Be Careful
77: Why You Cast Spells

By Anne B. Walsh

Previous 1: What You Wish For 2: Who You Look At 3: What You Admit To 4: Where You Count To 5: What You Believe In 6: How High You Fly 7: How Hard You Fall 8: Who You Get To Know 9: What You Say You'll Do 10: Who You Ask For Help 11: Who You Think About 12: Where You Fall Asleep 13: Who You Defy 14: How You Begin 15: What You Try To Say 16: What Shape You Wear 17: Who You Sing With 18: Whose Name You Say 19: Who You Say You'll Be 20: How Long You Take 21: What You Bargain With 22: Where You Call Home 23: What You Hold Onto 24: What You Dance To 25: What You Spy On 26: Whom You Show Love 27: What You Act Like 28: Who You Show Off To 29: What You Scheme For 30: What You Contrast 31: What You Create 32: What Soul You Seek 33: What Trouble You Brew 34: When You Make Your Move 35: Who You Call Family 36: Whom You Tease 37: What You Mean To Kill 38: What Help You Find 39: Where You Watch 40: Who You Bring Along 41: What You Pretend 42: What You Find Important 43: What Wish You Tell 44: Who You Dream Of 45: What You Abscond With 46: What You Destroy 47: Who You Choose To Save 48: How You Escape 49: What Life You Live 50: Whom You Reassure 51: Who You Tell Your Story 52: Whose Side You Believe 53: What Makes You Happy 54: What You Remember 55: What You Assume 56: How You Explain 57: Why You Strike 58: How Much You Notice 59: What You Read 60: What You Accept 61: What You Sense 62: How Much You Learn 63: What Pieces You See 64: Who You Listen To 65: Who You Turn Your Back On 66: Who You Say You Love 67: How You Defend Yourself 68: What You Touch 69: How You Tempt 70: Whose Heart You Claim 71: Which Story You Trust 72: What Sky You Watch 73: Who You Point Out 74: How You Stop Speech 75: What Hurts You Take 76: What Truth You Hear 77: Why You Cast Spells 78: How You Attack 79: What Greeting You Give 80: What Life You Take 81: What You Decide 82: How You Mourn 83: What Question You Ask 84: Whom You Discuss 85: Which Parts You Speak 86: Whose Voice You Hear 87: What You Agree To 88: What You Interpret 89: Where You Hide 90: Whom You Challenge 91: How You Get Down 92: What You Do Well 93: What You Work Out 94: What Proof You Seek 95: What You Risk 96: What Thoughts You Think 97: Whose Favor You Win 98: How Much You Tell 99: How You Accept Help 100: What Tales You Tell 101: How You Win Or Lose 102: What Face You Mask 103: Whose Heart You Hold 104: What Fate You Deserve 105: What Hopes You Cherish 106: Whose Love You Desire 107: How Your Story Ends 108: Where Your Destiny Leads 109: What You Despair Of 110: What Dreams May Come 111: You Just Might Get It Next

"Your sister?" Granger pulled her head away from Draco’s hand. "I’d never believe that—"

"No, you will," Draco interrupted, smiling benevolently down at the girl. "You won’t want to, not at first, but you’ll come around to it in the end. And then we can set about making it a reality."

Lucius glanced at Narcissa, who was watching the scene in front of them as devotedly as though her life depended on it. Bellatrix stood near the door, laughing softly, and Greyback paced warily on the opposite side of the room, near the other three Snatchers, who seemed puzzled by what Draco was doing.

I admit it puzzles me as well, to some extent. Taunting the girl by making her believe she is what she can never be, then crushing her hopes with the truth, makes excellent sense. But what is this about making it reality?

"What are you talking about?" Granger asked, unconsciously repeating Lucius’ thoughts. "I’m not your sister. You can’t change that, any more than you can change my blood."  

"Ah, but I can, dear Hermione." Draco lifted a tendril of the girl’s hair and batted it playfully across her chin. "Allow me to explain. It makes use of a little bit of Dark magic..."

---

"I can’t." Harry shook his head, backing away from Luna and Ginny. "Luna, no, I can’t do this, there’s got to be another way!"

"There is none." Luna’s voice was firm and cool, and her eyes had lost their usual dreaminess, focusing on him until Harry felt skewered by the intensity of her gaze. "The grounds are warded against Apparition, so the only way for Ron and Hermione to get out is to cross the boundaries. And the only way they can cross the boundaries is if we destroy them." She spread her hands on the wall, making a rough circle. "Here."

"Destroy them’s one thing." Harry gripped Ginny’s wand as though it could save him. "You’re talking like I’d have to use—"

His scar seared, his vision blurred, the clearing and the girls vanished—

He stood in a barren room, a wrinkled old man grinning toothlessly at him from a thin bed, speaking to him. "...pointless. I never had it."

"You lie!"

The words burst from Voldemort’s mouth in a burst of rage, shocking Harry back into his own body. Ginny was several steps closer to him, watching him like a kneazle at a gnomehole. "It’s him, isn’t it?" she breathed. "It’s You-Know-Who. You can feel him. Hear him."

Harry gave the slightest of nods, looking over Ginny’s shoulder at Luna, who seemed intent on some vision between her curved hands. "I can’t do this, Ginny," he said in a low tone, aware the words weren’t quite right but not sure how to fix them. "I can’t use that spell. If I do... what difference is there left, between him and me? What’s stopping me from becoming him?"

---

Ron shoved and kicked at Wormtail, fighting not only the man but the urges of the form in which he’d got himself down from the high window to the front door of Malfoy Manor, the urges that wanted him to bite and tear and kill this little vermin. Wormtail seemed to be able to sense the feeling, since his breath came in short gasps and his eyes were glazed with fear.

Or is that something else?

"You little bastard," Ron hissed, making another snatch for the wand and being deflected. "I fed you, I cared about you, I quit talking to Hermione when I thought you were dead—" He caught a flicker of guilt deep in the staring eyes and pressed harder. "That’s right, Hermione, you remember her. You called her a sweet girl, you begged her to help you. And you know where she is right now. If she dies and I could’ve saved her, it’ll be your fault!"

Wormtail made a whimpering noise in his throat, but it never got as far as words.

"And what about Harry?" Ron elbowed the Death Eater in the side, and Wormtail doubled up, still guarding his wand but with desperation clear on his face now. "Harry let you live, and what did you do? You went and brought your Master back from the dead, and now his mates are going to kill us! Hell of a way to pay him back, Wormy!"

A sound like a sob burst from Wormtail, and his hand twitched away from his wand pocket for one instant. Ron pounced on the opportunity, yanking the wand free, and spun away from Wormtail in the same movement, running across the hall as silently as he’d ever sneaked past his parents’ bedroom at midnight, praying he wasn’t too late.

---

"You see, there is one way to make a Mudblood into a pureblood." Draco seated himself on the arm of the couch, still toying with the strands of the Granger girl’s hair. "It requires three things. First, a pureblood family ready to adopt its newest member—that’s us, of course." He shot Lucius a sharp look. "After all, it’s not so much adoption as it is re-adoption. Or so you’ll think when it happens."

I believe I do remember this, from my N.E.W.T. studies many years ago. Lucius gave his son the smallest of nods, willing him to go on. Though whether or not he can convince her to supply the other requirements I seem to recall...

"Second is a Mudblood who wants to reject everything Muggle, everything and everyone, and is willing to swear to that with the strongest and most binding magical oath there is." Draco laid his fingers delicately against Granger’s stump, making her gasp and shiver. "We’ll find some way for you to take the Vow, never fear. And once you’ve done that, we can get on with finding the third necessity."

"What’s that?" Granger whispered, her eyes fixed on Draco, as though she had already learned to worship him as he was claiming she would.

"Your Muggle relatives." Draco’s voice lost its coaxing edge and became hard, triumphant. "You’ll tell us where they are, Hermione. More than that, you’ll come with us to lure them out of hiding. Once we have them, you’ll tell them what you know, what I’ve taught you. You’ll laugh at their denials and their proclamations of love; you’ll tell them you’ve found people who love you better than they ever could. And then you’ll take your wand. You’ll point it at each of them in turn. And of your own free will, without help or provocation from anyone..."

---

"Harry, at the risk of being obvious, it’s a wall." Ginny pointed firmly at the object in question. "And it’s standing between you and your two best friends in the world."

"But the Killing Curse—" Harry began.

Ginny whirled and glared full into his face. "Harry Potter, you are an idiot," she snapped. "You-Know-Who would let them die in there! He doesn’t have friends, he has people he uses when they’re convenient, the same way he used me! He’d have packed up the tent and Disapparated somewhere else and been glad to be rid of the ‘baggage!’" She spit the word, as though it left a foul taste in her mouth. "And you are standing here, trying to figure out some way to get them out of there. That is the difference you were looking for. You are you, Harry, no matter what spells you use—especially on a wall, and one that wants to die in any case!"

The word he’d been looking for earlier came to Harry. "I still can’t do it..." he began.

Ginny’s eyes narrowed.

"Alone," Harry finished, reaching for her hand. "I can’t do it alone. Not this."

"All right, then. I’ll start." Ginny squeezed his fingers once, then reached around and drew the sword in a silver flash. "Where, Luna?"

"Here." Luna tapped a spot on the stones. "Just here."

Ginny braced her feet and drove the sword of Gryffindor into the wall between two stones. The ground shuddered at the impact, but steadied again in the next instant. "Did that do anything?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes." A brisk nod from Luna. "The wards are much weaker now. One good strike will collapse them." Blue-gray eyes turned to Harry. "Are you ready?"

---

Ron pressed himself against the side of the doorframe, listening to the voices within, getting his breathing under control. He hadn’t come too late; if anything, he was too early. Still, no one had seen him, he had a wand, he was in position, and most of all, Hermione was alive—

"No!" It was her voice, disbelieving and horrified, and Ron closed his free hand tightly around the wood on the wall. He couldn’t just run in there, it would be suicide, he had to wait for the diversion, wait and hope it worked the way he’d been told it would...

He ignored the strange sounds behind him—Wormtail was disarmed and beaten, and even if he transformed, what could a rat do? Bite him on the ankle?

So it was that no one saw the look of panic on Wormtail’s face as his silver hand moved on its own, creeping upward towards his throat. No one heard his struggles as his shining gift from his master, the reward he had been given for bringing Voldemort back to life, choked the breath from his body. No one looked on and remembered the words of the Dark Lord at the moment of that giving.

"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail..."

Peter Pettigrew died as he had lived, alone and friendless, a traitor to the cause he openly espoused. Still, with him into the darkness went the knowledge that at the last, he had done one thing right. Whether it would be enough to balance what he’d done wrong, he didn’t know. But it was all he had to offer.

---

"Yes." Draco beamed down at Granger. "Isn’t it wonderful?"

"No! It’s horrible!" Granger shoved herself forward off the couch and got to her feet, her tones modulating from fear into anger. "Kill my own parents? Take yours?"

The word was imbued with disgust, and Lucius could not repress a slight sniff—as though he could be compared in any way with some dog of a Muggle, much less to his own detriment!

"Why would you believe I’d do any such thing?" Granger demanded, glaring at Draco in hatred all the worse for being powerless.

"Because, my beautiful sister," Draco said lazily, "you won’t have a choice." He leaned back on the arm of the couch, letting his bare toes trail against the floor. "By the time I’m through with you, you’ll believe everything I do, as fervently as you believe what you do now. You’ll kneel at the Dark Lord’s feet beside me, and kiss his robes just after I do."

And speaking of him... Lucius weighed the possibilities and made a decision. If Granger did not break in the next few moments, Weasley surely would, or Potter would come of his own accord. Still listening to his son, he pulled back his left sleeve.

"Oh, you’ll raise your wand to those Muggle tooth-pullers all right," Draco murmured, his eyes half-shut as though he were already savoring the sight. "You’ll even smile when you say those two little magic words..."

---

Harry closed his own eyes against another stab of pain from his scar. The vision of the tower room, the old man laughing, Voldemort’s thwarted fury, tried to take him over, but the touch of Ginny’s skin against his as she slipped back from the wall to stand beside him gave him the focus he needed to stay himself.

His friends were in trouble. It was time to help them.

"Yes," he answered Luna, and raised his wand on high, feeling from afar Voldemort doing the same. Together they swept them down, and together they shouted the same two words, as a high, clear scream pierced the night and made the ground tremble beneath their feet once again.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Previous 1: What You Wish For 2: Who You Look At 3: What You Admit To 4: Where You Count To 5: What You Believe In 6: How High You Fly 7: How Hard You Fall 8: Who You Get To Know 9: What You Say You'll Do 10: Who You Ask For Help 11: Who You Think About 12: Where You Fall Asleep 13: Who You Defy 14: How You Begin 15: What You Try To Say 16: What Shape You Wear 17: Who You Sing With 18: Whose Name You Say 19: Who You Say You'll Be 20: How Long You Take 21: What You Bargain With 22: Where You Call Home 23: What You Hold Onto 24: What You Dance To 25: What You Spy On 26: Whom You Show Love 27: What You Act Like 28: Who You Show Off To 29: What You Scheme For 30: What You Contrast 31: What You Create 32: What Soul You Seek 33: What Trouble You Brew 34: When You Make Your Move 35: Who You Call Family 36: Whom You Tease 37: What You Mean To Kill 38: What Help You Find 39: Where You Watch 40: Who You Bring Along 41: What You Pretend 42: What You Find Important 43: What Wish You Tell 44: Who You Dream Of 45: What You Abscond With 46: What You Destroy 47: Who You Choose To Save 48: How You Escape 49: What Life You Live 50: Whom You Reassure 51: Who You Tell Your Story 52: Whose Side You Believe 53: What Makes You Happy 54: What You Remember 55: What You Assume 56: How You Explain 57: Why You Strike 58: How Much You Notice 59: What You Read 60: What You Accept 61: What You Sense 62: How Much You Learn 63: What Pieces You See 64: Who You Listen To 65: Who You Turn Your Back On 66: Who You Say You Love 67: How You Defend Yourself 68: What You Touch 69: How You Tempt 70: Whose Heart You Claim 71: Which Story You Trust 72: What Sky You Watch 73: Who You Point Out 74: How You Stop Speech 75: What Hurts You Take 76: What Truth You Hear 77: Why You Cast Spells 78: How You Attack 79: What Greeting You Give 80: What Life You Take 81: What You Decide 82: How You Mourn 83: What Question You Ask 84: Whom You Discuss 85: Which Parts You Speak 86: Whose Voice You Hear 87: What You Agree To 88: What You Interpret 89: Where You Hide 90: Whom You Challenge 91: How You Get Down 92: What You Do Well 93: What You Work Out 94: What Proof You Seek 95: What You Risk 96: What Thoughts You Think 97: Whose Favor You Win 98: How Much You Tell 99: How You Accept Help 100: What Tales You Tell 101: How You Win Or Lose 102: What Face You Mask 103: Whose Heart You Hold 104: What Fate You Deserve 105: What Hopes You Cherish 106: Whose Love You Desire 107: How Your Story Ends 108: Where Your Destiny Leads 109: What You Despair Of 110: What Dreams May Come 111: You Just Might Get It Next