the mother he had never had the opportunity to know, and it was something he was sure he could never repay her for.

*****

The black Rolls Royce had been reversed far into the graveyard where the funeral for Drs Stephen and Alice Granger were to begin, and yet still, the nine year old girl in the backseat refused to come out or turn her head. It was almost that if she refused to see what was occurring behind her, it would not be real. Harry did not even attempt to join the others trying to get her out, this was her way of dealing with it, strict avoidance and he could not stop her. Besides, the frail, bushy haired young woman, slumped unto her haunches on the grass before the caskets was in a worse state than her.

Rising slowly from his seat when he had had enough, he walked across to her and said carefully, “Your sister doesn't want to leave the car.”

She raised her head and would not look at him but replied, “She doesn't have to.”

He arched an eyebrow, “She does not have to?”

“No,” she affirmed, eyes staring silently at the two ebony caskets, “but she doesn't have a choice.”

She made to stand and he helped her up and then walked with her to the car parked carefully amongst the tombstones. When she got to it, her relatives and the others cleared a way for her to get through to the door. She opened it with ease, reached her hand in and clasped Emmeline's.

“Come on Emmy,” she said and pulled.

The child resisted, her hand jerked to her sister's but she would not move.

Her sister pulled once more, this time without speaking and to everyone's surprise, Emmeline stepped out behind her. Her head down while glistening tears made paths down her rosy cheeks, Emmeline followed her all the way back to the graves and sat with her. The guests and Harry then followed them behind, now they could begin. No matter how much none of them really wanted to.

When Harry, Hermione and Emmeline all appeared at the Granger home for the funeral that morning, it was to find their anxious relatives all ready and waiting for them. They had come by car, dressed in black and both girls' eyes were red with tears they had begun to shed as they were dressing.

No one spoke or tried to protest when Emmeline refused to go to her own grandmother, clinging to her sister instead until they both went. No one questioned the decision that they would not spend the night at the house after or that Hermione may actually sell it. (It was actually Harry to sell the house but they didn't need that little detail.) No one even asked for an explanation of how two ordinary British dentists, in fine health, simply dropped dead while vacationing in southern France. (The media had already handled that one plenty.) All they cared then, for the time being that was, was to get through this day knowing that they would never see their relatives again.

Officiated by the minister who had married them, and who had never expected to bury them as well, the ceremony was only supposed to hold the Granger and Puckle families, Harry, Mrs Weasley for moral support and Lupin, who was out and about due to the passing of the full moon, with Tonks. However, on the sidelines there were two types of media, curious onlookers at the spectacle that drew the media and someone no one else noticed, at first.

The weather above them today, had apparently decided to follow their mood. The horizon was darkest grey, with the rumblings of a thunderstorm in the distance while the wind blustered with all its might. Few birds were to be seen squawking about, and a silence save for the errant voices of the onlookers easily descended. It was nothing like Cedric's or Ron's or Dumbledore's funerals. This was a day for sadness, a day without mirth.

When the ceremony ended and the caskets were lowered, Emmeline started screaming and Harry had to restrain her. She kicked and scratched at him; much like her sister had done in the forest and screamed all the while, “No! They're not dead! You can't put them in there! Don't put them in there! Stop…! THEY'RE NOT DEAD! DON'T PUT THEM IN THERE! LET THEM UP! STOP THEM! HERMIONE STOP THEM!”

Her maternal uncle, Dr Michael Puckle, who had read the eulogy, came and took her away but she kept screaming. He brought her head to his chest and let her cry into him all the way back to the car in which she had earlier sought refuge. As they went Harry was sure that he heard Mrs Weasley sniffle and the others gave uncomfortable, pitying looks.

Hermione though, had remained silent throughout the entire exchange as if she had gone numb. She had been brought to a chair during the ceremony and was now just looking at the graves, listening to the near rhythmic thud of the clumps of earth on the caskets…

Taking a page from her book, Harry gripped her hand and pulled. She came up easily and then froze again, this time staring straight into the crowd of people who were now being held back by the police someone had called.

She just stood there still, even when he began to move, staring blankly amongst the crowd gathered. It was as if she had been enchanted.

When he pulled her arm again and she did not move, this time he turned and saw, to his abject horror, the figure that had haunted her dreams for weeks.

It was the “red-haired” man.

As before, in that panicked moment in the hospital and Dr Granger's letters and the flash across the street, he was standing in the shadows, dressed in black, red hair flying wild. As before, he could not see his face, he seemed no more than a shadow himself but Harry knew, he knew that he was real.

At once he yanked Hermione's arm again, “Come on, we have to go.”

She would not move though, she still just stood there, staring at her stalker as if he were no more than part of the scenery.

He did the only other thing that came to mind. Slipping his arm beneath her calves and the other around her back, he lifted her up and walked to the car.

He ignored the querying or even more saddened looks, whispers and flashes that came from around him. He ignored when she finally snapped to consciousness and began to struggle against him though whispering fiercely, “Put me down! He's not real! Put me down! He's not real!”

The driver simply opened the door for him and he put her into the backseat carefully before getting in himself and then signalling for them to be taken home.

Mrs Weasley and the others would return the way they came, he had had enough.

As the car made its way out of the graveyard, the heavily-tinted windows concealing the view from without, Hermione, like her sister beside her, began to calm down again. Once they had past the gates, she was entirely silent.

Harry kept his eyes trained on the windows though, he had to see if they were being followed, if this red-haired man was content being a stalker or was planning something more in his pursuit. He was uneasy and tense, his foot tapping almost entirely of his own accord and he was hyper-sensitive to the movement of everything around him. It was a left-over from the war that served a wonderful purpose now, but it was also unnecessary.

There was no one with red hair randomly popping up anywhere and the few that did were ordinary citizens on their own affairs. Either he was just waiting until Harry was not looking to appear or he was gone. Harry chose to settle on the latter.

He relaxed a bit, but only just, until he was safely at home again, and his home, not the High Wycombe residence, he would not. Then the safety of wards and countless charms would allow him to.

But Hermione's voice coming from nearby proved more relaxing than the thought of home had. In a soft voice, no doubt weakened and slightly hoarse from her crying, she said, “Today should have been happier you know?”

He looked at her confused, wondering what she meant, and she continued, if possible even sadder, “It's your birthday. Happy Nineteenth to you, you made it.”

She could not know then, how much her words meant.

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A/N: Hey all, told you I would be speedier, and here it is, chapter nine! Oh whoopee! Anyhoo, had a shift of narrative perspective in this one, but all in the name of getting the story across, plus, I was getting bored of Harry's mind. Waaayyyyyy too dark in that boy's head, if I didn't stop now, I might end up needing serious therapy more than I do now.

Hope you like it!

Quick note: “Excessum ut proditor” is Latin that should mean, loosely translated, “Death to the traitor”. “Perlustro ut mortuus”, also Latin, should mean “Look to the dead.”

Okay, carry on.

Disclaimer: I must say, it would be fun to own anything save the plot of this, but I don't, henceforth, it ain't mine.

*****

From the Mouths of Babes

It was unusually quiet in the shadiest part of Knockturn Alley as Bellatrix Lestrange made her way through the grimy streets to the meeting place. The leprous vagabonds who were oft to be found wandering its streets at all times of day or night were gone. Auror patrols and curfew had taken care of most them anyway, and the many “businessmen” who were their company. But tonight, not even a starved dog crossed the narrow, near claustrophobic streets. It was something that made her uneasy.

She scoffed at that. Since Draco's capture she had been uneasy, the chance that the fool might slip up and get himself killed was too great. The nastiness of the Unbreakable Vow she had somehow managed to swear to her sister made it even worse.

Sometimes it just didn't pay to be a witch.

But the primary cause of her unease tonight lay not with her foolish nephew or the deserted streets. It lay instead, with the person she was about to meet, the person who had contacted her out of the blue with irrefutable proof of their authenticity, the person who now wanted to meet her, alone, in a derelict building in the worst part of the bad alley, and what they promised to her, was almost too much to refuse.

Harry Potter, his filthy, Mudblood girlfriend and a Muggle child all wrapped up in a neat little bow.

Well, maybe not with the bow, but all in one place so that they were easy pickings. The failure to kill her in France had annoyed Bellatrix greatly. The few she had sent, together with a French group, reported that she was no where to be found when they invaded the house. Instead there was a Muggle couple who claimed no knowledge of anyone known as “Hermione Granger”, killing them was inadequate compensation.

Well, that was until they learned that they had been her parents. It was impossible not to know this after the funeral, and the rumours that ran rampant about her and Potter in the newspapers.

How could she then, possibly fathom a reason not to trust them? This was what she had waited for all along, a perfect chance for revenge for her fallen master.

But she also was not stupid.

In the shadows were her “friends”, the few that remained, and if anything was amiss, the unlucky trickster would most certainly pay with his life. It was curious enough that he had come about to contact them in the first place.

No one save her nephew knew where they went to meet or hid. It was a closely guarded secret, kept by the Fidelis Charm, and even he would not be so foolish as to even allude to that to anyone. There were many loyal to the Dark Lord who could harm him, and she would see to it even at the cost of her own life. But when she had mentioned this to her soon-to-be host he had merely asked, “Who? Oh him,” and laughed.

For his sake, he had better be true.

It was dark tonight. The moon was waning in the black, cloudy night sky and at these times it was hardest to see one's way in the alley. Generally, in the daytime it was hard to distinguish the time along its dimly lit streets, but tonight it seemed extra so. It was almost with a sense of foreboding that she continued on her brisk pace through the streets then. A summer chill, after that afternoon's rainstorm, had set in too, and she gathered her battered cloak round her tighter.

As her nephew so often dearly noted, they were once accustomed to finer things than this.

In less time than she would have liked, Bellatrix was at the entrance of the meeting place. A derelict old building that had once been a store with apartments above, as with many of the places in the area, it seemed to barely be able to stand as it was. It reminded her of Severus' house in Spinner's End, and that was another capture she did not want to dwell on.

Within days of it occurring months before, Lord Voldemort was dead and he was “safe” in a cell in Azkaban. All immediate plans for further attacks on the Wizarding and Muggle worlds were then thwarted at heavy prices. She imagined him then settled comfortably as he confessed, while she and the others ran for their lives. She hoped his death painful and slow.

Brushing aside these thoughts now though, she went up to the heavily repaired but nevertheless decaying front door, and knocked three times before whispering, “Excessum ut proditor.”

How fitting a password.

Almost immediately, the door swung open into the deepening darkness of the house and Bellatrix actually scoffed. If her host thought he could scare her with that, he was sorely mistaken. The former right-hand mistress of the Dark Lord was above paltry parlour tricks.

Stepping in with her nose in the air but her wand drawn, she walked carefully through the ground floor to the stairs, her way lit only by her wand, and then up to the room where her host awaited.

If this was a trap it should have fallen by now. In the dusty, cobwebbed silence of the house, she strangely felt her confidence grow. When she was actually standing before the door, she almost knocked at the door impatiently. At first though, there was no answer.

What was this?

She knocked again, irritated at how her heart had seized a moment, and this time the door opened into a room flooded with light. But when she stepped in and caught the first glimpse of her host though, she paused and gasped, “You…?”

He rose from his seat at the window where he had apparently, casually observed her arrival. Taking time to sweep the wild red hair from his face, he gave a sickly smile and replied, “Yes Mrs Lestrange… Bella won't do now would it? Never mind that, yes, it's me, and I assure you, we have lots to talk about.”

She backed into the door and said, and with annoyance at the fact that her voice was unsteady as she did, “This is not possible, this is a trick…”

“No… no trick… I wouldn't dream of trying to trick you, I wouldn't survive it, I don't think I did the last time either… now do have a seat, a woman as talented as you should not stand cowering at a doorway. You and your company have nothing to fear… yet anyway…” he replied coolly.

He walked to her at the door, conjured a chaise lounge and gently made to take her to it but she refused his hand went herself. He gave that sickly, almost arrogant smile again, before taking his former position at the window.

After a long silence descended without any effort to begin on his part, she asked confused, “I… I thought you wanted to talk?”

“Oh I do,” he said, as if suddenly recalling this fact, “but we must be careful that we are not interrupted, and I don't trust your company too much at the moment. Why not let the Aurors do their job from the safety of this room?”

Her jaw lowered in surprise but he merely smiled at her, “Maybe I should amend my first statement, you have nothing to fear, they were not part of that arrangement.”

“I could kill for this,” she managed eventually, after another moment of silence had fallen, in a threatening whisper.

He nodded, “You could… you did once, as I just reminded you, but then you would be dead before you even drew your wand.”

Leaving her to ponder this then, he casually turned back to the window to observe the scene about to unfold below. And all Bellatrix could do, was sit still and listen.

*****

Seated on the front steps, her new bicycle lying on the lawn, a book loosely held in her left hand, Emmeline stared lazily out at the neighbouring children occasionally riding past. Tired of sitting around in the quiet house, watching the same old shows or her sister's glum mood, she had slipped out for a bit to catch the day going by. Once she was there though, she had gone no further; she could not bring herself to completely leave the house.

Behind her, Hermione was in the study reading from a large book she had found at the bottom of the shelf nearest the window. Harry kept the blinds in the study drawn at all times now; her selection had probably been an excuse to get near it.

If it had been though, Harry had already seen her. He had been watching both their movements for the past two days now anyway, how could she expect that he hadn't?

Just before she had slipped out though, Harry was not watching her. He had gone into another room and stuck his head in the fire, the Wizarding way of making a phone call, to the Weasleys. With both preoccupied then, simultaneously watching and avoiding each other, there was no one to watch Emmeline. She was glad for that, even though Harry didn't mean to, he still had a sad look in his eyes when he looked her way.

Maybe he should have had a happier birthday.

Out here on the shaded steps, looking at the still overcast sky and listening to the air devoid of birds and wind, it was much nicer than within. She didn't have to think much about that day. She didn't want to, it was not true and she would not believe it… and not even for that small voice that was growing in volume in her head telling her otherwise.

It simply had not happened, this was all a very strange dream, that's all, and when she woke up in the morning, she would be in her own bed while her mother called her for school.

She wished she was strong enough to really believe that too.

Yawning a little, Emmeline leaned her head back against the door and felt goose pimples rise as a sudden, nippy wind blew past her. It was probably going to rain soon, great, she hated the rain, and she was not going back into the house.

With her eyes closed, she heard the sounds of the squealing links of the bikes of the others. The children were coming round again.

If this was High Wycombe she would be up and off these steps and riding with them. On her new bike she would not tear her jeans, though she was sure some injury would come to them, it always did. And Harry had spent so much to get her new clothes too.

This time though, she was forced to look at the children when one of them said, “Potter? That's the house right there, with the little girl on the steps…”

They were all on their bikes near the corner leading into the street speaking with some unseen person. All of them were older than her, six boys and one girl probably between eleven and twelve. She had seen them since her second morning here and none had even bothered to come over to the house and ask if she wanted to play with them. Not that she would of course, she had nicer friends in High Wycombe, and the house was warmer to be in too. But the fact that they had noticed her existence at all had Emmeline looking anxiously at them now.

The conversation ended and the bikers all raced past the house, not even bothering to look her way, and even when she stared directly at them too. They were just stuck-up little brats, the lot of them.

She did not have to pay attention to them for long though, the stranger who had requested the address was now approaching.

A tall, thin man, with wild red hair and wearing one of those funny black cloaks Emmeline had seen while exploring Harry's closet, and one other time she pushed away, he approached her with smile. Emmeline did not smile back, she did not know him.

He stopped at the gate as if to enter, but then just stood there staring at the house around her. He seemed to be taking in every inch hungrily, and searched with his eyes at the windows. But Emmeline guessed that he must have been staring at her as well, for eventually he asked, “Doing some light reading?”

Emmeline looked down at the book in her hands and nodded.

He smiled again, a strange, sickly smile, before asking, “Are your sister and Mr Potter at home?”

“What do you want?” she asked in reply, still refusing to smile back.

“Oh nothing, aren't we suspicious, though I can understand why… it's… I was hoping that I could speak with them a bit,” he replied.

“I don't think you can, my sister's reading and Harry's ringing someone,” she said curtly, she wished he would leave.

“Well how about I talk to you then… not for long… just to deliver a message for them?” he asked, now turning fully to her.

She nearly gasped at the blank look in what must have once been very bright brown eyes. His skin was decidedly pale, almost tinged with green and she wondered if her were as sick as his smile. Nevertheless she nodded and rose from the steps to come to him.

He raised his hand to stop her, “No, that's fine love, you can stay there… just please give them this exact message, perlustro ut mortuus, did you get that?”

She stared at him confused, but nodded and repeated it, “Perlustro ut mortuus, yes, anything else?”

He shook his head, “No sweetheart, you're just as smart as your sister… it was only that, have a nice day now.”

With one last smile then, and a “pop” he was gone; he apparently was a wizard too, though none like those she had so far seen. Or maybe, hopefully not like those she did not want to think about.

Taking a moment to make sure that he was gone, Emmeline turned and headed back into the house to deliver the message. Hermione and Harry would know who he was and whatever the message meant, it was not for her to care.

*****

Okay, so maybe she was wrong.

This was the realisation Emmeline would come to in the frenzied moments after she delivered her message to the two in the house and described the person who had given it to her.

With almost no explanation, and determinedly ignoring Hermione's protests, Harry grabbed a handful of dust from a bowl above the fireplace and threw it in. At once emerald flames erupted from it, which near caused Emmeline to fall over, and Hermione was sent in first. She actually stepped into the roaring fire as it were the most natural thing in the world. She bellowed an address before dropping a small bit of the dust into the flames that seemed not to touch her and then in a burst, twirled and was gone.

Then it was her and Harry's turn, he gripped her so tight she feared she would choke, and she shut her eyes tightly as the flames engulfed them. And when she opened them again, she was entirely in a different place.

It was the living room of a strange old house with many times patched furniture, strange objects and familiar ones too, which seemed to move of their own accord, a very curious clock with too many hands that didn't tell the time, a delicious smell wafting in from the kitchen, and Hermione crying in the arms of Mrs Weasley in the centre of the room as they emerged.

This must be Mrs Weasley's house; she had never been here before.

She did not have time to look around though, for Harry was walking briskly with her to the two women and asked quickly, “Where are Moody and Lupin… the Order? Where are they?”

Emmeline had never heard Harry sound so frightened, and his grip on her arm showed that it was not only in his voice. What had she said that was so bad? All she did was deliver a message.

Mrs Weasley was speaking, “They're not here, but Ginny's sending for them… what happened at the house Harry?”

Harry cast an uncomfortable look her way and another to her sister who looked away from him out the window, and then replied, “He came to the house, spoke to Emmeline, actually gave a message… he gave us a message… he's taunting us!”

“Who-who's taunting you?” she asked confused.

Harry seemed to remember that he must not have told her about this and quickly said, “There was someone at the house, someone who's been stalking us since… Ron died… he was at the funeral too, when I had to carry Hermione away. And today he came and spoke to Emmeline… I know I should have told you all about this before but I didn't think that he was dangerous until now…”

That made only one of them, apart from that horrible black cloak, of which Harry also had one, and his somewhat disturbing appearance, there was nothing about him that spelled danger to Emmeline. He had not once made any advances to her during their entire conversation.

Mrs Weasley's eyes though, widened in apparent horror, with still a bit of the anger that had arisen when he told her about the funeral, and she went to Emmeline at once and clasped her to her chest and began to cry, “Oh dears… you poor, poor dears…”

Through a mass of wild, red hair that reminded her of the man she had spoken to earlier, Emmeline saw Harry speaking to Hermione. She could not hear them clearly but the snatches she got pieced into a broken sentence, “Tell me… he's real… does he want… do you remember?”

But before Hermione could reply, a short, but pretty red-haired girl with brown eyes and slight reddish scars on her hands and one on her neck entered and said, “The Order's coming… oh hello Harry… um, what's going on?”

Mrs Weasley released Emmeline from her embrace but walked on to the girl and said, “We'll discuss that when the others come, let's go into the kitchen, all of us, and get something to eat.”

Hermione turned back into the room, and said quietly, “I'm not hungry.”

To Emmeline's surprise, Harry glared at her.

Almost at once she amended her statement, “Um… I don't think Emmy's had anything since breakfast, whatever Moody and the others are up to could take a while…”

That was new, since when did Hermione take orders from him, and why?

Moments later, they were all seated uncomfortably round a battered old long table while Emmeline bit into a large sandwich. Mrs Weasley made it almost before they were all seated and though offered one, Hermione refused it politely. Seated between them, Emmeline felt it when Harry, and rather childishly at that, kicked her beneath the table. Hermione had had the grace then, to drop her head and bite her lip, and no one else seemed to notice a thing.

The four adults, despite the fact that they were each surely bursting to say something, sat silently. Mrs Weasley and the girl who was apparently Ginny, facing her, Hermione and Harry and she wondered how long they would last like this until someone cracked. Just to test them further, she began to drum her fingers on the table as she chewed.

Hermione reached up and closed her hand around Emmeline's and said, “Stop that.”

Then Mrs Weasley spoke up, “Harry… why didn't you tell us about this before… you could have all been hurt…”

“I know,” said Harry, looking every bit like a child being scolded by his mother, “but I didn't realise the danger until now, all the time he was just staring at us, I forgot about it after the… the funeral… and now he comes to the house and speaks to Emmeline…”

Mrs Weasley gave him a look that was somewhere between disappointment and concern, before Ginny spoke up, “You know that we're here for you, you didn't have to go through this alone.”

Harry gave what was surely a half-hearted snort, “This wasn't about me, my parents weren't killed recently, I'm not the one keeping secrets, I don't know what happened in the graveyard and I didn't try to run away instead of telling someone like I encouraged everyone else to.”

It sounded like a reprimand and partly directed to someone else. In his voice, and strangely, the air around them, Emmeline could feel his anger and frustration. And at the same time, she could feel something else, equally as strong as the first two, but she didn't know what. From her sister though, all she got was stubbornness even before she snapped, “Come off it Harry!”

He retorted immediately, “Come off what, Hermione? He's very real now isn't he? He was standing in front of the house talking to your sister while you sit inside pretending that he doesn't exist and if you stare at him long enough he'll go away! Unless you haven't noticed, I don't think he's leaving love!”

She gave a half sob and turned away from him to look out at the strange door with the window above it. Neither Mrs Weasley nor Ginny said a word.

Mrs Weasley had become completely concerned now, and was staring at them both with a worried and yet curious look. Ginny however, seemed to have a slightly smug look on instead, Emmeline wondered what she had to be so happy about.

And just as an awkward silence once again threatened to fall, the roaring sound of the flames in the living room, rescued them. The Order, or whoever they were waiting for, had arrived.

At once Harry was up and heading back into the living room. Hermione did not move, but Mrs Weasley and Ginny rose to follow him. Unimpeded by her sister, Emmeline went too.

To her surprise, though she shouldn't have been by then, out of the flames now stepped three people.

The first was a tall, greying man with straggly hair and haggard look and a shockingly mobile eye. Once he was out he fixed this eye on Emmeline with a directness that made her rather subconscious. She stepped back a bit to the kitchen thinking slightly, that she had met him before somewhere.

The second man out of the fire was a bit younger than the first, but not entirely. His dark brown hair was greying with an age he did not seem to entirely possess and his face was wearied, though he formed a slight smile for her. She recognised him at once, he had been there on Harry's birthday, and Remus Lupin was his name. But he had not been alone, and then the final person appeared.

A woman who looked not much older than Hermione, Harry and Ginny, with a shock of pink hair today, she had a heart shaped face and greeted, “Hey there kid!” She smiled as before though Emmeline didn't return it. She seemed to be able to change her hair colour a lot more often than most people Emmeline knew.

The three stood dusting themselves free in the middle of the room and when satisfactorily clean, Lupin asked, “What's the matter Harry? We came as soon as we got your message, but there's some trouble in Knockturn Alley…”

Harry cut him off, “Something's happened, I need your help, it's about that man Draco described, the one he saw in the graveyard…”

Someone in the doorway gasped and Emmeline turned to see Hermione standing there trembling slightly, mumbling, “No… no… no… not true… no… it isn't true…”

Harry spared her the slightest of glances before turning back to them and saying, “He's real, and he's stalking us.”

“No he's not… no…” Hermione continued even weaker than before, but Harry still ignored her, and Emmeline, in looking at him, suddenly caught her gaze on something.

It was a picture on the mantle above the fireplace. There were many there in fact, and shockingly, all moving, but just the one, just this one, held her attention. As Harry began to explain something that involved letters from her mother, she walked absently to the fireplace and reached up as best she could to get it.

The pink-haired woman, the one called Tonks, turned and asked, “What are you looking for?”

Emmeline pointed to the one she had seen first and Tonks took it down, though knocking over a few in the process, (“Whoops, sorry,”) and handed it to her. Looking it over a while, puzzling over it a bit, and especially when the figure within flashed a haughty look and turned his nose in the air, she asked, “Who's this?”

Tonks shrugged, “Don't know, must be one of them,” and then lowering her voice conspiratorially, added, “too many of them to know for sure.”

Emmeline offered a small smile to show she understood the joke, though she didn't, and then walked across to Mrs Weasley, picture in hand, and asked, “Who's this?”

Mrs Weasley and all in the room stopped at once to look at Emmeline. Mrs Weasley took the picture from her hands and gave a sad sigh, and then explained, “That was one of my sons, Percy Ignatius Weasley, but he… he died some time ago…”

Emmeline looked down at the picture again and found that picture-Percy was now polishing his glasses on his sleeve. That action though, connected to what had drawn her to it in the first place. At once she looked up to Mrs Weasley and shook her head saying, “That's not true.”

The shocked silence that followed was quickly broken by Ginny, asking amusedly, “And how do you know that?”

Emmeline turned to look her straight in the eye and replied plainly, “He was the one who met me at the gate this afternoon.”

And then finally, it was then that Hermione could take it no more and screamed, “No… no! It's not true! NO! IT'S NOT TRUE!”

The first to her side was Lupin, who looked at Harry confused and then down to Emmeline was as lost as he was. Mrs Weasley and Ginny were staring between Hermione and Emmeline in what could only be bewilderment and disbelief and neither saying a word. Moody was once more staring over Emmeline with his strange eye and Tonks was staring at Hermione as if entranced.

After what seemed like forever, Harry made his way over to Hermione and pulled her up from where she had now slumped to the floor in the doorway behind her sister. He stooped before her, and asked in what had to be the gentlest voice Emmeline had ever heard him use, “What… what's not true Hermione?”

His eyes told that he was having a hard time believing what Emmeline had just said himself, but his concerns at the moment, were fully towards Hermione.

She was now crying softly, “It's not true… it can't be true… Harry… I made it up… I made him up… it's not true… he didn't do it… I made him up… Percy… Percy's dead… it's not true… Harry…”

He drew her tightly into his arms and let her cry onto her shoulder. The rest of the room though, was still largely left out of this conversation. Who was Hermione talking about?

But before the questioning could begin, a head appeared in the flames behind them. It was Charlie, Emmeline remembered him as the big man who had taken her from Hermione when they had come from France and put her in the room. But he did not look as worried as he had had that night. Instead, blissfully unaware of the scene unfolding at the moment, he called, “Lupin, Moody… all of you… they've caught her! They've captured Bellatrix Lestrange!”

A/N: Oh dear, another cliff-hanger I suppose, so sorry about that, really I am. You should consider yourselves fortunate though, I was going to cut this somewhere else. Three guesses where. *grins evilly*

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A/N: All Aboard! Attention all passengers of Aftermath Transit. During this chapter there will be frequent trips to the Department of Mysteries Back-story. As such, all passengers are reminded to keep all appendages, children, hand-held luggage and/or pets within the compartments at all times. Aftermath Transit will not be held responsible for any injuries or losses sustained otherwise. Now sit back, strap in and enjoy the ride. Thank you.

Disclaimer: Nope, not mine, but I am eternally jealous.

*****

The Strange Tale of Ms Granger and Mr Hyde

Someone was talking. Emerging from that dark, chilly place of her dreams where the only other sign of existence was the throbbing pain in her side, that was the first thing she knew. Someone was talking… speaking in low, but angry tones, raging at some unseen someone else.

Hermione tried to adjust her position on her cold stone bed and failed miserably. She was still too weak.

It was uncomfortable and uncompromising, as stone usually is, forcing her upright so that spasmodic pains reverberated through her chest and waist. A night wind cut sharply at her warmed flesh and brought to her nostrils the smell of blood, burnt flesh and death. It was the smell of the battlefield and she was in the middle of one, and even worse, it was in the midst of a graveyard.

She didn't want to think of how she had ended up unconscious here. It was not that she was afraid of the graveyard, though any reasonable person who knew the workings of the Wizarding world should have been; it was just that she hated to know that she had been unconscious through the battle. She could have helped, it was just her and Ron here and she had left him alone.

But then, it was a tad difficult to escape the full blow of the “Impedimenta!” that had hit her in the back and sent her flying back amongst the tombstones. The coward who had hit her must have been overjoyed when his spell connected. He'd better pray to whatever deities he knew that she never met up with him again. She knew some spells now that they definitely didn't teach at Hogwarts.

That brought out a conscious thought, Ron.

She hoped that he was alright. Last she had seen of him, he had been fighting with the Inferi, holding them off with flames from his wand. She had to tell him sometime that the flames and his hair almost matched colour for colour.

Pondering this though, was not answering the all important main questions. Where was Ron, who was talking, and for that matter, why were they angry?

Opening her eyes now, as she so wanted to do, proved more difficult than she imagined. Her lids felt heavy, there was a strange weight on her chest and the rest of her body refused to cooperate. If she wanted to get up she just might have to cast a spell on herself and with her flaccid limbs at the moment, she doubted she could manage it. But there were the voices…

Their owners were so close by that in the chill she could feel their body heat, and yet still they were angrily talking.

And then she heard the name that forced into consciousness her absent mind.

Harry.

One of the voices had mentioned Harry.

Almost at once her eyes fluttered open and she struggled, and failed, to suppress the moan that came with it. But none of the speakers took heed. Too engrossed with their verbal sparring were they.

They had mentioned Harry though, and because of it she needed to know more.

Was he alright?

Had he won?

Had they won?

Oh no, he lost didn't he?

He killed Voldemort but he died didn't he?

Oh no, she couldn't… she couldn't bear to think it… While he needed them she had been lying here useless. His noble nature meant that he probably had left her be and now… and now…

If he was dead… then she was too…

And then finally her vision cleared from the hazy world it was before. At once her breath caught in her throat.

This was not possible.

There was no way…

Harry was never more torn than in the seconds after Charlie said those three little words and he was holding the crying and apparently more cooperative Hermione in his arms.

On both sides were moments he had just been waiting for. The capture of Bellatrix Lestrange, that woman he hated with a passion so intense he had been planning her murder, along with that of her nephew, since the night she killed Sirius.

He could almost see her interrogation, but this time not at Grimmauld Place, where they tortured the answers they wanted out of her. She would scream in agony, beg in that annoying babying voice, and bitterly curse them like Mrs Black's painting.

And it would all be to no avail.

He would be right there with them, just waiting for his chance, the chance where he would take it too far and end up happy in Azkaban.

Well, at least that was how his imagination had held it.

And then there was Hermione.

She had been his best friend for a long time now, and all the while had had the guise of sanity. She had always been a sweet-tempered girl, to quote his other best friend, and rarely had she ever acted as anything but a model human being. And now in the past few weeks she had been acting most errant.

She had gone from this headstrong young woman to the weepy girl he couldn't handle. The one, who cried in bathrooms, performed badly and had the audacity to be snappish about it after. She was an emotional wreck, made rash, disastrous decisions to the detriment of others and went from rendering him speechless to grating on his nerves.

She was Cho.

Oh how she would have hated that comparison but that was the price she would pay. She wasn't Hermione anymore, she was someone else.

Here at last was the opportunity to get the answers he had been hoping for from the two sides for what felt like forever. There would be crying, angry shouting and apologies all round, jail terms for Bellatrix, but in the end they would have the truth. He could almost taste it now.

He had just never imagined it happening at the same time.

Charlie's head in the flames was speaking again, apparently impatient at being ignored, “Didn't you lot hear me, they've caught Bellatrix Lestrange with Death Eaters in Knockturn Alley. Someone left her in a flat there…”

At this, Lupin, who was apparently the only one capable of forming a coherent sentence asked, “What… what do you mean “left”?”

“That's the best description you could come up with without getting sick… she's a right mess you see. Someone probably lured her into it and… well…” Charlie explained.

“It was a trap?” asked Moody.

“More or less… she's on her way to St Mungo's under heavy guard now… the Healers there might be able to keep her alive for as long as it takes, but they don't think it will be for long,” he replied.

At once Moody turned to the fire, “I'm coming there, she's a dangerous woman, and you're going to need all the help you can get.”

Tonks turned to Moody, her mouth twitching slightly as she bit back her amusement, “But didn't you hear she's not going anywhere?”

“That's a trick, never trust a Death Eater, and especially her… are the rest of you coming too?” he asked, looking back at her and Lupin and… Harry's heart fell… him too.

Lupin and Tonks turned to him and he looked at Hermione, who had now stopped crying and was sitting on her haunches staring at a spot on the floor. Her body heaved feebly as she stifled her tears, her brow furrowed slightly as she fell into her thoughts and he knew that she was ready to talk. If he left her now there was no telling whether she would be ready ever again. Whether or not she would even speak at all when left to the mercies of Mrs Weasley, who had taken a seat nearby, and Ginny, who was staring at her with a look he particularly didn't like. He knew at once the decision he had to make.

As Lupin rose from the floor near them, and Tonks made to go into the flames where Moody had just stepped, he replied, “No, I'll stay here.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lupin though the look in his eyes showed that he knew and understood.

“Yeah… it's not like Bellatrix would even talk to me, if she could, it'd probably be a waste of time,” he told him, hoping that he could believe it himself.

Lupin accepted his answer with a nod. He had not forgotten the intensity of before; Hermione was speaking some nonsense about seeing Percy. Her sister's confirmation of seeing the aforementioned earlier that day did nothing to help the situation any. And then too, what was she talking about him doing something else?

As the flames in the fireplace roared to life once more and Tonks and then Lupin vanished from the Weasley living room, Harry suddenly felt rather alone. He wished Lupin had stayed; he needed him to hear this too.

Emmeline took a seat on an Ottoman near Mrs Weasley and so now he and Hermione, or rather just Hermione, had an audience.

She had a lot of explaining to do, beginning with what Emmeline had meant when she said she had seen Percy earlier. What did she herself mean when she said that something was not true and that Percy was dead, which they all already knew? And most important of all, though probably to Harry most, why was she acting so strangely.

Suddenly, Hermione stood up and walked to the fireplace where the pictures stood on the mantle. Harry made to go after her, fearing that she would try to Floo out, but paused when she stopped and took down a picture.

She stood looking at it for some time, just staring at the moving figures in them, and then finally, as on that morning in the graveyard, said, “It's true… after all this time, thinking… knowing that I… not wanting to believe… it's true…”

Ron was trying to sit up from the ground where he must have fallen or had been sleeping. There was slight dark red stain on his shirt, though she doubted he had been badly hurt, and his angry voice was hoarse. He was weak and yet he was forcing himself to be angry. Almost as if trying to distract his adversary from her limp form behind him…

Why had she not been paying attention to her surroundings?

But the person he was talking to…

She, Harry and Ron had not been there when it happened. In fact, they only heard about it nearly a week after the incident and then rushed to the Burrow immediately.

Arthur and Percy Weasley had been killed in a late night attack on the Ministry of Magic led by Bellatrix Lestrange. All reports coming from a junior photographer, the sole survivor, claimed that Arthur had actually let in the Death Eaters who would kill them and two others in the room at the time. No one believed him, no one wanted to believe him, and yet the fact that two of the bodies were missing lingered…

And here was Percy, minus his glasses and his usually groomed appearance, though with oddly blank eyes, engaged in a heated argument with Ron.

His face was contorted slightly with his rage, his wand trained directly at his brother, and still, neither of them noticed that she was awake.

And where was Harry?

She could hear snippets of the conversation coming through.

“You could help me…”

“You're not my brother anymore…”

“… or would you rather that she helps me… you never listened before… good advice…”

“You can't… I won't let you… Harry's coming back soon… he'll kill you too…”

“… don't understand… you, she can help… stop this…”

“… you're not Percy anymore…”

And then suddenly, he raised his wand and a brilliant flash of green light went at Ron's head before he had a chance to react. He promptly fell over with his eyes open, dead.

She could contain it no more.

She screamed.

Hermione was speaking again.

“When Harry was fighting Voldemort, Ron and I were in the graveyard nearby… we had let him run on ahead, he had to do it…. There were Death Eaters, but just a few, and… and creatures of… and we had to stop them. But the fight didn't last long you see, someone hit me and Ron was left alone.”

She stopped and gave Harry a direct, apologetic look. He wondered if she could see the guilty one on his face then. If she did though she did not acknowledge it and continued.

“When I woke up, the first thing I heard was an argument. Ron was arguing with someone about something, I'm not really sure what, but it sounded intense. And when I looked to find out with whom, it was… it was Percy…”

Mrs Weasley looked up at her, mouth opened slightly, head shaking weakly, and then over to Harry. Ginny was still just staring at Hermione, the look on her face was somewhere between shock and anger.

Emmeline alone looked lost, which was to be expected, but there was no time to explain anything now as Hermione began again.

“They didn't notice me though; even when I made my presence known… they were too busy arguing. The bits of it I heard, probably the end of what had to be a long argument, made no sense to me at all. But I didn't even have the time to try to figure it out before Percy… Percy raised his wand and… killed Ron…. I didn't see anything else after that… I think I must have started screaming, but then everything went black…. When next I opened my eyes Harry was back and trying to get me to wake… to… Ron…”

The declaration that one of her sons had committed fratricide, and unbelievably, one who was supposed to be dead, was too much for Mrs Weasley. She sank her head into her hands and began to cry.

In body rattling sobs she cried while Ginny came over to rub her back. She would not look at him or Hermione as she went either; she just took a seat on the arm of the chair near her mother and tried to comfort her. And nearby, still Emmeline sat confused.

Personally, it surprised Harry that no one, and by that he meant Mrs Weasley, had yet begun to shout that Hermione was a liar. Save for the one moment with Ginny and Emmeline, everyone had been rather accepting of it all.

Maybe they were just too… well, stunned.

Hermione though, was not finished.

“I didn't want to believe it. It was impossible, Percy was dead, we all knew that…. And the dead don't come back, not unless they're ghosts or vampires or… or something else. I thought I had made him up, that my mind wouldn't let me accept that Ron had been killed while I was sleeping… I left the graveyard that morning believing that….”

Harry felt an unnatural constriction in his throat.

“We'll be right here waiting for you when you get back!”

“What took you so long mate?”

What was that old myth? Something about Nero fiddling while Rome burned?

“That lasted a long time that belief, right through all that time in St Mungo's and the funeral too. But it wasn't going to forever. Three days after the funeral, I saw him for the first time since the graveyard… he was standing in the orchard just looking at me while I was writing… he had been there for who knows how long and just waiting for me to look up and see him…. I nearly went mad.”

“Hermione… Hermione are you going to come down for dinner tonight?” asked Dr Granger.

No answer.

“Hermione, you have to eat something… you haven't eaten since breakfast…” she tried again.

No answer.

“Hermione Jane, open the door… please…” Dr Granger insisted.

Hermione, seated at the small desk at the window of her room finally raised her head and replied, “Please leave me alone.”

Immediately she crumpled the letter on the desk before her, the fiftieth one she had attempted so far today, and threw it in the waste paper basket. Her excuse this time was that she had drooled on it, Harry wouldn't want to read through her drool.

There was a pause, her mother was standing there seemingly contemplating something a moment before she finally said, “Hermione… your friend won't be any more forgiving if you die of starvation.”

Hermione didn't answer.

She had long regretted confessing her “sins” to her mother their second night in France, and her mother was making a point of not letting it go. She insisted on trying to help her when Hermione was sure that it was nothing. She was just having a hard time dealing with losing Ron that was all.

The red-haired man, her nightmares, the guilt, the fact that she was slowly losing the ability to perform the simplest of spells, all of that came from losing Ron, her boyfriend. It had happened to Tonks when she couldn't get Lupin to admit to his feelings, and that was all this was too. After all, hadn't she felt claustrophobic in his house with his family and without him? Hadn't Harry felt that way too?

He would not show it but she knew him better than that.

So there was no other explanation save one…

And she wouldn't, she couldn't follow that other option. It was the one that went along the road of teenage, hormone-driven, Third Year delusions….

“Hermione, you need to come down for something to eat. It's not healthy; you know that, we have always taught you to face your problems…” Dr Granger began again through the door but was cut off.

Hermione had taken the time to look out the window as she was thinking before and now screamed, “Mum! He's back! He's outside!”

“He was gone almost immediately after that though. One minute there and the next minute he wasn't. It happened so fast that I guessed I must have dreamed it up and I tried to forget about it. I mean, I was going through a lot, we all were, so my mind was playing tricks… and by the next morning he was forgotten anyway. But he didn't forget me… the next night… he was back again…”

“I tried to pretend that he wasn't real, that he wasn't there and this was just my imagination… like with…. My way of dealing with Ron being gone… but it didn't work. He began to appear in the daylight too… in the shadows of the orchard, in the window of a room, in the backyard under the moonlight… by the end of the week I couldn't take it anymore… I had to leave. I told Ginny, she agreed to help me and then I began to make the arrangements. As much as I wanted to, as much as I knew what I promised, I couldn't do it…”

“I think we're together forever Harry… no, I know it.”

Harry made a point of looking away from her. He barely acknowledged the heavy breath she took as her head dropped.

“The day I was going to leave though, as I tried to write a letter to explain why I was going away like a coward, he was there again. He kept staring at me… watching me… probably knowing what I was going to do and all the while I kept telling myself that he wasn't there. Then to further complicate the situation, as if there weren't a few already…. There was that argument downstairs and I knew…. When Harry came back I went out to argue with him and then Draco came and then…. Harry took us away from here, surprisingly back to the very place Ron died and would you believe it… he was there too…. And then I knew I had to go.”

Harry still wouldn't look at her. He tried to think of what Lupin and the others were doing now, probably trying to withhold Bellatrix's treatment until she told them everything. He could almost see her terrified face, her baby voice and insanity long gone as the realisation dawned on her that she was going no where.

He could feel Hermione's eyes on him, burning into him, and he still would not look up.

It was the sound of the first “pop” that had alerted Hermione's attention.

Her mother had finally gotten her down to dinner tonight and she sat with them at the table as they sampled this latest discovery of French cuisine her mother had made that day. For a dentist who was mostly concerned with the health of her daughters' teeth she had an eye for food. Their father was by no means better either.

Emmeline was sneaking the gummy bears she had bought out in the town earlier that day under the table.

Just before Hermione put the first spoonful to her mouth she heard it. With the warm, moonlit night and cool night air, her mother had left the windows open to the countryside and nocturnal sounds. They had proven soothing on mostly every night until this one. That “pop” did not belong there.

Before she actually had the time to register it though, she heard more of them and knew at once that they had company.

At once she looked up to her parents, the look on their faces told that they knew it too. She stammered, “I… I can't do anything; I-I-I I'm useless… I…”

Her father rescued her, “Don't worry… we'll think of something, take Emmy and find someplace safe to hide…”

“No! I'm the one they're looking for…” she began to protest, though her voice barely left a whisper.

Her mother shook her head, “And they're not going to find you.”

Before she could form another response though, there was a loud crash from below that made Emmeline scream and Hermione had to muffle it by covering her mouth with her hand.

The packet of gummy bears tumbled unto the floor.

And then she was being roughly drawn out of her seat by her father and sent on her way to a hiding place. Her mother was already heading out into the living room to meet their “guests” as Hermione thought, and with certain irony, that her wand was sticking out of her pocket, and she hadn't the power in her to use it.

Harshly, her father suddenly drew her back and shoved both her and Emmeline into the linen closet.

“Daddy, what's going on?” Emmeline demanded, she was shaking in Hermione's arms, her face under her sister's hand wet with tears that had begun the moment she was forced out of the kitchen with her.

“Dad, what are you doing?” Hermione asked, still in that whisper.

“You're not moving fast enough, what do you expect me to tell that friend of yours if they catch you and I just stood there?” he said with a smile she could hear.

Her response was not amused though, “Dad…”

“But in France it was no better you see. He had followed me there too. It took him a while though. Long enough for me to begin to hope that I was free, that I was safe, that I could forget about my failure, forget…. That was foolish though. I had been around Harry long enough to know that once something starts stalking you; it's not likely to stop….”

“But this was Percy you see, Percy! He was the overly ambitious Head Boy with the designs on becoming Minister of Magic! He could be a bit of a snob, he could be annoying, arrogant and obstinate, but he was no murderer. No one, not even myself would ever let me believe that he would… that he could…”

There was a pause, Hermione had fallen into it so abruptly that Harry looked up this time and immediately regretted it. Her eyes were wide as she seemed to realise something, her whole body had begun to shake even before she said aloud, “Oh gods… Harry… Harry… I… I… I led him to them… I made him come after my family…”

“The Nightmare Continues: Attack in France Claims Parents of Friend of Harry Potter!”

Harry didn't want to get up and go to her. He didn't, he honestly didn't.

Mrs Weasley was crying even more now. Silent tears had begun to stream down Ginny's face and she had stopped trying to comfort her mother altogether. She was just looking at Hermione now and on her face there was only pity. She had given up on being angry with her, she now clearly thought her mad.

It was entirely different from the one on Emmeline's.

The small girl looked thoroughly repulsed. If she understood anything at all of what had transpired during the two years her sister had been away to school, suspiciously longer than was necessary by a year, it had to have been that part at the end. This was Hermione's fault.

That was the clearest thing in that furious look in her face, the hating one in her eyes, this was Hermione's fault. Their parents were dead because Hermione had brought the bad man when she came home.

This was all her fault.

Harry really didn't want to go to her, but his traitorous legs took him.

He went right up to her and took her into his arms as she began to cry again. He didn't know what to tell her, what could he say? More than that, he didn't know if he could believe what she was saying. How could he, how could she expect him to understand… save for the nagging voice in his head that reminded him of Emmeline's identification, he couldn't believe this.

But then this was also an explanation.

After weeks of not knowing, wasn't this the answer he wanted? Wasn't this why Hermione had changed altogether? She had seen Ron's murder, was undoubtedly being stalked by the murderer he himself had seen, though not his face, and the trauma had changed her. Wasn't this adequate?

“Who is the “red-haired” man? Why is he haunting my daughter?”

No. It wasn't.

“What happened last year?”

Because something told him that she wasn't telling the exact truth. Something, and he knew it was not Legilimency, knew that she had left gaps in that story somewhere, save for the one he understood as their drinking expedition.

“Harry, Harry I want to leave here… let's get out of here now… please, I want to get out of here now!”

Choosing to ignore this for the time being, he asked, “H-Hermione, why… why, in the midst of this didn't you tell someone? You know I would believe you, you always believed me, why wouldn't I believe you?”

“Why is he haunting my daughter?”

She turned to stare him straight in his eyes, “Because Harry, no one else but I saw him at first… I thought I had made him up… and I didn't want you to believe for some favour, I wanted, if it was true, I wanted… I don't know… I wanted to…”

And suddenly, they were all floored by a soft declaration, “I… I saw him too.”

Both he and Hermione turned to the speaker; Ginny was standing with Emmeline and looking too.

It was Mrs Weasley.

“I saw Percy… I… he was outside yesterday… and before that… at Ron's funeral… his face… the look on his face…” she cried.

Her bosom heaved as if under a great strain. Her hands trembled slightly as she put one to her forehead and nervously gripped at her skirt. If ever he had seen her look like this, afraid, upset and guilty, it had to be the night that boggart cornered her at Grimmauld Place. But she hadn't done anything wrong then, he was sure of it, all she had been then was afraid.

She looked at all of them now, her eyes pleading for forgiveness.

And Harry found that he had none.

Irrationally, the anger he had been feeling for Hermione before took control and he nearly shouted at her, “Y-you knew… you knew about Percy and you… you didn't TELL ANYONE?”

Feebly, Ginny called his name, “Harry…” and Emmeline turned to him with her mouth open.

Normally, he would not have dreamed of such a thing, but this was beyond normal. First Percy's dead and then he's alive and then he killed Ron, stalked Hermione and now his mother confesses that she knew about it too. At the time when he learned of this though, Bellatrix Lestrange was lying in a bed at St Mungo's kept alive and he wasn't there to see it.

The world had gone mad.

“HE FOLLOWED HER TO FRANCE! HE KILLED HER FAMILY! HE WAS SPEAKING TO EMMELINE TODAY! WHAT IF HE…? WHAT IF…? WHY…?” he stopped and dropped his voice, remembering at last to whom he was speaking, “Why… why didn't you tell anyone?”

This was insane. That was the only excuse. This entire thing was completely insane.

And then he didn't wait for an answer either. He reached forward and snatched Emmeline's hand, took hold of Hermione with the other and Disapparated.

A/N: Thank you for travelling with Aftermath Transit. Please remember to collect all personal items on the way out. Until next chapter, have a nice day!

If nothing in this is new to you, and especially to izzieq, who scares me into thinking that my mind has been read, (though not on everything, ha!), I'm sorry. Thank you all for reviewing and I hope you liked or at least understood what was going on in this chapter. I'm not sure that I do.

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A/N: Hey all! It's me again, and I'm early this week, national holiday in my country means that I can bring this to you. Don't hate me for the fact that it is mostly filler. If you are bored reading this, and really annoyed that I even posted it, what can I say, I too dislike filler for the fact that it is a pain to write. Thankfully though, this means I can jump into the action in the next chapter again! Yay!!!

Anyhoo, all are encouraged to read and review. There might be important stuff in this chapter. I hope.

*****

Fights and Flight

When Harry finally Apparated them into the street before the house, all surprisingly un-splinched, Emmeline freed herself from him roughly and raced through the front door, slamming it behind her. Hermione remained awkwardly beside him a moment then, before she too began to head through the gate and up to the house after her. But Harry stood where he was watching them go, trying his best to sort through all he had just heard.

“And when I looked to find out with whom, it was… it was Percy…”

The “red-haired” man was Percy. He was alive.

“But I didn't even have the time to try to figure it out before Percy… Percy raised his wand and… killed Ron….”

He had killed Ron.

“Three days after the funeral, I saw him for the first time since the graveyard… he was standing in the orchard just looking at me while I was writing… he had been there for who knows how long and just waiting for me to look up and see him….”

He had been stalking Hermione.

“He was the one who met me at the gate this afternoon.”

Today he had come to Harry's house with a message he gave Emmeline.

“I saw Percy… I… he was outside yesterday… and before that… at Ron's funeral… his face… the look on his face…”

And Mrs Weasley knew he was alive too.

The life of Harry Potter was just full of interesting surprises.

Here he had been, innocently believing that this red-haired man was just some random murderer he would personally deal with later on. Here he had been thinking that the best friend, who had never broken a promise before, never lied to anyone, and especially him, without reason, and never failed him before, had betrayed him. Here he had been thinking that this was over.

“Hadn't we ended this war?”

Clearly, he was a fool.

He should have known better than that. His life was not supposed to be easy. Did he forget that he was the Chosen One?

Surely he must have, because any other reasonable individual would have caught on to the reality that he was never going to have peace. Any reasonable being would have been more vigilant. Mad Eye Moody was still alive wasn't he? Harry could be just as paranoid as he if he wanted to be, Sixth Year anyone?

He shouldn't have shouted at Mrs Weasley, he should have shouted at himself.

And then there was that little voice telling him that Hermione was still keeping something from him too. Just to further complicate matters of course, as he had no good reason for any of this.

“… This was just my imagination… like with….”

“… and I knew….”

“… Forget….”

He was not sure how he came up with it, he wasn't sure why he was thinking this, but he just knew it.

Those sentences had been going somewhere and then she cut them, abruptly. It was as if she had suddenly realised where she was going and then started on the next sentence as coolly as she could. And they weren't even like the blanket ignorance of the shed from her narration. They were so small to be nonsensical, for all he knew it could have been leading to something about Ron.

Yet, he did not believe it.

Just as her hand grasped the shiny brass doorknob he said her name, “Hermione.”

She stopped as she was and without looking round asked, “Harry?”

“Can we talk?” he asked, hoping she would hear the plea in his voice.

She did not respond at first.

She just stood at the door staring at it for a time, slowly becoming less visible as the evening darkened to night and the lights of the other homes round began to come on.

A part of him knew that she must have been expecting this; she would not be Hermione if she hadn't. She must have known that after she told the first story, there would be a second one for them to discuss, alone. Now faced with it though, he wondered if she also knew how hesitant he really was to get into it at all.

But eventually, and just as Harry was beginning to worry, she said, “Yes.”

He had started towards her then, half-anxious, half-hesitant, when she dropped unto the front steps and said, “I'm pathetic aren't I?”

That halted his progress, he looked at her confused.

“I'm supposed to be the smartest witch of her generation, I'm supposed to be one of those brave people who faced Voldemort and lived, and I'm supposed to be… I don't know… someone I used to be…. Now I'm pathetic, a shadow, useless…” she continued and began to twist her fingers in her lap, “You were right when you mocked my “logical” claim.”

There was then an excruciatingly awkward pause before she said, “If you want to shout at me now, I won't fight… I deserve it… I'm stupid…”

“Don't.” Harry found his voice through his confusion, “Don't you dare say that! Don't you ever let me hear you say that again! You are not stupid! Or pathetic! And especially not useless! If you weren't here I'd be dead! If Mrs Weasley had said something before…”

“Mrs Weasley was like me, she saw him… she saw him and she was confused… I…” Hermione protested.

“Yes, yes, you both saw him and chose to keep it to yourselves, just let me rant I'll get over it!” he told her shortly, he was beginning to get annoyed again, “But Hermione, you always encouraged Ron and me to talk about everything; couldn't you trust me to understand? I know about you and Ron… and I mean it's like Cho with Cedric isn't it, it must be hard for you…”

Hermione suddenly snapped, “It's not that! I… I…” and then her voice trailed off.

Harry felt lost again a moment before he realised his mistake. He had compared her to Cho, and Hermione Granger was no big fan of Cho Chang.

“Listen Hermione… I'm sorry… it's just… I should have understood, thought more about how you felt, Ron was your boyfriend, my friend too…” he tried again. And again, Hermione cut him off, though not as heatedly as before.

“He wasn't my boyfriend when he died Harry.”

Okay, now he was lost.

“What?”

She looked up at him with a somewhat sheepish smile.

“We broke up… about a week before… before we came here…. We had to help you fight, not fight with each other… and things already weren't going so well… I guess… we just… we decided to stop…”

He stared at her still, taken by complete surprise, this was news to him. And strangely, he also felt a bit… pleased… with this piece of information.

There was no time to dwell on that now though, so he said, and hoping it was the right thing, “You shouldn't have done that… I mean, look at your magic… where's your wand? You must have really… liked… him for this to happen to you, remember Tonks?”

It was not.

“This isn't that!” she snapped again.

A silence descended on them as he wracked his brain trying to figure out the problem, then giving up, said, “Well… I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, I should have been a better friend, understood… and don't worry, I'll get him… Percy won't get away with this.”

She gave a bitter smile and looked away from him. If he had not been listening, and the world around them silent, he would have just missed her saying, “No… he won't… not as long as Harry Potter is here to save the day…”

There was not a trace of malice. There was only pain.

The conversation was over for the night.

*****

The next day brought with it, for the first time in days, brilliant sunshine that crept through the curtains and spread lazily on throughout the rooms of the house. When Harry awoke that morning it was facing the wall opposite his bed through the leaves of the tree just outside his window in the back.

It brought a curious smile to his lips. The last time he had seen the sunlight like that, it was shining through the window in their hideout, the morning of the last day before he faced Voldemort. Hermione had told him, and he now realised that it was in fact the first non-war related comment she had made in days then, that it meant that better days were coming. After her revelations at the Burrow though, he wondered if he could still believe that.

And then he was roused from his bed by the smell of oatmeal wafting through the house. Someone had made breakfast. He sniffed the air and then followed the smell into the hall and then the living where he was greeted by the unwelcome sight of Hermione and Emmeline engaged in a fierce, whispered argument.

It ended abruptly as he came in of course, but not before Emmeline jerked out of her sister's reach, shot her a parting glare and rushed off to the bedroom where she slammed it shut. He and Hermione were left to awkwardly stare at each other in her wake.

The morning had just begun and it was ruined. He had forgotten the look Emmeline had on her face when Hermione had declared their parents' deaths the day before. He had, but she hadn't.

It was Hermione who broke it first.

“She hates me… she knows… she thinks it's my fault,” she said staring down at her bowl of oatmeal.

Harry ignored her slip.

“She'll get over it… I forgave Dumbledore didn't I?” and as she began to smile a little, “Besides, I'm a wit-wizard like you, I could alter her memories.”

Hermione's smile dropped instantly and she looked up at him, appalled, “You will not be using magic against my sister! Our parents didn't like the idea of using magic for quick fixes and there's no reason that that should change!”

“Says the girl who fixed her teeth in Fourth Year by magic when her parents specifically told her not to?” asked Harry, smirking.

In reply she gave him a mischievous conspiratorial look.

She then looked so much like a Hermione he once knew that he actually let his jaw hang loose and eyes widen until she began to feel self-conscious and began looking down at her clothes.

“What… what? Is there something on my pyjamas? Did I miss a button?” she asked as she searched.

Before he could stop himself Harry blurted, “I wish.”

Instead of getting up to slap him, as he was very sure any reasonable woman would do in the circumstance, or at least shoot him a reproachful glare, Hermione blushed. She actually sat there blushing, looking down at her bowl with cheeks as red as Ron's hair and then said, “You know, I almost told Mrs Weasley about that yesterday.”

And just like that she brought back the doubts that had plagued his mind after she spoke the day before.

“… This was just my imagination… like with….”

“… and I knew….”

“… Forget….”

She had omitted parts of that speech, and here she was confirming it. Well, okay it was his paranoia again, but this was something wasn't it? She had almost told them a few more things yesterday too.

He sat down then, fully intending to question her when she suddenly stood up, still red-cheeked, and said, “I-I have to go… I-I think I should go change… Lupin sent an owl this morning, said that Bellatrix is in a coma but there are some things he wanted to talk to you about.”

She said this all rather quickly and was soon stepping past him to the living room. He reached a hand and held her arm, stopping her at once.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“Lupin… Bellatrix is in a coma… the Healers at St Mungo's told him that she lost a lot of blood, she's barely alive really, and he wants to talk… I presume it has to do with what happened yesterday…” she said.

Harry was up and out of his seat in an instant. Hermione was left standing where she was as he went to the fireplace and checked the Floo Powder in the bowl. Satisfied with what he saw, he walked to the closet and removed his cloak and then headed back to the fireplace again just as Hermione finally spoke, “Where are you going Harry?”

“To St Mungo's, I have to see this for myself…” he replied absently as he now began to put on his cloak.

The door to Emmeline's room opened and she stepped out dressed for the day. With a quick look around, she spared her sister a glance before asking Harry, “Can I go with you?”

Hermione immediately protested, “No! Harry, you're still in your pyjamas, and it's not safe out there… what if… what if he's waiting for you… or if he comes here when you're gone?”

Harry's hand paused over the bowl and he turned to look at Hermione. The colour had drained from her face completely; he never wished that she were blushing again more than that moment. He could see her trembling slightly standing there in her little red satin pyjamas, and the fear in her eyes tore into his soul. The realisation that her stalker was real must have torn down what little of her Gryffindor courage she had left and summoned to face him. Standing there now, she was well and truly mortified at the thought of Harry leaving her alone in the house.

“Harry,” she went on, “you know that I can't… that I can't even do simple spells anymore… it was a wonder I got home that night… two days in France and I… I'm useless Harry…”

He couldn't believe that he forgot Percy. This was no time to be running off with Hermione alone in the house. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even sure if the house was safe anymore. He had come here to deliver a message once; he could come back for something far more sinister the next.

But he still, really wanted to get to St Mungo's.

And then he thought of a brilliant plan.

“Go get changed, I'm taking you to St Mungo's, you were born a witch, you can't just lose your magic,” he told her.

“Do I have to come too?” asked Emmeline, her face showing reluctance where her eyes told another tale.

Hermione protested, “Harry, this is just for a little while, it'll come back, I just need some time…”

“Do you want me to force you to go, I am a very powerful wizard you know?” he asked with a smile.

“You wouldn't dare… I'm not going Harry… this is just… it's not anything medical!” she nearly screamed at him.

On being screamed at where he had just smiled at her, he could not restrain himself, “Then tell me Hermione! Tell me what's wrong with you!”

“I told you that yesterday!” she raged.

He could barely believe it. He knew fear did things to people, but so far he had only seen her panic and lose direction. Today her fear manifested itself in anger.

And sadly, he was also on a short fuse.

“No Hermione, yesterday you told us about Percy! You didn't tell us a damn thing about you!” he retorted angrily.

“What are you talking about?” she asked between clenched teeth.

Harry wanted to scream at her, “What do you mean what am I talking about? YOU LEFT SOME STUFF OUT OF YOUR LITTLE SPEECH!”

“Did you want Mrs Weasley and Ginny to know what else happened that afternoon?” she demanded, with a look of feigned shock.

“NO! But I want to know something, what did you know that day before I had that argument with the Order? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO FORGET?” he shouted back.

She stopped and actually stepped back, and when next she spoke her voice faltered considerably, “W…what are you talking about?”

He got her, he was sure of it.

He forgot his guilt, he forgot his confusion, and he forgot her pain. To his internal horror, he realised that he wanted to get one over on her.

And still he went on.

“Well, if you want to know Hermione, there are some things you didn't tell me… some things I really want to know… I mean, I wasn't sure that I should touch this, you had been so honest before, but you kept Emmeline a secret, SO WHAT ELSE HAVEN'T YOU TOLD US YET?!” he asked.

And then to his utter surprise she burst into tears and sank to the floor near the kitchenette set table. He was completely floored, just watching her sitting there crying, as pathetic as she had called herself the night before. He couldn't stay mad, he didn't actually expect to make her cry, and more than that, his internal horror at his actions was fast coming out.

Suddenly Emmeline launched herself at him screaming, “STOP IT! STOP MAKING HER CRY! I HATE YOU, YOU ALWAYS MAKE HERMIONE CRY! STOP IT! SHE'S ALL I GOT! YOU'LL MAKE HER MAD, STOP MAKING HER CRY,”

If ever he had doubted where Emmeline's loyalties lay, he took it back with interest. Her small fists pounded his side as furiously, as angrily as she could. Her long, bushy hair tangled in her grip and was becoming as dishevelled as her clothes as she fought. And her eyes, those wide brown eyes looked at him tear-filled and displaying all the hatred she felt to the Death Eaters, to Percy, and possibly to her sister, as she hit him.

Under their burning gaze he lifted their owner into his arms and held her until she settled. In the corner of his eyes he was vaguely aware of Hermione looking at them as surprised as he.

Fights and tears were becoming a disturbing recurrence in this house.

He was distracted from this thought though, when Emmeline in his arms tightened her grip round his neck and said through her tears, “And you're all I got too, if you send her mad they'll take me away. Stop making her cry please, you're all I got now too.”

Hermione gave a gasping cry from her place on the kitchen floor.

What Emmeline had just said… what she meant… it meant that's she realised… that she accepted… she knew… her parents were finally dead to her. And not only this though, but she was asking him to do something too. In her moment of realisation she had made a decision and now it was his turn.

He knew if he said those words he was damning himself to some sort of hell. He knew if he dared affirm what she was implying he was sworn to it for life. He knew, as he turned to Hermione for advice now, that he couldn't, that he shouldn't say it. That he should remind Emmeline of her relatives, her grandparents, her family that she still had when he had nothing to offer other than fear and possible pain. But he said them anyway.

“You're my family Emmeline; I'm never going to let anyone take you anywhere. I don't mean to make Hermione cry, I'm just a stupid boy… and sometimes, she can be a silly girl too… we're both silly people…. We're sorry, we're so very sorry.”

“Then don't do that again!” she cried into his chest, “You're all I got.”

A silence fell unto the three of them in the house then. But it was not an awkward one this time.

It was punctuated by Emmeline's lessening sobs, Hermione's mild sniffling, and then, most curious of all, three noisy birds on another tree at the kitchen window. It almost sounded as if they were holding their own little conversation, and as loud as they pleased too. And then eventually, Emmeline smiled against Harry's chest.

The morning was salvaged.

And then it was Hermione who spoke.

From her place on the kitchen floor she said, “Harry, if we don't stop him though, this won't change… and I… I hate fighting with you.”

He made to speak, Emmeline herself seemed to struggle with a protest, but she shook her head, “Harry… you have to trust me on this… when I'm ready… when I can… when I'm sure that I can… I'll tell you the rest. Right now… right now I need to understand some things for myself and when I do… then I'll tell you.”

“Hermione, if this is about Percy and Ron I need to hear everything… I…” he began.

He knew that she was talking about the subject of their argument, her missing sentences, but he had to be sure.

“I know, you can't help if you don't, you can't stop him if you don't… but what I… what I can't tell you now, it has nothing to do with Percy or Ron, and I need to tell you on my own terms, at my own time and with no fights,” she almost pleaded.

Closing his eyes then, reflecting that this was probably the second mistake he was going to make on the same day he said, “Okay, alright Hermione, I'll let it go.”

*****

Two days later the headline of the Daily Prophet ran bold, “Harry Potter Sells Home: Hundreds Flock to Godric's Hollow!” The Evening Prophet was next, and as a shocking first, decided to name his friend, “Potter Home For Sale: Move Reportedly Instigated by Live-In Friend, Hermione Granger!” Witch Weekly, decided to be downright scandalous, “Man-Who-Triumphed Looks for Larger Love-nest! (Is there Marriage in the Works?)”

It was open season on him and Hermione and it had actually been Lupin and Moody's decision more than Harry's in the first place.

When Lupin finally arrived that same day to talk to Harry, he was quickly given a summary of Hermione's tale. Once he had the finer points, he called Moody and Charlie over and while Harry and Hermione sat on the sofa looking on, a decision was made. With the new knowledge that there was a stalker on them, it was not advisable that he or Hermione spend any length of time at the Godric's Hollow residence. It was simply determined that they were much safer elsewhere.

Harry had argued vehemently against this, the second fight for the day. This was his house; he had purchased it for his comfort, to live his life and no one else's. Lupin then reminded him that he was not living alone now, that Hermione and Emmeline were with him. After that, Harry crumbled.

It took them only a few hours then for all the arrangements to be made.

Until Percy was caught Harry, Hermione and Emmeline would stay at the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix or number twelve, Grimmauld Place and his house in Godric's Hollow was to be sold. If Harry wanted to repurchase his home afterwards, or find another, he could do so if he wished, but only after they were safe.

A sarcastic comment on this earned him a narrowed look from Hermione and he fell into silence.

A very upset and somewhat apologetic Mrs Weasley was then contacted and informed. Within moments of the message being delivered she was off to Grimmauld Place to supervise the clean-up while Ginny came over to help Harry and Hermione pack up at the house. By nightfall of the next day hundreds of boxes and a few trunks were being sent through the fire to Headquarters, which had been connected to the Floo Network for the night only, to be unpacked on the other side by Mrs Weasley and company.

It was then, a very exhausted and antsy Harry who sank into a corner, at the end of the day, to look around his now vacant house and think. And he discovered that it was now once more a building filled with rooms and air, and soon to be devoid of life.

He had bought it in a time when all he wanted was escape and it had given him that much. If he thought about it at all, then he would have to say that its duty, its purpose, had been fulfilled and there was no need for it anymore. It was time, albeit prematurely, to leave this place. And he should know all about that.

His whole life had been about premature events.

His parents died too young and left him too soon to fend for himself against a world that was less than kind. And then his childhood ended soon after that.

Next there was his second attempt at it when it came to the Wizarding world. This was a new place to him, perfect to start again… and then he faced the Dark Lord at the end of his First Year.

In order of their occasion after this, he lost his innocence of the danger of Voldemort at fourteen with the murder of a classmate. It should have been sooner, considering that he had almost killed him before, and yet it wasn't. Then he lost his godfather too soon, a man he had known for only three years, and much of one of those as a murderer trying to kill him. His headmaster, his mentor, was killed just when he was beginning to guide him on the journey that would take him to Voldemort. His schooling had to end after that, it was no longer safe, he never saw graduation. And then the final blow… or maybe not yet… his best friend was taken from him on the cusp of that new beginning he had almost died for.

What was losing this house in all of that?

He almost laughed at himself then, almost.

And then he was disturbed by soft footsteps coming towards him. He looked up from his place on the floor to find that his intruder was Emmeline and quickly looked down again. He hoped she would get the message and leave, see that he was a big boy, “Mister” she had called him, and that misters needed alone time too. But she was not Hermione's sister just because of the hair.

She walked right over to him and smiled, and then asked, “Are you ready to go?”

Nope, she was definitely not her sister just because of the hair. She too pretended not to notice the moments when he was full of shite and wallowing in it.

He stretched out an arm, she took hold and pretended to struggle to pull him to his feet, and then he allowed her to lead him to the front door and out of the house.

He never looked back.

And he never went back.

When the news finally broke in the newspapers and over the Wizard Wireless Network, Harry Potter had been gone for over a day. And by that time too, he had other concerns.

Percy Ignatius Weasley, born the 22^nd of August, 1976, was the son of the family that had given Harry the one thing that Voldemort had taken away, a home. He had been a bright, ambitious young man who had passed with twelve OWLS, a number of NEWTS, been a school prefect at Hogwarts and then subsequently Head Boy. After school he had joined the Ministry of Magic where his younger twin brothers had joked of his desire to one day become the Minister of Magic. But the same Percy had died the 23^rd of February, 1999, an outcast to those who had known him, and supposedly at the hands of his own father.

This, “red-haired” man was not him.

And when next they would meet each other, Harry had only one purpose in mind… revenge.

A/N: Whew! That's done… and on to the next chapter. As a teaser, here's the title, “We Who are About to Die.” Make of it what you will.

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A/N: Oh my, oh my, what can I tell you about this chapter? Well, it certainly took less time than the last, and was a bit of fun. And is a bit long, but you don't mind that, do you? Okay.

Well now, for the Math lovers, there are simultaneous equations in here… once you read it, you'll know what I mean.

Hmm, nothing else to say… enjoy, and do review please?

*****

We Who are About to Die

It took two weeks, but Emmeline finally came up with a word that fit Grimmauld Place, with all its creepy noises, darkened high-ceilinged rooms and interesting stuffed… wall mounts….

It was morose.

Okay, so it was a little heavy for a nine year old, but for someone with a genius sister she didn't use words like that often. She had some catching up to do.

So yes, after two weeks at Grimmauld Place with Harry, Hermione, Harry's owl Hedwig, a tiny, bug eyed elf-thing called “Dobby”, a foul-mouthed painting in the corridor that used the word “Mudblood”, whatever that meant, often, and the man with the white blonde hair confined to the upper floors, she had decided that Grimmauld Place was morose, and yet she loved it.

It was like something out of a gothic novel, Frankenstein maybe, or Dracula. She could imagine some ghost or ghoul or whatever wandering the halls late at night while they slept. Or coffins in that cavernous basement kitchen, or a locked room that could only be opened by special key or even secret passageways and hidden rooms where the servants once resided but now evil spirits haunted awaiting some unsuspecting intruder. The Hallowe'en parties they could hold, the sleepovers, the birthday parties… the… the possibilities were endless.

Their first night at Grimmauld Place, Emmeline and Hermione had slept in the same room on the first floor.

It was darkest night in the room, so dark that Harry actually set the tip of his wand alight and left it in there for them. Hermione did not sleep at all after that. She just lay in bed and cried.

In nights that followed, Hermione would sleep, but Emmeline wouldn't.

It was how she came to know of the man in the upper floors in the first place.

When they went off to bed at night, Emmeline would wait until Hermione's breathing evened and then she would slip out of bed to wander the house. With no one save the Order, or whoever they were, herself, Hermione and Harry about, she was free to explore.

Sadly though, there wasn't much to see.

There really were secret and locked rooms, hidden closets of things she was afraid to touch, a large old library of dust covered tomes and the locked attic from which the strangest of noises were heard. The house itself rose for about six floors and then there was the attic, and for a curious child with nothing but time on her hands this wasn't much. Hours at a time of wandering sometimes led her nowhere or to clandestine meetings by the Order or the smaller group of Mrs Weasley, Lupin, Moody, Charlie and Tonks and on one occasion including Harry.

These meetings were often late at night, when they thought that none could overhear, and even then they whispered. Mostly they discussed the man, Percy, who had given her the message.

The message itself was finally delivered the morning after they arrived here. She was rather surprised that she had remembered it at all, especially after what she had just gone through. But she had, and the look that Hermione gave, the confused one where she furrowed her brow temporarily and worried a lip before something cleared a path in her mind, told her that it was important.

Sometimes the meetings wandered unto the topic of herself or Hermione, or sometimes on strange names like “Bellatrix” and “Voldemort” and once or twice on “Draco”. At other times it followed Percy again, with long discussions on what exactly his job was at some place they called the “Ministry of Magic”.

At one of those moments, Hermione made the connection between the Latin phrase and Percy and exclaimed, and particularly to Harry, “Oh don't you see, I get it now, Perlustro ut Mortuus! It means “look to the dead” right? Well, and I don't know why he would be taunting us like this, but that's what he wants! He wants us to look to the dead, look at the dead, look at him! He's telling us what happened to him!”

Harry had then asked, “But why?”

Hermione's excitement deflated slightly, but she said confidently nevertheless, “I guess it's a show of his arrogance, he wants us to know how he got to this point. Blind ambition needs to be coddled every once in a while.”

No one questioned her logic after that.

And then, at another time, they mentioned someone called “Ron”, whose name they all uttered with sadness in their voices. She guessed that he was the school friend Hermione had who died.

But it took her two days to find all this.

Her sister confessed that the house once had a lot more than now but they cleaned it up before their Fifth Year at school. It took all her strength to conceal her disappointment then or let on the fact that she wandered the house randomly at night.

But then they barely noticed anyway. Her sister and Harry took her sleeping most of the time in the day as a good thing. And it was sometimes, it made her forget other things… But then there was something else too.

It was almost as if they were scared of the house.

Honestly, didn't Hermione say something about them fighting some war?

She wasn't entirely sure that she believed that bit; nothing looked too much as if any war had been fought. And she remembered the news, watching it some nights with their parents. Apart from a few freak accidents, the weird destruction of a few buildings and odd firework displays over a few homes, there was no war.

If Harry and Hermione wanted to get away from their families for a year after graduation all they had to do was ask.

It was then, on her fourth night out and rather bored of wandering the same cobwebbed halls with horribly disfigured wallpaper and dusty, threadbare carpet, if it could still be called that, she discovered the house's secret occupant.

He was a tall, slender young man, probably Harry's age, with a pointy face, cold grey eyes, sleek, white blonde hair and a pale complexion. He wore robes too, which made her guess he was some kind of wizard, but she saw no wand, and every night she could find him pacing the halls of the upstairs muttering angrily on and on about something.

And what was most wonderful, he never saw her.

She watched him for three nights after this. She had to make sure. And it was a welcome distraction he would become, taking her mind off of her boredom, the fact that the school year was now looming and those other things that came with that.

If Harry, Hermione and Mrs Weasley wanted to know, she had no plans on going back to school this term. She didn't want to get dressed and then be dropped off by anyone other than her parents. She didn't want to come home to this house, no matter how interesting it was, when she knew that her mother or father wouldn't be there ready to set her off to her homework. She didn't even want to look at the books, and she hadn't so far either.

She was perfectly happy learning all these interesting things about magic, pretending that this house was her castle to keep her safe and watching that forgotten boy vent his frustrations late at night. She might even speak to him once if she got the chance, she could use a friend.

And then one night, the tables were turned.

She had not even bothered to go up to the room that night. Hermione, Harry and Ginny had been going through boxes upon boxes of things that had been brought from the “Ministry” and had forgotten all about her in the corner watching them.

They were Percy's things, Mrs Weasley had brought them while rambling on and on with teary eyes. She left Ginny with them to help, and because no one thought this was anything she should not see, Emmeline took a place in the corner with a library book she had stolen from Hermione.

It was filled with the most bizarre illustrations, and to top it off, some of them moved. More than once she had shut the book at the sight of some oddly misshapen creature that breathed ink and paper fire or something at her. On one occasion she near fell out of her seat when one of them gave her a mischievous wink. She actually dropped it altogether when something moved to crawl off the page.

Never again was she going to read her sister's books.

And then the clock chimed signalling her bedtime. Hermione looked up at it at once and said, “It's time to go to bed Emmy.”

She made not even the slightest attempt to protest as she scurried out of the room. And then she was half way to bed when she realised what she was doing and changed direction. Hermione and the others looked rather busy in there; she could do whatever she wanted tonight.

Taking the steps sometimes one at a time, and sometimes two, she walked all the way to what had to be the fifth floor, then turned off at the landing and headed along the familiar hall that led to him.

But tonight, he wasn't there. It surprised her.

Every night so far she had seen him up here. He always walked this same stretch of dimly lit hallway muttering to himself and once of twice kicked a door. He always nervously itched at his arm when some strange creaking noise sounded around them at odd intervals. He was always there, and tonight he wasn't.

She walked as far as she dared down the hall then, listening for even the sound of his breathing, and when she came up with nothing, turned to leave.

And there he was standing in her way glaring at her. She nearly screamed.

Biting it back though, she put on her bravest face as he quickly looked her over and then said with a sneer, “You look like that Mudblood Granger, who are you?”

From the way he said that word in that arrogant voice she had a feeling that it was a very bad word. And instead of replying to his question she asked, “What does that word mean, “Mudblood”, that lady in the painting downstairs says it all the time.”

He looked rather disarmed at that question.

He stared at her then, for as long as he could, like her father did when Hermione would send some cryptic letter, before asking, “What's your name?”

“Emmeline,” she replied.

“Emmeline…” he repeated, “Emmeline… you're Granger's…?”

“Sister, I'm Hermione's sister,” Emmeline told him, and again tried to look bold.

The way he was staring at her was making her rather uncomfortable.

“Sister… Granger has a sister… are you a witch?” he asked, and dared a step closer.

It took all of Emmeline's strength not to tear off down the hall past him as fast as her legs would carry her.

“N-no,” she stuttered.

“No… you're a Muggle then…” he said with finality and then sneered, “Filth, just like her!”

“I'm not the filthy nutter walking around up here kicking walls, talking to no one!” she snapped then before she could stop herself.

He actually stopped in surprise, looked at her wide-eyed and then burst out laughing.

“Granger's sister you must be, to come up with something as lame as that!”

“Lamer than calling my sister a Mudblood, that's a bad word isn't it? That's all you got innit?” she asked, and this time felt as bold as she spoke.

“Go away little girl!” he snapped.

“I don't have to, this is my house!” she retorted.

“No it isn't! This is my family's home, and if it wasn't for my blood traitor uncle this house would be mine and you wouldn't be here!” he said bitterly.

“This is Harry's house! I'd like to see you take it away from him!” said Emmeline, pleased at the indignant look that appeared now.

“I said go away child, I'm a wizard you know, and I could hurt you!” he said dangerously.

“I'm not afraid of you! You can't hurt anybody, where's your wand?” she taunted.

“I don't need a wand sometimes… do you want to die little girl?” he replied, continuing in his dangerous tone.

“I'd like to see you try and hurt me!” she dared.

Before she had time to think he had snatched her up and carried her, and all the while with her struggling furiously against him, to the stairs. He dropped her on her bum at the top of them and said, “Go away and never come back here! If I even see a hint of that lion's mane I'll drop you down myself, the hard way!”

And then in a swirl of robes he turned and stormed down the hallway back to wherever he had come from. Emmeline then stuck out her tongue at his retreating back and began to make her way down, all the while grumbling angrily at her treatment.

When next she would see him she would show him that you didn't need to be a witch to hurt people. She rode horses at school, though Hermione never liked them, and she had her riding crop along with her school things in her room. She would give him the soundest thrashing he ever had in his life.

The next night though, when Emmeline slipped upstairs, he was walking the halls as before, angrily on about something. This time though, he stopped once and said, “I know you're here, go away you filth!”

She didn't move.

She never moved in fact. For the rest of those two weeks Emmeline would climb to the top of the stairs and find him pacing there. Sometimes she would bring food, which he never ate, or a book that he wouldn't touch, or just talk while he pretended to ignore her or until he grew tired of it and dropped her at the top of the stairs with a glare.

And then the last time he did it, just last night, this time he didn't drop her. He put her on her feet and pointed down the stairs.

They were making such brilliant headway. It hadn't been long ago that Emmeline realised that he was lonely up here in the morose old house. Combined with her boredom, they made such a perfect couple.

Too bad it was not to last.

When next Emmeline and the white-blonde haired boy would see each other, one of them was going to die…

*****

Wide awake, Bellatrix Black Lestrange was lying in the centre of the pristine hospital bed in the bare white room on the Fourth Floor ward of St Mungo's staring at her visitors. She was breathing through a tube, with numerous scars healing slowly on her once immaculate skin, her head was bandaged and something was wrong with her left leg, but in her cold, dark eyes there was no fear.

She had never been afraid of them, and especially of the tall, skinny boy in the corner with the messy black hair and that scar on his forehead. But she had no doubt that the four others with him, that paranoid fool Mad Eye Moody, her disgrace of a niece Nymphadora, that over-sized oaf, another of the Weasleys, Charlie, and that dangerous half-breed werewolf Lupin, would not stop at fear to get their answers. Or stop him if it came to it.

What a remarkable waste of time this was going to be.

Didn't they care that she had just woken up? That she had almost been killed by that… that boy…

She tried to yawn, it hurt, but the look of displeasure on the boy's face was worth it. How she would have loved to see him in her place… and just seconds before she killed him.

The others were not amused.

Lupin spoke first, “I believe you know why we're here?”

It was a foolish question, she glared at him.

“Good, then you know that we want answers… that we're not above anything to get them?”

She scoffed and sneered, the Auror fixed his eye on her and she was looked away.

“Good. Why don't we start simple? I'm going to use a charm that will help you speak… and before you even think of it, you have been fed Veritaserum intravenously, there will be no lies tonight, and you will answer.” Lupin explained but she did not turn her head.

“Continuing, it may hurt a little, but I assure you that this could be much worse… so now, how about you begin by telling us how this happened to you?”

He pointed his wand at her throat and muttered an incantation. There was a feeling of dryness a moment, so parched that it was painful to swallow, and then there was moisture again. She gasped and was startled to find sound, but then quickly sneered, “Why, so that you can gloat?”

The boy laughed, “I might.”

Moody flashed him a look and he fell into silence, though still glaring at her. Lupin shook his head, “No Bellatrix, all we want tonight, are answers, we've been left in the dark too long.”

“More than you know…” she said slowly, glowering, and then sighed, “But fine, it's not as if I have a choice now is it?”

Hermione may not want to believe this, but Emmeline was quite sure that she did not like “Dobby” or whatever it was they called that thing that kept house for them when Mrs Weasley was out. As… cute… as he might appear to her elder sister, some people, namely herself, begged to differ. His overly-excited-to-serve manner was annoying, his misshapen little body repulsed her, and the way he would just appear… more than once already she had screamed when he did that.

And then she couldn't help but feel sorry for him too. It always seemed to break his little heart whenever she started at his arrival.

There was to be no mistake about it though. He may have been a faithful little servant, but he was a fright and she didn't like him.

Of course, as luck would have it, the pregnant French lady, also called Mrs Weasley, who she had seen only once so far, had decided to give birth that night and Hermione had rushed off to the hospital with Ginny, Mrs Weasley Senior and a few others to stay with her. Emmeline, who had a cold and therefore could not go, was then left in the care of Harry. And no more than ten minutes passed before someone's head appeared in the flames, a cryptic message was delivered and he was rushing off to the hospital too. But he just had to leave Dobby to watch over Emmeline as he went, and even after she protested too.

It didn't take her long then, to feign tiredness and go off to bed. Well, it was not entirely feigned, she was ill after all.

She had been running a high fever for days and because Hermione, despite Harry and the others' repeated notes that she used magic to heal them, she kept muttering something about Emmeline being Muggle and she wanted to be sure. Oh, she better hope Emmeline never got some magic in her; she would deal with her nicely.

She made a point then, of ignoring Dobby's disappointed face as she went.

Now though, and she blamed her conscience, she couldn't lie still. She felt sorry for him, the ugly little thing, and her mind raced with wild images of him punishing himself for making her upset. If she didn't do something soon, her guilt would give her nightmares. And in this dark room, where Harry finally had managed a small night lamp with a stencil shade that revolved so that the shadows of witches and stars and other magical things were cast on the walls round, would not do if that happened.

Finally, throwing off the covers, and still fighting against herself as she did so, she sat up and found her slippers. She would go outside, apologise, make sure he was alright and understood that she wasn't angry, and then go back to bed.

It was as simple as that.

Satisfied with this, she rose from her bed, taking up her bathrobe as she went, and made her way out to the hall.

Not quite believing what he had just heard, Harry rose from his place in the corner and went closer to bed, interrupting Lupin's question to ask, “You mean to tell us… that… Percy did this to you?”

All eyes turned to him; Bellatrix herself narrowed her eyes and said in that old, annoying voice “Is the wee bitty baby Potty afraid…”

He cut her off, “Stop it! You bloody mental crone! You say that Percy did this to you? Why? I thought you two were working together, wasn't he in France?”

She gave a distinctly unladylike snort, “Working with us? Working with us? I killed him in the first place! The only thing that that boy wanted was me dead! Too bad for him he failed! Of course he was just an incompetent little buffoon anyway… his father had more courage in him than he…”

She stopped when Charlie, suddenly, alarmingly rose out of his seat and made to go to her. Moody's wand was drawn and flicked towards him immediately, Harry and Tonks had to pull Charlie back to his seat.

Harry had not really been conscious of the rest of her speech though, his mind was practically swirling at the thought that he could take away some of Hermione's guilt. Even though she and Emmeline looked okay, he wasn't sure and didn't want to get his hopes up. For him there was never any doubt though, she had not led them to France behind her…

Lupin took over, “He was the one who lured you to Knockturn Alley wasn't he?”

“Of course,” she replied coldly, “I didn't know it was him at the time though… he wanted revenge for the attack on the Ministry. Ranted on and on about the interruption of his plans… But they were asking to be killed anyway, we got in way too easily, I heard his father was responsible for that. Such love…”

Charlie made to move again, but was still being held down Harry and Tonks, and now Lupin had a restraining arm on him, so he said, “You bitch!”

She was completely unfazed however, “When we arrived at the Ministry, on our master's orders, we attacked. We found them in one of the offices, killed them and destroyed the building. There was little resistance. I thought they were all dead, but apparently two escaped, and one did this to me. I'm quite sure he won't live long though, I still have many friends.”

“Yes, in Azkaban where they can't do a damn thing!” Harry told her triumphantly, unable to resist.

Lupin then interrupted her retort, “You say plans? We've been looking at his work before he died, what plans?”

Emmeline had practically searched the everywhere in the lower floors of the house for the little elf and had still come up with nothing. He was not in the kitchen, the living room, the parlour, the library or even cleaning out Harry's room as usual. He couldn't have just vanished into thin air… okay maybe he could, but that didn't mean that he didn't go somewhere else.

He couldn't just be no where.

And was it just her or did this house become even scarier when mostly empty on a moonless night?

Then she had remembered another way to look, and tried at calling his name. That didn't work either, and even after she walked through all those same halls and rooms too, calling as loudly as she could. Maybe you had to be a wizard to work; it always did for Harry and Hermione.

When she had finally exhausted all options, and that including searching for a bell and knocking on random walls, she decided that she had something else she could do tonight. As far as she knew, no one had remembered the boy upstairs tonight; she could go talk to him.

She turned at once and headed up the stairs to the now familiar upper floors.

“He had been rambling on about something we ruined. Said my nephew had done the same thing to him too once before… by the way, how is Draco?” asked Bellatrix.

Lupin took on a stern expression, was pensive for a moment, ignoring her question, and then asked, “Draco had ruined something… is this about Hermione?”

At the sound of the name Bellatrix gave a sickly smile, “Yes, that's her, Potter's Mudblood girlfriend if I recall.” And ignoring Harry's attempt to protest, “He claimed he needed her for something, that she was the only one who could help him, dared to say that she was cleverer than the Dark Lord. If that were true though, she would have been born a pureblood and not the spawn of filth!”

Lupin continued to ignore her insults, and the others' reactions, and asked, “Did he tell you why he wished Miss Granger's assistance?”

She looked at him as if he had gone mad, “Of course he wouldn't! But he did say something about her being able to figure it out… that she was his only hope… that the Dark Lord could have used her help, and that his brother was a fool to think that he could stop him!”

“He's pursuing Hermione to help him… help him do what?” asked Harry, trying to stifle the image of Percy murdering Ron, a bright smile on his face as his brother slumped before him….

“Haven't you been listening you stupid boy?” she said slowly, “I don't know.”

Harry took a step closer to the bed, “He can't get to her, and he won't ever get to her! He doesn't even know where we are, but I'm sure I could get him to you…”

Bellatrix arched an eyebrow, and then took a slow breath.

“There is something about him… something that is different… something that you can't comprehend… or maybe you can but choose not to…. If he wants the Mudblood, he will get her!” she said slowly.

At the top of the stairs at last, and for the second time for the night Emmeline was to be disappointed, the boy was not there. As a matter of fact, it was so quiet she could distinctly hear her own breathing, and no trace of his. Maybe she had come too soon.

Great, now she just would have to go to bed early tonight.

She turned to go, but paused when she heard a soft thud in the hall behind her. She returned to the top of the stairs immediately and bravely headed down the hall towards it. If he thought he was going to hide from her tonight, he was to be greatly mistaken.

As she rounded the corner, and realising too that she had never gotten this far into his space before, she stopped cold.

She had just found Dobby. And he looked… dead.

“Different, how?” asked Harry.

“I would think that you would know, don't you have the much sought after Miss Granger at your side… why isn't she here by the way?” asked Bellatrix.

She was trying to bait him and Harry warred with himself not to take it.

“You said something earlier that has me confused… did you say that you killed him? Percy?” asked Lupin, trying his best to continue the interrogation.

They had a lot more to talk about tonight than just Percy but they were already greatly sidetracked as it was. To make matters worse too, Bellatrix was beginning to look fatigued.

She answered anyway.

“Yes. When we got into the Ministry, at first no one seemed to notice us, they were too busy looking on at the argument between the Muggle-lover and his son. We took them by surprise; I myself killed the boy… I was therefore rather shocked when I saw him again. I thought it was only Potter over there who could survive the Killing Curse.”

“He survived it? Is there a scar? A mark or some indication that he did, are you sure…?” asked Lupin, leaning forward in his seat.

“I'm very sure!” she snapped, “That boy is dead!”

Emmeline didn't want to move an inch. As much as she didn't want to admit it, and she was glad no one was around to see it, she was terrified. The thing, the little elf-thing, it was dead! It had dropped dead!

She stared down at it in shock for as long as she could before her horror took over and she turned and ran back to the stairs. She didn't care to find the boy again. She didn't care that this probably meant she was alone in the house with him and he didn't like her. She didn't care that she wasn't watching where she was going; she was going to get away from here.

Where was it that Hermione had gone? The hospital was it? And through the fireplace too though that didn't matter, Emmeline had seen them do it too many times already that she could do it with her eyes closed. She would get some Floo Powder, get into the fire and scream the name of the place as loud as she could.

And then she ran into something just before she reached the top step and fell backwards.

“Ow! Why do you do that? Now let me pass, I'm…” she stopped and looked up into the blank, dull eyes of a tall man in dark robes. It couldn't be and yet it was.

It was Percy.

The door of the room suddenly opened behind the group and a stone-faced Healer poked her head around. She took one look at them, and then to Bellatrix on the bed and declared, “Out!”

At once Moody protested, “We have permission!”

“She needs her rest, I don't care what you have, and I want you all out of this room now!”

“We have important matters to discuss!” growled Moody again, rising and turning to her.

She made to reply but Lupin stopped the argument before it began, “No, we can leave now… she looks tired, we'll come back later.”

Harry was upset, “I don't care!”

“We do!” Lupin said seriously, “What good is she if she's dead?”

“Perfect!” Harry snapped but rose and, pushing brusquely past the Healer in the doorway, left the room anyway.

Lupin gave Bellatrix a parting glance, just in time to catch a sneer, and then rose with the others to follow him out.

“Hello there little one, the little Muggle, we meet again, Emmeline was it?” asked Percy above her.

Emmeline was still looking up at him from her place on the floor. She had to find a way out, if never before she was afraid of him, this was the time now. She could feel her heart racing painfully in her chest.

Where was Hermione? What about Harry? He promised. He promised her and then he left her behind! How could he do that after he promised?

After a time passed and she had not replied, he stooped closer to her and said, “Did I frighten you? I didn't mean to love, but don't worry… here we go, up you stand, let's go see our mutual friend shall we?”

He had helped her stand, his clammy skin icy against hers, and was now half-dragging her down the hall from which she had just run. He was going to the boy, she was sure of it, and she couldn't stop him.

And then, as if by a miracle, she was saved.

A voice from the other hall, the one that turned off to the right, called, “Hey you, what're you doing up here? Where are you taking her?”

Percy smiled, and then turned round to face him, “Well, well, well, if it isn't Draco Malfoy.”

“Yes, it's me, what do you want? Where are you taking her?” the boy demanded angrily. If it were not for their situation Emmeline would have been happy he noticed.

In reply, all Percy said was, “That was a very foolish thing you did in the graveyard you know?”

Recognition and horror dawned on the boy's face across the hall from them, and Emmeline knew they were doomed.

But to her surprise, this time she wasn't afraid.

“Harry!” called Lupin, finally finding him heading to the stairs to go down, “Where are you going?”

“I'm going to check on Fleur, Hermione and the other's are down there,” he told him.

“Harry… I thought we should discuss what Bellatrix said, she was under Veritaserum, do you know what she implied?” asked Lupin.

“Yes, she… I have to check on Hermione.” Harry said.

“Harry…” asked Lupin again.

Suddenly, the boy turned on him, eyes more terrified than he had ever seen, “He wants her… he's stalking her because she can help him… he wants her for some reason… I… I… I just…”

He turned again and headed back down the stairs. He was on the fifth when a shout sounded above him and he was forced to turn back.

“You… you… it was you!” Draco stammered and then suddenly rushed forward, startling them both, and grasped Emmeline. At once he took off to the hall that led to the stairs, cursing all the while that they had not given him a wand.

Emmeline didn't say a word the whole time. He was glad for it, for once she was silent. She was Granger's sister through and through. Every night now since he had foolishly decided to stop her stalking she would come to talk to him. The child was clearly lonely and didn't understand that he didn't need company.

And now, he had risk his own neck to save her filthy life. And to do it he had to touch her putrid little skin too, which was warmed by fever no doubt. Perfect, Potter and the others would pay for this, and the price was high.

They were down one flight and then got no further.

Suddenly, Percy was standing before them on the landing and with a sickly smile, he said, “Where do you think you're going?”

“You're supposed to be dead! Auntie killed you! What are you?” Draco asked, though with horror realising that he had an idea.

Draco took a step back and stifled Emmeline's scream as Percy raised his wand and trained it on them. There was a shouted incantation, a flash of green light, and the world fell into darkness.

Harry burst open the door to Bellatrix's room and then immediately wished that he hadn't.

The once, powerful dark witch, faithful servant of the Dark Lord Voldemort, was now writhing violently, her back arching in agony, on the bed where moments before she had been calmly mocking them. The Healers who had poured in at the shout were left standing round the bed in shock.

Harry didn't need Lupin's confirmation a second later to tell him that something was wrong. He could see it.

And then there was the first slash.

It was like someone had tied a piece of nylon round her wrist, stretched it taut and then snapped it away. It cut through her pale skin with such violence that blood squirted out, spattering the bedcovers and walls in ghastly crimson droplets.

“Oh no…” said Lupin weekly, “The Unbreakable Vow, the…”

Harry's mind was not working properly though, for he remained there in shock as the other wrist was cut as the first and Bellatrix let out an almost unearthly scream.

Somewhere in the rooms below, Fleur was probably screaming too, but that was in childbirth. This… this with Bellatrix, this was death.

And then there was a sudden stillness, though Harry was sure, and dreaded, that it was not over. Bellatrix seemed to know this as well.

She fell back unto the bed, almost resigned, and didn't even flinch as the last string tore out her throat.

But she said something.

Through the silence of the room, and in the presence of the stunned Healers and Harry and company, she said three words, “Perlustro ut Mortuus.”

Harry shouted at her then, “But we are, we are looking at Percy!”

She choked on her own blood, but gurgled out a reply, “Not him.”

And then she was dead.

-->

A/N: Wow, usually I space these things out more but since the end is near, sadly, I find that I can barely control the pace with which I write this. Should be good for you, considering my love of cliff-hangers, (I looked it up, sadly there seems to be no cure… other than speedier updates *sigh*) and the fact that I keep creating questions. Hopefully this chapter clears a few more of them up, though by now some of you may have guessed what's up with certain things.

Anyhoo, do read and review. I always smile when I see them. Just ask the many kind people who have already.

Disclaimer: Noticed that I didn't have one in the last chapter, knew I was missing something… oh well, all the characters and other stuff except Emmeline (huggles Emmeline) are JK Rowling's.

*****

The Secrets That We Keep

In the moments that passed like hours after Bellatrix Lestrange breathed her last earthly breath, all in the small room on the Fourth Floor ward stood stunned silent. The Unbreakable Vow, whatever she was supposed to do, she had failed and now she was dead. And not only that, all she had so far managed to tell them, was that, and this was rather confusing, that they had been “barking up the wrong tree” so to speak. After two weeks, after all they had gone through, they had nothing.

But Lupin, was still speaking.

“Harry… the Unbreakable Vow Harry… Draco Harry…” he said, somehow incapable of proper speech.

Harry just stared at him though. They had seen so much in the war already, so very much, but this… this was… Harry could barely think.

And then Tonks decided to help Lupin out, “Harry, Draco's at Headquarters… Harry, Percy's at Headquarters!”

Immediately Harry snapped back to reality, tore his eyes away from the figure on the bed and said, “Oh gods… Emmeline…!”

Violently, pushing and shoving, he forced his way out of the room and took to the stairs. Cantering wildly, he nearly tripped, heart racing, glasses struggling to maintain its grip on his face, trainers sliding on the squeaky clean floor, as he tried to get down to the floor on which Hermione and the others were.

It was only when he got there though that he realised that he could not let Hermione know he was here, that he could not let her know that Emmeline was at home, defenceless with Draco, that she was probably dead too…

Not caring who saw him, he tore into an office, snatched up a handful of Floo Powder, threw some into the fire and went in after. He practically bellowed, “Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!” and waited for the Floo Network to take him home.

Emmeline, he had to get back to Emmeline, he couldn't face Hermione if he didn't get to Emmeline…

He practically fell out of the fireplace unto the cold, stone floor of the kitchen when he got there. It must have felt a personal insult to whatever managed the Floo Network that Harry had had the audacity to shout at them when a simple command would have done. There was no time to mull over this silliness though, as he was up and unto his feet again as quickly as he could, and then racing up out of the basement calling, “Dobby! Emmeline! Dobby, where are you? Emmeline! EMMELINE!”

There was no answer. To his absolute horror, there was no answer…

He was hypersensitive to every movement around him and yet could not detect the slightest trace of Emmeline. Every creak, every groan, every moan of the old house, the muffled, dust raising thuds of feet on the carpet, the sound of his own, anxious breathing, the very pounding of his heart in his chest. He could smell the dust covered cobwebs, he could taste the decay in the air, and he could almost feel the darkness as he finally made it up to the first floor bedrooms and wrenched the door open.

His heart leaped into his throat.

She was not there…

He didn't have to step further into the room an inch to know that Emmeline was not lying in that bed. In the still revolving shadows of the lamp he could see her quilt thrown aside as she had risen from it. Searching for the source of some noise in the night…

He at once turned around and started running through the rooms again, in each one calling, “Emmeline! It's me! Harry! I'm home Emmeline! You can come out now! Emmeline! EMMELINE! COME OUT EMMELINE!”

She was not in the kitchen, the living room, the study, the bathrooms, the library, or the other bedrooms. She was not on the First or Second Floors and Harry hoped he hoped that she was not higher, but no one had answered his calls…

He pelted up the flights to the Third Floor, nothing, Fourth Floor, the same, and on the landing between the Fourth and Fifth Floors he stopped cold.

There was Draco Malfoy, sleek, white blonde hair wildly lying about his head, body fallen sideways with arms outstretched as if they had been grasping something before, and eyes wide open though there was a look of peace on his face. And he was dead.

There was no mistaking this sight; he had seen it before, on Ron…

He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. He just stood there, staring at him, watching as the image of Ron lying that way in the graveyard on a clear morning was superimposed over Draco on the landing of the dimly lit house. Watching as he tried to wake Ron before, and then numbly heading over to Draco and shaking him, “Wake up! Wake up Malfoy! Where's Emmeline! Come on… Draco… you have to wake up… please! You have to tell me where's Emmeline, wake up!”

He grasped the boy's shoulders and pulled him up as best as he could but he was a dead weight and he could barely move him. He remembered attempting the same thing on Ron, it hadn't worked then either. There was no response; there was no movement, nothing…

He released him as soon as this hit him and then backed away slowly, and then raced up the remaining flight to the top floor, hoping, searching for Emmeline. When he met Dobby in the hallway he gave up the search.

He was too late, she was gone, and Percy had her…

Defeated, once again, he sank to his knees and let the tears run slowly down his face.

He could not tell for how long he remained kneeling in that hallway staring at nothing or the house elf. He could not tell when he finally decided to try to wake Dobby, “Ennervate!” and failing that, conjured a blanket over the still form. He could not remember rising, conjuring a stretcher and casting, “Mobilicorpus!” to carry him down and then doing the same to Draco on the landing. He was not even sure when he finally got to the parlour and placed the two bodies on the floor in the middle of the room. It was as if the world had shut him out of it and he was just moving mindlessly along. A zombie, to Emmeline, an Inferi, to him, but both of them did the same thing.

What he would remember, after sitting on a chair in the study like a naughty schoolboy awaiting the headmaster, was the first sound of Hermione's scream.

He was up again and out of the door and down to the kitchen where she had just come through the fireplace with Lupin, Charlie, Mrs Weasley and Tonks. She was fighting with Lupin, hitting him with all the violence she could muster, cursing in language under normal circumstances he knew she would not use, crying, begging, pleading with them to tell her that Emmeline was alright…

When they noticed Harry standing in the doorway, the look of clearest defeat on his face, they couldn't do it. Mrs Weasley actually began to utter softly, “Oh no… oh no… not the child… oh no…”

The others seemed to give up attempting to restrain Hermione and she rushed away from them to Harry to go up to find her sister herself.

Harry stopped her as she got to him, opened his arms and let her run into them and still she tried to get away from him. She struggled against him, her arms swung, slapping him, repeatedly as she cursed, “Let me go! You son of a bitch! You bastard! You bloody bastard! You bloody, son of a bitch! Let me go! You fu…”

She slumped against him and he let her, hoping she would forgive him later for non-verbally stunning her, then he reached down and gathered her up in his arms before finally daring a glance at the others. They were all looking at their feet, though Tonks asked, “Is it true?”

Harry only nodded.

Mrs Weasley, strangely found the need to explain.

“She was going up to tell you… I had seen you go by and told her you were there… so she wanted to… Fleur… it's a boy… another boy…. But when she saw them… she… she wanted… oh no…”

Harry said nothing more to them then. He turned silently around, and shrugging a little to settle her in his arms, carried her up the stairs.

*****

Delirium had set in. Her skin was on fire, her throat parched and her limbs useless, but before her eyes she saw the strangest things.

And she knew what this was, she was delirious.

First there was that light. That brilliant flash of green, brighter than a traffic light, than the grass in the sunlight of summer, than Harry's eyes when he smiled, which came at her before the darkness took over.

Then there was that strange man with the red hair that wildly went round his head, curling, tangling, knotting and swinging or flying, as he moved. He wore the strangest clothes too, robes of black that billowed, swayed or swished in the wind. After the light and a first bit of darkness, he was the first thing she saw, smiling down at her before he lifted her into his arms.

And then there was that feeling of being squeezed, confined within the tiniest of spaces, before everything came out again with a “pop” and they were no longer in that smelly, old, morose house. Well, at least she thought it had been a house, a dark, safe little house.

In this new place though, it was different, so much different. But she didn't have a long enough time to know it completely, she just felt it. She just felt the coolness of night air on her skin, icy hands gripping her small frame, a floating, and then she fell into the darkness again. Maybe when she woke up she would know it better, she would explore like she had done in that house.

In the darkness she knew nothing; there was nothing to see. No sneering, pointy faced boys with grey eyes and white blonde hair who hated when she talked to him and dropped her on her bum at the top of the stairs. No red-haired men with dull brown eyes and icy skin that burned against hers and from which she could almost detect no breath. There were not even the sounds of shouted spells and flashes of light.

She liked the darkness, it was better than her delirium.

But it was not static, it could fall, and it did, once or twice.

There was that first time when the creaking of a rusted old gate pierced it and forced open her eyes. At once she was assaulted by the scent of its metal, the night air and creeping vines on mossy stone. There was the touch of the rich earth when the floating gently ended and the tiny chirrup of a cricket that had landed near her ear. Somewhere in the distance she could hear water serenely lapping at a bank. But the darkness was powerful and it was safe and just as the floating began again, she willingly fell into it.

And then there was that second time.

The floating had ended and was done so long that the darkness noticed and parted. Now though, she was someplace warm.

The walls were rough; she could barely define them, but unto them orange and yellow lights flickered. Beneath her, there was no longer just air, or icy hands or warm earth, but something soft, much softer, blankets. And somewhere out there, if there was an out there, there was the pungent scent of bark, earth and fire. She was not safe, she was sure of it, but the darkness was coming and she effortlessly slipped back in.

*****

In a semi-circle before the blanket-covered bodies they sat in the parlour. There was Mrs Weasley in an arm chair, with Ginny on the arm rest beside her. Tonks and Lupin on the sofa, Moody pacing the floor space behind them and Charlie on a nearby Ottoman. And finally, Harry with Hermione on the loveseat, her head at comfortable rest in his lap while he gently stroked her arm.

There was so much to do, and yet they didn't know where to start. There was no message, no warning, not even a sign that Emmeline would survive the night. There was nothing to tell them whether any attempt at a search would be a wild goose chase or not. And still there was no answer to the main question of all, why, through all this, did he want Hermione.

They had come here to discuss it at first, but since they saw the room's centrepiece words died in their throats. Each ached to move, to do something, anything, and yet couldn't bring themselves to rise from their seats. So then this is how they all had remained, silently hoping, and praying that some part of Percy was still human. That some part of him still would not kill a child.

Moody broke the silence first.

“That woman, she knew something, she knew a lot more than she told us!”

No one offered a comment; they all knew that, it was most obvious now.

“Kept insisting that he was dead, well he clearly isn't, and he's a lot more powerful, how is it that he got into Headquarters? How did he find this place?”

Hermione began to stir in Harry's lap. Mrs Weasley and Ginny flashed quick looks in her direction and Lupin straightened in his seat. Moody kept on speaking.

“He must have given up on the sister so he took the child… he's probably going to use her as bait.”

“Alastor…” began Mrs Weasley.

“This may have all been a trap arranged by the both of them… he double-crossed her and now…”

“Alastor…” she pleaded, her voice coming stronger.

“After all of that, after all of that time wasted, she tells us that we've been looking at the wrong person, who else are we supposed to look for, Voldemort?” he continued as if he hadn't heard her.

“Alastor!” she cried at him and he stopped and turned looking at her.

Hermione had come fully awake in Harry's lap and was staring up at him. Her face held an unreadable expression; she reached a hand to Harry's face and gently traced the finger tips down his jaw line. He closed his eyes and bowed his head so that his cheek came into her palm. She drew her hand back then, and slapped him.

No one said a word.

Harry had not flinched when she slapped him. It was as if he had been expecting it. But when she began to sit up, he held her down and said, “Don't.”

“Don't look at them,” Mrs Weasley echoed, assuming he had been talking of the bodies on the floor.

Hermione protested, “I have to, she's my sister Harry… if I don't find her… she's my sister!”

She gripped his arms and tried to force him off of her but he wouldn't.

“Harry…” she said in a whisper, a plea.

“Hermione, I will find her, I should have been watching her, or I should have taken her with me. This is my fault and I'll bring her back,” he said.

To everyone's surprise then, she suddenly applied her teeth to where her hands were and he yanked his arm away so that she was up and off of him in a hurry. She stood up awkwardly then, in her haste to escape and tumbled to the floor, dragging off the blanket on Draco.

“Oh gods…” she managed, when she registered what she had done, and then quickly forced her knuckles into her mouth to suppress the scream that followed immediately after.

“Oh my… oh gods… oh no…!” she screamed and scrambled across the floor away from the bodies and everyone else until she was backed up against the door looking on in wide-eyed horror.

Mrs Weasley stared at the body an instant and then looked away, while Ginny just stared at Draco transfixed. Charlie did not look at all, and all the others turned to the crying girl at the door.

Long glistening tracks of tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her clothes. Her eyes were reddened and squinting as she began to cry but she wildly looked about her terrified, horrified at what the bodies in the centre of the floor could mean. Her chest heaved as she sobbed into her hands and the groans, the heart-wrenching groans she made sounded through the silent room. She knew well what the bodies implied, and yet she did not, she could not, should not believe it. For Emmeline's sake, she should not believe it…

Harry then, made a move to get to her and suddenly she backed into the door harder and put her hands behind her to brace herself. He paused, for only an instant, before continuing again and then walked over to her, all the while saying, “Hermione… Hermione please… don't Hermione, this is my fault, let me find her… please Hermione, don't….”

He was almost upon her, inches away and then he said the words that he shouldn't, “You know you can't help her… your magic Hermione… let me help her… don't even try it please… Hermione…”

She stopped trying to get away, stood up quickly and lunged at him, causing the others to rise as if to help him, while screaming, “And why is that? This is your fault! This is all your bloody fault! I shouldn't have… I know I shouldn't have… but no, I did, I did, I tried to hide it… this is your fault!”

Because he already blamed himself Harry never questioned this, and only accepted her violent thrashing in his arms as she screamed and hit him and repeating softly, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I'm so sorry Hermione… I shouldn't have left her behind… I know that… Hermione… please understand… I'm very sorry…”

But then she wrenched herself away and said, “Don't apologise. Oh no, don't apologise for this… this is as much my fault… I shouldn't have…”

Confused, he tried to reason, though with irritation, “Hermione, I'm not that irresponsible, it was… I can't even say it but Hermione I know this is my fault, I will get Emmeline back! I swear it on my life, I will get Emmeline back!”

This though, seemed to add to her ire and Hermione suddenly let out a scream of frustration and pushed him away from her.

“You don't understand!” she cried and then walked past him to look at Draco's body in the centre of the floor.

He did not attempt to follow her this time, but remained as the others staring on. She said nothing though, just stood there looking at Draco, and then finally Harry realised what she was attempting to do.

The edge of the blanket that had fallen free of the body trembled slightly, moved half an inch and then stopped. Hermione closed her eyes and released a sob before kneeling down beside the body and draping the blanket securely over the face. It was a gesture of pity for a former enemy, one who had no doubt begrudgingly saved her life and possibly now her sister's, in the end, but still too, there was another emotion. Sadness at a life abruptly ended, and the pain that it was a reminder of Ron.

“Hermione…” Harry started again.

She stood once more and looked around the room, her eyes falling, and lingering a moment on the blanket that covered Dobby, before returning to Harry.

“You're not sworn on a prophecy to end this. You have no obligation to this. She is my sister Harry, I want to be the one to get her back,” she told him.

“You're my family,” he said calmly, “and I promised her that she is mine too, I will not argue semantics with you, and I know that there is no prophecy over me this time, but Hermione… you have to let me… I promised.”

“No… he won't… not as long as Harry Potter is here to save the day…”

She scoffed and looked away. That simple act infuriated him.

“Okay Hermione, you say I don't understand right, what don't I understand Hermione, what? And don't give me that look, I promised Emmeline that we won't fight again in that house, this is a NEW HOUSE AND SHE ISN'T HERE, WHAT DON'T I UNDERSTAND?” he bellowed.

She shouted back, “I'M BEING PUNISHED HARRY!” and then calming, “Just let me do this, get my sister back myself. It's the price I have to pay for what I've done, just let me be punished.”

The steam he had built up to roar at her immediately evaporated. He stared at her in shock, “What? Hermione, what are you talking about? What have you done?”

She continued as before, “We're wasting time Harry! I've done something very bad, something very, very bad, so now I'm paying for it. Now please, let me go find Emmeline!”

Annoyed, Harry said, “Hermione, you haven't done anything wrong, I know you, I've been with you for a long time now, you haven't done anything wrong. If this is about Ron you know full well you didn't do that, you didn't kill him! That man did!”

“YOU DON'T KNOW ME!” she practically screamed. “YOU DON'T KNOW ME AT ALL; YOU DON'T KNOW THE THINGS I'VE DONE!”

“THEN TELL ME DAMN IT! TELL ME WHAT THE HELL HERMIONE GRANGER'S DONE THAT SHE'S BEING PUNISHED FOR IT! WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE!” he shouted.

“Remember that secret that I couldn't tell you? Remember that thing that I couldn't say that morning in the kitchen? Well here it is.” She stopped a moment and closed her eyes as if to summon her strength, and then said, “You want to know why I ended things with Ron. Why I didn't slap you silly in the shed? Why I'm still talking to you even when my sister is gods know where when you should have been watching her? It's because I love you.”

The silence that followed this declaration was loud. It was as if they had been sucked into a vacuum and frozen in place. It filled the room so fast that it threatened to wholly consume them if it went on too long. But Harry had to break it, he didn't understand.

“Hermione… I… I love you too; you're my best friend, my family… I don't understand… what are you trying to say…?”

She gave a mirthless laugh, and with tears flowing freely said, “I'm trying to tell you… that I'm a fool- don't… let me speak- I've been a stupid fool to think that it wasn't true… that I could escape this if I turned to someone else. Harry James Potter, I'm in love with you.”

She scoffed at that a little, as if she couldn't believe it herself. Ginny, Mrs Weasley and Tonks were staring at her with wide eyes, Moody looked distinctly uncomfortable and Charlie and Lupin looked down at their hands. Harry though, wasn't sure that he had heard correctly.

Did Hermione just say… did she just say… and now… like this…?

“I've been in love with you since Third Year, do you know that? No, of course you didn't know that, because a girl like me knows how to hide things, not very well, but I know how to hide things from you. And besides, in Third Year it was just a stupid crush anyway. I was fourteen; my last crush had been on Lockhart, so of course my attentions would turn to someone closer to my age next. Oh was I ever wrong.”

She moved across the room and sat down on the loveseat and continued. Harry was frozen on the spot.

Now… she was telling him something like this now… after all they had been through… Emmeline… and she were telling him this now…?

“In Fourth Year, that was all it was too and it went away in fact, though not completely, when I was with Viktor. Clearly it had been the stress in Third Year and in Fourth that made me think the way I did about you. That was all it was. Stopping Sirius from killing you and then stopping you from getting yourself killed in the Tri-Wizard Tournament simply awakened some maternal instinct in me. But as I said before, I was wrong, and it all went to hell in Fifth Year when you were with Cho.”

Since when… after all this time… now… now she was telling him this…?

“But at the end of Fifth Year, after the Department of Mysteries, I realised something. You are scary. You are a scary human being. If I, at sixteen, let myself feel for you the way I did… I was in for trouble. You could die and leave me behind, all alone with a broken heart. I was too logical for that, I could not let that happen. Girls like me don't get broken hearts because we think before we act, always.”

“So, in the summer before we met up again at the Weasleys, I made a decision, I was going to love someone else. Someone who would make me happy, someone who had already showed interest in me once before, someone who would live, it had to be Ron.”

“I would, I could love Ron just as easily as I loved you. And I did. But oh what a wonderful fiasco that was from Sixth Year to that time I told him that I couldn't do it anymore just before you went after Voldemort. We were clearly meant to be friends, no matter how necessary it was to stop you from breaking my heart.”

“But you know something Harry, you were still breaking my heart, you were still going to break my heart no matter what I did. And there were times, when Ron and I were really happy together, that we really worked. He could make me laugh and forget the world, or make me so exasperated that I wished I could kill him, or make me so… but through all of that, he wasn't you. And we began to drift apart so that by the time we officially broke up we had stopped being together for months. And he was so understanding, that instead of getting mad at me like he should have, he said that for someone constantly lauded as intelligent I could be really thick. He patted me on the head and sent me on my way… gods, I loved Ron… he could be so much smarter than me sometimes…”

Why did she have to tell him this now… why now… why… why had she kept it to herself in the first place… he wouldn't have hurt her… he was her friend… they could have given it a try…

“Things were fine for a while after that. Nothing was wrong between us, we had Horcruxes to find, Voldemort to stop and futures we were too afraid to dream about to get to. But you see I didn't do something, I didn't tell you how I felt. And by that logic, the Fates decided to punish me for keeping it a secret.”

“I knew that I really should not tell you, and I was not doing that. I was not going to do that to you when you were clearly going back to Ginny after this. I wasn't going to do that to you when you didn't feel the same. But then it started to affect my magic.”

He snapped to attention at that. Hadn't that started after she went to France? Why couldn't she have given him the straight story? Why was she telling him this now?

“I'd seen it, heard of it happening before, so I knew what it was, but I couldn't believe it was happening to me… and I still didn't say a word. And then Ron was killed, another punishment, and we were left with each other; I still didn't say a word then either. But I had an excuse this time, it was inappropriate, and I kept telling myself that. Before the attack at the Burrow, even when there was the English Channel between us, after my parents were killed, and then when Percy came to the house, I still didn't tell you. It was inappropriate, you were friend. The fact that he's hunting me now and took Emmeline goes hand in hand with that… if I had said something before, no matter how you reacted, all of this probably wouldn't have happened. That's what I thought my imagination, that's what I hoped to forget, that's what I knew. I love you, I am in love with you and because I kept it to myself, possibly wasted Ron's, and my, time, I'm being punished. So please Harry… and it doesn't matter if you don't feel the same or not… just let me find my sister. This is my punishment, I want to bear it.”

She had not raised her head the entire speech. She just sat there staring at her feet and waiting for them to react. Harry didn't know what to say.

She was telling him this now… only now… after all this time… they could've given it a go… seen what would have happened… and she only told him this now… because she couldn't keep it a secret longer… what the hell was she waiting for…?

Ginny did though.

“What about me? All this time… you knew… you know how I feel… and you… you helped me… but you… you….” She began, “But of course, you weren't really helping me, you were helping yourself… all this time…”

“Oh shut up Ginny!” Hermione snapped, looking up at her, “You got what you wanted didn't you, he was your boyfriend and you had fun! Weren't you listening? I just want to find my sister now, I'll go somewhere, I'll look… I don't even know where to start… but if I'm being punished I might as well get to it right!”

She rose from the loveseat and began to head out of the room but Harry took her hand and drew her back. Clearly the plan at the moment, if she had one, was to run away, and he was not going to let her. When she turned to him perplexed, while trying to stop the flow of tears from her eyes he asked, “Where are you going?”

“To find Emmeline, take her place maybe, if he wants me, he can have me, but not Emmeline,” she replied.

Why now… Emmeline… only told me because of Emmeline… we could've given it a go… seen where it would have gone… Ron knew… and didn't care… why…?

Harry shook his head, “If he wants you, he'll have to get in line like everybody else. Emmeline needs you here, and alive and looking for her. Her being taken is not your punishment.”

“Harry…” she said, trying to twist free of his grasp, but he held her fast.

“And we have a lot to talk about; you can't possibly tell me something like this and run away. You shouldn't have kept it a secret in the first place.” He told her this seriously, but there was no anger.

She tried to twist again, he glared and she gave up. She took a moment to compose herself, finally remembering that they really weren't alone in the room, and said, “Yes, we'll talk. But we have to find Emmeline, I won't… I don't think I'll be alright if we don't find Emmeline…. Tell me everything Bellatrix told you, word for word.”

A/N: How was that bit of pumpkin pie? Out of place like a certain hospital scene (though I didn't mind it too much) or needed some snogging?

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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…”

-->

A/N: Okay, continuing the apology for taking so long last time, here's another one. And also another Latin title, but these titles are hard to come by. Anyway, welcome aboard Aftermath Transit for another, though shorter trip into the Department of Back-story. While we're at that, I should mention that this story seems to be spreading itself ever closer to twenty chapters no matter what I do. Oh well.

Hoping to get next chapter up soon, and maybe next time with less of an author's note. It's vastly tempting to give out information in these.

Disclaimer: Seeing that I like this chapter more than the last, the plot is mine, JKR can keep the other stuff.

*****

Excessum ut Proditor

Three hours later and they were all seated in the tiny living room of the small, dingy flat of Aaron McCullough, the sole survivor of the attack of the Ministry of Magic. They had managed a quick breakfast, with Hermione noticeably forcing down her own, and then after reassuring Lupin that nothing out of the ordinary would happen to the gentleman, set out to the East London home. Thankfully, Aaron had been in that morning, though he really had nowhere else to go nowadays, and was rather surprised to have visitors. It was needless to say too though, that he was also none too pleased.

“L-look, I… I gave my statement to the Ministry, twice, okay, twice! I didn't give much to the press, I kept mostly to myself since that night and I haven't had one visit from anyone else who was there… not that they could visit if they wanted to… w-what could you possibly need from me now?” he demanded while hurrying about gathering up various trash in the room.

He had been doing that since he answered the door and found them standing there waiting to be let in. Clearly he was nervous, his wand was sticking out of his back pocket and he forgot all about it in favour of manually cleaning up the room. Strangely, in his movements he reminded Harry of Horace Slughorn, their one-time Potions instructor in Sixth Year, though a slender, taller version of him. In the poor lighting of the flat too, so bad that one could barely tell that it was an overcast morning without, he looked worn and distinctly dishevelled. He looked very much like someone who had not had a good night's sleep in weeks.

Someone had taken a threat to heart.

Ginny, clearly bored, waited until a silence descended where they just watched him clean and then lazily flicked her wand and let the room clean up itself. Aaron was actually startled by this, until he remembered, “Oh yeah… magic…” and took a tentative seat at the window, if the thin shaft could be called that, before them.

Harry gave him a smile and then asked seriously, “We know that you did all that, but we were hoping you would speak to us now.”

“Why? I've told all that I need to tell, I've described Death Eaters, I've signed statements to ensure the secrecy of people I don't even know, or met mind you, I've been living in this hell-hole for weeks just to keep myself out of trouble… what reason would I have for speaking to you? You might be Harry Potter… the “Man-Who-Triumphed” as they like to call you… b-but I'm not afraid of you!” declared Aaron from his seat.

The effect would have been greater had he not stammered at the end and visibly shifted in his seat when he said Harry's name. Harry smiled again and Aaron shrank away from them further.

“Consider this,” Harry began, “there's a child missing. She's only nine years old, she's Muggle and she's the sister of my friend here.”

He indicated Hermione, who was absently staring out another “window” and turned at Harry's mention. Aaron nodded at her and she turned back out the window.

Harry stared at her with a furrowed brow a little then.

He had in fact been watching her even more closely since the incident that morning with Ginny. He wanted to apologise so much more than he had already, she should not have seen that. More than that, there shouldn't have been something to see in the first place. Ginny had the most god-awful timing for making moves on him; he was still struggling with a way to begin that promised conversation with Hermione that wouldn't sound like a rejection.

He wasn't planning on rejecting her, not at all, but he wasn't sure that he was ready to deal with what she told him either. The very idea that she possessed such feelings for him… that she would go to such lengths because of them… he didn't know if he should be mad that she didn't say anything before or be afraid.

And then still, since that morning he had been thinking of an addendum to what she had said about Percy and Ron. He also wanted to tell her that no one should ever have to lose their sibling like this. Not a soul, ever.

Remembering where they were though, he turned his attention back to their “host”.

“Now, whatever you can tell may just be able to bring her back. She doesn't understand any of this and it's not fair that she should have to in the first place… so, what were Arthur Weasley and his son arguing about before the Death Eaters stormed the place that night?” asked Harry in his best, business-like voice.

Aaron though, looked unconvinced.

“Listen… I understand that it must be hard for you to lose the child but…” he began but Harry cut him off abruptly.

“If that sentence ends in “I can't help you” I'll help you out the window.” Harry said steely.

Aaron's eyes widened, “I-is that a t-threat?”

Harry gave a cold smile worthy of Snape, “I don't make threats. I give warnings.”

Aaron tried to reason, “Listen, all I was supposed to do that day was to photograph the interview of the aide to the Minister of Magic… not run into an argument between the Head of the “Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects” and his son. I certainly didn't expect the massacre after either… I'm sorry about this little girl… but I have to think about my…”

He stopped speaking when he suddenly found himself hanging upside down like a bat in the middle of the room with Harry glowering up at him while Ginny, and Hermione, though noticeably feebler, tried to get him down.

“Harry! Put him down, you can't just shake information out of people!”

“Harry, this isn't a good idea… Lupin only allowed us on courtesy…”

“Harry!”

Harry ignored them though, and said, “I'll only say this once and then you're going out the window, and I don't care if it's broad daylight, I'm the Man-Who-Defeated-The-Man-With-Bad-Conjunctivitis, do you actually think the Ministry would dare lock me up?”

Aaron shook his head vigorously, his face turning redder by the second no doubt from the blood rushing south and his embarrassment.

“Good… now what did you see, and be quick about it my hands are getting antsy,” Harry told him and then twitched a bit to show that he was serious.

Aaron took a moment more to weigh the odds and then said, “P-put me down, I'll tell you what happened…”

Harry dropped him in a second so that he fell heavily unto the carpet at their feet. There was actually a mild stirring of dust and he coughed. Hermione reproached Harry at once.

“Harry, that wasn't necessary!”

“Yes it was… he didn't want to talk, I had to make him…” he protested.

Hermione rolled her eyes, “You can't just go around flipping people upside down to get them to tell you what you want! How would you like it if someone did that to you?”

“Hermione just let it alone will you? The man's not hurt and he's going to talk!” Ginny snapped.

Hermione immediately made to retort but Harry cut her off, addressing Aaron who was now settling himself again into his armchair at the window, “Mr McCullough, tell us everything that happened, we want to know all of it, every last second.”

Aaron looked up at him wearily, “Are you sure?”

“Very,” said Harry.

“Fine then, have a seat, it's going to be long,” he told them.

Squared off against each other, one finally could appreciate the similarities and differences that defined Arthur and Percy Weasley as father and son.

The senior Mr Weasley, a tall, lean man with a balding head of red hair, bright blue-green eyes and wearing shabby but nevertheless presentable dark green work robes, stood at his desk in his cluttered office, glowering at the petulant youth he had raised with love. In turn, the younger Mr Weasley, tall, thin and red-haired like his father, but wearing wear-shorn-rimmed glasses before his brown eyes, and newer, more expensive robes of navy, glared right back. It was a veritable battle of wills so to speak, infamous even in the animal kingdom, and considering that man himself is no more than an animal, was infinitely inevitable.

Walking into this kind of argument was most unpleasant and unfavourable for anyone unfortunate enough to. It certainly wasn't something any one at the Ministry wanted to and they were glad that the two rarely saw each other. Today though, it would seem, everyone's luck ran out.

The two reporters and the photographer on assignment for the Daily Prophet had just arrived for their scheduled interview with Mr Percy Weasley when the door to his father's office flew open and the sound of the raised voices within filtered out. Setting up his tripod in the hall, Aaron started at the sudden sound and nearly dropped his camera. A nearby employee laughed.

“I see no one told you about Mr Weasley and his son then?” he asked.

Aaron shook his head, one reporter immediately asked, “What is going on between Mr Weasley and his son?”

“You didn't hear this from me…” began the employee, a short, plump man in pinstripe robes, “but they have been at odds for the past three years now… another of Arthur's sons, Ronald, the youngest boy, is friends with Harry Potter, the Chosen One of all people! Better still, the daughter, only girl Ginevra, had been his girlfriend at school, lucky family!”

The lack of reaction that greeted this announcement told this was nothing new. It was well-known that Harry and two friends, and scandalously, one of them a girl, had not returned to school the year before as they were supposed to. They had vanished as matter of fact.

That alone had brought on enough attention for the news despite the war raging. Whatever life Harry thought he had private, clearly he had been deluding himself about.

Unfazed by this though, the man continued, “Anyway, the last Minister of Magic, Mr Fudge, had actually put the Chosen One on trial and Percy in there made the mistake of agreeing with him. When the rest of the family didn't agree though, he had to cut ties with them altogether. Father's been upset about it since, and on the rare occasions that they do meet… well, this happens…”

Aaron dared to ask a question then, neither reporter had made a move to it, too busy scribbling what the man had said and rechecking it. Fixing his camera on the stand he asked, “Today's argument about the Chosen One?”

The man's face darkened a bit and he shook his head. “Nope, something new… boy came in here striding tall as usual… Minister sent him on some errand down here no doubt… and started up in his usual manner with his father. Arthur's in no mood for it though, he may be soft with them but there's only so much anyone can stand. Plus the boy's been acting strange for days now… looks sickly sometimes, and then… well, whatever it is you can hear it now…”

The man allowed his voice to trail off and sure enough Arthur's and Percy's voices filled the hall again.

“… Why did you go there? Haven't I taught you reason? Or common sense, Percy? What did you do to yourself? What happened to my son?”

“Your son grew up and realised that his family was keeping him down! I would never be where I am today if I hadn't left you all, and especially when it came to Harry. Mum should have seen that that boy would bring trouble!”

“Trouble, what trouble? Harry's saved us more times than we can count! Myself, your sister, Ron! We all owe him our lives, very soon the entire Wizarding world will! Where will you be then when the men you choose to serve are proven wrong Percy? Where will you be when they come back and You-Know-Who's gone?”

“I'll be here at the Ministry making sure that the ones who did the real hard work are duly rewarded. Harry Potter's on a suicide mission and he's taken Ron with him. What are you going to tell Mum if he returns without Ron? How are you going to face her?”

“I have every confidence that Ron will return alive! And Hermione, and Harry! But you Percy… you've changed completely… blind ambition is a dangerous thing, it corrupts, and it changes people… look where it led you… you should not have gone to that place!”

“Why not, why shouldn't I, because Harry Potter said so? Because others claim that he's the Chosen One so that he and his friends are allowed to get away with breaking into the Ministry? But I suppose I should thank him for that. His little escapade led me there. And going there opened my eyes to things… helped me find my way in all this… in no time at all I can have what I want and without all the hassle that comes with being the Minister's lackey!”

“There are Dark things studied there! The Darkest of all things so far seen being one of them and you are following dangerously close in his footsteps! Do you have any idea of what you've done to yourself?”

“I've done nothing but open my eyes! It's what I've always done and it's gotten me ahead so far, and from what I've seen, the things…”

“Tell me you didn't allow yourself to be corrupted by those things… tell me that you didn't do what I fear… tell me Percy, please tell me that you didn't!”

“That I didn't what? That I didn't take on the opportunity of a lifetime? That I allowed the best chance I shall ever have of achieving my goals slip away? No! I took that chance, I took that opportunity! You have no idea of the power… of the will… of the clarity with which I see things now!”

“No, you're right, I don't! And I don't want to either! That is evil, purest evil and you allowed yourself to slip into it! You've become one of them!”

“I am not one of them!”

“No… you're much worse. I feared it, I didn't want to believe it, but it's true… my son Percy… what have you done to yourself? You've changed… you've allowed yourself to be corrupted…. You're almost him!”

Aaron would have listened further to their argument but was interrupted just then by one reporter asking, “Aaron, could you get me some coffee?”

She was new, just out of Hogwarts in fact, but already she treated him like her personal page boy. No self-respecting, experienced photographer like himself would stand for it; clearly she had been watching too many Muggle movies. And if it wasn't for the fact that he wasn't up to it today he would have told her a point blank “No” and then gone into the finer points of his job description until her head spun.

Instead though, he finished setting the film in the camera, checked the imaging one last time and then casually strolled away. He would talk to her later.

The next time he would hear her voice though, she would be pleading in vain for her life.

As a matter of fact, the last he would ever hear of the arguing men in the room too, was when the father would say, moments before he died, “I'm sorry Percy… I can't let you do this…”

After that were the cruel, shrieking voice of a woman, and the dreaded words of the Killing Curse, “Avada Kedavra!”

*****

Lupin, Mrs Weasley, Bill, Charlie, Tonks and Mad Eye Moody, when finally Harry's recount of their visit to Aaron McCullough was finished, simply sat there in the fire-lit kitchen in stunned silence. Ironically, Harry couldn't help but think that this was no different from their reaction earlier. But who wouldn't be stunned silent after that?

What it implied… what it meant… it sounded… and that last line of Mr Weasley's specifically, as if the rumours were true. Though they doubted Arthur would have let in the Death Eaters… he didn't fight them either. It was almost that he allowed them to kill him and his son in the office that day.

Harry kept his eyes trained on Mrs Weasley for a reaction, but surprisingly, there was none. She didn't cry, or sniffle or even pale, she just sat there with the others waiting for someone else to speak.

He turned to Ginny for explanation but she was not looking his way. She had been rather quiet since they left Aaron's flat.

Charlie and Bill were troubled, their faces clearly displaying their inner turmoil at this news. Tonks seemed indifferent, as did Moody, but Lupin, the ever sharp mind at work, broke the silence first and asked, “Is that all he told you?”

“Yes,” Harry said, “he said that he went away to get the reporter some coffee, after telling her that he needed to go to the bathroom anyway, and then heard the noise on his way back. He found a hiding place in an empty office and listened to the rest. The next thing he knew the building was falling down around him. When he rushed out to see if he could help anyone, he saw Percy's and Mr Weasley's… bodies in the hall… they'd been dragged out of the office… and they were dead, everyone, all of them…”

He cut his story short quickly, the looks on Charlie and Bill's faces were worsening and Mrs Weasley finally began to lose some of her colour.

Lupin pressed on, “Did he know anything else about what Percy and Arthur were arguing about…? Where… where Percy could have gone that would cause… something like this…?”

Harry took a moment to consider this and then replied cautiously, “No… but… from what he told us… it had to be the Department of Mysteries…. Before you all came for us… the things we had seen… Professor Dumbledore had mentioned that there were things studied there that…. Percy must have been there and gotten involved in something… something that must have changed him to… to this…”

The silence in the kitchen then was so acute that Harry could hear the groaning of the house all the way up the third floor. Some creature scurried in the shadows nearby and a voice in a painting, which sounded rather much like Phineas Nigellus Black, filtered down to them, deep in a conversation that mentioned the word “Mudblood”. Harry made a mental note then to “speak” with him about it later.

“What is “this”… how he got to this… what does it have to do with Hermione?” asked Lupin then, finally breaking the silence again.

“Hermione,” he made a point of turning to her then, “this morning said that “this”, that what he's like now… it has something to do with him being like Voldemort… something in the Department of Mysteries must have made him like Voldemort….”

He paused, it was getting difficult to explain without really repeating the name, and though they no longer flinched at it, it cleared up nothing. Hermione though, took over.

“I thought… I think… that something he saw or dealt with down there changed him somehow. Before, when Voldemort was trying to become immortal, probably thinking that Horcruxes were not enough, he did a lot of things… experiments with magic and… well, they brought him to what he was, a thing, a shadow of a man already dead before that night when he attacked Godric's Hollow. The Department of Mysteries then must have condensed all that, made it something different, or they were studying it, and when Percy went down there, he may have accidentally…”

“Accidentally my foot! How did Percy describe it, “an opportunity”, he willingly interfered or let himself get into it, whatever that was down there!” suddenly declared Bill.

The intensity with which he said that shocked all around him. But they could not be forced to disagree.

Harry glanced at Hermione and continued for her. She was looking rather distressed at the thought that no one else believed Percy didn't know what happened to him. She reminded him of Dumbledore.

Where there was blind ambition there could also be blind faith…

“When Percy went down there, he… interfered… with something and this is what we have to deal with now. It kept him alive after the Killing Curse struck, but then the Department of Mysteries was destroyed so he may not know what it was that really did it. And as for what he might want with Hermione… well, since you mentioned it just now, and considering what we have… and that he killed Ron for it… I think he might want her to find out what it was, to know what saved him… or maybe… to duplicate it… keep him alive… forever…”

As he said it he was struck by what it meant.

“Hadn't we ended this war?”

Wasn't this what it all came down to in the end? Percy, so ambitious in his quest to power, to become Minister of Magic, that he blindly interfered with something he should not, now wanted to live forever. That's all it was, that's all it ever was.

Ever since Harry had first met him Percy had been ambitious. That book he had been reading about school prefects and their careers afterwards. The pride, with which he took on his position as Head Boy, to the point that he, was the butt of his brothers' jokes. The dedication he put into his career at the Ministry of Magic so that he had no life beyond it. Or rather, one he documented so that they knew about. The fact that he had been so quick to disown his family in favour of a corrupt, incompetent politician and take up with another when the first was proven wrong. He wanted power, he wanted the prestige, and this was where it had taken him, a dead man walking, a murderer with one victim as his own brother, a kidnapper, and as soon as Harry found him, dust. They should have seen it coming.

But they hadn't had they? Not he, or Hermione, or the Order, or Dumbledore or even Voldemort himself too tied up in his own affairs. Maybe he killed Voldemort too early; he could have let it alone for a while and waited for the outcome of two “immortal” Dark Wizards trying to claim power over the Wizarding world. It would have been quite a match.

Ron would have personally paid his only Galleon to see it happen.

But then, they couldn't either now could they?

“And no one should ever have to see that. No one, ever…”

Lupin spoke up again, “Does he have a Horcrux… if he is like Voldemort?”

“We don't know,” Hermione said, once again entering the conversation, “maybe he does, it could have been created when he was at the Department of Mysteries, without… or with… (She looked at the others.) his knowledge. It could be in the Department… or the ruins of it… or somewhere else, and somehow or the other, it got into his body when the half, I don't even want to think “part”, already in him was killed by Bellatrix. He's not dead, but he isn't alive.”

“And he has Emmeline…” said Mrs Weasley suddenly then, finally speaking.

Hermione swallowed painfully and looked down at the table, “Yes… and he has Emmeline…”

Harry looked at her and willed her to turn to him. He wanted her to see in his eyes the constant repetition of the promise that he would bring her sister back. He wanted to see the determination with which he would make sure she was safe and happy instead of sad all the time. He wanted her to know that he loved her and would take care of her now that he and Emmeline were all she had left in the world.

But she didn't. Just as she had been doing for the past two days since her declaration, she ignored his gaze though he knew she could feel it.

Wait a minute… what? What was that last thought?

They would have to talk, and soon. And probably before they went after Percy and Emmeline, they really had to talk soon.

Mrs Weasley speaking again brought him back to the matter at hand. Her eyes were filling with tears though her face showed no emotion as she said, “Then you know what you have to do. His father tried and failed… and if what you say was true, then my son has been dead for a long time before that day…. Before he… even met Ron again….”

Harry dreaded what she was going to say next. He didn't know why but it made him afraid.

“When you see Percy again, whatever part of him is still alive, I want you to tell him that I love him, and that I forgive him,” she continued, “and then I want you to kill him.”

Harry didn't wait for an awkward silence to fall again before he began to speak up, asking, “Where do we begin?”

Looking between him and Mrs Weasley then, the others were not sure of their answer. What could one say when a mother had just given permission to the murder of her son?

Hermione knew though, “Where it all began, the Department of Mysteries.”

*****

The first thing she noticed as she came out of the darkness this time was that it was silent. Usually by now she would have become aware of his incessant pacing, the continuous flipping of pages, the ceaseless, almost frenzied muttering… but instead all she was faced with was silence. Nothing, no footsteps on what she guessed were wooden floors, no flipping pages of books so ancient they didn't crinkle as they turned, no heavy, rasping breathing as if he was constantly angry and no conversations with himself that made her wish she could kill him. And then she knew why and almost couldn't and was afraid to believe it at the same time.

He wasn't there; he had gone somewhere and left her behind.

Lifting her heavy lids slightly to make sure of it, Emmeline was struck by how frightening… quiet… wherever they were had become.

She hadn't seen much of it, due to earlier delirium and this sleeping sickness that had overtaken her, but she was quite sure that it was usually noisier than this.

Surely the first night here she had caught the sounds of water, or a cricket, a gate… fire? Surely she had smelt something like the ancient pine of wood or the rock of a cave perhaps? Surely she had known more than this dying golden light of evening that now poured from somewhere nearby unto her still form wrapped in the soft folds of her crimson robes?

But now there was nothing. It was as if he had gone and taken it with him. And now she didn't know if she should be glad for it, or simply afraid.

For two days now he had been her sole companion. She had slept so much that she wasn't sure of time until he had told her that morning. He was always there, and now, tonight, he wasn't.

Sickly smile, wild hair, old black robes, and look of death itself… he was gone.

It took her only a few moments more then, to realise that this was an opportunity. Even if she felt restricted, weak, trapped in her own body wherever it was she lay, she had to take this chance to find a way out. She didn't know where she was, she didn't know when he would come back, but she did know that she had to leave here. She had to go home, to Hermione, where she was safe, and Harry, who made them feel that way. She just had to get out of here.

Thinking this, knowing this though… did little or nothing to change the fact that she couldn't move. If he thought she slept too much she would have him know that she was very awake now and simply couldn't. Of course, he could have used magic too, to restrain her, and since she wasn't a witch it was making her sleep.

That actually sounded like a logical thought, Hermione would have been proud.

Seeing that she couldn't move altogether though, small steps would have to do for the moment. She focused on her left hand, taking a few moments to locate it for her brain seemed unable to determine properly, she tried to form a fist. It would be a small step for a girl, but a giant leap for freedom. All she had to do was close the already curled-in fingers into a tight fist like a boxer. If she moved that, she could work on other things, grander things, like escape.

A low, intrusive rumbling then and the slightly hollow feeling in her stomach region reminded her of something else. While she was escaping, she had to find something to eat. She doubted he had magically fed her while she slept.

She lay there for a few tense moments then, eyes still barely open but her mind actively focusing on making that fist. It was mind over matter. If she thought about it enough she could make it happen.

Mind over matter… form the fist… mind over matter… form the fist and then move the hand… mind over matter….

Then suddenly there was the sound of a door swinging open and she knew that he was back. Even if she could have moved completely he would have caught her immediately.

And he brought all the things he had taken away with him then too. His footsteps, his breathing, his muttering, all came in with him with a sharpness that forced wider open her eyes.

This, and had he not been looking her way then he would have missed it, surprised them both. He actually exclaimed, “Well… waking up are we? Slept well I'm sure.”

Emmeline closed her eyes and then opened them; almost marvelling at the fact that she could do it, before turning to him. He was unchanged from the ghastly figure she had met in the hallway that night two nights ago. Still wild-haired, still sickly smiling, still speaking pleasantly, it was absolutely revolting.

He approached her just then and smiled down, “Wonderful, we're making progress… and not yourself alone… I've discovered that your sister went out of that house today. A pity I didn't catch her… but it seems she's finally paying attention to my message. You should be glad; soon you'll be going home!”

There was that sickly smile again, though now a sickly grin that made her shut her eyes tight under them. She didn't open them again until he was gone, walking away to deal with whatever he had brought, but by that time she also had another reason too.

It must have been her fright, for otherwise it would have been shockingly too soon or a coincidence, but sometime while her eyes were closed she noticed something.

Her hand was curled into a tight, knuckle-whitening fist.

-->

A/N: From this point on, I can “safely” give nineteen as the final length of this story, give or take bits of filler, I now have the ending. Otherwise, in this chapter I should warn that you may not like Harry too much; he does come off as a bit of a jerk. Plus, if any of you are wondering how the final battle occurred, like Psy Girl, this may clear that up a bit too. Please note that Voldemort didn't read the Evil Overlord List and it's a bit lame. Also, there is my attempt at a Horcrux theory; you may laugh at it if you wish.

And again, I find myself apologising for the length of time I'm taking. But this week there was a power outage, the phone got cut, my birthday happened (I'm nineteen now!) and there was a flood.

But welcome, as it's called in Prose Fiction, to the rising action.

Disclaimer: There are excerpts in this chapter from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling, which are most definitely, along with everything else, not mine.

*****

Into the Fire

The fall of the Ministry of Magic near the end of the Second Wizard War had been an event both spectacular and terrifying to behold. Late in the night, earlier that year, the building under which it was housed suddenly imploded and crumbled, and then in the wake of this destruction a brilliant green fireworks display was sent up above it. The shockwaves alone attracted the attention of the Muggles around, but this display, it was meant for the wizards amongst them.

The Minister had been unhurt of course, and later assured the Wizarding community through the Daily Prophet of this while regretting the loss of a dedicated young aide. The Ministry then removed to temporary headquarters elsewhere while various defensive spells, Muggle-repelling charms and anti-Apparition wards were set up to protect the secrets within. Most important of these secrets… the Department of Mysteries, mostly untouched seven floors down into the earth.

Three years ago Harry had gone down there into a trap that almost killed his friends but cost him his godfather. He had then vowed never to set foot, along with Grimmauld Place and Privet Drive, in there again. Now, as with Grimmauld Place, he would have to.

For the sake of Emmeline Alice Granger, and her sister, he would have to.

Since they had come to the decision to go back there, over four hours ago, things had thankfully, and regrettably, begun to move along in a brisk pace. Permission was somehow obtained for a private late night tour of the ruin for the Man-Who-Triumphed and friends, accompanied by a guide and select Aurors. While the wards were being temporarily removed, they finalised their plans for battle in the event that they encountered Percy within. Mrs Weasley had been escorted to the Burrow by her sons; Hermione sat in a corner lazily attempting a few simple spells (“Lumos!” “Wingardium Leviosa!” “Incendio!”), and he allowed his mind to drift to a dark place he had conveniently tried to ignore, though not to much avail, in the months since it happened.

Now that he was going to face Percy, he was trying to recall what would forever be his worst nightmare. He was trying to remember the Final Battle.

The last time he had faced a Horcrux-using Dark Wizard it had taken two years, he didn't want it to take that long this time. Then, they had employed Hermione's theory of deduction to calculate the number of Horcruxes they had to destroy. According to the theory, this was all a strange game of numbers.

When Voldemort learned of the prophecy, he had at that time accumulated five Horcruxes. The school diary and Slytherin's ring being the first two, and then Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup and something of Ravenclaw's or Gryffindor's. Since he had intended to split his soul seven times, or at least so they hoped, he therefore had two-sevenths of his soul left in his body.

At the attack on Godric's Hollow then, Dumbledore believed that he had intended to split his soul once more to make the final Horcrux with Harry's death. When that failed, with the Killing Curse rebounding upon him, he ended up making Nagini the final Horcrux, some years later. But this is where he and Hermione would disagree.

After the attack on Godric's Hollow, Voldemort was mostly shrunk to nothing. He had been like a parasite, attached to the back of Professor Quirrell's head in First Year, drinking unicorn blood to survive. Harry had actually described him as an “ugly baby” being dropped into a cauldron bath at the Triwizard Tournament. Hermione then, could not see him capable of splitting his soul again and believed that if she was one, Nagini must have been a Horcrux all along, and that he had simply gone to the Potter home to kill the baby.

But not only that, according to Hermione's theory, when the Killing Curse rebounded, it had taken with it not only Voldemort's body, but also that part of his soul still in him, and as he said, one of his experiments kept him alive. There was then a transference where a soul fragment from the closest possible Horcrux entered what was left of his “body” and kept him alive.

They never found out what that “closest possible Horcrux” had been, and they didn't really care to. What this meant for them was that there were three Horcruxes gone, the diary, the ring and the fragment taken by the Killing Curse. All they had to find now was the locket, the Cup, Nagini, and then her master.

It was not as simple as it would seem though. The Horcruxes were difficult to find, though they were lucky with the locket, they were continuously being attacked by Death Eaters, and without the connections or guidance of Dumbledore they stumbled along. It was a plain miracle they had survived as long as they did to win in the end.

So now, working with this theory again, if somehow Percy had managed to make a Horcrux, and allowing for Hermione's belief that it was unintentional; when he “died” the soul fragment left transferred itself into his body. That fragment must have been in the Department of Mysteries, just floors below where Bellatrix had killed him. If he had no more, all they had to do now, was find him and kill him. Going to the Department of Mysteries though, was still necessary, as they had to make sure that this was the case.

But Harry was having a most difficult time as he tried to wrap his mind around the memory of killing Voldemort and the navigation of the department.

Continuously, unbidden, memories of that dreadful night in Fifth Year flooded his thoughts. They seemed determined not to leave him, pestering almost as if to remind him of something he may have forgotten or missed. But mostly they stuck on one horrible image, the terrible sight of Sirius Black falling backwards into the veil.

“But Harry- what if your dream was- was just that, a dream?”

“Sirius ducked Bellatrix's jet of red light: He was laughing at her.

“Come on, you can do better than that!” he, yelled, his voice echoing.”

“Sirius told you there was nothing more important than learning to close your mind!”

“WELL I EXPECT HE'D SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT IF HE KNEW WHAT I'D JUST-“

“It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch….”

“He's got Padfoot!” he shouted. “He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden!”

“- Sirius had only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear on the other side and second….

But Sirius did not reappear.

“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled, “SIRIUS!”

Harry lay fallen on the grass at Voldemort's feet. He could taste the warm earth mingled with the metallic of blood in his mouth and spit half-heartedly.

He immediately regretted it.

He had been under the Cruciatus Curse so many times now that though visibly unharmed he was quite sure his ribs were bruised, a shoulder dislocated or his arm possibly broken and his pants were wet from where he had soiled himself. He was under too much pain, and yet still full of too much pride to be embarrassed for that. It would have just given Voldemort one more thing to laugh about and he had already had so much so far.

Since Harry had come into this misted forest hours before, he had been on the run from him. Voldemort was an aggressive dueller, avoiding Priori Incantatem, shooting off Unforgiveables, alternating between the Killing Curse and the Cruciatus, rather than the normal round of milder stunning spells and Harry had to duck in and out between trees to avoid them.

It took a lot of power, and possibly age and experience to use an Unforgiveable in the first place. And then too, the caster had to mean it. Or so Bellatrix had told him before, and despite his intense hatred for her he found himself unable to forget it.

This was a reason why he could not trust Snape no matter what the Order, Occlumency and Veritaserum said. He remembered that night in the Astronomy Tower:

“Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.

“Severus… please…”

Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.

“Avada Kedavra!”

But at this moment, lying in the underbrush, Harry had none of them. He was weak, drained from being assaulted so many times after Voldemort had finally caught him, and comically too, in the midst of a jump between trees.

As for age and experience, how well does seven years fare against over fifty, and that was just ignoring Voldemort's usage of the Killing Curse at sixteen.

His scar was throbbing so violently that at one point he had felt a trickle of blood run down his face. His breathing was laboured, painful, and he knew that he was fast running out of “happy thoughts” as Ron joked, to force Voldemort out of his head. Voldemort, if he could do it, was yet to break a sweat.

How good did the odds look to you?

He still did have one particular thing though, his ability to be sarcastic and cynical. If at this point he was going to die anyway, he might as well spend it annoying the hell of Voldemort for all that he had put him through since he was born.

He knew that there was no one else coming. He had personally made sure of that by having Ron and Hermione swear that under no circumstances were they to wander into this forest behind him. They both had agreed reluctantly, with Hermione under force, which, if he lived, he would most certainly pay for.

Then there was the Order and Aurors fighting in the streets of Godric's Hollow and near the graveyard in which he had left his friends. He wasn't sure that they had even seen them when they came out to halt the Death Eater raid that had been reported in the area.

There was no one else, just him, and if he was going to die, he was going to do it with a smile on his face. Sirius would have been proud.

When at last the effects of his last bout with the horrible curse were beginning to subside, and his mind had quelled from the fevered thoughts of how long it would take him to end up like the Longbottoms, he dug his fingers into the earth, drew his head up and said, “Tom… oh Tom… I think we should have a talk. I mean, you have been trying to kill me since before I was even born so I think, just before you actually do so, how about we get to know each other? After all, it isn't right that I know everything that I do about you and you know nothing about me. It wouldn't be right that sworn enemies die like random strangers.”

“Be quiet boy! My children shall be joining us soon; I should like an audience tonight.” Voldemort told him coldly.

“An audience? Since when do you need an audience? Is the fame getting to someone's head? Have we been speaking with Gilderoy Lockhart, or maybe reading his books… can't exactly carry on a coherent conversation nowadays though…” continued Harry, carelessly.

“I said be quiet boy!” Voldemort snapped. His cold red eyes levelled at Harry on the ground.

The effect would have been greater if Harry's glasses weren't cracked so that he only received a distorted image.

“Anyway Tom… I was thinking, let's talk about our mothers. My mother as you know, was rather young when she died, like yours. She came from a Muggle family, was a really talented witch and was very beautiful, unlike yours. But then, they both died for us… though in your case it was because she couldn't stand the thought of giving birth to something so hideous. I could imagine her face when she saw you; the shock alone must have killed her.” Harry told him.

“You foolish insolent boy, be quiet!” said Voldemort again, and this time his voice was dangerously low, and colder than ever.

“Did I hit a nerve?” asked Harry innocently. “Tom, are we becoming soft? I thought you didn't care about your mother, I know you didn't care about your father. Or your grandfather, or your grandmother for that matter, you just wiped them out, just like that, and you were younger than me. You know, I think I should be very ashamed of myself. Honestly, you should have given me the chance to kill my parents myself instead, and I would have outdone you as usual.”

“CRUCIO!” shouted Voldemort and Harry was once more enveloped in the sensation of invisible white hot daggers piercing through his flesh, clawing to the bone, and now with the added touch of salt and fiery ants going in after them. He clamped down on his tongue, tasted blood and then screamed as he convulsed violently with the pain. And all the while Voldemort just stared at him, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

He lifted the curse and said, “Maybe that will teach you to hold your tongue.”

Harry sputtered the blood, saliva and earth from his mouth and managed coarsely, “Is this… a bad time t-to tell you… t-that you're going t-to… die?”

Voldemort laughed, a low, serpentine one, if that was possible, and said, “And how, do tell, are you going to manage that?”

“Well… you see…” began Harry, fighting the urge to fall face down into the earth and let death take him then, “I've been… well… I've done a very bad thing. Remember, I don't know, sometime a long time ago when you were at Hogwarts… and you asked… t-that teacher… that Slughorn fellow… about… about H-Horcruxes?”

There was no answer, only silence.

“Well you see… I've been systematically destroying the damn things.” Harry told him, “And let me tell you, nasty little buggers they are, burned right through Dumbledore's hand trying to get one. But don't worry about it too much… we left one… in you. So… even if you do manage to kill me… you don't have that much of a soul left to split to make more… so… inevitably… you're going to die… pity.”

There was still only silence. Harry wondered if Voldemort had dropped dead from the shock but knew he was being optimistic. He tried to find him.

“Tom… oh Tom… Tommy boy! Tommy! TOM RIDDLE!” he called, “What happened… snake got your tongue… oh wait, scratch that, horrible visible image of yourself and Nagini, whew, definitely not what I want to see before we die.”

And then suddenly, there came the sibilant voice, low, deadly, cold… and close.

“I am going to kill you… and your friends. The boy first… I know he is closest to you… I know a lot about you…. And then the girl… maybe some of my lesser Death Eaters will have some fun first… she is a Mudblood, like your mother had been, there is no need for those most loyal to me to defile themselves with her…. And all the while you will watch… you will hear their screams… you will feel their pain… you will know your failure… and then you will die. My children are almost upon us now.”

But at that moment something very strange happened.

Harry would never understand it, he would barely remember it at first, but he would know that it happened.

Somehow, strangely, suddenly, he felt within him a twisted combination of emotions.

On one hand, it was the sheer disgust at the vile creature standing somewhere above him as he explained how he intended to kill him and his friends. With it came the will, the desire to do away with said creature, for even daring to think that Harry would allow him to do so. And then, on the other hand, was the knowledge that while suffering and dying, his friends would love and die for and with him. And because he knew this without even having to ask them, he loved them for it. More than that, he did not want them to die in the first place, and so for them, for their families, and for the Wizarding world around them, he would have to give his life to spare theirs.

That knowledge fuelled his will, a will further spurred by disgust and pity for a life that did not know the things he did, and Harry, much to his own surprise, managed to force himself half upright on the ground, look up to Voldemort and smile.

Voldemort above him looked down and demanded, “What do you want boy? Why are you smiling, wait don't tell me, I can rip it from your head… before they rip out your soul!”

Harry craned his head then, and to his horror spied the fluttering black cloaked shadows of the Dementors. The mist, his “children”, the fact that he didn't directly kill him, all the while Harry had been talking Voldemort had been calling the Dementors.

Whatever happened to needing to regenerate with Harry's death?

But for some reason, Harry continued to smile, and dragged his wand arm up, where Voldemort had for some reason left him in possession of his wand, and rested it in the grass where the wand barely pointed up at his attacker. And then, rather brazenly, though with inkling that he could mean it when he said it, declared, “AVADA KEDAVRA!”

The beginnings of laughter that had appeared on Voldemort's face at that moment immediately died when a powerful beam of brilliant, green light, illuminating Harry's eyes so that it seemed to spawn from them instead of his wand, shot right at him.

He didn't even attempt to move away. He just stood there, as if expecting to deflect it but didn't. It struck him in the chest where his heart, if it was possible that he had one, would have been and his body was forcefully thrown backwards through the trees where he fell to the ground spread-eagled.

Harry, stunned at his success, looked on as then suddenly, Voldemort's corpse, for it was surely one now, was pulled upwards so that his back arched and out of his mouth poured some black, viscous thing. While that happened though, his body began to transform, changing from the hideous snake-like thing, stripping off blood, flesh, bursts of light, swirls of mist that had to be the echoes of some sort of spell, and then finally to the handsome Tom Marvolo Riddle before going back again. The viscous liquid as it was, then began to creep through his eyes, ears, and nose, pooling round his head and burst into an emerald flame like that of the Floo in the fireplace, while the “smoke” swirled like that of the Amortentia above the fallen form. But it was not over though, for suddenly, with ear-piercing wails and shrieks, the Dementors sprang from the trees and clouded round the form of their “father”.

Before they did it Harry knew what was to happen next, they were going to kiss him.

The swirling smoke suddenly sped up in its twists, spread into the air and then descended over the body. The Dementors continued their shrieking, there was a horrible sucking sound that made his skin crawl and a tiny, glowing spark, Tom Riddle's soul, emerged before being communally devoured. This was the Dementor's Kiss, and if ever he had pitied Barty Crouch Jr, it was then.

And then the Dementors turned their attentions to him.

But before he could attempt some form of doomed escape, there was a brilliant blast of light, the sound of a woman screaming, “Not Harry, take me instead!” and the world sank into darkness.

It was only when his head collided with the cold stone floor that Harry realised he must have fallen asleep and had toppled from his place on the bench. He yelled as the pain immediately resonated through his skull, blinding him temporarily, before clearing to a wide eyed vision of stars in his gaze.

“Oh gods… Harry!”

He did not have to focus on them for long though, before he caught the scent of something flowery and a crimson shower blurred his vision. From somewhere far off he heard Ginny's voice, “Harry… Harry, are you okay?”

But it was Hermione's that came in closer. Something wooden clattered to the floor by his left ear and he felt warm, soft hands on his face. He reached an arm up dazedly, and it connected with the slight roughness of a polyester shirt and the warmth of the shoulder beneath. Hermione put her hands on his arm and drew it down while asking as Ginny had, “Harry… what happened… are you okay?”

He tried to nod but that only made the pain worse so he forced out instead, “Y-yeah…”

At once Hermione's voice became scolding, though its tone indicated that she was still concerned, “When was the last time you slept? Harry you're exhausted, you look so pale! You should stay here while the rest of us…”

“Us? Where do you think you're going? You can't even cast a light spell!” demanded Ginny.

Harry didn't want to hear this argument but he couldn't move and he knew it was coming.

“She's my sister! I'm not staying here while the rest of you go rushing off to save her!” Hermione replied.

“What if we're attacked, you'd be the first one down! We'd be too busy protecting you, you're a burden now!” snapped Ginny.

She had gone too far. From Hermione's sudden and somewhat frightening silence, he could tell this wasn't going to end well. But a part of him, the part where he couldn't help but feel guilty about, had to agree.

They were going back into the Department of Mysteries. The last time she had been there she ended up in the hospital wing for the rest of the school term from Dolohov's curse. Hermione had to know that he wasn't going to let her go with them now. He still remembered last time, as clear as though it were yesterday.

“Well done Ha- oh!” said Hermione, and then she crumpled to floor, lying there motionless.

“HERMIONE!”

He could still feel the panic, as a matter of fact some of it was rising in him now as he realised that Hermione had been practicing those spells to…

“NO!” he declared suddenly, and fought them off to sit up. “No Hermione, you have to stay here!”

“I'll do no such thing; it's been two days since he's taken her Harry… two days that feel like forever! I'm not staying here while you all go rushing off behind Percy when it's me he wants in the first place! She's my sister!” she told him.

“And she's my responsibility too!” he nearly shouted. “I promised her that I would take care of her! That I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her… and you! I'm not breaking that promise twice Hermione, you have stay here!”

“I'm not! I won't! He might not even be there Harry!” she continued stubbornly.

“Come off it! I'm not going to let you get yourself taken… or worse, killed!” Harry shot back.

“I'm not going to let you do that either! You're not sworn by a prophecy this time Harry, he doesn't want you, he could kill you without stopping to think about it!” she suddenly raged.

“VOLDEMORT COULD HAVE DONE THE SAME!” he roared.

“But he doesn't want you to himself or need you to regenerate or whatever the hell Voldemort wanted in the first place! I don't want you to have lived through that to just die now! Emmeline is only nine years old; she hasn't even begun to live yet! Who's going to take care of her if you die?” she demanded.

And then, to the irritation of them both, Hermione's eyes began to fill with tears.

She wiped them away angrily before continuing, now in a painful whisper, “If you die this time, you know I won't live long after, don't do this to Emmeline! Don't do this to me…”

He didn't know what to say. Underneath all of that, her entire argument, her need to go, it was not only for Emmeline, it was for him too.

She said then, “He can have me if he wants me, but I can't let him have you.”

He allowed his anger one last surge as he spat bitterly, “I don't need a mother!”

And then, for the second time in two days, Hermione slapped him. Her hand reared back and then impacted with his face with such force that it surely overtook the pain from his fall earlier. There was now though, the rippling effect of a million tiny bee stings and he was left slightly winded.

He heard Ginny suck in a breath, and then Hermione snapped, “I'm not your mother, I'm not trying to be your mother, my only mistake now is that I love you. I'm sorry for that though, I would've been happier with Ron.”

She rose from the floor and began to walk away, and Harry was suddenly aware that the three of them were not the only ones present. Order members, Aurors, Lupin, Tonks, Moody, Bill, Charlie and surprisingly, the twins, had all been silent spectators to this exchange.

But he didn't care.

Standing as best he could on his own, for Ginny now did not touch him, he said to Hermione's retreating back, “You take that back!”

She turned him, arched an eyebrow, and then scoffed, “Why? Am I lying? Make me!”

He knew that he couldn't. What was he going to tell her? That he would have been a much better boyfriend than Ron? That Ron was somehow not good enough for her? That he would have been “safer” than Ron?

The last bit though, gave him enough anger to say next, “Accio Hermione's wand!”

It tottered slightly on the floor and then rose into his grasp; he threw it at her where it came to rest at her feet. Her face betrayed no emotion.

“Fine then, come with us! But just know that I'm not going to waste time dragging you around again!” he said.

Still without emotion, Hermione's wand suddenly rose from the floor and flew into her hand.

His eyes widened in surprise, as he was sure everyone else's did too; he didn't know she could do that.

He didn't hear the spell, but he definitely felt it when his limbs became stiff and snapped together and he fell to the floor like a plank. Hermione had petrified him.

But she didn't stand around long enough to celebrate her victory. With great sniffling, she suddenly turned on her heels and ran up out of the kitchen. It was only because of the general silence of the house, that they heard when she collapsed in tears in the entrance hall above. If he could have moved then, Harry would have closed his eyes in shame.

Finally though, Ginny said, “Finite Incantatem!” and he felt his body fall free. She said nothing more though, and walked over to the table with the others.

He sat up heavily and would not look at them.

Lupin broke the silence, “We have to go now… but I'll give you some time… if you need it.”

He considered this for a moment. If they waited a bit, maybe he would be able to go up there and reason with Hermione. She was putting herself in danger like this, and for some warped reason, it was for him. And then too, he could figure out if the Ministry had any spare Dementors about, he wasn't sure he could invoke the Killing Curse again, and especially as before.

He brushed away them both though, the former would probably be a hopeless cause and the latter was most likely nil. They were best to go on as they were now.

Harry shook his head, “No, let's go.”

*****

She was floating again.

She could not remember exactly when the darkness had overtaken her, or why her delirium had apparently returned, or what had happened to that sickly man when she finally regained enough use of her limbs to force herself to sit up, but she knew that now she was floating again.

It was the strangest thing.

Gone was the flickering light of the fire, the pacing, the muttering, the wild hair, and the warmth of her bed of blankets. Then there was that squeezing sensation again, she knew she must have felt it somewhere. Then there was the cool night air on her warmed skin. She heard a car's alarm, and a few others passing, a dog's bark, the sound of Big Ben's bell and a few, distant voices. And then there was that sickening, icy touch.

Oh no, where were they going now?

Suddenly though, the floating ended. She was laid somewhere stiff and cold and damp. There was a slight griminess to it, that had she been able to, she would have recoiled from. And then she heard his voice.

“Stupefy!” he hissed and she distinctly heard something fall with a sharp “thud!”

But then she heard something else, “Mobilicorpus!” and she was rising from the ground and resting on something like a hammock. There was the floating again, though now she could hear his footsteps. There was a slight feeling of warmth from below, something tumbled slightly while something else groaned and moved away and then they began to descend.

*****

In a few short, quick “pops”, the small party Apparated into the darkened alleyway beside the Ministry of Magic. Charlie, Bill, Lupin, Tonks, Moody, Ginny, Hermione and Harry had come for their “tour”.

The first thing Harry noticed was the cool of the night around them. Much like that night, months, though it felt like years, before, the stars dotted the sky like sequins on an inky blue-black dress robe. Despite the sounds of the city round, he could hear birds, or rather, a bird, singing a mournful song to air. He closed his eyes slight and felt the warm night wind of the city ripple slightly round him, and open them again to stare at Hermione talking to Lupin, who had Side-Along Apparated with her. Her one burst of magic had apparently been mostly wandless, but that was all, one burst.

How convenient that she still be incapacitated.

He wanted to apologise but couldn't bring himself to go to her. If he saw hatred in those eyes, he wasn't sure he would be able to stand it. He turned away from her then and looked across to Ginny, who also was not speaking to him. Her reasons though, were unclear and none of his concern.

Almost as if he himself had Apparated, a small, eager-eyed young man dressed in robes of light grey, not that much older than the three teenagers, suddenly came at them with a bright smile.

“Oh gods, they were telling the truth… you're Harry Potter!” he began, singling out Harry from the group while his eyes flicked to Harry's forehead and his scar. Moody trained his magical eye upon him and his advancements halted at once.

He took a moment to regain his composure before saying, “Well, yes, Mr Potter and party for the tour of the Ministry of Magic… not much to see in there I can tell you, it's a mess, but you requested it…”

He continued to ignore everyone else as he turned then, saying to Harry, “It's an absolute honour to meet you, you saved us all, you know that? Well of course you do, you were there after all. But say, tone down on it a bit okay, you're showing all the rest of us up with that knight-in-shining-armour thing. Sorry about your friend of course, I knew his brother while he worked here. Rather ambitious if I say so myself, but he was a longs way off, the Minister isn't going to give up his position just like that!”

Ginny gave a sound like a disgusted snort and he said, “Oh yes, the beautiful Miss Ginevra Weasley, Mr Arthur Weasley's daughter… here with your brothers I see?”

Just then Charlie and Bill had closed in behind her and the young man respectfully stepped away from her too.

Hermione stumbled slightly behind them, and they all turned to see her as she straightened up and said, “It's a passed out drunk, and probably a wizard too, completely pissed!”

The young man looked over to her and commented pityingly, “Yes… well he'll wake up eventually… my, you're Hermione Granger… brightest of her generation I've heard… if you'd have finished your studies I heard you were a strong contender for the highest marks in the NEWTS in the world! Of course helping Mr Potter here was far more important!”

He went on behind to help her, as she was now attempting to shake the man, and took hold of her arm to lead her away, “Ignore him, sad state of affairs that, some things never change, even after war. Come on Miss Granger, or may I call you Hermione?”

He paused for an answer, Harry replied, “No.”

They all looked at him, even Hermione, but the young man brushed it off, “Don't worry about it, I'm Martin Kidderminster, shall we continue?”

She looked down at the body again, and Harry had a sneaking suspicion that she knew something was wrong. But she said nothing though, and instead turned to Martin, who now, to Harry's chagrin, had his arm linked through hers, and said, “Okay.”

He smiled, slightly flirtatiously, and led her on.

But of this party of nine that would go in, only eight would come back out.

A/N: Ah, what a naughty way to end this. Sorry about that. :P

Anyhoo, I've just noticed something. I was reading through the fanfic lists here and found two other fics named Aftermath, one by MischiefManaged and another by Jack Ryan. I liked them both but after reading them though, I find myself stuck with one question… the hell is up with killing Ron?

It was weird, in both fics Ron died in the final battle, (sorry if I spoiled it for anyone) so I have to ask now, are fics named Aftermath potentially fatal to Ron's character? And does this extend to chapters too, because if JKR names a chapter that in Book 7 I'm going to know who died and I won't be able to read anymore due to excessive crying, hair-pulling and bawling like a child.

Coming out of this digression though, please do review, they're always welcome and wonderful to read.

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A/N: I know I must be bombarding you now, but as I am away from computer decided to post a double here and then the third part of Journal so that you wouldn't have to wait too long. If you are confused somehow in this, please let me know, as I am now attempting to tie up loose ends. On the bright side, at least you get to know what Percy wants exactly, when it comes to Hermione. Kudos to all of you with me still so far.

One more thing, please excuse my use of Legilimency in this chapter, I am clearly insane.

*mutters* I know I saw them slip something in that cake. *sigh*

Disclaimer: More excerpts from a book I have no recollection of writing abound, ergo, not mine.

*****

“Step into my parlour…”

One flight down into the Ministry of Magic, around the former office of the Minister of Magic himself, and Harry began plans to ditch Martin, and Hermione- though he didn't trust Martin alone with her at all- and make his way down to the Department of Mysteries. But he didn't know how to initiate their split. Martin was sticking to him like webbing on trapped fly, Hermione was not even looking his way, not anymore that is, and the others seemed incapable of arranging the split themselves.

Well, he had to give them some credit. Tonks and a few Aurors, who had met them within, had managed to extricate themselves as they were in charge of security. Lupin and Moody were his “bodyguards” and therefore allowed to wander off at intervals as though to ensure the way was clear for him to pass. Charlie, Bill and Ginny, as relatives of the late Weasleys, were occasionally shown things they had undoubtedly already seen, but also “allowed” to touch, a bonus. So they were not entirely useless, they were doing the best that they could under the circumstances.

If he wanted to be honest, the real hold-ups were him and Hermione. Because of their celebrity, and maybe also Hermione's attractiveness, they received Martin's undivided attention. He mostly ignored everyone else in favour of showing them around the vacant offices, which was apparently currently under repairs and described the various famous people who had once dined within.

And that was another thing, he was taking too long. As interesting as they were- to Hermione that was- no one really cared to know which Minister of Magic had the honour of meeting the queen. He was actually describing the menus too, and that included the cooking. It was almost as if he were stalling them.

And then as he thought this Hermione said, “Mr Kidderminster…”

“Martin, please, my name is Martin, Miss Granger,” said Martin pleasantly.

Harry wanted to stamp the smile off his face.

“Right, Martin,” Hermione said, smiling as well, “I am assured you were informed that we did not only come here to see the Minister's office… if I recall correctly, we were to go through the entire building… I dare say it's been an hour and we haven't left this floor.”

Martin flashed a grin worthy of Lockhart and apologised in what he must have thought a very humble voice, which to Harry was mildly conceited, “I'm sorry, you're quite right, I forgot myself there a moment… agreeable company after all. How about we head to the lifts now?”

“They still work?” asked Bill.

“Well, they were damaged but they were one of the first things repaired, had to make sure that every department was alright. Now, shall we?” Martin replied.

At once everyone agreed, and began shuffling down a rather exquisite, antiquely decorated hall, complete with portraits and intricate, sparkling, crystal chandeliers, towards the gilt grilles of the lifts.

Walking down the hall though, Harry couldn't help but notice the faces of the literal hundreds of former Ministers of Magic peering down at them. No damage had come to their portraits, but they apparently had been left to the mercy of the engineers reconstructing the building.

Percy had wanted to join them once, how had he strayed so far from that path?

As they got into the lifts, everyone looked over the buttons, and each of them wished to press number nine, the one that would take them directly to their destination, but they couldn't. Martin was in charge of this tour, and as long as he was, it would remain a tour. Thankfully, Hermione saved them.

“I believe that you know we had once visited the Department of Mysteries… would it be alright if we went there first and then worked our way up?” she asked, trying slightly to suppress a sudden anxiety in her voice.

Martin looked slightly troubled at this request. Harry suspected that he had never intended on getting them further than the Minister's office in the first place. But then Hermione turned on the charm.

With a seductiveness he had never dreamed her capable of, Hermione smiled sweetly at Martin, took hold of his hand, guided it to the buttons and pressed his finger to the last button. She released his hand, but then drew her hand up to her hair and pulled it all over one shoulder, twisted it in her fingers and then let it all bounce over her back again. She ran her hands through it again, and smiled, “Sorry, it was getting in my way.”

Martin reddened slightly, the others all had wide-eyed gazes and Hermione continued, “I haven't been there so long, and my first time was so horrible, I was hoping this time would be much better.”

For the fact that his mind had completely descended to the gutter, Harry could not help but be incensed by the double meaning of that sentence. He showed remarkable restraint though, as the lift slowly began to descend and tried not to make too much of a show of putting himself between Martin and Hermione.

Hermione noticed though, and whispered in a voice so low that despite the relative silence only he heard it, “What are you doing?”

He ignored her. He was too busy trying to remove images of Ron and Hermione any way like that from his mind. He knew how Ron had been with Lavender, they had not gotten anywhere near that, but with Hermione, no matter what she told him, they had lived together for two years…

Before he could finish that thought though, a familiar cool witch's voice said softly, “The Department of Mysteries.”

As the door opened Harry brusquely stepped out past Martin, muttered an apology and tried to ignore the feel of Hermione's eyes on his back.

He had no right to act like a jealous boyfriend, but he didn't care.

She said she loved him, just because he had not come up with a reply yet didn't mean that she had a right to act like that with other men in front of him no matter how much it helped.

The darkened hallway of the department though, was of much more concern. Just as before, dimly lit by torches, it led straight down to a black door which would lead to a small room of more doors that revolved. Each door led to a different room, he still didn't know their official names, but there was the Brain Room, the Time Room, the Death Chamber, the Hall of Prophecies, and one neither he nor Hermione could open, just to name a few. Harry remembered Hermione marking those doors in Fifth Year and vaguely wondered if they would have to do the same now.

Just as they came to the door at the end of the hall though, Martin said, “I'm not sure that we should go in… I mean, if it was bad the last time, since the building collapsed overhead, it has to be much worse.”

In that same temptress' manner, Hermione gave a distinctly girlish laugh and said even more so, “Don't be silly, we haven't seen one bit of damage in here… don't tell me that you're afraid?”

Martin immediately assumed a fully masculine posture, voice slightly deepened, to the amusement of Ginny, “Absolutely not! I just didn't want you to be frightened.”

Harry though, had had too much of it already to be amused, saying churlishly, “She's seen much worse than what's in there in the war, saw Voldemort (Martin flinched) more than once, and much too close for comfort.”

Hermione glared at him, the third look so far- not that he was counting- and then spoke, “Is there a problem Mr Potter?”

Everyone, including Martin, turned to look at Harry. Decidedly disgruntled, he said, “No, I'm fine, should there be Miss Granger?”

Hermione scowled, and Harry couldn't help himself. Though he was never good at Occlumency, and therefore probably was horrible at Legilimency, and wasn't even sure messages could really be conveyed like this, he thought towards her: I'm sorry, am I interrupting you and your boyfriend?

He triumphed in the fact, for five minutes at least, that he must have done it when he saw her eyes widen and her face take on an angry hint of red. But again, it was only five minutes before Hermione somehow shot back: Get out of my head Potter, and stay out! If you want to play petty games of childish jealousy while my sister is alone with Percy do it on your own time. At least he's talking to me; you're stumbling around like a baboon!

Harry had to send back: I don't remember a class where baboons stumble about, and you're the one playing childish games! Acting like a Black Widow with “Mr Martin Kidderminster” here to accomplish gods knows what. Isn't this a bad time to be picking up men?

A Black Widow! Harry, jealousy is not a good thing, have we forgotten Fourth Year? And while we're on the subject I guess you're going to start up with me “fraternising with the enemy” or acting like a “scarlet woman” soon too huh? And how dare you accuse me of looking for a date while my sister's in trouble? I've been practising my wand-work Harry, keep it up and I'll give you a demonstration! Hermione thought to him.

Harry didn't know why this was continuing to upset him, but not wanting her to have the last word… um, thought, he sent: I am not jealous! Just tone it down; we don't have time to rescue you when Martin here starts to get touchy!

Hermione's sudden and very audible growl of frustration then may have confused the others but Harry walked on into the room of revolving doors with a smile on his face.

The smile quickly vanished though, when Martin intertwined his fingers with Hermione's and announced, “As I'm sure some of you remember, these doors lead to rooms where the most enigmatic of life's mysteries are studied. From Death to Time, name it and they study it. It was mostly unaffected by the building collapse, and even before that, by your “incursion” three years ago, so it's still in use… er… d-do you wish to go into one of them?”

The silence of the others meant that Harry was the decision maker tonight, he nodded, and Martin said, “Okay, pick one.”

Harry looked around at the doors and hoped that he wouldn't pick that one. If he had to see that veil again, if he had to hear those voices… he wouldn't be able to stand it.

Eventually though, he pointed to the one furthest to their right, saying, “Let's try that one.”

Martin nodded, took out his wand and tapped the lock, and said clearly, “Alohomora!”

The door swung open, but before they could enter someone shouted, “STUPEFY!” and Martin fell backwards, nearly taking Hermione with him.

She let him go swiftly enough though and dove away from the doorway just as a second shout and the red light of the stunning spell shot through after them.

“Harry!” whispered Charlie, “What's going on?”

“I don't know!” Harry whispered back, “I-I think it was a trap!”

“Set by who?” asked Ginny.

But it was Hermione who would answer, “Percy.”

And before they could stop her she pushed past them and ran through the door calling, “Emmeline! EMMELINE! Where are you Emmeline?”

An immediate reply, in a child's frightened voice, “Hermione!”

Harry and the others rushed in behind them, Martin lying forgotten in the doorway, and then froze in horror at the sight before them.

“No…”

“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled, “SIRIUS!”

Hermione was frantically scrambling down the stone benches to the dais in the centre of the room where Emmeline still sat, dressed in robes of brilliant red, at the foot of it, and behind her the dreaded veiled archway of Sirius' demise.

It was the Death Chamber.

Percy had to die, and it had to be a slow, painful death. The voices behind that veil, he could hear them calling to him. To put Emmeline before that… that thing… knowing that those voices could call to you… that was lowest evil. And he and the others could only just stand there looking down at it completely stunned.

Recovering first though, Harry shouted, “Stop Hermione! Don't go down there!”

She plainly ignored him, and in no time at all was down to the dais and gathering up a now silently crying Emmeline in her arms saying all the while, “Oh Emmeline! Thank you… oh Emmeline! I was so scared for you!”

The fact that someone had stunned Martin from within this room though, was not lost on Harry and the others. Harry began to jump down the stone benches with them, calling, “Hermione, come back now! You've got Emmeline so let's leave, now!”

“Hermione come back up here!”

“Hermione come back with Emmeline!”

But Hermione seemed not to hear them; she was tightly holding onto Emmeline and trying to reassure the child that everything was alright and that they would be leaving soon.

And then it happened.

The stunning spell's red light shot across the room from a darkened corner and immediately took down Charlie. Harry saw him fall from the peripheral of his vision and immediately bellowed, “HERMIONE GET UP HERE WITH HER, GET UP HERE WITH HER NOW!”

She was already halfway there though while the others began to shoot off their own stunners in the direction of the first shot. Harry helped Hermione up a bench past him, someone cast “Mobilicorpus” onto Charlie and they began to back carefully out of the room. And then there was another stunner from another corner and they all turned and caught the barest of glimpses of him.

Black robes, wild red hair and a sickly smile and he was gone again.

Harry said quickly, “We have to get out of here; he's going to come after us. We have to find the Order… and where is Moody and Lupin?”

“They're going back up with Charlie and Hermione,” Ginny told him.

“Good then, let's go!” he hastily replied and turned, with Ginny and Bill behind and up and out of the room.

Once out of the door, Ginny cast, “Colloportus!” onto it and they ran to the one which had brought them in there… just as the doors of the room began to revolve.

Remembering last time, Harry commanded, “Stop!”

Nothing happened.

The doors continued to revolve though before finally stopping on their own… and a door opened before them.

“What the…?” began Ginny, just before a stunner went flying through the door and took her directly in the chest.

Harry and Bill jumped out of the path of the open door, but the doors shut again and the rooms began to revolve as before.

Bill took the time to look over his fallen sister and demanded, “Which one is the door that leads out of here?”

“I-I don't know, the last time when I told it to stop it did… he's doing somehow… jumping from room to room…” Harry replied.

“Can you Disapparate from here?” Bill asked, looking around as the doors swirled dizzyingly.

“No,” Harry shook his head, “we have to wait until the right door opens.”

And then the doors stopped spinning again, one opened, a stunner shot through, missed its targets, and Bill and Harry sent in two of their own.

The door shut immediately, Harry turned to Ginny and cast, “Ennervate!”

Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned, then Bill tried to help her sit up.

The doors stopped spinning and another opened, but this time nothing went flying out at them. It remained open, as a matter of fact, long enough for Harry to recognise the room as the one where they studied Time. The room where Hermione's Stunner had knocked a Death Eater into a jar of Time and his head shrunk to baby size. The room from which they had run into a small office where….

His heart seized.

“Well done Ha- oh!”

The door slammed shut, the others began to spin and Harry said, somewhat solemnly, “We should mark them.”

“What?” asked Bill, “Mark them, how?”

“Hermione did it in Fifth Year… I don't know the spell… but we should mark them…”

When the door stopped next, again no Stunner was sent out first. It just remained there opened as if awaiting their entry, and again Harry recognised it. Filled with tanks of some strange preserving liquids and long, slimy, tentacle-bearing globules that once graced someone's head, it was the Brain Room.

“They're brains.”

“Brains?”

“Yes… I wonder what they're doing with them?”

“Honest, Harry, they're brains- look- Accio Brain!”

And then he remembered the spell.

As the door slammed shut before them, and Ginny scowled, “Oh this is wasting time!” he aimed at it and called, “Flagrate!”

At once a large burning cross appeared on it. Bill smiled, “Thank you Hermione.”

Just then the room stopped spinning and when the door opened this time, it revealed the hallway that would take them to the lifts. They were shocked. It seemed that whoever was playing with them had just realised that they were going to be caught out and decided to let them go.

“Sod that!” declared Harry and all three scampered from the room of doors to the lifts.

“Incarcerous!” someone suddenly shouted and Ginny stumbled and fell, completely bound to the floor near the door from which they had just emerged.

Without looking, Harry aimed and shouted, “STUPEFY!”

The lack of sound following this told him that he missed. He looked around for Bill and found him also sending off a stunner in the direction of Harry's first shot. Harry though, began to search around for another place for Percy to have hidden himself. He was moving fast, and soundlessly, if they wanted to stop him they would have to look sharp.

Just then he saw a red flash of movement beside the grilles of the lift and shouted, “REDUCTO!”

It did nothing other than slightly rip apart the interlaced pattern of the grilles, and instead there was the sound of a “pop” somewhere within the lift and Harry knew that Percy was leaving them.

There was no way in hell Harry was letting him get away now.

Bill turned to his sister; cast “Diffindo!” on her binds and helped her to her feet. Harry barely waited until she had steadied herself to say, “We have to get up there! He's going after them. I don't know if the Aurors can keep him off but he's going up there after them!”

The two Weasleys had to give him chase to the lifts.

The moment the doors closed behind them, Harry pressed the number one button. They had to go up to the Minister's office; the Order would be waiting for them up there. Hermione and Emmeline were reunited and they would be alright as long as they were with the Order, all they had to do then was get out of the building.

But then the lift stopped suddenly and they were unceremoniously thrown out. Ginny and Bill recognised it at once, this was Level Two, this was the floor of their father's office.

To all else, this was the scene of his and Percy's deaths, and the primary area of destruction, though it certainly looked as the Department of Mysteries before, mostly unharmed. More than that, and to their horror, in it stood Lupin, Charlie, Moody, Martin and Emmeline, alone.

Harry didn't hesitate to ask, “Where's Hermione?”

Not entirely waiting for an answer though, he got off the floor and crossed to Emmeline, lifting her into his arms. She trembled slightly, her little body cold, and then lazily wrapped her arms round his neck. He lightly kissed her forehead, she was safe.

Lupin answered his question.

“The lift… when we got here, it threw us all out. Before we had time to react though, he just appeared and snatched Hermione… and vanished.”

Harry's heart seized again and this time he felt his blood run icily down his spine. He slowly put down Emmeline and asked, “You mean he has her…?”

“We couldn't stop him, we were just thrown out, and she was the one closest the door and he just…” Lupin said.

“HE TOOK HER?” roared Harry.

Martin suddenly spoke up, “We shouldn't have gone down there; I told you… it's not safe… whatever you were planning all along, this is a serious breach of Ministry security…”

His speech abruptly ended though, when suddenly he was blasted away from them and towards the farthest wall. He never hit it, for there appeared a net before him and he was caught like a fly in a spider web, wide-eyed in terror.

It was Ginny's doing.

His wandless display interrupted, Harry knelt down beside Emmeline and said, “I'll get her back, we won't let him keep her. You know that right… you know I won't let him hurt her…?”

Emmeline though, was staring at him with frightened eyes, and curiously, they had a slightly glazed appearance. She seemed to be under the effects of something, but he wasn't sure of what.

He was about to ask this too, when just then a group of Aurors, led by Tonks, immediately spread out into the room round them. One demanded, “What's going on here?”

“Hermione's gone… he took her… we have to get her back now!” Harry told them hurriedly, took one look at Emmeline, and then turned to go to the lifts.

“Harry…” began Lupin.

“The longer we wait… he killed Ron to get to her… if we keep waiting… she could be… she could be dead before we get there…!” Harry continued, as if he hadn't heard him.

“Harry…” said Ginny now, walking to him and pulling his hand.

Somewhere behind him, he became vaguely aware of Emmeline crying.

“He has her, I can't let him keep her… you don't understand… she can't defend herself! We have to find her! Now, we have to find her right now!” Harry insisted, his voice rising to a yell.

“Harry… we don't even know where to begin…” Ginny reasoned.

“Ask the child!” said Moody gruffly and as if to show them what he meant he walked on to where Harry had left Emmeline, grasped her shoulder and shook, demanding, “Where'd he keep you, where is he going with your sister?”

But Emmeline just stood there crying; her eyes still slightly glazed and said nothing. Harry at once snatched her from Moody's grasp.

“She's scared!” he snapped at him, and then remembering, “B-but I think something else is wrong with her too, look at her eyes!”

He had lifted her into his arms again and held her face to the light. Sure enough, and despite the tears, they could see that she was under the effects of something, that something was controlling her.

“Do you think it's the Imperius?” asked Lupin, coming over swiftly to look at Emmeline.

“If it is she's fighting it, she's crying. She can't throw it off completely but she's fighting it.” Moody replied and then commanded, “Give her to me!”

Reluctantly, and especially in light of how Moody had grasped her just moments before, Harry released her to him.

He set her down on a table, tapped her with his wand and said, “Finite Incantatem!”

Almost at once the glazed look fell out of her eyes and Emmeline began to cry in earnest now. With the tears came the hands to her eyes, the open, bawling mouth where crossed strands of gossamer saliva, and a terrible wailing only a child could make. Harry went to her at the table and took her back into his arms.

She was a crying girl, but this was different, she was a crying girl child. There was still that feeling of being useless, but somehow he felt he could at least handle this better than with someone older. At least this type of girl might be a little more open about her feelings.

He shushed her as best he could and then asked, “Emmy… Emmy, do you know where he took you before? Can you tell us where he took you before?”

She shook her head, “I didn't see… I was sleepy all the time… I don't know…”

Lupin took over, “Did you hear anything… smell, anything at all that might help us find him?”

Emmeline shook her head at first, then stopped and nodded.

“Okay, what did you hear Emmy? Tell us everything you heard, even if you think it's nothing. He's wanted your sister for a very long time, and now that he has her, we have to find her as fast as possible!” Lupin coaxed anxiously.

She turned in Harry's arms and looked around at them, and then said, “I heard a lot of things; I think there was a rusty gate.”

*****

When that old, odd feeling of being pulled somewhere round her navel stopped, Hermione dropped free of her captor unto the cool grass of a strange new place. And she could barely believe it.

Wasn't it just moments before that she was going through a boring tour of the Ministry of Magic, arguing with Harry and then finally holding her sister, after two whole days, in the Death Chamber? When exactly did that change to being bodily thrown from an elevator unto the floor of Level Two of the Ministry of Magic, then dragged upwards from the group and out of sight altogether? And how exactly did Percy even come to know where they were in the first place?

At this last thought she opened her eyes, which she had shut just before she impacted with the floor in the Ministry, and beheld, for the first time since that night, the now emaciated visage of the late Percy Ignatius Weasley.

“You could help me…”

“You're not my brother anymore…”

“… or would you rather that she helps me… you never listened before… good advice…”

“You can't… I won't let you… Harry's coming back soon… he'll kill you too…”

“… don't understand… you, she can help… stop this…”

“… you're not Percy anymore…”

She wanted to scream, but she couldn't. Thoughts of escape which normally would have been running rampant through her mind refused to materialise. She couldn't even bring herself to properly breathe.

After all this time, after all she had done to escape him, all through her denials, and the fighting song of earlier tonight: “He can have me if he wants me, but I can't let him have you.” He had finally caught her, she was his.

For his part, Percy gave no outward signs that he was preparing to celebrate this little victory. He merely shrugged his robes on properly, discarded the portkey- her belt which he ripped off as soon as he snatched her- and began to look around him. Strangely paralysed, she was forced to watch as he took in the night air, cooler than London, and their surroundings, slightly blurred by a mist, before turning to her and giving a distinctly sickly smile that made his apparently dying body even more of an eyesore.

She spoke first.

“You can't keep me here, whatever you want, you won't get it! Harry's coming, and he'll kill you like he did with Voldemort!”

Percy shrugged, “So is it then. But it would be better if you did it… well, not necessarily for you, but for me.”

They had landed somewhere grassy and surrounded by trees, a thicket most likely, and there was something eerily familiar about that stone beneath her left foot. It was much too smooth for something natural… But she was focusing on the fact that despite her poor visual in the place, she could still make out his surprisingly resigned expression.

She asked, “W-what do you mean?”

“Well haven't you figured it out yet Miss Granger? Why I haven't killed you all this time? Why I didn't kill your little sister? Why I keep coming back to you?” he asked.

She shook her head, and unexpectedly felt a twinge of annoyance that this was all a puzzle she hadn't figured out yet.

Percy smiled at her and replied, “Don't trouble yourself about it; I wasn't as clear as I should have been. The thing is, Miss Granger, I want you to help me die.”

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A/N: I don't know how to break this to you, but you're probably going to be disappointed in this chapter. I worked long and hard, even going through HBP, which I don't do often nowadays, and it is long, 21 pages on Microsoft Word, but this is how the penultimate chapter of Aftermath wished to be told, as strange as that may seem. Also, for latter part of chapter, mood music could be Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, it sounded right in my head.

On the bright side, as there always is a bright side, now you will finally have the story of Percy-mort and then his demise. Hopefully, I've tied up most of the loose ends, one more chapter to go.

Thanks so much to all who have reviewed and who continue to read this story, it at times went off from what I first intended but that's okay, not too much. And to Kena, I know the last chapter thing didn't show up but I guess its because of the quotation marks, the title bar probably interpreted it as something else.

Okay, I shut up now.

Disclaimer: Quotes from all six books by JK Rowling are not mine, most of the characters and their universe in the chapters are not mine, but this very strange plot is.

*****

A last Kiss before I Die

They were taking too long.

Once Emmeline had told them everything she remembered of her stay with Percy, and they had decided on a location, Harry thought they would go rushing off to save Hermione at once. Apparently he was wrong.

First, Lupin insisted that they all leave the Ministry ruin and return to headquarters where they could leave Emmeline in the care of Mrs Weasley.

Emmeline point blank refused to go, began to scream and cry again and they changed locations to the Burrow. This pleased Mrs Weasley immensely when they arrived with her, but her joy was short-lived. When she didn't see Hermione come through the door behind them, she guessed what else had transpired that night and became rather solemn. She took great pains though, and to Harry's relief, to keep all this from Emmeline.

Harry's patience was then running on thin by the time they left the house.

He immediately wanted to Disapparate as they were, but this time Moody insisted that they get Aurors for security just in case Percy decided that he needed supporters as Voldemort had. Harry argued vehemently against this, the seven of them left would still be quite capable of fending off Percy, and again, they were taking too long.

He then almost had to be restrained when next they all decided that he tell of how he had defeated the Dark Lord.

Not the time, this was the worst possible time to be having this conversation. But they insisted, he relented and this was why they were still standing in the middle of the darkened front yard of the Burrow while Lupin thought over what Harry hurriedly told them.

Even though he was very anxious for them to move on, he did not fail to notice their reactions.

Lupin and Moody were silent audience, listening carefully to all that he had said so that he could almost see the gears in their minds at work. Tonks, Bill and Charlie were less silent, with Tonks and Charlie stopping him repeatedly in astonishment. And Ginny, usually the most vocal, was rather quietly watching him, had mostly paled at various intervals and even on one occasion had to stifle a horrified gasp. But they listened, and then all stopped him when he got to the part about Dementors.

“Wait a minute… are you telling me… that Dementors did him in?” asked Ginny.

“No, I got him with the curse first, and then they did him in.” Harry repeated.

“Did anything else happen after the Dementors took him… he said he needed you to “regenerate”… did anything at all come of that?” asked Lupin.

Harry paused for a moment, considering this, and then replied, “I don't think so. I think he probably needed more of my blood… Hermione insisted that I wasn't a Horcrux, she never really gave a reason, she just insisted…”

He broke off sadly, ran his hair through his hands and looked back to the house where Emmeline was spying on them from the window. Mrs Weasley came up behind her, looked out at them with worried, teary eyes, and then drew the curtains and took her away.

“Sounds like something Hermione would do,” said Ginny quietly and they all looked to her.

She did not look back at them though, just stood there looking at the earth beneath their feet with an expression of someone just realising something.

Lupin eventually broke the silence by asking, “Are you sure nothing else happened? What happened to the Dementors, we didn't see any Dementors around Godric's Hollow…?”

“I didn't either,” Harry replied. “They were in the forest, he called them from there… but… but when he died something did happen, I remember now. After they sucked out his soul they came after me, but there was this light, I don't know what… and then, like every time they've come after me, I heard my mother screaming and that was the last thing I knew.”

“A light? And you heard Lily again… that light… it must have been a Patronus… but cast by whom?” Lupin thought out loud.

Harry shook his head, “I-I don't know. But please, we have to leave now, Percy… he-he has Hermione… he's been stalking her for months, killed Ron and Draco and took Emmeline to get her, and now he has her… please Lupin, we'll figure that out later, but let us find Percy and Hermione instead… please let us find them instead.”

Moody tried to protest, claim that they needed more help, but he was overruled. One look at Harry's anxious expression and frightened eyes and the others gave in at once. Without waiting to hear the rest of his “Constant Vigilance!” speech, they began to Disapparate, one by one to the place they guessed Emmeline had been and Percy was now.

The grounds of Hogwarts, late in the summer and vacant of its usual thousand occupants and their instructors, were dark, forbidding and hollow when the small group Apparated just outside of its now rusted gates.

The sky above was clouded over, shrouding the night in a choking darkness. The trees round stood still and lifeless, their full leaves the only indication that it was summer and not the freezing death of winter. Even the lake was stilled, and from somewhere in the forest beyond something gave a feral howl. Otherwise there was an almost death-like peace, not a cricket, not a firefly, not even a bird made a sound above their own breathing. A chilly night wind blew, the group shuddered, and Ginny said to no one, “Gods, it wasn't like this, months ago…”

Harry was not too concerned, heading for the gates he said, “I thought Professor McGonagall had set up wards like Dumbledore had to keep the place safe from unauthorised entry. How did he get into the groundskeeper's hut?”

“You think it's there he was?” asked Lupin.

“Well it has to be… there's the water she heard right there, the lake, he brought her to Hogwarts. But she's Muggle and it let her in…” Harry replied absently, now wondering if he would need to use an unlocking charm on the gates' mighty locks.

It took him only a moment though, to realise that the others weren't helping. He turned to them impatiently, “What? We've already taken too long, gods knows what he's doing to her… come on!”

“Harry…” began Ginny slowly, looking around at the others, “We don't think she's in there.”

“What? Now you think this? He's in there with her! He got in the first time, he brought Hermione back again for… what?”

“Emmeline's a Muggle Harry,” Lupin began to explain, “So she can't enter Hogwarts. Didn't you notice that Hermione's parents never came here… or any Muggle-borns'? Hogwarts wouldn't let them in, Emmeline was never here.”

They were not serious, they couldn't be serious. Not now, not when Percy had Hermione and they had taken too long before and he could be killing her then, they absolutely weren't.

He protested, “What if she's a witch… what if Emmeline's a witch? She was fighting the Imperius Curse; don't you have to be magical to do that?”

“One can fight the Curse Harry, you throwing it off was wonderful at fourteen but not unique,” said Lupin. “Casting a Patronus was, but not fighting that Curse… maybe Emmeline is a witch, we don't know that yet- she hasn't shown any outward sign that she is one- but I can tell you that she was not here.”

Harry turned this over and over again in his head, pondering, considering, refuting and eventually, with great reluctance, accepting it as it was. He didn't want to, but he knew it. Emmeline had never been here, and now, again, they still didn't know where to begin to look for her sister.

“What took you so long, mate?”

*****

If Hermione had been feeling snippy at that moment, the next words out of her mouth probably would have been: “Why didn't you tell me that before? You didn't have to kill Ron; I would have put you out of your misery a long time ago!”

But she was much too shocked then to say that.

Instead though, temporarily forgetting that she was lying someplace that appeared more and more to be a graveyard, she stammered, “W-what?”

Percy gave that sickening smile again and said, “I want you to help me die… I wish to die Miss Granger, and I believe you're the only one who can help me.”

Hermione continued to gape at him then, until he walked over to where she lay and helped her upright, at which point the icy touch of his skin seemed to awaken her and she said, “I-I I'm not sure that I could, I-I… I… I don't understand…”

“I reckoned you wouldn't, not at first at least,” he replied calmly, and then continuing with a tone of confidence, “but you will. What I have to tell you… before I am even finished I am very sure that you will understand, and be more than willing to grant my wish.”

“How's that?” asked Hermione, and swallowed the particularly snippy remark that followed it: “Who do I look like, Merlin?”

Her shock was wearing off.

Percy gave no indication that he noticed this though, as he said gravely, “Because if you don't Miss Granger, in the end only one of us will leave this graveyard and it will not be you.”

“That won't exactly help your situation,” Hermione said sardonically.

“True,” he agreed, “but nor would it help anyone else's either. You see, at this very moment warring inside me are two sides. One is Percy Weasley, ambitious aide to the Minister of Magic, former Hogwarts prefect and Head Boy, and the third son of Arthur and Molly Weasley of the Burrow at Ottery St Catchpole. The other, however, is something else. It's ancient, it's evil and it was probably being studied in the Department of Mysteries when my foolish other half stumbled upon it thinking it would bring him what he always wanted. Combined they have done some terrible things in the months past. If you don't kill me, and by default, it, Harry Potter will soon find himself with another Dark Wizard to kill… or rather, I must amend my earlier statement, Dark Witch.”

Hermione stared at him confused a moment, not quite comprehending… and then realisation began to dawn on her face even before he said the words.

“You see Miss Granger, this evil part of me, the part that somehow kept a dead body alive all this time, the part that has no bond for blood- my own brother- it wants you. And if you do not stop it, and soon, it will have you, and may the gods have mercy on the rest of them by the time it's finished.”

His dull eyes suddenly took on an unnatural gleam, his gaze piercing her, “You are an intelligent, talented, and somewhat ruthless, witch, when you want to be. The things you are capable of, were capable of even at the tender age of twelve… the things you may be capable of now… you don't want it to have that power. Unlike Percy you are a living being, with life ahead filled with possibilities. If it ever gets a hold of you… you must kill it.”

Suddenly the graveyard felt ten times colder.

The waxing moon had vanished, masked in the voluminous folds of black clouds. Tall, ancient trees, twisted by weathering and age, suddenly became menacing sentries encircling doomed prisoners. The slight mist thickened almost to fog, clinging to the earth between the now barely visible gravestones giving the effect of the setting of an old black and white horror movie. Chilly, the night wind picked up, toying with her hair while cutting through her thin shirt to her skin and raising goose pimples on her arms and back.

If she were one to believe it, these were all signs that something evil was to transpire in this graveyard before the night was out.

But she had seen evil before.

It mattered not whether it be broad daylight on the brightest day or the darkest hour of a stormy night, when evil was to happen, it would. And it wanted to happen now. In that gleam in his eyes, it wanted to happen now.

She forced herself to stand, realised that for some reason her legs were incapable of taking the strain and sat down again on a broken headstone. This was impossible, incredible, unbelievable, ridiculous… and yet it was happening. Percy had stalked her, chased her and now captured her. All of that, all that time, all those things, all for now, now where he was waiting for her to… to kill him?

She choked a strange urge to laugh that had come to her throat.

She supposed she had to be grateful at the end of it. Dark Wizards usually weren't kind enough to offer their adversaries the opportunity to kill them first. Voldemort certainly wasn't that way with Harry.

He was being most polite about the whole thing, even allowing her time to think now.

Really, he was a darling.

Of course, there was just one problem.

Not thoroughly understanding why she was doing it, she steadied herself on the headstone and blurted, “I can't do magic.”

He had been watching her all the while she had been taking in his speech and nodded now, “I know that… so you'll just have to find another way of doing it, and you best think fast. With each passing day, as this body… as Percy dies… that other thing grows stronger. Right now, it is Percy alone that is sparing your life. In the moment of Percy's death, whatever way you come up with, it must be the moment of its death too.”

“Right,” she said and swallowed heavily.

She took another moment to allow this to sink in with the rest, then sighed and said, “Well in that case… start talking… maybe there is something… that can help me figure it out from your story.”

Percy stepped a little away from her, drew his wand and set a small fire between them. The flames burned bright at first, licking at the mist and the darkness and sending it scurrying with its bright orange-yellow glow, and casting long shadows on the looming trees, before settling. The wind swept through the graveyard, lowered it, whipped at the hem of Percy's tattered black robes- as dead as he appeared- and vanished with a sudden still.

She drew no closer despite her chill.

He stood then, staring into the fire, the light playing on his grotesque features and softening them slightly so that he was almost recognisable again. She was at least grateful for that, the other side in full light was unnerving. And then he began to speak.

“This all began mid-way through last year, but actually much before that, after the Triwizard Tournament, when the Second War really began. I was always an ambitious person, I can't deny that, there's no wrong in that, none at all… but I… I have to admit now, I was… somewhat too ambitious. I can see that clearest of all now… ironically when it's too late… but I can see that.”

“You were there, if I'm not mistaken, came over right early in the summer so that I had to wonder if your parents didn't miss you, but of course, this is about me.”

Hermione dropped her gaze to her feet and shifted uncomfortably then. Percy allowed her a moment to wallow in her guilt, and then continued.

“My father… he didn't understand… he loved Muggles too much. An obsession it was and a bad hobby if you intended to move up in the Ministry. -No offence of course- but I saw that then, I saw it clearly, and I had had enough of being associated with someone who could sink me. I chose to argue, to find my own place, and leave my family behind to go off into a world of those like me. Those like me who wanted power, who could succeed and whose hobbies were less… diminishing. My mistake was though, that I, as I said before, could be a little blind, and had chosen the absolute worst time to be so.”

“The Dark Lord was back, after thirteen years, and ready to pick up where he left off and for revenge. Unfortunately- or fortunately according to how you viewed the situation- the only witness to this at the time was the same boy who was famously claimed to have defeated him as an infant. We should have known though, we should have believed him. He had the mark. He had the Killing Curse's mark on his forehead and we didn't believe him! What fools were we…” his voice trailed off.

Hermione remembered that year rather well. She still deeply resented the Ministry for what they did to Harry then and the Daily Prophet too. Spilt milk now, but she let herself revel a bit in Percy's guilt about it.

Another wind blew, flowing easily through her shirt as before and reddening her cheeks, and she fought the will to rise and go to the fire.

“Nevertheless, I went to the Ministry, managed to advance quickly enough, and especially after Mr Crouch's demise, and soon had wholly convinced myself that I had arrived. What a fool, was I….”

“I had gone nowhere, and Minister Scrimgeour just took advantage of my relation to the family well known to care for Harry Potter to try to get him to strengthen our support with the people. I have to give it to Harry though; he saw right through it and never went along. But maybe he should have, for the moment he disappeared; I fell out of favour with the Minister. As long as no one knew where you were or how to find you, I was no longer useful. And that… that led me to this…”

At this point, suddenly unable to stop herself, Hermione warned, “Don't! Don't you dare blame Harry or Ron or me for what happened to you! You did this to yourself!”

“I know that Miss Granger!” he said then, looking up from the fire with a slightly dangerous glint in his eyes, “I know what I did. I was merely thinking out loud, for, as you well know if your friend had not left we would not be standing out here having this little chat… you'd probably be dead.”

Hermione looked away from him, allowing his tongue-lashing to wash over her, and then said, “I'm sorry… please…”

He looked back down into the fire and said, “No need to apologise…. As I was saying, when I lost high favour with Minister Scrimgeour, relegated to the position of a mere lackey while another from a rich old family took my place, I decided that I had to find another way to get myself as Minister of Magic. And somehow, this alternative route led me down to the Department of Mysteries. Down to the place where the Unspeakables roamed and silently studied the great mysteries of the universe… and one of them… as your friend has come to know so well… being Death.”

Her breath caught and her blood ran cold. She was right; he had survived because of a Horcrux. This was it, this had to be it.

“The first trip to the department had been an order from the Minister himself, now delivered via a secretary, to supervise the security in the event the Dark Lord ever dared another Ministry invasion. It was useless though, the next time there would be an invasion the only objective was to kill and destroy. The Dark Lord had no need for it, not anymore anyway. But I digress…. That first trip down there, nothing out of the ordinary occurred; I did as I was told and I left. I was actually too busy fuming over this clear fall from favour to do anything else. But the second time though, the second time on another Ministry order, I stumbled upon the Death Chamber.”

Hermione closed her eyes. She was right, it was a Horcrux. She had been right all along, it had been a Horcrux.

“Now I had never seen it before, never, just read the report of the incident involving six Hogwarts students unsurprisingly led by Harry Potter. I was not even fascinated, it had nothing to do with my career or dreams… but somehow it drew me. This was Death, the Dark Lord defied it, and possibly feared it I'm told, Harry Potter cheated it, and Professor Dumbledore… well, he was a strange old man and death would come for him soon enough, inevitably we will all die. What interest then, should I have?”

“But it drew me, I couldn't resist walking into that room after that and then every chance I got, and sometimes on breaks, just to watch, or to listen, as there were voices to be heard… and wonder. And that was the dangerous part, when everything began to change, when I began to wonder…”

“The question came simply one day, and so innocent did it appear. What if I could… if I could “stopper death” as in Professor Snape's First Year Potions speech, but in this case put it to an actual stop? How many men before I had pondered the same thing, to live forever? The Unspeakables studied its possibility. Nicolas Flamel had actually done it with the Philosopher's Stone. So there was nothing wrong with just wondering, but… if I could do that too, I could do anything. It wouldn't matter how long it took me to become Minister of Magic, I could wait. And once I was Minister, I could be in power for as long as I pleased or they wanted me to be. Innocent questions- I was not even an Unspeakable, wasn't even sure how one became one in the first place- but dangerous ponderings they were. These were not the questions, the thoughts to have in the Department of Mysteries where anything possible was studied. These were not the thoughts at all…”

Hermione interrupted at this point, forgetting the cold, dark graveyard with that single fire, the heavy, encroaching mist, his warning of before, even her fear of being alone with him now, to ask, “How did you do it then?”

As soon as she asked it she blushed nervously at the earnestness that had appeared in her voice. But she was enthralled by this story, and she had to admit, a part of her wanted to know and not at all for the benefits to mankind. Her curious mind was speedily at work.

Dangerous ponderings indeed, this is where Tom Riddle came along wasn't it?

Percy noticed this and smiled, “I don't think so Miss Granger… let that remain a mystery to you… it is still mostly to me, I'm not even sure of how myself. More than once I was tempted to approach an Unspeakable with the questions I had. More than once too, I had squashed them when I thought of how this had nothing to do with my plans despite sometimes dark designs in my ambitious mind. What a dangerous hobby I was developing on my own… but then, I am my father's son. I do know however, that eventually, on one of my trips down into the department… someone died. I never found out whom, and it was quickly silenced, but I do know that it happened… after all, how else does one acquire a Horcrux?”

As he said this Hermione gasped- here was absolute confirmation- and said, without really thinking, “You have to kill someone… it splits the soul… Harry found that out… and then… at Grimmauld Place, there was a book…. When you kill someone, it's an act against nature itself… you become… something else… not natural… your soul is weakest… or so the book says… and you… the incantation… words… they were in ancient tongue…”

“They translate simply “ipse excessum ego vita” or “with death I live”, but that is merely a part of the incantation, it is much longer and I have no desire to repeat it. I'm not even sure how I came to know it myself…. You know too much though, far too much, you should not know that… but you do and that is why, I guess, you are the only one who can help me.”

He looked over at Hermione, studying her as she mused over his words, and then rounded the fire to her. She looked up startled, stood shakily, intending to run, but didn't, and he took her hand, his still icy, and led her closer to the fire. Once she was standing before it he said, “Warm yourself… you look cold…”

She slumped to the ground beside the flames, silently relishing in their burning touch, and then noticed that the mist had become heavier. It was darkening even more too, so that the fire stood out as a beacon in the graveyard.

For some reason she had a feeling they were not alone tonight. And what was worse, she didn't know why.

Percy was speaking again.

“At first I noticed nothing different. I went on with my work at the Ministry, visited the department often, though now a few of the Unspeakables had come to know my name, again, something else I am not sure of. Anyway, this somehow led to my father discovering the truth, by which time I knew it too and was actually proud of myself… but again, at first nothing was different.”

“There was some weakness, and delirium too, but I merely thought I had taken ill. I was spending so much time in the dungeon depths, breathing the same old air, so close to the most perilous of things… surely I had gotten a cold. And my dangerous musings increased with new possibilities on how I could achieve my ends, combining stopping death and my rise to power. But again, it was nothing. I know now though, that those were possibly the symptoms of one splitting their soul, temporary of course, but they were there.”

“When I recovered from that I went on as normal… and then on another trip to the Department, I was approached by an Unspeakable. Now this one had observed me, had been doing so since I first casually strolled into the Death Chamber, investigated what had happened, and somehow decided that I was responsible for the death in the department. I was uncontrollably outraged at being accused- that should have been a clue that something else was the matter- but thought then that since I wanted to be Minister of Magic, and that those trips down there had nothing to do with that despite the aforementioned; these accusations would certainly taint me if they got out… and so I killed him.”

Hermione's gaze snapped up at him but he did not notice her.

“I believe that was my second kill. The first was accidental, or… well I can't exactly remember, but I hadn't intentionally killed that person. I know I did not. I'm sure of it! But this one, I couldn't let him ruin that which I had worked so hard for, so… he had to die.”

“But this death did not go unnoticed or carefully concealed though. This was different from the first, not at all work-related… now that I think about it, there was something to that first kill… I could not have… not just like that…. But anyway, this one was noticed, and the rumours… the rumours began to spread.”

“I will never know why, I honestly won't, why then those rumours gave me some form of perverse pleasure. I will never understand why I at times began to do my best to fuel them. Why I even allowed them to reach my father and possibly the Minister's ears, but I did. Or maybe I do, I was at this point beginning to listen to my thoughts and add to them. I even began to formulate plans on how the two combined could work…. Neither man though, was pleased about this.”

“The Minister, seeking to secure his position, further began to distance himself from me. As, I admit, did many others. I had gone down there and meddled with that… no one just does that and walks away unscathed. The Unspeakables can of course, but they are not known in general, their anonymity securing their places in society. Though I didn't have many friends to begin with, I still had no such luxury.”

“My father then, and I should have been grateful, became the only person who would approach me properly. Arthur Weasley, let it never be forgotten, loved his children, even to the point of being a little too indulgent, but he loved us all. Even after our argument, our estrangement, he still wanted to be there for me at my lowest point. I should have been grateful, oh I should have been, but I was too far gone by then and rejected every attempt. And then he found out about the rumours… and I believe you know the end of our last…”

He finally looked to Hermione again, allowing his gaze to linger long enough for her to become self-conscious, before moving away and beginning to pace. The tiny echoes of his footsteps, crushing dead leaves and twigs resonated through the night and awakened, once again, the feeling that they were not alone.

Long gone though, were thoughts of this along with every other concern. Well maybe not the cold, she still felt that, she just wasn't that concerned about it anymore.

Finally, Percy began to speak again.

“It was the most curious thing- dying- just… simply curious. There I was, at the mercy of that evil insane witch, about to have my life ended, and all I could think of was every moment of my life to that point. My siblings, my parents, my home, summers, winters, Christmases, birthdays, school… anything and everything. I also never felt so alive. My senses were heightened, strangely enough, so that I could smell my father's cologne and a bit of my mother in his robes as he lay beside me. I felt the air, the floor, the “magic” of that moment. I could taste the last meal my mother made. I could see, through eyes that had no need for glasses, every inch of that office, every detail down the smallest crevice in the wall… and then I could hear clearly the pure hatred in her voice as she uttered the curse and I fell into nothingness. I was dying and I had died. Or so I thought.”

He stopped pacing, stretched out his hands and examined them, and his wild hair suddenly dropped lankly onto his shoulders. Once more his features became grotesque, and with their setting in the graveyard he now became the creature at the centre of that old movie.

But what do they call him? He was not an Inferi or a ghoul or a ghost or even a vampire. He was just… there…. He had died; his soul just hadn't acknowledged this yet. Hermione wasn't even sure why she was thinking about this then, but still what do they call him?

“Waking up after… it shocked me. I was quite sure that the curse had killed me… and yet here I was sitting up on the floor looking around at the other bodies wondering what had happened. I would remember eventually though, and make Bellatrix pay, but for the time being, I was just shocked. And then too, scared… so very scared that I ran at once, got as far as I could away so that I would figure this out.”

“For days I existed in a world where I was most aware and then most ignorant to everything. My mind was taking its time to understand the complexities of a situation where I could breathe, where my heart pounded in my chest, and my skin was cold and my body beginning to decay. I don't know why this was happening to me, it surely had not happened to anyone else, but it was. And not only that… I was apparently not alone in my body. When the other half of my soul left that Horcrux, it brought something else, something that wanted the power I craved with more fervour than I could imagine and it would stop at nothing to have it.”

The gleam returned to his eyes, and though her throat clenched, Hermione refused to let it unsettle her. It would not have her, it could not have her… and maybe… maybe she would not let it have him either….

“Once I was clear on three things then, that first I was dead, second, that I had somehow created a Horcrux- an object of darkest evil- and used it, and third that I now had company, the part of me still human, still Percy, determined that I had to die. My companion may not agree with me, but I am, for the moment, the stronger, and Miss Granger, I want to die. I want to end this once and for all. I should have died with my father in the building that night, he had let in the Death Eaters to make sure of it, but I didn't. Help me, help him finish what he started, and help me die.”

He had turned to her then, a pleading look in his eyes, and she now found an errant tear rolling down her cheek.
She would not let it have her; she would not let it have him….

He went to where she still sat by the fire, knelt slowly, and with a halting hand, gently brushed it away. It was a useless act though, for more began to spill.

Her breath hitched, she turned her face to the fire, steeled her nerve, and asked, “W-why… why did you kill Ron?”

His hand had come to trace her chin, bony fingers and broken, overgrown, gangrened fingernails, and now dropped to his side. He replied quietly, “As I said before, I have a companion, and it is dangerous. Once I had made the decision to die… at times it could be rather helpful. Ron… my brother was in my way… so I… I had to kill him.”

His voice faltered and he sighed, and he sank his face into his palm.

“My brother… my blood… I held him as an infant, I taught him things, even when he didn't want to learn, I defended him, as all of us did each other, I protected him, even trying to do so in that letter in your Fifth Year…- what a joke- and then I stared him in the eye and killed him…. Oh gods…”

His hand fell away from his face, and he continued, “For that alone I should die now… but I can't. I so desperately want to, but I can't…. At least I can think that he's forgiven me somehow, even though knowing Ron that could be wishful thinking; I still like to think that. And more than that, he's waiting for me, with our father, waiting for me beyond the veil…. (He turned to Hermione again) So help me Miss Granger, help me go to him…”

Hermione's throat constricted, she took in a breath to free it but then began to cry. Warm tears flowing freely, she cried at first in soft, strangled noises, interrupted by gasps for air but then they turned to full fledged sobs and she buried her face into her hands. Oddly, she didn't know why she was doing it, why then she couldn't be angry or resentful, all she felt was… pity.

She would not let it have her, it had already taken away so much, and she would not let it have him either….

Percy made no attempt to comfort her. He just remained where he knelt, watching her cry, and giving her time. But it was limited.

When he thought that she had had enough, he asked, “So now Miss Granger, now you know what happened to me. What I've done. You can choose to believe it or not, I know it is strange. And it is not everyday that one as I would approach someone with the offer to kill them but I do so to you and ask that you do it, somehow. Your magic is diminished, we have no books around and the ones I've found are useless and I fear that allowing you to go to Grimmauld Place or elsewhere would either take too long or you won't return. I can assure you that I made no more of those Horcruxes, but you could check later just to be sure. And Mr Potter's method, though effective for the Dark Lord, may just release the evil to him or you, either way dooming the rest of you. So then… how do I die?”

Hermione at first shook her head. What was she going to tell him? From what she had read and come to believe with Voldemort, destroy the wizard and the Horcruxes and he was gone. He'd already listed the number of things they couldn't do, he claimed their time was limited, and he seemed to be at the end of his rope. What could she possibly tell him to do?

And then she saw the mist.

It was almost too convenient and too easy and yet….

There it was encircling them all along, white, heavy and cold… and unnatural for a night of mid-August. Only one other time had she seen mist like this… and that could mean only one thing.

There were Dementors nearby.

Those evil, black cloaked, wraith-like Dark Creatures who survived on torment and sorrow, and at times administered a fatal gift, a kiss that drew out your soul….

One kiss, and whatever it was within him, that had come with his soul would go to… one kiss and it would be over.

So convenient… so easy… so simple….

Drying her eyes, and once again gathering her nerve, knowing, and dreading what would have to occur, she said, “I-I… I think I have an idea…”

The almost eager look in Percy's eyes then nearly took her will but she held on to it as best she could. She had to do it. He was giving her a chance to save herself and everyone else.

She would not let it have her; she would not let it have him….

Of course, ironically, it was then that she most understood something of Harry's position in the last days of the war. Those were days when she herself began to pull away but resented him doing the same. Those were times when she should have been at his side, like Ron, but was too busy “protecting her heart”.

It was one life for many… and then her life for the Wizarding world, (for she would most certainly die too once the Dementors arrived), for the children she would never have, for the Weasleys, for Emmeline and the life she had ahead of her, for Harry… and whoever would eventually make him happy… even if that person was Ginny…. (When had they stopped being friends?)

Her parents, Mr Weasley, Professor Dumbledore, Sirius, Harry's parents and Ron would be waiting for them beyond the veil… all they had to do now was go to them….

One life for many, a small price to pay….

*****

Drawing the Dementors to them in the graveyard had been remarkably easy when it came down to it. All she really had to do was focus whatever magical energy she had left on the worst, most depressing thoughts in her- her love-loss over Harry and then her imminent death that meant she would never see Emmeline grow up- and they came running, greedily. Percy actually smiled when he saw them, and not the sickly smiles before, a real, true, Percy Weasley-smile, and only one achieved by a man who was to finally have that which he had sought for so long.

She was glad that he could be so happy about the whole thing, at least one of them would be.

She had to admit though, that she was a bit nettled at him too. Would she ever meet someone who would not so readily follow her instruction? When she told him her idea of using Dementors to kill him, to draw out his soul, and possibly the dark, whatever it was, in him too, he simply asked where they were to find Dementors. He didn't even listen when she said that he would not really be dead, that he would be worse than dead, and that the Killing Curse would still be required to finally put him out of his misery.

But then, he probably didn't care. And that was when she let that strange laugh out, causing him to stare at her curiously a bit. He was going to die, and possibly in most horrible fashion, and he didn't care.

The arrival of the Dementors too, could not have been missed. The fire Percy had set immediately went out. The mist rose higher, parted and the earth where it lay was left coated in an unseasonable frost. The air grew so cold that it burned her nostrils, fingers and cheeks; she felt them redden… and then spied her executioners gliding mutely into the graveyard towards them.

One life for many, a small price to pay… one life for many, a small price to pay… one life for many, a small price to pay….

Curiously, the Dementors went to Percy first. Enclosing him in a circle of black, fluttery, tattered cloaks, they shrieked wildly and one by one began to draw from him what little life and warmth he had left.

His wild hair flew about his head and then fell limp again. His dull brown eyes lit up a moment and then went dull again. All colour fled his skin.

His wand fell softly to the grass.

And then at random, one separated itself from the group, clamped its thin, wide mouth over his own, and with a horrible sucking sound, kissed him.

A moment later he fell to the ground, truly undead, and they shared their ghastly meal, a strange white light… and something brilliant green.

She looked away then, she didn't need to see them to know that they were greedily devouring both.

It never occurred to Hermione to run away.

It never even came to her to use her portkey-belt.

When they turned to her then, not at all satisfied, she simply slipped to the ground beside the broken tombstone that had been her seat earlier. She had no fight left, nor the will to, it had been hours since Percy took her, the others were not coming.

But as they glided over then, and she lay on the cold, ice-cast earth staring numbly up at them, something happened.

Just as Percy had said before, that in the moment one is dying they can recall the memories of their life, so hers came to her.

“I don't like the horse Daddy, can I go home? I don't want to ride the horse!”

“It's “Mummy” Emmeline, not “Mama”, “Mummy”, say “Mummy” Emmeline.”

“Oh hello sir, good afternoon, what is this place called Hogwarts? I've been reading a lot since I got my letter but I can't seem to find it anywhere!”

“Have you ever seen books like this before Mother? Look at this one, Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them, and A Standard Book of Spells: Grade One, but I guess I will have to read them- and learn them- considering that I will be attending Hogwarts with all those other magical children who probably know much more than I do already.”

She could still smell the heavy scent of the unwashed horses in the enclosure, blithely feeding on the sun-kissed grass of late spring, and the terrible, big brown one that had come and snorted loudly beside her. She could still see the wide-eyed one year old staring curiously up at her as she fixed the powder- just enough to prevent a rash, not too much to choke her- as she changed her diaper and tried to instruct her. She could clearly remember that brilliant, royal blue, pin-striped suit of the gentleman who had come to tell her of Hogwarts. She could still feel the rough, battered covers of those books, their weak, yellowed pages, their old, powerful words….

Curious… she never thought she would forget them and she had.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one.”

“Oh, honestly, don't you two read? Look- read that, there.”

“Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things- friendship and bravery and- oh Harry- Be careful!”

Harry and Ron on the train, Harry and Ron just as they figured out about- or rather, she had figured out about- the Philosopher's Stone, Harry just as he was about to face Voldemort for the second time in his life.

That was how she had forgotten the first things, they, they came and pushed them away.

She never did finish that speech, but if anyone wanted to know, it was going to be “friendship and bravery and love”. Of course, there was also “hope”. For Harry, as long as she could manage it, there was always going to be hope.

“What happened to your glasses? Hello Hagrid- Oh it's wonderful to see you two again- Are you coming into Gringotts, Harry?”

“A deathday party? I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to one of those- it'll be fascinating!”

“You solved it! You solved it!”

She was encircled as they had done to Percy just a few feet away from her then. Lazily, she turned her eyes to follow them, wondering which of the group would break away first and kiss her.

Which of them would be her personal executioner?

Staring at them then though, she remembered eyes. A pair of large, yellow, snake eyes, with looks that could kill, but behind the “safety” of a mirror turn one almost to stone instead. Neither she nor Ginny would forget that year, she was sure of it.

But still, for now, which would it be now to finish what that snake had started?

“Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh Harry… you'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry-“

“Ron- come on- back under the cloak- Dumbledore- the Minister- they'll be coming back out in a minute-“

“What did you do? You said you were only going to keep a lookout!”

“I know, but I can't stand another year like that one. That Time Turner, it was driving me mad. I've handed it in. Without Muggle Studies and Divination, I'll be able to have a normal schedule again.”

Oh Crookshanks, if he had been here, if he had not fallen, if it had been Pettigrew instead… she would have known, they would have known. Of course a Time Turner was more practical now. She could have gone back and warned Ron, warned them all of what was going to happen.

Stop it before it started.

Maybe even get Voldemort while she was at it. But that might change nothing either, someone else would have come to take his place. And, guiltily she thought that everything would change so much that she might never meet Harry. And that was a thought she was not sure she could stand.

“He looks really grumpy,”

“Oh Harry, you're not going to pay attention to anything that old fraud says?”

“I'll show you when we get there- oh come on, quick-“

“Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn't he? I bet he wishes he hadn't done it now- bet he feels different now she's not there to look after him.”

“Oh not electronic bugs, no you see… Rita Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus. She can turn into a beetle.”

There was disturbance somewhere nearby. She could hear the dead leaves and twigs being crushed. The Dementors were shrieking and the mist was covering her, almost concealing her from view.

That was good; she didn't need to see them as they killed her. Just do the act and that was good enough. End it quickly and that was good enough.

“They were bound to clear you. There was no case against you, none at all….”

“I listen, Ron,”

“I know you're in there, will you please come out? I want to talk to you.”

“You know, I think Ron might do better without Fred and George around. They never exactly gave him a lot of confidence….”

“No… well… all right… I didn't, but why does he have to make life so difficult for himself- for us?”

“What do you mean, `in there'? There isn't any `in there', it's just an archway, there's no room for anybody to be there- Harry, stop it, come away-“

“Really soon, Harry, we promise.”

Promises, where had she heard something of promises before?

Oh why didn't she run away? She had all the time in the world when they were kissing Percy and all she did was stand there. What kind of Gryffindor was she anyway?

Oh that's right; a Gryffindor would not run away. She had been Percy's silent support as he “died”, and he- now lost nearby in the white mist- was waiting for her to join him before they crossed the veil to their families and friends.

“Ron, don't hit him!”

“Its liquid luck, it makes you lucky!”

“Hagrid, we really wanted to carry on with Care of Magical Creatures, you know.”

“She'll ban you from the library if you're not careful. Why did you have to bring that stupid book?”

“I don't believe this, you're actually defending-“

“I knew you were going to say that. But then what will you do?”

“You said to us once before, that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?”

Harry.

That's where she had heard of promises before. She had done something, or maybe he had made a promise. Well, she wasn't sure now but she knew that there was something involving a promise between them.

That had been one of them. It was an unspoken promise that neither she nor Ron would ever leave him… funny, they had both broken it. Or at least Ron had, she was going to break hers now.

“Oh Harry, if you want some time to yourself, we'll let you have it, but we'll be just back here if you need us. We're not going anywhere until you're ready.”

“Don't just touch it Ron, you saw Professor Dumbledore's hand!”

“Professor Snape is coming to the Order meeting tonight, and you two will behave. I know… I know what he did is unforgivable, and he will pay for it, but for now, for the war, you two behave.”

“Ipse excessum ego vita… what… `With death I live'- I suppose it's fitting though, that's what it is- Harry…? What happened to Ron and you?”

“That's not funny. I don't care that you two can sit here and joke about this as if it's the most natural thing in the world but it isn't. It's not funny at all!”

“We'll be right here waiting when you get back!”

“Ron… who's… Percy…?”

The disturbance had quieted, or ended, or maybe… well she didn't know, she couldn't be sure of anything anymore. The Dementors had begun to draw from her as they had done to Percy. They flew in a circle, swooped down and opened their mouths, like a vacuum they drew life from her leaving her cold, so very cold, and then they flew away.

How could Percy have smiled, this was far from pleasant. With each attack she felt herself becoming weaker. Her lids became heavier, her limbs fell flaccidly from her torso, and it pained her chest to move to breathe. They were making her more pliable for attack, though it was far from necessary; she had accepted this all along.

“Oh Harry, I didn't, I never meant to upset you, I just… yesterday I was sad, really sad… I still am too… but you don't have to worry about those things anymore, as long as we are together, like I promised you, nothing is going to hurt us.”

And just then she remembered the promise. Just as one tall, and possibly more terrifying than the others, Dementor broke free from the pack, descended over her sedate form, put its dead fingers to her cheeks- they were no longer cold, her temperature was probably the same as its- and clamped that awful mouth over hers, she remembered it.

She had made a promise. She had made another promise to Harry, and now she was breaking it.

“I think we're together forever Harry, no, I know it. Nothing is going to take me away from you. We'll hurt, we'll cry, but then we'll move on, like he would have wanted us to, and nothing, is going to stop me, from being with you.”

She didn't want to break it. No one should break promises to Harry, they hurt him too much. But she couldn't move to free herself, and even if she could she would have never escaped. She didn't want to break her promise, and here she was doing it now.

She hoped he would forgive her. This, more than everything else, was failing him. Oh, she hoped he would forgive her.

“EXPECTO…”

“…PATRONUM!” yelled that voice from far away, another memory no doubt. She could feel herself slipping away from her body, the Dementor's icy, bony lips still firmly clamped round her mouth.

But it was the most pleasant feeling in the world too, dying, scary and yet pleasant. Where she was going she knew she would have no worries, no pain, no more tears, no more fear, she would finally have peace. The tears stopped flowing then and she smiled, Ron had felt no pain.

“What are we going to do now?”

One life for many, a small price to pay….

Something was wrong though, the connection was breaking. She wasn't floating away anymore… what was going on… what happened… why wasn't she floating away?

Heavy lids forced themselves open, but only for a moment. A most welcome darkness was pulling at her, and she had to go into it. But just before she did, before this cold, scary world fell away, she saw him.

Her saviour, her life, her heart, he stood tall under the blaze of some unearthly light like the “Knight-In-Shining-Armour” of fairy tales and Witch Weekly.

But she only saw Harry, not that knight.

Scrawny, nineteen now, round-rimmed glasses, years of torment silently written on his face, and yet still determination etched in those bright green eyes.

And then too, the shadow of someone tall with red hair and blue eyes, standing beside him, grinning with pride….

How lovely.

It was the only thing she could ever wish to see before she died.

-->

A/N: I'm a bit sad right now, this is the end. But I'm also happy, now I can write more fanfics. I hope you all enjoyed this sad little story, I know I did. And though at times I had trouble, I made it to the end. (Confession, I wrote a story, non-fanfic, that took two years and now that it's finished I still won't try to publish it, I think I have to revise it plenty first.)

Anyway, thank you very much to all of you who reviewed, and read it. A few months ago, I didn't even know what the word “shipping” meant for Harry Potter.

Bolded words at the end should mean something to a few, hope it isn't too corny or cliché by now, or that the entire last bit isn't crappy. (If it is, I may write an Epilogue)

Quote really works for the whole story, but I only just discovered it.

Major question from last chapter answered here, though, *hint* I kind of have a hard time reading stories where either Harry or Hermione die. It takes a lot to get me to read on, so kudos to Paracelsus, among others, if you've ever read this.

Author's note too long now, on with chapter.

But just one more thing, THANK YOU, to you and you, and you, and all of you who read and reviewed. :D

Disclaimer: Not mine, if book seven ends this way though, maybe I can sue for copyright…. Of course, it still wouldn't have been mine in the first place and I would get sued for money I don't have.

*****

“One is left with the terrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.” - Agatha Christie, Autobiography, 1977

*****

Aftermath

Someone was calling her name.

“Hermione… Hermione… can you hear me? Hermione… wake up Hermione… come on… Hermione, wake up! Oh gods how did Neville do this… Hermione wake up, please!”

She could hear them clearly, and yet they felt so far away. But that didn't change the fact that she could hear their exhaustion, their anxiety, their fear. Whoever was calling her had had a very bad fright.

But she had no concern for that, she was dying.

“Hermione… Hermione please… please wake up…. I know I wasn't too late this time, I know I didn't take too long…. I stopped them Hermione, I stopped them from kissing you…. So please… please wake up Hermione….”

If only to reassure them she wished she could move her hand, but she was too weak. It was a laborious enough task to breathe, forcing her lungs to expand and take in that shock of cold air and her heart to pump fast-freezing blood.

She couldn't feel any of her limbs anyway. She knew they were there, she just couldn't feel them.

How foolish was it to think that hypothermia was a wonderful way to die. She felt as far from sleepy as it was, despite her eyes being closed, she was very much wide awake.

How wonderful it would be to die like this indeed.

“Hermione come on, you can't do this… don't do this…. I don't care about stupid promises and anything, just don't do this…. Fight it, Hermione, live… you don't have to do it for me, do it for Emmeline… just wake up for Emmeline…. Come on Hermione! Wake up!”

With great effort, she forced up her eyelids to find, much to her dismay now, Harry kneeling beside her, shaking her numb body, trying to rouse her. His eyes looked as terrified as his voice had sounded. His face was flushed as if he had just been running, or maybe it was just the cold, and he was so absorbed in this that he didn't notice her eyes were open.

Or maybe it was because they were barely open in the first place. She couldn't do it as fully as she would like no matter how much she tried. And then too, she wasn't really sure that she wanted to open them again.

He would probably be glad to know that she was alright, but she had almost broken her promise to stay with him. No matter what he said, she knew him; he would never forgive her for it.

“Hermione please, please Hermione… don't leave me…! Not you too… please not you too, I can't do this… I can't help… I need you to live… please! I'm begging you!”

His voice was faltering; she didn't have to look up to his face to know that he was getting desperate… and that he was crying. She had rarely ever seen him cry, but she knew he was doing it now.

Maybe dying for the world wasn't such a good idea after all.

Funny, and in a very dark way, he now knew how she felt when he and Ron used to joke about it.

“Wake up please Hermione… please! I'll do anything; I'll do anything if you wake up right now…. I don't care what it is, I don't care what it takes, I'll get a Time Turner and trade places with you if I have to… just don't leave me…. Please don't leave me like this!”

She tried to groan but knew that it was all in her head. His lack of reaction at the attempt meant that no sound had escaped her lips. He just went on crying and pleading above her.

“Hermione… Hermione… I want to tell you something…. I have to… now… and I don't know if you can hear me… I wish you could… but I have to tell you this anyway….”

“Hermione I'll die if you're not here with me. I don't know what happened in this graveyard… you're going to have to wake up to tell me… but if it was for me, Hermione wake up. Don't die for me Hermione; I don't need another mother… I don't need you to die for me like she did. Wake up Hermione, please…. I can't live with that… I can't live… I won't live without you… you're the reason I'm still here now! Please Hermione… please… don't do this… wake up!”

Still nothing, she was too weak.

“I know you probably don't understand what I mean but Hermione, you can't live through Voldemort to die with Percy…. That's not fair Hermione, you can't do that… you have to wake up… if you were going to die you should have done it before so that I had no reason to live…. Please Hermione… don't leave me here alone… I don't want to be alone, don't leave me here alone….”

Feeling was returning to her somehow. She could feel as his hands nervously went to her sides, drew up her own and folded them over her chest. Then he slipped one arm beneath her back, the other under her calves, and jerkily lifted her from the cold, misted earth.

Her head lolled back and the world flipped upside down so that she finally caught a glimpse of Percy nearby.

He was smiling.

He was still smiling.

“I'll get you warm… because you have to stay with me… I have to get you warm so you'll stay with me…. Don't go away; don't go with Ron… you can't keep going with Ron when I need you…. Don't do this to me again… please Hermione….”

What was he talking about? She hadn't gone anywhere with Ron before, why was he saying that?

And where were they going? Where was everyone else? Why was he here alone? Why wasn't he mad at her?

But he answered none of those questions though, he couldn't hear them. He just carried her along- her body felt as if it were floating- and pleaded in desperate whispers.

“Please Hermione… I'm begging you… stay with me… don't leave me…. I need you too much… I… I… I love you too much. Ron was my brother, and that hurt, it still hurts… but you… you're more than my friend, you're more than my sister… you're my heart…. That's why you can't leave me… you're my heart Hermione… and if I don't have my heart I'm going to die…. Emmeline's needs me, but I'm going to die….”

Why was he saying that? He didn't mean it. He only said it because he was guilty. He could only be saying that because he was guilty. Why did he keep saying that?

“I'll get you warm, so you won't leave…. But if you're still going to, don't leave yet… give me a chance to get you warm…. Give me time… that's all I want… you and Ron gave me hope before… I want you to give me time….”

They came to a stop somewhere, she didn't know where but she knew they had stopped moving. And then she felt that old squeezing sensation. He was Disapparating them somewhere.

She hoped he had gotten her wand.

With a “pop” she barely heard, she felt a warm rush of air on her skin but knew it should be cold. Her body was yet to warm, she hoped she hadn't dropped a degree.

It was never good to have your body temperature drop a degree.

But Harry had stopped speaking too.

He carried her quickly upwards- stairs- and then into the dark of what had to be a house- Grimmauld Place- before air, that felt scorching rested unto her and she wanted to jump away out of his arms.

He was moving again no sooner than the door had time to close. She heard someone, startled; ask a frightened question, (“Oh gods, Hermione! Is she alright?”) And then more voices, questions, a child's shriek (“Hermione!”), but Harry never answered and they never stopped moving.

Harry took her all the way to the stairs and then up those, one flight, two flights, three and then off somewhere to a room. She tried to think, whose room was on the third floor… oh yes… his. He was taking her to his room.

He shut and locked the door behind them, whispered, “Lumos!” and the lights came on. Then, he placed her on the bed, and as the realisation of what he intended to do came to her, he began to pull off her shoes. His hands were shaking, and it was more than with cold, as he unbuttoned, unzipped and pulled off her jeans. He had to stop more than once when he unbuttoned and then freed her of her shirt. There was some very nervous rustling in the background, and then she felt him, his entire, nervous, trembling, warm, half-naked body as he climbed over her on the bed and drew the blankets over them.

He was trying to warm her with his own body heat; the touch of her mostly bare flesh beneath his made him tremble and generated more. If she could she would have reached her arms round his neck and told him that she was okay.

But she didn't.

The warmth was making her sleepy. His arms around her, and his voice, now whispering encouragements, were as soothing as a lullaby.

He brushed his lips across her forehead, she felt her body relax completely, and she drifted off to sleep.

*****

When Hermione would awaken next, it was to the touch of golden morning sunlight playing gently at the lids of her eyes. She blinked at it and opened them.

Harry was there.

Lost in a sleep where his hands were encircling her waist, his legs were entangled with her own, and his head rested gently on the pillow next to hers.

In any other situation she would have thoroughly revelled in the feeling, but she couldn't.

Also present and apparently waiting for her to rise were various Weasleys, Lupin and Emmeline.

She was thankful that the covers came up to her neck, it would have been less than comforting for them to know that she was only in her underwear.

Of course, her clothes on the floor were already a dead giveaway too.

She blinked again, and groaned.

This alerted them to her return to consciousness, someone thrust a steaming cup of something dark at her and said, “Drink this, you'll feel better when you're done.”

Sitting up, she reached a hand to take it, surprised at this ability now, part of the blanket fell away and Emmeline started singing,

“I see London, I see France,

I can see your un…”

Hermione cut her off, though in a hoarse whisper, “If you want to live… you'd better not… finish that song…”

She fell mute, but then climbed unto the bed between Harry and Hermione and wrapped her arms around her sister just as Hermione took a drink of the dark liquid.

It was hot chocolate, and sweet enough that as the warmth spilled through her chest, she felt a smile coming to her lips. She smiled at Lupin, “Thank you… I… I really needed that….”

He nodded at her, and there was a silence where she quietly drank from the cup and Emmeline lifted the fallen blanket edge to cover her carefully. She then turned around in the bed, looked down at Harry, and lifted the covers and peered in. When she noted his undress, she looked over to Hermione again, who couldn't help the colour that appeared at her cheeks, before shrugging and settling down into the space she had created between them.

When Hermione was mostly finished with her drink, Lupin asked, “Do you remember what happened in that graveyard?”

Hermione wanted to say yes, she really did. She had even stopped drinking to, but nothing came to her. It was all a very strange blur of cold, darkness, black shapes, mist and a very frightened voice calling her name.

She shook her head, “No… not much… not after the Dementors came at least.”

There was a stirring in the bed that was not Emmeline. Harry must have woken or was waking up.

Lupin said, “That's okay, it doesn't matter much… we just want to know what happened with Percy… we found him after Harry brought you back…. He had been kissed… you… well… we know you weren't completely. But what happened before… can you tell us why he went through all this trouble to get you and then gets kissed by Dementors? What happened last night?”

There was that stirring again, Harry's leg came away from hers, but out of the corner of her eyes she could see that his were still tightly shut. He was probably pretending to be asleep, waiting to hear what she had to say.

She sat up a bit and settled the sheet over herself; Emmeline scooted down to the foot of the bed to listen with the others.

Mrs Weasley began to protest, “She should rest, she's been through enough, and she should really just rest now.”

“I can tell you that much, you may not believe this… but Percy… he wanted to die,” Hermione told them, trying to keep her voice steady to show that she was alright.

“What?” exclaimed Charlie, clearly stunned as the others were, though the only one to vocalise it. A silence had fallen at her statement.

“Yes… he went through all this trouble to take me… because he wanted to die…” she said and then began to explain.

It would take well over a half hour to do it too. Though they listened as quietly as they could, they couldn't help but interrupt sometimes as Hermione regaled the very strange and somewhat sad story of Percy Weasley. And they especially had to when she got to the part where Percy told her that his father had allowed the Death Eaters to attack them. After that they said no more.

By the time she was finished, a pin dropping would have echoed in the quiet of the bedroom.

Hermione didn't allow it to go on for long though, she had a question of her own.

Setting down the cup, and chancing a glance at Harry- eyes still shut- she asked, “How did Harry find me?”

“We're not sure,” began Lupin, “We had first thought that Percy had taken you to Hogwarts, but then we realised that that was wrong. Harry had been rather impatient enough to find you already, and once we knew you weren't at Hogwarts he nearly lost it. He alone knows why he went to the graveyard… but he's still asleep now so…”

“I understand,” Hermione said, and stole a look across at Harry again.

At this point, Mrs Weasley rose from her seat and said, “I think we should really let you rest again dear… you look very tired…”

“I am actually; I haven't slept in two days I think…” Hermione said, and, as if to prove it, yawned.

“Well then… we'll let you get changed so you can go down to your room…” Mrs Weasley said and began to shepherd the others out.

One by one they rose, Hermione finally noticed that Ginny had been in the corner, wordlessly watching the whole time, and left her to it. Even Emmeline, who had reached up to give her a tight hug, left the room with them. And then Mrs Weasley, being the last to go, turned just before she left to say, “Thank you.”

Hermione looked at her confused, “What for? I couldn't save Percy, just like I couldn't save Ron.”

“You couldn't have, they were both gone before you had the chance… but you've given them back to me…” Mrs Weasley said, and then left her to puzzle over this.

And Hermione did sit there thinking over what she said, until Harry stirred again and she realised that she was lying in his bed in only her underwear.

Again, to a part of her, not really a bad thing, but logically speaking, also not right.

She pulled the covers with her to get her clothes, quite pleased that she had use of her limbs once more, when Harry's voice came from behind, “You could have died.”

She stopped, and said without looking at him, “I know… I… but I had to do something… you heard what he said… what if I hadn't been able to stop him?”

“Then I would've,” he insisted, and his hand came to her arm and tried to turn her to him.

She resisted, “Your fight is done, and I couldn't let you die after you lived through that.”

“That's not your decision to make,” he told her, and finally got her to face him.

He sat up and stared her straight in the eyes, she dropped her head, “And this wasn't yours.”

He released her arm; she moved off the bed, gathered up her clothes and began to put them on. He kept his eyes down, but she could feel him sneaking glances every now and then, so that, feeling playful, she asked, “Do you like what you see?”

He coloured, she smirked, and after that she felt them no more.

When finally, she was fully dressed, she said, “Well… I… I'm going down now, I'm famished… and tired… and… I just want to sleep.”

He nodded, and then asked, “Don't you want to know how I found you?”

She stopped, considering it a moment, and then shook her head, saying with meaning, “No, I don't need to know, I know you'll always find me. That's another reason why I love you; you'll never let me get lost.”

“And you won't let me lose my way…” he said. “Stay… please….”

She knew he didn't mean it that way, that he actually wanted her to stay with him like she promised, now that Percy wasn't trying to kill them anymore. It didn't stop that part of her that hadn't too terribly minded that she was half-naked in his bed from thinking it was though.

She hurriedly crushed that. For goodness sake, she had just survived almost being kissed by Dementors. The past weeks had been pure hell, what was she thinking?

She replied, “Emmeline has school… in High Wycombe… and our relatives haven't seen us since the funeral… I have to go to them…”

“Then I'll go with you…” he said.

“You can't Harry… the Weasleys, the Order… they're surely still Death Eaters out there after you, and even if not, they're reporters too… you can't….” she told him.

“They'll go after you too!” he protested.

“I'm not as prominent a target,” she pointed out.

“Bellatrix and a group of them killed your parents in France, where the hell do you think you're going?” he continued to protest, his voice rising.

“I don't want to fight you, but I need to be away,” she said quietly.

He sighed and looked away from her. She had a feeling he would cry again.

Why was she always hurting him?

“Then promise me you'll come back… that you won't stay away,” he said, giving up immediately.

She closed her eyes and sighed.

“Harry, for what… I can't stay here and hold your hand… I can't wait around for you to maybe like me and then “give it a go”… I can't even tell you what I want to do anymore… other than get Emmeline back to school and… well… deal with my parents' Will. At sixteen I was afraid and did something stupid, I'm almost twenty and I'm not afraid anymore. But it's worth nothing at the end because you don't feel the same. I need to be away from you… because now, I can't stand waiting anymore… life's too short… I'll find someone else…”

At this he rose anxiously from the bed and said, “Did you hear anything of what I said last night?”

“What?” she asked, lost, confused and a little upset that he was ignoring her.

“Hermione, I can't do this without you… what do you think happened when you went off to France… what do you think happened last night? I went spare looking for you. I started going back to all the places Percy had been when you saw him and it was pure luck I ended up at the graveyard first. Hermione… I can't… the things I thought… what I knew… if you go then I can't… I don't know why… but I need you with me….”

She fought at tears that were welling painfully at her eyes and said, “No you don't… last night… whatever happened… you felt… you were feeling guilty… you didn't mean it.”

He let out a growl of frustration, then reached a hand to her and pulled her to him. She barely had time to start at this before he very firmly kissed her.

To say that she was shocked was an understatement. And unlike that last time in a drunken haze, this was full of desperation, need, want… and she dared not think of the last.

He gripped her by the arms, pulling her as close as he dared, and pressed his lips to hers. She had gasped when he did it and he took advantage of the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth. She didn't resist, she let him kiss her.

She then let him release her arms and pull her into an embrace that brought her flush against his bare chest. She let her own arms encircle his neck and he pulled her closer, twisted slightly and brought her down unto the bed with a “plop”. He never broke their kiss, his tongue toying with hers, as he did it. His hands then slid down her waist and then back up her arms again to draw them from his neck, then pinned them onto the bed above her head while he came to straddle her. She accepted his weight easily, but had to stop for air.

She needed to breathe.

When she pulled away from him, both their lips swollen, he nipped at hers. She turned her cheek and forced her hands down. He let her hands escape but did not move from over her.

“You don't feel the same… I know you don't… you're feeling guilty…” she began was cut off.

“Stop trying to tell me how I feel!” he snapped. “It might have taken me weeks, a wizard turned bad and a very long night to figure it out, but I know what I do… how could I have ever wanted anyone but you?”

“If this is gratitude…” she began again, now warningly though her threat had no weight.

“Gratitude? I can't even begin to pay you back for everything you've done for me! Gratitude is there… but more than that… Hermione… I can't lose you, just promise me you'll come back…” he pleaded.

“I'm not good with promises; I couldn't help Ron so that we'd both be there when you came back. I almost died last night even after I told you that I'd be with you forever. Don't make me promise, I won't keep it,” she said.

“You're here aren't you? You and Ron followed me as far as you could go didn't you? You've never broken a promise to me… wavered maybe… but you've never broken one… so please… tell me you'll come back….” He said this turning her face to his with his hand.

She looked up into his eyes, shut her own and sighed again, “Okay Harry… I'll come back. I promise.”

And then he rose off of her, allowed her to get off the bed and go to the door, and with one last, sad look, leave.

*****

A leak at the Ministry of Magic meant that in less than a week the headlines of the Wizarding world's newspapers declared: “Attack at Ministry Ruin Averted by Friend of Harry Potter!” (Daily Prophet), “The Muggle-born and the Dark Wizard Part II: Showdown at Godric's Hollow!” was the callous headline of the Evening Prophet, and Witch Weekly, never one to be left out, but unable to change, came up with, “Like Father, like Son - Like Mother, like Daughter-in-law?” They had themselves a field day.

The curfew was lifted; the mist had finally too, completely cleared to appropriate periods of appearance. This meant cold winter mornings, or just after the rain, or whenever mist appeared naturally in England. The newspapers were once more on their own, Ministry business was reverted to the usual, Auror patrols were lessening, and Death Eaters were fast either slipping out of sight or going off to Azkaban.

And all this no more than three months after the Dark Lord Voldemort breathed his last breath. Nothing was going to be the same again; though it had stopped being the same the moment Harry Potter took his first step into the Wizarding world.

And then, just after the start of the school term for both Muggle and Wizarding children, it was learned that Harry Potter would be playing professional Quidditch (he didn't say for how long, just that he wanted to play Quidditch for a while, if any team would take him) and was snatched up by the English National Team, eager for a chance at the World Cup.

Bulgaria, under Viktor Krum, had taken it from Ireland the year before, (as if there wasn't a war going on) apparent revenge for their last defeat.

Hermione and Emmeline sent him a book they had made filled with clippings on his achievement, and Emmeline included a rather comical drawing- most likely without her sister's knowledge- of him standing on a fallen Viktor. They were oddly shaped, and looked more like Muggle rugby football than Quidditch, but he got the idea.

A few days later, news broke that Hermione Granger was going into teacher-training, most possibly to teach at her former school, Hogwarts, now that the curse on Defence Against the Dark Arts was hopefully lifted. (She was actually thinking about Transfiguration but the Prophet wasn't too concerned for details.)

She had been staying with her grandparents- much to the chagrin of Emmeline, who learned to use the owl post and wrote daily complaints- under the watchful eyes of Ministry Aurors. Harry was giving her the space she requested, hating every second of it, but granting her wish. When he read the article in the Prophet he sent a congratulatory note. Hermione Flooed the Weasleys just to smile.

The Weasleys made the news, briefly, at a formal memorial for Arthur, Percy (welcomed back into the family, upgraded from contemptible git to unfortunate, misguided fool) and Ronald Weasley held by the Ministry where both Harry and Hermione were noted in attendance. And then at another occasion, when Ginny Weasley, it was announced, went into training to become a Healer. And then Witch Weekly took over, releasing information about Harry Potter's ex-girlfriend and an alleged romance with new co-worker, Neville Longbottom.

(There had been some tentative questions about this from Harry and Ginny simply told him, “I heard you and Hermione talking, after the others left… I knew I didn't stand a chance after that.”)

There was then a lull of a few weeks where nothing but regular news was reported, and the Man-Who-Triumphed became third page material. The newspapers became rather dull. And then, on the nineteenth of September, came a headline, the Daily Prophet winning the race to get it first: “Harry Potter to Wed Muggle-born Friend, Hermione Granger!”

The outcry that followed this, mostly consisting of, “Have you ever heard of them dating, someone said they never did!” or “They're too young! She's twenty, he's nineteen, it'll never last!” or even still, “He just got rid of that nasty evil fellow, it's too soon!” never reached the couple's ears.

They were too busy with Mrs Weasley and Grandmother Puckle planning the wedding, both of whom agreed with the general consensus but kept it to themselves.

It was hard to believe then, that at the start of the summer, Harry had just saved the world. That at last he was free to have the kind of life he never did, or even thought he would. He had lost a lot- Voldemort had left a lot of death and destruction in his wake- including his parents, Dumbledore, and Ron, his brother, but thankfully, and he would not be guilty for it, he still had Hermione.

She herself had been through a lot, facing off her own Dark Wizard and living to tell the tale. But she was still there, and with Emmeline and the Weasleys, was going to help him start his only family, one free of prophecies, evil wizards, and Dursleys.

It was going to be just like what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised, or, he hoped it would.

He liked to hope.

And then, thinking of the Mirror of Erised made him think of other things also. Things he never thought he would, or could.

Sometimes, Harry liked to think about the real purpose of everything Voldemort had put himself through. Was it really worth it to live forever, surrounded by sycophants, killing and torturing to stay in power, if you had no one and nothing to live for by doing it? No, not to Harry at least, and maybe, somewhere deep down, buried under the floorboards of a cupboard beneath the stairs he pitied him for it.

Funny, he actually sometimes mourned the man who would not have done the same for him.

But then, Harry could.

He had something to live for, or rather, someone.

Their engagement was quick, but what more could he possibly want to learn about her that he didn't already know? It took him a while to figure out that he loved her and now that he had, what was he waiting for?

Maybe he would regret it someday, but he knew he wouldn't. The moment he saw her again at the memorial he walked right up to her and took her hand in his own. She did not protest, she had come there for the memorial, but she had also come back to him.

She was never going to leave now.

“I think we're together forever Harry, no, I know it. Nothing is going to take me away from you. We'll hurt, we'll cry, but then we'll move on, like he would have wanted us to, and nothing, is going to stop me, from being with you.”

In the meantime, someday, maybe not today, or next week, or next month, but someday, he and Hermione would figure out what they really wanted to do. He would not play Quidditch forever, he felt free when he was flying, but coming back down to earth and Hermione wasn't so bad. She really wasn't sure that she wanted to be a teacher, she loved learning too many new things to confine herself to one subject, but she would give it a try. And then they both were watching for any signs of magic in Emmeline. Harry didn't care what Lupin said, fighting off the Imperius Curse was very interesting news to him.

It wasn't a perfect start, but it would have to do. And on that day that they finally got it worked out, all of this would be a memory, the aftermath of a war, or a curse. No more pain, no more sadness, no more fear, just a faded remnant they would never forget. Simply, something left behind, like his scar.

Fin.

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