Facing Danger
Chapter 48: Bind Up the Brokenhearted (Year 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Albus Dumbledore stood at one of the shelves in his office, carefully layering spells around a small model house. He had worked these spells twice before with this house or one very like it, and his task had never been harder than it was at this moment.
I did my best, but I can only be in so many places, and Harry was necessarily a higher priority than his cousin. By all accounts, Dudley Dursley has long since succumbed to the temptations of his daily society, and will have been cultivating and altering his parents’ fear of wizards until they trust only him, and fear their nephew and his companions above all else. I consider us lucky to have received their consent for Harry to live in their house for one more summer, however grudgingly it was given. Their distrust does make it more difficult to reinstate the wards, but it can be done.
He glanced at the fireplace, where was hidden the passage to the current location of the young man on whose behalf he was working. Danger will have passed through already, either last night or this morning, to say her farewells and be on her way. I wish her all the best, but I must admit that I am grateful Draco will be staying with Harry while she is gone. All four Pack-cubs loose in Headquarters, troubled and unhappy, without the moderating influence of their parents…
Before he could think of an adequate simile to describe the destruction that would ensue, the staircase hummed to life. A few moments later, the office door opened with the controlled violence Dumbledore associated with only one man.
“Good morning, Severus,” he said without looking around. “Have a seat? I will be finished here in a moment.” Or at a stopping place, at least.
“Thank you, Headmaster.”
Dumbledore raised a hidden eyebrow at the sullen anger in Severus’ voice. Whatever he witnessed, he did not care for it. And he likes still less having to report it to me. His wand looped the miniature house twice, sketched a rune in midair, and came to rest. There. The first two layers are in place, and the last can wait until I have heard this.
Even if, as I suspect, I would rather not know it.
“I had expected you last night,” he said, taking a seat behind his desk. “Were you kept late?”
“I stayed the night at my own home.” Severus was glaring holes in what Dumbledore had thought a very inoffensive carpet. “It seemed wisest, after I suspected that I might be followed. No watcher would go unnoticed there.”
True enough, but also a delaying tactic. “I assume you were able to evade your trailer. You would hardly be here otherwise.”
“I was.” Severus let the silence stretch. Dumbledore set his fingertips together and waited.
“The Dark Lord used their marriage vows against them,” said Severus at last, never lifting his eyes from the carpet. “Aletha lost her memories at her husband’s hand. He is without magic, and locked into his alternate form. They plan to use her as a scrubwoman, among other things, and force him either to watch or to know about it all.”
“I see.” Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment and allowed the pain of his friends’ injuries, ever familiar, ever new, to sweep through him.
Death might have been kinder to them than this. The cubs will be devastated, Meghan especially so. The one saving grace of the situation is that through his own and his siblings’ quick responses, Harry was not forced to see it happen, as I have no doubt was Tom’s original intention.
The person who had seen it happen, he noted, was abnormally silent. There had been a time when even a mild misfortune befalling Sirius would have caused Severus unholy glee. A downfall of this magnitude, by the rules which had applied up until now, should be bringing rejoicing and celebration in its wake. Instead…
“The old hatreds bring no comfort, do they, Severus?” he said quietly.
Severus thrust himself to his feet, turning away, and stalked to the door without answering. His hand resting on the knob, he stopped. The set of his shoulders indicated he was battling with himself. Dumbledore wondered whether he were winning or losing.
“They never did.”
The words had barely stopped echoing when the door slammed behind their speaker.
Bernie, the elflets behind her, tiptoed down the first-floor hallway. They had to be very, very quiet here because Ron was sleeping. Or wasn’t sleeping. Bernie wasn’t quite clear on what exactly her brother’s friend’s sister’s boyfriend was doing, but she didn’t think he was sleeping. People who said the kinds of words she wasn’t supposed to hear, over and over again, usually weren’t asleep. But Ron’s mum and Neenie both said Ron was sleeping, so she wasn’t going to pry. Prying was rude.
But maybe Cissus or Echo could look in on him. House-elves are supposed to go in and out of rooms so quiet nobody knows they’re there…
Behind her, Cissus tripped on a warped floorboard and fell flat on his face. Echo tripped over her brother and squealed as she went down.
Or maybe not.
“Shh,” Bernie hissed at her friends, helping them up. “We’ll get in trouble!”
“We already in trouble,” Echo said primly, brushing off her dress. “Trouble when you do what your mummy and daddy say not, even if you not get caught.”
“Don’t get caught,” Bernie corrected automatically. Her own mum was very particular about proper English. “And our mums and dads didn’t say not to go see Meghan. They just said not to bother Ron, and we’re not.” She glanced doubtfully at the door behind which she’d heard the bad words. “I don’t think.”
“Then let’s go see Meghan,” said Cissus, pointing to the door of the Pride-girls’ bedroom. “She’s in there.”
Bernie swallowed and led the way.
She had tried to imagine, ever since Graham had sat down with her two hours before and explained why Meghan’s face had looked like that when she got done talking with Professor Dumbledore, what it would be like to have her mum not remember her. It was a hard thing to imagine. Mum was… well, she was Mum. Without her, the day didn’t start. And she knew Mrs. Letha was just that kind of mum to Meghan and Harry and Draco and Neenie.
I hate those Death Eaters. I hate them even worse than when they took Graham away. Bernie clenched her fists, and raised one of them to knock on Meghan’s bedroom door. I’d like to take away everything they remember and see how they like it!
“Who is it?” Meghan’s voice from inside the room sounded choky, like she’d been crying. Bernie’s throat closed in sympathy, and she grimaced at Echo and Cissus for help.
“It us—it’s us,” Echo corrected herself this time. “Cissus and Bernie and Echo. Can we come in, please?”
“May we,” Cissus prompted in a loud whisper.
“May we come in, please?” Echo stuck out her tongue at her brother.
“If you want to.”
Bernie opened the door, and the elflets piled in past her, running to Meghan, who was curled up on the floor near the window. Echo jumped into her lap, and Cissus plopped down beside her. Bernie followed her friends and took a seat on the floor a little ways away from Meghan. “Is it very sad?” she asked hesitantly.
“Mm-hmm.” Meghan cuddled Echo against her chest, staring out the window with her big grey eyes all filled with tears that didn’t seem to want to spill out. “And it hurts more because it isn’t all the way over. They might still come back. So I have to wait, and wait, and wait. But if they do come back, Dadfoot can’t fight anymore, and Mama Letha won’t know me at all. She might say, ‘Oh, that little girl looks a lot like me,’ but she won’t know why unless somebody tells her.” A deep, shaky breath. “She won’t ever call me her Pearl-girl again, or make me fall asleep singing ‘Stay Awake’, or play the fine lady game with Dadfoot’s stories at den-night…”
Bernie latched onto the second mention of Meghan’s father and coupled it with something she had been discovering during the past day and a half. “That isn’t true, about your dad. Even if he doesn’t have his magic, he can still fight. Muggles can fight. Crystal fights, Mrs. Robertson and Mrs. Smythe fought, and they never had any magic at all.”
“Yes, but they’ve always been Muggles, they learned how to fight as Muggles! Dadfoot only knows how to fight the magic way, and without his magic, how can he do that?” Meghan was starting to shiver, and her eyes were threatening to overflow. “He can’t ever be an Auror again, and that’s what made him happy, making the world safer for good people like us…”
Cissus tugged at Meghan’s sleeve until she looked down. “Was he a Auror when you were little like us?” he asked, then noticed Bernie’s headshake. “Sorry. An Auror. Was he?”
“N-no.” Meghan started to wipe her eyes on her sleeve, but Echo glared at her until she stopped, then at Cissus, sending him to fetch the box of tissues from the nightstand. “But that was a long time ago, when we were hiding, and he had his stories…” She stopped with a tissue against one corner of her eye. “His stories. He had his stories. He still can have his stories, can’t he? Muggles write stories all the time—not as good of stories as my Dadfoot, but they write them!”
Bernie nodded eagerly. “I like his stories. Mum read us some of them. They make me feel like I went on a trip to the place he told the story about, and met the people and talked to them and everything.”
Meghan turned her head to look at Bernie, then set Echo aside gently. “Excuse me,” she said to the elflet. An instant later, Bernie was engulfed in the tightest hug she had ever encountered. She hugged back, a little bewildered but happy that some of the terrified loneliness in Meghan’s eyes was going away. Even if it did mean she was getting all her ribs squashed.
“Good stories make you feel like you know the people in them,” Meghan repeated softly when she let Bernie go. “And Dadfoot’s stories were always about us. The Pack. He gave us different names and faces and put us different places and times, but we were always there. If Mama Letha reads his stories…”
“She’ll know you again!” Cissus bounced to his feet. “There are some of his books downstairs, in the library, I saw them! Let’s go get them right now!”
“Wait for me?” said a voice from the hallway.
“Graham!” Bernie scrambled up and claimed a first hug from her brother, then stepped aside so that he could sit down with Meghan and put his hand over hers.
I almost wish there wasn’t any Neville, so Meghan would be my for-real sister someday… but that’s a mean thing to wish. Neville’s nice. And I like Natalie too. Someday maybe she and Graham will have a Pack like Meghan’s mum and dad, and I can be the other grown-up witch. But then there’d have to be another grown-up wizard too. She made a discreet face behind her hand. Yuck. Maybe we can just have a Pack with two mums and a dad instead of two of each…
Cissus scuttled backwards until he was sitting right beside her. “You okay?” he whispered.
“Fine,” Bernie whispered back. “Shh.”
“…can make his books the start of a memory box,” Graham was saying to Meghan. “If you want.”
“A memory box?”
“Like you keep for Marcus.” Graham squeezed Meghan’s hand a little. “Or like Bernie and I made two years ago, when our gran on Mum’s side died. It’s usually for somebody who’s gone, to help you remember them. Yours will be a little different, because it’s for somebody who needs help remembering herself. But the idea is the same. You put things inside it that give you strong memories. Things that make you think of the person you want to remember.”
“Mum says smells are important for remembering,” Echo chimed in. “She uses different-smelling soaps to do everybody’s wash and that’s how she remembers who wants it done what way.”
“Smells. Hmm.” Meghan was smiling. It was wobbly and a little lopsided, and it looked like she was having a hard time hanging onto it every now and again, but it was a real smile for all of that. “Mama Letha always liked rosemary. And—oh.” She covered her mouth, a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob getting away from her. “‘Rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’ So maybe it will help her remember after all.”
“It’s a good way to start.” Graham drew his legs up under him. “What else? Are there pictures you could put into the box, or maybe some of the music she likes to play?”
“There’s the song she wrote for Harry, and the one for me when I was born.” Meghan hummed a soft, slow tune, designed to hush a fretful baby. “Maybe one of Draco’s songs, the ones he wrote, for him. Because he wouldn’t have his music if it weren’t for her…”
Bernie leaned back on her hands, well satisfied with the work she’d begun.
Wolf lay on the floor of the Hogwarts Den’s main room, his nose buried in the two items he’d requested from Headquarters after Professor Dumbledore had told him and Draco the news. The Pride-girls were supposed to come and visit in a few hours, to say goodbye before he returned to the wonderful world of Dursley, but until then he had the memories invoked by the scents in the baggy cardigan and the stained smock all to himself.
It doesn’t help much knowing Voldemort intended me to see it and I got away, not when I can imagine it just fine.
He knew how Padfoot’s eyes would have blazed with fury, how Letha would have lifted her chin, daring Voldemort to do his worst. He could see, as clearly as though he really had been there, Letha raising her hand to scent-touch Padfoot in a last goodbye. The Death Eaters might have expected them to break down, to cry or beg for mercy, but Harry knew his Pack-parents better than that. Whether it was the need to hide from the world or the resumption of a war that had killed some of their best friends, Padfoot and Letha had never been the type to whinge about the inevitable. What happened, happened, and it was up to them to make the best of it.
Only it’s hard to see a best in this. Unless Padfoot’s magic comes back twice as strong as before and that means he can reverse the Memory Charm on Letha and blow Voldemort to Mars so I don’t have to…
The mental image sparked a snorting Wolf-laugh, and Harry sat up human, folding up Padfoot’s writing cardigan and Letha’s potion-brewing smock so Draco wouldn’t see the tiny wet spots on them. It was time for him to prove that he was worthy of the people who’d raised him. They might be far away, in one case they might not even know who he was any longer, but he would not make them ashamed of him. He, too, could accept what had to be, and make the best of it without complaining.
Well. Without complaining too much. If I didn’t complain at all, the girls would think I was sick. And Meghan’s brewing those potions of hers extra strong these days…
An hour or two later, Harry and Ginny sat in the music room, sharing the piano bench and picking out bits of melody, one after another. They had already shared several heartfelt kisses, and Ginny had her head on Harry’s shoulder, her hair tickling the side of his neck. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she murmured. “We need you.”
“You want me,” Harry corrected. “You’ll manage without.”
“Not well.” Ginny sighed. “Harry, I’m worried about Ron. He won’t even eat, and you know that’s bad. Nothing puts Ron off food. But this… I don’t know what to tell him. How to break him out of it. He’s gone inside himself and I think he likes it there.”
“He’ll come out sometime.” I hope. “It’s a big thing to get used to. And he’s probably angry at himself for not being perfect and for messing up your plan. What was he supposed to do when they caught up with him, anyway?”
“Dive out a window and make them think Percy’d preferred dying on his own terms, then catch us up as Redwing.” Ginny squirmed a little closer to Harry. “Why did we think we could go out and play heroes like that? Did we really not know, after everything we’ve seen, we can get hurt just like anybody else?”
“You knew.” Harry pulled back enough to force Ginny into eye contact, tapping her once under the chin, a gentle warning. “You just didn’t accept. It was your heads that understood it, not your hearts. And if you hadn’t gone—”
“I know, I know, if we hadn’t gone it would have been Percy, and two women who never did anything wrong.” Ginny struck a moody discord on the piano. “It doesn’t help. Maybe it will someday, but right now it doesn’t.”
“Welcome to my life,” muttered Harry, getting a reluctant half-giggle out of Ginny. “Hearts and heads again, Gin. Your head knows you did a good thing, whether or not Ron got hurt, but your heart isn’t having any.”
Ginny batted herself on the chest. “Bad heart. Stop that.” Her hand rose to her own cheek, then to Harry’s. “My heart may be bad that way,” she whispered. “But I know one way it’s as good as it can be.”
Harry returned the scent-touch, and dropped a last kiss on Ginny’s lips for good measure. “I’ll write every day,” he promised. “You too? It’ll be the only fun I’m likely to have between chores and dodging Dursleys.”
“I know I will, and Luna will to Draco, and Meghan and Hermione said they’d switch off days to both of you. We might even convince Neville to write a few lines, whenever we see him again.”
“Make sure and tell me what’s happening with him, and with Ron.” Harry stood up, motioning for Ginny to fix her hair. “I’m worried about them. And if you hear anything about the Pack-parents, anything at all…”
“You’ll have it as fast as Pigwidgeon can fly,” Ginny promised, kissing her fingers and sketching an X over her heart. “Faster, if I can get someone to send you a Patronus. Take good care of Draco.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around?”
In the dim twilight of the attics, he practiced.
Masked wizard, swinging up a wand. Fire. Muggle child bending to pick a flower. Hold. House-elf, hands raised in spellcasting motions. Fire. Teenage girl with braided hair, eyes glinting disconcertingly as they focused on him—
Neville lowered his potion piece and blinked a few times, coming out of his targeting trance. “Meghan,” he said, acknowledging her presence without granting its right.
“Hello, Neville.” Meghan’s day robes hung open over jeans and a plain blue shirt, showing the leather belt fastened around her waist with her dagger on one side and her potion piece on the other, her hand resting on the antidote patch on its grip to keep her awake against the fumes in the attic. Neville knew her wand would be up her sleeve, secured in the arm holster her father had bought her. He made a mental note to see if one could be altered to hold a miniature piece, for desperate situations.
“Did you want something?” he asked, drawing his own wand and resetting one of the random target generating spells his mother had put into place for him. He didn’t understand why she’d insisted there be two, but she tended to have reasons for what she did, so he’d been using them turn and turn about.
Which is what I do, too. They pop up all around me, just like real enemies could, and I have to stay alert and get them before they get me.
Not doing that is how Aurors die.
“Just to see what you were doing. You haven’t been downstairs for a while.”
“I’m practicing.” Neville indicated the splotches of potion on the walls, the floor, the ceiling. “Practicing spotting my targets, making sure they’re the right ones, hitting them before they hit me.”
“Are you going to teach us how to do it?”
The question so innocently phrased brought a rush of memory. The Auror target range, the target eaten away by the red setting, his father’s proud smile and a hand on his shoulder—
“No!”
Meghan reared back, startled. “You don’t have to shout. I’m right here.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t shouting at you.” Neville shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “Meghan, thank you for coming up here, but I really would rather do this alone. It isn’t safe.”
You aren’t safe. You aren’t safe around me, and neither am I safe around you. Already the detachment his mother’s plan had given him, the layer of numbing ice around his heart, was wearing away from the heat of her presence. If she stayed much longer, she would thaw it completely, and he didn’t know what would happen then, but he was sure it couldn’t be good.
“All right.” Meghan lowered her eyes, turning back towards the stairs. “If you don’t want me, I’ll go. But your mum said—”
“Mum said?” Blinking again, Neville holstered his piece. “Meghan, did she send you up here?”
“Mm-hmm.” Even that small a sound had the unmistakable ring of tears in it. “She said something about her not wanting you to be the way she was, and how she thought we could help each other because we’ve got some of the same troubles…”
The ice shattered. Neville took three steps forward and drew Meghan into his arms. “Tell me what happened,” he said, sitting down on the floor with her cradled against him. “Tell me everything.”
Everything didn’t take long to tell. It never did, Neville thought. The things that changed lives forever were over in a single heartbeat, while the little unimportant everyday things dragged on and on.
But this is one ‘little unimportant everyday thing’ that’s going to give us both what we need today. And tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until things get better.
He no longer had any trouble understanding the two targeting spells. Practice, the endless and exhausting practice needed to master any physical skill, would do more for Meghan now than any soothing words or gestures. It had certainly worked for him.
I only miss Dad enough for ten of me when I’m practicing, instead of enough for twenty.
“You take that one,” he told Meghan, pointing out the spell’s activator, high on a rafter. “I’ll take this one. Back to back, only shoot the threatening ones, and keep going until there’s nothing left.”
“I can do that.” Meghan drew her wand and pointed it at the activator. “Tell me when.”
“On three.” Neville pulled his own and aimed it. “One, two, three.”
Two Starting Spells flew straight and true, two wands were rapidly re-holstered, two potion pieces were drawn and armed. The spells whirred to life, and targets began to appear, leaping out of the shadows or materializing as though Apparating in. Neville’s world narrowed once again, and he was aware only of his targets, his aim, and the steady breathing of his partner against his back.
Together, they could never be taken by surprise.
Harry climbed out of the Weasleys’ car in front of number seventeen, Privet Drive, with a distinct feeling of déjà vu. Crystal waved to him from the driver’s seat and Charlie and Tonks from the back, as George stuck his head out the window. “The Healers said Fred should be able to leave hospital within the next couple days,” he said. “We’ll keep you posted, on him and everybody else.”
“Thanks.” Harry shouldered his bag, mindful of a particular lump at the bottom. The plan to disguise Draco as a cat had been scrapped when Hermione had pointed out, somewhat scornfully, that Dursley went to school with them and would know Harry didn’t have a cat. Instead, Snow Fox had wrapped himself up in the Invisibility Cloak, which apparently counted to the Cloak’s magic as being worn, because it had obligingly gone invisible.
And that means Dursley won’t spot it even if he paws through my bag when I get in there, unless he turns everything out onto the floor. Which he might do, but I’m through playing meek and mild. I won’t give them an excuse to send me away, but I’m not going to let him play dominance games with me.
Inside his mind, Wolf growled and pawed at the ground. Harry took a deep breath, trying to calm both his human and animal selves, and almost coughed in surprise.
What’s up? Fox asked through Harry’s chain, which had been turned intangible to the layers of fabric between its two wearers.
Complicated. Harry shared the scent wafting from the house, where a twitching curtain was now visible. We knew they were scared of me, we knew they were proud of their ickle Duddikins… He paused to allow Fox to finish making gagging noises. Agreed. But what’s that third part? Almost smells like April Fool’s…
They think they have the upper hand, Fox said grimly. They’ve got something planned that they know you won’t like, and they like it that way. Are we still going in?
Do I have a choice? Harry sent an image of himself facing Voldemort, and accompanied it with the acid green touch of Voldemort’s magic within his mind. Whatever they’ve got in there, it can’t be worse than facing him.
I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, grumbled Fox, rearranging himself in the bottom of the bag as Harry rang the doorbell.
“Hello, Aunt Petunia,” he said politely when the door opened. His aunt nodded jerkily towards him, then beckoned him to come inside past her, shrinking back against the door as though she were afraid of contamination. Harry kept his physical face straight only by treating Fox to a mental grimace.
“Uncle Vernon,” he said when his eyes had adjusted to the comparative dimness inside the house. “Dudley.”
“Upstairs,” Uncle Vernon grunted, jerking a thumb that way. “End of the hall.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry started to climb. The end of the hall? That isn’t where they had me the last time…
What is it? Fox asked, sticking his nose out of the bag as they passed out of sight.
I think it’s the master bedroom. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s. Why would they put me… Harry stopped, both mentally and physically. The door at the end of the hall had just come into view.
Fox growled low in his throat. Has its own bathroom, doesn’t it? They must really be scared of—heads up!
Harry had heard the footsteps on the stairs behind him for himself, and only hoped Fox had pulled his nose back into the bag in time. For one second, he considered turning around and trying to bluff Dudley into taking back whatever he’d said that had pushed Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia to this extreme, but he knew that would only fuel the flames of his relatives’ fear.
And that’s one kind of fire I can’t control.
Instead, he put on his best impassive expression, finished mounting the stairs, and walked down the corridor as though he had noticed nothing unusual about his aunt and uncle’s bedroom—former bedroom—door.
As though it didn’t have three brand-new locks mounted to its outside, and a cat flap installed in its lower panel.
Bet you’re glad you brought your reasonable facsimile of a cat, aren’t you?
Harry snorted. I already said thank you for coming, you can stop polishing your own wand now.
I beg your pardon!
Rather than respond to this, Harry tossed his bag onto the queen-sized bed. We won’t be crowded, anyway.
Who is this “we” you speak of? I brought the makings for a proper me-sized den. And dens, as you may know, belong on the floor.
Suit yourself. Harry winced as the door slammed behind him. That can’t be good for the fittings.
They’re not worried about the fittings. Fox emerged from the bag with several folded cloths held daintily in his teeth. They’re worried about you, the big bad nasty wizard, trying to escape. Hear that?
Harry knelt beside the door and listened. The sound of locks hastily being snapped shut was competing for prominence with his aunt’s sobbing voice, which drifted in and out of coherency. Among the phrases he could pick out were “dear Dudders,” “marvelous idea,” “horrible old man,” and “wicked, evil boy.”
That being you and Dumbledore, in reverse order, obviously. Fox was rooting in the bag for his second load. Have you been being wicked and evil without me again? And me your own brother. I’d think you’d share the fun with me first of all.
As soon as I know where there’s fun, I’ll tell you. Harry sat down with his back against the door as his relatives’ voices receded down the hall. “This is going to be a lot of no fun at all,” he said aloud, leaning his head back. “What do you say we keep it to ourselves until it’s over?”
I agree in theory, but in practice that would be entirely up to you. Fox squirmed out from under the bed and waggled a paw at Harry. It may have escaped your notice, but in this form, I can’t write.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to rub it in.”
No worries. Fox sat down, wrapping his tail around his paws. Did you see the window?
Harry looked up and wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or groan. “Bars. They put bars on it. What did Dursley tell them about me?”
Probably that you eat Muggle babies for breakfast and feed their parents to your giant venomous snake that can kill you with its eyes.
“Which has just enough truth in it that I can’t call the whole thing a lie.” Harry stroked his hand along the wooden floor, wishing it were a scaled back. “I miss Sangre. We’ll have to go out and see her when we get back to school.”
If, said Fox darkly. If we get back to school.
Harry got his feet under him and pounced.
Fox tried to dart under the bed one second too late.
Mare backed down one of the endless stone-flagged corridors of the manor on her hands and knees, scrubbing as she went, and let her mind wander.
So much to see, so much to learn. Has it really been only four days since I woke up here? Wizards and house-elves and dogs, oh my. Except the dog doesn’t seem to have a name, or not one any of them use around me. I’ve heard them calling him something when I’m a little ways away, but by the time I get there they’ve always left.
And by the time she got there, the dog was always looking directly at her, as though he could see through walls to find out which way she was coming.
There’s no need to make things more fantastical than they already are, she scolded herself gently. He’s a dog. He can hear you and smell you. That’s all. He doesn’t necessarily have to be a magical dog just because everyone and everything else around here is magical.
Still, she couldn’t help but notice that the dog did seem different from the way her half-conscious memories told her a dog should behave. He perked up when she spoke to him and wilted when she had to leave, that was normal enough, but the way he would whimper when she talked about her frustration with the endless and pointless work, her exhaustion at the end of the day, her usually fruitless attempts to remember her very colorful dreams…
He could be picking up on the way my scent changes when I get upset. Dogs are pack animals—they respond to the cues of the other creatures around them. It doesn’t have to be magic.
She scrubbed her way around a corner, and there he was, sitting up against the bars, tongue lolling out and grey eyes shining with welcome.
But it very well could be.
Setting aside her cloth and bucket for the moment, Mare eased herself off her knees, letting out a sigh of relief. “There, that’s better. And how are you this fine afternoon?”
The dog whuffed quietly and moved his front paws in what Mare thought could be the canine equivalent of a shrug. Same old, same old, he seemed to be saying. And you?
“I’m well enough. Sore, but I’m getting used to that. A bit perplexed about how to handle the house-elves, though. I’m saving them work. You’d think they’d be grateful. Instead, they’re acting positively miffed!”
The dog snickered, as though to say, That’s house-elves for you. Perverse little buggers.
“Ah well, it’s not my place to tell them what to feel.” Mare rolled her shoulders, groaning with pleasure as her spine popped. “Ahh. That had been bothering me for a while. Now, for dinner. I think they had a roast upstairs last night, because there’s a nice pile of cold beef in the icebox. Would you like some of that?”
The dog’s tail thumped twice on the floor, and he nodded.
“Excellent, I’ll…” Mare stopped, looking closely at the dog. “You do understand me,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Don’t you?”
Another nod, this one firm and distinct.
“So…” Mare thought over what she knew of fairy tales. “Are you just a magical dog, or are you a human in disguise?”
The dog gave her a weary look, and she realized her mistake. “Sorry. Are you just a magical dog?”
A sniff greeted this, giving Mare the impression of I’ll have you know there’s no such thing as just a magical dog, but her friend also shook his head, answering her question in the way she had already decided was most likely.
“So a human in disguise.” She dipped her scrub rag idly into her bucket and wrung it out as she thought. “An enchanted prince, maybe?”
The dog cocked his head, thinking it over. Enchanted prince. I like that. His tongue began to loll again. Doesn’t the princess usually have to—
“Now you stop that.” Mare gave him a gentle slap with the wet rag. “If you’re a man, behave like one. Or is this what you consider behaving like one?”
An eager nod, this one accompanied by exaggerated panting.
“I should have known,” Mare muttered. “All right, so I suppose I have to go on as I’ve begun. Is there anything I can do to—”
Voices sounded in the distance. Mare froze, then dunked her rag into the bucket again and quickly swiped down the stones in front of the dog’s cage. “I’ll be back with your dinner later,” she whispered. “We’ll talk more then.” She grinned briefly. “Prince.”
She could hear his tail pounding the ground all the way down the next corridor.
Hermione sank wearily onto her own bed, her head pounding in time with her heart.
So much to do, so much to keep together. Has it really been only three days since Harry left? Even when he was at Hogwarts, he was still here, but now he’s away and everyone can feel it. Nothing’s right.
Of course, nothing was right about this to start with.
She let herself fall backwards, her mind seething back and forth with troubles and worries. Moony just lies there. I’d think he was dead if I couldn’t see him breathing, slow, so slow, but he is. Danger must be all right, the pendants haven’t told us anything, but then, they only tell us what we need to know anymore, don’t they? And Padfoot and Letha…
She shook her head, trying not to think of them. It would only make her cry, and she didn’t want to cry, because once she started she wasn’t sure when she would stop.
Meghan is doing better. She seized on the thought as on a lifeline. She and Neville both. They pulled each other out of the slump like always, with the Pritchards to help Meghan too, so that’s one thing that’s still working. And Luna’s trotting around humming, doing whatever needs to be done around the house, writing those long letters of hers to Draco, and Ginny’s doing the same with Harry, and if they’ve been crying they’ve kept it to themselves…
So that just leaves me.
Me and Ron.
And there it was, the other line of thought she’d been trying to avoid, already off and running through her consciousness. He won’t wake up, or he won’t tell anyone he’s awake, which is practically the same thing, Meghan’s had to give him nutrition potions while he’s asleep to keep him alive, and even when we can tell by his breathing he’s awake, he won’t answer anyone, he won’t do anything, he just lies there with his face towards the wall, and didn’t that once upon a time mean you’d given up on life? And after he did so much for me, there isn’t anything I can do for him, because he won’t listen to me…
The tears would no longer be denied. Hermione rolled over and tried to muffle her face in her pillow, but the spasms of weeping left her curled up on her side, shaking. “Don’t do this to me,” she sobbed between bouts. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t leave me like this. Please, Ron, please don’t leave me like this…”
In the corridor outside, a hand wielding a wand traced its tip along a doorframe, then withdrew.
It was high time for a certain young man to stop feeling sorry for himself.
Author Notes:
They say it takes 30 days to get into a habit, like exercising daily or updating weekly. Give me lots of review love and I'll see if I can get there.
Now, my dear readers, I have bad news and I have good news. The bad news is as follows:
When this summer, story-time, comes to a close, so will Facing Danger.
Everybody done screaming, fainting, falling off their chairs, etc? Good, because the good news is this:
I need your help deciding what the fifth Dangerverse story should be called!
Yes, that's right, there will be a fifth one. FD got a bit out of hand (no kidding, right?) and I'm going to need to expand the 'verse to compensate. So, when you give me that nice review love, let me know if you prefer:
1) Seeking Danger
2) Ending Danger
3) Outliving Danger
Or if you have a suggestion of your own, I'm willing to listen! Thanks as always for reading, and see you around February 6 or so!
Oh yes, and if you Google the chapter title you might get a sense of what's coming next.