Unofficial Portkey Archive

Shadow Walker

Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time.

-Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

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Is it safe? Is it safe to land? `Cause I'm not going far on an empty heart.

-Jars of Clay, "Safe to Land"

Chapter Thirteen:

Somehow amid their heavy breathing and the splashes caused by their flailing limbs, he heard her shocked gasp of recognition. His demeanor subtly changed; faster than she could say, he had a wand out and aimed in her general direction. The angle canted slightly, but even as she tried to control her noises, he had adjusted his aim to align perfectly with her. A muttered oath escaped his lips, and he couldn't stop the wand from vibrating with the force of his shaking hand.

"Expelliarmus!" The spell was not chorused entirely in unison; his was a heartbeat ahead of hers, and her wand soared out of her hand. He managed to catch it with an adroitness that recalled summer days astride a broom and glints of fleeting gold.

"Harry, stop! It's me. It's me. Give me my wand." Her babbling was nonsensical; she knew that, but couldn't keep from spewing words at him. It's me? If I'm here, in phase, then he most likely has no idea who I am. How long have I been gone? Was I ever here?

"I don't know you." The harshness in his voice was mitigated somewhat by his chattering teeth.

"Someone who would never intend you any harm. If you'll give me my wand, I can get us out of the water."

"I can get us out of the water." His words were short, knee-jerk, defensive.

"And land us where?" She strove to keep her voice gentle, yet could still see the tightening of his lips in the weak light of the crescent moon. Without further comment, he thrust her wand back at her, just a bit off, but the way he oriented himself using his other senses was nothing short of remarkable. Mimicking his silence, she modified a Levicorpus to whisk them back onto the bank, and he had cast Drying Charms over both of them before she could even register the biting wind. "Thank you for saving me," she offered, once the silence had gotten beyond awkward. He snorted derisively.

"I didn't save you."

"But you have."

"Who are you?" The frustration was back in his voice, and she realized how hard it probably was to have to doubt the veracity of everything around you.

"My name is Hermione Granger." She had been deciding that he did not know her, had never known her. His other senses were honed too sharply; if he'd known her, he would have recognized her voice, and he clearly did not.

"Are you from the media?" His voice was so very wary that she wanted to laugh.

"No, I'm not. But I do know you, Harry Potter."

"That's not so special. Everyone thinks they know me. Thanks for getting me out of the water." His upper body moved jerkily, rotating back toward the town, as his feet carefully searched for purchase on his next step. He aimed his wand at the ground, casting a spell that she did not know that would act - she assumed - the same way a cane did for a Muggle.

"Wait!" The word tumbled from her mouth before she meant it to, because when he turned back, she realized that she had nothing to say to him. "I've … I've got nowhere to stay in town. Do you - do you know a place?" She could have torn out her own tongue, cringing at the desperately casual tone in her voice. His eyes may have been clouded and inexpressive, but there was a sardonic, knowing tilt to his mouth that irritated her.

"There's a bookshop in town. The witch who runs it lets rooms on the two floors above it." He offered this information with an air of reluctance.

"That's where you live?" Dammit, dammit, dammit, she chastised herself. She could see the tension evident in every sinew of his body. Too eager, too ingratiating. He does not know you, Granger!

"No."

Most people might have added a scrap of explanation: but she's a good friend of mine; I live on the outskirts of town; my school chum stayed there once. But apparently, Harry Potter had never been `most people'… in any universe. The silence stretched out, long and exceedingly uncomfortable. Hermione felt the blood heating her cheeks, the fact that he could not see her notwithstanding.

"Just head for the center of town. It's right across from the pub, and next door to the apothecary. You can't miss it." These words were called back over his shoulder, with an attempt at off-handed friendliness that did not fool her at all.

"So that's it? You're just leaving me here?" She winced again, as he pivoted slowly back towards her on one heel. Her mouth had evidently decided to just completely leave her brain out of the decision making process.

"You are in possession of all of your faculties, aren't you? I don't understand why you would need any help in returning to the village." His voice was all haughty annoyance. He almost sounds like Malfoy, she thought, with a bit of distaste. And yet, there was something there, hidden in the depths of his clouded eyes, slinking behind the irritated mask - something that she recognized, that called out to her as fundamentally Harry. Somehow she knew that, despite what he wished to publicly project to the contrary, he was still Harry. It was this faint glimmer of something that kept her from using the crystal right then, washing her hands of this alien universe and this sad, angry man.

She straightened herself, mustered her dignity as best she could, and quietly said, "I would like to walk back to town with you, Harry."

He hesitated, and she could see the slightest bit of relaxation in his posture, a chink in the diamond-hard Protego shield he kept around himself. He also let out the sigh of one much put upon.

"Fine." He surrendered with ill grace. She put herself near his elbow, hoping to be able to catch him if he stumbled, but tried not to encroach on his personal space. The sound of the river faded behind them, as they ambled along slowly, Harry's wand constantly scanning the ground before him. "So, you say you know me. How is it that I don't know you?" His tone was deceptively casual; he was trying to catch her in her lie.

"That is a very long story." She tried to laugh, but it came out with a bitter, discordant note. She felt, rather than saw, the curious glance he threw in her general direction.

"I've got time." His tone sounded just as acrid as hers. Hermione felt a pang of sympathy for him. The Wizarding world was not known for being understanding of its heroes or accepting of their humanity. She wondered what it had done to a handicapped victor.

"Your name is Harry James Potter," she replied, keeping her voice cool and level. "You started to Hogwarts in 1991. You were in Gryffindor house, and were the youngest Seeker in 100 years. You love treacle tart… your favorite color is green…" She began slowing down, trying to think of things that had the best chance of remaining static, preferences that might have stayed the same no matter the altered circumstances of this universe. But he cut her off.

"You could have seen any of that in any of the articles before or after the War. You could have seen it in any of the news coverage they plaster everywhere, every time another attempt to fix my eyesight fails. They really are profoundly unoriginal. And none of that tells me why I don't know you anyway."

"My name is Hermione Granger. And in another - in another universe, Ron Weasley and I were your very best friends."

There was the barest of hitches in his gait to go along with the sardonic twist of his mouth.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my stalker is a nut job. I was the best in my year in Defense," he added in warning. "And I could still hold my own fairly well, if it came down to that."

"I'm not crazy. There are multiple universes and multiple versions of ourselves. The Unspeakables have a room in the Department of Mysteries plotting them. I'm from a different one, where we were… friends." She cleared her throat roughly to remove the tight strained feeling. "I've been… traveling for a while, and I've met several different versions of you, as well." He cut his eyes toward her reflexively, but seemed to accept her story with relative equanimity. The Multiverse room itself would be easy enough to verify, she supposed.

"Are you an Unspeakable then? Doing research on the Boy Who Lived?" He seemed determined to think the worst of her.

"No!" She wanted to stomp her foot in frustration. "I was your friend - I am your friend. The Harry in my universe was killed, even as he killed Voldemort. And then the world went to hell… so… I left."

"And you ran away - I assume you're not a Gryffindor?" There was a odd, savage note in his voice. "Why would you run from a fight?"

"I was too in Gryffindor, thank you very much. And I left because I had nothing left to fight for."

Harry huffed air out through his nose, and shook his head. "Wish I'd known that was an option," he muttered, half to himself.

"Did you - you said there was a War. You were the Boy Who Lived. That much is at least consistent. Did you defeat him then?"

"I did." There was no pride or satisfaction in his voice, just the barest confirmation of facts.

"And… Ron?"

"He's been my best mate since that first day on the Hogwarts Express. Still is." His gaze grew momentarily fond and distant.

"So, it was just… just the two of you, then? At the end?"

The reminiscent expression on his face abruptly changed, becoming stony and closed.

"We were the ones who were left." His words were cryptic, and Hermione knew there was another layer of meaning that she was missing. The scant amount of camaraderie they had dredged up between them seemed quite gone. The lights of Godric's Hollow were starting to come into view; she could see the dim outlines of the first few houses. Someone else stood with them, she thought, someone who is no longer here.

"So, what changed for you? Why didn't you go to Hogwarts here?" His voice was peremptory, and she got the feeling he was asking without really caring what her answer was.

"I don't know. Maybe I was never born, or I died young, or was a Muggle. If my alternate ever did exist, she's not here now. If she were, you wouldn't know I was here at all. You wouldn't be able to see, hear, or touch me…"

"Two out of three's not bad, right?" He interrupted her, with another humorless laugh, and she realized belatedly what she'd said.

"What happened…" she asked gently. "To your sight, I mean." She hastily tacked on, "if you don't mind my asking."

He sighed, indicating that he very much did mind, and shoved his free hand into his pocket. "Voldemort was dead." He said it with the air of a bored storyteller who had repeated the same tale many times. "One by one, the Death Eaters began to fall, incapacitated by their Dark Marks. As he went down, Dolohov caught me across the face with a curse - something purple, they're not even sure what. Mrs. Weasley says I almost died out there on the green…"

Almost died out there on the green. Hermione saw it again, the bodies strewn across the battlefield, felt the rising surge of euphoria, when she realized Harry had won - and then the horror of seeing Voldemort and Harry, prone, breathing in sync, and somehow knowing without knowing what was going to happen next.

"Aren't you coming?" Impatience threaded through his voice; she had stopped walking, and he had realized it only a step or two beyond.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed noisily. "The Battle - it's still - it's hard to think about sometimes. Go on."

"Well, they saved me, but they couldn't save my eyes. And lucky for me, it's a persistent curse too. Affects every restorative potion or charmed implant they try." He occupied himself with adjusting the spell on his wand, as they entered the village and the terrain underfoot changed into cobbled streets. Night had fallen completely, but the streets were well honeyed by lamps, and people bustled about, finishing up their last orders of business for the day. Hermione caught one or two surreptitious glances their way, whether at her or at Harry, she was unsure, but most people seemed to take his presence in stride.

They had reached one of the main intersections in the heart of town, and Hermione had just spotted the book shop to which Harry had been referring - rows of lighted windows could be seen above it - when she heard a familiar whoop that made her heart soar.

"Oy, Potter! Some of us have lives you know, and can't waste them waiting around on your sorry ar - " The voice cut off abruptly, and Hermione guessed that she had just come into his view.

"Hallo," Ron said, cordially enough, although the tone of curious surprise was all too evident. "Harry? You want to introduce me to your friend?"

"She's not my friend," Harry replied. The immediate and succinct response jabbed painfully at Hermione like a sliver in her thumb, even knowing the irrationality of it. He doesn't know you! "She fell in the river. We helped each other out. Why don't you have a drink with her? I'm knackered. Good night." The spew of speech had come at them staccato and rapid-fire. Ron was still standing there with his mouth hanging open, when Harry spun on the spot and Disapparated with a rifle-crack.

"I - I - I'm Her - Hermione Granger," she stammered, only barely remembering to proffer a hand.

"Hallo, Hermione Granger. Ron Weasley," Ron responded, with a twinkly grin, shaking her hand. He tossed a glance over his shoulder, presumably in the direction Harry lived. There was a kind of baffled amusement in his eyes. "He seems quite taken with you." The genuine laughter that bubbled suddenly from her lips surprised her.

"You're joking! How does he treat people that he doesn't like??"

"I'm really not. He hardly ever Apparates. Says he doesn't care for the turning and the landing somewhere … er, well - blind. And I think he talked more just now than he normally does in a week."

"We talked the whole way back from the river. He - he mentioned the Final Battle… and - and you… and what happened to his eyes…" She trailed off, as Ron let out a low whistle, shaking his head and looking impressed.

"That is incredible! We've all tried so hard and - " His words and smile were still friendly, but a kind of suspicious hopefulness had crept into his blue eyes. "We should talk more over those drinks."

"And you can try to suss out if I am who I say I am, and how I'm trying to take advantage of Harry, right?" She had astonished him with the accuracy of her statement, and it made her laugh again. "I'm glad he has you. No matter how difficult and moody he gets, he can always count on you, can't he?"

"Do - does he - does he know you from somewhere?" Ron was squinting at her now, utterly befuddled. She hooked her arm in his, and pulled him toward the pub across the way.

"Come on," she smiled, a gaiety that she had not felt in a very long time infusing her voice. "You're going to need to sit down for this."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"So… you're saying that there are infinite versions of … of us out there in infinite universes - doing Merlin knows what, and the Unspeakables know about it." Ron looked flabbergasted, gesturing with one hand, while the other curled around the handle of his stein. Several empty mugs dotted the table between them. "Bloody hell."

"Yes. I had no idea at all, until a Harry from another universe found me. He was looking for his universe's Hermione - she'd been sent off and stranded as some kind of revenge plot by Bellatrix Lestrange - "

"You mean Malfoy?"

"What?"

"Bellatrix Malfoy. Rotting in Azkaban last time I checked."

"Where I'm from, Lucius Malfoy married her sister, Narcissa. Bellatrix was married to Rodolphus Lestrange." She eyed him speculatively over the rim of her tankard, remembering Draco Malfoy at the head of the Aurors come to arrest her - or execute her - and her cabin subsequently engulfed in flames. She couldn't help feeling somewhat satisfied that at least the younger Malfoy had never existed here. "Do they have any children our age?"

"Who? Malfoy and Bellatrix?" He continued at her nod of confirmation. "Yeah… Vega." He said the name like it was someone she ought to know.

"In my universe, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had a son our age, named Draco," Hermione informed him patiently, trying to figure out what she wasn't getting.

"You said that Harry told you… told you about the Final Battle. He - he didn't mention Vega at all?" Ron sighed heavily when Hermione shook her head, swearing under his breath and taking a long quaff of his ale.

"He told me that he'd killed Voldemort… and that Dolohov hit him with a curse even as the Death Eaters collapsed, that it almost killed him. It's - it's rather similar to what happened in my universe. Harry had killed him… but Voldemort had - had some kind of spell - a link - between Harry's life force and his own. I still don't know what it was, but when Voldemort died, Harry went with him." She took two or three shuddering breaths, visibly trying to hold back tears.

Ron watched her in sympathy. After a moment of silence that probably seemed longer than it actually was, during which he apparently came to a decision, he began speaking again.

"Our first year in school, we had this nutter for a Defense professor - actually had Voldemort growing out of the back of his head, if you can believe that," Ron began.

"Quirrell?"

"Pettigrew." Ron slanted another sideways glance at her. "Anyway, Vega had been very upset the whole first month of school - she was this shy, pretty little thing… got sorted into Hufflepuff, and apparently, her parents were not very nice about it."

"A Malfoy was in Hufflepuff?" Hermione's eyebrows soared near her hairline, and Ron snorted.

"That was the reaction everybody had. Vega spent most of her time alone. The Hufflepuffs were scared of her, Slytherin made fun of her, and the other two houses shunned her just because of her parents." He shook his head, seeming to remember his own actions, using the pause to take another sip of his drink. "On Halloween night, Pettigrew decided to use the feast as a distraction, so he could go and try to steal the Sorcerer's Stone that Dumbledore had hidden in the castle. He could turn into a rat; he was - "

" - an Animagus, yes, I know."

"Anyway, Hagrid had his three-headed dog guarding the trap door, and seeing the rat - well, I guess it got sort of enraged. Vega had been hiding up there nearby, crying, and - well, Pettigrew escaped through a hole when Fluffy went berserk, but the dog smashed the door into pieces - it practically exploded out into the corridor. Vega was pinned. Somehow Harry missed her at dinner, dragged me up there, and - well, we managed to get the door off of Vega and get away…"

"Let me guess: Wingardium Leviosa." She smiled at Ron's double take, but her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. "You and Harry saved me from a troll in the girl's loo that Halloween. Using that very spell. We were best friends from that day onward."

"'Swhat happened with us and Vega too. We had our spats, of course. Harry kept everything bottled up inside, and I talked too much. And Vega - changing her mind after she'd set on a course of action… well, sooner try to Accio the rock of Gibraltar. She had it hard though. Harry always understood her better than I did, I think. Her entire family were Dark, always had been. Once they'd gotten adjusted to the shock that she was a Badger, they started trying to think of ways to use it to their advantage. And once they heard that she was close friends with us - well, that was just extra sugar on the quill. She was under an incredible amount of pressure at home. Harry was sure that she was being abused."

"He'd be able to recognize those signs, wouldn't he?" The musing was made quietly to herself, but Ron caught it and nodded.

"Things came to a head sixth year. The tension was unbelievable. Dumbledore had Harry off doing things that he wouldn't talk about. Nobody in the Order trusted Vega, and she knew it. She started muttering things under her breath about how if people were going to believe certain things about her, she might as well make them true."

Hermione leaned forward in anticipation, thinking of McGonagall's white face, looking decades older, as she paced in the common room, waiting for her students to come down for breakfast. Harry and Ron had exited their dorm only a few minutes later, and had immediately flanked her, knowing from their Head of House's stricken eyes that something was very wrong. She had hooked Harry's elbow when his knees buckled at the news of Dumbledore's death, poisoned by a bottle of mead - a Christmas gift, of all things. The whole plot was later found to have been arranged by the Malfoy scion.

"What did she do?" she whispered almost breathlessly. Ron exhaled a mirthless half-laugh, and finished his ale, clunking it down noisily on the battered table top.

"She fell in love with Harry, that's what. And he fell in love with her." He almost laughed again, and his eyes were distant and filled with a regretful nostalgia. "Of course, the whole school had been whispering about the three of us for years, wondering who she'd end up with. I never looked at her that way… and I'd thought Harry hadn't either. Looking back, now, I wonder how I didn't see it." He struggled with what to say next, and finally asked, "Did your Harry play Quidditch?"

"Yeah, he was one of the best Seekers a Hogwarts game had ever seen. He talked about playing professionally one day, when everything was over…"

"True here too. We all played. I was Keeper for Gryffindor, and Vega was a Hufflepuff Beater - shocked the hell out of me and Harry, when she told us! She was good too. Couldn't ever bring herself to aim a Bludger at Harry when we played `em though. Once got a foul called on her for clocking her own teammate, when he did it - Hooch didn't know how to enforce the foul once she'd called it, though! The last game of the season, sixth year, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were playing. We already had the Cup, nothing Hufflepuff could do about that, but… Anyway, Peake hit a Bludger and the other `Puff Beater blocked it. Ricocheted right toward Harry, and he had no idea it was coming. Vega streaked over there - faster than the Snitch, Seamus said - tried to use her bat low to block it, but miscalculated or something. The thing caught her in the upper leg so hard that it snapped her broom in half too, and she was falling…" Ron seemed to be watching the scene play out in his memory as if it were a movie. "It happened so fast. The teachers fired a couple of spells that missed. I had blocked the Quaffle, and only knew something was wrong when nobody cheered - and then Harry… Harry went into a dive that was almost straight down, lost his glasses; the twigs on his broom were smoking. When he caught her, he was so low that he tried to kick off the ground to change their direction, and damn well broke his leg. By the time, we all made it to the ground, they were sort of cradling each other - you could tell they were both in pain - and Harry sort of yelled at her, like he couldn't decide whether to throttle her or not - `You are so stupid!'. And Vega smiled, and said, `Yeah…' And he just grabbed her face and - well, I'm not really sure who kissed who first. In front of the entire school." He grinned wryly. "Never let it be said that Harry ever did anything by halves. We were just lucky that McGonagall was too busy trying not to cry to take points!"

Hermione sat introspectively for awhile, rotating her mug absently with her fingers, trying to imagine the story the way Ron had told it.

"She died in the Battle… saving him, didn't she?" Her voice was hoarse with unshed tears. Ron nodded and looked away, clearing his throat unevenly. Hermione reminded herself that, in a way, he had lost both of his best friends that day.

"They were engaged. Harry had proposed that Christmas. He couldn't ever really get shut of the weight of the world, but there were times that he looked fairly well besottedly happy. And I was so glad for him, Hermione." He startled her with the familiar use of her name. "I thought we might pull it off after all." He tried to take a drink, but realized too late that his tankard was empty. "The Battle was all but over. The Death Eaters knew it. We knew it. Harry's wand locked with Voldemort's. With all his Horcruxes gone, Harry was clearly the more powerful. Almost exactly as he finished him off - Lucius Malfoy was sneaking up on him, intending to AK him in the back. I was dueling Macnair at the time, and didn't see all of it, but people told me. Vega had been injured in a duel and disarmed, but she threw herself in front of the curse. Her own father killed her. It all happened so fast." He unwittingly echoed his earlier Quidditch story. "Then Voldemort fell, and then Dolohov got Harry, and we nearly lost him too. When we knew - when we knew he wasn't going to die, then I had to tell him what - what had happened to her." He clasped his hands in front of his chin, and stared unseeingly at the table top. "Worst experience of my life, bar none."

"I know how you feel," Hermione sighed, thinking of Harry, collapsing like a marionette with cut strings. She leaned forward slightly to lay her hand atop his. There was a beat of companionable silence. "It's really good to see you again, Ron."

"So… er, what happened to me? In your universe, I mean."

"We broke into the Ministry. Ginny had been arrested, and we got her out. There was a broom chase, and Ginny fell. You went after her… I never saw either one of you again. Malfoy had taken it all. The other Harry convinced me to leave… to see if I could find a place I could belong."

"It must have been hard for you," he said, surprising her with his perceptiveness, "being left all alone."

"It was all for nothing. Voldemort was gone, but the wrong side still won. And I lost everything that mattered."

"Are you going to stay here?"

"I - I don't know. It's all so different - I mean, each universe has been different - in its own way, but - I just - I just don't know if I could do it."

"How do you mean?"

Hermione fidgeted in her seat, twining and untwining her fingers, before finally deciding to be honest with him.

"He's so… different here. So bitter. And - and - " she looked almost desperate to make Ron understand. " - I'm not her."

"Ah." Ron's noise was one of comprehension. "Ah. I get it. You were in love with him." Hermione pressed a fist to her lips and nodded, her gaze looking somewhere far away. "So… you're not just looking for somewhere to belong… but for someone to belong to - a Harry to belong to." She nodded again, her face aflame. She sounded so pathetic, she thought in a fit of self-loathing. "How will you - how do you do it, anyway? Cross into other universes, I mean."

"I have a necklace. You can set it to a specific universe, if you know the rune. Or you can leave it unset, and you'll just drift through the universes, like a - like a leaf in the wind, I guess." She hooked her thumb behind the gold chain around her neck, and used it to pull the necklace out from under her shirt. The pendant swung from the suspended chain, and caught the lamplight, flashing a prism on the opposite wall.

Ron went ashen, looking more as if he'd come face to face with an assassin than a lonely woman with an odd necklace and an odder story. Hermione released the chain, so that the crystal lay against her breastbone, and leaned forward with concerned entreaty.

"Ron, are you all right?"

"Sweet Merlin!" He exclaimed. "You… y - you - you're… We didn't think it was true. She's a right old loon most of the time."

"What are you talking about?!"

"She who came from an alien world, inundated, wearing a necklace made of starlight. Desolate she, the lioness, and her season desolation, known by the bard, but unknown by the world. A usurper she, claimed and claiming, but flung away. The Chosen One cannot call her back to life."

Hermione and Ron both looked up in surprise, for neither of them had spoken the verse. There was a disturbance in the air around the bar stool opposite their booth, and Harry appeared, wadding up a bundle of silvery material in his fist.

"Eavesdropping, Harry?" Ron chided him, with a playful wince. He slid over to allow Harry to join them, guiding him with only the barest of touches to his elbow. "That's a little beneath you, isn't it?"

"But eavesdroppers always hear such interesting things." Harry speared Hermione with a look that was almost piercing enough to make her forget he could not see. She felt a momentary pang of guilt that they had discussed his loss in such graphic detail, that she had called him `different' and `bitter' - like I'm such of ray of sunshine myself.

"What were you saying just then? Were you quoting something? Was it - was it a Prophecy?"

"Yes," Harry said, forestalling Ron, who had just opened his mouth to answer, and then looked at Harry with unadulterated surprise. "Professor Trelawney made it during our fourth year. There's more to it than that, a lot of other vague mumbo jumbo - I have it written down somewhere…"

"What he's not saying is that's the bit we both memorized because - because - " Ron was looking at Harry with a mixture of compassion and guilt.

"You thought it was about Vega," Hermione surmised quietly. Harry's face twisted into a nearly savage mask of pain.

"We - we wondered…" Ron filled in. "Because of her parents and her house, how she didn't seem to fit anywhere. But there were bits we couldn't explain, parts that didn't fit and that we still don't understand. Then after she - after she was … gone, we wondered if maybe Trelawney had meant her after all."

Hermione reached across and laid her hand atop Ron's once again; then she did the same to Harry, who stiffened, twitching his hand reflexively. She thought he was going to yank his hand away, but after a moment, it stilled, though he seemed to be keeping it there, under her touch, by sheer force of will.

"I know that you have never solved a problem with me before. But I have solved many a problem with the two of you. We can figure this out, I'm sure of it."

"But it says," Harry was speaking with a sort of strangled intensity, forcing the words out between teeth that were almost clenched. "It says `The Chosen One cannot call her back to life.' If it means you… that doesn't - you could - "

"I've got the two of you with me. That's something that I thought might never happen again. I'm not afraid." Her lifted chin and confident tone were offset by an involuntary gasp that was tacked onto the end of her sentence. Harry had turned his hand over, so that her fingers were clasped securely in his, and she felt his touch all the way up her arm. From the look on his face, his impulsive action had surprised everyone at the table, even himself. She opened her mouth to say something, but emotion closed her throat. Her smile was both tremulous and joyful.

For the first time in five years, Ron felt a spark of hope ignite.

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