Living without Danger
Chapter 26: On Eagle's Wings (Year 2)
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 26: On Eagle’s Wings
Dying? Harry?
Draco had never heard anything so ridiculous. It was all a stupid mistake. Madam Pomfrey was overreacting. Harry was going to be fine. He’d just been playing Quidditch. No one died from playing Quidditch.
Not at Hogwarts. But people have died in the professional leagues. Falling from too high, or being struck by lightning during storms...
But Harry hadn’t been struck by lightning, and he hadn’t fallen very far. He’d hit his back on the goal hoop, that was all. No one could die from something like that.
Wait. Something’s not right here. Harry doesn’t just fall off his broom. He never has. Not even when he was just learning to fly. I fell, Hermione fell, Meghan fell. Harry never fell.
He noticed Dudley Dursley standing a short distance away, shaking all over and clutching his Beater’s bat. "I didn’t mean to," the Slytherin boy was whimpering. "I didn’t mean to..."
Didn’t mean to what? What did he do?
"It was just part of the game, I didn’t mean for him to fall..."
Draco felt as if he’d missed a step he hadn’t even known existed.
He hit Harry with a Bludger. He must have. Harry wouldn’t just fall. Dursley hit him with a Bludger, that’s why this all happened —
He was angry now, but it wasn’t hot, red anger like he’d read about. No, this anger was cold and deliberate, and frightened him a little as he felt it. He wanted to get hold of Dursley and hurt him. He wanted to make him suffer, make him suffer for a long time — he wanted revenge for what this boy had just done to his brother —
Meghan’s scream barely registered in his ears.
xXxXx
"NO!"
Meghan was standing on a bench, fists clenched, body tense. "Harry is not going to die!"
"Meghan, sweetheart... we can’t do anything about it." The wind was picking up now that the rain had started, Aletha noticed. Brown hair and red mingled as Hermione, her face set, held a sobbing Ginny, and Meghan’s blue robes were billowing out behind her. "We can’t change this."
The certainty in her daughter’s eyes that her parents could fix everything, which had somehow survived everything the Pack had been through, flickered once and went out. "He can’t die," she repeated, but with a little less conviction this time. "He can’t. He has to be a warrior and fight evil. This isn’t evil. It was just a mistake."
Someone, somewhere, will appreciate the irony in this a lot more than I can right now. The boy who survived not one, but two, attempts on his life by the most evil wizard in the world, killed in a freak accident at a Quidditch match. At Hogwarts, the one place where he should have been safest.
Why, why didn’t anyone see him in time? Why didn’t I?
"I won’t let Harry die," Meghan declared, stamping her foot. "I won’t, I won’t, I won’t..."
Someone else was shouting nearby, but Aletha’s attention was fixed on her daughter. Meghan’s robes were still whipping around her — but everyone else’s had become still. The beads on her short braids were beginning to clack together in the force of a wind no one else could feel. And —
No, I’m not imagining it. She’s glowing. What in the world...
xXxXx
Draco was halfway down the stands when something got in between him and Dursley. He looked up, ignoring the raindrops falling on his face.
"Get out of my way, Ron," he said through clenched teeth.
Instead of moving, Ron shoved him so hard that he fell backwards over a bench and banged his back and shins painfully. "OW! What the hell?"
"This is all your fault!" yelled Ron, looming over him. He seemed to be feeling the hot anger of the stories — his face was as flushed as it got when he was embarrassed, and his eyes looked like the flames on Danger’s stove, blazing blue. "If everyone hadn’t been watching you and your damn fancy moves, maybe someone would have noticed in time!"
Draco’s anger found another target as he pulled himself painfully to his feet. "Oh really? And who was sitting right there just watching him fall? Or don’t you count as someone? Why didn’t you fly up there and catch him?"
"Because by the time I got my eyes off you, it was too late!" Ron shoved him again, but he was ready this time, and took it on his feet. "Besides, what good would it have done? He’d already been hit with the Bludger. I might just have made things worse."
"Oh, ‘might just have made things worse,’" Draco sneered, imitating Ron’s voice mockingly. "Or maybe you were just tired of being Harry Potter’s friend. Maybe you thought, with him gone, I can finally stand out a little. Maybe you thought you’d be the next alpha of the Pride. How about it?"
"Tired of being his friend? You’re out of your mind! You’ve been jealous of me since the first day we met, because Harry always liked me better than he liked you! So you go and do this!" Ron screamed the last word, pointing up the stands to where Harry was lying. "You’re nothing but a stinking Slytherin in disguise, Malfoy! How much did you pay Dursley to help you murder him?"
Draco’s answer to this was non-verbal but very definite, and involved his foot, Ron’s knee, and a lot of pain for the red-haired boy —
But Ron’s leg wasn’t where he was expecting it to be, and Ron’s arm was coming around fast, with a lethal-looking fist on the end of it —
Damn it, we should never have practiced self-defense at den-nights...
Draco ducked, abandoned rational thought, and attacked his enemy. Harry was surely dead by now, and it was all Ron’s fault — he would make Ron pay — maybe he would get one of Ron’s brothers and hurt him, just so Ron could see how it felt —
The callousness of his thoughts appalled him so much that he stopped hitting Ron for a second, and in that second Ron’s fist connected with the side of his head so hard he saw stars.
He’ll pay for that, too...
xXxXx
"I won’t, I won’t, I won’t..." Meghan’s litany was picking up speed, her fists were coming up in front of her as if she were preparing to fight, and the unearthly blue light around her was becoming brighter. "I won’t! I won’t! I won’t let him!"
She leapt from the bench, and for one instant, the light and her robes combined to make the shape of wings streaming from her shoulders. The leap carried her to the next bench up, and from there she landed beside Harry, on the other side of him from Sirius, who was still kneeling there, but had raised his head to stare open-mouthed at his daughter, her hands now open and shining with blue power.
"I won’t let Harry die!" shrieked Meghan, and snatched Harry’s hands in her own before anyone could stop her.
Sirius fell backwards as a burst of blue light engulfed both cubs. Aletha staggered back a step as the shockwave reached her, and shielded her eyes against it.
When she could look again, Meghan was kneeling beside her Pack-brother, Harry’s pale and lifeless hands enclosed by her small brown ones. The light had expanded to cover both of them, and was pulsing, flashing slightly brighter about once a second, or a little faster —
Heartbeat rate. Assuming Harry’s heart is still beating.
Aletha moved slowly closer to her cubs, watching them carefully. Meghan’s breathing was slow but even and deep. Harry’s was the same. In fact —
It’s exactly the same. They’re breathing in rhythm. Meghan’s chest rose and fell at the same moments Harry’s did. They even paused for the same moment between breaths.
Sirius got to his feet beside her, ignoring the soft rain now falling, his eyes never leaving the two. "What is she doing?" he asked hesitantly.
"I don’t know. But look at how they’re breathing."
Sirius nodded slowly, watching them. "Together. Perfectly together. As if..."
"As if what?"
"It’s stupid."
"Say it anyway."
"As if there’s only one of them. One mind. One soul. Or one of them controlling the other one..."
"For an amateur, you’re remarkably close," said Madam Pomfrey’s voice, making them both jump. The nurse had recovered from what Meghan had done faster than either of them, and had been examining the pair of children. "I can’t be positive, but she appears to be supporting his life with her own. Forcing his body to accept the commands given by hers, breathing and heartbeat and the like."
"I didn’t know that was possible," said Aletha.
"Neither did I. However, since it is happening, possible it must be. She’s never done anything of this sort before, I take it?"
Sirius shook his head. "How long can she do this?" he asked, his voice starting to return to normal. "And will it do any good?"
"If we can get them to the hospital wing, it might do a great deal of good. I wouldn’t recommend touching them, and separating them at this point would probably be disastrous, but..." Madam Pomfrey ran her wand over Harry once more. "His injuries do not appear to be as severe as I had thought at first. And with her supporting him, he’s unlikely to die of shock. If we can get them to the castle quickly, I might be able to save him."
xXxXx
"ENOUGH!" shouted a furious voice, and suddenly Draco was pulled away from Ron, shoved to his knees, and a hand was gripping his throat, forcing his head back until he was looking into different blue eyes, ones he knew well, though he had never seen Moony this angry, never. He wondered for an instant if Moony was like Ron, and thought that Draco had done this to Harry, had schemed and connived like a Slytherin to kill his own brother —
I was thinking like a Slytherin when I was fighting Ron.
No, it’s worse than that.
I was thinking like my father.
All the fight went out of him when he realized that. He could only look at Moony and shake, and wonder what was about to happen to him.
"What. Were. You. Doing?" Moony punctuated each word with a very slight tightening of his fingers, not painful or cutting off Draco’s breath, but making his authority unquestionable. "I want an explanation, and I want it now." His hand came away, but his expression made it quite clear that punishment was not yet over.
"He said I did it," babbled Draco, pointing at Ron, whom he now saw was being forcibly restrained by Fred and George. "He said I planned it with Dursley — that I did fancy tricks so everyone would watch me and no one would notice — he called me a Slytherin, and a Malfoy, and he thinks I killed Harry!"
Moony’s breath came out in a rush. "Dammit," he said on the end of it. "I was afraid of something like that. And what did you say to him?"
Draco gulped. Luna was standing nearby, he noticed suddenly, watching him closely, and his reluctance to tell this doubled. As if she had sensed his unease, she gave him a small smile, then turned and walked away.
At least she doesn’t have to hear it.
"I asked him... why he didn’t do anything," he admitted when Luna had gone. "Why he didn’t try to save Harry. I said I thought he was jealous, and he wanted to be the new alpha of the Pride, so he just let it happen."
Moony’s face settled into lines Draco was very familiar with. It was his "stupid-idiot-boys" look, the one he wore if Draco or Harry played a prank and let themselves be caught. "I should have known," he said wearily. "You’re frightened, you’re angry, you’re looking for someone to blame. But Ron is not it, and neither are you. No one is to blame for this, Draco. It was an accident."
"Some accident! Harry’s dead!"
Moony offered Draco his hand. "No, he’s not," he said, pulling Draco to his feet.
"He’s not?"
"No. He’s not."
xXxXx
Sirius had his wand out before Madam Pomfrey had even finished speaking, conjuring a stretcher-like object with two levels which would have been impossible in the Muggle world, but that was what magic was good for. Neither Harry nor Meghan moved as Sirius levitated them out of the stands and down towards the castle, only not running, Aletha thought, because he might slip on the wet grass and fall if he ran.
"May I ask what seems like an odd question?" asked Madam Pomfrey as she and Aletha hurried across the grounds ahead of Sirius, so as to be ready in the hospital wing when he arrived.
"Of course."
"You know Meghan so much better than I do. How strong is she? Not physically, not even mentally... I suppose the proper word is spiritually. But not in any religious sense. I mean her soul."
It was an odd question. Aletha thought about it for a short while. "If a soul’s health can be measured by the ability to love, Meghan’s got a stronger one than most," she said finally, as they climbed the front stairs of the castle. "You saw how angry she was at the thought of someone she loved dying. She took it as a personal insult. She loves very strongly, and very fiercely. I would say her soul is a fine healthy one."
"Excellent. Because the answer to your husband’s other question is directly related to that."
"Other question? About how long Meghan can hold this?"
"Yes. The spells I use indicate not only the health of a person’s mind and body, but their soul. And whatever Meghan is doing with Mr. Potter is coming directly from her soul. I have no idea how much energy it is using, nor how much her soul can give. But if there is any time limit on this, that is where it lies."
Meghan’s soul. Dear God, what if she tires herself out, or loses control? Will she and Harry both be lost forever? Dead, or worse than dead?
But if she hadn’t done... whatever she’s doing, we would have lost him by now. And I couldn’t very well have stopped her. I had no idea what she was about to do.
But I still should have done something...
Aletha carefully clamped down on her thoughts and stopped trying to convince herself this wasn’t her fault. She knew it already with her rational mind, and there would be no convincing her emotions of anything for some time to come, until she got a definite answer one way or another as to what was happening to her beloved cubs.
Until then, she would just have to carry on.
I ought to be good at that. I’ve been doing it for years.
xXxXx
"Who’s not what?" asked Fred, sitting on Ron’s legs.
"Harry is not dead," said Moony, a little louder, and Ron abruptly stopped thrashing. "He’s badly hurt, but not as badly as Madam Pomfrey thought at first. He’s being taken to the hospital wing. And no one here," his eyes moved to Dursley, who was standing as far from the group as he could be and still hear what was going on, "harmed him on purpose. Mr. Dursley was playing Beater for Slytherin, so he tried to take out the Gryffindor Seeker with a Bludger, as his position calls for. He never intended Harry to be seriously injured."
Dursley nodded frantically. "I’m so sorry, sir," he said. "I must have hit it harder than I thought — I really didn’t know I could do that — I mean, I knew the Bludgers tried to knock players off their brooms, but I’d never seen one hit anyone that hard before..."
George got off Ron’s chest and Fred off his knees, letting him up. Ron’s nose was bleeding heavily — Moony changed that with a muttered spell that sounded to Draco’s ears a bit like he’d said "whiskey" — and his hair was in complete disarray. "He’s not dead?" he repeated, blinking hard, and Draco realized that not all the wetness on Ron’s face was due to the rain.
"No. He’s not dead. Let’s go up to the castle and see what we can find out." Moony turned and went up the stands to where Danger was lying on a bench, eyes shut.
"Fine time to take a nap," said George.
"She’s not napping," Draco defended his Pack-mum. "She used a lot of magic to pull Harry in from the field. It wears her out."
"Wish she’d done it earlier," said Ron as Moony conjured a stretcher for Danger.
So do I...
The pitch was almost deserted, Draco noticed as they left. Everyone else was most of the way to the castle, the older students holding the rain off with their wands. Moony had conjured a large umbrella for their little group and given it to Ron, the tallest of them, to carry, since he was busy with Danger.
Draco stayed close to his Pack-father. He didn’t want to make it too obvious in front of Ron and the twins, but he was very shaken. Harry might not be dead, but he had still been badly hurt. What if he woke up paralyzed somehow, not able to move his legs or his arms? Or what if he went into one of those sleeps that were like death, the ones people didn’t wake up from?
"The word you’re looking for is ‘coma,’" said Moony quietly, "and thinking aloud is a bad habit."
"Yes, Moony."
Draco hung back a bit as Ron ran through the front door of the castle, no longer held to the sedate pace of the umbrella-holder. The twins were only a few steps behind.
"Was Madam Pomfrey wrong?" Draco asked, unable to contain himself any longer. "Did she just make a mistake saying Harry was dying?"
"Truthfully, fox, I don’t know." Moony guided the stretcher up the steps. They weren’t getting wet, Draco noticed, even though Ron had taken the umbrella inside with him. And his robes were drying out, and comfortably warm...
"Are you dry yet?" asked Moony as they came inside. "If not, just tell me."
Oh. Of course. "I’m dry."
"Good. Ah, and here comes a messenger from on high."
Hermione was running down the stairs. "He’s still alive," she said breathlessly. "But Padfoot and Letha want you to come up as soon as you can. They don’t know what’s going on at all."
"And they think I do?"
Hermione smiled. "No. But they think it’ll be nicer to have all the people who don’t know what’s going on together."
"Is that a direct quote?"
Hermione nodded.
"I have yet to see Sirius in a situation where he was unable to joke for more than thirty minutes," said Moony, beginning to climb the stairs. "Azkaban excepted, of course."
Hermione fell in behind him, and whispered to Draco, "But it was Letha who said it."
Draco couldn’t resist laughing a little. The world was still uncertain and frightening, but one huge weight had been lifted. Harry wasn’t dead.
Yet.
xXxXx
Everything was very quiet in the hospital wing. Neville was over by the window, looking confused, but Luna was standing next to him talking to him quietly, so that might be why. Moony was fussing over Danger, and Padfoot and Letha were standing nearby talking, all of them carefully avoiding looking at the bed where Harry was lying, no longer looking quite as though he were dead but certainly nothing like his usual self, with Meghan kneeling by his side, her hands around his and her head bowed. A blue light shone around them, flashing slightly brighter periodically. About seventy beats a minute, Draco estimated, thinking of a metronome.
Ron was sitting on the end of one of the beds, holding Ginny, who didn’t seem to be crying anymore but wasn’t showing her face either. Draco waited until Ron’s attention wandered over to him, then lifted his hands to his face and stroked both of them down his cheeks. It was one of the simpler of the Marauder signs, though not one the Marauders themselves had often used.
It meant, Sorry.
Yes, you are, Ron mouthed.
Draco flashed him a far more well-known hand sign. Ron did it back, then opened his hand and made the apology motion down his own face as well.
Draco signed a thank you, then turned it into one of the obscene gestures he’d learned from careful observation of Peeves, which Ron returned with interest.
"I feel as if I should be telling you to go wash your hands out with soap," said Letha quietly from behind him.
"Not a bad idea," said Draco equally quietly. "I’m still all messy from the game."
"Madam Pomfrey will probably let you use the bathroom in here to clean up. I’m afraid I don’t want you leaving just yet. Not because you did anything, but because of the rest of the school."
"They’ll want to know about Harry, and they won’t leave me alone."
"Precisely. I don’t want you harassed right now. You know who to call to get some clean robes."
Draco did indeed. "Dobby," he called quietly as soon as he was alone in the bathroom.
The house-elf appeared, but he looked very different from usual. Instead of smiling cheerily and asking what Draco wanted, he was curled into a ball, sobbing into a Hogwarts tea towel such as the other elves wore for clothing, though he sprang to his feet as soon as he realized where he was. "M-m-master Draco! D-dobby was not expecting..."
"It’s all right, Dobby, I can call somebody else," said Draco hastily. "You don’t have to stay."
Dobby shook his head and blew his nose vigorously on the towel. "Dobby will do his duty, sir," he said, Vanishing the towel with a snap of long fingers. "Only... Dobby wonders if Master Draco would tell him if the rumors are true?"
"What rumors?"
"About Harry Potter, sir... the house-elves have heard that Harry Potter is dying..."
"No, that’s not true," said Draco emphatically, hoping this didn’t fall under Letha’s ban on talking to people. "Harry’s not dying. He had a bad accident, but Meghan’s doing something to help him. We don’t know yet what’s going to happen, but he’s not dying."
Dobby brightened right away. "Little Mistress Meghan will save Harry Potter! Dobby knows she will! What does Master Draco need?"
Well, that didn’t take much. "Can you get me a full change of clothes from my things? And bring one for Ron Weasley as well," Draco added after a moment’s thought. We did make up, and he’s going to be just as sweaty as I am.
Dobby returned less than a minute later with a teetering stack of clothes in his arms. "Here you are, Master Draco!" he said happily. "The clothes on the top are yours, and the ones on the bottom are the Wheezy’s."
Draco smothered a laugh. "Thanks, Dobby. I think that’s everything."
Does Ron know what the house-elves call him?
He took a quick shower, got into his clean clothing, and emerged from the bathroom feeling much better. "Anything?" he asked Hermione quietly.
She shook her head. "But it’s funny. Madam Pomfrey was all set to start treating Harry, but Professor Dumbledore came in and talked with her and the Pack-parents all quietly, and she hasn’t done anything since then. She keeps checking him and saying nothing’s changed. But how can anything change if she won’t do anything?"
Draco looked across the room at Harry and Meghan, so still they might have been waxworks, while the blue light pulsed around them. Was it his imagination, or was it a little dimmer than it had been? "I don’t know. Ron, there’s clean robes for you in there if you want to wash up."
"Thanks," said Ron, looking a bit surprised. "Ginny, I’m going to go use the washroom, all right? Will you go to Hermione for a bit?"
"I’m not three years old, Ron," said Ginny tiredly, lifting her face and displaying red-rimmed eyes. She managed a very watery smile. "Though I feel a bit like it."
"We’re all scared," said Hermione, sitting in the place Ron had vacated and putting her arm around the younger girl. "I hate not knowing what’s going on."
"Isn’t it obvious?" asked Luna, startling them all. She had drifted up behind them without their noticing. "Meghan’s helping Harry."
"Helping him?" repeated Ginny. "How?"
Luna shrugged. "I don’t know. Maybe she’s talking to his soul."
"Talking to his soul?" Luna was often obscure, Draco knew, but this was worse than usual. "And saying what?"
"‘Don’t go away,’" suggested Neville, who had joined them as well.
A little shiver passed through the Pride. If Harry’s soul went away, that would mean...
That would mean we’re a Pride without an alpha.
And somewhere out there is a Dark Lord who can rise again with no one to stop him.
Luna was sitting next to him now, leaning on him, and his arm had gone around her at some point. Hermione laid her head on his shoulder for a moment before sitting up again, and Neville sat down beside Luna, who took his hand in hers and held it comfortingly. Ron, when he emerged from the bathroom, sat down on Ginny’s other side, but soon had her practically in his lap, putting him beside Hermione as well.
They waited.
xXxXx
"I’m beginning to think you might have been right," said Sirius to Remus, quietly, from the other end of the hospital wing. "About the denning. Look at them. Twelve-year-old boys just do not do that on the spur of the moment."
"It could just be a result of shock, you know. But thank you for the vote of confidence, Padfoot. We’re going to need it."
"Does Danger know that Harry’s not actively dying?" asked Aletha, looking down at her friend’s face, lined with worry that not even magically-induced unconsciousness could erase.
"I think so. I had to leave her around then, to break up the fight, but I get a sense of lessened worry from her that I wouldn’t if she had gone under thinking he was about to die."
"When should she be up?"
"A few hours, I think. It wasn’t much she did."
"Wish she’d done it a second or two earlier," said Sirius, looking at Harry and Meghan.
"So do we all," snapped Remus, then fought down his temper. "So do we all," he repeated more quietly. "What do you think Albus meant, ‘let her finish’?"
"I don’t know," said Aletha. "And I didn’t like the sound of ‘tapping the castle.’"
"No, I think that’s a good thing," said Sirius. "Pearl’s strong for her age, but she’s still only nine. And she’s doing wandless magic. That takes a lot out of even a grown witch. If she can use some of the magic accumulated around Hogwarts, I’m all for it. Anything that gets her and Harry back alive."
Remus and Aletha nodded.
I’d give my life for them in an instant. Any of us would. But any of us would tear a hole in the Pack that would take years to heal, if it ever would.
There are downsides to being so interconnected and so much loved. Every so often, it might be nice to be expendable.
And he would have felt much better if he hadn’t been positive that the light around his cubs was slowly fading.
xXxXx
It was dark and cold in here, and he was tired. The Quidditch match must have gone on longer than he’d expected. All he wanted was to get to bed, and a bed was just beyond the door in the opposite wall. He knew it was, he could feel it. A soft, warm bed, with clean, crisp sheets and fluffy blankets, and his mum to tuck him in...
My mum?
He didn’t know where the thought had come from, but it was true. He was convinced of it. If he could just get through that door, he would see his mum. And his dad, of course. They were never far apart.
"You would have thought someone had put a Permanent Sticking Charm on them," laughed a woman’s musical voice.
He should know who the speaker was, he thought, but the name fluttered out of reach as he tried to grasp it. It wasn’t important anyway. What was important was getting through that door. It was opening, slowly, almost reluctantly, but it was opening. He could see the light beyond it, and he wanted to get to that light. And soon, the door would be open enough for him to go to it.
His parents were waiting in that light, along with everything he’d ever wanted. All he had to do was wait until the door opened wide enough, and then walk through.
"Harry!"
He blinked. Was that his name? Harry? He was answering to it, so he supposed it must be his. But who had called him?
"Harry, down here!"
Harry looked at the floor. A small green snake was reared up, eyes fixed on him. "Harry, my eggling, what are you doing here?" she hissed in concerned tones. "Please tell me you are not looking for me."
"No, I wasn’t looking for you, Siss," said Harry, the snake’s name coming easily to his lips, although he had all but forgotten it a moment before. "I’m not really sure how I got here. I was playing Quidditch, and then a lot of things hurt, and then I was here. Where did you come from?"
"I came through the door." Siss indicated the door she meant, though she didn’t need to. It was the only one in the room, and Harry wondered slightly how he had gotten in, since he knew he hadn’t come that way. The things beyond that door were so wonderful that he would never have wanted to leave that place.
He followed that train of thought and came up with a contradiction. "Why did you leave?" he asked. "Don’t you like it in there?"
"I like it in there very much. But I was drawn by your being here. It is not a place you should be. Not for a long time yet."
Harry’s attention was drawn by the door. It was opening a little wider — he might be able to squeeze through now if he really tried. "I know I shouldn’t be here," he said, getting up. "I should be there. Through that door. With my parents."
"No, Harry!" Siss’ tone was almost desperate, and Harry stopped to look at her. "That is the place of journey’s ending. Your journey is scarcely begun. I gave my life to be sure of that. You cannot pass through that door yet."
"But it’s open! They’re waiting for me!"
"We will wait as long as we must," said Siss with certainty. "And you have other things you must do. Things you must return to, in the world outside. You cannot pass through that door."
Harry hesitated for one more moment, then made up his mind. Siss was talking nonsense. The door was open, and he was going to go through it —
But he had waited too long.
"NO!" shrieked a little girl’s voice, and Siss fled through the door the instant before a girl in blue robes dashed into the room, seemingly from nowhere, and threw herself against the door, slamming it shut before Harry could reach it. "Harry, you can’t!"
"Who—" Harry began, but stopped as recognition hit him. "Meghan! You shouldn’t be here!"
"Neither should you," said Meghan, panting, her back pressed against the door. "You can’t stay here, Harry. You have to come back with me."
"I don’t have to go anywhere with you. You have to leave and let me get through that door."
"No! Harry, don’t you understand what’s going on? You’re..." Meghan stopped. A strange expression crossed her face. "You’re..." she began again, then stopped again, and growled in frustration. "I can’t tell you what’s going on. But you can’t go in there!"
"Why not? Meghan, everything I want is on the other side of that door. Why won’t you let me have it?"
"Because it’s not time yet. Harry, there are things you have to do. Things you have to be. You can’t just walk away from all of that now."
"Watch me," said Harry, and made to pull her away from the door. She was being an interfering pest, just like she always was. He would show her — he would take her through the door with him, and she would see how nice it was there, and she wouldn’t want to leave either...
Meghan caught his hands with her own. "You really want to go through there?" she asked, her little face very serious. "You won’t see me again for a long time if you do."
That’s what you think. "That’s supposed to be a bad thing?" Harry said aloud.
"Or Hermione, or Draco, or Ron, or Dadfoot and Mama Letha and Moony and Danger, or anybody else."
Harry shrugged. "I told you, everything I want is over there. If I want them, they’ll be there. So it’s not a big deal. Now, I’m going through there, and you’re not going to stop me." He started pulling her away from the door again.
Meghan let him pull, then ran all the way around him and got her back to the door again just in time to keep him from reaching the handle.
"Pearl, I don’t want to hurt you," said Harry with a sigh. "But I’m going to have to, if you keep getting in the way. I’m going through that door, whether you want me to or not."
Meghan looked at the floor. "I understand," she said quietly. "But will you do one thing for me first?"
"One thing like what?"
"Dance with me?"
"Dance with you?"
"Yes. One last dance, before you go."
Harry looked around the small stone room where they stood. "Here?"
"Do you see anywhere else?"
"We could dance in there," Harry suggested casually, pointing at the door. "There’s more light, and more room, and I bet there’s music."
Meghan shook her head firmly. "Uh-uh. I want to dance here."
Harry recognized the set of her jaw. She was determined to get him to do this. Well, if it would make her stop getting in his way so he could get where he was going without hurting her, he’d do it. "My lady, may I have this dance?" he asked, bowing formally to her.
"Kind sir, I would be delighted." Her curtsy was very grand.
They took the waltz position, and as Meghan stepped away from the door in the first moves of the dance, it crept open again. Harry was tempted simply to drop Meghan’s hands and run — she wouldn’t be able to stop him in time, he was much bigger and faster than she was, and he was between her and the door now — but he had promised to dance with her, or at least agreed, and he wasn’t going to go back on his word. The door wouldn’t go away.
As they danced, though, Harry began to remember things. Little things about himself, things he’d somehow forgotten. Things like where he lived. In the school year, he lived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he was a student, a part of Gryffindor House, so he lived up in Gryffindor Tower, seven floors above the ground. During the summers, it was the Marauders’ Den, the big, airy house in Devon always filled with light and laughter and good smells from the kitchen. He liked helping in the kitchen. Helping Danger.
The name sparked new recollections. Danger, giving him a good-luck hug before the match. Moony, with one hand on his shoulder and one on Draco’s, looking so proud and saying something about his two Quidditch players. Draco, playing around with the Quaffle down by the Slytherin goal posts...
And then something hit me in the back of the head. It hurt a lot. Must have been a Bludger.
And... did I fall? I think I fell. I never fall! What happened?
And then I hit my back on something, and that hurt even worse...
The room seemed larger now. Brighter, too. He could see Meghan’s face a lot more clearly. She looked as if she’d been crying. "Pearl, what’s wrong?" he asked.
"What’s wrong? You mean you don’t even know?"
"No. What is it?"
"Harry, you almost died!"
Harry missed a step in the dance. "I what?"
"You fell off your broom and onto the Gryffindor goal hoop," said Meghan, looking up at him earnestly. "You were twenty feet up from it at least. And Madam Pomfrey said there wasn’t anything she could do about it. That the damage was too extensive, and that you were dying."
"But then why don’t I hurt?" Harry looked down at himself. He was still wearing his red Quidditch robes, and his body seemed to be moving about as well as it ever had in his dance lessons at home. "If I got so badly hurt, how did I get here?"
Meghan shook her head. "I don’t know."
The room was getting larger, Harry saw now. It was warmer too. And the door he’d been so keen to go through was no more than an outline in the wall — but that didn’t make any sense. Doors didn’t just disappear.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Some doors did disappear, when they weren’t needed any more. Or when you weren’t supposed to go through them.
I thought my parents were on the other side of that door. And Siss came from there.
But Siss and my parents are dead.
So maybe if I’d gone through that door...
"Meghan, what did you do when you found out I was... you know?"
Meghan looked a little sheepish. "I screamed out that I wouldn’t let you," she said. "Then I felt funny. Like I could do things nobody else could do — almost like I could fly — and I knew if I could just touch you, I could make everything all right. I jumped over benches and grabbed your hands, and then all of a sudden I was running, and I knew I had to stop you from going through that door." She nodded to the outline of the door. "Because if you did, that would mean..."
It would mean I was dead.
That’s what Siss meant. She wanted me to live, not to die. So does Meghan. So will all the Pack, and the Pride.
And so do I!
In the instant of that thought, the door vanished entirely, and Harry suddenly felt very dizzy and weak. He stumbled, breaking the rhythm of the dance. Meghan supported him until he got his balance again.
"We have to go back," she said. "We can’t stay here much longer. It’s making me tired." Now that Harry really looked, he could see that her face had an unhealthy gray tinge to it, and her eyes were red.
Of course, that could be from crying...
"I don’t feel too good either," he admitted. "Did I really get hurt badly?"
Meghan nodded. "But Madam Pomfrey said she could treat you. We just have to get back to our bodies."
Harry took a deep breath. "Which way?" he asked, looking at the multitude of corridors which had formed in the stone walls while they were dancing.
"I don’t know." Meghan leaned on him. "I just don’t know."
xXxXx
Draco more felt the hum than heard it at first, since he was concentrating so hard on Harry and Meghan, willing the feeble light around them not to go out. It resonated through his shoulder bones, making them buzz, then moved up into his ears, coming from Luna’s half-closed lips, a simple little tune about gifts.
Experimentally, he joined in, humming with her. A moment later, so did Ginny, and then Neville, and then Ron and Hermione were humming along as well, still quiet but slowly gaining strength.
At the chorus, Draco began to sing the words, about how when everything was simple, no one would have to be ashamed of anything, that everyone would have the time and the abilities to bring themselves right. When the song ended, they began it again, and this time Hermione and Draco sang a harmony line under the main melody. A third time, and Ron provided a counterpoint melody with different words, which made the rhythms different.
xXxXx
Meghan’s head came up. "I hear singing!"
"So do I!" Harry’s spirits lifted. "This way! They’re calling us!"
Arm in arm, supporting each other, they ran down the center corridor.
xXxXx
Sirius joined the song an instant after Aletha. Remus, sitting beside Danger, was singing too, and the light around Harry and Meghan was brightening, as if in response. The doors of the hospital wing opened, and Professor Dumbledore entered, smiling, with Fawkes the phoenix on his shoulder. Fawkes was singing now, singing along with them, and his song and the bright azure light around Harry and Meghan brought real hope into Sirius’ heart for the first time since he’d seen Harry’s face on that bench. Maybe everything could still be all right...
As if by common consent, the song ceased. In the sudden silence, Meghan’s sigh was clearly audible as she slumped from her long-held pose.
Sirius started forward, but Neville was quicker, vaulting off the bed where all the Pride was sitting and catching Meghan before she hit the floor, holding her gently against him. Sirius hurried to them and held out his arms. "Give her to me," he said, trying not to make it sound like an order, but knowing he was probably failing, and why not? He was perfectly qualified to give orders where Meghan was concerned — he was her father, for Merlin’s sake!
And why am I getting so worked up about this? asked a small corner of his mind.
Neville looked down at Meghan’s relaxed face, and a sudden flash came to Sirius that this wouldn’t be the last time this tableau would occur, but that next time, the roles would be reversed...
Great, now I’m turning into a Seer? This is all we need.
Neville relinquished his hold on Meghan, and Sirius got carefully to his feet, holding her in his arms, noticing the faint smile on her face.
Good God — I forgot about Harry!
He wanted to kick himself. How could he have forgotten about Harry?
But as he turned back to his godson’s bedside, he saw that his concern was unnecessary. Harry still breathed, and his breathing sounded easier than it had. The unnatural paleness in his face was gone. Aletha was standing beside him, holding his hand in hers, a smile beginning to crease her face as it did Meghan’s. She clearly thought everything was going to be all right.
Madam Pomfrey had been hovering in the background, unwilling to disturb whatever was going on, but now she hurried forward to run her diagnostic spells, and Sirius noticed Aletha’s eyes following the movements of the wand, and her lips moving as Madam Pomfrey muttered words.
"Well, I don’t understand it," she said finally, looking as baffled as she sounded, "but he’s going to be all right. It’s as if that fall never happened. He’s still got the concussion from the Bludger, and various bumps and scrapes, but other than that, he’s perfectly all right."
Sirius looked at the child in his arms in awe. Did she...
But how?
He laid her gently on the bed next to Harry’s and looked up at Dumbledore as the Headmaster came to stand on the other side of the bed. "Do you know?" he asked. Aletha was standing beside him now, and Remus had come over as well, and Sirius could hear cautious footsteps behind him as the rest of the Pride tried to get closer to listen.
Dumbledore smiled and leaned down to stroke Meghan’s forehead.
"Welcome home, eagle’s daughter," he said. "Meghan Lily Black, blood Heir of Ravenclaw."