Facing Danger
Chapter 33: Sleep, Silence, and Secrets (Arc 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Magnus Pritchard looked up from his tea as the Mudblood Healer—though she has been remarkably helpful, so perhaps I should accord her a bit of respect—the Muggleborn Healer witch, then, opened the door of the staff lounge and nodded to him.
"You’ve been able to settle things?" he asked, standing up, as Reshmi did the same farther down the table. "We can take her home now?" And start convincing her to be worth something, for once in her stubborn little life.
"Almost." The witch grimaced. "There’s one problem. Animal or not, Maya retains her human appearance, and she’s been nearly hysterical since she heard your voices in the corridor. She’s frightened some of the other patients on the ward, to the point where we’ve had to screen off her bed, and I’m worried about the appearance she might present if she were to leave here still so distraught. Perhaps, while the last few tests are finishing, you could speak to her? Convince her, somehow, to appear calm while she’s leaving? What happens outside these walls is your responsibility, as you said, but I can’t have her shrieking her way out of here, it would set back half the patients on this floor..."
"Her bed is screened?" Magnus queried, idly stroking his wand. "Full privacy?"
"The best spells we have," the Healer confirmed. "Nothing passes them that shouldn’t."
"We’ll do what we can," said Reshmi, starting for the door. The tone of her voice, the line of her back and shoulders, told Magnus he was not alone in his sudden uprush of glee.
Finally, finally, we can give the girl some real discipline. No more mewling brother hanging over my shoulder, hinting at reporting me to WFS—‘if I ever see a hint of Maya being unhappy’ indeed! Not even he can argue that she could ever be happy now.
Besides, who would have told him about tonight? By the time he learns of it, all will be over, and Reshmi and I will have our reward. We can turn our attention to working towards new children, to carry our line forward.
The thought of new children—handsome sons, docile daughters, obedient to their father’s will in all things—made him smile even more broadly as the Healer opened the door of the ward and waved him and Reshmi into the tent-like construction of screens to the left. Several of the other beds had screens drawn around them as well, he noticed, likely so their occupants could get some sleep.
Sleep would have been welcome tonight, but this is more important, and I can sleep afterwards...
Magnus followed his wife within the screens. His daughter sat in the center of the bed, her knees drawn up, cradling her left arm with her right. Her eyes went wide and her breathing caught at the sight of Reshmi, and again as Magnus entered.
A proper daughterly attitude at last.
Yes, I believe I will sleep well tonight.
"So your precious friends have got yourself into trouble at last," Reshmi was saying snappishly to Maya. "Where are they now? None of them come running to see you, do they? Not when you’re like this. And you know why, too—you know they fear you, and well they should..."
"Don’t," Maya said hoarsely. "Please, don’t. I know why you’re here—why don’t you just do what you came for?"
"We came to bring you home," said Magnus, stepping closer to the bed. "The Healer seems to think you might object somehow."
Maya lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "I heard you," she challenged. "In the hallway. You said you were going to ‘put me down’. Why don’t you do it right now? Then you wouldn’t have to live with the shame of a werewolf daughter anymore."
Reshmi slapped the side of Maya’s head. "Don’t be a fool, girl. Do you think we want you dead?"
"I think you’d rather see me dead than this!" Maya cried, pointing at the bandage on her arm that covered the teeth marks of a werewolf, tears springing up in her eyes. "I know the stories! I’ve dishonored us, I’m defiled and worthless now, and the only way to cleanse the family honor is to destroy me, to make sure I don’t live past tonight!"
"Do you want to be destroyed?" Magnus inquired, his heart moving a little faster with the question. This was the truly tricky moment, the time when the game could be lost or won in an instant...
"No!" Maya sobbed. "No, I don’t! I don’t care how wrong it is, I want to live!"
Magnus glanced triumphantly at Reshmi. And you thought she might be difficult. "I believe that can be arranged, Maya," he said, using his daughter’s name deliberately. "If you will come home with us quietly, there is a place to which we can send you. You will be important there, necessary even. And you will not die." For the time being.
The girl stared at him, absurd hope writ large across her tear-marked face. "What is it?" she asked. "What would I do there?"
"You don’t need to know that!" Reshmi scolded. "Be grateful there is such a place, that we don’t insist on following custom to the letter! You say you don’t want to die—start acting like it!"
"I want to know what this place is," insisted Maya, stubbornness replacing hope in her expression. "Tell me, or I won’t go."
"Oh, no," Magnus said, coming closer once again and feeling a thrill down his spine at the way fear wiped every other emotion from his daughter’s face at his approach. "You will agree here and now to behave yourself for us and for those who will come for you, or we will take you home with us no matter what you may wish. There are spells which will make you docile enough to fool even Healers for a little while, and once you are safely home again, we can do what we feel is necessary. Whether that is cleansing our name as custom demands, or sending you away to make yourself useful, we will decide. Not you. Unless you agree to our terms."
Maya dropped her eyes to the bedclothes. "I will if you will," she said, her voice trembling. "I’ll promise to do what I’m told and not complain or make trouble. But I want to know what this place is. Who I would be with, and what they would want me to do."
"Swear it first," Reshmi commanded, lifting her daughter’s chin with one sleeve-covered hand. "Swear you’ll obey as a daughter should. Swear obedience in all things to your parents as is proper. Swear now."
"I swear," Maya whispered. "I’ll obey you the way a daughter should obey her parents, and do what you tell me just as I should. I do swear."
Magnus nodded, satisfied. It might not be an Unbreakable Vow, but they didn’t actually want the girl dead. "Then we will tell you," he said, and seated himself on the end of the bed, across from Reshmi. "The Dark Lord feels the need for more warriors, especially the most savage, so he is looking to increase the packs of werewolves who are loyal to him. You could embrace this new life, and go to join them. Females are always welcomed... heartily."
Maya’s eyes widened in horror. "No! No, I won’t!"
"You’ll do what you’re told," Reshmi said snippily. "As you’ve promised. As you should have done to begin with. We would never have been forced to this otherwise."
"You could also choose life among the researchers," Magnus went on, gliding past Reshmi’s last statement swiftly. "They look for ways to change lycanthropy, to find a method of controlling the wolf, to make the transformation occur on demand rather than having it dependent on the phase of the moon..." He stopped. Maya was staring at Reshmi in undisguised shock.
"You did this," the girl whispered. "You sent the werewolf."
"You were out of hand," Reshmi shot back. "Open defiance. Telling us you wanted to decide for yourself who to marry—as if a marriage of choice was anything but the loins pretending to be the heart! You’d have been miserable within a year or two in any case. We’ve stopped that agony before it can start."
"So you don’t want me hurt." Maya stared at the tops of her knees. "And to keep me from getting hurt, you’ve turned me into a Dark creature, and now you want me to choose between life as a toy for werewolves or a specimen for researchers." She looked up, her eyes bleak. "Would they care at all if they hurt me?"
"Which they?" Magnus asked.
"Either. Both."
"I doubt it. But you cannot deny you deserve some pain, after all you have put us through." Magnus stood up. "I will find the Healer. It is time to go."
Maya rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Will you just tell me once, before we go, that you did it?" she asked quietly. "I won’t ever tell anyone. I swear I won’t. I just want to hear you say it."
"Why?" Reshmi asked suspiciously.
"Because if I don’t know, I’ll keep wondering forever." Maya wrapped her arms around herself, bad arm inside good. "I’ll keep thinking maybe it was someone else, and you had to go along with it because otherwise they would kill me. Or maybe it was an accident, and you really didn’t have anything to do with it."
"You know perfectly well it was neither of those," said Reshmi, folding her arms. "Why ask for a confession?"
"Are you going to disown me and declare me outcast?" Maya asked instead of answering. "When you send me away, wherever I go?"
"Yes, of course," Magnus said impatiently. "What has that to do with anything?"
"Professor Binns told us about that spell once. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that it only works properly when both sides want it to work. So if I still believe it wasn’t you, if I love you and want to come home..."
"Shame it took such drastic measures to awaken your proper sense of duty," Reshmi said, shaking her head. "We shall have to try harder with your siblings."
"Siblings?" Maya looked up. "But I thought you couldn’t..."
"We couldn’t," said Magnus. "Before this." He was going to enjoy this moment, savor every second of the look on his daughter’s face as she realized the entirety of the truth. "Yes, Maya, we agreed you should be attacked. In return for payment."
"Fertility potions," Reshmi breathed, licking her lips as if she already tasted them. "The kind with ingredients which are illegal here, because a foolish government won’t see that a few animals killed is a small price to pay for more children of the true blood... but we’ve found a way around that."
"Indeed we have." Magnus smiled at his daughter. "We’ve been promised our first brewing as soon as you are delivered safely. You see why we might be eager to leave. To begin correcting the mistakes we made with you, as soon as possible."
The sick despair on the face once so defiant warmed his heart.
Will any pureblood child in the next twenty years dare stray, when this story becomes current? I think not. An excellent night’s work, well worth missing some sleep over. Now home with her and on with the controlling collar, in case she begins to get ideas once we have left. I still do not entirely trust this seeming meekness...
He turned and took an involuntary step back. A tall, dark, bald man in red robes stood in the entrance to the ‘tent’ of screens, looking down at him. "Magnus Gladius Pritchard?" said a deep voice.
"Yes." Magnus drew himself up to his full height, painfully aware it fell short of this man’s as it did of few others. "What do you want with me?"
"And Reshmi Sonal Pritchard?" the man persisted.
"That is my name," Reshmi said, getting to her feet. "And my husband has asked you a question. What do you want with us? Who do you think you are, to intrude on a private conversation this way?"
"I’ll explain all that if you’ll just step outside here for a moment." The man moved out of the way, leaving the opening free for them. Reshmi marched out with her chin held high, and Magnus followed—
To find himself facing the point of the dark man’s wand, backed by a face whose expression mingled professional detachment and contempt. A glance to one side showed him Reshmi, her mouth gaping in shock as Sirius Black, with whom she’d danced not six months before, trained his wand coolly on her.
"I’m Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt," the dark man said, bringing Magnus’ eyes back to him. "And you’re both under arrest for procuring Dark magic to be used on a minor. That’s a very serious charge; do you have anything to say on your own behalf?"
Magnus’ heart froze for one second, then started working again. They have nothing—they hope to frighten us into an admission—brazen it out, the day can still be saved—
"This is a travesty," he snapped. "How dare you accuse us, arrest us, when all we want to do is take our poor sick daughter home and care for her as she should be cared for?"
"‘Care for her’?" a woman’s voice mocked, and Healer Freeman-Black stepped out from behind one of the screened-off beds. "Don’t you mean, ‘put her down humanely’? Or no, you were going to let her live. After you’d disowned her, disavowed any responsibility for her, and sold her into slavery."
She cannot know that. She is guessing. "I refuse to listen to these vile and baseless slanders for one more second," Magnus said, lifting his nose at the woman. "And I refuse to allow myself to be arrested unless I know exactly what it is I’ve supposedly done," he added to the Auror.
"It’s too late for that, Magnus," said a man’s weary tones.
"You." Magnus whirled to confront his brother Parvus. "What are you doing here? Favonia," he added with bare civility as the man’s wife (blood barely pure enough to qualify, three generations magical if that) appeared behind him.
"I felt obliged to come," Parvus said, glancing at the three young men now dismantling the wall of screens surrounding Maya’s bed. "When George Weasley—whichever of you that happens to be—"
One of the red-haired twins looked up and waved a hand cheerily.
"Thank you." Parvus turned back to Magnus. "When George Weasley arrived at our home an hour ago with a story of Maya being bitten by a werewolf in her own house. I know you too well, Magnus. I know the care you take to keep yourself and the things you prize intact. Such an event could not be an accident."
"Oh, could it not?" Magnus smirked at the taller of the two people standing behind Favonia. "By that logic, you willed what happened to your son this past fall."
Graham winced and hunched his shoulders. Favonia shot Magnus a glare of pure hatred before shepherding her children towards Maya’s now-exposed bed, where the girl was all but invisible in the arms of a dreadlocked boy about her own age. One of the twins tapped her on a shoulder, and she and the boy moved aside as one to make room for Graham and Bernadette beside them on the bed, Bernadette actually climbing up into their intertwined laps.
Magnus wrinkled his nose. Disgusting. How typical of the unfairness of life, that my brother, obviously such an unfit father, should be blessed with two children, and one of those a son, while I have only the one unsatisfactory daughter...
Parvus, who had been watching the whole display with a saccharine look on his face, now faced Magnus once more, his expression shifting from sweet to stony. "Graham was not taken from my home, but from the woods where he always walks in the afternoons," he said softly. "Only someone close to our family, someone who knows his habits, would have been able to tell his abductors so precisely where and when to find him. And only someone who knows him would have been able to tell them how best to break down his spirit."
Magnus matched the expression with his own. "You can prove nothing."
"About that, perhaps not. But about Maya..." Parvus smiled, but there was a trace of sadness in it. "That we can prove, Magnus. You said it yourself, not five minutes ago, you and Reshmi both. That you’d sold your daughter’s life and well-being in exchange for the possibility of more children, ones with whom you could ‘correct your mistakes’. I don’t see that there’s any way you could deny your involvement now."
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in an instant, and sounds twisted and stretched oddly as they reached Magnus’ ears. He heard Reshmi’s shuddering gasps in the instants between his own harsh breathing.
They know.
But how could they...
His eyes fell on the Healer, who was watching the tangle of bodies on the bed with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction, and all at once he understood. Judging by the sounds from behind him, Reshmi had come to the same conclusion.
"You lied to us!" she shrieked at Freeman-Black, her feet scrabbling on the floor as she fought with Black, who was holding her by the shoulders. "You lied! You promised those screens would give us privacy, and you lied! You Mudblood b—" She broke off with a cry of pain.
"So sorry, Mrs. Pritchard," Black said nonchalantly. "My hand must have slipped."
"Sirius," Shacklebolt said in a warning tone.
"Kingsley," Black returned in the same manner.
Magnus ground his teeth at the indignity to his wife.
"As it happens, I didn’t lie," Freeman-Black said, her arms folded across her breasts and a lazy smile at one corner of her mouth. "I told you the screens were spelled so that nothing passed them that shouldn’t. I just didn’t tell you my definition of ‘shouldn’t’. You couldn’t hear us, but we could hear every word you said."
"And we got it down on parchment, too," one of the red-haired twins volunteered from within the half-open tent around the bed. "An Extendable Ear and a DictaQuill..."
"And voila, one transcript of a fascinating conversation," the other twin picked up. "Perfect for framing, nostalgic purposes, or perhaps a day in court."
"And what will it cost us to get our hands on this transcript?" Freeman-Black asked.
"No charge." The first twin waved away the idea airily. "When the parents of some of our dearest friends..."
"And the soon-to-be wife of another need something from us, there’s never a charge," the second finished.
"Unless you decide there should be, you mean," Black said.
"Well, yes."
"We do retain the power to rethink all pricing policies."
"Subject to market conditions at the time, necessities of trade, fluctuating wholesale costs."
"Don’t want to lock ourselves down, after all."
Under normal circumstances, Magnus would have found the twins’ repartee annoying. Under these, it came close to intolerable. Reshmi’s face suggested she felt the same. The rest of the occupants of the ward seemed to think it was quite funny, though—Freeman-Black and Black laughed outright, Shacklebolt chuckled deep in his chest, the children within the tent giggled or grinned as their natures dictated, and even Parvus and Favonia smiled faintly.
As if they do not care that they have ruined a pair of lives and endangered dozens or possibly hundreds of others, depending on how much they coddle Maya.
"Think it’s time for us to go," Shacklebolt said, nodding to Black, who drew Reshmi’s wrists together behind her back and bound them with rope from his wand. The obvious care he was using to hurt her as little as possible paradoxically enraged Magnus, and he barely noticed Shacklebolt doing the same to him.
My curse to you, you wretched lying brat, he thought furiously towards his daughter, her eyes shut as she laid her head against Favonia’s shoulder. On your first transformation night, may you kill everyone who has helped you with this treacherous ploy, and save my brother and his family for the last, so that you awaken with the taste of their flesh in your mouth and the stain of their blood on your hands.
May it substitute for your mother’s and mine.
"Let’s go, Pritchard," Shacklebolt said behind him.
His mind in a chaotic tangle of fury and despair, Magnus Pritchard allowed himself to be guided from the hospital ward.
"Maya’s coming home with us, Maya’s coming home with us," chanted Bernie, bouncing on her cousin’s lap in time. "Maya’s coming home with us, and now she gets to stay!"
"Not forever," Lee said, mussing Bernie’s hair with the hand not currently holding Maya’s. "Just until she finishes Hogwarts."
"Is she going to be able to go back?" Fred asked, frowning.
"Well, it’s been done before..."
"I mean for this term."
"That’s right," George said, looking at his watch. "Term starts in less than a week. Will she be ready?"
"She isn’t sure yet," Maya said acidly from where she was leaning against her aunt’s shoulder with her eyes closed, "but she thinks she ought to know within a few days. And she would appreciate it if you would stop acting as if she weren’t here."
"Yeesh." Fred backed up a couple paces, hands spread. "Sorry. Sorry."
"Wasn’t thinking, Maya," George said contritely. "Take the time you need."
Maya opened one eye. "You’re so kind."
"I know." George preened. "I am the kind one. He’s the attack dog."
Fred panted, his tongue lolling out. Graham and Bernie laughed.
"Some attack dog." But Maya was smiling. "Aunt Voni?"
"Yes, love?" Voni kissed Maya’s forehead.
"Can we go home now?"
Aletha rapped on one of the metal poles holding up the screens before Voni had a chance to answer. "I’m sorry to intrude," she said as heads turned, "but I think it might be best if you all came home with me and Sirius for tonight. We have a place in town with plenty of extra room, it isn’t far..." She tapped her wand against the pole twice, then slipped inside the tent, along with Par, and shut the wall the boys had opened earlier.
"And it’s safer?" Par finished for her.
"It is." Aletha nodded. "I’ve reversed the polarity of the spells on these screens, we can talk freely in here, nothing will get out. Which is the only reason I can tell you I’m taking you all to the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix for the night."
Graham sat up, interested. Lee squeezed Maya’s hand. Bernie cocked her head inquisitively, and Voni sighed. "Do you really think that’s necessary?" she asked.
"Yes. Very much so." Aletha smiled at Maya, and got a small but definite return smile before the girl closed her eyes again. "I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your home, but Headquarters is better protected than almost any place in Britain. You said it yourself, Par, these attacks were meant to show the pureblood community the price of disobedience. Don’t you think Voldemort would jump at the chance—" She ignored the jumps which came from most people in the tent. "—to prove that he won’t stop with killing the one who disobeys him, but will branch out to the whole family?"
"He would." Par let his eyes rest on Maya, and his jaw tightened. "I regret nothing. Still, I do not want to see my family suffer for this choice. Thank you, Healer Freeman-Black, Aletha—we accept. Gratefully."
"Then the sooner we go the better." Aletha nodded to Fred and George, who once again pushed the privacy screens aside, revealing the rest of the ward beyond. "I can take Maya—"
"That’s my job," Lee said, evicting an indignant Bernie from Maya’s lap. "My girl."
"Werewolf girl," Maya murmured, sleepily repositioning herself in Lee’s arms.
"I’m not calling you that."
"I know. That’s why I did."
Lee shook his head and stood up carefully, Par helping him find his balance for the first few steps. Graham took Bernie’s hand again and followed Lee and Maya down the hall, Fred and George hurrying ahead to be sure the Floo area was clear. Voni and Aletha, left alone together, sighed in unison, then laughed.
"She’ll be all right," Voni said, starting for the door. "Really, I think she will. It will take time, but she’ll find her way through."
"With you to help her, I have no doubt." Aletha tapped the frame of the portrait of Urquhart Rackharrow on the wall, waking the occupant. "Can you go upstairs and tell Albertus Young it’s all clear to bring the other patients from this ward back down?" she asked. "And thank him for me. I think we may have saved lives tonight."
"Of course you did," said Rackharrow, looking down his nose at her. "You’re Healers. It’s what you do."
"You have no idea. Thank you in advance." Aletha smiled at him and slipped out of the ward. She’d be needed to Floo to Headquarters with those who were not yet members of the Order.
Though after tonight, I think that number in this particular family will take a dramatic drop...
Wolf lay curled into a small circle at the bottom of Ginny’s bed and watched her sleep.
She’s going to be all right. Letha said so. Once the curse part of the lycanthropy was gone, Meghan could heal the disease part like normal. She’ll have a scar on her arm where a Dark Mark would be, if Ginny ever took the Dark Mark...
Wolf snorted laughter at the thought of that. She’d have all the Death Eaters taking orders from her instead of Voldemort within a month.
Voldemort’s name pulled his thoughts into familiar paths.
Dursley and Nott. They gave us the two things that used their combined magic to make the girls want to leave the Den tonight. Are they both just delivery boys, or is one of them a delivery boy and the other one a Junior Death Eater? And which one is it?
Or are they both Junior Death Eaters, and that line Nott fed us in the Forest was just that, a line?
Wolf sneezed uneasily. No, the Forest was for real. I didn’t smell any lie on him. Which means if it’s one and one, Nott’s in the clear.
But Dursley smelled clear too, when he gave me the amulet. So are they both being used here?
The questions were unanswerable, even to Harry’s human mind. Wolf shook his head and moved on to something more important.
Danger’s prophecies.
Tonight was in two of them.
And in one of them, the next lines might be meant for me.
He slid off the bed and started for the door. This was something that would need to be talked out, with other members of the Pride if possible.
The girls are all asleep, or should be—I know about Ginny, Hermione’s off with Moony and Danger and I don’t think I dare disturb them, and Luna’s right over there—a glance and a sniff told him the Pride’s resident Seer was currently as dead to the world as his alpha female—and I’d bet money we won’t get Captain and Pearl away from each other tonight. So that leaves Draco and Ron.
I can handle that.
Transforming at the door, Harry slipped out and headed for the Pride’s den, where, as he’d expected, found his brother and his best friend playing a half-hearted game of Exploding Snap. "Help me with something?" he asked as he came in.
"Sure." Draco dropped his hand onto the pile, making it explode. "Ron’s not thinking about the game anyway. What’ve you got?"
"Prophecies." Harry pulled two small scrolls out of his pocket and sat down beside the other boys, unrolling the first one. "There were two of them working tonight. And one of them has a part right after tonight’s that sounds like it’s talking to me."
"Let’s look at the other one first, then," said Ron. "Make sure we don’t miss anything from it."
Harry nodded and let the scroll in his hand roll itself up again, unrolling the second one. "This is the one Danger just had a week or two ago. Do what you must, wolf’s darling kit, and shed no tears for doing it..."
"Hermione," said Draco. "Moony always calls her Kitten, and she had to kill Greyback tonight."
"No loss to anyone," Ron muttered.
Harry went on. "Save tears for those who hold you dear and fall as seen by owlsight clear." He blinked once or twice. "Draco, do you know if Luna ever Saw anything about... Hagrid?"
Draco shook his head. "I’d have to ask her. She doesn’t tell me everything. But she might have. She probably did, if it’s here."
Ron fiddled with a burnt edge of card. "It’s almost..." he began, then stopped.
"Go on," Harry said. "It’s almost what?"
"It’s stupid."
"What else is new, from you?" Draco inquired. "We won’t bite."
"It’s almost a good thing that Hagrid died. Except it’s not!" The last three words shot out with the force of cannonballs, and Ron scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. "If he hadn’t died, we wouldn’t have known anything was wrong," he said, his voice threatening to break. "We wouldn’t have known the girls were gone. We wouldn’t have chained up and gone looking for them, and..."
"They’d probably all have been bitten," Harry finished, feeling his stomach start to revolt at the thought. "Then dragged off to wherever Greyback’s pack holes up. Or maybe Voldemort would have taken a couple of them for himself, to try to tempt us into a rescue."
"And we would have taken the bait, too." Draco’s eyes were far away. "We would have known it was a trap, and we still would have gone..."
Harry shook himself out of these dismal thoughts. "You’re right, Ron," he said, though he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from tearing up again. "It was... almost... a good thing."
"He’s probably right proud of it," Ron muttered. "Bet he’s bragging on it over drinks with your mum and dad, Harry."
"Maybe my mum’s there too," Draco mused. "All sitting and watching us, and talking about what they hope we can do..."
The image held them all for a second. Then Harry began to unroll the other scroll he’d brought with him. "This one’s from back in the summer," he said. "The beast tries, as he said, to own, and half-succeeds—but not alone."
"Greyback threatened Moony once with taking Hermione and turning her," Draco recalled. "And he tried to do it tonight."
"But he ended up turning Ginny instead," said Ron, scowling. "And it’s my fault."
Draco punched him on the shoulder, harder than the Pride’s usual friendly greetings. "Would you stop that?"
"You saved them, Ron," Harry said over this. "You couldn’t have known Ginny would get hurt from it. And Hermione took the curse from her anyway, so she’s going to be all right."
"Ginny will be all right, yeah. What about Hermione?"
"She’s strong," Draco said, looking sideways at Ron. "She’ll get through it. Why do you care?"
"Because she’s my friend too!" Ron leaned forward, his face flushing. "You don’t own her, just because you’re twins!"
"I never said I did!"
"Stop it!" Harry twisted his legs under, brought himself up on his knees, and got his hands between Ron and Draco, staving off the former’s grab at the latter. "Stop. Now." A finger’s touch on Ron’s throat, another on Draco’s. "We have enough enemies out there as it is. We don’t need more in here."
Ron’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded. Draco looked rebellious, but Harry lowered his head and Draco blanched. "Ack. Not the look over the glasses. I’ll be good. I’ll be good."
Ron snickered. Harry turned to look at him, and he shrugged one shoulder. "Sounded funny," he said. "Sorry, Drake."
"Sorry, Ron."
"Thank you." Harry scooted backwards to his former place, resumed his cross-legged seat, and unrolled the prophecy scroll again. "Here’s the bit that sounded like it was talking to me." He cleared his throat.
"Then flame shall rise to champion’s hand,
"Alighting fires to cleanse the land,
"For death and pain shall bring to light
"The hidden, unacknowledged might.
"He bows to fate, but not to yield;
"He’ll use it to make fair the field.
"And thus the path
shall be begun
"Which leads unto The Man Who Won."
"Wow," said Ron after a moment. "The Man Who Won—that you, Harry?"
"Sounds like." Harry grinned. "I like it better than The Boy Who Lived, any road."
"’Course you do," Draco said, leaning back on his hands. "You didn’t really have anything to do with being The Boy Who Lived. When you’re The Man Who Won, it’ll be all you."
"Mostly me," Harry corrected. "I don’t expect you’ll be sitting out."
A shadow crossed Draco’s face. "You might be surprised."
Harry looked sharply at him, but let it pass. Not this time either. But soon.
"Can I see that?" Ron asked, pointing at the scroll. Harry passed it over, and Ron ran his finger across one of the lines. "Hidden, unacknowledged might," he read slowly. "Hidden, unacknowledged... why’s that sound familiar?"
Draco shrugged. "It doesn’t to me. Or maybe a little, but I could be making it up."
Harry let his eyes drift half-shut. "It’s not something we’ve heard before," he said slowly. "Not in those words. Maybe in other words."
"Other words? Okay." Draco started ticking them off on his fingers. "Hidden. Secret. Concealed. Buried. Veiled. Unknown."
Harry sat up as pieces snapped together in his brain. "Unknown! That’s it!"
"It is? I mean, it is!" Draco plastered his biggest fake smile on his face. "Good for me!"
"Stop that." Harry smacked his brother on the side of the head. "Ron, read it again. Just that bit."
"Hidden, unacknowledged might," Ron recited without looking at the scroll.
"Hidden is unknown," Harry said, feeling excitement build in his chest as his waking mind found the answer his subconscious had picked out of Draco’s stream of words. "So is unacknowledged. They mean the same, or close enough. And might is another word for power. Unknown power. Sound familiar now?"
"The power he knows not," Draco said, fake smile replaced with a true one. "Harry, you’re brilliant."
Harry jerked a thumb at Ron. "He picked it out of there."
"Yes, but I’m not saying he’s brilliant. I have this thing about lying."
"Up yours," Ron said, throwing the prophecy scroll at Draco.
"You first." Draco retrieved the scroll and unrolled it again. "So this is you, then, Harry. You must be the champion—of course, who else can have fire come to his hand?"
"Moony," Harry said absently. "Never mind. Keep going."
"He bows to fate, but not to yield," Draco read. "I like the sound of that."
"I like the sound of the next one," said Ron. "Something about making it more fair."
Draco consulted the scroll. "He’ll use it to make fair the field. Not bad, Weasley."
"Thanks, Black, you’re not so bad yourself."
"You done?" Harry asked coolly.
"We’re done," said Draco. "So you’re going to use ‘the power he knows not’ and make it fairer between you and Voldemort."
"Wasn’t that supposed to be love?" Ron asked. "‘The power he knows not,’ I mean. Didn’t we decide it was probably love?"
Harry nodded. "We did. Let’s see, then. We’re looking for something to stick it to Voldemort, to tell him he can’t hurt my Pride and my friends and not expect me to hit back, and it has to involve fire and love..."
A loud crack heralded the arrival of Winky. "Master Ron and his friends is please to come down to the kitchen," she piped. "There is being guests and Mistress is wanting you to come help them."
"Guests?" Ron said in confusion. "Now?"
"It is being Master Fred and Master George’s friend Jordan and his lady and her family," Winky informed them. "They is needing a safe place to stay for the night to be sure they is not being killed by Death Eaters."
"Always a good thing," said Draco, standing up. "We’re on our way, Winky."
The house-elf smiled and vanished, and the boys made their way downstairs for introductions and congratulations once Lee revealed his and Maya’s new status. Harry noticed Ron watching them out the corner of his eye, and made a mental note to ask if his friend was all right.
But tomorrow. Too much going on tonight.
After the initial clamor had died down, Dobby showed Graham’s parents to one of the spare bedrooms on the first floor, and Harry led Lee, Maya, Graham, and his little sister (Bernie, that’s cute, though we’ll have to watch out if she meets Meghan—there’s only so much ‘little sister’ one house can take) up to the den-room on the second floor. Maya and Graham, he knew, understood the concept of a den, and from the way Lee hadn’t let go of Maya since they’d arrived, it was probably the best thing for them.
They smell so much in love right now. Not a big surprise, but it’s almost more than I can take...
Harry stopped dead as a wicked idea swept over him.
"Oy!" Lee protested behind him. "Clear the stairs, Potter!"
"Sorry." Harry bounded up the last three steps and into the hallway, the idea taking better shape even as he thought about it.
Just have to get good samples from as many people as I can... can’t tell them why, not until afterwards, it might get contaminated...
Once in the den, he asked Ron to go get some extra bedding and Draco to show Graham and Bernie where the bathroom was. Then he asked Lee and Maya for what he needed.
The first of many. Though I’ll have to work fast if I want to get everyone before bed.
When he told them, after taking his sample, why he was doing it, Maya giggled uncontrollably for a second and Lee bared his teeth, laying gentle fingers over the bandage on her arm. "Serve him bloody right," he said. "A little of his own back."
Harry nodded, then changed the subject as Ron levitated an armful of blankets through the door.
Once the guests were settled, Harry tackled a few of the Order members who were still up and about, then Draco and Ron (both of whom agreed that the idea fit their interpretation of the prophecies perfectly), and finally Letha and Padfoot, who had Flooed in with several long scratches down his arms shortly after the arrival of Lee and the Pritchards.
"Good feelings?" Letha repeated when Harry had told her what he needed. "I think I can help you there. In more ways than one."
"I like the way that sounds." Harry sat down on the couch beside her and held out his pendants. "Tell me more."
Author Notes:
And she will—next time! Okay, I know, you’re all waiting for the stuff I’ve been promising in the A/N’s, and it’s coming, really it is. I solemnly promise that the next chapter of FD shall be forthcoming no later than... drumroll please... this Monday, September 1! So feed the author to keep her spirits up, and get ready to find out more about Harry’s plan and more about Hermione!