Unofficial Portkey Archive

The Catalyst

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Chapter Sixteen: Fears Confronted

The potions that Harry had been given at St. Mungo's had made him feel somewhat nauseated, and Hermione's Side-Along Apparation of him and Eleanor to his flat had not helped ameliorate that feeling. So he was more than willing to let Hermione take care of Eleanor's bedtime routine, while he collapsed onto the sofa, trying to coax his racing mind into thoughtlessness. He had not even realized that his eyes had closed, until Hermione's soothing voice sounded somewhere above his head.

"She was asleep before I had her fully tucked in." There was a smile in her voice. Harry let his lips turn up in response, without opening his eyes. He felt the sofa cushions move as she sat down. "You should go to bed too. You've…been through a lot today."

"I - I still - I can't believe Ginny broke up with me. I thought - I thought we - " He floundered to a stop, and opened his eyes, fixing his bewildered green gaze on her face. "No…" he sighed. "I - I don't know what I thought. Last week, I would have told you I loved her. I would have meant it. But now… now - "

"Now?" Hermione prodded. Harry sharpened his focus on her, squinting at her quizzically. She was leaning forward, looking strangely anticipatory. What was she waiting to hear him say?

"Now I wonder if I even know what love is. Maybe I was just - just telling myself it was love, because I wanted it to be love… or she did… or her family… " He nodded toward the rolled up Daily Prophet on the window sill that Hermione had not noticed until that moment. Weasl - could clearly be seen on the visible part of the roll. "Three guesses what that article's about."

She closed her eyes and sighed gustily. "Yeah…"

"Hermione, I'm s - "

"Don't, Harry." She laid one hand on his arm, forestalling his apology. "You keep trying to take all this blame. But this is not. Your. Fault."

"It is my fault. If I wasn't who I was, then nobody would care whether or not we had a child together."

"Maybe not the Prophet," she mused. "But you don't think the people closest to us - Ron, Ginny - you don't think they'd have still had a problem with it?" Harry raked one hand through his dark hair and sighed. She patted his arm, and rested her curly head on his shoulder.

"Who's to say that it would have even happened to us at all… if I wasn't Harry Potter."

"Now, you don't know that. They could have chosen anyone… it could have been random."

He slanted a you don't expect me to believe that look at her. "One of us, maybe. Both of us? I doubt it. Besides, what about what Eleanor said about our Mystery Squib? Maybe he wanted us because we're well-known to be proficient at magic… and he was hoping a child of ours would be powerful."

"And we're not Pureblood. There've been studies. The `hybrid' strain is hardier… but the old families don't want anyone to know that. He's got to be from a Pureblood family, I'd bet my library on it."

"There aren't too many of those still floating around. Wouldn't he be easy to track down?"

"Maybe if Purebloods weren't so damn ashamed when they have children who are Squibs! Auror Falworth said they hide it - that's why the record books are tamper-proof."

"But if the books can't be tampered with, then we'll be able to find him. There might not be witnesses who've seen him - or who would admit to it, anyway - but maybe… maybe Eleanor could - could talk to somebody, somebody who could do one of those sketches… like Muggle law enforcement. Do you think she'd do it?"

"Harry, I think it's fairly well established that she'd do anything for you." She raised her head and eyed him softly for a moment. "You seem to inspire that in people."

"Not in all people. Not in people surnamed Weasley." There was bitterness in his voice. "People accept children all the time that aren't biologically theirs - step-children, adopted children… why - why wouldn't they do that for us? Why wouldn't she do that?"

"I can't answer that, Harry. But… isn't it better this way? I mean, in the long run. If she - if she couldn't handle it, then it's better to know now. You should know, more than anyone, what can happen when people never get over resentment of a child they're forced to parent."

"But it's me. It's you. She said she loved me. You're her friend. You were going to be her sister-in-law. And she couldn't - she couldn't get past all that resentment? For us?"

"She couldn't get past the resentment because of us."

Harry stared at her, complete befuddlement stamped on his face.

"But she - she always said… she never - she didn't think there was anything between us. She - she thought the idea was funny! Ron may have had doubts, but Ginny always said…"

"Then what were you fighting about - before the hospital? It was obvious you'd been up all night."

"She wanted… she was asking something of me that I wasn't willing to give." Hermione's inquiring dark eyes remained fixed on his face. He was suddenly and acutely aware of the sensation of her fingers still resting on his arm, and he placed his other hand on top of hers. "She wanted me to - to stop being around you so much. Not to never see you, she said, but just not as much. I - I told her that you were my best friend, that there had been times where you were the only one I could count on. That made her madder. She said that she would have been there for me if I had let her. But I - I - " I just keep bloody well needing you too much. He floundered for a moment, and then gave up. "I told her you were non-negotiable." He flashed a half-grin at her, and she felt her insides warm. "You're my best friend. You're Eleanor's mother. And I'm not going to let Ginny separate us. I just don't understand why she doesn't believe me. I've never lied to her about this."

Hermione watched him for a long moment, and seemed to be contemplating whether or not to jump off of a precipice.

"Ginny…" she began slowly. "… has always resented me. It hasn't exactly been a secret."

"But why?"

"For all the reasons that I'm sure you fought about. She resented that I was friends with you, that I was so close to you, that you took me with you looking for Horcruxes, that you tell me things you don't tell her. She knows that there wasn't anything between us, that there has never been, but…"

"But…?" Harry prodded.

"She's afraid of what might happen. She was always afraid of it, but this - this makes it worse. It's one more link between us. One more thing that we share, that she's left out of. She…she said as much to me. While you were… unconscious."

"But that - but that's ridiculous!"

Hermione dropped her head then, her hair forming a spiral curtain between them, and she mumbled something that Harry did not catch.

"What was that?" He reached up and scooped her hair back, tucking the tumbled locks behind her ear.

"I said, `I don't think it's ridiculous.'"

"I don't understand." She would not look at him, and Harry was shifting on the sofa, trying to angle himself into her line of sight.

"I mean that Ginny's right."

"I don't think she's been right about anything so far!"

"Eleanor saw it. She told Ron."

"What? She saw what? That Ginny was going to break up with me?" Hermione half-laughed tremulously, and against her will, she felt tears well up in her eyes. Immediately, Harry was all concern. "Hermione, what's wrong?"

"She saw how we feel about each other - how I - I feel about you. She told Ron that it was beautiful."

"Hermione, I - "

"I love you, Harry." She finally lifted her luminous eyes to his. Harry was flabbergasted, looking very much like he could not believe his own ears.

"I love you too, Hermione, but - " Her heart flipped at his words, but immediately sank. His tone was too flippant, too casual. They still weren't on the same wavelength.

"Not like that. Not - not only like that. I mean, I love you." She dashed at a recalcitrant tear wending its way down her cheek.

"But - but - but Ron - "

"Remember what we were talking about earlier? About doing what was right versus what was easy? And how - "

" - you just have to start over again, if you take the easy path." Harry filled in the blanks for her, and something in his eyes and tone made her breathless. "But Hermione, how do you know? If you thought so with Ron, and I thought so with Ginny, and we were both wrong…"

"Harry, I've been thinking about this a lot… and honestly, I don't think anyone ever had a chance with me - not a real chance - ever since you saved me from that troll."

"Ron cast the - " He didn't know why he kept throwing out Ron's name, except that it was grounding somehow - he felt like his entire worldview had been knocked askew.

"Ron wouldn't have even been in that loo if it weren't for you. You always saw me. Even when no one else did."

"Then why didn't I see this?"

"Maybe we were too close to each other to see it. Maybe we had grown so accustomed to each other in our allotted roles…"

Harry slumped back into the sofa cushions, and closed his eyes again. Hermione felt stricken for piling something else on him. He had nearly died today - nearly died! She tried to let the seriousness of that seep back into the forefront of her mind. His girlfriend had broken up with him, accusing him of feelings for someone else that he didn't realize he had… or didn't have at all, she thought suddenly. Maybe Eleanor is wrong. She's five years old, she's never known security, stability, love…

"Eleanor could just be seeing what she wants to see." Harry's thoughts so closely paralleled her own that she slid back from him, startled. Hearing those words from someone else, voicing - confirming? - her own insecurities, stung. She inhaled a sharp breath, and tried to look stoic, forcing a smile onto lips that didn't want to cooperate entirely.

"You're probably right. You - you should - I shouldn't have thrown all this at you today, not after the day you've had… it - it was unspeakably selfish of me, and I understand if you - if you don't - I - don't quite understand it myself. How could the - the brightest witch of her age not realize that - that she wasn't in love with the man whose proposal she accepted? How - how stupid - how stupid is she?" Her face crumpled, and her voice withered away into muteness. She was going to cry; she was going to completely lose her composure in a grand fashion right in front of Harry. And while that had occurred before, it had never been about Harry before. I can't do this. She sprang to her feet. "I - I should - I should get home. You ought to get some rest." She sort of lurched toward the fireplace without looking at him, remembered belatedly that the Floo was disconnected, and adjusted her course toward the front door.

"Hermione… don't go."

His words dropped into the utter stillness of the flat, and the undertone of his voice gave her clammy palms. She had not heard him move, but when she pivoted back toward the living area, he was there.

"Harry…" The protest in her voice was weak, but she knew he heard it all the same. He got closer still, fully invading her personal space in the way that he always had, and yet this time, it felt completely different. "Don't say anything just because you feel sorry for me. Please."

He was close. Impossibly close. She folded into him, as she had done countless times before, but this time, the implications were far from what they'd once been. She would have sworn that she could actually feel heat from the emerald flames in his eyes, which darkened upon her approach. He might be confused; he might be uncertain, but he was definitely attracted. She wondered briefly how mad it was to base a course of action on the word of a telepathic five-year-old. She saw the query on his face before he spoke, Hermione, what are you doing?

"I'm testing a theory." Her voice was low and throaty, answering that which he had not actually vocalized.

He opened his mouth to ask her what theory that was, but before he could speak, she was kissing him. Her lips were smooth and warm, and she tasted vaguely of the same String Mints she'd offered him at St. Mungo's, so he could try to get the potion taste out of his mouth. She felt like she was drowning and combusting all at once. She half-expected him to stagger away from her, bewildered or embarrassed, but he pressed her up against the wall, with an ardency that surprised her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, seemingly of their own volition. When oxygen became a necessity, they broke apart, but still stood in the entryway together, foreheads touching. Harry looked just as starry-eyed as she felt.

"So, what is your conclusion?" Harry had to clear his throat twice before any sound came out, and he did not quite achieve the jocularity for which he was aiming.

"Unchanged." She tried to laugh, but it was a frail thing, dying almost before it was born.

"I always thought we'd be brilliant together," he said, the underlying tone sounding as intense as she'd ever heard him. "This just confirms it."

"You…always thought?" There was faint disbelief there. Maybe even the tiniest hint of anger, as though he were upset that she was not given full disclosure on all options available before making a choice.

"I - I mean, if - if things had happen differently… if I had asked you to the Yule Ball for instance… or if I had done something… when Ron left us." He didn't even need to elaborate, and his statement so closely mirrored what Hermione had been thinking on the Knight Bus with Ginny that it startled her.

"But things didn't happen differently, Harry. They happened like this. We've both got baggage. No matter how we measure things out… people are going to get hurt…"

"… people are going to make assumptions… write articles… make wagers on whether or not we were together before our break-ups…" He rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Harry!" She fisted both hands into his shirt, and tugged him toward her, looking beseechingly into his eyes.

"There is a little girl in that room who has never known stability… never known love. I can't - I can't afford to mess this up. She doesn't deserve that."

"Look at me." She was still bracketed in his arms, her eyes as wide and deep and cool as a shadowy forest brook. "And tell me honestly…do you think that we're going to mess this up?"

"I don't." He astonished her with his succinct answer. One of his hands came alongside her face to delicately move aside a ringlet of hair and trace the line of her jaw. He swallowed. "This feels too easy, though. It shouldn't be this easy, should it?"

She laughed then, and it was silvery and joyous, filling the darker corners of his flat.

"This? Auror raids, telepathic super-children, secret evil agendas, and angry Weasleys..? This is what you define as easy?"

"No, this." He tightened his arms around her again, and brushed her lips with his, tentatively at first, and then with more confidence. "Shouldn't this be awkward and odd and uncertain?"

"We've known each other since we were children, saved each other's lives on countless occasions, and always, always supported and loved each other… this is - this is like standing at a threshold." She kissed him again. "And finally gathering up the nerve to step across."

"If this is a threshold, then it's to the door of the Room of Requirement. And it appeared when I needed it… before I even knew I needed it."

Her eyes were sparkling with unspilled tears. "And what's inside the Room?" She whispered.

Harry drank her in, with a look that was half-adoration, half-disbelief, then pressed his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder. His response was an exhaled breath, "Home."

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

It was a bleary-eyed Hermione who cautiously answered the door very early the next morning. She relaxed a bit when she saw Aurors Falworth and Dunwiddie, followed by a younger Auror with a sketch pad, and bade them enter. However, her ex-fiance was bringing up the rear, and looked as uncomfortable to be there, as she did to have him there.

"We're sorry to disturb you so early," Falworth apologized. "But Auror Wyndham is our best spell sketcher, and he's got appointments for other cases the rest of the day."

"A … spell sketcher?"

"Aurors receive training in certain magics that can help form a depiction of a subject being sought. It's along the same lines as a Qwik-Quotes Quill, although this requires much more finesse. It helps to have some natural artistic ability. Wyndham is one of the best I've ever seen. If we - if we could speak with Eleanor."

"Harry and I were just talking about that yesterday, seeing if we could get a description. Eleanor called him Sir. We think he's Pureblood. I'll have to see if she - " Hermione was interrupted by Harry coming out of his room, in a undershirt and boxers, his hair on end, stretching kinks out of his back and groaning.

"Sweet Merlin, Hermione! You sleep like you're expecting a Death Eater attack! Your kicking is lethal - my ribs are - " His words trailed off comically, as his eyes finally came all the way open, and he realized they had visitors. "Erm… good morning. I'll just…" He didn't finish his sentence, but quickly disappeared back into the room he'd just vacated.

"That didn't take long," Ron observed, spearing Hermione with a look that was more sad than angry, but nevertheless served to ratchet up the tension even further.

"Don't do this, Ron. Not after what you said yesterday. Why is he here?" Hermione directed her question to Auror Falworth. His eyes had been coolly moving from her to Ron, and she got the feeling that he was assessing the entire situation quite accurately in his head.

"It's my day to train with the sketcher. Apparently, I've got a sort of knack for it." Ron was bracing himself for some kind of onslaught. Hermione wondered if Fred and George had been harassing him about it, so she smiled widely, and was relieved when some of the strain eased from his face.

"That's brilliant, Ron!" She hesitated, darting a glance at the other three men, and they immediately moved together to busily study the file. She flashed them a grateful look. "I'm sorry if this makes it harder… if - if things are - I mean," she gestured toward the closed door, dropping her voice. "We - we … we haven't…" Ron flushed to his hairline when he understood her meaning, and he quickly lifted two placating hands.

"I didn't - I wasn't saying - well…" He raised his rangy shoulders. "Well, maybe I was. I - I shouldn't have been … I'm - this is hard, Hermione. I stand by what I told Eleanor, but that doesn't make it any - any easier to watch."

The door creaked softly, as Harry reentered their midst, fully dressed, but still looking somewhat discomfited. "Is there something we can do for you gentlemen?" He said with mock formality.

Hermione watched him, as Falworth ran through the same spiel he'd given her, and as Harry responded in much the same way that she had. When he finished speaking, he looked over to her, and their gazes locked. She felt a vibrant thrum in the pit of her stomach. So this is how it's going to be. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. From a distance, as though it were happening to someone else, she heard herself offer to prepare tea, coffee, and toast, while Harry went to rouse Eleanor. In quite a short time, they found themselves seated around a breakfast table with their daughter, three Aurors, and her ex-fiance.

When they set up for the sketch, Eleanor was in the center, with Wyndham and Ron to her left, and Hermione and Harry ranged to her right. Dunwiddie and Falworth sat on the opposite side, quills at the ready for note-taking. Harry's attention appeared to be strictly on the situation taking place, but he reached over without looking, and laced Hermione's fingers through his.

"All right then, Eleanor," Wyndham said in an affable voice, as he tweaked the quill - a custom affair, with a number of tiny dials down the shaft, and topped with an enormous billowy feather - with his wand. "What was the first thing you noticed about… Sir, was it?"

"He had scary eyes. Black eyes," she offered tentatively, throwing an uncertain glance at her parents, who offered encouraging nods. "They were like this." She showed him the same shadowed brow ridge she had depicted for her parents the day before, cupping her hands over her eyes. Wyndham suspended the quill above the parchment, where it hovered, waiting. With a tap of his wand, it jumped into motion, lightly sketching out a pair of eyes.

"Those would be at home on a horror movie poster," Harry remarked, his light comment not concealing the look of concern he shot at his daughter.

"How about that, Eleanor? Do those look right?"

"They were closer. And more this," she accompanied her words with a squinting contortion of her face that had Harry's breaking into an adoring grin. Wyndham used his wand to manipulate the dials on the quill. "And these were bigger." She ran her fingers over the tiny feathers of her eyebrows.

When Wyndham had finished her specifications, she blanched and recoiled away from the parchment.

"It's not real, sweetheart," Hermione soothed.

"It feels like Sir is looking at me. Can he see me right now?"

"He doesn't even know where you are," Harry reassured her, but neither he nor Hermione missed the looks Falworth and Dunwiddie exchanged. They still didn't understand what agenda was afoot, and what the motivation for leaving Eleanor behind was. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"Can we finish this, Eleanor? It will help us find him, so he isn't bad to anyone else. Can you tell me about the shape of his face?"

Eleanor's green eyes were wide and panicky. "No! No, he will know. He - he will find me. He will." She cast another frightened glance at the parchment. Ron quickly slid a blank sheet atop it, so that the eyes were obscured.

"They left me because I am bad. They want me to do bad things. If I do good things, then he will find me… or hurt people. He might hurt you." She looked mournfully at her parents.

"I've fought bad wizards before, Eleanor," Harry said gently. "So has your mother. Don't worry about us. But we do need to catch him. I know this is hard, but we need you…" As Harry spoke, Wyndham slowly exposed the sketch again, but Eleanor's response was immediate.

"No, no, no, no, no nonononono!" She was frantic, and Harry nervously waited for something to ignite. Hermione was providing the buffer between him and Eleanor, but…

"I know how to get the sketch you wanted," he ventured. "I can give it to you."

"Harry, you can't!" Hermione knew what he was getting at, and was instantly rejecting it.

"All I need is one glimpse of him. I can give you the image."

"A - a pensieve. Couldn't we get the image from there?" Hermione sounded as desperate as Eleanor had, looking for any reason to keep Harry from mentally connecting with his daughter again.

Falworth was shaking his head. "Pensieve memories from children are notoriously unreliable. Usually, they're only admissible in court coming from a child older than eleven. And as panicked as she is, I'm not sure she'd even be able to latch onto a memory long enough to give it to us."

"What makes you think she'd even give it to you, Harry? If she's going to purposely avoid it, then - "

"I could find it. I haven't - I haven't tried to direct the contact in any way, so far… but maybe if I - if I steered it in one specific direction, I could find a memory of him."

"The last time you connected with her, you seized. You nearly died." Hermione belatedly flicked a glance toward Eleanor, but did not sway from her course. Her jaw was set in a mutinous line. She brought their clasped hands up from beneath the table, and used her other hand to enclose Harry's completely. "I'm not letting you do this. We don't understand it. You can't control it. It is dangerous." She squared her shoulders, and looked across to Falworth. "We've been focusing solely on her telepathy. But you've even said that it is not the same thing as Legilimency. So let's try Legilimency instead. I've had the basic training at St. Mungo's, and it might be easier with someone she knows."

"Hermione, we don't know how Legilimency will affect her either!" Harry protested.

"I'm a much better candidate to try than you are, Harry Potter." She released his hands, and swiveled to face Eleanor, cupping her little shoulders with her palms. "I'm going to look in your mind. You're going to feel me in there, but it is just me. I'm not going to hurt you at all. I know it's scary, but I want you to think of Sir as hard as you can, so that I can see him. Then I can finish the sketch for you, and the Aurors can find him. Is that okay?" Eleanor swallowed, and nodded hesitantly. Hermione felt Harry move behind her, then arrest the motion. Her heart crimped with sympathy; she knew it was hard for him to not be able to comfort Eleanor with even the simplest of touches. "Will this work?" She asked, looking curiously at Aurors Falworth and Dunwiddie.

"Some might argue that she's too young to give adequate consent. I don't think we need to be too concerned with any illegality though. We've witnessed that she's had the procedure explained to her."

Hermione nodded, and looked squarely at Eleanor again, the fear in those Harry-eyes breaking her heart. "Look right at me, sweetheart. It's going to be all right."

Her first reach was tentative, and she felt Eleanor fight against instinctively against it, but then forcibly relax. Really, her self-containment was amazing - given the amount of power surging through her, the fact that she ever had any control at all was incredible. Eleanor's mind was alive with crackling energy, more vivid in hue and scope and detail than any she had seen before. The memories were tinged in color that linked to mood: soft yellow for joy, blue for sadness, red for anger. The yellow was almost non-existent. Hermione tried to center herself - Eleanor didn't need to read her mother's own regrets, not when she was being so brave - and moved toward the ones tinted steely gray and black.

She waited for the approaching memory to engulf her, glad that Eleanor was able to present her with one, rather than her having to be any kind of aggressor, going after something that caused her daughter fear.

A short, waifish looking young man in a white lab coat was walking down a hallway, furiously outstriding a severe woman with an angry pinch to her mouth. The woman was dragging Eleanor, who was nearly running, stumbling, to keep up.

"Why weren't you controlling her?" He shouted over his shoulder.

"I really doubt than you're in any kind of position to be questioning anything I do, Muggle." The word dripped with contempt and loathing. "There was no way to know that she'd set the laboratory on fire. She's never demonstrated anything to that degree before!"

"We lost all the equipment, and two people! Do you know how long it's going to take to retrain and re-equip? Our window of opportunity is limited! She could get too old, and then we'll have to start all over again. I don't think he will like that very much, do you?"

"You were the one responsible, Doctor! You brought that Muggle woman in!"

"You were in charge of that." He pointed an accusing finger at Eleanor, who shrank under it. He stopped abruptly at an unmarked door, and knocked.

The looming figure who answered was shadowy in the cool darkness of the room beyond. The features of his face remained obscured.

"Hello, Eleanor," came a cool baritone, all the more sinister for its seeming friendliness. A faint note of hostility ran beneath it. "I hear you've been burning up my laboratories and my people. Did you enjoy it?"

Eleanor cringed and quavered, trying to duck behind Mei, who was holding her out from her side with a stiff arm. "I - I - I did not…I did not mean to."

"Of course you did!" The voice was rougher now, harsh and angry. "Even the very magically gifted cannot start fires that intense completely by accident!"

"I - " Her voice got even smaller. "I did not know it would do that. It - it got away from me, and it would not come back."

"I see." The voice was calculating. There was a subtle jubilance; something had pleased him. "Take her away. Doctor, I'd like to talk to you further. I believe I've had an idea." He flicked the light switches on, as the man in the lab coat passed by him, crossing into the room.

That was the first time Hermione saw his face, and she reeled backwards, effectively shutting off the memory, as though she'd pulled a plug on a television.

She was breathing heavily as she came back to herself, felt the solidity of the chair beneath her, saw the light of the repaired fixture shining down on the dining room table, felt Harry's fingers clasped tightly between hers, and saw the alarm in his eyes. Her heart was beating a rapid staccato in her ears; she saw black doors spinning, purple flames, spell fire exchanged amid the wide windows and jaunty tiles of a diner…

"Dolohov," she gasped. Harry and Ron exchanged glances fraught with meaning.

"Hermione… it can't be Dolohov."

"Vasiliy Dolohov is the head of the family now," Dunwiddie said. "We keep an eye on him, but he's never given any indication that - "

"Not - not - " Hermione's mind was whirling; she was having difficulty being articulate. "Not him… not that son. A Squib son. Does Antonin Dolohov have a Squib son?"

Falworth was all business. "We can certainly check into it." Quickly, Hermione worked with Wyndham and Ron, finishing off the sketch that Eleanor could not complete. When she was done, they were stunned.

"He does… look quite a lot like his father, doesn't he?" Harry mused. The hooded look of menace was unmistakable.

"Eleanor," Hermione asked carefully, as Wyndham lifted the parchment for display. "Is this the man? Is this Sir?"

The little girl was practically shaking in terror, but she managed a nod. Wyndham tapped his wand to the parchment, causing it to roll up on itself, and secreted his sketching tools in various pockets on his person. While Harry showed the Aurors out, Hermione steered Eleanor gently to the sofa, and turned on one of the nature movies Harry had bought her.

As soon as the door had shut, Hermione propelled herself into Harry's arms, which cocooned her exactly as she needed.

"I'm sorry you had to do that," he whispered into her hair.

"Could have been worse," she murmured back. "Could have been a Squib child of Bellatrix Lestrange's." There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of the DVD and a tremulous sigh from Hermione. Harry tilted her chin up to look into her eyes.

"What else is wrong?"

"There was something… something D - Dolohov said in the memory. That he had an idea. He seemed pleased that Eleanor had burned up that laboratory, that she had created the fire deliberately, but then lost control of it. And the way Eleanor says that she's going to hurt people, that she's going to hurt you, that she's bad. Who knows what she gleaned from those people while they talked right in front of her - most likely things that she didn't understand, still doesn't understand."

"Whatever they were planning didn't work! Eleanor said that she was supposed to `fix' him, that he was `broken'. But instead her magic killed someone - what did she call him?"

"Dr. Mo."

"They were obviously able to determine that the magical transfer wasn't going to work properly. They cut their losses and ran. Why else would they have left her behind?"

"I think she was left behind on purpose. There's something still in play." Her worried brow furrowed over troubled dark eyes. "Harry, I don't think this is over."

tbc

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