Disclaimer: I do not own any characters herein.
Author's note: Here's the next installment. I hope you enjoy it, and again thank you all so much for reading an responding. Many of you have given me comments and criticism that have helped this story to grow for the better. I appreciate it so much. As I said awhile back this is the first time I've ever written a fan fiction. So again, enjoy and let me know what you think.
Ginny looked at him dazed. Neville had just told her that as great as the news was it meant nothing. Sure they had found the campsite, and okay it was very likely that Harry had been there, but where was he now. It was great that Neville could always find where Harry had been, but they were never going to catch up with him that way. Neville hated to bring down her good mood, but what else was there? She was the leader and she had to make the calls. Neville stared at her with a strange mixture of love and pity.
"So, yeah." He began, "Basically we need to do something better if we're ever going to find him." Ginny seemed to mull it over a little before finally she laughed despite herself. Neville furrowed his brow in concern.
"Are you okay?" He asked in his polite way.
"Yeah, no, I'm fine." She responded between giggles, "It's just kind of funny, you know?"
"It is?" He really had no idea what she was talking about.
"He couldn't go anywhere without being recognized for how many years? Now he's somehow learned to disappear completely?" She shook her head, "How does someone learn how to fall off the grid like that?"
"Steep learning curve." Neville said too seriously to not have thought about it more than once, "When we were in school, Harry had never so much as seen a quaffle or a seeker in his life, he had never thought anything about magic. He worried so much about his grades because of the learning curve he had…But he always did well. He adapted like few can." Neville paused to let it sink in to her before continuing;
"Harry's not like your normal wizard. He's not content to follow the rules or keep his head down. If he's told it can't be done he finds a way. If someone had told you that one day you would have to face the world's most powerful dark wizard what would you do?"
"I don't know." Ginny said. She had never really thought about it before. Like everyone else she just always assumed it was Harry's job to save the world. She never thought about what that meant for his character.
"Well, we know what Harry did." Neville shot back, not vindictively, "He rose to the occasion so well that no one ever questioned that anyone but him should do it. That's why we can't find him. He doesn't want us to." Neville knew that talking up his girlfriend's ex was not the smartest move he had ever made, but Neville had a lot of faith in Harry Potter. He always had. This however, regardless of anything else, had to be said.
"So that's it then?" Ginny looked lost, "Where do we go from here?" Neville gave her a long thoughtful look. If he could tell her he would, but there was a reason she was the leader and he was the detective. She was a damn good leader, and everyone followed her.
"That's up to you, love." Neville sighed. Ginny looked up at the beaten boards running through the rafters of the hotel the DA was staying. She knew the answers were not in the groves of the course wood, but she found some comfort in a lived in place. It reminded her of home. She missed home more then she let on. Slowly the tears building in her eyes began to fall down her cheek. She only ever cried in front of Neville.
He reached out and wiped the tear from her cheek before resting his open palm there. She leaned into the warmth of his hand and smiled so deeply it reached her eyes. She mouthed the words, "I love you." to him. Their secret romance was wearing on them in public. With the DA she would always be determined to find Harry because she loved him. She did love him, but no longer romantically. She had thought Neville was a rebound but he had become so much more to her. She felt naked when he did not sleep beside her, she felt lost without his touch, she ached for him in a way that she now realized she never did for Harry. She put her small hand in his free hand. With a gentle squeeze she began to lead him back to her room. He knew where they were going and he never objected.
It wasn't about sex for him, though that was a great bonus. He needed to be around her. He had loved her for so long from afar that when she began to love him back he questioned his sanity. He would always worry though. She had been Harry's girl, they never talked about whether or not those two had slept together. He would always compare himself to Harry, who wouldn't. He trusted her love. He had to, or he'd be totally lost.
* * *
Harry stood on the balcony watching the storm rolling in. He used to like the rain, now it had darker connotations. It didn't just mean Voldemort it was more. His leg hurt when it rained. He had re-broken it in an effort to put it right, and it had improved his ability to move. He was almost back to normal, but the healed bone had a dull kind of pain when the weather went sour. He stared down at the couples in the area as they hurried to get out of the rain.
He had put several charms on the room, as well as the scary stuff Hermione had added, had made their activity in the room go unnoticed. One spell Hermione had cooked up had made the entire staff of the hotel forget the room even existed. Because of the new freedom they had to move about Harry found himself on the balcony more and more. He would people watch or he would just let the breeze hit him while he sat to think. Today he watched the couples. He envied them. He could hardly imagine a love story free of guilt or responsibility. He couldn't picture being able to love Hermione as freely as these people did.
His nose had set incorrectly. It was now crooked and much wider than it used to be. It had changed his face dramatically. He hardly even recognized himself most days. He found it unnerving. The exercises that Hermione had given them weren't panning out the way they were meant to. Harry wished he could figure out how to do it. He wished he could speed the process. He had so far only been able to control the way his hair grew. Never the style, only the length. Which Hermione said was promising, but not necessarily any indication that he was getting it.
Lots of wizards could do that sort of thing, Harry himself had done it once before on accident when he was very young. He sat back in the chair on the balcony and began to concentrate on his features. He had no mirror, but he had spent so much time in front of the mirror of Erised his first year that he had a pretty good idea what his basic facial features were. He thought about it as hard as he could. He thought he felt changes beginning on his face. But when he reached up to feel his nose it was still the mangled disaster it was only moments ago. Eventually he gave up and began to let his mind wander. He knew where it would end up eventually so this time he didn't fight it. He let himself think about her.
The way her hair fell across her nose when she laughed. How the small of her back had a hallow that was the perfect fit for his hand. How her fingers would push slightly against him when they made love, like she was trying to find her way inside of him. She was all he could think of. He regretted the early arguments, he regretted making her cry, he wished it could all be different. But it couldn't and everyone knew why.
Suddenly when his thoughts sifted something happened. He was no longer looking at the couples running through the coming rain. He was looking at a mirror. He knew the reflection better than he thought he should. He was seeing through the Dark Lords eyes again. He concentrated on his occulemency and felt himself slipping out of the dark lords body. He saw the back of Voldemort's head and knew he was standing incorporeal in the room. He looked around. It was raining outside this drab place. It was always raining. Harry could feel the cool air on Voldemort's skin. He knew the place was drab. It was also stone, and it was far away. Harry knew that Voldemort was conflicted. He had killed a man to find something that still eluded him. Harry smiled at the evil bastards predicament.
Outside the rain began to slow. Harry wondered if his happiness had changed the weather. As though he was truly equal to this evil creature. The very thought was both uplifting and totally repellent. Harry knew of the strange bond between him and this monster, but refused to except it. Harry was disgusted with himself and the rain began to pour again. Harry could no longer stand being in this place. He pulled himself back more until he was once more in the ethereal white space.
Voldemort floated as though in his flat screen somewhere behind Harry. Harry looked around. He had been here once in a dream. With Dumbledore. He instinctively looked for the old wizard before he remembered that Dumbledore was gone. Harry let out a long sigh. He instinctively spread his arms out and filled the space with many view screens. In each one a different mind was showing him images of their lives. He saw a man holding his son for the first time, he saw a teenager raging behind the wheel of a parked car because his girlfriend had left him, he saw an old man given to despair that no one really knew who he was. Hundreds of people living their lives were displayed before Harry.
He didn't know how he had learned to do it but he had become a master of the art which for so long had eluded him. He smiled briefly. He had a feeling that his love for his old mentor had tapped him into his hidden power. Love. "The power that he knows not." Harry moved his finger to rotate the screens. He was looking for something specific. The thought had only just occurred to him. He knew a way to figure out the new skill he needed to learn how to master. He rotated until he found her. The one person in the world that he knew could give him the kind of insight he desperately needed.
Then there see was. She was looking with unbound love at the man she loved. A middle aged wizard with too many stress lines. Lupin. She was looking at Lupin. Harry had found her, he had found Tonks. He pushed his face through the screen and began to sift gently through her memories. It wasn't hard to find a moment when she had used her latent skill. Harry viewed the event through her eyes for the first time. He felt her reach for a hidden power in the back of her mind. He felt her access the information. The hidden code lines inside the human body that wrote DNA/RNA sequences. He felt what it was like to shift them.
Harry shifted back out of the screen. He swore he would apologize to Tonks for the invasion one day. He hated himself for doing it, but he had a war to win. He closed his eyes and reached for the pocket of information. He searched for minutes. The world around him faded and once more became the balcony of the hotel room. He felt the scar on his forehead burning and was vaguely aware that he was sweating and clutched in a fetal position on the floor. The pain of being dragged to Voldemort was physical so he hadn't felt it while he was a specter in the void.
Harry pushed through the pain and continued his search for the codes. Ron and Hermione were huddled around him. He had missed that somehow. They were concerned for him. They were shouting questions and sympathy. They were trying to move him. Suddenly Ron jumped back and pointed at Harry's face. Harry opened his eyes and saw the shock register on Ron. He shifted his gaze to Hermione. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Harry reached up and felt what he had hoped to. His nose was normal again. Harry had figured out how to become a Metamorphmagus. It was possible. It could be done.
Now all he had to do was teach his friends.
* * *
Neville felt her weight on his arm. She had been laying there since she had gone to sleep. He moved his naked chest into her naked chest. He could feel the soft contact of her bosoms against him. Her nipples, hard from the breeze through the window pushed into him. He had never felt better in his life. He moved some hair from her face and smiled at the face she made. He nose had scrunched up slightly before she became peaceful once more. Neville loved her.
He knew he would have to wake her. He knew that a plan had to be made. He knew a great many things had to be discussed. She would be the first to admit that he was her coconspirator in this madness. He made the points that needed to be made for her plans to become stronger. He contemplated waking her with a kiss. She had told him that was her favorite way to wake up. As he was leaning in to plant a soft brushing kiss on her lips a noise sounded across the room. Neville jerked his head up.
On the dresser where he had emptied his pockets he saw it going of. His DA communicator was changing. Neville threw himself out of bed and ran towards the dresser. Behind him Ginny stirred at the sudden movement. She sat up a croaked out something totally unintelligible. Neville reached for his fake galleon. His DA communicator. He had to check the engravings. He had to know if it was Harry.
On the fake gold surface of the coin the engravings were shifting until finally they stopped. The message was clear.
"V has me. Please help. -L.L."
A light snow was beginning to fall outside. Winter had come. Neville had never known one colder. Choices were going to have to be made. They could use the DA to save Luna, but that would mean abandoning the search for Harry Potter. More so it would mean joining the war for real. Neville looked back at Ginny. Clearly she understood his expression was not good. She reached for her Galleon on the bedside table and looked at it without blinking for several seconds. Finally she opened her mouth.
"Shit." She swore silently.