Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or locations in this story. I'm just writing for fun.
AN: So it seems I was a little rash last time, I may have said it would be a week, and here we are only a few days later. Well there you go. It appears that I'm enjoying writing a fan fiction. Well, enjoy, gentle readers. As always; please review. Your feed back really helps.
Neville was pinned down. His breathing somewhat erratic even as he tried with all his might to steady it. He was sure they had taken out a Death Eater or two, but the numbers were overwhelming. This had by far been the single biggest thing that the DA had ever done, and it was not going well. With Ginny in command they thought everything would be okay, but as good as she was with her jinxs and hexes she was not a leader. That was how she had ended up taking refuge behind a crumbling staircase to begin with. She had lead a charge on a stately old manor in the countryside going on a tip from the radio broadcasts that Death Eaters had been spotted there.
The mission was to get information from them. The DA was looking for Harry Potter. If this war was going to be won they would be there to provide him their wands. Neville suspected that Ginny had other reasons, but he kept his trap shut. Neville was a very intuitive guy, that's how he had managed to sort out what would happen to him and Ginny should they stay hiding behind the staircase any longer. He normally wouldn't have spoken up, but right that second lives were on the line and they were no closer to Harry.
"Ginny?" He shouted over the sound of exploding spells, "We need to press into the attack!"
"What?" She looked at him like he was crazy.
"We strafe sideways but keep moving forward!" Neville said recalling one of the tactics that Harry had mentioned to him in the room of requirements. "It'll make us harder to hit and also put us on the offensive!"
"They're using killing curses out there, Nev!" Ginny shot back.
"That's why this will work, Ginny!" Neville said as he stood up and put his plan into action. For one terrifying moment she thought that he was going to die out there as a burst of green sped past his head. Neville had deftly ducked the onslaught and continued to advance. Death Eaters had begun to fall by the wayside of leg binders or stuns fired in quick but effective bursts. Ginny began to notice that the tide of the battle was beginning to shift. Somehow these Death Eaters were never trained in battle tactics like the DA were. It made sense suddenly to her. She realized that Harry had trained hismen to survive an enemy with superior knowledge and experience in the craft. Voldemort asked for followers and slaves, Harry trained soldiers. They might actually win this war based on the leadership of a seventeen year old boy. She had to find Harry, he was the only way to win. The only way to beat insurmountable odds was by taking a long shot bet on a sure thing.
Once more that evening Ginny set off the DA badge hoping to get one of the three people they were looking for, and once again she was disappointed to find them too far from range. So she did what she had to. She drew her wand to her chest, took a deep breath and joined Neville in the fight. To her surprise after a few hours of fighting and the help of the other DA members not attending school that year they turned the tide of the fight.
As they stood over the crumpled and unconscious members of the Death Eaters she gave Neville a small thumbs up. Neville looked at the men and wondered if anyone was ready for what he knew was coming.
* * *
Kreacher had told them all about what had happened to the locket. Hermione had told them that she remembered seeing it when they were cleaning the house a few years ago. Kreacher had been grabbing up little relics and hiding them away the whole time. When they tore apart the area he slept in it didn't turn up. After asking rudely Hermione demanded that they start to treat Kreacher with respect, it was killing Ron, but it had worked. Kreacher had told them about Mundungus Fletcher taking all of the trinkets to sell. Harry told them to stay put and disappeared with a crack, clearly hot on the trail of Fletcher in the areas Harry knew that he would be. In the meantime Ron was stuck with Hermione and a Kreacher that was slowly getting more and more open and friendly as the days wore on in Harry's absence. The tedium was murderous.
Ron had been making little pieces of paper float around and act out a short play for Kreacher in the living area. Kreacher seemed to really enjoy the attention, and truth told since the little house elf had begun to make meals for him Ron had grown fond of him. Most days he would hang out a little with Kreacher to kill the time. Mostly he used it as a worthy excuse to keep away from Hermione. Things with her had been strange these last few days. He didn't know if he should tell her that he knew it all, or that he was conflicted by all of this. He wondered if they should address her growing concerns about Harry or if he should just let it go and hope Harry got better without their help.
A few hours after Harry had left Hermione had found Ron sitting in the hallway throwing a bouncy ball against a wall. She had sat down next to him and asked if he thought Harry had started to seem "kind of dark" to him lately. Ron had dismissed the topic by saying he wanted to see if the kitchen had anything good in it. In the coming hours and days Ron had begun to understand Sirius in a way he never thought he would. Confined to the house, unable to move for fear of trackers getting them, living in terror that they had found Harry, feeling totally useless. Ron left the paper figures floating in the air for Kreacher but got up to leave.
"I'm going to take a nap, buddy." Ron said walking out, "Would you mind getting me when supper's ready?"
"Not at all, Master Ronald." Kreacher said as he watched the paper puts dance through the air. Ron smiled a little at both his and Kreacher's transformation. Then he turned toward his room and felt the sickening wave of grief and guilt he had become accustomed to lately. Followed in kind by the exhaustion that he was feeling more and more these days. He was losing some sleep over the stress of everything. Ron sighed as he stared out at the walls of this old house. "This place is a goddamn Mausoleum."
When he got to his room he laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He was casually flicking the deluminator against the side of his knee as he let his mind wonder. So distracted was he that he never heard Hermione come in, barely noticed her sit down on the corner of his bed. Ignored her when he did notice her. She clearly had something to say but he would be goddamned if he was going to be the one to start. He was nervous enough just having her there. He had no idea what he felt for her, he had no idea what she meant to him, and he had no idea how comfortable he was with the notion of her feelings for Harry or if that was bad or not. She looked out the door when she finally began to talk.
"What..Ron?" She asked still hiding her face behind her thick curtains of hair. Ron sighed, he knew what this was going to become. He knew this conversation was a long time coming. That didn't make is any easier.
"Yeah?" He finally uttered. The silence between sentences was as uncomfortable as he could ever imagine.
"What do you think…" She stopped to collect her thoughts. She laughed a little into her hand before responding again, "Damn this house." Ron raised one eyebrow in a quizzical way. She looked over at him and smiled and he smiled in return. They were friends he realized. Regardless of whatever else might be going on they were friends. That's why they were here.
"Yeah. Damn this old place. Starting to get how Sirius felt, you know?" Ron said at last.
"Yeah." She stared at the walls, "Place has a kind of honesty to it though. Makes me feeling truthful. I don't know. It's not as warm now as it was."
"Yeah, with Harry gone.." Ron trailed off. Hermione slowly shook her head and smiled.
"No, I meant like when we all came here that summer." She said, "Remember that?" He nodded to her both sharing the same memory for a minute, "This was the room where Harry yelled at us that time. God that was awful, remember?"
"Yeah, he was just wound up though. I would've been too. Staying with those awful people. His family, I don't know, they never really grew on me. Way they treated him."
"Yeah." A darkness rolled across her eyes, "The things they did to him. I can't imagine a family being so…"
"Screwed up?" Ron added hopefully.
"Yeah, that's about what I was looking for." She smiled, "Still, he came out pretty damn okay."
"Sure did." Ron agreed.
"So…" She stared off, "We probably need to talk, yeah?" She said quietly.
"Probably." He concurred reluctantly, "But does it have to be now?"
"It does. When else will it be?" Hermione said.
"I was hoping it would be when I had been given time to figure out my argument." Ron said.
"Why? Do you expect this to turn into an argument?" Hermione asked inquiringly.
"You don't?" He replied back.
"Why should I?" She said growing ever more interested in whatever information Ron had that she didn't. Ron should have relished the opportunity he had to win this argument, to come on top in a breakup fight. But he didn't. She was his friend and he respected her and he hated the idea of hurting her, and more so he hated the idea of hurting Harry through her. He was in a rough place.
"I don't want to talk about it." Was all he could choke out.
"What?" Hermione looked shocked and she was. Ron was declining to get in an argument with her, surely the very whim of the universe must be out of whack. Still she pressed, "Ron, you can't make that call. This is too important."
"I'll decide when I want to talk about the why of it, okay Hermione." He stood up and walked toward the door. When he got there a wave of exhaustion passed through him from the sheer weight of it all. He leaned against the door frame to disguise his sudden weakness, the stress was hitting him harder than he had thought. Perhaps he was losing too many nights of sleep over all of this. He covered his momentary meek behavior with his concluding argument, "But you're free now. I'll tell why we have to break up when it won't hurt anyone anymore."
He left her in his room staring shocked at the spot in the doorway where he had been. He hadn't gotten too far down the hallway when his knee gave out and he fell to the floor with a groan. He swore silently under his breath when he realized he couldn't stand up again. His body had apparently decided it was going to sleep regardless of whether or not he was on board with the idea. As things got black he heard Hermione approaching him, calling his name. He tried to explain to her what was going on but only passed out from the effort.
* * *
Hermione had floated Ron's sleeping body into the bedroom after she had concluded that it was nothing more serious than exhaustion. She could understand how he had managed to get such a bad case of insomnia. To some degree they were all suffering from it, Harry as well. She had only managed to get two or three hours of sleep herself the night before. Ron seemed to be running almost solely on that amount for the last few days. He was worried but she didn't know why and she was concerned that the information he was afraid to tell her would be detrimental to Harry.
Poor sweet Harry. He had to always be protective, he had to go out alone to find Fletcher. She wondered idly if she had made a mistake telling him that she loved him. It seemed such a natural a right thing to do at the time. Yet she had been beating herself stupid over it for the last week or so. She was so mixed up. She knew she was in love with Harry, she always had been since the day she met him. She loved Ron too. It had been such a strange part of their growing up, her trying to figure out who she loved more. The weird triangle forming between them and their confused feelings. Harry had never really shown the interest in her that she had desired him to, but her and Ron their was a right to that. Just not like her and Harry. When she had kissed him she felt alive for the first time in so long, she felt whole and happy. He didn't argue over silly little things, like she did with Ron, he never lost interest in her conversation, and he always understood the bigger picture. She and Ron couldn't see the bigger picture. Harry was already moving pieces on it in a war he had been fighting for years, he had something of a learning curve.
She loved Ron like he was her family. She would kill or be killed for him, as any one of the trio would do for the others. But she wasn't in love with him. She thought she was, tried to convince herself she was, but those talks late night with Harry had been something. Something she didn't understand completely at the time. There was a kind of warmth and compassion in him that she was sure he only let her see. A fear too. He had let her see him in a way that opened her eyes to who he was.
She had fallen more totally for him during those conversations than she had for any other person or thing in her life. It had been slow at first, small moments when his smile gave her heart pause, or the tingle of electricity that ran through her whenever they made accidental contact, the wonderful hidden things about him that she noticed for the first time. It was clear in her mind by Dumbledore's funeral that Harry was the man for her. She cheered secretly to herself when he had broken it off with Ginny and felt terrible about her feelings when Ginny's mournful letters had found her by owl. She couldn't keep him from her mind and she knew from the flicker in his bright green eyes that he felt the same.
He was so different now though. He was so much darker. He would spend so much time in his own head, thinking about who knows what. He would talk less and he always seemed to have a weight on his shoulders that he couldn't quite bear. He was angry more often and he would let it build up rather than act out on it. He would just clamp up and finish what he was doing before he left the room without a word. He only came to life when he had a lead on his mission. He was only Harry again when he was fighting his goddamn war.
This war was making him into some dark brooding monster. It was inevitable she realized, he would have to change to become the leader he would have to be. He would have to change to win, she just hoped that he would be able to find his way back to the charming man she was falling so deeply in love with.
* * *
The shadow from Gringotts tower had cast a pallor over the streets of Diagon Alley. An overcast sky gave the shadow, as it did the street, a death like feeling. The streets being almost totally empty did little to swing the mood up. Harry didn't care. His mood was appropriate for the weather. This guy had stolen from him. Stolen from Sirius. Desecrated the memory of the only real family Harry had ever known. Then when the going got tough the little weasel had gone into hiding. The scamp was too cowardly to face Voldemort. He wouldn't hide from Harry. He couldn't.
Harry had been all over the Wizarding world in the past few days. Nowhere a success. He had turned over every back-water dive he knew of and a few he had only discovered on the trip. Fletcher was nowhere to be found. With each failure he became increasingly more desperate to find Fletcher so he could finally start out on his mission. Harry headed straight for the Leaky cauldron, passing a hooded witch or scared old wizard on the way. No one noticed him, no one recognized him, for once the terror of Voldemort was working to Harry's benefit.
Harry walked through the doors and took a seat near the back of the pub area. He slid the hood of his coat farther down his face, obscuring the all too famous scar on his forehead. He scanned the bar for the ruddy face he knew had to be here. Harry had come here four days ago only to find that Fletcher wasn't there. Tom, the bartender had looked sick and pale. His eyes had recessed into his head and he was slow moving. Today he was doing no standing and even less movement. He was confined to his chair and had left the bar in the hands of some young man Harry didn't recognize.
Someone came over and took Harry's order. Harry didn't pay attention to who, or even what he ordered, he just pointed at something on the menu. Harry's attention was on the patrons of the very empty bar. There were two old drunks by the window, nursing their fire whiskey with a protectiveness that spoke of their need. There was a young man, around his age, in black robes. He had a foreign accent and a sinister air about him. Death Eater if Harry had ever seen one. In the far corner was a small group of filthy men in the middle ages, each talking in slow circles around the others. Conmen trying to con each other.
Eventually Harry spotted his man. Fletcher was in the corner slightly obscured by a shadow lingering over the wall with the other conmen. Fletcher seemed to be having the worst luck of the bunch and was going largely ignored by his companions. He was a very unattractive shade of desperate and drunk. Harry waited. Fletcher ordered another round. Harry waited. Fletcher ran out of money as the night grew on and started to beg friends and passers by for change so he might continue to drink. Harry waited. Eventually Fletcher's friends emptied out with the rest of the bar, leaving only the possible Death Eater and Fletcher. Harry waited. The possible Death Eater got up and walked upstairs, clearly he had gotten a room. Harry waited. Finally Fletcher stood and walked with a shaky drunken gate from the bar. Harry followed.
Harry kept within six feet of Fletcher's retreating back at all times. He was waiting for the moment, he didn't know what that moment was going to be, but knew he would act when he saw it. Fletcher turned a corner and went down an alley, Harry hitched his step his moment growing closer. When Harry turned the corner he saw Fletcher bent over some rubbish. The smell of vomit hung heavy in the air. Fletcher looked up and saw Harry walking fast toward him. Fletcher panicked and tried to run away, but fell after only a few steps. His drunken feet traitors at a crucial time Fletcher began to crawl.
Harry walked over and grabbed Fletcher roughly by the collar of his filthy shirt and slammed him against an adjacent wall. Harry was quick, but with Fletcher drunk Harry might as well have been moving at semi-sonic speeds. Harry had his wand out of his back pocket and jammed into the fleshy area under Fletcher's chin in moments. Fletcher stammered out little apologies to people he thought Harry was but Harry only dug his wand tip deeper.
"Where's the locket?" Harry barked.
"What locket?" Fletcher spit out.
"The one you stole from the House of Black!" Harry shouted as he flung back his hood to reveal his burning green eyes and the world's most famous scar. A light rain had begun to pour over the darkening street. Fletcher's panic was growing more and more with each passing second, his tongue swelling in his mouth making it hard to speak. Harry was growing more and more impatient by the moment. "WHERE IS IT!"
"I..I done. It..they took it from me Harry." Fletcher stammered out.
"WHO!" Harry bellowed.
"Last year. They pinched me comin' offa the street, down that way an they took what I had then, they did, I swear it to ya Harry I swear it." He said almost begging Harry to understand.
"WHO GODDAMN YOU! WHO?" Harry screamed as he pulled Fletcher's face closer to his own.
"Ministry lady what tried my case, Harry. Lady what did it, Harry. I swear it Harry, I swear it. He was my friend Harry, he woulda let me have the stuff, he woulda, he liked me he did, I know he did. He had stuff in common, Harry. I wasn't tryin'ta hurt nobody." He choked out.
"WHAT MINISTRY LADY?" Harry didn't want Fletcher to keep going, he couldn't stand to hear this monster say Sirius' name.
"Little one with the kid's haircut. Made a little cough noise. Looked like a toad I thought." Fletcher said causing memories of Umbridge to cascade through Harry's mind. He looked down at his hand. The raindrops failed to obscure the little red letters seared forever in his flesh. 'I mustn't tell lies'.
"Are you sure." Harry asked with a cold complacency.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure, you know, sure. Harry look," Fletcher looked imploringly at Harry, "I didn't mean to make nobody mad or nothing like that, I swear it. I jus' figgered that with Sirius gone an' all-" Harry choked him out with his wand.
"You ever speak his name or come around me again and I will blow your head from your shoulders and sleep well that night. You understand me? Voldemort himself will grimace when he see what I'll do to you. Nod if you understand." Fletcher nodded slowly, "Go, crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of and never peak your head up again."
Harry threw Fletcher roughly to the floor and without a second thought Fletcher took off. Unfortunately Fletcher didn't get far. A shot of red flew past Harry and hit Fletcher dead in the back. He hit the floor roaring in pain like he was being stabbed all over. Harry knew that curse. With nothing propelling him but sheer instinct he hurled himself over a pile of rubbish just as he heard a woman's voice shout out "Crucio!" Harry peered over the garbage and saw a figure in a long black cloak holding her wand at him. He couldn't see her face, but the voice was Lestrange. He'd know her voice anywhere.
Harry tucked his head in and rolled toward the lip of an outlet alley. As he righted himself he shot off a stunning spell and a few defensive spells in quick succession. Lestrange was flanked by two other members of the Death Eaters, on that Harry recognized from the pub. Harry fired a leg binding jinx and tripped up the Death Eaters with Lestrange. He could here counter jinxes being uttered as he tore off down the alley. How had they found him? He had apparated all over the world in the last few days and nothing. No Death Eaters in sight. He comes to Diagon alley and all of a sudden he's swarmed with them. He thought about apparating away back to the house where no one could find him. But he couldn't and they knew it. Fletcher was mixed up in all this. Harry was not the man's biggest fan right now but someone had to save him. Tonight that someone was Harry.