Content Harry Potter Miscellaneous
  • Previous
  • Next

Author Notes:

Bring many, many tissues. Enough to share.

Ginny paused with her hand on the doorknob. The scents from beyond the closed door were as good as shouting "GO AWAY" at anyone with a sense of smell like her own, but with Harry, "GO AWAY" half the time meant "I'm miserable and need help but I can't let anyone know that."

Especially on a day like this.

She opened the door and stepped inside.

The desks and chairs inside the unused classroom were shrouded in white cloths, making them look oddly ghostlike. The dark shape of a messy-haired young wizard, his hands thrust into the pockets of his robes, stood motionless against the breaking dawn beyond one of the windows. "What do you want, Ginny?" said Harry in a monotone.

"Nothing in particular." Ginny sat down on the edge of one of the desks, watching him. "I just thought you might not want to be alone."

"You thought wrong." The words never varied, in tone or delivery, yet Ginny had the feeling of staring into bleak green eyes over the tip of a wand pointed at her. "Now would you mind going away? Before I hurt you t—"

He cut himself off so short Ginny wasn't quite sure if she'd heard the consonant or not, until a wave of fresh anger at his own stupidity wafted over to her.

"Hurt me too?" she said, settling herself more comfortably on the desk. "The way you think you hurt Draco?"

"The way I killed him, you mean." Harry snarled the sentence at the inoffensive morning beyond the window glass. "Let's not mince words between husband and wife, shall we? I killed my own brother today, as surely as shoving him off the Astronomy Tower without a wand—"

"Bollocks to that."

Harry jerked around to face her. "What?"

"I said, bollocks to that." Ginny emphasized the crudity a little harder, and was pleased to see a bit of color creep back into Harry's cheeks. "Whose word do we have for what happened down there, Harry? Lucius Malfoy, that's who—and we both know he'd swear up and down that the moon was striped chartreuse and aubergine if he thought it would mess with your head and give his precious Master some advantage over you! Tell me this, didn't you give that fire very strict instructions that it wasn't to burn anything, anything, except for one particular wand?"

"Yes." Harry no longer looked as if he wanted to be sick or strangle something immediately, but Ginny could tell the battle was far from won. "But how else—" He broke off, motioning for her to wait, and walked carefully to the front of the classroom, to the open space between the first row of desks and the teacher's desk. There, he transformed into Wolf, and ceremoniously chased his tail for twenty rotations one way and ten the other, before changing back into his human shape.

"Feeling better?" inquired Ginny, allowing her smile to surface since Harry would catch her amusement in her scent anyway.

"A little." Harry shook off his dizziness and leaned back against the teacher's desk, mirroring her pose. "How else could his body have been burned like that, Ginny?" he asked softly. "When Malfoy didn't have any magic left?"

"I can think of three ways, just off the top of my head." Ginny left unsaid the and so could you, if you weren't wallowing portion of her sentence, but had a feeling by the glare Harry bestowed on her that he'd caught it anyway. "One, he could have thrown that spell right before Draco tore his magic out, or even as it was happening. Two, he could have been carrying an amulet that would do that for him—it's the sort of thing a Death Eater might plan for. Or three, and I think most likely, he could have stolen a potion to do it out of Professor Black's office."

Harry's eyes widened at the third possibility, and Ginny knew she had him. "He knew Hermione would tell us everything, Harry," she said quietly. "It's why he said the things he did to her. He wanted to hurt her and frighten her as much as he possibly could, and hurt and frighten the rest of us through her."

"And I've been letting him." Harry growled again, but this time the sound trailed away into nothingness. "Did you feel like this?" he asked, looking her in the eye. "Empty, and off balance, and like you can't even reach out for the people you usually can, because they're just as off balance as you are?"

"Yes." Ginny slid off her desk and straightened the cloth over it before walking to the front of the room. "And I wish I could tell you when it's going to get better, but I can't. It happens slowly, and not in the way you might expect. Sometimes the littlest things make it all suddenly so real again that it hurts almost worse than it did the first time. But…" She shrugged, taking a place beside Harry to look out into the slowly brightening morning with him.

"It gets better?" Harry asked after several seconds of silence. "Or no?"

"Not exactly." Ginny made a fist and curled it inward, and found in it the analogy she'd been seeking. "It's like the exercises we did with the DA, with the weights on our wrists and our ankles, to build up our muscles and our endurance. At first that extra strain was just too much for us. It burned and ached, and we all complained, because we were working so hard and barely getting anywhere. Then little by little, day by day, those weights got easier for us to lift, until finally they were just another part of life. Just part of the routine, things for us to be going on with." She released her fist. "But the weights never got any lighter, did they?"

"No." Harry's voice was rough. "We got stronger instead."

Neither of them was ever sure who sought the other's arms first.


Ron sat by himself in what he was sure anyone else would have considered a dark corner, writing briskly on a pad with his wand. Across the room, Hermione leaned against Mrs. Danger, with Mr. Moony sitting behind her, occasionally stroking her back or hair. They might be talking through the bond they shared, or they might simply be taking comfort from each other's presence. Sometimes, Ron recalled from the bewilderingly painful days near the beginning of May, it had been better for the Weasleys not to say anything to one another, but just to be there.

Neenie's eyes were shut, but she wasn't asleep, far from it. The colors of her face, to Ron's vision, were beginning to shade out of 'unbelievingly sad' into 'unbelievably angry'. He was only too happy to see the change, but if he were any judge, it would take at least another twenty minutes to finish (as much as it would, for now), and he'd gone about as far as he could go with his current mad idea.

At least without something solid to look at. I could doodle it out, but how'm I going to know if I have it right? And I don't fancy going down to the library and having to write my little heat-glow rune on every last thing my search spell turns up! There's got to be another way—

A discreet knock at the door made everyone look up. Mr. Moony held up a hand to Ron and went to open it.

"We've only just heard," said Percy, revealed in the corridor with Crystal Huley behind him. "I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." A brief handshake passed between the two wizards before Mr. Moony stepped back, inviting the Red Shepherds inside. "Will this affect anything you have in the works?"

"Not at the moment—assuming you will be taking over with the Order, that is." Percy's expression suggested he was repressing a grimace. "One or two of the other members are…not best pleased with some of our methods."

"So I've heard." Mr. Moony smiled. There was no humor in his face. "Rest assured they will not be interfering with your work…"

Ron stopped listening at this point, as Crystal, having waved a hello to Mrs. Danger, was now headed straight for him. "You," she said, sitting down beside him, "are thinking about something frustrating. What is it? And don't even give me that look," she added. "It's not my fault you've practically got the same face as Percy, and him I can read forwards and backwards by now."

A moment of understanding hit Ron at this. He shoved it to the back of his mind for examination later. "There's something I want to look up," he said. "Only it's going to be hard for me to get it from the library, because I'm not sure where it is or what it'd be filed under. It won't be in the Restricted Section, it's not that sort of a thing, so I won't get in trouble for it, but I don't want to be calling things all over the place and working my little spell on them every time so I can see what they are for myself, and the person who'd usually give me a hand with that, well…" He jerked one shoulder in the direction of Hermione.

Crystal tapped her temple. "If all you need is a working set of eyes, will I do?"

"You'd actually be perfect." Ron smiled, getting up. "See, loads of people have donated their family archives to the library here, especially the Sacred Twenty-Eight everyone makes such a fuss about." He snorted. "You know, I bet if we looked them up right now, we've probably got more of those names in the DA than the Death Eaters have got on their roster."

"Possibly even some overlap," Crystal murmured. "But I'm sorry, you were saying?"

"I'm looking for the plans to a house." Ron shut the door behind them and started for the stairs, since the last place he'd seen the entrance to the library was on the fifth floor and they were currently on the third. "It's an old house, but since the plans are magical, they should have updated themselves every time the owners made a change to the house, which means we'll be able to see what it looks like today, and that should help me with what I want to do to cheer up Hermione whenever she's ready for it…"


Hermione wrapped her fingers around Danger's hand, feeling love, grief, pain, all humming through her Pack-mother's mind. I hate him, she growled through their bond, squeezing hard. I hate him so much. How dare he, how dare he call me Kitten—no one is allowed to call me that except—

Except your father, Danger cut in. Which is what he hoped to exploit, my love. He wanted to frighten and anger and unsettle you, by using the name you accept only from your Moony.

oh. Hermione considered the other bizarre aspects of that terrifying, surreal conversation in this light. Is that why he called me all those other things? she asked doubtfully. His heir, and his darling, and Draco's twin? To frighten me?

Partly. But partly, I think, he's been forced to face facts. Danger slid her free arm around Hermione's side, and though Hermione heard a little sob catch in her sister-mother's throat, felt the quiver of her shoulders, her mental voice remained clear and calm. Given what he's just done, you are his heir now, love. He knows you're intelligent and imaginative—you don't need me to tell you what he would do, what he will do, if they win, to ensure that his bloodline continues…

A hiss of rejection burst from Hermione without her conscious intent.

Precisely. He wants you thinking about that, running it over in your mind, imagining it again and again, to obsess you alongside your grief and distract you doubly from the war at the very moment you can't afford such distractions.

Well, I won't bother with that. Because he's not going to win. Still, Hermione pressed her face into Danger's robes and allowed herself a single brief shudder for the mere possibility.

That's my girl. Danger bent her head to administer a kiss to the top of Hermione's. As for calling you Draco's twin… She laughed sadly. Lucius may never have acknowledged that before, my love, but he knows that you do, that we do. I'm sure he was trying to hurt you with it, but that still means he has acknowledged it, so as foolish as this sounds, let's claim it as a victory…

"But it doesn't sound foolish at all." Hermione turned her head so that her words, hoarsely whispered as they might be, would come through clearly. "It's a tiny truth, on a night full of lies. And sooner or later, tiny truths add up to a big truth, the sort that will bring the Death Eaters' pyramid of lies crashing down in ruins—"

Pardon me.

The voice was masculine, apologetic, and familiar, but it was very definitely not Moony's. Hermione stiffened, and felt Danger do the same. Yes, Alex? the Pack's alpha female acknowledged politely.

I thought you might want to know. Alex seemed to pause for breath. Our newest arrival is settling in comfortably, and asked me to send you his love. He looks forward to seeing you again. At Halloween, if not sooner. A moment's pause. That's him coming to you, by the by, not the other way around. He may not be able to stay very long, but he says to tell you he wouldn't miss it for the world.

As Alex's sense within their minds vanished, Hermione curled herself into Danger's embrace and finally allowed her tears full rein, her imagination building the picture of her twin arranging a room within the Founders' Castle to suit his own taste. Surely he would have a comfortable chair for reading, and a corner for practicing his music, and a full-sized window so that he could leave by broomstick whenever the mood struck him, and…

Another spasm of sobs gripped her as the figure of her brother paused to stroke lovingly the heads of the tiny creatures sleeping on his bed, atop a wildly patterned, hand-crafted blanket. Cuddled together in an untidy bundle were a tricolored kitten and a brown-furred fox kit.

At least our little selves will always have each other.

And someday, when it's my turn, I'll see him again too.

Then her pain surged up again, and for a little while, there was nothing in her world but loss.

Finally, finally, the first storm blew itself out, and Hermione began to take notice of what was going on around her again. Moony's voice and Percy's continued to speak quietly at a distance, with the feel of Danger's mind a bit abstracted as she followed that conversation through Moony's ears, but closer by and sounding rather oddly cheerful were the mingled tones of Crystal Huley and—

She opened her eyes, or tried to. The lashes had stuck together with all the crying she'd done. A little growl of annoyance mixed in her throat with a highly inappropriate laugh—

Why inappropriate, love? Danger murmured, and the salt rime gumming Hermione's eyes shut disappeared. Life hasn't stopped being funny just because we're hurting. Come see what Ron's found.

"I thought that was you," Hermione said aloud, succeeding this time in opening her eyes and managing a smile in return for Ron's. "What—" She blinked at the enormous piece of parchment sprawled across the card table someone had conjured in the center of the room. "Is that—are those plans? Building plans?"

"That's right. We might get Ginny to make us a model of it later, but parchment'll do for now." Ron started to get up, but Danger waved for him to stay seated and conjured another chair beside the table for Hermione. "Ah, thanks. So I was thinking," he went on, his tone studiously casual as Hermione took her seat. "Malfoy's going to call you his heir, you'd better start living up to the role. Planning on what you're going to do with your inheritance, once you come into it. Since we are going to win this war, and that's going to involve kicking his skinny little inbred arse from here to Brazil and back again."

Hermione couldn't help but giggle slightly at the imagery.

"Shame we can't find a way to make the magic-loss permanent," Ron went on. "But then, it's not like that would make him stop being dangerous." He nodded to Crystal, who fluffed her hair innocently with one hand. "We'll have to settle for hoping his ghost hangs around to be properly horrified by what we're up to."

"Is that…" Hermione caught sight of the elaborate lettering in the corner of the plan nearest her. "It is. It's Malfoy Manor. Ron, what on earth—"

"Two for one," Crystal put in, leaning back in her chair. "We know they're set up there already, so this will give us an idea how many people they could be housing, where we might have to watch for traps, and so on, and so forth. And then there's the advance planning." She grinned. "Seeing as this place is going to be yours after the war's over. You wouldn't happen to know a whole load of people who might want to live pretty well in each other's laps or anything, would you?"

"In each other's—a den?" Hermione stared in shock at the rooms outlined on the parchment. "You want to turn Malfoy Manor into a den? For the Pride?"

"If you're against it, we won't, but I thought it might be fun." Ron began to outline areas of the house with his wand. "There's a great big library already, right here, and we could knock a couple doors here and expand it into the room next door if we need to. And seeing as we're talking about you, not to mention my sister, and your sister, and Luna for that matter, we'll need to. That room's set up as a fancy show-off-how-rich-I-am thing anyway, so no use to us. And the next room over from that is what they're calling the drawing room—lots of open space, and wood paneling on the walls, so I figured we could turn that into the music room. They've even got a nice conservatory out the back, all ready for our plant-lovers to set up in…"

"What about a Quidditch pitch?" Hermione leaned closer, looking at the outline of the ground floor of Malfoy Manor with renewed interest. "Maybe right here." Her finger landed on a broad swath of garden labeled Maze. "I don't think Harry would care to have one of these around, not after the way the Triwizard Tournament ended, and I know he'd love having a real Quidditch pitch within sight of the house." She looked up at Ron with a smile. "I don't think you'd mind it either."

"Straight through the hoop I wouldn't." Ron mimed a Quaffle shooting cleanly through a goal.

"I thought your job was to stop people doing that," said Crystal with an overly puzzled expression.


Percy glanced over at the small, square table as laughter broke out. "He's growing up," he said softly, almost to himself. "How can it surprise me every time?"

"The same way it does all of us," Remus answered in the same tones. "I'd imagine your mother says that about you every so often as well."

"Oh, only once or twice." Percy grimaced. "A day. But as I was saying. Things are not getting any better at the Ministry, and this development may embolden the faction that's trying to take control—I think we have all of their members spotted, but I can't be certain, and if we've missed even one…"

"What about the other side of things?" Remus flipped his hand, palm to back. "You and Arthur between you have solid contacts in every critical department, I'd assume?"

"Yes, we do." Percy frowned, as though trying to track down the relation of this piece of information to the conversation as a whole. "But if we lose the Ministry entirely—" Then his face cleared. "Ah. Of course. The 'Ministry in exile' plan."

"It may be our best option, if they're so far along as all that." Remus closed his right hand into a fist and cloaked it behind his left hand, fingers outspread. "They can't corrupt what they can't find, and we can keep the most critical things going from here. Including giving ordinary people, the kind who'd usually never dream of breaking a law, an alternative to outright defiance of what I'd hope some of them will see are truly horrible policies under…is there a name attached to this puppet-Minister they're trying to put in?"

"If I had to wager, I'd lay a few Galleons on Pius Thicknesse." Percy scowled. "High-ranking, well-connected, purity-minded, and gullible enough that it's even possible they could talk him into acting for them without any Imperius Curse being needed. Though I'm sure they'll use it anyway, simply to have him as fully under their control as possible."

"Most likely." Remus nodded. "So we'll have the Thicknesse administration on one side, enacting the sorts of laws that will confuse and frighten most people—since they're not, thankfully, intelligent enough to take things slowly and avoid arousing suspicion—and on the other …I like your phrase. The Ministry in exile. Fighting to stop the terror, to keep things as they were, and with a Minister of our own, someone people will trust and follow willingly."

"I don't envy whoever that turns out to be," said Percy frankly. "He'll have enough work for eight people on his hands, never mind just one."

And if he turns out to be eight people? Danger inquired, flashing an image behind Remus's eyelids. Or, at least, to have seven people very near and dear to his heart, on whom he can call for the help he's bound to need?

Now, now. Remus returned the favor, tossing towards his love a picture of the gleaming blade he'd last seen in Harry's hand. That's up to the Sword, or will be if we can get everyone to agree to abide by its decision. Which, if the Ministry falls in the fashion I'm expecting, is entirely possible. Frightened people will agree to almost anything they think will restore some order to their world.

Why do I find it ironic that we're coldbloodedly planning to use the very same reactions our enemies are hoping to exploit?

silence, witch.

Danger stuck out her tongue in his direction.


Sirius sat wearily in the desk chair in the War Room at Headquarters midway through the afternoon, trying to drag his thoughts back into some semblance of order. Aberforth Dumbledore had disclaimed any interest in the arrangements of his brother's funeral, which threw the burden back onto the Hogwarts staff and the Order, and of course the only proper people to be organizing such things for Draco were the Pack.

As sick and wrong as it is that we have to do that for one of our cubs. He sighed, with more than a hint of growl in the sound. And it's not even the first time…

There would, at least, be no disagreements over the interment of either body. Albus Dumbledore, by special order of the school governors, was to be granted an honor befitting the wizard who had held the position of Headmaster for one of the longest terms on record. A spot by the shores of the Hogwarts lake had been chosen, and a tomb would be erected there tomorrow, when the rest of the arrangements had been made.

And as for Fox… Sirius squeezed one fist tight, then let it go. I know I thought it was ghoulish of us to arrange to buy the plots around James and Lily's way back when, but damned if it isn't turning out useful, in the worst possible way. First Marcus, now Draco…what is it with us and boys? We'd better be keeping a close watch on Harry—

His throat tightened, and after a quick glance at the door to be sure it was shut, he let it. No one was here to see him. If he wanted to grieve, for his friend, for the son he'd never met, most of all for the child he'd made his own, he thought he was entitled.

"It's all such a waste," he whispered harshly. "Such a goddamn, useless, stupid waste. So much we'll never get to see him do…"

His mind, perhaps predictably, decided to present him with images of those things, sharpening them into clear focus for an instant before blurring them over with the fog of might-have-been. Draco on his last day at Hogwarts, finding a spot in Gryffindor Tower to carve his initials with his wand, as generations of Gryffindors had done before him… carefully following Aletha's directions to finish the potion which might earn him a spot on one of St. Mungo's antidote-brewing teams… looking up from his music with joy but no surprise as Hermione burst through the door, her face alight with happiness and a new ring adorning her finger… gently massaging Luna's shoulders and supervising the placing of a cradle in a sunny bedroom…

Sirius swore under his breath, angrily swiping at his eyes. "Not our fault he never will," he muttered. "Not our fault. In fact—" He surprised himself by producing a sound which bore some resemblance to a laugh. "Let's regularize that, shall we? Thousand years from now, somebody goes and digs all of this up, we'll want them to know he had our full support to do everything he ever wanted, it's Lucius who decided he shouldn't have it…"

Finding parchment, quill, and ink on the desk, he began to write in his best pureblood calligraphy.

I, Sirius Valentine Black, do hereby grant Draco Regulus Black, my son by law, permission to finish his seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and stomp his N.E.W.T.s into the ground.

"Which he would have done." Blowing on the ink to dry it, Sirius regarded his effort with some satisfaction. "It may not change things, but it places the guilt where it belongs. And we're going to need that."

Especially Harry and Neenie, and probably Pearl as well. We raised them responsible, and to believe they could make a difference in the world, but that does have side effects. Such as blaming themselves whenever anything goes wrong around them, no matter if they could really have changed it or not…

With a long sigh, Sirius rolled his parchment back into a scroll, tucked it into a pocket, and got to his feet. Plenty of work remained to be done still today.

He was halfway to the door when a silver wolf intercepted him. "Padfoot, if you're at Headquarters," it said in Remus's voice, looking up at him thoughtfully. "Box in side drawer in War Room. Bring back with you please?"

"Box in side drawer?" Sirius frowned, and headed back to the desk, starting to rummage through the drawers which lined its two thick legs. "What kind of—ahh." Carefully, he lifted out a carved wooden chest, about as long as his forearm and as wide as his hand. "Found it." Unable to resist the urge, he shook it slightly, and heard a rattle from within, as of wood on wood. "Wonder what's in there. Ah well, none of my business." He tucked it under his arm and made for the door again. "Moony wants me to know, he'll tell me."

I got cured of peeking into strange boxes before I was ten, right upstairs from here, as it happens. Bella and her parents had come for a visit, and I thought her jewelry case looked just fascinating, all green and scaly like it was.

"Green and scaly for good reason," he grumbled, stepping out into the corridor. "Damn thing was made of dragon skin—and dragon's teeth, too, enchanted to take a piece out of anybody who tried to open it without its owner's permission…"

He tagged that memory as one to share with the rest of the Pack tonight. A few moments of laughter, unrelated to the events of the past day, would do everyone a world of good.


"Thank you for remembering this, love," said Remus in the suite he and Danger had quietly claimed for their own once the house-elves had removed the personal belongings of Severus Snape, the same one they had occupied nearly four years earlier, when their own and their Pack's worst worry had been a single pair of rogue Death Eaters instead of the full complement along with their Master. "Merlin knows it'd slipped my mind entirely."

"That's why there are two of us." Danger ran her fingers across the top of the box. "But how in the world could Albus have predicted this, so long ago?" Lifting the lid, she reached without fear into the Gubraithian fire and extracted one of the items lying inside. "I may not have grown up magical, but a few things I have learned. And no wizard ever thinks he'll be without his wand." She cradled the long, slender rod of elder wood between her fingers. "But then, Albus always was an exception to every rule, now wasn't he?"

"Perhaps he's told us how he knew." Remus removed the other item from the inside of the box and slid his finger under the flap of the envelope. "As long as it's not a time-delay Howler…"

"I think we'd know." Danger sat down beside her husband, watching as he emptied the envelope of its contents. "One letter, with enclosures—enclosure," she corrected when Remus had unfolded the single sheet of parchment. "Another envelope. A thick one, letter plus enclosure of its own." She rubbed it between her fingers. "Ragged edge on there. Might be a page torn out of a book or some such. Addressed to Harry."

"Which he does not get until his seventeenth birthday, and possibly even later than that." Remus waited until Danger had dropped the smaller envelope back into the box, then closed it once more. "But this is for us, and for right now." Flattening the letter in his lap, he began to read, Danger shutting her eyes to share his focus.

My dear friends,

I have begun this letter a dozen times, and a dozen times destroyed it, cravenly telling myself that you have no need to know such ancient history as I was about to write down. Such things are buried in the past, I tried to argue, and have no meaning for the present and the future. Surely my friends do not wish to know the shame and pain I suffered, or the foolish actions into which I blindly thrust myself, when I was almost as young as your cubs are now.

And yet, the present and the future are built upon the past, and the only way in which we may avoid shame and pain and foolishness ourselves is to learn from those who have suffered them.

A thirteenth time, I begin.

My father, Percival, and my mother, Kendra, had three children; I was their eldest, my brother Aberforth a year or two my junior, and our sister Ariana, the baby of the family. We lived simply, but happily, until the incident which shattered my sister's childhood, and brought with it consequences far beyond what any of its participants had ever dreamed possible…


"Do you think you can scare something up in House colors for the DA to give tomorrow morning?" Harry asked Neville as they climbed the stairs together. "Nothing huge, just a wreath. But we've got to have them all, or none."

"I'll talk to Professor Sprout. She's got some special stuff back in the restricted greenhouse, and if this isn't the time…" Neville broke off, turning his head. "Is someone singing?"

Harry stopped walking to listen, and caught a whiff of scent on the slight draft carrying down the first floor corridor. He coughed a little to draw Neville's attention, then sketched a crescent-moon curve on his forearm with a finger, a moment before their Pridemate began to sing another verse, her sweet, clear tones seemingly untroubled by so much as a hint of grief.

"Oh, Father, go and dig my grave,
"Go dig it soft and narrow,
"Sweet William died for me today,
"I'll die for him tomorrow…"

Luna rounded the corner and stopped, tucking a piece of parchment into her pocket. "Hello, Harry," she said. "Hello, Neville. Did you know your mum was going to close up Fireflower House and go to stay with your gran for a while?"

"I…didn't." Neville frowned. "Why do you?"

"I was just home to see Daddy." Luna brushed a streak of ashes from the shoulder of her robes. "When we were writing our notes to Draco earlier today, giving him our permission to do the things he would have wanted to do in his life, it reminded me that I needed Daddy's permission to do some things as well." Her smile, though seemingly as absent as ever, sent an odd chill down Harry's spine. "One thing if the path leads one way, and another thing if it leads another. And it's a good thing I went when I did, because Daddy's going to put the Landing Zone under the Fidelius Charm tonight, with your mum, Neville, for Secret-Keeper."

"With…wow." Neville blew his breath out. "The things that happen when I'm not looking."

"It's probably smart, though." Harry tucked his hands into his pockets. "The Burrow's under loads of security by now, almost as good as Headquarters, so the Weasleys ought to be all right, and my parents are going to be spending most of their time here from now on, but some of the things your dad keeps around, Luna, are pretty strongly magical, and they might interfere with a standard security mix."

"And Mum's thinking in terms of offering them fewer targets, and better-protected ones." Neville smirked. "I'd pity the first Death Eater who underestimates Gran, but it'd be a waste of time."

"Yes, it would." Luna rubbed her fingers together absently. "Do you still have the bush that grew the roses I carried at Harry and Ginny's wedding?" she asked, looking into the distance between the boys.

"It's in the greenhouse right next to Ginny's." Neville nodded. "Why?"

"Will you bring a cutting from it tomorrow afternoon?" Luna turned her gaze on him. "To grow over his heart, and his name. Just the way it ought to be."

Harry swallowed hard as Neville nodded again, more slowly. "If that's all right?" he asked, looking over at Harry. "I don't want to do anything you wouldn't want."

"It's—" Harry coughed once, twice, then cleared his throat loudly. "It's fine," he said, his voice ringing off the walls with unexpected force. "Fine," he repeated less stridently. "It sounds just about right, actually. And we can bury the letters there too, to stay just as close to him."

"Thank you." Luna smiled, then turned and went on her way, beginning to hum "Barbara Allen" again almost before she was out of sight around the corner.

Harry and Neville looked at each other for a long moment, a bitter truth hanging in the air between them.

Whatever the next day might bring, the Pride had already been irrevocably changed.


Luna stepped into Myrtle's toilet, stroking her fingers along the edges of the note she'd asked her father to write for her, granting her permission to do the same thing she'd seen Mrs. Danger writing down in the note she would leave behind her tomorrow.

"I'll have to go last," she murmured aloud. "But that shouldn't be too hard…"

Flickers of movement caught her attention. Myrtle, above the cubicles, was dabbing at ghostly tears with one hand. The other was pointing towards the cauldron which held the Imprimatus.

No trace of blue could be seen in the potion's reflection on the ceiling.

With a sigh of understanding, Luna walked slowly towards the cauldron, to see what message her Fox had left behind for her.

Traced on the bottom of the cauldron, in the warm red he'd always favored, were four simple words.

I love you, Luna.

"I know you do," Luna whispered, reaching into her other pocket and lifting out the green-stoned dagger which had been dropped negligently in front of Hermione by Lucius Malfoy early that morning. "I know you always will."

Slowly, ceremoniously, she lowered the dagger into the cauldron, and watched the potion bubble around its blade as the goblin-wrought silver dutifully absorbed the liquid into itself.

Then she slid the dagger back into her pocket, collected Amanda's letter from its place under the flask, and departed for Gryffindor Tower.

She hoped not to die for her love tomorrow, but lying convincingly to the man who'd murdered him, then destroying the killer's mind forever, would be quite tiring, especially coming on top of two separate funerals.

A good night's sleep was indicated.

  • Previous
  • Next

Author Notes:

And, in a historic example of joke becoming reality, Luna's vision comes true in Chapter 42. Which I hope to have completed soon, very possibly in time for the birthday of the Dangerverse (the 25th of October), so I won't rattle on about it here.

The box Remus and Danger just opened first appears in Chapter 56 of Facing Danger.

Thanks as always, and don't forget to review! More chapters, and news about originals, coming soon!