Facing Danger
Chapter 34: Love Hurts (Arc 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Moony came awake to the sound of someone tapping on the door. A moment of disorientation ensued, worsened by Danger’s similar state, but he backtrailed his thoughts until they began to make sense.
It’s still full moon. We’re not at the Den anymore, we came back to Headquarters. With Neenie. He gave the small furred head resting on one of his paws a gentle lick. Because... yes, well, no need to get into that.
"Remus, please wake up," Aletha’s voice called from the other side of the door. "I’m sorry to bother you, but I don’t think this should wait."
Moony sighed, barked once quietly to tell her he was up, and began extracting his paw from under Neenie’s head. Danger lifted hers from his flank. Trouble? she sent muzzily.
I don’t know yet. Stay with her? I’ll relay back to you.
Danger nodded and curled herself around Neenie, who mewed once in her sleep before snuggling close to her sister’s furred side and relaxing again. Moony got to his paws, yawned once, shook his head until his ears vibrated, and crossed the room to the door, nosing the button they’d installed at wolf level during the renovations of number twelve.
It’s not as if I can’t turn a handle, but it’s awkward, and there might come a day when I don’t have the time to waste.
The door opened, and he padded out into the hall, whuffing a quiet greeting to Aletha and Harry, both waiting for him. The humans seated themselves, and Aletha pulled out her chain, passing part of it to Harry and tossing a loop over Moony’s head.
Good aim.
"Thank you." Aletha paused as Harry changed into Wolf and came over to lie beside Moony, who growled soft amusement and nosed his cub’s ear. "That should probably bother me much more than it does. Anyway. All teams are accounted for, and we managed to stop every attack we knew about—in some cases, we had help, and a few were closer than we’ll probably ever admit to anyone else, but none of the girls we had prior warning about were successfully bitten."
That sounds ominous. Moony flicked open his channel to the now fully awake Danger. I know there were two attacks we didn’t have information about. One was obviously our girls, and we know how that came out. Who was the other?
"Graham Pritchard’s cousin Maya. And her friend Selena Moon, but that seems to have been mostly accidental, the product of their determinedness to have their slumber party on the full moon." Aletha looked blandly at Wolf, who cocked his head to one side and returned the look with innocence that fooled neither adult for a moment. "I wonder where they could have got that idea."
Moony snorted a laugh, then shook it off in favor of business. Which was bitten? Or was it both?
"Only Maya—Selena’s parents seem to have taught her a few necessary skills a bit early, as she was able to Apparate home and get help while Maya fought the werewolf. And it’s a very good thing she did. Maya’s parents were... less than helpful."
Moony snorted. Purebloods, aren’t they? Wanted to "cleanse their name"?
"Exactly." Aletha’s smile was surprisingly predatory for someone with an equine Animagus. "At the moment, though, they’re a bit more worried about how to ‘cleanse their name’ from something else." A few appropriate memory-images illustrated. "Maya’s here, with her cousins and her aunt and uncle—the adults are with Albus at the moment, so I think the Order will have two more members in the morning. But what I came to tell you about is what I learned from watching lycanthropy take effect on her."
Some part of Moony wanted to protest. Why didn’t you try to stop it, if you could see it happening? Why not try to help her, instead of just watching it destroy her? A fine Healer you are...
Go on, was all he said ‘aloud’.
"Before I do, I should ask you a question. It is personal, so there’s no need to answer if you don’t want to, but I’m formulating a theory and the answer would help me a great deal." Aletha looked into his eyes. "What happened the night you were bitten?"
Moony inhaled slowly, drawing back for a moment from the pendant link. I was expecting something like that, but that doesn’t mean I was ready for it.
I’ll leave if you want, Wolf volunteered, starting to get to his paws.
Moony shook his head. No, you can stay. This is nothing you wouldn’t hear at a den night. Though I admit I’ve never brought it up...
Danger’s wordless love licked at the back of his mind, Aletha’s steady regard held firm, Wolf twitched his tail in abortive wags, and Moony made up his mind.
I may not have much to tell you, he said, closing his eyes and lowering his head to the floorboards. I was very young, and I’ve tried for a long time to forget that night.
Anything will help, Aletha said, switching to the silent speech the pendant chains allowed. What I mostly want to know is what happened afterwards. How you reacted, how your parents reacted, what you all said and did.
That, I remember. Moony slid back in time, growing younger than Wolf or Neenie, younger than Meghan or Graham, younger even than the little girl he could smell vaguely on Wolf’s fur and Aletha’s robes, until some part of him was once again that confused and frightened four-year-old. We all cried. Me from the pain and because Mummy and Daddy were upset, and my parents from the fear that I would become something they couldn’t understand, something they... no, not that they couldn’t love. I don’t think that was possible.
So you were sure of their love, Aletha said, the statement half a question.
Absolutely. Moony felt Wolf squirm a bit closer, sliding his nose along his Pack-father’s paw. They didn’t let me go the entire night. When one of them wasn’t holding me, the other one was. Telling me how much they loved me, how sorry they were that this had happened. I remember Mum yelling at Dad at one point, when he’d tried to blame himself for it—she said he couldn’t have done any differently than he did, that she wouldn’t have stayed with him if he had—but that was the only anger that was directed at any of us. They didn’t scold me even once for going outside late at night. I think they knew that blaming each other would only make things worse.
"How right they were," Aletha murmured aloud.
I beg your pardon? Moony opened his eyes.
"Well, it so happens that..." Aletha stopped as a rhythmic thud, thud, thud broke into her words. "You," she said, pointing at Wolf. "If you’re going to steal my thunder, you can leave."
Wolf lowered his ears apologetically and stopped thumping his tail against the floor.
I like the sound of thunder, Moony said, indulging in a brief tail-wag himself. Please, tell me more.
"I will, but I have to know first if Hermione told you what Luna told us—about the two parts of lycanthropy, the curse and the disease?"
Moony nodded. She gave us the gist of it, in explaining what she had agreed to. She has only the curse affecting her, not the disease, so she’ll never change bodily the way I do, but her mind and soul will be altered by the full moon.
And I would have done anything to keep this from happening to her, anything in the world...
"They will. But let me tell you what I saw while Maya’s curse was taking hold." Aletha was beginning to smile. "Her parents’ arrival frightened her; the curse spread more strongly over her soul when she heard they had come. But when her cousins came bursting in and climbed onto the bed with her, and her aunt and uncle told her she would always have a home with them, the curse receded some from that first strength, and the rest of its spread was thin and weak. And as far as I can tell, the strength it has when it finishes spreading is the strength it stays."
Moony went very still as the implications of this began to sink in. Are you telling me...
"That what your parents did for you, what Maya’s relatives have done for her, and what you’ve done for Hermione have made the curse of lycanthropy less potent on you all?" Aletha finished. "Yes. Maya and Hermione will still be affected by the curse, just as you are, but now they have a fighting chance. Whereas if they’d been in the situation of most of the newly bitten—alone and wounded and terrified, or surrounded by ignorant people who tried to kill them or lock them away—the curse would have manifested to its fullest extent."
Making them into the traditional werewolf, Danger said, her voice echoing into the link through Moony’s mind. Angry, bitter, jealous and cruel.
"Exactly." Aletha displayed the image she’d seen of Maya’s soul, golden glow covered here and there with thin gray strands like a spider’s web. "I would imagine the unaltered form of the curse covers the soul so completely that its victims have almost as little choice about their emotional changes as they do about their physical one. Which means, Remus, that by doing what I’m sure you did tonight—by holding Hermione, comforting her, telling her how much you love her and how proud you are of her for what she did—you saved her soul."
There were no words, there could be no words, for a joy so deep and bright and strong. Moony shivered with the power of it, radiating from the center of his being to the link where Danger, her voice shaking even in his mind, whispered Thank God, oh thank God over and over, up and outward until he was amazed that his very skin was not shining with it. Wolf trembled beside him, and Aletha knelt on his other side now, her arms around him and tears falling freely into his fur. His love, his sister, his son, all felt and echoed back his joy, multiplying it until four minds did not seem enough to hold it all.
I love her, he said, looking through Danger’s eyes at the tiny precious life lying beside her. That was why I did what I did. Because I love her, and I wanted her to know that would never change, no matter what had happened to her.
We know, the other voices answered, a soft semi-chorus, overlapping and combining. We know.
Wolf pressed a paw against Moony’s, pushing through the fur to touch skin. Thanks for your help, he said privately.
Help? With what?
Tell you in the morning. Wolf winked one green eye, wiggled himself backwards out of the chain, and was down the hall and out of sight in a flash.
Moony looked up at Aletha, who shook her head. "Don’t ask me," she said. "All I know is, he needed good feelings for something."
Good feelings... A suspicion blossomed at the back of Moony’s mind, but he let it stay there. For tonight, he was content with what he’d just learned.
Hermione will suffer from this. She will be hurt. But she will still be herself. And we will love her and help her and teach her—I will teach her—how to keep the full moons from taking over her life.
She is still herself, and she is still mine. Nothing else matters tonight.
Tomorrow, he knew, would be another story. But tomorrow would take care of itself. It always did.
He laid his head against Aletha’s knee and watched through the doorway as his Kitten slept.
Harry shut the door of the boys’ bedroom behind himself, walked carefully over to his bed, and collapsed across it.
"That good?" Draco inquired, looking up from his book on the next bed over.
Harry rolled over to get an upside-down look at his brother. "That good," he confirmed. "Here, try it." A flick of his wrist sent his chain whizzing Draco’s way.
Draco slid it over his head, and Harry summoned up the dazzling joy once more. A sharp intake of breath told him the link was working properly.
"Whoo," Draco breathed. "Yeah. That good."
"Let me try," Ron said, setting aside the watch he’d been tinkering with. "Toss it over, Harry, come on."
"It’s not a new flavor of crisps," Harry said, flinging a loop of chain in the other direction from Draco. "Show a little respect."
Ron ducked inside the chain. "Tell me what it is and I will."
Harry tweaked the proper moment in his memory. Ron stiffened, then went limp all over, dropping his wand to the floor. "Never mind," he said, sounding rather shaken. "Think I can guess."
"This I have to hear," muttered Draco.
"Not now." Harry twitched the chain, summoning it home, and pulled around the locket that held his blood and Moony’s, looking at it thoughtfully. "I need you both to help me with this. If we’re going to make it work, we have to know exactly what we’re all doing."
"Right." Ron retrieved his wand and flexed his wand hand. "My job’s not too hard. Stun you if you do anything even a little bit weird before that locket’s back on your chain."
"It might not be hard, but it’s important." Harry arched his back, stretching. "If I get taken over and you don’t stop me, we’re all dead."
"And dead is a bad thing."
"Yes, usually." Harry turned to look at Draco. "Ten seconds," he said. "I’ll need it all, but no more. I don’t want him to have time to shake it off, but I do want to finish."
"We were working on that, actually." Draco peered around Harry. "You got it yet, great mechanical genius?"
Ron twirled his wand against the back of the watch, which Harry, now that he was looking at it, recognized as Draco’s. "Almost. Just one... more... second... there." He handed it to Harry, who passed it along to Draco. "Push the knob in to start it. If you want to set it, turn the knob back and forth, but I did that already this time. It’ll make a noise when your time’s up."
Draco strapped the watch to his wrist. "What kind of noise?"
Ron grinned. "It says, ‘Hey stupid! Your time’s up!’"
"Thanks a lot."
"Remind me," Harry said, twisting himself around until he was lying with his head on the pillow. "If we ever get a Den for the Pride, it has to be big. Big enough that you two can have separate wings."
Both boys instantly assumed looks of injured dignity and great innocence.
"Save it for your girlfriends." Harry closed his eyes and reached for Draco’s hand, only to find it already around his. He could hear and smell Ron on the next bed, and the scent of Neville and the girls permeated the room.
This is for the girls. For all the people who were scared or hurt tonight. For the werewolves who don’t care if you use them because they think they’re no better than animals. And for Hagrid. Grief tried to take him over, but he touched the feelings he’d gathered and it retreated a little ways. It would be back, but he had time first enough to finish what he’d set himself to do.
This is for everyone.
Because you can’t do things like this anymore.
I’m not going to let you.
"Ready," he said aloud. "Give me a three-count, then go."
"Right." Draco’s hand came in, guided by Harry’s own, to the locket at the side of his neck. "Ron, ready?"
"Ready."
Draco closed his fingers around the locket. "One." A nail hooked onto its catch. "Two." The catch went back, and the locket came free from the chain. "Three."
Harry’s scar came alive with pain. He closed his mouth over a gasp and instead laid his free hand over his pendants.
This is for everyone, he thought again, and dove into what he’d gleaned from Lee and Maya.
Lord Voldemort was just listening, with growing anger, to the report of another of his spies when he felt the unfamiliar tickle at the back of his mind.
What—ah, Potter. So he wants to play, does he? Take revenge for what I have done, or rather what I have tried to do?
He glared down at the prostrate spy. Perhaps this night was not totally wasted after all. I will let him see the true extent of my anger, and what it means to humiliate me—
This is for everyone, the boy’s voice whispered.
Heat flooded the link between them, and Voldemort stiffened in shock. It clung, it scalded his mind, it stank of something he could not explain—there was a whiff of desire, a trace of anger, but they were quickly drowned in the flood of something else—
Before he could even begin to fight through the pain and analyze the magic, to decide how best to counteract it, it changed, filling his head with a blinding light—and again, to a pounding rhythm like four sets of drums played just out of unison—again, to a floating sensation as though he had just fallen from a height—again, to a chill that made his heart speed up and his skin contract—again, to—
Voldemort screamed in pain as the sensations merged, flowing into an indescribable whole that seized him and shook him and would not release him. Potter felt this too, he realized from a distance, but Potter felt it not as pain but as—
Joy. Happiness. Love. Such defilement as that, he dares to use against me!
The anger gave him shield and sword, blocking out the blinding, burning love, clearing the way for him to strike back. He would show Potter what real power was—
But as Voldemort thrust his own magic towards the link, a flash of red light and a sudden darkness assailed him, and the wall which had blocked the link for the last several months dropped from nowhere, nearly crushing his spirit-self. He rolled clear of the russet stones just in time.
"Clever," he whispered, staring at the impenetrable wall. "Very clever. But you will not try it twice."
Though his spirit ached from top to toe after such a horrible experience, nonetheless he spent several minutes setting traps on his own side of the wall. If Potter should attempt this trick again, his soul would be instantly netted and pulled away from his body, leaving it free for whatever the Dark Lord might care to do with it.
Which is as it should be.
At last, he returned to his body, dismissing his Death Eaters with a gesture so as not to worsen his headache. A wave of his wand dimmed the lights, another filled the air with soft hissing, and Lord Voldemort leaned back, his eyes closed as he sought to regain his equilibrium.
How can they do it? he wondered. How can they survive, how can they function, with such things constantly present in their minds? How can they continue to live and, apparently, thrive?
It was only an idle question. He had long ago accepted that he would never know, and that he did not wish to know. His lot in life was not to understand the light, but to destroy it.
I daresay that if they were not so blind, if they were not so steeped in their foolish culture, they would even thank me for my efforts.
But thanked or not, he would prevail. There was no other way.
Cradled in his throne, the soothing whispering of snakes all around him, Lord Voldemort slept.
Draco clutched at his forehead with both hands.
There’s something distinctly ironic about getting two reaction headaches in one night, both from the same person’s magic.
"Sorry about that," Ron said from the next bed over, setting up a second set of pounding inside Draco’s head. "I would’ve waited, but..."
"It’s fine," Draco croaked, wincing as his whole skull vibrated to his voice. "Just... don’t talk so loud?"
"Sorry." Ron flicked his wand at the light switch and shut the door, plunging the room into blessed darkness. "Night."
"Night." One step, two, three, and Draco fell onto his bed, already forming the entrance to a dreamworld in his mind. The faster he could get to sleep, the faster his magic could start repairing the damage done by Stunner backlash.
It’s not Ron’s fault, it’s mine. He did exactly what he had to do, and if I’d been quicker I wouldn’t still have been touching Harry when the spell hit him. So my own stupid fault.
But it felt more satisfying to blame Ron for the headache than to blame himself.
Don’t suppose it hurts anything, really. As long as I don’t let myself take it too seriously. He’s bugging me for some reason right now, so this’ll let me get it out of my system.
The dreamworld doorway coalesced, and Draco stepped through it quickly, sighing in relief as the headache disappeared. He wouldn’t stay too long here, just long enough to make sure his body was thoroughly asleep.
And maybe long enough to find one other person and do a few things we really shouldn’t.
After all, who’s going to know?
He grinned to himself and set off along the forest path, watching for white feathers.
Neenie came awake all at once, eyes and ears and nose wide open. It was just past sunrise, she was back at Headquarters, but there was trouble nearby, something to fear, something to run from—
Calm down, she ordered herself. There isn’t anything like that here.
There is, there is, there is! Her thoughts tumbled over each other in their haste to be known. There is, over there, look, look, run away, hide, run!
Slowly, Neenie turned her head.
Moony slept on the floor beside her, back in his human form.
Run! her thoughts shrieked at her. Bad, bad, danger, danger...
Neenie latched her claws onto that word, halting her runaway thoughts. Danger loves me, she told herself firmly, and she is here. She would never let anything hurt me. One paw reached out to touch the larger one of the sleeping wolf beside her. And Moony loves me just as much as Danger does. He made me better last night. I will not run from him.
But the panic wasn’t listening. The scent and sight of a man, a human male, crept past her defenses and made her shiver, sent her burrowing into Danger’s side, their fur intermingling—she would scream any second, cat or human, it didn’t matter, she wasn’t going to be able to stop herself—
Neenie, what in the world? Danger asked sleepily.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t— Neenie cut herself off, burying her face in Danger’s fur, trying to stay calm. It’s Moony, he scares me when he’s human, I know he shouldn’t but he does, I don’t want him to, I know he wouldn’t ever hurt me, but he does and I’m scared and I don’t want to be scared—
I understand, Danger broke in. And so will he. I’m here, hold onto me, I won’t let anything hurt you.
I know. Neenie breathed deeply of her sister’s scent, shaking with her fear and the shame it brought over her. I know.
A moment of silence, with the feeling of a conversation just out of earshot, then Danger’s voice came back. Look now. Is this better?
Neenie turned her head and let out a low yowl in relief. The Moony now lifting his head to look at her was a lion, his mane in disarray but his eyes fixed on her with love and worry. Yes. Yes. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to be like this...
We know. And we love you. Danger licked the back of Neenie’s head once, then nudged her to her feet. Go and see if you can be near him. You were fine with him last night when he was the wolf, so you may be all right with him in this form too.
I think I am. Neenie nuzzled Danger in thanks and picked her way delicately across the floor to the lion’s side. Blue eyes watched her come, and a great steady rumble filled the air.
Lions aren’t supposed to be able to purr.
But then, cats aren’t supposed to be able to talk, either.
Neenie reached her goal and reared up on her hind legs, balancing her front paws in the lion’s mane. Deliberately, she leaned forward and licked the side of Moony’s muzzle.
For what you did for me last night, she thought towards him. For the story, and the love, and the safety. For everything you always do for me. Even if I can’t say it aloud right now, you know it. And you know that I love you too, and always will.
Moony turned his great head gently, depositing Neenie’s front paws on the floor again. His velvet nose pressed against her face, and her purr awoke without her conscious effort.
She hadn’t known lions could smile.
"Harry, might we have a word?"
Harry turned around slowly, attempting to appear as if he hadn’t a clue what Professor Dumbledore might want ‘a word’ about.
Make that Professor Dumbledore, Danger with her eyes half-blue for Moony, Letha, and Padfoot. And none of them look the least bit amused.
I think I’m in trouble.
"Yes, sir. Here?"
"No, I think we shall repair to the War Room." Dumbledore indicated the study on the other side of the front hallway, where Harry had been about to go upstairs. "As what we are discussing is related to that."
Definitely trouble.
Inside the room, everyone found a seat, Harry trying not to cringe prematurely. Time enough for that when they yell...
"Mind telling us what you did last night?" Padfoot asked, flexing his fingers behind his head.
Oh, they’re not even yelling. I’m in BIG trouble. "I was stupid?"
The Pack-parents snickered, and Dumbledore smiled politely. "True enough," Danger said. "But not what we want to hear and you know it."
I hate it when they do this. "Why do I have to tell you when you already know?"
"To be sure we have the story straight from both sides," Letha said calmly, "and that we’re not blaming you for something you didn’t do. Which you know perfectly well, you’re just trying to stall. Let’s have it."
So much for that. Harry sighed and reached into his pocket for the small scrolls he’d copied the prophecies onto. Only one of them was there.
Huh. Ron or Draco must still have the other one. But let me see... He unrolled it slightly. Good, this is the right one. I won’t need to find another copy.
"It all started when Luna told us how she’d remembered a bit of prophecy that made it extra important for Ginny to get healed," he said, coming down the table so he could hand Padfoot the scroll. "I decided maybe I should go look that prophecy up, and the other one that was for this year, and I found some lines that sounded as if they were meant for me..."
The adults craned their necks to get a better look at the scroll as Harry explained how he and Draco and Ron had worked out the relevant bits of prophecy, and how he’d realized what it might mean while he was near Lee and Maya. "It was almost too much for me, and I know about love... some," he qualified at Letha’s raised eyebrow and Padfoot’s snigger. "Voldemort doesn’t know anything about it, he hates it, he thinks it’s poison. The more love and happiness I could find and hit him with, the more he’d be hurting, and the worse he’d think last night failed. Which might mean he wouldn’t try it again."
"Or it might mean he will try harder," Dumbledore said, "in order to crush your spirit and those of your friends. There are unintended consequences to every action, Harry. For instance, I have no doubt Lord Voldemort is now blocking the link between you with all his own power, to prevent a repetition of last night. Though this may be a good thing, it may also be bad."
"How?" Padfoot turned to look at the Headmaster. "I thought it was generally bad to have that link there."
"It is," Dumbledore said. "However, Lord Voldemort now knows that the blockage at our end is not permanent but within our power to remove and replace. The more he learns about the block we have devised, the more likely it is he will find a way around it, making your mind vulnerable once again, Harry."
Harry looked down at the table. "Sorry, sir."
"Apology accepted." The tone, gentle as it was, nonetheless brought Harry’s head up again. Dumbledore was smiling at him. "I doubt there has been permanent harm done by this incident, Harry, and I do admire your initiative. But could we ask to be informed before you next—if you will pardon the metaphor—beard the lion in his den?"
I’ve heard of killing people with kindness. I guess this is what it means. "I’ll try, sir."
Dumbledore steepled his fingers and regarded Harry.
Not him, too. "Yes, sir," Harry mumbled. "I will."
Letha pressed his arm gently. "Thank you, love," she said, then grinned. "I hope you gave him an awful headache."
Harry grinned back. "I think I did. He was yelling a lot, at least."
The adults around the table chuckled.
"Can I just ask, why?" Padfoot said, shaking his head. "Why this way? And why right then?"
Harry rubbed at a bump on the table’s surface. "Because I wanted to do something myself," he said. "Something nobody else had thought to do, something nobody else could do. And I wanted to do it right away. To show him he can’t get away with hurting people. With killing people." The grief he’d put off last night raised its head again, and this time he had no resolve to help him send it away. "To show him, no matter who he kills, he can’t kill us all."
"But he could kill you," Danger said softly. "And none of us want that."
Harry cracked half a smile. "Don’t want it much myself." Tears were rising up in his eyes now, his throat was closing, he’d put it off too long already and now it couldn’t be denied...
Letha’s arms were the first around him, but Padfoot was only a moment after her, pulling his chair up behind Harry so that he could hold them both at once. "It’s not fair, is it?" his godfather said thickly. "He was supposed to be safe, staying home with you lot, and instead he’s the only one who died..."
"We’ll miss him," Letha whispered, kissing Harry on the side of the head. "We will all miss him, so, so much."
The words helped some to release the grief Harry’d held back all night and day. The embraces, the nearness, the Pack-scents helped more. His tears came, slowly and painfully, but they came.
An image lingered on the backs of his eyelids as he cried: an outdoor table at a little village pub, where two men and two women sat drinking and talking and playing cards. One of the women was blonde and delicate, the other red-haired and laughing, and one of the men towered over the other players while the other had messy black hair and wore wire-rimmed glasses like the ones pressing into Harry’s own face.
They all look so happy. I hope they are.
I hope they’re proud of me.
Then the grief swept back over him, and he had no thought for anything but tears.
Ron edged along the hall, avoiding the creaky boards, trying to dismiss the thoughts which said he was eavesdropping and he really shouldn’t be here.
It’s been three days since it all happened, and no one will tell me anything about how Hermione is.
I’ll just have to find out myself.
"Well, how is she?" Mrs. Danger’s voice asked within the room.
Mrs. Letha sighed. "The same as before. On edge, jumping at every shadow, and panicking if a man or a boy comes near. She’s rational enough—she’s the one asking us to keep testing her—but this is beyond reason, and that’s hard for her to comprehend."
"She can take Remus, though, as long as he’s transformed," Mrs. Danger said in a tone of trying to make the best of things. "And Draco was able to go in to see her, as Snow Fox."
"Yes, but he couldn’t get near her. She was happy enough to see him, but if he started to come close, she tensed up."
"Better than what she did when Harry tried it as Wolf."
"Yes, that was rather spectacular." Mrs. Letha laughed, a dry little chuckle. "I’m not sure my hearing’s fully recovered yet."
"What’s that?"
"I said, I’m not sure... oh, very funny."
"Thank you." A long pause. "What are we going to do, Letha? She can’t go back to school if she screams at the sight of half the professors or students. But she’ll tear herself apart inside if she misses more than a few days of her O.W.L. year for something she sees as so trivial as fear. If there were just one person, one man, she could stand in human form, that would be something to build on, something to help her find her way out of this..."
"But there isn’t." Mrs. Letha’s chair scraped the floor, and footsteps began to pace around the door. Ron drew back a step or two, to make sure he wasn’t seen. "We’ve tried everyone male in the house; she starts to shiver and cry before they even get into sight..."
"O Time, thou must untangle this, not I," Mrs. Danger murmured. "It is too hard a knot for me t’untie. She’s asleep now?"
"Yes, sleeping soundly, with Remus watching the door, as if you didn’t know that. I left the window open with a warmth spell on it, to give her some air. Maybe when she wakes up, if she’s feeling any better, we can try again..."
Ron withdrew as silently as he’d come, resentment seething in his chest.
Tried everyone? No, they bloody well haven’t—no one’s said a word to me about it, not a thing except what I can pry out of Draco and Harry, and they’ve been more and more close-mouthed every day. It’s like no one even remembers what I did for them, for her—like I’m invisible, like I don’t matter—
No more. He unclenched his fists and started for the boys’ bedroom. No more. They said she was asleep. If I’m careful how I transform, I can get in and out again without waking her. I can at least see her, and say what I want to say to her, even if she won’t hear me.
I’m not going to be invisible anymore.
Hermione lay in the big double bed, breathing deeply and evenly, trying to find the sleep that was eluding her, trying to avoid the tears that were searching for her.
I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to be afraid, I don’t want to be useless, I don’t want to be a burden... I don’t want Hagrid to have died for nothing...
But she was afraid, terribly afraid, and if she couldn’t conquer that fear she would be useless and a burden to the Pack. Hagrid might not have died for nothing—Ginny was well again, all of Letha’s scans showed her healthy, and Luna and Meghan had recovered—but it was still an insult to his memory that she should be like this.
I’m supposed to be strong. I’m supposed to be able to fight anything. Why can’t I fight this?
"None of us can fight our fears alone, little love," Danger’s voice whispered in her memories. "We all need help. We all need each other. Don’t hate yourself for not being able to throw this off alone."
But I can’t help it. I know it’s stupid and irrational and I hate it, but I can’t stop feeling like I should be able to do this myself, without any help from anyone.
Even though you couldn’t fight the Death Eaters without help? pointed out her logical side. You needed someone to give you that first push, to break the spell that kept you from caring... you were perfectly able to finish the fight from there, but without that help, there wouldn’t have been a fight at all...
I should know who that was. Hermione seized on the new topic gladly. That magic, that taste and touch and smell, I know I know it, I just can’t put it with a face or a voice. All I know for sure is, whoever it was, he was angry. Angry at how I’d been treated, at what had happened to me, and that the spell kept me from being angry about it.
She smiled a little. I’ve made up for that since then. I’ve screamed and yelled and pounded the floor and sworn I’ll find him and get revenge. As soon as I find out who he is.
She was careful not to look at the bit of memory that seemed to say she might already know.
But I wish I could tell him, the him who helped me, that I’ve done that. That I’ve been angry now, and upset and frightened and sad, and how grateful I am—as crazy as that sounds—but how grateful I am that he gave me the chance to do that. That he broke me free to let me fight back. That he saved my life, or at least the parts of it that matter.
I wish I could tell him.
Her eyes closed as she continued to breathe deeply. Sleep was starting to come, she could feel it, sliding its comforting mantle over her—
A whir of wings at the window, and sleep fled in an instant. Hermione lay very still, but her heart was pounding. It can’t be an owl, they fly silently—it sounds too big to be a sparrow or a pigeon—
The quiet thump of a pair of feet hitting the floor, and a new scent eddied over Hermione’s shoulder into her nose. She breathed it in and let it out again, analyzing it piece by piece.
Day-old robes, week-old socks, sweat. Ink and parchment and textbooks and dust. Ham and turkey sandwich with pumpkin juice—wait, pumpkin juice—
Quickly, she called up her memory of the mysterious magic which had freed her and laid it against the scent reaching her now. They fit together like a hand around a wand.
Of course. How could I forget?
But something was missing. Something she had expected, had come to expect over the last few days, was inexplicably absent.
Hermione lay quiescent under the covers, breathing the human scent of Ron Weasley, and was not afraid at all.
Author Notes:
Told you it’d be out on Monday. Sorry to those for whom it is no longer Monday—afraid I work on my own time zone. More on this lovely scene next time, obviously (congratulations to all Good Shippers), and I think next chapter will wrap up the holidays and possibly even get us back to school. It’s been an eventful few days, so we may move pretty swiftly through the next couple months, just in time to run into another Big Event around the end of April, start of May... stay tuned!