Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Here With Me
Chapter 21
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Entering the Great Hall for breakfast the following morning Harry found his path impeded just inside the door by Snape himself. Hermione had cured the physical evidence of the bruise but his head still ached and his stomach was rumbling empty from missing yet another meal. He was not feeling especially charitable or in control, never a good start to any confrontation with the Slytherin Head of House.
Snape's eyes were as angry as Harry had ever seen them, black and fathomless.
"Ah, Potter. You wouldn't happen to know why Mr. Malfoy was discovered in the Ravenclaw girls' lavatory this morning would you? Or why he might be sporting that particular fashion statement?"
Harry's eyes shifted to the Slytherin table. Malfoy was once again sitting on the end, far from his usual place in the thick of things. He seemed quite absorbed by whatever was in the bowl in front of him, providing a perfect view of the top of his head. And aw… weren't those a little baby set of horns just poking through? Draco looked up to snarl something at his nearest neighbor at the table (probably asked him to pass the salt, Harry guessed gleefully) revealing that his tongue was now rather enlarged and… forked.
"I can quite honestly say, Sir," Harry said truthfully, "that I had nothing to do with that." But oh, how I wish I had!
"Strange," Hermione commented, brushing past them, "If he was as competent a wizard as his continual high marks in Potions would lead one to believe, that he hasn't just changed it back."
Snape grasped Hermione's upper arm, stopping her in her tracks. Harry surprised all three of them by hissing something alarming in Parseltongue. A relief, really, because he quickly realized he would have been in a way more trouble had Snape actually understood his words. His meaning was clear enough, however, that Snape removed his hand. Quite quickly.
"The change has… resisted removal," Snape said furiously. "I should have known it would have been beyond you, Potter. Now, Miss Granger…"
"Had nothing to do with it, either." Harry informed him. "She was with me."
"Was she really?" Snape asked triumphantly. "How interesting."
"I think you'll find it interests no one anymore but you," Hermione told him witheringly. She tugged at Harry's sleeve. "We're blocking the door."
"Indeed," said a deep, good-natured voice from behind them, "And I am quite looking forward to my breakfast."
Dumbledore had returned.
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"You realize where those horns came from, don't you?" Hermione said softly as they took their seats across from Ron at the Gryffindor table.
"Well it wasn't me," Ron said through a mouthful of scrambled egg. "I gave him to Ginny. I thought it was only fair."
"Whatever Ginny did, it wasn't the horns or the tongue. That's the jinx he signed. He's crossed the line somewhere between acting on Voldemort's orders and providing information to him. He betrayed at least one of us last night. And it's going to take them a good long time to figure out how to get them off, too. I may not have thought about Voldemort working it the other way round, but I was very thorough when it came to the jinx itself."
"Guess that explains the Ravenclaw girls' shower bit, though." Harry offered. "I bet Ginny got Luna to help her. And knowing the two of them I'd wager there was a good bit more to it than that. Almost makes me wish I was a Ravenclaw this morning."
"Except for the Cho side of things and the fact neither of us have a hope in the brains department, I'm with you," Ron agreed.
"I think Luna would love to see you as a Ravenclaw, Ron." Hermione told him, seizing the opportunity.
"I think Luna'd like to see Ron just about anywhere, actually," said Harry, buttering his toast with a grin. "Better than a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, you are."
Hermione chose to see hope in Ron's fiery red-headed blush. Perhaps girls were losing their cooties at last. Or at least one of them.
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Harry received the inevitable summons on his way to Transfiguration. The methodology was different; Dumbledore had never before sent Fawkes to find him within the castle walls. It also troubled Harry somewhat that the note specified that the Headmaster wished to see him but said nothing about Hermione or Ron.
"It'll have nothing at all to do with anything, for all that," he muttered. "I'm probably in trouble for something else entirely now."
"Harry, remember, tell him everything. He needs to know what you saw and we need to know what he thinks about it, or what we decided to try will get us into more trouble than we can handle. Don't get put off." Hermione was watching him, anxious.
"I will. Honestly. I'll meet you and Ron after. In the library?"
She nodded and watched him head off toward the staircase to Dumbledore's office with a feeling of trepidation. It used to comfort her when she thought he was letting the teachers know what was going on. Life was altering immeasurably now.
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The gargoyles hailed Harry like an old friend and inquired whether Ron and Hermione had caught up with him. Upon learning the message had worked they promptly congratulated each other, drew themselves up proudly and opened the door, utterly forgetting to wait for the password. Harry reckoned Dumbledore really needed a better security system.
The headmaster was pacing the confines of his office as Harry had so often seen him do on the Marauders' Map.
"Ah, Harry. Sit down," he said gravely, turning to meet him. There was no sign of a twinkle in those blue eyes now; something had detoured his good mood of earlier that morning in quite another direction. Harry sat.
"We have something of a problem to sort out," Dumbledore began.
'When have we not?' thought Harry.
"Where were you yesterday afternoon, Harry? After your Defense class with Professor Snape."
"I went to the Shrieking Shack with Draco Malfoy."
Dumbledore's eyebrows rose inquiringly.
"He cornered me outside the classroom. It seems letting Snape into it means all of Slytherin's going to know." Dumbledore shook his head, whether to deny the fact or in resignation Harry could not tell. "He told me that he wanted to prove himself, that you were in danger and he had solid information that Voldemort meant to attack you and that we could warn you. He thought you wouldn't trust the information coming from him, he wanted me to come along."
"And you believed him?" Dumbledore questioned, sounding very much like Hermione.
"I couldn't disprove it. You never tell me anything real, how can I know? I think I've finally come to realize I can live with the accusations of stupidity easier than the thought that I could have done something and didn't."
"Assuming, of course, you do live."
"Yeah," said Harry, but without remorse. He felt quite done with that particular battle now.
"Harry, Miss Parkinson claims that during that same period of time yesterday you were possessed by Voldemort and took her to the Shrieking Shack where you attacked her and forced her to accept the Dark Mark, which she does indeed now bear. Mr. Malfoy claims he went nowhere, and there are five students who are willing to testify that he was in the Slytherin common room with them."
Harry stared at him, dumbfounded.
"Indeed," said Dumbledore.
"Draco knows…"
"Draco is quite probably lying."
"Quite probably?" Harry said furiously.
"It is not that I do not trust you or believe you, Harry. One of the things I am proudest of in you is how hard it is for you to open up your mind to the true possibilities of evil. The other side of that equation, however, is that many things simply do not occur to you until you are forced to accept them. It is possible, for example, that someone else used polyjuice potion to appear to you as Draco."
"Highly unlikely. I know that pr, er jerk too well by now. Better than I ever wanted to."
"Still, we must rule it out before we respond in an accusatory manner."
"Hermione and Ron were there. They saw him as well. And even if it wasn't him, they know Pansy wasn't with us."
"Perhaps you had better start at the beginning," Dumbledore suggested wearily. "This appears to be a more tangled web than first I thought."
"It's more than just tangled," Harry responded angrily. "It's knotted like a net and it's snaring me. When Draco and I reached the end of the tunnel from the Whomping Willow we heard voices. We climbed up the stairs to hear. I kept Draco in front of me the whole time; it wasn't like I trusted him or anything. It was you I heard. You and Mad Eye. Talking about separating Hermione and me. You said Hermione wasn't what I needed and that you would refocus her feelings toward Ron so that I would be ready when you needed me."
Harry watched Dumbledore closely as he spoke; saw the range of emotions begin and be quickly shut down under his gaze. Something surged blindly in him, a need to know for sure, and he cast a desperate wordless legilimens almost before he realized what he was doing. Images began to flood him, random things, people he did not know, snippets of conversation. He sought desperately to hold on to something as the current swept through him with the force of a flood-swollen river, pummeling him, until he suddenly made out a voice he did not recognize intoning "It can not be the girl then, Albus. Only you can know if she does more harm than good." He felt Dumbledore's power then, thrusting him away from the thought. He clung, fought with all that he had to know more, to hear Dumbledore's response to whomever spoke. He had to know…
A sudden fierce pain lanced through him. He heard a dull roar… that slowly became a distinctly furious "HARRY POTTER!"
Dumbledore stood before him, trembling, wand pointed directly at him. Every muscle in his body suddenly knotted painfully. Holy Aslan… he'd actually managed to…
"Yes," Dumbledore finished for him. "You have indeed been undergoing a growth in your abilities. Now you must hurry up and mature in the knowledge of their judicious use."
"I'm sorry,,," Harry began.
"No, you are not," Dumbledore said resignedly. "Nor would I truly expect you to be. You felt you needed to know what you sought, not for yourself but for Hermione. This should reveal to you something about the power that acting on your feelings for her invokes in you. Isn't that what you really wanted to know?"
"Is it? I wanted to know for sure it really wasn't you I heard, but there in your thoughts is exactly what I was afraid to find."
"Was it? Exactly? I think not, Harry. I was not at the Shrieking Shack, nor have I discussed your relationship with Miss Granger with Mad Eye Moody. Of that, at least, you can be certain."
"But then who said, 'It can not be the girl then, Albus. Only you can know if she does more harm than good.'?"
Dumbledore smiled sadly and sat down in the chair beside Harry. "You truly do not know your own strength, Harry. What you discovered in my memory had nothing to do with you or Miss Granger. It was a memory of my own, from long, long ago. One I had buried, I thought quite deeply. One I have never allowed myself to pensieve so I do not forget. A story for another time, perhaps. I will be entirely honest with you about this matter, Harry. It was not I you heard in the Shrieking Shack, but if you asked me the question that burdens you so, you might not like my answer, either."
"I am asking it," Harry said, "whether I'll like it or not. I need to know."
"I believe that you love Hermione with all your heart," Dumbledore began. "That you both wish to love and can after all that has befallen you is a credit to you, and to Hermione. The connection that was forged between you and Voldemort on the day he killed your parents is indeed powerful and could easily have overcome you. Between that portion of Voldemorts' powers latent within you and the Dursleys' mistreatment, you could well have made Draco Malfoy seem quite the amateur in comparison." He smiled, as if amused now by the thought.
"Yet you arrived at Hogwarts… yourself. You have inspired the love of at least two good souls, Harry, no mean feat for any one of us. I was pleased for you when you and Ron and Hermione befriended each other so quickly your first year; I had feared that your years at the Dursleys would have made the transition to Hogwarts difficult, yet you took to it like a duck to water and proved to us all that you are indeed a wizard to be reckoned with. I am likewise delighted with what your union with Hermione is awakening in you now. It has come in due season and I do believe that it is helping to strengthen you in some ways. Sirius' death was a painful blow, and I am quite sure Voldemort thrilled at the despair he sensed in you. I can only guess at the extent of it, but a relationship such as the one you are forming with Hermione is more than likely to produce a redoubled will to live, if only for her. That has quite probably likewise been a blow to Voldemort, one he rightly fears. The truly good, Harry, fight far stronger for those they love than ever they could for themselves. He experienced that once already with your Mother."
"Then how can Hermione not be what I need? I love her. I'd fight for her, die for her. He knows that. Because she's not pureblooded, it really seems to disgust him and pain him that she can achieve all that she has. When he has control of me and she touches me he can't stand it. He's literally so repulsed and frightened of the two of us together he leaves me. She's not afraid to help me. How can it not be her?" Harry was confused as well as angry; all that Dumbledore had related so far had done nothing to change his mind.
"I am not saying Hermione is not a powerful witch, Harry. Nor am I saying that she is not awakening a sense of power within you. I do not believe, however, that what you are experiencing is the power referred to in either the prophecy or the Sorting Hats' riddle. The difficulty with the connection forged between you and Voldemort, Harry, is that I think it happened long before it was meant to. I don't think the soulless depth of evil it takes to cast a killing curse on an eighteen month old child is what the universe ever had in mind for you. I have long believed what took place was meant to happen when you were of age and confronted him. You alone would have power enough to kill him, but your burden for taking his life would be that portion of his power you would then have to carry within you and control for the rest of your own. Voldemort cheated, thinking he would kill you before you ever grew strong enough understand your destiny. You've had to bear his unwilling gift to you ever since, and you are unquestionably stronger for it. What now will happen if you are successful in taking his life? When that part of you is torn from you with his death will you truly welcome it? What if he were in turn to take all your magic with him and leave you a squib? Have you thought of this? What if you were to claim the rest of his powers? Could you keep from being consumed by them? No one, Harry, takes a life without consequence, no matter how evil the life force that is snuffed. I have come to believe that the power you need is one that will let you survive not just Voldemort himself, but the vanquishing of him."
Harry felt as if the Centaurs' poison had reawakened within him; breathing seemed to be all he was capable of and was difficult at that. He had been struggling just to come to terms with ultimately confronting Voldemort; Dumbledore's suggestions opened up a chasm beyond the mountain he had yet to climb. A squib?
"I…no. I never thought…"
"And why should you have?" Dumbledore asked gently. "I'm sorry, Harry, so sorry to have to lay yet more to cope with on top of what is already a considerable burden. I would not have unless I believed you to be either ready or needful, and I think present circumstances dictate a bit of both."
"But then what is it? What can it be that I have to survive him with?"
"I could only hazard a guess at this point, and I will not. I truly believe the answer to the riddle of the window is meant to help you, but I also sense you have been… resistant to the idea. I suggest you revisit your reasoning. In the mean time, however, we must determine our response to Miss Parkinson's accusations."
A thought suddenly occurred to Harry's overburdened brain.
"The dragon's tooth! I left Hermione a message in the dragon tooth Charlie Weasley gave me this summer. It only goes up until the point that Draco and I left, but Hermione and Ron used it to figure out how to find me. Draco pushed me when I turned my back to go down the stairs in the Shrieking Shack. It must have knocked me out, or he stupefied me. He left me there and went back to the school and Hermione and Ron found him in the kitchens. The house elves saw him there too, although no one will take their word for anything, will they? But the tooth should at least prove that I wasn't Voldemort then and that Draco's lying."
Dumbledore looked at him uncertainly over the tops of his half-moon glasses. "You left a message in a dragon's tooth? What sort of message?"
"My memories, like your pensieve. I put my memory of what happened into the tooth for Hermione to find."
"You removed them?"
Harry realized the Headmaster was looking at him quizzically. "No, just an image of them, like this." Harry collected a bit of their earlier conversation and shoved it to the edge of Dumbledore's consciousness, careful to stay politely outside. He could still feel the sting of whatever Dumbledore had hit him with to break the legilimency bond. Dumbledore's expression never changed and Harry was afraid it hadn't worked until he spoke.
"Harry, that is indeed extraordinary. Neither truly legilimency nor telepathy nor… well. Nothing I have ever seen done quite that way. So you created an image of your memory and imbued the tooth with it?"
"I thought if Voldemort could do it as Tom, with the book, it should be easier on something already magical, like the tooth. It kind of wore me out, but it worked. I have no idea how he did what he did with his whole essence, but just the images seemed to work out alright."
"You must see how this is born of that same connection that he uses though, Harry. The power you drew on there would be betrayed to him by the recognition of his earlier usage of it, just as drawing on his physical condition to slow your heartbeat in the cave allowed him further access to you. Each time you make use of what was passed to you through the scar, he knows."
Harry felt stricken, numbed by his own obliviousness once more. "I didn't think of that," he admitted. "It's hard, sometimes, to know where things come from. It's all inside me, how can I know what's him and what's me other than by knowing when it's just… wrong?"
"You quite probably can't, Harry. This is one of the dangers you face in confronting him. If you choose to use a power that comes from him, he will know. The more devastating the power, the more likely it is that you inherited it from him. It doesn't mean you will not be able to use it, but he will know it well and be prepared. The pleasure of the strength you find through Hermione is that it is one he doesn't share. The ability to utilize Avada Kedavra is one he knows only too well."
"So you think he knew what I was doing when I left the message for Hermione? Will he have known what the message was as well?"
"Perhaps we can determine that. What exactly made up the message?" Dumbledore asked.
"The first bit was, erm, just for Hermione, in case anything happened to me. It was the sort of thing he hates, perhaps he tuned out then. The rest was… oh cr…" Harry raised worried eyes to his headmaster. "I let her see my DADA class with Professor Snape. It was…awful. I thought he was coming down on me because you were gone, I can't duel the way he wants, I'm not half as nasty as he thinks I should be and I'm just too stupid at faking it. I kept thinking how I didn't want to duel Voldemort, I just wanted to kill him and be done with it. Get on with my life. Snape went off. 'The impertinence, the fatal ego of you, boy! Voldemort will wipe the floor with you, he'll make you beg for death. You'll never even get the chance to try for a killing curse if you can't handle this!''
Harry saw Dumbledore actually wince at his Potion Master's words.
"I've killed him, though, haven't I? If Voldemort saw that he'll know all about Snape!"
"Calm down, Harry. If it is done, it is done and nothing will change it now. Severus has been striding a fine line for years, it was bound to come to an end at some point and at least we will know in time to ensure he would not be caught out in Voldemort's presence. What else was in the message? How exactly did you leave it for Hermione, and more importantly, how did you ensure that no one else found it? Is it possible Miss Parkinson got hold of it?"
"The rest of the message was the conversation with Malfoy, so she'd know why I was going. I put a suspending spell on Draco for a couple of moments so he wouldn't know what I was doing and left it in one of your gargoyles' mouths. Ever since I got the tooth Hermione's been the only other person who seemed to be able to touch it. That's why Uncle Vernon finally let me alone when you sent Bill to help me this summer; he grabbed the tooth and it burned his hand. Everyone else who tries to touch it says it feels as if it burns or bites them somehow, but when Bill took me to the Burrow and Hermione cleaned up my eye she touched it and nothing happened. I thought it would be safe because no one else would be able to easily retrieve it."
"Do you still have it? May I see?" Dumbledore asked. Harry loosened his tie further and slid his fingers beneath his collar, fishing for the leather necklace. He pulled it over his head and carefully handed it over by the cord.
Dumbledore examined it closely, carefully extending a long boney finger to the tip. He withdrew it again quickly.
"Quite the stinging sensation. Interesting, indeed. Miss Granger affirmed for you that she received the information you intended?"
Harry nodded.
"Well, I think we can safely assume that it is unlikely the message within the tooth itself was intercepted. The question remains however, whether Voldemort was, as you suggested, uncomfortable enough with the first part of the message to disregard the rest as you planted it. How… detailed was your memory?"
Harry blushed, remembering giving Hermione a lifetimes' worth of snog points for her efforts down by the lake. "Erm, very. Quite detailed. He was so utterly repulsed by a so-called mudblood kissing me the night he found us together that he almost took my head off getting out. This would have, erm, sent him right round the bend."
"I see. Well, let us hope you, er, succeeded. It would be a most beneficial outcome, though I fear we should proceed as if he had full knowledge of the message, particularly where Professor Snape is concerned. As far as Miss Parkinson's claim, I am afraid the tooth will do us little good if others can not examine its contents. There must be a way to alter the protection upon it. You said Charlie Weasley gave it to you?"
Harry nodded. "Do you think he'd know? He sent me a note with it. He said it was from one of the hatchlings of the Hungarian Horntail I drew for the first task of the Tri Wizard tournament. He said the baby seemed to want me to have it; he spit it at Charlie and wouldn't look away until Charlie said my name. He said it just kept popping into his mind until he said "Harry Potter?" to the dragon, and it sort of nodded at him and went away again. Charlie wrote that the 'tooth of a dragon, willingly given' was supposed to be very potent and used in powerful charms. He never said anything about touching it. I was as surprised as Uncle Vernon when it burned him. It left a mark on his hand."
"If memory serves, Vernon Dursley had just attacked you to get at the tooth. Was his reaction more marked then the others?"
"More noticeable you mean? Yes, I guess it was."
"You wanted him to leave you alone, did you not? You did not wish for him to take the tooth from you?"
"Actually, I wanted him to have the massive coronary he deserves, but that's a bit beyond the scope of what you're asking, isn't it?"
Dumbledore's lips twitched. "I meant only that the most severe response was to one you wished very much not to have the tooth. Hermione, whom you have always trusted and wished to have it, touched it without incident. I wonder if the potency is in fact linked to you." He handed the cord back to Harry. "When you handed it to me before, you were willing to let me see it. What might happen if you actually wished for me to be able to view your message as a means to help you defend yourself against Miss Parkinson?"
Harry held the tooth itself in his palm, focusing on Dumbledore being able to view the memories it held. It grew slightly warm, then cooled within his palm. He handed it back hopefully. Dumbledore took it by the cord and again extended a finger to tentatively touch the tip. When nothing appeared to happen he slowly closed the rest of his fingers around it. Harry watched his old blue eyes take on a slightly dimmed, inward turning gaze. He also realized his headmaster was watching he and Hermione…
Could his life possibly get any more humiliating? Was that Voldemort's secret weapon? Never mind about young Harry, Wormtail, I'll just let him embarrass himself to death!
He reverted his eyes to Fawkes, who eyed Harry sympathetically and promptly burst into flames.
"Well," said Dumbledore, several very long minutes later. Harry noticed the hand that held the necklace was shaking slightly. "You are not just recording images of your memories, Harry. The emotions you experience are inextricably attached and fully recorded as well. Hermione must have received quite a shock when she relived your response to Draco's taunt about using her as a voodoo doll."
Harry felt a pang of remorse; he'd never meant for Hermione to feel that.
"And I admit to entirely forgetting quite the… surge of teenaged hormones."
Harry felt another pang, and it had nothing to do with remorse. "But you do believe me?" he asked.
Dumbledore met his anxious gaze directly. "Harry, I did not need to see that to believe you. Still, I think we must at least try to build you a defense based upon other evidence."
"What do you think she's trying to do?"
"My best estimation would be that Voldemort seeks to see you expelled through Pansy. I imagine he has somehow learned of the incident at your Aunts' house and realizes you no longer claim Privet Drive as home. He may also have come to the same conclusion that I did, that your protection from him there was weakened by his own use of your blood to reanimate his body. Either way, without your Aunts' home to return to, you could be at a serious disadvantage if you were in fact turned out of Hogwarts. He has seen that you grow stronger as well, he may wish to strike at you before you understand your new power."
"How do I fight that? Cho's made half the school believe I'm nothing but his puppet, and the other half either already believed it or thought he was still dead and I'm an attention seeking liar. What can I do?"
"I would throw the onus of proof upon Miss Parkinson. Other than the Department of Mysteries when he was actually in your physical presence, Voldemort has only ever taken you over through the scar when you are asleep. Since he has already discovered you petrified we can surely reveal the Dream Keeper potion and its effect. You could hardly have taken her to the Shrieking Shack fully petrified. Professor Snape can attest to making it and to your taking it. It comes down to word against word, and while your position here is indeed tenuous as far as the governors are concerned, this hardly seems conclusive enough to break the Snorkack's back."
"Wait a moment. If Draco wasn't with us, why did he wake up in the Ravenclaw girls'? Hermione turned him into a ferret and Ron gave him to Ginny. We're pretty sure Ginny and Luna let him loose in the showers. How does he explain ending up there?"
"I can not answer that, but I must suggest that turning Draco Malfoy into a ferret is hardly behavior you should wish to advertise in defense of anything."
"He pushed me down the stairs. It hurt! Besides, Hermione did it, to stop us fighting."
Dumbledore sighed. "Go back to class, Harry, and please, at least attempt to stay out of trouble until I can sort this out. I promise to keep you informed as things progress and to warn you if need be. In the event it becomes necessary you shall go to Grimauld Place for a bit, but I will do my level best to keep that nothing more than a last ditch option."
Harry said, "Thank you, Sir," but it came out as little more than a whisper.
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Harry found Hermione and Ron in the library as he had promised, but knew there was no way he could begin to relate all Dumbledore had told him there without an outburst from at least one of the three of them resulting in their expulsion by Madam Pince.
"We need to take a walk," he told them. "Outside. I'll get our cloaks and meet you back by the stairs."
"Bloody cold for a walk today," Ron grumbled, gathering up his books.
"He wouldn't ask us unless he thought we had to," Hermione pointed out. "Either he doesn't want to be overheard or he thinks Madam Pince is going to kick us out when we hear what he has to say."
They trailed out of the library and headed slowly toward the door. Harry had a lot of stairs to climb.
"So…" Ron said.
Hermione raised a single eyebrow at him.
"So, Harry. How's that going?"
"Fine, thanks."
"Is it… I mean, I kind of thought that… well, everyone sort of thought that you were going to get together sooner or later. Is it what you… I mean are you, unh, happy?"
She started to give him her mini-McGonagall glare, but spoiled it when her lips quivered. She gave up and let a Cheshire cat grin light her face. "Do you know, Ron, the usual evil dark lord baggage aside, the answer is yes. I really am."
He let out a relieved breath. "That's a break then. He's been doing some pretty heavy stuff lately, the wandless thing and all that. I really wasn't looking forward to having to yank his chain if you weren't."
"Not very nice, either, yanking his chain after you flattened his nose."
"It still looks a bit off, doesn't it? I told him he should get Madam Pomfrey to fix it, but he's fed up with the Hospital Wing just now."
"It doesn't seem to bother him, anyway. But thanks for asking, Ron. I'm really glad that, well, that you're okay with it. He needs you, too."
"Thankfully not quite the same way," said Harry from behind them, holding their cloaks.
"Quit crushing a boy's dreams, will you? Where to?" Ron asked, taking his.
"The lake, I guess," Harry told him, holding Hermione's out for her.
They made their way out the door and down the path toward the choppy blue water. The afternoon sunshine was weak and overruled by a gusting wind thrusting clouds in its way and tugging at Hermione's hair. They seemed to almost automatically find their new configuration with Harry sandwiched between them and walked for awhile without need of words. Harry felt himself relaxing to the rhythmic sounds of their foot fall on the path and the warmth of Hermione's hand in its soft, woolly mitten in his own. He hated to spoil it, but knew that time wasn't waiting around for him, either. It never did.
So he told them everything he'd learned.
Ron was predictably outraged at Malfoy and Pansy.
Hermione unpredictably ignored Dumbledore's assessment of her role, ('but if he ever tells you the story about the girl that wasn't me, Harry, you have to promise to tell. I always wondered about that') and focused instead on the riddle. "I think he's right, there's something there in that window. I just can't get any kind of brainhold on what."
"Maybe we're looking at the wrong time. Remember how it said; So seek me through these castle walls/ Search where the light of morning falls/At break of day. Maybe it was a fluke Harry blew it out when he did and it only shows something at dawn. Mrs. Norris and Filch'd be the only ones to see it then, and they don't seem to look up much, if you see what I mean." Ron suggested.
He slowly noticed Harry and Hermione were staring at him with distinctly quizzical expressions.
"What?"
"You just quoted poetry, Ron. By heart," Harry informed him.
"I really want to go to Hogsmeade, Harry. I'm right out of Chocolate Frogs and just about everything else as well. It's been a long friggin' fall, mate and I'm ready to bust this stupid riddle and be done with it. If it's going to help you defeat Voldemort, I could likely spout that Shakesword guy," Ron retorted.
"Shakespeare, Ron," said Hermione. "And it says search where the light of morning falls. It may just have been pointing us to the eastern side of the castle. But you do have a good point; we've strayed away from our two most important clues. The words themselves and how they were hidden to be found. Remember how it said; 'Obscured from those who seek in wrath/But waiting on the righteous path.' And 'Seek me in faith and you shall find/Answers hidden long in time.' Maybe we've got to go about it not at the right time so much as in the right frame of mind. Particularly you, Harry, you've been very down on the whole thing from the first."
"So I've got to walk around the castle thinking righteous thoughts now, have I?" he questioned. "That should attract Slytherins like a magnet."
"You need to stop being so bloody cynical about something that could help you, is what you need to do," Hermione scolded him. "And Ron and I need to follow up on why and when the inscription beneath the divination tower got erased. Now seems like a perfectly good time to me."
They turned around on the path and headed back the way they'd come, the sun setting behind them.
"I still can't believe you used legilimency on Dumbledore, Harry," Ron said wonderingly as the approached the castle.
"I still can't believe I lived to tell you about it," Harry replied. "He was that angry. I've never been on the business end of a wand I dreaded more, including Voldemorts'. He zapped me with something to stop me and I have no idea what it was, but I can still kind of feel it. Like an electric whip. Won't let happen again anytime soon, I can assure you."
They saw Malfoy and Snape leave the castle, heading toward the greenhouses.
"Have you noticed his horns are growing?" Ron snickered.
"I've got to credit you, Hermione. Is it a sort of Pinnochio effect, like every time he bullshits someone his horns get a bit bigger?" Harry wondered.
She nodded and grinned wickedly. "From the look of things he won't be able to hold his head up by tomorrow."
It was the best laugh the three had shared in what seemed like forever.
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