Be Careful
61: What You Sense
By Anne B. Walsh
“So, what’s it like?” Abby asked, watching Draco practice reaching for things with his left hand.
“What’s what like?”
“Having your arm missing like that and getting a new one.”
Draco turned to look at her where she was sitting on his bed. “Have you ever heard of tact?”
“Is it one of those things like manners that I don’t have?”
Draco sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
“Okay.” Abby observed him for a few seconds silently. “So, what’s it like?”
Draco picked up a piece of scrap parchment, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it at her. She giggled and ducked as it missed by several feet.
“Never very good with that hand anyway,” Draco muttered without much heat. “But one of these days you’re going to get yourself ducked in a pond.”
“I wouldn’t mind, so long as it was a nice hot day. And the pond was clean, not mucky and full of ick.” Abby pulled a face. “I don’t want to get ick in my hair.”
“You shouldn’t tell him those things, you know,” said Luna from the door. “He’ll remember, and then one day when you’re not looking he’ll set it up so that you do get ick in your hair.”
Draco drew himself up. “Here now! That is a base slander and I resent it heartily!”
Luna shook her head. “It can only be slander if it isn’t true,” she said. “And with Ray and his father downstairs trying to figure out what hit them, I think it is true.”
“Oh, did Mum finally trigger that?” Draco laughed. “Come on, Abby, you’ll want to see this.”
“What?” Abby asked eagerly, sliding off the bed and following Draco and Luna into the hall.
“Well, Ray was a prat and shoved me out of bed my first morning back to school.” Draco stretched up with his left arm to touch the top of the doors as he passed them. “And instead of just pretending I was running late for the show, Moony told Mum I couldn’t stay to watch, which she thought meant I’d gone and not that I was in it. So we owed them both a little payback.”
“I like payback.” Abby bounced on her toes. “As long as it’s not to me. What did you do to them?”
“Ah, ah, no spoilers,” Draco admonished. “Wait until you see it. And there will be payback coming to you, for what you pulled last night.”
“I thought it was very sweet of her to sing that to you,” said Luna. “I don’t know how true it is, but it was sweet.”
Abby pouted. “It’s true enough. I wouldn’t have had a good Christmas at all without my Draco.”
“Yes, but... all you want?” said Draco, grinning at her over his shoulder. “You seemed happy enough to see those presents with your name on them.”
The pout intensified, accompanied by a stamped foot. “Stop teasing me! I was trying to be nice and sing you my favorite Christmas song and you’re making fun of me for it when I practiced for weeks and weeks and—EEK! PUT ME DOWN!”
Draco frowned, adjusting Abby’s position on his shoulder as she kicked and squealed. “Down?” he said, affecting the manner of his own world’s Crabbe and Goyle. “Er, what’s down?”
“This is down, dear,” said Luna gently, pointing towards the stairs. “Come with me, I’ll lead you down.”
“Aw, thanks.” Draco beamed at her with such idiotic vigor that Abby, squirming around to where she could get a glimpse of his face, started to giggle, and by the time the three reached the main floor they were all laughing.
This made them fit in well with the rest of the Beauvois, who were sitting in the room with the Christmas tree watching Ray and Moony circle each other like a pair of strange dogs. Occasionally, one of them would reach out tentatively toward the other, then retreat, shaking his head. Both of them shot frequent murderous glances at Draco’s Mum, who was sitting in an armchair cradling little Jenny and smiling beatifically.
“That’ll teach you to tease a Healer,” Danger remarked from her place on the couch.
“What will, Mummy?” Abby asked as Draco set her on her feet again.
“This,” said Moony darkly.
In Ray’s voice.
The younger Beauvois howled with laughter as Ray rubbed his hands down his face. “So strange,” he said in Moony’s voice. “I know what I ought to sound like, and that isn’t it.”
“You’ve got nothing to complain about,” said Ray, glaring at himself/his father. “You weren’t the one kissing Mum when we switched over!”
“Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I was...” The rest of Moony’s sentence went unheard as fresh laughter drowned it out.
Draco sat down on the floor beside Danger’s couch, Luna disposing herself comfortably beside him. There was a gentle tug on his collar as Danger fixed some small problem with its alignment, and he turned his head to smile thanks at her. Abby, he noticed in passing, had gone to sit on the arm of Mum’s chair and watch her new sister sleep.
So I’m surrounded by beautiful women, they helped me get revenge on the people who played tricks on me, and I don’t have to go home for four more days. He ran his fingers through Luna’s hair, enjoying the faint floral scent that wafted from it. What else could a wizard wish for?
I wish I knew more about who Luna’s with.
Harry looked again at the drawing of the red-haired, laughing girl in green Quidditch robes that adorned the bottom of his letter from his Ravenclaw friend. He’d thought, at first, that it was just there to take up the parchment Luna hadn’t used for writing, but it seemed there was another reason for it. Xenophilius Lovegood had been deeply affected by the picture, and by the similar sketches that covered his letter from Luna, needing to sit down before he fell.
“You know Luna,” he said, looking searchingly at Harry, Ron, and Hermione in turn with the eye that wasn’t pointing at the tip of his nose. “You must understand this about her. She would never indulge in her artwork unless she felt truly safe in her surroundings and her companions. I must assume she has found an unexpected friend.” He smiled, both eyes misty. “She is very like her mother in that way.”
Knowing his daughter was safe, or at least that she felt safe—“With Luna’s grasp on reality, the one’s not necessarily the other,” as Hermione said when they were alone—Xenophilius became a genial host, offering the friends Gurdyroot infusion to drink and trying to press them to stay to dinner. The combination of the taste of Gurdyroots and the knowledge that dinner would feature Freshwater Plimpy soup made refusing the easiest choice any of them had made for quite some time.
“Luna wanted you to go into hiding as soon as you could,” Harry hinted delicately, and Xenophilius agreed that he should hurry, to be sure of getting safely away before any Death Eaters decided to come check on him. Still, he seemed to want to bring everything in his junk-filled house with him, and it was nearly two hours later when he finally tottered out the door under the weight of a lopsided, bulging knapsack. Ron handed him a note, grinning.
“No Death Eater’d know what’s in here,” he said. “It’ll get you in the door.”
“What in the world did you write?” Hermione asked as they watched Xenophilius down the lane, to make sure he didn’t fall.
“The date and time I first walked in on Mum and Dad...” Ron coughed, his ears reddening. “Yes. Well.”
Harry snickered, and Hermione covered a smile.
So Luna and her dad are both safe. But for Luna, we still don’t know why, or how. Harry peered again at the tiny words beside the picture. Putting together this and what happened to Ron, it almost has to be Malfoy, but that doesn’t make any sense. There’s enough bad blood between us and him to poison every vampire in the world. Why would he help us now?
The question was unanswerable. Harry moved on to another one. What does this bit mean, about accepting I was wrong? I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. Sometimes I just get embarrassed, but sometimes people get killed. Sirius’ face flashed across his memory, frozen in mingled surprise and fear. Or come into danger when they could be safe. He glanced at Ron and Hermione, quarrelling amiably over the preparations for dinner. I’m not accepting that one, Luna, no matter what.
“But you already have,” he could almost hear her reply. “You’ve let them come with you.”
Only because I couldn’t stop them.
“Then maybe there’s someone else you won’t be able to stop. Or won’t want to.” A giggle, as distinct in Harry’s ears as though Luna were actually sitting across the table from him. “Why don’t you come to Hogsmeade and find out?”
“Someone else?” Harry repeated aloud, his eyes still on the picture at the bottom of the letter.
“What?” said Hermione, turning around.
“Nothing.” Harry folded the letter and stood up. “What do you think about going to Hogsmeade for the January weekend?”
Hermione frowned. “I don’t know, Harry, I still think it could be dangerous. What if they know we’re coming?”
“Come on, Hermione, you heard Lovegood,” said Ron, setting down the pot he was holding. “Luna wouldn’t draw unless she was happy, and she may be a bit mad but she’s not about to fall for a Death Eater. She must have got away, or found a sympathizer for our side or something. Maybe the Order had another spy, who knows?”
“Besides, no Death Eater would send us the rest of what was in that package,” said Harry, nodding to the cup sitting at the bottom of his bed. “I’ll stay under the Cloak, you two can grab Slytherins to use for Polyjuice once we get there.”
“We’ll have to take their clothes too,” Hermione said, her love of a new problem to think about overcoming her worries about it as always. “Ours won’t fit, and besides we have all Gryffindor crests on everything...”
Ron laughed. “Not even Fred and George ever sent Slytherins back from Hogsmeade in just their pants,” he said. “Shame we won’t be able to get credit for it.”
“We will,” Harry said, returning his friend’s grin. “Someday.”
After the war is over. After we find the last piece of the puzzle.
Whatever that may be.
“That was very naughty of you,” said Starwing to her counterpart, beaming. “Nicely done.”
Draco had been equal parts embarrassed and gratified to discover that not only were Ray (restored to his own body after promising never to be mean to Draco again) and Neenie staying home from the ball at the Potters’, but the rest of their friends were coming to Fidelus Manor instead, to spend a quiet evening with Draco and Luna.
I suppose that’s what friends do. If they know you’re not up to coming out, they’ll stay in with you.
Neenie’s portable TVP had been expanded with a few quick spells, and Luna had discovered that if she held Harry’s hand while he worked the magical device, the Harry in the picture seemed to be able to hear her speak.
“But it might only have been because he was already thinking of me,” she said as Harry peeled off the white glove, breaking the connection and making the picture on the wall disappear. “We can’t be sure.”
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” said Neville. “You had to go to the Room of Hiding to get the cup, didn’t you? Why not take the diadem while you were there, and send them everything at once?”
“You mean I didn’t tell you this story?” Draco blinked. “I was sure I had.”
Shaking heads greeted him.
“Well, then.” He rearranged his position on the big armchair to make room for Luna as she joined him. “Answer in two words: Headmaster Snape. Answer in more words than that...”
“I like it in here,” said Luna softly, looking around at the heaps of things that someone, sometime, had thought needed to be hidden. “It reminds me of home.”
“Well, don’t get too comfortable. We’re not staying long.” Draco pulled open the doors of the cupboard which was topped by the bust of the pockmarked warlock and lifted out Hufflepuff’s cup and the scribbled-up copy of Advanced Potion-Making. “Bag, please?”
Luna held it up. “Bag, thank you.”
Draco set the two items within it and was just reaching up for the diadem when the sound of rubbish being knocked over and a man’s curse assaulted his ears.
Who in the world—
Luna gasped. “Snape!” she mouthed at him.
Draco swore under his breath and grabbed Luna around the waist, pulling her down behind the nearest pile of objects just as a beam of wandlight stabbed through the place where they’d been standing a moment before.
For someone who’s on the same side I am, Headmaster, you certainly get in the way a lot, he thought virulently as Snape stalked into view, breathing heavily and glowering around as though daring the inoffensive items to attack him. Couldn’t just let me get on with things, no, you had to come see who was in your precious school, and if you catch me I’m going to cast first and ask questions later...
But Snape did not seem inclined to search very hard for intruders, though he did take a careful look around the small clearing where the cupboard sat. Draco would have bet good money that the Headmaster could have reproduced, in writing, a fair description of everything visible from where he was standing.
And he’s got a nasty suspicious mind, which means he’ll come back in a few days and see if anything’s gone. Which means we can’t take the diadem, because he will notice. Damn it.
After one more poisonous glare around himself, Snape turned on his heel and left, and Draco could let out the breath he’d been holding. Not even getting to help Mum decorate three whole batches of cookies, with the promise of more to come, makes up for getting a scare like that on the day before the day before Christmas.
“I wonder how he knew we were here?” Luna asked, her voice covered by the sound of the door closing.
Draco shrugged. “He’s the Head. All the portraits report to him, the house-elves, the suits of armor even.”
“And the tapestries? Like the one across from the door?”
“Probably.” Shoving the bag inside his robes, Draco stood up and helped Luna do the same. “Doesn’t matter now. Let’s find somewhere to fall asleep, so we can get back before Ray and Jonathan eat all those cookies we fixed.”
“So you’re going to have to wait until Snape isn’t suspicious anymore to get the diadem?” said Ginny. “Good luck with that.”
“Thanks.” Draco grimaced. “I’m going to need it.”
Severus Snape sat alone in his office, staring at the coals of his fire.
His actions on the twenty-third of December still gave him pause. He had intended to search every corner of the Room of Hidden Things to find whoever had brought a woven troll in pink shambling into the portrait of Dilys Derwent, waving its club in alarm. But a chance breath at just the wrong, or just the right, moment had tantalized his nose with a scent that could not possibly be there, and he had refrained from looking any further.
Though whether that was for fear of what I would find, or fear of what I would not, I have no idea.
Trying to free his mind from the certainty that he knew the perfume which had hung on the air in the vaulted room, he went to the fireplace and blew on the coals. They flared up, none brighter than a vaguely oval section in the center. A bit of imagination endowed it with soft blonde hair, merry blue eyes, a warm smile...
Severus shut his eyes, trying to banish the vision, but the face only hung brighter before him, and now he seemed to see its owner dressed in soft blue, twirling about a dance floor in the arms of a dark and handsome gallant, laughing in reply to his sallies.
My love, my love, must you haunt me even in my own world?
He was careful not to speak the question aloud. The possibility of an answer, at a moment like this one, was all too great.
Yes, I’m back. Again.