Maybe
Chapter 13
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 13
Neenie looked hard at the red-haired Draco. "You look like Ron," she said.
Draco grimaced. "I know. Can I please get the glamour off now?" he asked Danger.
Danger shook her head. "Sorry, little fox. You’re too noticeable. Come to think, the six of us together are fairly noticeable. We should probably split up."
Neenie made a faint noise of protest, and Harry felt slightly ill for no reason he could fathom. Some part of him, hitherto either ignored or simply unknown, was insisting that they had to stay together, that they were only safe when they were together...
"I think we should be all right until we get to our station," said Moony. "It’s only thirty minutes from here. This compartment is anti-scryed, I assume, Letha?"
Miss Letha nodded. "First thing I did."
"All right. We’ll stay together for now. Then we’ll debark in... two groups, let’s say. Danger, you and I with Draco, and Letha, you take the other two — Neenie, we’ll have to glamour you a bit darker so you look right. Letha, you know how to get where we’re going?"
"In my sleep."
"Excellent. You go straight there and go on through, and we’ll go a bit more roundabout and come in later."
Danger frowned. "I don’t know. Shouldn’t the two groups be able to communicate?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"You, Letha, and Harry go roundabout, and I’ll take Neenie and Draco straight there. If either group gets into trouble, we can yell for help, and no glamour changes are needed."
"Do you even know where this place is?"
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Then I do." Obviously, her tone implied.
Moony nodded slowly. "I think I like it. Letha?"
"It sounds good to me."
"All right, we have a plan."
"And now back to our regularly scheduled program," said Danger with a chuckle. "You. Sister. Come. Sit." She patted the seat beside her, and Neenie sat quickly down and nestled against her.
Draco pulled a folded sheet of parchment from his bag. "Moony, can I ask you something?"
"You can, there’s no one stopping you."
Draco sighed exaggeratedly. "May I ask you something."
"Yes."
"How do the chord progressions work in this piece?" He opened the parchment and handed it to Moony. "All I can see for this part is minor two to major six and that can’t be right."
Moony studied the parchment, frowning. Then his face cleared. "I see what you’re saying — but no, that’s not a major six..."
"Don’t try to understand it," advised Miss Letha’s voice from behind Harry. He jumped slightly and turned to face her. "Those two can talk music theory all night. Me, I don’t understand it that well. I just play it." She moved over slightly, the invitation clear, and Harry sat down beside her. "And Remus said he’d tell you Draco’s story after we were all here, and here we are, and he’s off on a tangent. I love him like a brother, but honestly. He has a mind like a steel sieve some days."
The comment surprised a laugh from Harry.
"Do you want to hear Draco’s story?"
Harry sneaked another look at the other boy, who was asking Moony something incomprehensible and tapping at his parchment. "Yes."
When the story was over, Harry surreptitiously rubbed his head, making sure it wasn’t spinning. He didn’t know much about his parents, but he hoped they hadn’t been like that. Well, not so much Draco’s mother — she’d done the right thing, after all, letting the Pack go home to their hiding place instead of letting them get arrested, and giving them Draco to take with them, to bring him up like another one of their children, their cubs — but his father...
Harry felt a chill down his back just thinking about it. He knew what it was like to live with people who hated you, but he could at least rationalize that the Dursleys had been stuck with him, so there was no real reason for them to like him. But what if it had been his own father who had hurt him for fun, or locked him in a cupboard...
He didn’t realize he was shivering until a coat descended around his shoulders, and an arm encircled him. Without thinking, he leaned into the side thus provided, and half-heard Miss Letha say something that sounded a bit like a sneeze. Then, suddenly, she had something in her hand —
"In case you need this," she said, handing him his lion.
Harry accepted the toy, feeling rather silly. What would the other two think of him, needing to hug a stuffed animal like a baby?
"I bet you anything the others have theirs too," murmured Miss Letha as if to herself. "In those bags they’re carrying."
"Too?" asked Harry very quietly, so as not to disturb Moony and Draco, who were still talking about numbers, but had now moved on to words that sounded vaguely Greek as well.
"All four of you have lions. We bought them for you and Hermione as second birthday gifts, Meghan got hers when she was born, and we gave one to Draco as a welcome-to-the-Pack present. And even before this happened, you still slept with it in your bed. Every single night."
Words came to Harry, and he pushed them away. They were stupid, they were babyish, he didn’t really need to know...
But he wanted to. And there was no indication that these people would snap at him as the Dursleys so often did, telling him to keep his mouth shut, to do what he was told, to not ask questions...
"Will you tell me about me?"
Miss Letha smiled. "Of course I will. What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. My parents."
"I think I can handle the last one better than the first two. Your parents. What do you know about them?"
"My aunt and uncle told me they died in a car crash. That my father was probably drunk and that he and my mother were both shiftless, worthless freaks who deserved what they got." Harry was mildly surprised by the anger in his voice.
Miss Letha shifted. "I see." Her voice was very crisp. "Anything else?"
"My scar." Harry traced the thin line on his forehead with a finger. "They said I got it in the crash." He twisted slightly to look up at her. "Is any of that true?"
"No." Miss Letha ran her own finger across Harry’s scar, turning the gesture into a caress which continued down Harry’s cheek and lingered there. "No, Harry, none of that is true. Your parents were not worthless, nor were they freaks. They were magical. As are you, as am I, as are all of us here."
She looked at Neenie and Danger, who were gazing into one another’s eyes, the glint of gold around both their necks betokening a silent conversation via chain, and Moony and Draco, who were still discussing something to do with numbers and modes on the parchment. "Your aunt and uncle seem to think that different automatically equals bad. I would guess that they strive to seem perfectly normal in every way. Am I right?"
"Yes," said Harry quietly. "They always yelled if I talked about anything unusual." He smiled a little. "They yelled if I talked about almost anything."
Miss Letha smiled back. "You won’t have to worry about that with us. We all like to talk at once, so you’ll have to speak right up if you want to be heard. Now, as for how you got that scar, and how your parents died..." She sighed. "Another long story. Do you want to hear it?"
"Yes."
"All right. Around the time I entered school, rumors started circulating about an evil wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort..."
xXxXx
The watcher was frustrated. He’d been working at his spell for an hour, and it was producing no more results than it had in the beginning. He’d tried it on other objects, other people, and gotten exactly what he was looking for — clear and crisp picture, perfectly audible sound — but try as he might on these particular people, all he could get was blankness.
One more time. I will try it one more time.
If I am unsuccessful, I will seek help. As humiliating as that will inevitably be.
One more time.
He cast the spell, holding the name of the people he sought in his mind —
And the surface of the potion flared to life, displaying a scene.
YES!
He quickly knelt on his chair to peer into the depths of the bowl.
The creature had changed his appearance. Perhaps that was why the scry had been confused?
Never mind, though. He had found the freak at last.
And not only him.
The man stared as a woman emerged from the train to stand beside the thing — a woman he’d seen in his scry before. She was the one whose flat the creature and his wife had stayed at in Surrey...
And then a boy got off the train and joined them, and the answer exploded in his mind.
He wanted to scream, but that release was denied him. He had to settle for viciously twisting a piece of parchment.
Black’s wife. She was there. She was in Surrey, near the Potter boy, and I never knew it.
And those fools at the Ministry must not have maintained the 24-hour surveillance I insisted on for him — because there he is, with the last people in the world he should be with, and in a place that is most certainly not Surrey —
But where is it?
Quickly, he expanded the area of the scry, searching for something, anything, to tell him where they were, and almost missed the second party departing the train. Almost, but not quite.
Ah-HA. There she is. My little precious. He leered at the image of the girl in his bowl. You will be mine eventually, pretty child. One way or another.
For one as interested in the girl as he was, the older sister’s disguise was easy to see through, and the other boy could be only Draco Malfoy, who must have been stolen mere hours, or minutes, after he himself had left the Notts’ estate —
Another memory flew into his mind, of the blond boy making a petulant face.
"Just because our names are the same doesn’t mean we lived together."
He snarled silently. The boy should think his last name is Malfoy — I set that condition myself.
But, quite obviously, he does not.
The Memory Charm must have been lifted somehow. Probably by the Tonks woman.
He wasted a pleasant moment thinking of ways he could hurt the meddling bitch who had dared to undo his careful work, but soon brought himself back to the task at hand. Finding out where they are...
He tuned the scry slightly better, and was rewarded with the ultimate goal of most scryers — sound. Sound from a scry was usually exceptionally hard to achieve, except over very short distances, but as he had noted before, he was the master of scrying spells.
He listened intently. The creature was speaking.
"Good luck, you three. Don’t linger at the Green Dragon — Floo straight to the kitchens. We’ll be right behind you..."
The watcher canceled the spell and began to pack his things away, glee suffusing him. He knew of only one pub called the Green Dragon. And he knew where it was.
He would be nearby, waiting for them.
My name will be remembered with honor.
That was his ultimate goal now.
After all, who would want to live, inhuman and degraded?
xXxXx
Remus walked slowly through the back streets of the town, his arm around Aletha’s waist, Harry walking sometimes in front of them, sometimes behind, never far.
Just a family out for a nice walk before dinner. That’s all.
They talked as they walked, of little things, not terribly important. Things like what Harry would like for dinner, and if he had any homework tonight (he looked confused for an instant, then said he had some math problems to finish), and whether Remus had finished his latest project at work. The project, like Harry’s homework, was totally fictitious, but it would have looked rather odd for a family to be walking in total silence...
The pendants went hot against his chest.
In the same instant, Danger screamed in his mind.
Rather than waste time asking questions, Remus sent an overriding command to her mind, demanding it show him what it saw and heard without disrupting her, and it did so.
What he saw made him swear violently.
"What in heaven’s name—" Aletha began.
"Do you know the pub well enough to Apparate there?" Remus demanded of her.
"Yes, I think so."
"Do it. Take Harry. I have to help the others, they’ve been attacked."
He Disapparated before Aletha could ask him anything.
The wizard he had stopped at the orphanage was standing ten feet from Danger, a stream of sickly green light pouring from the wand he was holding. Danger was countering it with a steady stream of fire from her outstretched left hand, her wand in her other hand providing a shield for herself and the cubs, who were huddled behind her, clinging to one another.
We’re pinned down, she sent. He seems to be supercharged somehow — if any of us try to move, he steps it up until I can barely keep it off us — and I don’t want that stuff touching us. So at the moment, we’re stalemated.
Not for long. Remus moved to get himself into spell-firing position —
Don’t!
Why not?
He’s got some kind of permanent shielding on him. I tried disarming him already — I was lucky not to lose my own wand. I don’t know where he’s getting all this power from...
Are you all right where you are?
For the moment, yes. But this is going to wear me down fairly soon...
Let me think for a second, then. Remus stared at the light shooting from the wizard’s wand, which, now that he looked, was echoed more faintly all around the man’s body... he knew something about this type of magic, he had studied it, if only briefly...
His mind froze for an instant in dismay as the answer came to him. Good God.
What?
He doesn’t expect, or want, to survive this. He’s suicidal. This power is coming directly from his life — he’s almost literally sold his soul for this, as soon as he accomplishes his goal he’ll die.
What goal? Pinning me down here?
No, that can’t be it — I think he’s playing with you, waiting for something, but I don’t know what...
He felt Danger’s shock as something reverberated through her.
What was that?
Can you take over blocking here?
Why? What’s wrong?
I’m about to go down for the count — it seems this little exercise is draining me more than I knew...
The fire streaming from her faltered, flickered, then went out as she fell to her knees, then crumpled to the ground. Remus hastily shot a shield spell around the cubs and followed that up with a blast of fire, intending to burn the wizard’s wand out of his hand —
It was deflected back at him. He absorbed it without thinking much about it, except to set that aside as a possible method of attack. His best plan seemed to be to continue Danger’s strategy — a constant, steady stream of fire, which the other wizard seemed to be unable to break through —
But is that because he honestly can’t, or because he doesn’t want to?
Suddenly he noticed that the point where magic and fire met was closer to him than it had been. He increased the intensity of the fire, and the magic backed away a bit —
Before beginning to creep back towards him.
This is bad. I don’t know how long I can keep this up...
He increased the intensity again, and the magic increased in response — more from each of them, more and more —
Remus cried out as the magic penetrated his defenses and struck him. It hurt — it felt as if some huge and willful child were trying to twist him into some other shape than his own —
He was on his knees on the ground, panting with pain, but still holding the fiery shield. He risked one glance over his shoulder — Danger lay immobile, Hermione and Draco’s faces showed terror but no pain. So far, he was the only one who had been affected.
Good. Keep it that way for as long as I can...
But he didn’t know how long that would be. He was running low on magic, he could feel it, and although he might be able to beat the other at his own game, if he were to tap his own life for extra power, such an exercise would almost certainly kill him as well. But he didn’t see any other way to get enough power to beat this menace —
The magic broke his defenses again. This time, instead of merely dropping him to his knees, it threw him backwards several feet, knocking him into something hard and half-stunning him. Barely able to breathe, unable to move, he watched the magic cease, watched the wizard approach his cubs with a horrible, mocking smile —
Watched the wizard stagger back as a large rock struck his forehead —
Watched Aletha dive in front of the cubs and put up her strongest shield, blocking the magic for the moment —
His breath was coming back, his muscles were beginning to respond to him. She can’t last long. She won’t be able to hold it much longer. Good for Hermione, throwing that rock —
Full link! It was Danger’s voice, sounding very far away, as if she were shouting across a great distance. Link everyone with the pendants! That’s the only way to beat him — all of us together!
Everyone? Are you sure?
I’m sure.
What about Sirius, and Meghan? They’re not here —
Want to bet?
"Come on, Moony, up you get," said Sirius’ voice from beside him, and then Sirius was pulling him to his feet, Meghan peering fearfully around his legs.
How the hell —
They were asleep and dreaming. I invaded their dream and told them to get here. You can yell at me later.
If we survive this, I don’t think I’ll be yelling.
"Stay close behind us, Pearl," Sirius was saying. "Remus, you all right?"
"I will be in a second. Let’s get over there, Letha’s about to go down — Sirius, can you take over shielding? No, wait, you don’t have a wand—"
"Yes, I do." Sirius produced one from within his robes. "Borrowed," he explained. "Tell you later. Let’s go."
Behind the cover of Sirius’ shield spell, they made their way into the stream of bilious green light. Sirius threw his shield around Aletha’s once Remus and Meghan were safely within, and Aletha thankfully dropped her own. Remus looked at her face, drawn and exhausted even without her disguise, and felt a sting of guilt at asking her for more.
But if we don’t all do this, none of us are going to make it out alive —
Wait. We’re all needed. All.
There’s one missing.
"Letha — where’s Harry?"