Be Careful
72: What Sky You Watch
By Anne B. Walsh
"Are you making your wishes?" Luna whispered as another meteor blazed its trail of light across the sky.
"What have I got left to wish for?" Draco kissed what felt like the side of her head—the darkness and the Disillusionment Charms they were both under made it hard to tell. They lay together at the top of a hill in their snow gear, the blanket wrapped around them charmed to keep dampness and cold at bay.
"How about the end of the war?"
"True enough. But I thought if you told a wish, it wouldn’t come true."
"I haven’t told my wish. I’ve told you what you could wish for."
"So what are you wishing for, then?"
Luna giggled. "You can’t catch me like that!"
"Can’t blame me for trying..." Draco broke off. "What’s that?"
"It sounds like someone shouting." Luna’s warmth beside him shifted, and Draco heard the rustle of her sitting up. "More than one person. And spells. Should we go see what it is?"
It’s none of our concern, was Draco’s first reaction. Why should we care about what happens to some stranger?
Why should anyone in the otherworld have cared about what happened to you, when you first showed up there? whispered the same voice which had prompted him to destroy Nagini’s body on Christmas Eve. You were a stranger to them, but they still helped you. Cared about you. Shouldn’t you do the same?
"I don’t believe I’m listening to you," Draco muttered under his breath. "You lost me my arm, last time..."
"What did you say?" asked Luna.
"Nothing." Draco kicked off the covering fold of blanket. "You’re right. We should go check it out."
"Shh!" Luna cautioned suddenly, grasping his arm. "Someone’s coming!"
Both of them went still, listening.
He scrambled up the hill, hearing the hoarse breathing of a goblin just behind him. The other goblin was dead, he was sure, nothing alive fell that limply, and he thought he’d seen a burst of green around one of the two men before the other one shouted at him to run—
I should go back. I have to help him. It’s two against one. But if we can take out the one that’s chasing us—
He burst into a clearing at the top of the hill. A yelp and a slight thud told him his companion had fallen. Turning back without stopping, he pulled out his wand, intending to Summon the goblin or pick him up with a Mobilicorpus—the Snatcher was still tangled in the underbrush they’d run through, he could hear the swearing from the hillside, this was their best chance—
Cloth tangled around his feet, and he fell, hitting the ground with his shoulder and knocking the breath out of himself. An invisible hand slapped over his mouth, an arm pinned his down, and a chill ran across him as his own body vanished—
Disillusionment? But who—
"Dean!" a girl’s voice hissed in his ear. "Dean, it’s all right, it’s me, it’s Luna!"
Dean Thomas got half a breath back into his lungs as the hand came away from his mouth. "Luna? What are you doing here?"
"I was watching stars with my friend—"
The Snatcher crashed through the last layer of plants and brought his wand down towards the goblin. Dean was about to bring his own up to defend, but a boy’s voice from beside him growled "Stupefy," and a red beam of light outlined the Snatcher, who stiffened, then collapsed.
"Nice shooting," Dean said shakily.
"Thanks." The sound of someone standing up. "How many more of them?"
"Two, I think."
"You still with Cresswell and Tonks, and those goblins?"
"How did you—"
"He just knows things," Luna broke in. "Are you?"
"Yeah. I think Cresswell’s dead, though. And one of the goblins."
A muttered curse. "Tonks?"
"He told me to run." Dean pushed himself to his feet. "There were two of them down there, I have to go help him—"
"He would not thank you for returning and getting killed," said a guttural voice as the goblin sat up. "We should go on."
"You do what you want. I’m not leaving him." Dean started back down the hill, feeling a guilty pleasure at the goblin’s hiss of pain when he tried to stand. For all the goblins had been outwardly polite during the months he’d spent in their company, he’d always had the feeling they considered him and the older wizards only slightly better than the Snatchers and the Death Eaters.
They’d probably have turned us in for the reward themselves if they could have managed it without being caught...
Rustles of cloth behind him, one stopping beside the goblin, the other following him down the hill. "Mind some help?" said the tantalizingly familiar male voice.
"Thanks." Dean squinted at the blurred outline, trying to match it to one of his classmates. "Do I know you?"
"How about we stay with ‘Luna’s friend’ for right now."
"All right."
Loud laughter echoed through the trees as they reached the bottom of the hill. Dean peered through the trees and felt his stomach turn. Ted Tonks leaned weakly against a tree, his fingers pressed against his side, a dark stain spreading across his robes. His wand lay on the ground at his feet, but judging by the Snatcher sprawled several feet away, he’d managed to use it at least once before being disarmed.
Doesn’t matter, though, not with that other one right there...
"Get almost the same bounty for you dead as alive," the unwashed wizard taunted, cackling coarsely through his words. "Think I’ll go for dead this time, since you killed Miller... though maybe I should let you live, give you over to the dementors..."
Dean brought his wand up and aimed carefully. He’d only get one shot at this.
"Stupefy!"
The Snatcher dropped where he stood. Dean ran past him, resisting the urge to kick the unconscious wizard somewhere tender, and caught Ted as he started to fall, staggering slightly with his companion’s weight until another set of hands took some of it. Together, they helped the older wizard sit down with his back against the tree.
"Are you all right, sir?" said Luna’s friend, sounding surprisingly concerned. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Don’t think so." Ted’s breath was coming in gasps. "Lost... too much blood..."
Luna’s friend whispered a spell, and the lines of pain on Ted’s face eased. "Thanks... who..."
"Someone who should have known you better, sir. I’m sorry we didn’t come in time."
"Don’t." Ted waved the apology away. "Fortunes of war... Dean?"
"I’m here, sir." Dean removed his Disillusionment and grasped Ted’s hand. "I’m not hurt."
"Good." The older wizard’s eyes closed, then opened again. "’Dromeda..."
"We’ll tell her," Luna’s friend promised. "Your daughter too."
Ted smiled, his eyes closing again. "Thank you," he whispered. The last sound trailed off into nothingness as his head sagged back against the tree and the hand in Dean’s went limp.
Dean’s throat closed. Beside him, Luna’s friend drew a deep, shuddering breath. "They’ll pay for this," he said, his voice low and tinged with snarl. "They will pay."
"How?" Dean had to swallow before he could get more than that one word out. "You heard what that bastard said—they get paid for killing Muggleborns. Or bringing them in to rot in Azkaban."
"Azkaban..." The other’s voice was thoughtful, and suddenly Dean placed him.
"You’re Reflection!" he blurted out. "We listen to you on Potterwatch! You’re the one who always knows where Harry’s been!"
"Well done, Thomas. And of course you already know the lovely Radiance." A hand pressed against Dean’s shoulder, and he turned to see Luna enter the clearing, the goblin—Griphook, he could see now—limping beside her. "Wait here, will you, love? I’m going home to grab a few things."
"Of course," said Luna, coming over to kneel down beside Dean. A crack marked Reflection’s Disapparition.
"He is dead, then?" said Griphook.
"Yeah, he’s dead. Cresswell too." Dean clenched his teeth against tears. They helped me, they looked out for me, I’d never have made it this far without them, and now they’re dead, and I didn’t do a damn thing to help them when they needed it...
"You made sure Mr. Tonks didn’t die for no reason," Luna said softly. "He wanted you to be safe, and you are. And you came back, to be with him. That isn’t nothing."
"Feels like it."
"I know." Luna rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment, then took it away. "I know it does."
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Then the loud snap of an Apparition heralded the arrival of a brown-haired boy, his features reminiscent, to Dean’s eye, of Hermione Granger’s. He was holding a small canvas bag in the hand not gripping his wand. "Back," he said in Reflection’s voice, setting the bag down on the ground. "What’s your name, goblin?"
"Griphook," the goblin answered. "My companion was Gornuk. What about you, wizard?"
"Reflection’ll do as well as anything." The boy flicked a glance at Luna, who had begun to giggle. "Do you have somewhere you can go, Griphook? Somebody going to want to know Gornuk’s dead?"
"He had a mate," Griphook acknowledged. "She will want to perform the rites for him. And any search for me will be over by now, so I could hide with my people if I could reach them. But the entrances to our home caverns are guarded by wizards, and I cannot Apparate..."
"Not even if you had a wand?"
Griphook’s eyes narrowed. "Goblins cannot use wands."
"No, goblins may not use wands. It isn’t the same thing." Reflection crossed his arms. "Don’t try to tell me you don’t have a few stashed away you’ve taken off thieves, or that you don’t all take turns practicing with them, just in case those stupid laws ever get repealed."
"Would I tell you if we did?"
"No, you wouldn’t, which is why I’m not asking. But just in case I’m right, I’m going to turn my back for thirty seconds. So will they." Reflection jerked a thumb at Dean and Luna. "If I’m right, you won’t have any trouble grabbing that dead Snatcher’s wand and getting yourself and your friend out of here. And if they ever ask us, we can honestly say we didn’t see what happened."
Griphook laughed. "Devious beyond your years, wizard," he said.
Reflection dipped a shallow bow. "I do my best. Good luck to you." He pivoted on one foot as he came up, motioning Dean and Luna to do the same.
Dean looked away, counting to himself. Chinese Fireball one, Chinese Fireball two, Chinese Fireball three...
He got only as far as eleven before the slammed-door sound of an unpracticed Disapparition assaulted his ears.
"Ouch," said Reflection, shaking his head. "Hope they didn’t get splinched."
"The goblins will help them if they did." Luna got to her feet. "What did you go to get?"
"Show you in a minute." Reflection looked past her to Dean. "Thomas, you up for a little role-playing?"
"What?"
"Role-playing. Acting. Pretending to be somebody else. Specifically, one of them." Reflection nodded towards the Snatchers. "Think you can pull it off for a few minutes? You don’t have to talk, just stand behind me and nod."
Dean pulled his thoughts together, shoving his grief aside. "Yeah, I can do that. Why?"
"Because we’re going to give this scum what they deserve." Reflection’s voice was hard. "By playing the Ministry at their own game."
Andromeda Tonks sat at her kitchen table. One hand rested lightly on the folded piece of parchment she had been given a few minutes earlier by her son-in-law, who had told her how it had been brought to his home by a young Muggleborn he had once taught at Hogwarts. He had tried to dissemble, but she had known from the look in his eyes what news the letter contained.
Putting it off will make it no better. I must know.
She unfolded the parchment and began to read.
Dear Madam Tonks,
I am sorry to inform you that your husband, Ted Tonks, died this evening in a battle with three Snatchers from the Ministry of Magic. He killed one of his enemies before being struck down himself, and his fighting abilities allowed one of his companions, Dean Thomas, to escape capture. I was with him as he died; he did not suffer, and spoke your name before he passed.
You may hear news in the coming days that your husband has been captured by the Ministry and sent to Azkaban. Obviously, this is not true. What has happened is this: using magic, the aforementioned Dean Thomas and I caused the two surviving Snatchers to look like your husband and Thomas himself, and took on the semblance of the Snatchers for ourselves. Under their names and appearances, we took them to the Ministry and claimed the reward for turning in Muggleborns, causing them to be sent to Azkaban before the magic on them wore off.
I know that no amount of gold can repay the death of a loved one, but I thought you would want to know that far from profiting from your husband’s death, the men responsible have received precisely what they should have in a more just world. I wish that prejudice had not stopped me from knowing him, and you and your daughter have my deepest condolences for your loss.
There was no signature, but a picture had been drawn across the bottom of the parchment. In the curve of a crescent moon lay a gray-scaled dragon, tears falling from its eyes. Andromeda smiled, even as her own eyes filled with tears.
"He may yet be the saving of you, Cissy," she whispered, remembering what she had written to her baby sister the day her nephew was born. "I hope he is."
Then her grief rolled over her like a wave of the ocean, and she had no strength left to think or hope anything, only to lay her head on her arms and let her tears flow.
The knowledge that her love had not suffered, that he had saved another’s life, that the men who had killed him were being punished, would matter to her someday, just as someday she would be able to stand up and go on. Today, all she knew was that the man for whose sake she had denied everything she had been born to was dead, and all she could do was cry.
Author Notes:
Well, now that I’ve thoroughly depressed everyone, some good news... I have an interview for a better job than my current one next Monday. If it goes through, I’ll be doing real work at work, which will mean less frustration and, quite possibly, more writing! Everybody cross your fingers, and please review to make sure I’m in good spirits for it!