Disclaimer: They belong to JKR, I'm only playing.
A/N: This chapter and next probably should be just a single long chapter, but I'm wary of long chapters. So this week you get two for the trouble of one. Once again, smooches to beta the lovely Ai, and thank you ALL for R&R. And con-crit is VERY welcome. Speaking of which, I've left a couple of anonymous reviews unanswered, simply because I don't know if you'd know if I did. I mean, PK doesn't do email alerts for Anon review-replies, does it? But thank you, all the same!
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--Chapter Four--
Hermione sees him leaning against the wall in a dark corner as the train draws into King's Cross. She gathers her bags, tightens her coat and picks her way wearily through the dispersing crowd. He spots her immediately. His shoulders ease up and he slides his hands in his pockets, walking up to meet her.
She's used to this now and knows it's her fault. He's paying her in kind.
He's in a long overcoat with the collar turned up, making him appear even leaner and taller. His face still bears traces of cuts and bruises; he's too far for her to see them right now but she knows exactly when and where and how deep. He has the body of someone trained to move quickly and lightly, mostly to inflict pain; to hurt before he's hurt, kill before he's killed. Months before the war, the Order made sure that Harry knew how to fight with or without magic, and not necessarily to defend.
But his hair still falls into his eyes and when he smiles, the walls in his eyes fall away.
She tries to hide her gratefulness as he crosses the platform, summoning an expression of great disapproval.
"Harry, what are you doing out here? This is not sa--"
"You missed the train."
"Yeah, and I caught the next one just fifteen minutes later."
"You also left your wand at home."
The disembodied station voice saves her having to reply. Harry never comments on her sudden aversion to magic, unlike everybody else. He takes the heavy bag full of books from her hand and hoists it over his shoulder. The voice chimes off and a whistle blows. He sighs, slipping a contrite hand into hers and the cold recoils back into the night, darkness recedes a step.
Only four platforms are back in operation so far. The station's been colonised by long green construction netting and a shipload of metal. Rain's fogged the high windows. The yellow brick leaches all luminosity from the overhead lights, throwing up a sallow glare. Weary waiting faces breathe out clouds. He leads her out into clear air, ducking around netting, pushing through ragged crowds.
Out in the street, they slow down. The night's full of noises without origin or direction; low hummings and shouts, faint conversations. She thinks she should let go of his hand but doesn't want to. Words have been so blind between them lately, bumping into raw spots and staggering down dead ends but this touch seems simplicity itself.
"So how come you were late for the train? And how's your Mum?"
He hoists the bag up higher on his shoulder and the movement tightens his fingers around hers in reflex. She recounts for him Nick's introduction to Scrimgeour and Mundungus and the events of the afternoon. A car passes them, taking the slick road slowly. It's a non-residential street that backs up against a row of offices so there's little traffic on a Sunday evening. Streetlights perforate the darkness. She finishes her tale with a tired yawn and they walk in silence for a few minutes.
"So, you think Scrimgeour's up to something. Something to do with Muggles," Harry says finally. Hermione finds that if she tips her head just so, it fits perfectly against his shoulder. Beneath the smell of his familiarity, she catches a trace of something oily that she can't put a finger on.
"You know, Hedwig brought the Quibbler today--just after you left actually--and apparently the Muggle prime minister's hounding Scrimgeour for answers. It seems as if the memory charms weren't all that…effective. Many Muggles have come forward and several newspapers are running stories."
Hermione rubs her eyes. "The memory charms were a stupid idea from the beginning. It wasn't some odd leak of magic, it was a complete catastrophe. Some people would never forget no matter how much mass Obliviating went on. How many people did we end up killing anyway?"
He draws a sharp breath like a string pulled through a fresh gash. A moment passes and she waits for his rebuke. It never comes. He continues as if she said nothing out of the ordinary, which suits her fine.
"Do you think Scrimgeour knows that Nick's your cousin?"
"I don't know." She looks at him. "Would it mean anything if he did?" She yawns again.
"Nick's never been my favourite person but I have a feeling he could be heading for trouble."
He lifts a shoulder. "I wonder…is Scrimgeour just making token Muggle friends who just might come in handy to prove a point, or is he trying to keep tabs? I mean, do you reckon he thinks Nick knows more about what happened than the average Muggle?"
Hermione walks in silence for a moment. "I don't know." She sighs. "Nick doesn't know anything in great detail. I had to give him some sort of explanation…but he knows just the basics."
"Just the basics?"
"Yes. Just the basics." Her voice even, she gestures with a carefully vague hand.
The road veers right and becomes narrower, the footpath dropping away.
"What's that on your face?" She squints at him. He turns to look at her.
"What?"
"You have something on your cheek…just here..." Her finger comes away with a smudge of something black. "Is that…grease?"
Harry drops her hand to rub at his cheek. "Ah, must be just dust. I was just cleaning out Buckbeak's room." He rubs harder than necessary. "I…um…I boxed up your books. They were getting damp and tatty from just lying there."
"Oh. Thanks." She wraps her arms around herself. For a moment there, she thought he was going to come clean. But as long as his nightly excursions don't start again, she thinks she'll try not to mind.
Secrets have a certain taste, slightly vinegary at the back of her throat, filling up her mouth like bile if prodded too much, burning when forced back down. And the word covers a multitude of silences--omissions, denials, a million ways of not saying something.
Suddenly, she makes up her mind.
"Harry, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about."
Her voice is quiet but determined. He senses danger. They're only meters from Number 12. Lights are few and far between here; no matter how many times they're lit up, no matter how strong the spells are, every night several burn out.
They pause and he looks at her. She takes a deep breath.
"I think…I think we should tell Ron exactly what happened. At--at Hogwarts."
He heaves a sigh and slides the bag full of books off his shoulder, pushing his hands deep in his pockets. A light falters deep in the house. Many things happened at Hogwarts but he knows exactly what she's referring to.
"Exactly what happened?"
"Yes, exactly what happened."
"Which is?"
She holds his eyes. "This isn't a game, Harry."
"No. Of course not. It's a punishment, isn't it? For all three of us."
"Don't be silly."
He picks the bag up again and walks to the door. The steps are still damp but he doesn't care. He sits down and continues as if she'd never spoken.
"Well, seeing as I'm the one responsible for exactly what happened, punish me. Ron doesn't need to be tortured too."
"Harry, please don't be so drama--"
"Nor you, for that matter."
She walks over, her arms tight around her chest, clutching her handbag. She regrets starting the conversation now; she hates this spot, these stairs. This is where they found her Dad, as they Apparated home in the wee hours of the morning after Harry killed Voldemort.
The door at Harry's back heaves open suddenly and bangs shut again, just as soon. They startle for a moment, then silence settles again. A few lights blink in the other houses along the street, night dripping sooty yellow over rain-slick surfaces. Harry takes his glasses off and grinds his eyes with the heels of palms.
"Do you really think it's going to make Ron feel better? It'll probably be the worst thing we ever say to each other."
She looks away.
"Do you think that just by keeping quiet we'll make it go away? That by doing nothing we'll forget it ever happened?" The door opens and shuts again, loud and irate.
He looks squarely at her, his voice quiet. "It's never going to go away. You know that."
She refuses to let him change the subject, to drag her somewhere she doesn't have the courage to go. "Can you honestly say that you won't be thinking of…that night, every time you look at Ron for the rest of your life?"
"Ron isn't going to be crippled for the rest of his life, Hermione."
She winces. "That still doesn't make it right."
"It's merciful."
"To who? To Ron, or you?"
"Why is this such a problem for you? It's got nothing to do with Ron, is it?"
"It's got everything to do with Ro--"
"Really, Hermione, why is it such a big--"
"Because it IS a problem--"
"Why do you treat it like some dirty, despicable thing--"
"Oh that is so--why do you have to always twist--"
"What the fuck is going on here?"
The door's wrenched open and Ron teeters at the doorway, glaring at one, then the other. A faint whiff of Firewhisky mingles with the cold air and musty smell of the house.
"Whatever you're screaming about, can you fucking do it inside? This fucking door's been banging open at every ferreting mice and beetle and bloody bird all day and it's driving me bonkers! I've had to check at least a dozen times to make sure no one's trying to blast us all off! And then you two decide to have a fucking shouting match out here and if I have to come check on that door one more time I swear I'll blast the bloody thing off its bloody hinge--just--get inside!"
Sighing, Hermione picks up the bag Harry set down and moves into the house. Harry follows in silence. Still grumbling under his breath, Ron shuts the door.
*
The house continues to simmer through the week. Meals are suffered in silence. They have no visitors apart from Hedwig who bears a scroll from Luna. Rain and sleet drive the sun off and afterwards, the street languishes in pale, bruised evening light. Harry spends his time up on the roof, freezing. Hermione hardly leaves her room, a dozen Muggle books scattered haphazardly on the floor.
There are numerous things about his crutch that Ron finds unforgiving; the way it digs under his arm, the way it makes him lurch rather than walk, the way it's become indispensable. Then there's the otherworldly rattle it makes through the house as he tries to go about the necessary, most natural of tasks. Tasks that should not have to be this difficult, complicated, damn near impossible--ones such as spying on one's two best friends.
When he woke up in St Mungo's one indistinct morning after…everything, he found Harry and Hermione on either side of his bed. Hermione sat by the window, staring out and Harry was sprawled in an armchair, head cupped in one hand. Neither noticed him. They looked like they'd been up for days, their eyes gritty with things that would take him a while to remember. He felt like he was strapped to the bed by his own body. He counted three breaths, blinked, and said hey. There was a start and flurry, and then a look--a quick flare of miserable, helpless complicity thrown across the bed at each other, then folded and tucked away neatly before they turned to him.
Ron's been on the prowl for this look ever since. It's made brief appearances but he's only ever caught the wind off its hem as it whipped around corners, out of sight, vanishing down pathways not meant for him. And he's sure The Look's responsible for whatever's eating them up right now.
He's not blind. He sees things they don't, things as they are, but lately his crutch has been getting in the way.
If he can't watch them without being heard from miles away, how is he supposed to figure out what's going on?
So he cleans out his tank and holds a lonely naming ceremony for his fish. It's been more than a month, but he wanted to be sure the names fit. He names the even-tempered golden mollies Josephine and Angus, though he's never sure which is which. The feisty fighting betta he names Gogol, after the author of a Muggle book he's seen among Hermione's collection. With all this, he tries to drive the anxiety away, telling himself that Friday--the visit to his Healer--is still a long way away.
*
Ethelbert Bellamy's office at St Mungo's is a repository of bones. Framed charts with moving diagrams of bone structures take up a good portion of the walls. Further charts are set on the floor, leaning against corners. There's a life-size skeleton, and various hanging devices support an impressive collection of actual damaged bones, both human and other. Ron once wanted to discuss how these came to be in the Healer's possession but neither Harry nor Hermione were particularly keen. Now Ron doesn't want to discuss anything and Harry and Hermione sit dead still, wishing he'd say something. He sits on the pale green bed, back straight, feet dangling off the edge. His face is calm, eyes downcast. A damp smell like upturned earth remains from the ointment used on his leg. Silence blooms along the pale green walls like moss in moisture and shadow.
The Healer's voice is frail, buried beneath his years. "I am deeply sorry. I understand this is extremely distressing for you. But until we find out why the curse is refusing to lift, or find an alternative counter-curse, if there is one, we will not make much progress."
He picks up his wand--unusually pale and long--and sets it back down on his table. Impossibly old, he stoops and trembles a little every time he moves. He clears his throat and looks at Ron from the top of his glasses.
"But this does not mean that I have given up, Mr Weasley. Far from it. Go home and rest. As soon as I make some headway, I shall be in touch."
"In the meantime--" he charms shut the jar of ointment, seals it in a St Mungo's bag and hands it to Ron. "--keep this. That should take care of the pain. If you run out, you only need to owl me."
He turns to Hermione.
"And Miss Granger, I still haven't given up hoping that you will change your mind about that Apprenticeship." He smiles.
"If you need more persuasion, consider your friend here. With your aptitude, you will be a great asset to our team of fumbling old fools who are at a complete loss about a curse that's been around for hundreds of years."
Not knowing how deep a wound he's probing, he holds open the door for them with tremulous effort. Ron gets to his feet with the aid of the crutch, his averted face a warning to his friends. He thanks the Healer and leads the trio into the corridor. There is nothing to be said. The hospital's survived the war without so much as a shattered window. The panelled oak corridors bustle with the same green-robed Healers and the same array of patients with the same assortment of improbable maladies. And down the hall where have they no courage to go, Frank and Alice Longbottom still occupy the long-term resident ward.
Why visit other graveyards when they have their own?
*
The garden is grey with frost, a few blackened plants trying to maintain a scrawny hold on the frozen ground. The path running up to the kitchen door is banked with snow and icicles hang from the eaves and weathervane. Several frozen shirts and an apron hang on the clothesline, an empty basket on the ground.
Ron staggers up and raises a hand to knock but is distracted by a shadow in the window. His mother sits at the kitchen table, a china cup raised halfway to her mouth. She's staring right at him but he doubts she can see him; her eyes are too far away. The window is grimy and fogged, but the setting sun struggles through the glass. Her face is thin and clawed with lines, her shoulders lost in the blouse now too large. The kitchen sink right below the window is piled with pots and pans, dishes and mugs. It's as if he's looking into a tunnel, banked with grey and roofed with cold, running deeper and deeper underground. The curtains are pulled tightly shut in the upstairs windows. Nights would be long here, daylight a mere wing-beat, bright and fleeting.
He gulps in cold air, leaning heavily on his crutch. He's a coward and he knows it. He turns back and stumbles as quickly as he can down the snow covered path. The crutch gets caught on a panel of mouldy wood on the gate. He wrenches it free with an oath. His heart thuds in his chest. By the time he's finally ready to Apparate, the sky's wrenched up the last strings of light, and behind him, far down the lane, the house remains dark.
--end chapter four--