Facing Danger
Chapter 13: Just You Wait (Year 5)
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 13: Just You Wait
One more week. That’s all the longer we have to wait. Just one more week. Meghan peered out a window of Gryffindor Tower towards Hogsmeade. Just hold on for one more week, Graham. We’re coming. We’ll get you out.
"What are you looking at?" Natalie asked from behind her.
"Oh, nothing. Just thinking of Graham."
Natalie nodded tightly. "They’re lying to us," she said, joining Meghan at the window. "They’re all lying to us. The teachers, Graham’s family…I talked to his cousin, to Maya. She said they told her Graham was going away, and not to ask any more questions about it. Why can’t we ask questions? What’s the secret? Where is he?"
"I don’t know," Meghan said, crossing her fingers behind her back. "I wish I did."
I do know, but I can’t tell you, because if they found out we knew, they might kill him. And I know you don’t want him to die.
Natalie sniffled once. Meghan hugged her tightly. I’m going to help get him back, she vowed to her friend silently, and then he’ll be safe and I won’t have to lie anymore. And maybe the Ministry will believe him, and then Harry won’t have to hide anymore.
We just have to keep hoping.
xXxXx
Maya Pritchard sat outside the Owlery, her eyes shut, her hands running across the outside of a letter. She hadn’t opened it yet. She knew all too well what it would say.
Time to come home. We let you have your little vacation, a whole month at school while we prepared, but now it’s time for you to be a good girl and come do what Mother and Father tell you. Pack up your things and be ready to come when we call.
She pressed against the inside corners of her eyes. I don’t want to disappoint my parents. I love them. Well, Mother anyway. I don’t know if Father even wants my love. Just my obedience. But this is my life, my whole life, we’re talking about—shouldn’t I get a little say in what happens?
For one dizzying instant, she imagined her life if she had not only a little say, but the final say. She could decide where to live, what to eat, who to see—
Who to fight for, who to care about, maybe even who to marry—
Harry Potter, facing down a room full of wary students and convincing them of his sanity and his cause. Graham as she had seen him last year, walking in the halls, talking with little Meghan Black and Natalie McDonald. And the boy who had told her about the first meeting of the DA, who had helped her overcome her trepidation about attending, who needed her help practicing some of the more difficult spells…
Lee.
I don’t know if he’s ever thought about marriage, I don’t know if he’d even be interested in me, but I can’t stop thinking about him. About the way his hand feels under mine when I show him how to work a spell, about the way he smiles and calls my name when he sees me, about the way he laughs when he tells a funny story about the Weasley twins…
Maya shook herself back to reality. That’s just dreams. Love is nice, but it goes away after a while. It shouldn’t run your whole life. Marriage can’t be based on something as changeable as love. It isn’t practical, it isn’t reasonable, and Mother and Father would never stand for it.
Besides, he’s a half-blood, and you know Mother and Father would never stand for that. It’s Perseus Henderson or Claudius Greco for you. Your only decision is which one, and you’re lucky even to have that. A quick marriage, and then…
She shuddered deeply at the thought of what would come next.
Our numbers are shrinking. We’re dying out. A strong next generation is our only hope. That’s what they’ll tell me when they make me drink that fertility potion, and when they lock the door to that room and put up charms so they can claim they never heard me scream. If the potion fails and I don’t ‘catch’, it will happen again and again until I do. And after that, I won’t be allowed to leave the house in case I miscarry.
Her knees were against her chest, her arms wrapped around them. They’re still handling the older women with velvet gloves, but that’s started to change since Corona Gamp left home. The pressure’s on them to give in. Some man, any man, so long as he’s pureblooded.
Fear and disgust hit a tipping point and spilled over into rage. It doesn’t matter if we like him, it doesn’t even necessarily matter if we say yes. It’s our privilege, it’s our duty, to advance the best blood in the world another generation. So don’t fight back, they tell us. Just relax and try to enjoy it.
She stared down at the letter, then slowly, deliberately, took it between her two hands and pulled. The parchment resisted at first, then tore apart, sounding to her ears like the ripping of a world.
No more. No more. There is another way, and I won’t give up my entire life to what my parents think is right when I can see that it would destroy me.
The two halves of the letter fell from her hands to the floor, and Maya drew a deep breath, feeling as though she’d spent her life wearing a corset that had suddenly been cut away.
Now I need to create this new life of mine. "Not those people" is not enough, and "with these other people" is not enough either. I need a me.
What do I want?
The question reverberated in her mind for long enough that she suspected she’d never really thought about it before.
But I’ll have a lot of time to think about it over the holidays. I’ll be spending them here, I’m sure, after the family disowns me. And what will I do about summer?
Maya got to her feet, letting thoughts chase each other through her mind. I could stay at the Leaky Cauldron, or find a family willing to take a boarder… maybe I could even get to know Lindsey Jordan better…
xXxXx
Hermione bounced twice on the bed and clambered off, brushing her hand past the bell she’d dreamed up for the red bedroom of the Den. It let people waiting above know that their landing pad was clear. No more accidentally landing on top of Ron. But, on the other hand, no more pretending it was an accident that I landed on top of Ron…
She scowled at herself. And why would I want to land on top of Ron, anyway?
Voices greeted her as she opened the door into the main room. Harry looked around from something Professor Dumbledore was showing him. "’Lo, Neenie. Anyone else with you?"
"Ron and Neville. Draco will be here a little later, he had to ask Professor Snape a question, and I don’t know when the girls will get here. Hello, Professor Dumbledore."
"Hermione," the Headmaster acknowledged her. "Come and see this."
"What is it?" Hermione asked, coming around Harry to get a better look at the large standing frame set up in the middle of the room. It was about the size of a doorway, reminding her briefly of the Door in the Air from the end of Prince Caspian, but that door hadn’t had anything in it, and this one did—but it didn’t—
"It’s warded," Harry said. "Watch." He gritted his teeth and swung his hand at the doorway. It bounced off apparently empty air, sparking as it did.
"I’d have believed you, you didn’t have to show me." Hermione squinted at the doorway. "What sort of ward is it?"
Harry made a face and held out his arm again. Professor Dumbledore gravely laid his wand against it, and a ghostly gray Dark Mark shot from the wand’s tip and attached itself to Harry’s forearm.
Ron came up behind Hermione. "What the—" He stopped himself as Harry slid his arm through the door with no trouble, and the rest of him followed. "What is that?"
"I thought I saw something odd when I was out walking around the house where Graham is the other night," Harry said, coming back around the doorway, his forearm once again unmarked. "There are wards around the house to stop anyone from coming in who doesn’t have the Dark Mark, or isn’t brought in by someone who does."
"So how will we get past them?" Neville asked.
"Could we learn to do that, Professor?" asked Ron. "What you did, with—you know."
Dumbledore shook his head. "Conjuring the Dark Mark requires a mindset I would prefer you use as little as possible," he said. "And a temporary version calls for control beyond anything you will have at this stage in your training."
"Couldn’t you do it, before we leave?" said Hermione.
"It doesn’t last long enough," Harry said. "Even the best one we’ve got only stayed for a minute, and you can’t possibly get from here to Hogsmeade and through the wards in under a minute."
"There is an alternative," said Dumbledore. "A much simpler spell, which instead of fooling the wards merely opens a breach in them, without bringing them down."
"They open that easy?" Ron snorted. "Not much of wards."
"Observe." Dumbledore waved his wand at the door once, tinting the ward within a glossy green, then made a series of gestures and spoke a short incantation. A small hole opened near his wand’s tip, widening as Dumbledore waved the wand in a slow circle. Finally, when the hole was about nine inches across, he stopped.
"Keep going," Ron said. "That’s not nearly big enough for us to get in through."
"That’s the problem," said Harry. "That’s as big as it can get without tripping the ward and setting off every alarm they’ve got."
"I don’t see a problem," Hermione said.
Neville looked thoughtful. "I’d have to be careful, but I think I could go too. And Draco could make it for sure."
"What are—" Ron stopped. "Oh."
Hermione dropped to all fours, and Neenie darted across the room and leapt cleanly through the hole in the wards, tail tucked in tightly and ears laid flat. "There," she said when she’d changed back. "That’s how."
"And I’d just thought of that when you went and showed it off," Ron said, but he was grinning. "Nice."
"Can you get it to the ground, Professor?" Neville asked. "I can’t jump like Hermione can when she’s Neenie."
Dumbledore directed the opening in the wards downwards until its bottom edge brushed the sill, and Neville went to all fours and shrank into his demiguise form.
"You don’t have a form name, Captain," Harry said as the silver ape squirmed carefully through the hole. "What should we do about that?"
Neville stood up again. "I thought you just said it," he said. "‘Captain’ sounds good to me."
"But that’s not anything about your form," Hermione objected. "It’s what we call you when you’re human too."
"So is yours. I don’t think it really matters where you get it from, as long as you get it, and you know what you’re talking about." Neville peered closer at the green ward. "Why is it that color?"
"Merely to make it easy to see," Dumbledore said, taking his wand away from the hole in the ward, which closed silently. "The real ward is invisible, though it may be more noticeable to other senses…"
Hermione had changed again before the Headmaster was finished speaking. She prowled around the doorway, sniffing—was there a smell to the ward? Yes, there was, a little hint of the same scent you got when a spell passed by—
The kitchen door opened across the room. Neenie miauled happily and dashed over to leap into Draco’s arms. Wards, she said succinctly, letting the word be a conduit into her twin’s mind for everything they’d seen and done and thought. Can you see it? I can smell it.
"She can tell it’s there, Professor," Draco said aloud. "Can you try opening it again? Maybe she can smell the difference between where the hole is and where it isn’t." He crossed to stand with Ron and Neville. I don’t recall saying I’d be your voice today, he told her silently.
I’d do the same for you and you know it. Neenie leapt down and trotted over to the doorway. "Mrowr?" she said questioningly to Professor Dumbledore.
The Headmaster nodded and put the tip of his wand against the wards again, and Neenie stared. She could see a slight disturbance in the air. It was everywhere in the confines of the doorframe; how hadn’t she noticed it before? The hole was clearly visible as the only place the air wasn’t shaking—
"That’s it!" She didn’t recall changing back to human, but obviously she had, or she wouldn’t be able to talk. "The spell, it made the ward shake a little, it made it vibrate, and I could see it! I could see where it was, and where it wasn’t!"
"So we will be able to see it," said Neville. "Good."
"But there’s still a problem," Ron said.
"Problem, what problem?" Harry struck a heroic pose. "I laugh in the face of problems."
"Yeah, well, laugh at this one." Ron made a circle with his two hands and held it over his head as though he were miming a halo. "You can get in through a little hole like that, but how’re you going to get Pritchard out?"
"Oh." Harry brought his arm down. "That is a problem."
"Glad you agree with me." Ron looked at Dumbledore. "Professor?"
Dumbledore shook his head, his eyes twinkling. "Work on it yourselves for a time," he said. "I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you know in combination. And I have nearly overstayed my time in any case; I must return to my office, lest Dolores make too free with it in my absence."
"Blech." Hermione shuddered.
"Why is she even allowed in there?" Draco asked. "Do you have to let anyone in who knows the password?"
"It is not required, but it is common courtesy. As well, I would give Dolores her way in as many small things as possible." Dumbledore’s face was politely bland. "It lulls her so that she cannot believe me capable of flouting her will in any larger way."
Five students snickered.
xXxXx
"So we’re already supposed to know how to solve the problem of getting Graham out of a little hole?" Meghan said doubtfully, eyeing the warded doorframe.
"Maybe we just have to look at it a different way," Ginny said. "Are you sure you can’t get the hole any bigger, Harry?"
Harry looked up from demonstrating the wand movement to Hermione and Neville. "Positive," he said. "The bigger you make the hole, the harder it is to hold the ward together. Any bigger than about nine inches across and..." He tipped his hand over and mimicked the sound of an explosion.
"So if the hole can’t be bigger," Luna said thoughtfully, "then maybe Graham needs to be smaller."
Draco turned away from the chessboard. "What did you say, Luna?"
"Graham needs to be smaller," Luna repeated. "Maybe we could use a Shrinking Charm."
"That would mean we’d need to know a Shrinking Charm," Ron said. "We haven’t learned those yet, they’re N.E.W.T. level."
"Charms aren’t everything," Draco said. "Neville, remember the day Trevor discovered his inner child, back in third year?"
"What—oh yeah." Neville laughed. "I think he liked it. I still find him sleeping in my cauldron sometimes."
"And Snape never would believe you’d fixed the potion yourself," Hermione said. "All I did was remind you where to look up what you needed."
"The Shrinking Solution," Harry said. "That’s perfect. We know we can make it, it’s easy to reverse..."
"But we’ll have to be careful with the dose," Meghan said. "If we shrink Graham too small, he won’t be there at all anymore."
"We might have to ask Professor Snape to help us with it," said Ginny, making a face. "Maybe we should even ask him to brew the potion. Not that you’re not good," she added to Draco and Hermione, "but this needs to be perfect. We can’t risk poisoning Meghan’s friend just because we’re too proud to ask for help."
"Would he help us, though?" Ron asked dubiously. "Us?"
"It’s Order business, Ron," said Hermione. "I think he will."
"Are you sure?"
"The worst he can say is no," Harry said quickly, forestalling the burgeoning argument. "And if we act like we can’t do it ourselves and we really need him, maybe he’ll like that."
"How’d you know that?" Draco asked.
Harry smiled one-sidedly. "Moony in a bad mood is a lot more like Snape than he wants to admit."
"You have a point there."
"So now we need to factor in the time it’ll take to get Pritchard to agree to take a potion," Ron said, standing up and crossing to the wall cupboard where the supplies for the rescue mission were kept. "And the time it’ll take to work, and extra time to get back downstairs and out carrying him."
"We’ll need a way to keep him quiet," said Luna. "The Shrinking Solution doesn’t just make him smaller. It makes him younger too. He’ll be a baby."
"So we need to know if Shrinking Solution interacts badly with any common sleeping potions," said Hermione, joining Ron at the small table which had grown from the floor near the cupboard. "And once we find that out, we need to get some of the sleeping potion that will work the fastest and the best. Pearl, can you work on that?"
"Sure." Meghan jumped up from her place on the floor and hurried into the library, emerging a few moments later with her arms clasped around three heavy books.
"Deployment," Ron muttered, setting out several small figurines. "Luna overhead to keep overall watch, Meghan on the outside because she’s not going to fit through there even if she finishes Animagus in time..."
Meghan made a face at Ron and dumped the books on the table, knocking over three of his figurines and making the others squeal.
"So that leaves Hermione and Draco and Neville to go in." Ron helped two of the figurines up and shepherded them towards the clay house. A third one joined them. "Captain, you think you can carry a baby in form?"
"Get me a baby doll and I’ll find out," Neville said. "But I think so. My arms are built a lot like a human’s. I won’t be able to move fast, though."
"That is a problem," Harry said, joining the others at the table. "We’ll need to get out of there as fast as possible, in case they have a silent alarm on the wards that reports long-term tampering, or something goes wrong and you get seen. And unless you give him the antidote right outside the wards, and then wake him up, he’s not going to be able to run on his own."
"Even if we do that, he’ll be all groggy," Hermione said. "We’d just get him caught again."
"You sound like you need something that can carry a baby and run," Meghan said, turning a page in her book. "Maybe something that can carry a demiguise too."
The rest of the Pride looked at each other. Harry took the bait. "How far are you from finishing, Pearl?"
Meghan looked up and grinned. "I’m done."
Girls squealed, boys exclaimed, and Neville squeezed past Hermione and Harry to hug Meghan. "Why didn’t you tell us?" he asked, shaking her lightly once he’d let her go.
"I just did."
Neville looked up to heaven. "Before this."
"Because I wasn’t done until yesterday," Meghan said reasonably. "Professor McGonagall helped me finish my head transfiguration, since Professor Umbridge doesn’t want parents coming to the school. And my incantation is ready, so all I have to do is go home tonight and take my potion."
"And then you’ll be an Animagus," Draco said, sliding his arms under Neville’s. "Little Pearl, all grown up. I’m so proud."
"And that solves the problem of getting Graham away safely," Ginny said. "If Meghan has a harness on with a baby sling, she can run and carry him at the same time."
"But she’ll want to balance the weight with something on her other side," said Luna. "Not anything too big, and she wouldn’t want to carry anybody who can run fast themselves."
Neville covered a smile, then turned to Meghan. "My lady," he said formally, "when you carry your baby friend safely home, will you carry the baby thief with you as well?"
"I will gladly do that, my lord." Meghan curtsied, and Neville bowed in return.
"So here’s the whole plan from the start, then," Ron said, pulling attention to himself. "Ginny and I are here with Harry." Three figurines were set off to one side, where they grumbled slightly. "Ginny’s chained up with Harry, and Harry’s out walking—did we ever test to see if that works?"
"Last week," Ginny said. "It’s a little echoey, but I could hear him just fine."
"Good. So Harry’s body’s here, but he’s really out with the rest of you lot." Ron placed five more figurines in a group on the table. "Luna goes owl and keeps an eye on things from above." One of the figures flapped its arms as though flying. Ron lifted it to the top of the clay house. "There you are," he said to it. "Meantime, Meghan stays on guard outside the house." A second figure flattened itself against the wall. "And you other three go in, with Harry."
The three remaining figures took turns letting each other through the imaginary wards around the house, then began to creep towards the door on all fours. "Are they in Animagus now, Ron?" Draco asked. "Sorry, are we?"
"Probably better that way. Smaller means harder to see. And you’ll have to do something about your coat," Ron added in passing. "It’s getting towards winter—are you turning yet?"
Draco changed forms and inspected his fur critically, chittering to himself. "Nope," he said, turning human again with a faint pop. "Still brown. But it’s a light brown. I should probably darken up for this. Neenie, you too. Your white shows up really well in the dark."
Hermione hissed in her throat. "I hate getting dirty. But it’s that or get caught, I know."
"You don’t need to do anything," Ron said to Neville. "Except remember to stay invisible."
Neville smiled. "Not too hard. It’s how I always want to be when there are people I don’t know around. Especially ones who want to kill me."
"Yeah, that would tend to make you want to be invisible," Harry said. "And I’m roaming around the house, letting you know, Ron, where the Death Eaters are, and sending these three your messages..." He stopped. "How’re we going to handle that, if Luna’s outside?"
"Ah, hell," said Draco. "I knew there was something wrong with this."
"I don’t know if I could get in through the wards," Luna said. "If my feathers fluff up when I’m not expecting it, I’ll set the alarms off."
"We’ll just have to get by with what we understand when Harry overlaps us," said Hermione. "It’ll have to be simple messages, but really, how complicated will it need to be?"
"Or someone could use a blue jewel," Ginny said reluctantly. "I know we can’t replace them, but this is at least as important as helping Hagrid get rid of Norbert, and we used a jewel for that."
"We were kids then," Ron said. "Eleven and twelve."
"Hey!" Meghan protested.
"But I think you’re right," Ron continued, ignoring this. "This isn’t some stupid prank where the worst thing that could happen is we get detention." He opened the clay house along the line down its middle and ran a finger along the outline of the small, windowless room Ginny had sculpted to show where Graham slept. "This is somebody’s life on the line. Our lives, too, if we get caught." He looked around at the Pack. "Maybe I won’t be out there, but if anything happened to any of you..." He shook his head, words apparently failing him.
"Meghan, you’ve got the most blue left," Hermione said. "I’ve only got one, and Luna doesn’t have any. Would you—"
"Of course!" Meghan half-shouted indignantly. "I’d do anything if it meant Graham would get home safely!"
"So we’ll all be able to talk to each other," Ginny said. "I suppose that means Harry and I won’t need to link up."
"No, I think we still should," Harry said quickly. "It might get noisy with everyone talking at once. If you and I have a direct link, then you can tell Ron things aloud he might not catch over a jewel-link."
"And if it gets too noisy, I can just..." Ron mimed pulling off a necklace. "So now I think we’re covered. Draco, Hermione, Neville, you three will go in and up to Pritchard’s room—you’ll have to switch off who’s holding the wards open while you’re going in, but that shouldn’t be too hard—and then get him to take the potions."
"Problem," said Meghan. "The potions. If he takes the Shrinking Solution first, he’ll turn into a baby, and it’s hard to get babies to drink potions. But if he takes the sleeping potion first, he’ll be asleep and he won’t be able to drink the Shrinking Solution."
"I’ll work on that," Draco said. "We might be able to mix them, or put a time-delay on one. I can ask Snape about it, act like I’m looking for extra credit."
"Or you could just make the sleeping potion sweet and put it in a baby bottle," Ginny suggested. "Then he’d drink it."
"Oh." Meghan nodded. "That would work."
Ron directed his figures through the motions of the rescue as he narrated it. "Captain grabs the baby, the four of you go back down, open up the wards again, stick Pritchard on Meghan’s sling—we’ll need to have somebody help us make that—and you’re gone."
The figures ran in all directions. Hermione caught one as it plummeted off the edge of the table. "Not quite like that, I don’t think," she said, setting it back on its feet.
"I hope not," Harry said. "Come on, Draco, I need to show you the opener spell. It’s not hard, but there’s a trick to it. It took me a little while to really get it."
"Can you show me too?" Ginny asked. "I won’t have to stay behind forever."
"And me," Ron said, waving the figures into their box. "More we can learn, the better."
"Sure. Just get your wand out and get ready to listen."
"Hermione, we should practice more while Harry’s starting them out," Neville said, taking out his wand. "Come on, Meghan, maybe I can teach you how it works. It would be good to have someone standing by to catch the wards if we slip."
"But I’m not very good at Charms..."
"That’s probably just because you think you’re not," Neville said patiently. "You’re so good at other things that you think everything should happen easily and right away, and Charms is a little harder for you than that, so you think you’re not good at it when you’re really all right."
"That’s not true! I work hard at Charms, and I never get any of them right!"
"Pearl, you think something has to be perfect to be right," said Hermione. "I could Summon a pillow and have it come to me all wobbly, or I could Summon it and have it fly here beautifully. Either way, I still have it."
"But the one way you looked silly!"
"So I looked silly." Hermione made a horrendous face, pulling on the sides of her eyes and sticking out her tongue. "I looked even sillier right then. Nobody ever died of looking silly."
Meghan growled, but drew her wand and adopted a listening pose.
xXxXx
Perched on a shelf that had grown from the wall of the Room of Requirement, Harry watched two teams from the DA carefully navigating a maze of cubicles. Fred and George, it turned out, had still had some of the Combat Club equipment left over from two years ago, and were perfectly happy to supply the DA with all the fake wands and potion bombs they could want. One team was playing the Ministry/Order side, with orders to stun and restrain their opponents if at all possible, and the other was playing by Death Eater rules—pain was good, death even better.
Their tactics mean they have more options than we do. So we just have to be better than they are.
One of the Ministry team—Zacharias Smith, Harry realized after a moment of squinting in the dim light—was lagging behind his teammates. They’d already turned a corner, in a few seconds he’d be left alone—
Points off them for leaving him, and points off him for getting left. Harry made a note on the scroll he had charmed to hover beside him. He’s not injured, he knows the rules, he has no excuse for hanging back—
A Death Eater burst around the corner, and Smith whirled and shot at him.
Ahh. Looking for glory, are you? Harry felt Wolf’s growl rumble his chest. Fool to seek a pride fight when his pack is in danger. Stupid, stupid cub.
On some level, Wolf characterizing Smith as a cub amused Harry—it was better than even odds Smith was older than he was, after all—but on another level, he had to admit Wolf had a point. Smith had no more idea of how to fight than a baby.
He wasn’t listening at all. And he didn’t do any of the reading I suggested. I wouldn’t have fought like that when I was seven years old...
Harry watched coldly as Smith got his sleeve tagged by a bit of the Death Eater’s blue dye. "Out," he called just as Smith brought up his own wand and sprayed the Death Eater in the face with his own red dye.
All right, that’s it. "I said, out!" Harry clapped his hands twice to bring up the lights, then jumped down into the middle of the simulated office. "What’re you playing at, Smith?"
"He barely touched me," Smith complained, spreading his sleeve to show the few tiny dots of blue dye. "That wouldn’t have done anything even if it was a real spell."
"If it had been the Cruciatus, you’d be screaming," Harry said bluntly. "Bringing your teammates running and giving their position away. Not to mention you’d be in pain and probably no good to fight for several minutes after. And if it had been the Killing Curse, you’d be dead. Which might not give away your teammates, but I don’t think you’d care for it much."
"Bollocks," Smith shot back. "How do you know it would’ve done that?"
"How do you know it wouldn’t?" Harry countered.
"This is just a mock-up. It’s not real."
"That’s not the point. The point is to develop reflexes." Harry shifted his stance, glancing down to confirm his Combat Club wand was in its place at his belt. "Reflexes will save your life when your brain shuts down from fear."
"I’m not afraid of anything," Smith said cockily.
Harry flipped into Wolf-mind for an instant. Interloper. Dangerous. Destroy.
His wand was in his hand faster than his mind could follow. Smith jerked back as a spray of green dye covered his chest.
"Are you afraid of death?" Harry asked softly, lowering his wand. "Maybe you should be."
"That’s not fair," Smith said sullenly. "You cheated."
Harry barked a laugh. "That’s right, I cheated. That’s why I’m still alive and you’re not. Are you going to tell a Death Eater he cheated? Oh wait, I forgot. You won’t be able to. You’ll be dead."
Smith’s face turned blotchy red. "I don’t have to take this from you, Potter."
"You’re right, you don’t. There’s the door." Harry pointed at it. "No one made you come here, no one’s making you stay. Don’t try and tell Umbridge about us, though. You wouldn’t like what happens."
"Is that a threat?"
"No, it’s a warning." Harry stared Smith down, fighting the urge to force the other boy to his knees and grip his throat. He is not Pack, he reminded Wolf. He is not subject to our laws. Under me for now, yes, but not to be dominated. Not like that.
After a few seconds, Smith looked away. "Never said I wanted to leave," he muttered.
"Then you want to stay?"
Smith nodded grudgingly.
Harry spread his hands. "Then stay. Follow the rules, and you’re welcome here."
Smith snorted, but didn’t say anything.
xXxXx
Harry nodded to the DA members as they slipped out of the Room of Requirement a few at a time. Go on without me, he signed to the Pride. I have something to do.
Draco and Ron both had suggestions about his "something", each different but both equally profane. Harry told them both where they could stick it, and they sniggered under their breaths.
Harry didn’t care. Cho had caught his sleeve as he passed by and whispered that she had a little time after the meeting was over. Now she was sitting by the bookshelf, mostly hidden by a little jag that had appeared in it, browsing through a copy of Jinxes for the Jinxed.
Be careful, Hermione signed.
Of what? Harry demanded.
Just...be careful.
Harry exchanged weary glances with Draco and Ron. He’d never understand girls.
Although maybe I’ll understand them better after tonight.
Finally, the door closed behind Neville, Meghan, and Natalie, and Harry sighed in relief.
"Don’t you like doing the DA?" Cho asked, looking up from her book.
"I like it. But it’s hard sometimes too. Have you ever had anything like that?"
"Oh, of course. Everything that’s really worth doing is hard at first." Cho smiled. "Even being in a relationship is hard at first." The smile cracked and began to slide. "It was a little rough for me and Cedric at first, you know. We liked each other very much, and we had Quidditch and a couple of favorite school subjects in common, but somehow it never felt like we had a lot to talk about." She sighed. "Maybe we were too much the same."
"Maybe," Harry said, thinking this was probably a safe answer.
Cho’s lower lip trembled. "It still doesn’t seem real that he’s gone forever. I keep expecting him to be there at the Hufflepuff table in the morning, or to walk into one of these meetings—and then I wonder, if he’d known what you’re teaching us, maybe—" A sniffle. "—maybe would he have lived?"
Harry sat down on the next beanbag over from Cho. "Nobody stays alive after Voldemort decides to kill them," he said quietly.
"Nobody except you." Cho rubbed at her eyes.
"I had help. And a lot of luck."
"And Cedric didn’t." Cho sniffed again. "How did it happen?" she asked, looking up at Harry with glistening eyes. "All I know is that he stayed behind to try to help you, and got killed instead..."
Harry swallowed hard. "I wish he hadn’t," he said honestly. "I wish he’d run for it while he had the chance. Voldemort wasn’t about to kill me right away." He let his hand rest on the side of the beanbag, palm up. "If Cedric had just run, the first instant he realized something wasn’t right, he might have been able to bring help in time to stop what happened."
"But he was being noble. He was being brave."
"No, he was being stupid," Harry snapped, suddenly unable to keep up the façade any longer. "He should have known he had no chance. He should have run and brought help instead of hanging about hoping to play hero."
Cho stared at him, aghast. "How can you say that? He saved your life!"
"And got himself killed in the process! Which meant I got to come back here, try to explain what had happened, get branded as a liar and possibly a murderer, and deal with the fact that yes, he died trying to save me, but what he did had almost nothing to do with my actually getting saved, so now I have to live with that for the rest of my life—I’ll always be the person Cedric Diggory died for, and I don’t know if I’m worth it or not—"
Harry shut his mouth with an effort and sagged into the beanbag. "Sorry," he said under his breath. "I just...haven’t talked about it much."
"I can tell," Cho said softly. "But Harry?"
"Yeah?" Harry sat up a little to look over at her.
"I think you’re worth it." A tear spilled from one of Cho’s eyes and tracked down her cheek. "And Cedric must have too."
Harry felt a lump rise in his throat. "Thanks," he said, swallowing against the lump. "Thanks a lot."
He leaned forward, meaning to wipe the tear from Cho’s face, but Cho was leaning forward too, her face getting closer and closer to his, and her eyes were closing...
xXxXx
A few minutes later, they were on the same beanbag, Cho’s head on Harry’s shoulder and several small wet marks on Harry’s robes.
"Thank you," Cho murmured.
"You’re welcome. And thank you." Harry knew the basic mechanics of romance, had since he was thirteen, but he had never understood before this just how such things could be enjoyable. Now he was beginning to see.
And if Padfoot was telling the truth, the farther you go, the better it gets...
"Let’s talk about something else," Cho said, sitting up a little. "Let’s talk about...families. You go first."
"Are you sure? Ladies first."
Cho laughed shakily. "I asked you first."
"All right, if you want." Harry tried to calm his mind enough to get a grip on the Pack in a way that Cho would understand.
"I’m very close with my family," he said finally. "We do a lot together. Not everything, that would get boring, or stifling, but we spend a lot of time together. I miss my parents when I’m away at school, and they miss me and Draco and Hermione and Meghan."
"That’s right, your brother and your sisters." Cho’s eyes were shut again. "I know how you came together, or at least some of it. Doesn’t it ever bother you that you don’t look like any of them?"
Harry shrugged the shoulder Cho wasn’t leaning against. "No, not really. I know who I do look like, and I know who I belong with. Draco has it harder that way."
"I can see that. What about your special friends? The Weasleys and Luna Lovegood and the Longbottom boy?"
"Well, together, we make a thing called a Pride. That’s different than just being friends, even special friends, the same way my Pack’s different than just a family." Harry laid a hand on his chest, feeling the bumps of the Pack-pendants under his robes. "We swore an oath to protect each other and take care of each other always."
"You swore?" Cho pulled away to look at him. "Like an Unbreakable Vow?"
"Not quite, but sort of. We’ll definitely get in a lot of trouble if we break it. But we wouldn’t ever do that. It just won’t happen."
"How do you know?" Cho had her head tilted to one side curiously. "People change. Didn’t one of your parents’ best friends end up betraying them?"
Harry winced inwardly. "This is different," he said. "I know the Pride and the Pack. I trust them."
"Didn’t your dad and your mum trust their friend?"
"Yes, but they’d never done the things I’ve done with these people—"
"Like what?"
"Like share blood with them!" Harry reached into the neck of his robes and pulled out his pendants. "We took blood from each of us, and something important to us—my parents’ wedding rings, a ring Draco’s mum left him, a ring from Ron’s grandfather, things like that—and we swore an oath, in blood, to watch out for each other even if we die for it. And the pendants seal that."
Cho had her hand over her mouth. "You swore in blood?" she whispered around it. "But that’s—that’s—"
"Binding," Harry said with a sharp nod. "I know."
"No! It’s Dark!" Cho was on her feet. "Using blood makes it Dark magic!"
"What?" Harry stared. "Cho, my godfather and his wife signed their marriage contract in blood—Draco’s adoption contract is signed in blood—it’s not Dark, it’s just a way to say you’re giving your whole self to something—"
"It’s horrible!" Cho backed away across the room. "What else have you done with these people?" Her eyes were wide with fear, but a trace of accusation lurked in them. "How many of them have you slept with?"
Unbidden, Harry’s mind conjured up an image of the Pride’s last den-night, the one where they’d awakened tangled around each other like so many puppies, and before he realized what he was doing, he laughed.
"That’s what I thought." Cho had her hand on the doorknob, accusation now crowding out fear in her face. "You’re sick, Harry Potter. Just as sick as they say you are. Maybe in a different way, but they were right about you. They were right all along."
"Cho, no, wait—"
The door of the Room of Requirement slammed behind Cho Chang.
Harry groaned and sank back down on his beanbag.
Well, that first date was a success.
If by success you mean utter bloody failure.