A/N: Despite my euphoria last time, I have to admit I am sad to see this story end. I mean, there is relief, and now I can focus on those Neil Gaiman novels I've been dying to read and my own novel which is suddenly very scary to begin writing, but I am sorry to see it go. I had a lot of fun writing this, as well as moments of hair-pulling frustration when I got stuck or was worried about a chapter and all that. Writing is such awful and sweet torture.
Without further ado, here's the final chapter of this story. I hope you enjoy it as much as you have all the others. Heck, maybe think about this story if Deathly Hallows doesn't go the way we want it? Or maybe not, there are some depressing themes.
Thanks anyway.
Disclaimer: Not mine, and since I watched that Jonathan Ross episode... *abandons all pretence of composure and semblance of dignity, gets down on knees and begs* Please Jo, please don't have killed Harry and Hermione, please let them get together in the end and have twelve children while Hermione becomes Minister for Magic and Harry retires to become a house-husband! Please!
*****
Chapter Twenty-One
I'd never before been afraid of going to school as I was that Monday morning. My first day at Hogwarts I'd been thrilled at the prospect of at last going to the place I'd heard so many glowing reports about. The shoving and shouting reporters, unabashed stares of my new schoolmates and their parents, and looks of concern on the faces of my family did not faze me. That I was to share almost a year with people I did not know, that I was going away on my own for the first time, and that there were many hopes and expectations for my future that I could not begin imagine had been furthest from my mind. I had my new school uniform, school books, a wand and Rigel as a guide, what was there to be afraid of?
Things were different now.
Monday afternoon-which the entire school had off in lieu of the invasion Friday night-I sat on what appeared to be a perpetually mobile bedstead on the upper level of the Knight Bus with Connor, Rigel and three Aurors, and looked to the fast approaching gates of Hogwarts Castle with trepidation. My younger brother had been bitten by a werewolf. Now every month for the rest of his life he was going to become one, transform from a little human into a large animal, and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd been rather brave about it so far, and even after the Draught of Peace finally wore off and we were sent home, but I, and very much everyone else, was still scared.
I couldn't forget the things Uncle Lupin had said, and especially the other things he'd told us that Sunday when he finally had a chance to sit down with Milo and explain what was to come.
With their home gone, my parents had invited the Lupins to stay with us in Godric's Hollow until they found a new one. Grandma Weasley was only just about to invite them to stay with her and Aunt Ginny and Rigel at the Burrow, and she did, but a well-timed argument by Connor and Rigel almost immediately swayed their decision in our favour. Before they came home though, we all took a portkey ride back to their house and I was left staring horrified at the blackened ruin of what had just yesterday been their lovely little cottage.
I hadn't been in it long enough to know all the things they would miss, but all that I'd seen of Connor's tour came rushing back to mind and I couldn't hold back the overwhelming wave of grief that flooded me then. The baby's room Connor had insisted on paying for, the memories of his father's parents and childhood so cruelly snatched by Fenrir Greyback, the memories of his life and childhood that could never be replaced, it was the only home they could get given the Ministry's restrictions.... Compounded by the sight of Connor, carrying his baby sister, while Milo on a crutch hobbled alongside through the salvaged stuff the Aurors had packed on the lawn, which included my school trunk, it was too much and I at once began to cry.
Uncle Lupin took one look at my face and said, "They said they took out what they could, which is everything here, so we can go now and then Tonks and I can come back tomorrow to sort through what we lost."
He'd tilted his chin towards me as he said this, and Dad followed his gaze, saw me and at once came over to envelope me in a toasty, comforting hug. I looked down at my feet, feeling at once embarrassed and ashamed, and he lifted my chin so that I could look at him before he kissed my forehead and whispered, "It's not your fault. This... all of this, has nothing to do with you, any of you. I'm sorry that you had to see this, that you had to go through all of this, but it's not going to happen again. We're going to finish what we started, properly." Then he looked up and said to the others, "Let's go, the longer we stay away from the house the bigger the crowd is going to get."
We then took another dizzying portkey ride directly into the less-snow covered backyard of our home. And while we stood trying to gather our bearings (me, Milo and Connor) or casually discussing the advantages of being able to Apparate (our parents), Mackenzie peered round the side of the house to the front yard and said, "There are a lot of people out there. But they don't all look like reporters."
I followed her to look myself, and indeed found that some were our neighbours, curious as to what was going on, while the rest I did not know. And the reporters, all wizards, didn't seem to mind too much that there were Muggles among them as they stood around talking amongst themselves. Dad came and pulled us away from the wall, "Inside you two, it's freezing."
It was a frenzied half-hour after that before we could all sit down and discuss Milo's situation. Once we were all in and the house sealed, there was a spot inspection of all the rooms and then Uncle Lupin and Aunt Tonks were given the guest bedroom, Zoe got the old nursery and Connor was set to share with Milo. This seemed to please my younger brother to no end, and Dad sighed heavily when they came down the stairs together after Milo showed Connor his room and said to Mum, "I think he's hinting again."
Mum looked to two, thought about it for a minute and then replied, "How about we get him a pet?"
Then Grandma Weasley and Aunt Ginny brought lunch, along with the other Weasleys and their children, as well as a list of emergency items for the Lupins which including loads and loads of clothing. By the time they left that evening it was as if she'd single-handedly replaced almost every item that had been lost in the fire, and then some, like the calendar, kitchen clock and a frog-shaped cookie jar. She had also gotten Uncle Bill to bring along a list of flats and homes for sale, Percy, begrudgingly through the Floo, to promise that he'd see about the Ministry restrictions or loopholes so they could buy one, and Dad, unnecessarily really, to do his best to ensure that it happened. It was scary... but not as scary as Uncle Lupin's discussion over dinner.
The words "pain", "bloodlust", "self-injury" and "precautions" featured prominently and repeatedly. The kettle-whistle screaming that the Draught of Peace had stopped returned with a vengeance.
The next day my parents released a statement in the Daily Prophet as promised, for the papers had all maintained their respectful embargo reporting on the incident, and then Connor, Rigel and I were sent back to school. I wished they'd had better timing; my little brother being a werewolf was not something my schoolmates were just going to shrug their shoulders at and ignore, and especially when they hadn't had a night to sleep on it.
In contrast to my restless mood, the path to Hogwarts was beautifully calm. Under an ice-blue sky, with the fog lifted and fresh snow having fallen overnight, adding yet another faintly sparkling layer to the feet-deep spread already coating everything in sight and much of what wasn't, Hogsmeade in winter looked like the utopian setting of a holiday greeting card. The buildings of the village, which I hadn't really noticed in my anxiety the other night, actually looked vaguely homely and welcoming, and this included Maudling's Menagerie and the Hostel of Ill-Repute. Of the few people who were walking about, who all looked like animated multicoloured church bells, everyone seemed to want to and greeted each other cheerily as they passed, even the drunks, as if they'd all been hit by Cheering Charms sometime overnight. It amazed me how life could go on so blissfully when my world had been shattered forever, and this time I wasn't being melodramatic.
Then I was jolted from my thoughts when a wizard who'd been leering at me for the past hour from a bed across from mine, said loudly, "You're Magnolia Potter... well, bless my lucky stars! Yer a little hero like yer Dad, I read, saved that werewolf teacher's family, I hear! An honour and a pleasure to meet you, Miss Potter!"
He made no attempt to reach across to shake my hand, as I feared he would have done, but tipped his hat and then promptly fell back and went to sleep. I looked to Rigel surprised; he shrugged and went back to quietly glaring at Connor. But Connor when I turned to him was smiling faintly and whispered, "You see, it will alright... hero."
Not at all in the mood to contradict him, I just nodded and turned back out the window. Milo seemed all right, and though Mum and Dad were more than a little nervous about his every breath since he was released, and Mackenzie would not leave him alone unless forced, he had two weeks to the full moon. If anything went wrong Uncle Lupin would be there, if he didn't transform, like I'd been desperately hoping still, we would all breathe a sigh of relief and go back to our lives as normal. Everything would be fine.
I hoped.
The Knight Bus came to a stop with a painful lurch at the gates of Hogwarts and our crimson-robed guardians at once stood and went out ahead to check around. Connor helped me with my trunk and Rigel, not wanting to be left out, took Ophelia's little gilt cage and went first. I looked back to Connor and grinned, he shook his head and whispered, "Let the boy have his delusions... and besides, it's odd to see Weasley behaving like a normal human being."
I swatted his arm and followed Rigel out.
Though the winter landscape was beautiful the air around the castle was as blisteringly cold as it had been that Saturday in Hogsmeade. I at once winced as I stepped out the large purple bus and adjusted my scarf to cover my mouth. Connor merely wrinkled his nose and said, "If we hurry we won't have to worry about it for long."
The head Auror seemed to agree, "Come on you three, the sooner you're through the gates, the safer you'll be."
As the Knight Bus vanished with a "CRACK!" behind us, another of the Aurors unlocked the gates. Then we were hurriedly ushered in and set on a difficult jog up to the castle. I suspected our guardians were not too keen on this assignment, the danger on me being past, and just wanted to be rid of us as soon as possible. I would slow everyone up though, once we'd crested the small rise in the foreground of the castle, when I saw most of our schoolmates engaged in a fierce and wildly fun snowball-fight.
It was a while before the Aurors noticed, and when they did they were not happy. The leader rounded on me in an instant, "What are you doing, Miss Potter?"
I did not hesitate to ask, "Can we stay out here with them?"
They looked over to the snowball fight, just as a tall girl got struck in the face with two large ones, and Rigel scoffed, "Malfoys do not do snowball fights... at least not without magically-fortified snow banks and snowballs."
"Then Malfoy you can go up to the castle with her trunk," said Connor, and then turning to the others, asked, "Can we stay?"
The head Auror still looked upset, "Miss Potter my orders were to take you to the castle and make sure that you're settled in."
"She knows that," said Connor. "But we're through the gates now and the bad guy's gone, so can we stay and play? Please?"
For some reason the puppy-eyed pleading look on his face seemed exaggerated, as if he'd morphed his features somehow to add to the effect, but they worked. After a moment's internal debate the head Auror sighed and said, "We're not bellboys. Who is going to attend to your luggage?"
Rigel lazily drew his wand and banished my trunk to the top of the steps before the entrance doors, then released Ophelia from her cage and banished that too, resting it neatly atop the trunk. Then he turned back to me, and said, "Well that's done; come here Potter, let's teach these plebeians how one properly wins a snowball fight."
And before I had a chance to protest, or Connor to intervene, he grasped my arm and firmly dragged me off towards the others.
The Aurors were left to stalk back to the castle gates, annoyed and alone.
We'd been out in the snow for ten full minutes, in which time Rigel and I had argued more about the ethical issues surrounding partially transfiguring small rocks into snowballs than playing, while Connor sat on a nearby boulder looking on, clearly upset that my attentions had been seized by Rigel, when we noticed that it was rather quiet. It was too quiet, even for winter, and especially with more than half the school out on the grounds playing in the snow. We looked up, confused, and discovered that almost everyone else had stopped playing and were now just staring at the three of us in silence.
We three stopped moving ourselves, and the silence became protracted. I could hear the calls of owls leaving and returning with the mail, the strange noises of the forest and the still frozen lake nearby, and Rigel's breathing as it misted before his slightly opened mouth beside me, but no one moved. All eyes were on us. Some of them had comically frozen in mid-action to look back on the three of us, some had turned right around with their hands awkwardly straight at their sides, and others still stood nervously looking at and then away from us to their neighbours. They were clearly waiting for one of us to make the first move. I had no idea what that move might be though; I had expected something like this but hadn't gotten around to the part about what I would do when it did. And still they waited.
At last, Rigel, unable to stand the attention, and particularly as it wasn't entirely on him, said, "Come on Potter, maybe you should get your trunk upstairs and-"
He was cut off when a snowball hit him squarely in the back of the head and smashed spectacularly, showering him and me with the tiny white flakes. For a moment he froze, and then he whipped around on Connor, who was doubled over with laughter, and knocked him flat off the rock with a large one of his own.
"Hey!" we both exclaimed, but I as I ran to his side and Connor in protest.
Rigel glowered at him, "You don't hit me, cub!"
At that moment he received a double-hit, another in the head and one between the shoulder blades. And when he turned back to see who it was, he was barely in time to duck the wave-like onslaught.
I forgot all about helping Connor to laugh, until someone got my chin and I hastily rolled up one and threw it back. When Rigel and Connor proceeded to do the same we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of hearty snowball fight by the end of which we would all be shivering, wet, missing various items of protective clothing and laughing so hard our sides hurt and we could barely breathe properly.
Connor was right; it was going to be all right.
*
Dinner that evening had its moment of tension when I entered with Connor. Once again we were treated to silence and stares, but here the Headmistress intervened by saying, "And that's everyone, dinner is served!" At once a delicious feast materialised atop every table and hunger did the rest, distracting the attention and allowing us to take our seats quietly. I looked at her at the head table until she looked back at me, and then I mouthed, "Thank you." To my pleasant surprise, she smiled.
Going up to Gryffindor tower at last proved a bit more difficult. I had done my best to avoid doing that since I arrived by visiting with Professor Hagrid for tea in his hut after the snowball fight, but with classes beginning early the next day I had no choice. I still really didn't want to, and in the end had to be pulled along by Kimberly and Aisling, eyes tightly shut and dragging my feet, with Connor chuckling behind. It was wonderful to have Kimberly on my side, and she'd begun chatting with me at dinner almost as soon as I sat down as if we'd all merely been through a bad weekend. But I worried about my housemates, and I worried about the tower, and I worried about being back in a dormitory with the same girls who'd been so apprehensive when I returned at the start of term. Hortense and Aisling were obliged by our family's closeness to be nice to me, but no one else was.
When we got to the tower I had my hands forcibly removed from my eyes, and was pinched until I opened them. The Fat Lady had been returned to her rightful place as the tower guardian, in an all new painting in which she relaxed on a settee in a sun-filled room overlooking some form of Sub-tropical Ocean. She greeted me with a grin, "Well hello... notice anything different?"
I smiled, "It looks lovely... and sunny... it makes me wish it was summer."
She grinned brighter, "Alas, not everyone can be as fortunate.... Password?"
Connor replied behind us, "Adonis."
Her grin was replaced by a flirtatious smile, "Indeed you are...." Then she swung open to admit us and I was shoved through into the newly restored Common Room and gasped, but in pleasant surprise.
Whatever hadn't been completely destroyed had been repaired, the portraits, tapestry and some furniture, and what couldn't be repaired had been replaced. There was a new couch before the fireplace, new tables in the corner beside the window and new curtains on the windows. The rugs crunched wonderfully beneath my boots, there was a new candelabrum above our heads and it seemed to glow brighter than the last and over all was the scent of hundreds of years of sweat and old books and inhabitation had been replaced with a newness that made me smile. It still looked like the old Gryffindor Common Room, complete with our lion symbol over the fireplace, but somehow it felt better.
To complete the effect, Nearly Headless Nick and a number of ghosts were floating about above inspecting everything with varying degrees of approval and displeasure, and I overheard him telling another then, "Chintz? Chintz? Gryffindors don't do chintz! Silk or brocade maybe... but not chintz!"
My Housemates below had looked up as we entered, apparently expecting us, and their silence at last drew my attention and his. He turned and smiled broadly, before saying, "Magnolia Potter! What did I say, like father like daughter, eh?" He tipped his hat-and head-at me and continued, "I was just telling them how I spotted it in you the first day you set foot in this castle. Gryffindor through and through!"
I smiled nervously, embarrassed, and apparently satisfied with this he casually went back to his conversation on the restored furnishings.
But my Housemates still had not moved, and I was on the brink of rolling my eyes and storming off up to the dormitories when the first one began to clap. That stopped me in my tracks, and just as, one by one, the others joined in until the tower was filled with their thunderous applause, cheers, whoops and calls of, "Way to go, Potter!" "Lil-lie! Lil-lie! Lil-lie!" and "For she's a jolly good... Gryffindor! For she's a jolly good...."
Red-faced with embarrassment I allowed myself a sigh of relief, and repeated Connor's words in my head like a mantra, "It will be alright. It will be alright. It will be alright...." It was already looking up anyway.
*
Classes proved to be marginally better, but at first with the help of some of the teachers. Having been welcomed back twice the day before, and everyone having had a night to sleep on my renewed presence, there wasn't silence when I entered a classroom, but whispers and half-smiles. Then the teachers distracted us all with lessons as usual, reminding us that the end of year exams were still on and that we had a lot to learn before that.
Eoin stated then that maybe I should have held out a little longer so that they would have been and Kimberly gave him twitchy ears for the rest of the class.
The only teachers I could not count on for help turned out to be Professor Hagrid, who could not help but greet me with a broad grin and a pat on the back that nearly felled me face-first into the snow Tuesday morning, and the OGB, who'd gone back to his old routine of pretending I didn't exist. But this was not until he'd managed to inform the entire class that I was to have "remedial" Defence lessons with him over the weekend.
I gave him my sweetest smile then and reminded myself to learn a good hair care spell or something similar before that. As he passed my desk later, inspecting potions, he whispered, "Five points from Gryffindor for cheek, you know what I'm talking about."
Wondering how on earth he'd known what I was thinking I gritted my teeth and muttered my mantra like a curse, "It will be alright. It will be alright...."
And by Friday it was. Everything had more or less gone back to the way it was before my last Hogsmeade visit at Christmas. I had classes and homework, I was harassed by Eoin-who really did seem to have a crush on Aisling, weird and unnatural as that was-Rigel strutted about the school as if he owned the place, and Kimberly gossiped at bedtime about various people we knew and stole my romance novels from my trunk. Of course now I also had a much better relationship with Connor, and Camilla, who though as aloof as before, had a new familiarity with me that was most likely wholly engineered by my knowledge of her secret.
Out of school, Ophelia brought letters from home in which my parents informed me of Milo's condition and reassured that he was fine. There was some fuss in the paper about the Ministry attempting to refuse a war hero a new home just because he was a werewolf, which started a difficult and at times outright offensive debate in the editorial section of the Prophets, which then died down to nothing when the Minister announced that there was no law stating that Uncle Lupin could not buy a new home. Fenrir Greyback had a list of new charges tacked to his already long list and put to the head of those to receive the Dementor's Kiss. And then Dad and Uncle Lupin were photographed attending the funeral of the man who attacked us, and quoted demanding that this never happen again.
The universe had been righted, and all that held my attention now was the Ravenclaw-Slytherin match that weekend and the hope for another spectacular Slytherin-Gryffindor face-off for the Quidditch Cup.
And then, true to form, I destabilised it again.
*****
I'd all but completely forgotten about the conversation I'd been having with Connor the evening of the attack at his parents' house. But given the events that interrupted us and my anxiety over the transition back to school after that this was understandable. Having to listen to Kimberly's heavily embellished version of those events to our dorm-mates Friday night quickly reminded me though. She had begun to get a little too carried away with the details of what Connor and I had been doing before the fire, and I interrupted her to protest, and then remembered what we'd been talking about. He hadn't quite gotten around to explaining what had happened between him and the OGB after he began his private lessons with him.
Very early the next morning I slipped out of the dormitory to catch him alone before breakfast. As usual he was busily sketching at a desk in the corner, and looked up with a smile the moment I stepped down into the Common Room as if he'd been expecting me. Maybe he had been, for we hadn't had any time alone since that night in St Mungo's which had been rather dramatically interrupted by my father the next morning. My ears still rang slightly from his rant.
I smiled back, and then hurried over to his side, but before he could kiss me in greeting I said, "You know we never finished our conversation."
He stepped away from me at once, at first puzzled, and then said, "No. We didn't."
I could tell that he was less than thrilled that I'd decided to bring it up again, but I said still, "I need to know, Connor. I trust you, I do, but this... it's important to me... it's important that I know what's going on."
"Is it really?" he asked, quietly.
"I'm your girlfriend, aren't I? I want to trust you but something about this... it worries me, so I need
the truth," I replied honestly.
He sighed, and after a long moment said, "We can't talk in here... come on." He at once began walking towards the portrait hole without waiting for me to follow or bothering to cover his work. Less confident that one of our Housemates wouldn't decide this the perfect day to be up early, I quickly tried to cover everything with a binder and a book, checked it twice to make sure nothing looked suspicious, and followed him out.
He was waiting for me just out the portrait hole and asked, "What were you doing?"
"You left everything uncovered; don't you care that someone would notice?" I asked.
"They wouldn't," he replied simply then turned and led me back to the same hidden room behind the statue down the hall. And the moment the statue closed in behind us, said, "A long story short, I've been trying to find a cure for the werewolf curse."
I stared at him, wide-eyed.
He stared back.
I did not move, just stared.
He started to get uneasy, rubbing the back of his neck and flicking his gaze to his feet and back again to me a few times. Then I blinked, cleared my throat and asked, "What?"
He exhaled slowly and began to explain, "Remember what I told you about finding out about my Dad?" I nodded. "Well, during the time that I was being tutored by Professor Snape, I'm not even sure when, but one day I just wondered whether there was a way to cure the curse. If you can find a way to tame it, then surely you can find a way to cure it altogether. But Professor Snape was less than enamoured with my idea. He said `greater wizards than I have attempted and failed to find a cure, do not presume that you, a nine year old boy, can do better'. Well I'm the boy who decided to create a comic book to try to stop people judging a werewolf by their curse, so I thought that working my way to a cure was nothing."
I started shaking my head at him, still shocked by his declaration. "B-but... it took them years to get to Wolfsbane... and even then they say it was partially an accident...."
He smiled, "I was nine and given the big responsibility of learning to brew a difficult potion my Dad is supposed to take every month for the rest of his life. I thought I was invincible."
I couldn't help but return his smile, but then asked, "How's it worked so far?"
He exhaled slowly, "What do you think?"
I gave him my best look of sympathy, hoping desperately that it did not appear as patronising as it felt, and then something came to me. "How... `invincible' did you feel?"
At this he walked away from me to the furthest corner of the room, and staring directly at the corner, replied, "Enough to the point that...." He stopped, exhaled heavily, and then continued, "Do you remember that I told you that I'd gone to visit Stan and Lana in Bulgaria once? Well last spring when my father went to Romania on a mission for the Order I went with him and visited them again. Of course they were both at school, but their father got me into Durmstrang to see Stan and we... I took advantage of the situation to peruse their library."
Then he turned to face me, with a certain anxiety and silent plea in his expression that made me puzzle over his statement in my head. He went with his father on a mission, left him to visit his friend and while there decided to "peruse" his friend's school's library? The Durmstrang Institute was a magical school for boys, with barely any difference to Hogwarts except for the somewhat menacing appearance and horror stories that seemed to surround it, despite and as a part of its renown, and the fact that it taught the Dark Arts where we....
I stopped. Then stared. Then my jaw dropped as what he'd implied fully hit me.
He started to plead immediately, "Please understand, I would never, ever do anything to harm anyone else. I just thought that if ordinary magic didn't have anything that could help, then maybe... maybe it would. The students of the Durmstrang Institute are taught the Dark Arts and as far as we know not very many of them have gone on to become Dark Wizards. And some of the books had more information than we have here; werewolves are considered Dark Creatures after all."
I shook my head at him fervently, "They're considered Dark Creatures more for their uncontrollable actions, for the fact that they can and will kill indiscriminately and spread their curse in their bite. You should know that, you're the one who created a comic book to help end the stereotypes. Oh goodness, please tell me you just read the books...?"
He looked away from me at once, "They gave me ideas. Since the cure would obviously have to be in the form of some kind of potion, there were things I found that suggested certain ingredients. Ingredients I could find in Diagon Alley or... Knockturn Alley, or could barter or something from someone with access to them. I hit a dead-end pretty early on though, so I decided to stop... un-until I got more information...."
I could barely believe my ears, and enraged, I at once demanded, "How could you do this? How could you do something like this? Do you know what they would do to your family if anyone ever found out? They may teach the students at Durmstrang the Dark Arts but it's banned here and in many other places for a reason! Your mother's an Auror and a Metamorphagus, who, though they're not considered evil would most certainly be distrusted after that, and your father's a werewolf! They would take your baby sister away just to start!"
"I know, I know, but it was worth a try!" he replied, looking back to me. "Nothing else was working and I thought that it could help me. And besides, we have been really careful so far, no one else knows anything."
"Rigel knows," I said, "or at least suspects for he's the one who set me on this. And who's `we'?"
At the mention of Rigel he gave me a look of wide-eyed surprise, clearly he didn't know that. But then I had asked another question, so he replied, "`We' are Stanislav, Camilla and I, we're the only ones involved and I'm keeping it that way so if we're ever found out you and... you and Rigel can deny everything under Veritaserum and you wouldn't be lying."
I was still reeling from the fact that Camilla was involved. The same Camilla whom I believed would definitely know better than to get involved in anything to do with the Dark Arts given her genealogy. Where they would separate and imprison at varying lengths Connor's family, Camilla would most certainly be Kissed, and even if she hadn't actually done anything. But Connor did not know this, and I decided that the reason she hadn't come up with some excuse not to get involved was because of that. I asked then, "How did you arrange it? How do you... do what you do secretly?"
He sighed, "The comic book. There are runes in the pages that-"
"-no one else can read," I completed for him. This earned me another look of surprise, but I continued, "Do you know that some of your fans have noticed them? Milo told me about them while we were in Nice, said that Carl found them in the book when he used his sister's wand on the pages."
He shrugged, "They don't have the key so they can't read them, and the keys are like snowflakes, no two are alike. They change every time to a new set of runes that I send the key for disguised as an ordinary letter or note or message, and charmed, thanks to a helpful textbook via Camilla, for our eyes only."
Once again I was treated to an example of his brilliance and was left standing in awe. He really was a very smart, scary smart boy, able to come up with the most ingenious schemes and execute them in a manner that would certainly earn the respect and befuddlement of the Wizengamot when they brought him to trial. I just stared at him then, unable to think of an intelligent response and wondering if I was capable of one to someone like him. Then at last I asked, "Do you honestly think you're going to get away with this? I mean, I'm not going to tell... I promised, so I won't... but do you honestly believe that you're not going to get caught and sent to Azkaban for the rest of your life for this?" I felt a sharp pain in my chest at this, and the beginnings of tears in my eyes, but I suppressed both with a sharp, deep breath and asked, "Even if you do find a cure, if you used Dark Magic to get it they won't welcome you with open arms. What do you think they're going to do to you?"
He didn't look scared, he just replied, "I'm trying to help my father. You heard what he said, but I got to see it, I grew up with it. After I found out about his curse I noticed, I saw everything. The pain, the exhaustion, the fear, the self-loathing in his eyes... that's my Dad, he and Mum are trying to be brave and strong for me but I heard him tell her once that he sometimes wished for death rather than go on like this. Wolfsbane may tame their minds, but it hurts still to transform and then though you're tame you're still contagious so they have to lock you up, and to do that for every month for the rest of your life.... I wanted to stop it.... Don't you want the same for Milo?"
Glaring, I said, "Don't bring Milo into this. Don't try to use that to-"
He took a step towards me, his voice low, and almost angry, "I would never, ever try to blackmail you into-into anything. I'm not Rigel."
Unconsciously I took a step back, then gritted my teeth, stepped forward again and protested, "Rigel is not-"
He cut me off, "Why did he tell you this? Is there something that you're gaining by knowing about this? I didn't want you to know so that if I was ever caught you wouldn't get into trouble! He told you, if he knows as much as you're implying, he told you just because he knows that you-that it will make you... stay away from me...."
The tears came now, blurring his face before me as they raced down my cheeks, but I shook my head vehemently at his statement and said, "He didn't tell me anything for any personal reason you may think he has... I made him tell me because I was beginning to wonder myself!"
He looked up at me surprised and disbelieving, but I continued, "The day Uncle Lupin was attacked in the Shrieking Shack, when you came back to the castle with him and Professor Snape took you down to the dungeons, I took my Dad's Invisibility Cloak and followed you. And there I heard you speaking, and he was scolding you for what you'd done, and some of the things you said... it made me wonder. As the attacks continued I wondered if you'd somehow had something to do with them... not intentionally, but.... I wondered what you'd done and I made Rigel tell me."
He stood staring at me silently a moment, his own eyes almost as teary as mine, and then he said, "I'm only doing this to help my Dad. So that he wouldn't have to suffer for any longer than he already has.... What you overheard with Snape... three months into my lessons with him he began talking about me having to learn to defend myself. I was just a little boy and couldn't quite control my magic but with the right guidance, his guidance, I could do anything. After all, I may have to kill my father one day... to protect myself and my family if all else fails." I gasped, looking at him in horror. He gave a grim smile, "Like I said, it was rather strange that after one meeting, the usually distant Severus Snape is willing to give me lessons, me, the son of one of the four men who tortured him throughout his childhood. He didn't even care for my mother, so why teach me? But she needed me to learn the potion and he repeated those words like a mantra every time he saw her until he wore her down. And then the first extra lesson with me he said, `You must understand that your father may one day... slip in his potion, and should he you must know how to defend yourself. You must not give him the chance to kill you first.'"
That explained quite a few things. I asked, "Why didn't you tell your Mum?"
He shook his head, "I couldn't. She might have believed me but what good would that do for Dad?"
"But why tell you those things, why not just mix poisons in with his next dose of Wolfsbane?" I asked.
Again he shook his head, "They would trace it right back to him. And he takes pride in his potions, so he won't do that. No, he has a different kind of poison; he would turn me against my father by giving me books and recounts of the experiences of others with werewolves. He didn't care for being subtle but he wasn't entirely overt, and knowing that I was probably too scared to talk anyway.... And then he would contradict himself, like what you heard in the dungeons. If I ever dared to go along with his ideas, to give voice and simple sentences to the things he'd been teaching me all along he would take offence, say that I was being insolent and that I was spoiled. It makes me wonder sometimes why he did it, why he wouldn't just poison my Dad and be done with it like he clearly wants. But those are the times when I think Rigel is right, that he just likes the idea of me being under his wing, like a thorn in Dad's side for all the things he and his friends put him through. He'll be rather disappointed if he ever found out that I don't care for him as much as he'd like to believe."
Silence fell in the hidden room after that, to the point that the only other sound was that of our breathing as I tried to process everything he'd just told me. Rigel was right, Connor had meddled with the Dark Arts and from what he said I could assume h was going to do it again. But there was a good reason, as always, it was for his Dad, who his teacher was secretly trying to poison him against.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions, not bad ones. All men mean well. Voldemort didn't, Arthur MacNicol didn't, but this one did. What right did he have to do this to himself though? It should not have been his responsibility to try to take care of his whole family. His family shouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
I wished I'd never asked. But I wouldn't be me if I hadn't. At length I said, "I don't forgive you for this... I can't, but I won't tell."
For a moment relief flooded his eyes, but then the anxiety and apprehension returned and he asked, "A-a-are you going to leave me? Because I understand-I would understand... I know that I have done something terrible to you and everyone else, but I have.... So... you know... is it over?"
Once again my heart seized painfully, and I had to swallow to stop another rush of tears, as I replied, "I don't know. I only came here intending that no matter what it was you told me I was going to keep it a secret, but beyond that I don't know.... You're playing a dangerous game, and if you don't get caught first, you could be killed." I stopped and swallowed the urge to cry again, then replied, "I can't deal with that. I care about you too much to be able to... and I'm just fourteen, I can barely deal with the fact that people who want revenge on my parents could come after me, and you want me to face the reality of watching you hauled before the Wizengamot and imprisoned for the rest of your life? I can't deal with that, I just can't."
I then turned and walked away to the statue door of the secret room. It swung open immediately, and with a groan that echoed frightfully throughout the silent hall. But as I began to walk out I heard what I thought was a sob, and turned around to find Connor slumped against a wall, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head in his hands.
I wanted to say something, I guessed that I should, but I knew that I couldn't. My family and many others had suffered because of Dark Magic, and that was not something I could just forgive or ignore.
So without a word I turned again and went back to Gryffindor tower, which was thankfully still deserted, and quietly returned to the girls' dormitories. In there it appeared that everyone else was still sleeping, and for that I was grateful for I knew that one look at my face would bring questions and sympathetic Connor-bashing that was unwarranted and unwelcome. I walked to my bed, climbed in under my counterpane, and curled up into myself facing the window.
The sky had brightened to a gentle grey-blue so that I could now define the mountains that surrounded us and the flags on the Quidditch stand flapping in an early wind in anticipation of the match today. Somewhere in the dungeons Rigel was anticipating it too, and more so than normal for Ravenclaw, in a display of questionable intelligence, had decided to send up a new Seeker against them, a twelve year old Second Year boy. Most certainly they were hoping that his age would make him to be insusceptible to Camilla's charms on the field. Too bad Hufflepuff had made the same unfortunate mistake against them last year.
I wished I could join him in that excitement again like I had been at the Ravenclaw-Gryffindor match, back when I was innocent of so many things. Before I had known Connor, and despite the embarrassment I'd faced at not knowing personally the child someone my family often counted as a friend. But then, Aisling and Hortense and I were not exactly close.
I knew far too much now.
I sighed and did my best to dry my face on a fold of the counterpane and looked out the window again. Then paused and sat upright sharply at the sight of a large scarlet and gold bird flying off towards the western horizon. It was Fawkes, of that I was sure, but where was he going? And especially before he'd done whatever it was he was supposed to do in relation to me like the Headmistress and Professor Dumbledore believed he had come to? Or maybe he had come to someone else?
It was just as well; I'd had more than I could take already, and pretending that everything was fine until I found some way to get over or forgive Connor was already unbelievably difficult as it was. So I lay back down, shut my eyes, and though it was now late January, wished for spring.
Fin.
A/N2: The second story of the trilogy may not appear for some time, but I kind of want to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before beginning that. I'm too nervous and anxious to do anything else now. For answers to all those things I left hanging in this story though, I hope to see you for the second part: Úlfhéðinn: Milo Potter, age 10, Squib.
But don't feel too bad about the wait, it's for a good cause. Maybe one day you'll see my original novel, Dark, about an albino girl and a haunted school-which will be much better than it sounds now, trust me-in a bookstore near you. For now I go and take a nice long nap. Cheers.
Review please.
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