Be Careful
92: What You Do Well

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

"Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam..."

"Shut up!" screeched Alecto Carrow, swatting at Peeves with a broomstick without even dislodging his Viking helmet. "Shut up!"

Cackling through his song, Peeves swooped from side to side of the entrance hall, over the heads of the students who were filing in from the carriages. "Lovely Spam!" he caroled, off-key as usual. "Wonderful Spam!"

"Bloody poltergeist!" Alecto hurled her broom at Peeves and stomped into the Great Hall, the lines of her back daring anyone to laugh. Checking the crowd from the corner of his eye, Neville could see quite a few sets of shaking shoulders, several hands over mouths, and at least one person biting the collar of his robes (Seamus), but everyone had managed to maintain the diplomatic silence which seemed to be the best policy around the Carrows.

Even more so right now.

The news of the happenings at Malfoy Manor had spread around the wizarding world like Fiendfyre, though Neville thought he could discount a few of the wilder twistings of the tale, such as Ron strangling Wormtail with his bare hands or Draco embracing Hermione as a long-lost sister. Still, it seemed to be established fact that Ron and Hermione had been caught, and had then escaped, destroying the Manor and killing Peter Pettigrew and most of a Snatcher team in the process.

And some people are saying Narcissa Malfoy too. Though Gran got a letter last night from one of her friends claiming that death wasn’t any accident...

Without noticing it, he’d drifted towards the staircase which led to the dungeons, where a fair-haired boy lounged in a practiced attitude of boredom. "Longbottom," he drawled as Neville got close enough to hear. "Good holiday?"

"Passable." Neville weighed his options and decided forward was the only safe direction. "I’m sorry about your mother."

"Thanks." The gray eyes held an unguarded sorrow for one brief instant before resuming their hooded look. "But she’s well out of it now. The person you should be feeling sorry for is my father."

"Oh?"

"Oh." Right hand massaged left forearm in a long-practiced motion. "He killed her. On his precious Dark Lord’s orders. Because we’d failed him one too many times."

Just in case I still had any doubts about his loyalties.

Neville inclined his head and started towards the Great Hall, but a hand closed around his sleeve, detaining him. "Keep your ears open," said the voice of Reflection from behind him. "They’re thinking about families now. They won’t stop with mine."

The expected twisting jerk sent Neville spinning away across the entrance hall, but he regained his balance quickly, without the need of the hand Hannah put out to catch him. Getting his breath back, he watched his ally stalk through the doors of the Great Hall.

Thinking about families... Gran can take care of herself, but they don’t know that...

"Are you all right?" Hannah asked worriedly. "He didn’t hex you?"

"No, he didn’t hex me." Neville started towards the Great Hall himself, still half-lost in his thoughts. If they threaten Gran to bring me in line, and she curses her way out of trouble and goes on the run like the Order...

What then?

He had a feeling he’d better figure out the answer to that question, and fast.

---

Harry walked into the back room of Andromeda Tonks’ house to discover most of the rest of its occupants laughing helplessly. "Should I come back later?" he inquired.

"No, stay." Hermione got herself halfway under control and beckoned for him to come and sit next to her. "Ginny was looking over my shoulder while I was reading, and she started saying these lines..." She pointed at the right-hand page of the enormous book open in her lap. "...like Lucius Malfoy."

"She’s a bit scary," said Ron, sitting up, his face rather red but his eyes less troubled than Harry could remember seeing them for months. "It really sounds like him. Gin, want to try the Evil Overlord List in that voice next?"

"Sure. But let me do this for Harry first." Ginny took the book from Hermione and sat up very straight. Though she could not change her sex, or the color of her hair (Tonks, on the sofa with Lupin and Teddy, had turned her own blonde in honor of the occasion), she seemed to gain twenty-five years of age and an enormous amount of dignity simply by the movement.

Then she began to speak.

"I am, in point of fact," a crisply careful pureblood accent enunciated, "a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule."

Harry muffled his snickers in the sleeve of his robe, not wanting to interrupt Ginny’s flow.

"Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering." As if to prove it, Ginny wrinkled her face into a particularly good specimen of the expression. "But!" She held up an admonishing finger. "I struggle hard to overcome this defect. I mortify my pride continually. I go and dine with..." It seemed to pain her to say it, but she managed. "...half-blood people on reasonable terms. I dance at cheap suburban parties for a moderate fee." Raising her hands above her head, she snapped her fingers twice on each side of her. "I also retail the Dark Lord’s secrets at a very low figure." She leaned towards Harry. "For instance, any further information about Won-Won would come under the head of the Dark Lord’s secret."

"Oy!" Ron protested over Harry, Hermione, Lupin, and Tonks’ laughter.

"I don’t think so, Ginny," Harry said when he’d caught his breath. "Some things are too disgusting even for You-Know-Who."

Ron folded his arms and glared, but Harry could see the tell-tale twitching at the corners of his friend’s mouth; the anger was mostly for show, and would be gone as soon as the subject of the conversation turned to someone else.    

A few more days of this and we’ll be ready to take on the world.

---

Sitting alone upstairs, Luna smiled.

"Ginny is very good," she said quietly to herself. "But my Draco does it better."

---

Draco sat at a table in the library, studying the soul flask and wishing he didn’t have the uncomfortable feeling that it was studying him back.

It’s not charged, he reminded himself. It’s not powered. It can’t do anything to me.

Unfortunately, unless he could find out how to power it, it wouldn’t do anything to the person he intended it for either.

Snape is such a prat. Out of instinct, he checked to both sides of him, making sure the Headmaster hadn’t crept up on him, before he allowed his thoughts to go on. Not just thinking Mum isn’t real, that much I can understand, but believing he can’t ever be happy, that the only thing left for him in the world is to die? That’s more than a little messed up.

It was a form of ‘messed up’ with which he had personal experience, Draco acknowledged, so he could sympathize even though he couldn’t condone.

And I can use it. I have to use it. Otherwise, even if I get him to come with me, he’ll see the otherworld as a trick or a trap, and he’ll never stop looking for the catch to it all, for the one impossibility that means it can’t be real...

Apropos of nothing, his mind presented him with an image of Hermione during the hour they’d spent together, laughing with abandon at his imitation of Lucius. "That’s just awful," she said, wiping away tears of laughter from her eyes. "I don’t envy Luna one bit—you’re impossible, really you are..."

All right, there’s the connection, she said impossible. But that’s pretty tenuous. Is there anything else?

He stared at his distorted reflection in the soul flask. Hermione. Impossible. Is it something that’s impossible for her, something that would be impossible without her, something she thinks is impossible—

Yes. That’s it, that last one. Something she thinks, something she’s said, is impossible. But I’ve seen it done. I know who can do it. And they’re the key to this little puzzle.

Draco picked up the soul flask and cradled it in his hands. "It was impossible for someone to get past the Healers at St. Mungo’s without being seen," he said to it. "Because St. Mungo’s is warded against Apparition. Just like Hogwarts. Just like Hermione always used to tell Ron and Harry and everyone else within earshot." He lifted the flask, watching his reflected cheeks bulge and his ears stick out. "But those wards only hold up against wizards and witches..."

---

"Rivvy," Cecy said promptly, a slight frown on her face as she sorted through years of memories. "Our house-elf’s name was Rivvy. Poor creature, she worshiped Bella, and nearly went out of her mind when Bella became a Blood Purist. We had to send her into retirement early when she began to drop dishes and forget her work with fretting over her lost mistress."

Not to mention taking a potential weapon out of Bella’s hands. House-elves are generally peaceable creatures, but they can do a great deal of damage if they are ordered to.

"Is she still around?" Draco asked, one hand in the pocket of his robes.

"Andrea takes care of her now, and at the last I heard Rivvy was in reasonably good health for her age. Why do you ask?"

For answer, Draco produced an object about which Cecy had heard a great deal. "I think I’ve solved the mystery," he said, holding out the soul flask to her. "None of us could get this to respond at all. What if it was never made to work off human magic in the first place?"

Suppressing a shudder, Cecy accepted the flask. The traces of Dark magic on it were still noticeable to her, but faint and faded, overlaid by the wardings that Albus and Tom had laid on it while studying it. And yes, there, very distant but just perceptible if one knew what one was searching for—

"I think you may be right," she said, and was rewarded with her son’s brilliant smile. "Well done."

---

Astoria Greengrass skirted the edge of the Slytherin common room, avoiding her happily gossiping sister Daphne, and met Graham Pritchard at the far side, suppressing the shiver of pleasure which always came over her at the sight of his dark hair and eyes. He cared for Natalie, and I was Natalie’s friend. That’s all I can ever be to him, just Natalie’s friend.

"Well?" Graham said in a soft tone which went no farther than Story’s own ears.

"You heard about Malfoy Manor." It wasn’t a question. Anyone with any connection to the wizarding world at all had heard about Malfoy Manor. "Three Snatchers were killed in the collapse. One of them was Scabior." Story leaned in. "They say Hermione Granger dropped a wall on his head. And that she invoked Natalie’s name when she did it."

Graham’s smile was pure savagery. "I’ll have to shake her hand when I see her next," he said. "I hadn’t thought her capable of that."

"Nor had I."

And after what Malfoy promised me, I’m starting to wonder if she did it at all.

"Everything is getting worse," Graham’s voice broke into her thoughts. "Even Slytherins are beginning to turn on their own."

"As well we should," Story said bitterly, allowing her true feelings to show for this one moment with this one person. "Those who do these things, or condone their doing by silence—"

"Outnumber us ten to one," Graham broke in, coldly practical as always. "If they can get proof of who we are, or even suspicion now, they will move quickly and we will have no chance. We need a plan."

"Yes." Story swallowed against her all-too-clear knowledge of what would happen to them if they were found out as traitors to their own kind and forced herself to think. "First we need to know exactly who is with us and who is not, and then we will have to find either a way off the grounds or a place within the school to hide..."

Thinking was good. As long as she could think, she would be safe from fear.

She knew in her heart and her gut that if she ever let that fear take her, she would not return.

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