Disclaimer: Not mine.
“They’re all dead.”
The room was completely silent. Everyone was watching Harry, who was still in his pyjamas. Charlie pushed the word out as hard as possible, but somehow it still came out as a whisper.
“Who?”
“The Dursleys.”
His voice was dull and bland, as though he didn’t care, but Ron could see that the emotion behind his best friend’s eyes was fighting to get out. Harry gave a small, humourless smile.
“Just thought you should know.” He looked over to the headline of the newspaper that Charlie still held in his hand. “I guess I didn’t have to bother.” He looked lost; he was trying to sound in control, indifferent, but it was clear that he could break down at any moment.
“You saw it.” Ginny realised. Harry met her eyes briefly before looking away again.
“Every second of it.” His eyes were focused firmly on the floor.
“What are you going to do?” Ginny asked, not knowing what else to say. Harry gave another humourless smile.
“Try and get some sleep. Try not to go insane.” He turned and left, and they could hear each of his footsteps echo softly up the wooden stairs. Ginny took a step towards the door as though to follow him, but stopped when Ron looked at her and shook his head. He glanced at Hermione, who had her hand over her mouth in shock, and waited for her to pull herself together. She did, slowly.
“We shouldn’t leave him alone.” Ginny spoke softly. Hermione and Ron nodded.
*
When they pushed open the door, Harry was curled up on the bed facing away from them. Ginny came to perch on the bottom of the bed, Ron sat on his and Hermione leant against the windowsill.
“We know you’re awake, Harry.” There was a pause, and Harry rolled over to look at them, stretching.
“Unfortunately.” Now she was closer, Ginny could see that his eyes were wide in that unnatural, sleepless way, and darkly circled. The pale hands that rested against the headboard of the bed as he sat up were bruised and cut along the knuckles.
“What happened?” Hermione asked, her eyes also drawn to her best friend’s hands.
He shrugged.
“When I woke up they were like that.” Ginny moved closer and went to take his hand in hers, but he flinched away automatically.
“Let me see.” Her voice was soft, but it wasn’t a request. He relaxed. Ginny turned his hands palm-down in hers to see.
“It looks like you’ve hit something hard,” she said curiously, “but I can’t see how.”
“Maybe you punched the wall in your sleep,” Ron suggested, his eyes on the wall next to Harry’s bed. Harry and Ginny looked around: there were flecks of red on the green paint. Harry nodded wearily.
“Probably.”
They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Then Hermione stood up.
“Ron, come on.” They left. Ginny was desperate for something she could say; Harry was sitting almost completely still, and she could see that he was emotionally exhausted. But he needed to talk…she made the decision.
“Tell me?”
Harry looked at her and nodded. He made as if to speak, but stopped, frowning.
“I don’t know where to start.” He sounded thoughtful, and Ginny gave a little giggle. He looked at her in confusion.
“What?”
“Never mind.” She pulled herself together. Now is not the time to think like that. Silly teenage thoughts aren’t going to help! She blinked and shook the thoughts from her head. He was still looking at her, eyebrows raised in tired scepticism, but she shook her head. He began to explain, how he had had a headache yesterday evening and had been fighting for the release of sleep “ when the headache had suddenly stopped. He must have fallen asleep then, feeling peaceful and unusually relaxed, but when he opened his eyes he knew he was no longer at Grimmauld Place. He could feel the pressure of Voldemort’s will squeezing in from all directions as he was forced to watch first his uncle’s, then cousin and aunt’s deaths through the eyes of their killer, before Voldemort moved to other houses, other families. He fought constantly to wake up, but by the time he did it was almost nine o’clock; Voldemort had been replaying the images over and over, trapping Harry in his mind. As he told her this, she reached across and put her arm over his shoulder. He turned to her.
“I kept trying to wake up and tell someone, but…” he trailed off, rubbing his scar out of habit. There was a quiet knock on the door.
“Come in,” called Ginny. Hermione and Ron appeared in the doorway and came in, shutting the door behind them. Hermione was carrying a small vial of familiar purple liquid. Dreamless sleep potion, Ginny realised. Well done, Hermione. She knew that her mother kept a small supply in the bottom of the kitchen cupboard since Ginny had suffered from violent nightmares after her ordeal in the Chamber of Secrets. How glad she had been to find out that Harry wasn’t going to be staying at the Burrow that summer. Hermione came to sit next to Harry and passed him the vial.
“Dreamless sleep,” she said. He sighed. “Thanks, Hermione.” He glanced almost apologetically at Ginny. “I’m going to try and catch up some sleep.” She smiled and kissed him lightly on the cheek, ignoring Ron’s expression.
“See you later.”
*
It was lunchtime when Harry woke up to Ron searching through his drawers for something. He saw Harry getting up and asked, “A bit better?” Harry nodded, his stomach rumbling. Ron grinned.
“Mum thought you’d be hungry when you woke up “ she’s doing sandwiches for everyone in the kitchen. Coming?”
“Yeah, just a minute.” Harry pulled on a shirt and jeans instead of his pyjamas, and they went downstairs.
After lunch, which despite being delicious still seemed difficult to eat, Harry and Ron joined Hermione in the library. Her sandwich was sitting untouched next to a pile of books and parchment.
“Are you going to eat that?” Ron asked hopefully. Hermione glanced at him in irritation and took a bite out of it. Ron and Harry sat down next to her, and she looked pointedly at the bookshelves.
“Right.” Harry and Ron got up and started browsing through the shelves again, often rejoining her at the table to leaf through a particularly promising book. Harry found a huge tome entitled ‘Revenge and Avengement’ and, more to break up the monotony than anything else, sat down to read.
He was aware that Hermione was watching him carefully out of the corner of her eye. She and everyone else had been watching him in the same way since he woke up, and he could tell why with dull familiarity. It was the same as the looks he’d gotten after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, after the battle at the department of mysteries, after Dumbledore’s death on the astronomy tower “ and now after the deaths of his last living relatives. It was pity; pity and wariness, as though he might do something, suddenly, at any moment. Harry smiled grimly to himself. Do what? Burst into tears? Explode? Slit his wrists? He didn’t do anything. He hadn’t done anything “ yet. Harry shifted his weight and turned a dry, crackling page in the book he was supposed to be reading. His eyes slid slowly along the lines of ancient print, not taking anything in, feeling Hermione’s eyes on the back of his neck.
In actuality he felt numb. Save for the short but blissfully dreamless sleep that had given him a few hours of rest, the images of the Dursley’s deaths had flickered constantly through his mind “ and the deaths of many others. His aunt, uncle and cousin had not been the only ones who had died, they were merely the first. The faces of the innocent people screamed at him in his mind. He had spent the entire afternoon trying to forget “ the sky outside was already beginning to darken “ but he could not. So it was with sickening clarity that he saw the horrific attack replayed over and over in his head, heard the tearing screams and the laughter of the Death Eaters, felt his face “ no, Voldemort’s face “ twist into a malicious smile as the green light filled the air. And he could still hear the echo of Voldemort’s words, quietly spoken in parseltongue only for Harry’s ears; ‘Happy Birthday, Potter…’ and as he fought to escape, ‘Stay awhile, boy, and see what you have caused…you left them to die, Potter…you might think you are perfect, powerful, that you can protect those around you, but you cannot…you cannot save them all.”
So he had retreated into numbness and apathy, avoiding above all any mention of the events that repeated endlessly in his mind, like a film that only he could see. He knew that he could not stay silent for ever, but perhaps if he left it a little longer it would be easier…just a little longer…
They continued in near-silence for another half an hour, before Harry slid a final book back into place and sat down, discouraged.
“We’re going about this the wrong way.” Hermione looked up from the book she was reading. The musty table was piled high with even mustier books. They as yet still hadn’t found ‘Destruction of Destruction’, so had began to look up defensive spells of all kinds.
“I don’t see what else we can do, until we find -” But she was interrupted by Ginny, who had just walked in, quickly shutting the door behind her and collapsing theatrically on a chair next to Harry.
“What?” he asked. She grinned.
“I was just on my way downstairs when I heard Charlie say something about the Order, so I stopped to listen. And you’ll never guess…” she paused dramatically. Harry glanced at Hermione and Ron.
“Fred and George are selling to the Order!” She waited expectantly for a response, but only Ron spoke what Hermione and Harry were thinking.
“I don’t get it.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “If Fred and George are selling to the Order, then…” suddenly, Harry understood.
“They must have something good,” he finished. Ginny nodded.
“From the way Charlie and Tonks were talking, it sounds like the first they heard about it was at last night’s meeting. Apparently the Order received a very professional letter from Fred and George asking whether they would be interested in “” she stifled a giggle ““ a display of items.” Ron snorted in laughter and Hermione raised her eyebrows.
“Honestly, Ron. But if they have something they want the Order to see, why not just give it to Bill or Charlie?”
“They want to be taken seriously,” Ron voiced. “They don’t want people to treat them as just someone’s little brothers.” Harry glanced at him, surprised at his tone of voice but understanding. Ginny shrugged.
“They’ve been invited to join a meeting in a couple of week’s time. We’ll find out then, I suppose.” She changed the subject. “Anyway, how are you doing? Did you find it yet?”
Hermione shook her head.
“No luck yet. I just don’t know what else we can look for.”
“What about the spell Voldemort used to bring himself back?” Harry asked, bringing the idea that he had been turning over in his mind to the conversation. Hermione frowned.
“Didn’t he say that he invented it?” Harry thought back.
“No,” he remembered, “he just said it was an old piece of dark magic.”
“Not exactly helpful. Unless…” Hermione bit her lip. “It must’ve been some kind of…yes…” She put down the book she was holding and went back to the shelves. Ron looked at Harry and shrugged. A minute later, Hermione came back with two particularly old books on dark magic “ the library had quite an interesting section on it. She dropped the books down on the table with a thump, causing dust to fly everywhere and Harry, Ron and Ginny to cough, waving it away. Hermione opened the first book.
“I saw this earlier; it’s about the basics of Dark Magic…” she skimmed the contents page and flicked through the crumbling pages (more dust wafted everywhere) to the appropriate place, and began to read.
“For any spell of dark origins to take permanent and strong effect, it must be supplemented by two bases, or strong points, of previously performed dark magic or negative energies.” She closed the book again, and took out the other. “This one was next to it, but I hadn’t looked through it yet.” Harry couldn’t see the title of the book “ it had been away worn by time “ but it was black and heavy, and Hermione squinted as she read the tiny print of the contents.
“If one wishes to return bodily form to one who has sunk to the darkest depths, there are few measures that can be taken…” She sunk into silence, her finger following the mass of text, before turning it around and pointing out a section to Harry, which he recognised immediately.
“Bone of the father, unknowingly given…”
He continued reading. It was word-for word the spell Voldemort had used to return. The text surrounding it pointed out that its potency depended entirely on the strength of the various ingredients, and of the strength of what it called the spell’s ‘anchor points’. He repeated this to Ron and Ginny. Ron frowned, and then shook his head, looking at Hermione expectantly. She raised her eyebrows and began to explain.
“The first book says that, for a piece of dark magic to be long lasting, it needs to be near two or more places where dark magic has been performed before “ preferably between them.” She took the second book off Harry and continued. “This one tells us about the spell that Voldemort used to bring himself back. It says that the ‘anchor points’ “ that’s the places where dark magic has been performed before “ have to be very strong, and very personal to the person performing the spell.”
“So…” Ron finished, the light dawning on his face, “that means that two of the Horcruxes must be near the place that the spell was performed.”
“Exactly; and if one was at the Gaunt’s house, then the other one shouldn’t be too far away.” Hermione looked pleased. Harry took the book back from her to take another look at the passage, but as he did he felt something shift under his fingers, and the corner of something slim slipped out from inside the book’s dust cover. He tugged at it, and it came loose. It was a small, black, leather bound book, and as he turned it over and saw the title etched on the cover, his heart beat faster and he smiled.
“I found it,” he said. The title of the book read ‘Destruction of Destruction’.
*
Dinner that night was wonderful, but somewhat subdued. It would have been, as Mrs Weasley explained when she took Harry aside, much more celebratory, but “we didn’t want to be so tactless, so it’s been toned down a bit, dear, if that’s alright.” However, Bill and Fleur were there to happily announce that they had found an old cottage in some northern village, by the sea, called Shell Cottage. Fleur was ecstatic about it “ “Ze most beautiful view!” “ and Bill seemed pretty happy about the decision. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were taken by surprise when Fleur turned to them and said, “But of course, you will probably ‘ear enough of zis from Gabrielle. She starts at ‘ogwarts zis September.”
Ginny looked puzzled, mirroring the faces of everyone else.
“But won’t she be going to Beauxbatons?” Fleur shrugged and made pulled an expression as if to say ‘how would I know?’. Harry noticed that even Hermione was beginning to warm to her now. She explained that Gabrielle had inseested to their parents that if her sister was going to live in England where the danger was, then she would to. They had said no, that she was too young, that she didn’t know anyone there, that it was too dangerous “ but after having locked herself in her room for several days, she had managed to convince them.
However, they had made her promise to write once a week, and to be very careful. Fleur seemed worried about it herself, but said that “Ze attacks are spreading across France now; and Beauxbatons ees not nearly as well protected as ‘ogwarts.”
The rest of the evening passed slowly. Harry still felt numb, but a dull ache of sorrow was beginning to grow inside his chest. He may not have liked the Dursleys, he might’ve even hated them some of the time, but…they were family. Blood relatives. The only ones he had had.
So he was glad for the distraction when Mrs Weasley brought out a small, brightly wrapped present “ and the others followed suit. From Ron he got a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans; from Ginny, a case for his glasses that was supposed to clean them automatically; from Hermione, a book on defensive spells “ although when he went to open it she nudged him sharply and he took the hint. When he later got a chance to look at it, he realised that the dust cover was from another book. The actual contents were much darker, and the first page gave the true title: “Darkness in Defence “ When Light Is Not Enough.” He was surprised, but merely nodded at her in thanks. The brightly wrapped little box from Mr and Mrs Weasley turned out to be a watch much like Ron had gotten for his seventeenth “ it was red and gold, with tiny ruby hands with gold stars on the ends. He thanked them profusely, but was quick to take advantage of the chance to withdraw to his and Ron’s room. He and Ron went to bed early, and although Ron’s snores could probably have been heard on the other side of the country, Harry lay awake for most of the night, gazing at the ceiling.
*
The next day and those after it were awkward. They had read through ‘Destruction of Destruction’, and discovered the passage that Dumbledore must have been referring to:
“And of the Horcruxe, the moste evill of magikal devices, onlie one spelle may be deemed effective, this being the words “Finio Inanis”, spoken so with force and resolve “ only this will destroy the spirit within.” Despite this, and despite having researched the location of Little Hangleton and planned their exit from Grimmauld Place carefully, no one seemed willing to say what had to be said: no one wanted to be the one to suggest a leaving date. So as the tension rose slowly, they spent their days looking over defensive spells in the Black Family Library, and duelling against each other in one of the upper drawing rooms that had long ago been cleared of furniture. Ginny’s birthday came and went; she was delighted with her scarf, and to the Weasley brothers’ great amusement turned Harry bright red by kissing him on the cheek in thanks.
Three days before the beginning of the new school term, Lupin returned to Grimmauld Place grey and tired, to announce that there had been attacks and reported sightings of the Dark Mark as far as Germany and Bulgaria.
“He’s spreading out “ their numbers are growing,” he said wearily. “He probably doesn’t have the kind of power there that he does in England, but he knows enough to frighten people into believing it.” Fenrir Greyback had been leading the attacks in Bulgaria, and one incident in particular had sparked waves of horror and fear throughout Europe, an attack on a well known Bulgarian wizarding family; the parents had been bitten on the night of the full moon and locked in a room with their three children. In their transformed state, the parents had killed two and bitten the third.
Harry had gone very quiet during the announcement, but when they had a private moment he turned to the other three, a determined light in his eyes.
“We leave tonight.”
*
So far so good. Reviews = love!
Hazel