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That Which Does Not Kill Us
Chapter 6
By Anne B. Walsh
"You won't hurt us, pretty girl," Hermione cooed, bending down again to let the lynx sniff at her hand. "Will you? No, you won't. You're too sweet… you'd never hurt us…"
Ron suddenly made a strangled sound.
"Did she hurt you?" Hermione and the Healer said in unison.
"No," Ron said quickly. "No, I'm fine. Just… just fine…" He shut his eyes and rubbed a hand across them. "Look, can we try to deal with her?" he said, looking back at the Healer. "She must like us for some reason. Maybe I smell good."
"Don't start," Ron shot at her.
"She is calmer with you than with anyone," the Healer said thoughtfully. "I can't see that it would hurt."
"We'll need it quiet, though," Hermione said, catching the semi-desperate glance that had gone with Ron's words. "So nothing else startles her. Can you do a Privacy Spell for us?"
"Of course. I'll come to check on you in a few minutes." The Healer drew his wand and enclosed them with a wall of grey smoke, dimming the sounds of voices from beyond it.
The lynx began to purr smugly. "Ginny," Ron said through gritted teeth. "Off."
"Gin—" Hermione broke off with a gasp as the lynx tumbled forward and changed halfway through the movement into Ron's sister, shaking with laughter.
"You think you smell good?" she choked. "When did you shower last?"
"None of your business—what's going on here?" Ron demanded. "When did you learn to do that?"
"Same time you did," said Ginny cheekily. "Or don't you remember?"
"I don't think we remember," Hermione said slowly. "Are you saying that we're…"
"Try it." Ginny rolled her shoulders. "Ooh. Stiff. I haven't done that in too long."
Ron looked askance at his sister. "That was you, wasn't it?" he said. "Talking in my head like that?"
Ginny nodded. "And it wasn't easy, either," she said. "I practically had to draw blood before you'd listen."
"Talking in his head?" Hermione said over this. "How?"
"It's a long story…" Ginny sighed at Hermione's 'tell me anyway' expression. "There's something between us all. You and me and Ron and five other people. A magical bond, that lets us do more than we can alone. And one of the side-effects is that, if we're blood-related in the first degree, like parents or brothers and sisters, we can talk silently when we touch." She smiled. "Comes in handy."
"Right," Ron said, shaking his head. "What was this about Animagus?"
"Try it." Ginny drew her wand. "Here, let me help you."
A snap-flick, and the floor underneath Ron vanished. He shrieked—the sound changed pitch, curving sharply upwards, even as he himself shrank and twisted—
Hermione held out her arm, and the red-feathered hawk backwinged to a landing on her wrist, hissing under its breath.
Ginny vanished the chasm with another wave of her wand. "I'm telling Mum you said that."
Ron hopped off Hermione's arm and resumed his human form, nearly falling (Hermione caught him in time). "You don't even know what I said," he complained.
"I don't have to. I know you." Ginny looked at Hermione. "Do you want to try?"
"Yes—but not like that, please."
"I wouldn't. Your form is different." Ginny grinned. "I could conjure a fierce dog and a tree if you want."
Hermione bared her teeth and spat, and thought of tales of good words said and promises kept. Lightfoot, hunt-quick, scents and sounds all telling stories of their own…
Ginny must be teasing. Ron smells fine to me. Neenie the calico cat reared up and planted her claws delicately in Ron's robes, purring her loudest. And Ginny smells like hope. Hope, and people I haven't seen in a long time.
Harry rubbed the gold chain between his fingers, thinking furiously.
There was a world a few weeks ago. A good one. Voldemort was there, but not as strong as he was in a lot of the others. At least not yet. Or maybe there was just more on my side to counter him. Point is, they had necklaces like this.
But does that mean I'm back in that world now and I'll be leaving again in the morning? Or am I actually awake this time, out of whatever was happening to me, and this is my real world?
I could handle that world being real. But I don't want to trust too much that it is yet.
Still, real or not, I have to get involved here.
"Can you tell whose these are?" he asked Luna, handing her the chain. He seemed to recall a trick to it, something about the different engravings on the medallions, but he didn't want to risk interpreting them and look stupid when he was wrong.
Luna flipped one medallion back and forth. "These are mine," she said, sliding the chain over her head. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Harry hooked a finger back inside his own chain and, experimentally, willed it intangible to his neck. A moment later, his finger was the only thing holding the chain off the ground.
That works like it should, at least.
He slid all the fingers of both hands inside the loop, as though he were playing cat's cradle, and concentrated. Small footsteps sounded alongside him, but his mind dismissed it as no threat.
I want all of you out of there now, he told the pendants silently. I've held you long enough. Time to come out. In three, two, one…
The right hand still held his own chain and medallions. The left could have been a display at a jewelry shop. Greenish light gleamed on animal figures dancing on pendants, making them look almost alive. The jewels inset into each pendant flashed the light through themselves, green, green-yellow, green-blue, and the almost black Harry assumed was red.
That worked like it should too.
The footsteps sounded again, this time behind him. Before he could react, a blanket dropped over his head. "Here," said a girl's voice. "Start with this."
Start with… right. I'm not wearing anything. How exactly did I manage to forget that?
And why am I not panicking when that could have been the first step in kidnapping me? It was a few times, if I remember right. And most of those didn't turn out well.
Harry filed these thoughts under "investigate later", poked his head out from under the blanket, and got a look at the person who'd ambushed him with it. She was small, brown-skinned, and staring at him challengingly with the gray eyes he remembered so well from his short visit a few weeks back.
Or do I remember them from somewhere else?
Meghan beamed and dropped to one knee to throw her arms around him. "Harry! I knew you'd know me!"
"Er…" Harry hugged her back, trying to decide how much to tell her.
She's glad to see me. Maybe I should just leave it.
But he hated lying, even by omission, and letting his little sister think he knew exactly who he was and where he belonged would be the worst kind of lie.
"I do and I don't," he said, letting go of Meghan to pick through his handful of pendants. "I know your name and what you look like and who you are, or who you ought to be. But I've visited so many worlds these last few…"
"Months," supplied a male voice from one of the two remaining silhouettes. "About three months."
"Thank you." Harry rubbed the carving of a hawk on one pendant before pushing it aside. "I've been in a new world every day for those three months. People with the same faces acted completely differently one day to the next. They wanted different things from me. They wanted me to be different. And sometimes it was a little different, and sometimes it was a lot."
"And sometimes, the people you thought you could trust sold you out," a woman's voice said from the other silhouette. "Or the people you'd said goodnight to the night before, the next day were ten years dead."
"Yes. Exactly." A set of pendants with three blue-green jewels and one almost black, a dog and a winged horse occupying opposite sides of the first pendant, slid off Harry's hand. "Here you go."
"But this is where you belong," Meghan said, pressing her pendants to her lips before she put them on. "This is the real world. They aren't playing with you anymore."
"I'd like to believe you, but how can I be sure?" Harry looked around at the room. "The other worlds all started like this too. Waking up somewhere, with someone nearby. In a bed, or in a dungeon, or in a tree. With friends, or allies, or enemies. But somewhere, with someone."
"What do I count as?" said the male of the silhouetted pair, stepping forward to where Harry could see his face.
Harry sized the other up. "Depends on how you act," he said finally. "And whether or not I'm still here tomorrow."
Draco inclined his head. "I look forward to finding out."
Remus pried at a huge stone, almost a boulder, that seemed to be supporting a great deal of the rubble blocking the corridor. If he could shift it, just possibly the woman beyond the stones could climb out through the gaps that would be created.
Which brings me to something I probably should have asked quite a while ago.
The woman laughed a little. "Do you mean my real name, or what people usually call me?"
"I'm not particular. Whichever you prefer."
"Well, then, my name is Gertrude. But I'm mostly known by a nickname a friend gave me a long time ago." A long pause, as though she were nerving herself up for something. "I go by Danger."
Remus sagged against the boulder. "And here I thought the sign out front was just cautionary," he said.
"That too, I'm sure. This place isn't safe." Danger exhaled a shaky breath. "Maybe… maybe you should leave. Get out while you still can, before it comes down on both our heads."
"No." Remus let the boulder lie for the moment and began digging around one side of it, hoping to find a handhold. "If I can get you out of here, I will."
"You're too good." Danger added something in a low tone.
"What was that?" Remus asked, pushing a mound of pebbles out of the way with his foot.
"No, it wasn't. Please tell me."
A brief growl. "I won't explain it."
"I can live with that. But I do want to know."
"I said, that's probably why I love you."
Remus' hands froze in place on the boulder.
Someone who's always there, always helpful. A constant companion, even to the point of things I wouldn't do. Because I thought it would be taking advantage.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
The scent was as familiar as his own. It clung to everything in his home, in his life, and it was beginning to worm deep into his mind, to trigger memories and associations long buried.
"…shared between you as all things are shared…"
Remus flattened his palms against the stone. Melt this, he directed silently. Melt this, and form it into an archway which will support this ceiling so that it does not fall. Do not harm the woman on the other side of these rocks while you work.
He could feel the power humming in his fingers, begging to be set loose, but he'd used one word too many, or too few, or not quite the right one… he could still fix it, it wasn't beyond redemption, but he had to work quickly…
"Now," he said aloud, and only after he had said it did he hear the tone, commanding and firm, as though he knew from long practice how to marshal the reluctant into completing unpleasant tasks.
There was no stone under his fingers. There was only warmth, and the movement of air, and footsteps that he knew, approaching him hesitantly. "Remus," a voice whispered. "It really is you…"
Remus Lupin opened his eyes and gathered his wife into his arms. "It really is me," he told her, stroking her hair, wiping the tears of joy away from her face. "I'm here. Everything's all right now."