(A/N: Two chapters ago, a short chapter. Last chapter, a longer one. This chapter, a shorter one again… but my wonder-beta MirielleGrey persuaded me that the chapter has to end as it does. She also gave me the idea for the title. Thank you, Miri.
One of the lines here was adapted from a similar line by Spider Robinson… but I think he got it from Heinlein, so I'm clear.)
(Disclaimer: That's not my Epilogue. Those aren't my interviews. And I definitely don't deal in anvils. So no, I'm not Jo Rowling, and don't own any of this.)
*
"Coming Back Late"
by Paracelsus
*
VIII: Discovered Check
*
Rose Weasley's thoughts were whirling as she tugged on one of Ted's elbows. The interviews in Professor Longbottom's classroom… the revelations about Ted, and Harry Potter! Ted was actually working to protect the greatest wizard who ever lived… The Boy Who STILL Lived! And, Circe, was that her own mother?! Wow, was she ever brilliant, but… wow. Rose promised herself, then and there, that she was never going to cross her Mum ever again, or even try to hide anything from her.
The Veritaserum was still causing a certain grogginess: Ted was stumbling and trailing behind the two witches. They had to help him back to Gryffindor Tower, one on either side, and it was slow going in places - particularly on the trick staircases. It allowed Rose to play back the interview in her mind.
Finally, her curiosity got the better of her. "Teddy? How do you know it's Harry Potter?"
"Mm. What do you mean, Rose?" Tori asked. She seemed distracted, as though half her mind were somewhere else.
Rose shrugged. "Well, Teddy's never seen Harry Potter, right? Really, when you think about it, this could be any wizard… saying he's Harry, talking like Harry, maybe even looking like Harry… but how would any of us know?" She tugged on Ted's arm again. "I'm kind of surprised Mum didn't ask you. So how do you know?" she asked again.
With a direct question put to him, Ted had to answer truthfully… but that didn't mean he had to answer responsively. "Things he's said. Things he's given me."
"Oh. You mean, like the book he gave me?"
"Yes."
"Why did he give me that book, Teddy?"
"I asked him to."
"You did?" Rose's heart soared. "Why?"
"To remind him of his past."
"Oh." Rose could make very little of that answer. After a moment, she went back to a previous topic. "So what did he give you, to convince you he was Harry Potter?"
"A Map."
Rose regarded Ted quizzically. "What's so special about a map?"
"He said it was from one Marauder's son to another." Ted struggled to set a brisker pace forward. He needed to shake off the effects of the Veritaserum as quickly as possible - and warn his godfather that his cover was about to be blown sky-high, just as soon as Hermione got the exhumation order from the Ministry. He had a day's grace, at most…
The trio's progress came to an abrupt halt as Tori stopped short. She gave a gasp, and her bright blue eyes widened… then narrowed dangerously. With more force than necessary, she swung Ted around to face her. Seeing her expression, he was uncomfortably reminded that Veela powers included the throwing of fireballs.
But she spoke pleasantly enough. "Rosie, you're going about it all wrong. You can't ask open-ended questions, or you're leaving him a loophole to wriggle through. No, this is how you do it…" She considered very briefly. "Teddy, are you a metamorphmagus?"
He blinked… he certainly hadn't expected anything so innocuous. "Yes," he replied readily.
"You can assume other human forms?"
"Yes."
"Even female forms?" Tori took a step closer and lowered her voice. "Anatomically correct female forms?"
Uh oh. "Yes."
"Have you ever done so in the girls' shower?"
Sweat broke out on Ted's forehead. "Yes." Please don't ask, please don't ask, please…
Tori took another step closer. He could feel her body's warmth, see the honeyed smile on her face. "Was I in the shower at the time?"
Oh God, she figured it out. That damn birthmark… If Ted could have metamorphed his vocal cords into silly string at that moment, he would have done so - but the Veritaserum wouldn't let him. "NNnnnnnngggggggyyyyes."
With her fingertip she tenderly caressed his face, smiling sweetly all the while. She lowered her voice further, and told him in seductive, dulcet tones, "You are so dead, they'll have to bury you twice."
*
In the Headmistress's office, Hermione stared at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, trying in vain to think of a response to what it had just told her.
Professor McGonagall found it for her. "You manipulative old bastard!"
Dumbledore looked pained. "I've been guilty of many things, Minerva, but acquit me of that at least."
"You've always known Harry's Cloak was a Deathly Hallow," interjected Hermione. "And now you tell me that you hid the Resurrection Stone in the Snitch you willed to him. Making sure, of course, that he could only retrieve it when it was too late to help him. I open at the close. Yeah, right."
She strode up to the portrait and jabbed a finger at it. "And now you're saying that you also always knew that Harry was a Horcrux! Before we read his farewell message, you knew! And you always expected him to die facing Voldemort! No wonder you never taught him anything that might be useful in your lessons together… like, oh, how to fight! Sacrificial lambs aren't expected to fight!"
"My hope was that Harry himself would realize the need to be, as you put it, a sacrificial lamb," replied Dumbledore. "If he went to his death willingly, the deep magics of his mother's protection would keep him alive. He had to die, to destroy the Horcrux within him, but it would not be a permanent death."
"No, of course not! It would only be a little, temporary death! Hardly even an inconvenience!" Hermione turned her back on the portrait and stomped away angrily.
"But if he had returned from his… temporary death," put it McGonagall, "would Potter have been able to summon the Elder Wand from Voldemort's hand? It did go flying during the battle, but we all assumed it was due to a random Expelliarmus charm…"
The portrait looked grave. "Let us hope not. Not one man in a million could safely be trusted with all three of the Deathly Hallows. I certainly could not have been… I could not even be trusted with only two of them. It's why Severus and I went to such lengths to insure that the Wand would lose its power forever."
"Saying nothing to me about it, as usual," McGonagall retorted. "And just how did you plan to accomplish this?"
"By choosing to die of my own free will, in the manner of my choosing. Had I, the Wand's master, died undefeated, killed by Severus at my own request, there would have been no successor master."
"But that didn't happen!" Hermione had spun around and was facing the portrait again. "The Wand still had plenty of power in that last battle. So somebody, somewhere, must be the Wand's master." She looked away, eyes unfocused, as she considered what she'd heard. "But… but if he didn't die… and if he chose as you did… oh my God, of course he would. And that's why…"
She drew a deep breath and looked up at McGonagall and Dumbledore. "That's why he left."
*
That night, Ted lay in his bed with the curtains drawn, as though he were trying to sleep - but sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. He was, after all, still fully dressed, even though in bed... and he'd brought with him the two items he'd need to warn Harry.
The evening had been painful enough. Tori had wasted no time in conferring with all the other Gryffindor girls, who sent many a furious glare in his direction. Now every single one of them was giving him a shoulder so cold it could freeze the fire in the fireplace. Even Rose was refusing to speak to him… as though he'd even be in the first years' shower! Geez, did they think he was some kind of pervert?
He'd conscientiously limited himself strictly to fourth years and above. Not that anyone seemed to appreciate it.
The one silver lining in the toxic waste dump that was his current life was that Tori and Rose had kept his Veritaserum dosage a secret. All the girls, mindful of his "offense" (Ted's thoughts insisted on the quotes), would have taken advantage of his current state to ask all sorts of incriminating questions, if they'd known. And the guys, if they'd known, would have been curious to learn all the details of the girls he had seen in the showers. Not that Tori hadn't cowed them into shunning him tonight, too.
Ted had no doubt that, within a day or two, he'd be experiencing a much more… palpable… retribution as well. He couldn't suppress a shudder at the thought.
If you're ever taken captive, don't let them give you to the Veela.
Snores from the fifth-year boys' dormitory were beginning to compete with one another. Cautiously, Ted opened his curtains a crack and peeked out. No one looked awake; no one was suspiciously motionless in pretended sleep, either. Silently Ted emerged from his bed and crept to the window, the two items in his hands. He opened the window wide, checked his dormmates again to insure they still slept, then stepped onto the windowsill.
In one hand he held his mobile phone; in the other, his Levinbrand, that worthy successor to the Firebolt. Ted mounted the broom and jumped off the windowsill into the midnight sky.
And headed straight up.
People always accuse me of breaking the rules, he thought with a mental grin, when all I really do is test their limits. Well, usually…
The phone, like any advanced electronic device, wouldn't function at Hogwarts at all: even if there were no active magic being practiced near it, there was simply too much ambient magic in the castle itself. If he tried to use his phone anywhere around the school, its circuits would fry. And leaving the school grounds, of course, would earn him a detention.
But if he flew high enough, he could get far enough away from the castle to allow the phone to work - while technically never crossing the boundaries of the grounds. The big question now was, how high was "high enough"?
And he dared not make a mistake, and ruin the phone. He had to warn Harry - and he'd only get one chance.
So upward he flew, until he could see the lake and the forest shrunken at his feet, until the chill of the air began to be painful. Ted remembered another trick he'd learned: he metamorphed his lungs, enlarging them like those of Himalayan sherpas or the natives of Peru. He continued to breathe normally now, even at his current altitude. (What was it, a mile? Mile and a half? He shouldn't go too high, or he'd have no signal strength.)
He had to risk it. Cautiously, he turned on the phone's power. It seemed to be all right, which was a good sign. He dialed the number Harry had given him… listened to the ringing on the other end.
For emergency use only, he reminded himself. Well, this certainly qualifies.
Ringing. Ringing. Still ringing. Harry, please, for your own sake, wake up and answer the phone!
*
Motionless. Perfectly motionless, Harry sat on the edge of his bed, "listening". It was the only analogy he had for the extension of subtle senses no human could fully appreciate or understand. He didn't understand them himself; he only knew what they told him.
Somewhere very close, someone was dying.
It was a relatively peaceful death, a gentle departure for an elderly man. A slowing of the heartbeat, in sleep. He was… he was in one of the rooms here at the inn. Very close to Harry. Very close to death.
Moments like this served to remind Harry that the two were not one and the same. The moments had been rare, in the years since he'd acquired the Deathly Hallows, but they'd happened often enough for him to know what was happening. Death was at work, and Harry must not interfere.
He could neither speed the old man's passage, nor prevent it. And he knew better than to try.
There. Harry felt it brush over him and through him, soft as down feathers, colder than interstellar space. The departing soul, journeying to… Harry couldn't say. He'd always felt as though the soul should be traveling up or down, but no: it passed through, like a bird winging through the empty sky. The idea diminished him, in some nebulous way.
He shivered slightly. Death could not find Harry, wrapped as he was in the Cloak - as he always was, these days - but its presence was always disquieting. Whenever he sensed someone nearby succumbing to Death's touch, Harry took care to remain alert, quiet, and inconspicuous.
So when his mobile phone on the dresser began to warble, he was understandably startled.
Probably the manager of the restaurant, wondering when I'll be returning, he thought, returning to the mundane. He rose from the bed and stepped to the dresser. He's just about the only person who'd be calling me… who even has my mobile number…
But as he picked up the phone, the display showed an entirely different number: one given him by his godson less than a fortnight earlier.
Hurriedly, Harry peeled the Cloak away from his head and neck so that his voice could escape. He accepted the call. "Hello? Ted, is that you?"
"Harry! Thank Merlin you're awake!"
Harry didn't bother to mention that he hadn't been sleeping. "Ted, I'm warning you, if this is about one of your pranks gone wrong, or anything less than the direst…"
Ted interrupted him. "She knows!"
Harry paused. "Who knows, Ted?"
"Hermione knows! Everything! She came to Hogwarts tonight and I had to take Veritaserum and she made me tell her that you were still alive…!"
Harry started to speak, but Ted overrode him. "And yes, I tried the trick you showed me with the pouch in my throat, but she knew about that too! And she said she was going to dig up your body tomorrow and show it wasn't your body, which would prove it to everybody!"
"All right, Ted, calm down," ordered Harry, knowing now he had to wrap up the conversation quickly. He glanced around the room at the few of his belongings he'd unpacked - he didn't want to abandon them if he didn't have to, but he couldn't use magic to Reduce them for transport until the phone was safely turned off.
"What's done is done," he went on. "I don't blame you, so don't you blame yourself. If Hermione dosed you with Veritaserum, you really had no choice."
"But… but…" Ted sounded distraught. "But they know! McGonagall, and Longbottom, and Tori's parents, and Gran! How'm I supposed to explain to Gran that I was spending summers with…"
"With your godfather," Harry finished firmly. "Just tell her the truth, Teddy. It won't matter: they still won't find me. I'm afraid this means I won't be contacting you at Christmas after all… and I don't know when I'll see you again."
Now Ted sounded positively wretched. "But… I'll still be able to call you, won't I, Harry? I mean, if something else happens? If I take precautions and everything…?"
"Ted, I plan to ditch this phone the moment we hang up. So I really have to get going…"
"Wait, hold on, Harry, it'll be okay. We can still talk, really. I told you, magic can't track through phones or the Internet, right? It's impossible - the magic crashes the system. I mean, you must've learned that at Hogwarts, same as I did…"
"Ted," Harry said with emphasis, "if I learned anything at Hogwarts, it was to never underestimate Hermione Granger!"
"And yet somehow," came a hard, cold voice from behind him, "you keep doing it."
The bottom dropped out of Harry's stomach. Slowly, not hearing the buzz of static from the now defunct phone, he turned in place. Hermione was standing at the foot of his bed, her face a mask carved from furious stone, her wand's glowing tip pointed right at his head.
Fifteen years of exile had just been thrown out the window. His two worst fears were now realized: Hermione Granger had found Harry Potter - and the Master of the Deathly Hallows was being held helpless at wandpoint.