Author's Note: Spot the 'Angel' reference and get a cookie!
Also...everything that I said was going to happen in this chapter? Um,
doesn't. Sorry. Enjoy it anyway!
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Sunrise in Romania dawned so darkly and silently on its inhabitants, that if you weren't looking for it, you were sure to miss it. Rather than the breathtaking palette of pinks and golds streaking the sky, there was a gradual lightening behind the heavy rain clouds that had been hanging overhead for the last week.
Completing the dreary picture was a castle, a stronghold, so huge and ancient that if it hadn't been enchanted with a number of anti-muggle charms, it would have been infested with anthropologist and tourist alike. Which would have been an unfortunate decision on their part, as they might have found themselves face to face with a Peruvian Vipertooth: a dragon with an alarming taste for humans; or a Ukrainian Ironbelly: known to reach a weight of six tons.
The castle was the camp for a team of Magizoologists studying dragons, and at the moment, everyone inside the camp--wizard and dragon alike were sleeping peacefully.
All except for one.
Huddled near the dragon pens was a thin boy with untidy black hair and bright green eyes behind round spectacles. His posture was one of defeat, though his face still betrayed signs of youth.
The dragons had roamed the earth for hundreds of years, the castle had stood in its place for more than an age, yet Harry Potter felt older still.
At the moment, his eyes were fixed on a small mountain of letters on the packed dirt floor of the pens, but he wasn't reading them. He'd already memorized every word.
Dear Harry, Hope you're well. Charlie says that you're really enjoying Romania. Things are just chaos here. Everyone's asking for you, you wouldn't believe some of the letters we've gotten. We all really miss you Harry, we hope you come home soon...
Harry, Congratulations on being made quidditch captain mate. Hermione's got Head Girl, and bloody Malfoy is head boy. What a life. You can bet that prat will be lording it around every chance he gets. That's something to look forward to next term. Anyway, see you soon...
Dear Harry, Seamus's memorial was yesterday, and I really hoped we might see you there, or in Diagon Alley, but Charlie said that you bought everything by owl- order. We can't wait until term starts and we can see you again, I think this is going to be a really good year, of course N.E.W.T.S. will be really difficult, but...
"So...what do you think?" Harry queried dully, his eyes flicking away from the letters. "Are these on the level, Norbert old buddy?"
The Norwegian Ridgeback slowly lifted one massive eyelid long enough to give him a deeply reproachful look, as if to say 'You're disturbing my sleep for this?' before lowering it again in slumber.
"That's what I thought, too." Harry sighed.
He slumped back against the cold stone of the wall, pressing his forehead against it and taking another sip of firewhisky. His summer had been spent half in and out of an alcohol induced stupor, sitting in his room most days and staring for hours at a time at nothing, or hiding out in the dragon pens talking to Norbert, the only person he could stand to be around these days.
Charlie's friends had mercifully refrained from talking to him, and he stayed out of their way as often as possible, usually seeing them only at mealtimes, when there were more pressing matters to discuss-- like the nearby farmers complaining about how many of their cows were disappearing, or the Vipertooth that still tried to kill anyone that got near it.
"They may as well just say 'Dear Harry, we all know you've gone completely crackers since killing Voldemort, although we have no idea why, as you should be really happy about it, and frankly, we're quite bitter about the matter. But we're not going to say anything because we think it would further unhinge you and you'd become a power-maddened fiend and kill us all. Love, the World.'"
His mirthless laugh echoed eerily in the cavernous dragon pen, and he was reminded suddenly and strongly of a church.
*A church for fire-breathing lizards, and a boy who lost his faith before he even realized he had it.*
Harry had only been in a church once, the day he arrived in Romania and had to wait in the small muggle town for someone to pick him up. He'd wandered into every building on the plain street, and finally into a tiny, white building; dustier and more silent than the library at Hogwarts. The stained glass windows threw bright patches of light on the floor that creaked as he moved across it.
Growing up, he knew only that church existed. The Dursleys had always maintained that church wasn't a place for people like him. Although they hadn't attended much either. There was a derogatory term for people like the Dursleys: Chreasters. Those who have the nerve to show their sinning faces only at Christmas and Easter, packing the church, filling the pews and making it difficult for regular, Christ-loving faithful to get seats, thus provoking disdain and resentment. Harry fielded enough disdain and resentment on his own time, and hadn't bothered to argue when they trussed Dudley up in his Sunday best (which actually made him look like a humongous prat, not to mention an Easter egg, Harry thought with no little amount of vindication) and sent Harry off to Mrs.Figg's.
Later, he spent Christmas and Easter at Hogwarts, and it hadn't crossed his mind again.
He wondered idly what day of the year it was, and if the faithful were on their way to churches everywhere to pray for salvation.
*Why pray to a dead man? * He thought bitterly. *I'll save you. It's what I do.*
Years ago, the night of Sirius's murder, a night that was so clear and sharp that it sliced his heart open whenever he thought about it, he remembered Hermione warning him not to go after Sirius--
*"You...this isn't criticism, Harry! But you do...sort of...I mean--don't you think you've got a bit of a--a--saving-people thing?"*
He'd been furious at the time, and now...and now...it didn't seem to matter whether or not he was playing the hero because to everyone else he was the hero, and so he must do a pretty damn good job of pretending.
*You were wrong, Hermione. I AM a saving-people thing. It's my Destiny, capital 'd,' cue the trumpets.*
He glanced back at the letters and felt a cold wave of dread wash over him. In a few hours time he would be on his way back to Hogwarts.
*We miss you. We hope to see you soon. Translated; we hope you haven't gone off the deep end.* "And what a tragedy *that* would be." Harry muttered. He took another swig of firewhisky. "It would have been so much easier for everyone if I had died." he said conversationally to Norbert, leaning closer to the dragon's cage. "If I had somehow managed to get myself killed along with Voldemort." he paused. "Then..." he coughed and rubbed roughly at his temples. His head felt like it was swimming. "They could all mourn me in peace, without the inconvenience of a real person." He let his throbbing head fall into his hands. "I'd probably have a wing named after me at St.Mungos, and they could have their bloody memorial...like for Seamus...I didn't save him...I- " a sob was fiercely trying to get out of his throat be he was just as stubbornly refusing to cry. "And everyone could have got on with their lives. What use am I to anyone now?" He sighed breezily and pulled his cloak tighter around him.
"You know," he continued after another sip of whisky, though he felt his equilibrium leaning dangerously to the left. "Jesus...died for other people's sins." he paused. "But I'm living with mine, and..." He felt his eyes burning, but that could have been from the alcohol.
*And it's so much harder to live. *
Unbidden, a picture of Ginny Weasley came into his mind, the way she had looked at that final moment. Her eyes had looked so huge, so empty, so frightened, and her mouth was open...it had taken him a moment to realize that she was screaming, would have been screaming, had she possessed the air. Not as if he would have been able to hear her. His own screams were too loud in his ears. But her eyes...they had screamed louder than her throat ever could. They had been so empty, and yet brimming over with something...
Something that had touched him. An untainted part of him buried deep below the scar tissue. In the end, he knew, that was what had saved them all. A hidden reservoir of innocence and trust and love and...hope, deep inside him, waiting to be found. And it had almost killed them both.
He had never thanked her.
Then again, no one had ever thanked him, either.
It made him angry only because he then felt as though he hadn't done a thing. It wasn't his life he was risking, and it wasn't even him making the decisions. It was his Destiny.
People had embraced him, wept over him; some people had the nerve to touch his scar as if it were some sort of talisman. They'd even thanked God for him.
And there was that word again.
God.
Religion.
Faith.
His last scrap of faith in humanity, in the world, had been spent defeating the dark lord, and now that it was gone, he had a hard time remembering what it had felt like, and even where it had come from. It was the question that kept him awake at night as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling until his internal clock told him it was morning and he either rolled over and went to sleep, or crept down to the dragon cages for a chat. He never slept at night.
At night, he only thought. And only about one thing. His faith. Where had it come from, and where had it gone?
He'd only ever gotten one answer. "Would you like to hear my theory about me?" Harry asked Norbert. The dragon didn't answer, but then, he was a dragon, and they didn't specifically talk, so much as they tried to eat you. "Well here it is." Harry said. "You see, I thought something came next. Something after Voldemort, something other than Destiny. Voldemort was supposed to die, and it would end, I would be over...this..." he struggled. "Fear." he worried at his lower lip thoughtfully. "This gnawing feeling...like I'm trapped."
At least before, his fear had a name. Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Thingy....and they could all be defeated. Now there was no Voldemort, he had been defeated, and it was almost worse because his fears remained. And he didn't really feel like fighting them anymore.
"We have met our enemy." Harry intoned blandly. "And he is ourselves. Or something. Right, Norbert?"
The dragon slept on indifferently. Harry wanted to lie down next to him and sleep for the next ten years.
Instead, he pointed his wand at the letters on the ground and muttered "Incendio." He felt a sick pleasure course through him at the sight of the flames.
Then he stood up, brushed off his jeans, and headed to the kitchens to scrounge up some breakfast.
Overhead, the rumble of thunder and the distant cry of an Augurey promised rain. Unfortunately, the Boy Who Lived didn't put his faith in promises anymore.
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Like it had been in those last crucial days, everything that was left to be said had been said, and everything that hadn't--unanswered questions, unresolved tensions, secrets darker than most would guess--couldn't be said. So the silence between Ron and Ginny, while not entirely comfortable, also wasn't particularly unusual.
They were sitting on the landing of the main staircase, long legs dangling over the side, through the railing, as they watched the students arrive, like an ocean, wave after wave of people crashing and breaking against each other as the filed into the great hall. "Bet you're glad you came early." Ron said at one point.
"Yeah." Ginny agreed, and they lapsed into silence again. The crowd was alternately loud and soft, as though they were not sure noise was allowed yet. The long silence of the past year was stretching its fingers into this one and taking hold. Ron felt a stab of uneasiness and anguish at the thought, and wished absently that Fred and George were there to drop a bag of dungbombs on the lot of them. Or even that Peeves was there. But the poltergeist had been told under no uncertain circumstances was he to frighten anyone, as everyone was still twitchy, and having stunning spell flying through the air on the first day of term was a very bad idea.
"Do you want to go down for the sorting?" Ginny asked absently
Ron glanced down at the frightened looking first years trailing into the hall in a steady trickle. He could see Professor McGonagall, but couldn't hear what she was saying, though from the familiar look on her face he imagined he didn't really need to, having heard the same speech seven years before.
"Nah." He shrugged. "You can, though."
"No, it's okay."
Silence.
Ron gave his sister a sideways glance. "You should at least go down and eat." This was true. Ginny, who had never been stout, had steadily been losing weight over the summer. The only indication she gave that she had even noticed was to comment once that her shoulders stuck out in a funny way. Her eyes seemed unnaturally large in her face, which looked thinner and more tired than the rest of her, though her skin was still the peaches and cream complexion of her childhood. Hermione had the same tired look, if slightly less pronounced, and she managed to smile sometimes, in between worrying about Harry.
"Uck." Ginny's mouth twisted in disgust.
"What?" Ron queried.
"Oh, it's jus--" she pointed down into the entrance hall. "Malfoy and Parkinson."
Ron glanced in the direction she was pointing and saw Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson standing quite close together, half obscured by the bust of Griselda the Grotesque. Pansy was facing away from them, but they could see Malfoy's face, and to Ron's delight he looked thoroughly annoyed.
"Uck." Ginny said again. "I can't stand girls like her. Or guys like him, for that matter. Why do people like him?"
"Must be his winning personality." Ron answered dryly.
"Oh, Malfoy," Ginny simpered in a mockery of Pansy. "Despite the fact that you're an enormous prat with no sense of decency whatsoever, I believe you're just misunderstood, even if you will plot to kill me behind my back, I just can't resist you, you mysterious hunk!"
Ron smirked.
"I understand. I *am* irresistible to women." Ginny continued, deepening her voice in a dead-on impression of Malfoy's laconic drawl. "You see, I used to be an evil Death Eater, but defeat and the subsequent death of my posse made me, well, you might say impotent. So now I'm just a big fluffy ferret with bad teeth."
Ron raised his eyebrows and chuckled. Ginny probably didn't give a damn about Malfoy or Parkinson, she was continuing to avoid the subject they'd been avoiding all night, the reason they were really up here instead of at the feast. Namely, the conspicuous absence of his best friend. But that was alright, it was nice to hear more than one sentence out of her.
Pansy reached towards Draco, raising her arms, and Ginny drawled "No, not the hair! Never the hair!" Pansy stomped her foot and put her hands on her hips. "But there must be some way I can express my undying love for you." Ginny squeaked before changing back to the deep drawl as she said, "No, brooding and scowling is my job. And trying to scare first years, and prancing around like a humongous poof is truly thanks enough." she laughed a little and then falsetto, "I understand, I have a nephew who's gay, so..." She paused again to quell her giggles and drawled "Say no more! There are still semi-evil deeds to be done. And I'm almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel I like SO much. Quickly, to the Draco-mobile, away!"
They were almost breathless with laughter as Pansy stomped into the great hall, and Malfoy swept out into the gardens.
"No more muggle comics for you, Ginny," a laughing voice said behind them.
Ron looked up. "Hermione! Where've you been?"
"Professor Dumbledore wanted to tell me about Head Girl duties, and actually, Malfoy's supposed to be up there right now. ..argh. I suppose I'd better go chase him down..." she paused. "So...he's not here yet?"
"Who?" Ginny asked. "You-know-who?" "Yes, let's all start calling Harry 'you-know-who', good plan." Ron said sarcastically. "Well he's not here." Ginny told Hermione, ignoring him.
"Oh." she sighed. "Well, I'll just go get Malfoy then."
Ron's face fell, by a fraction of an inch, but Ginny saw it anyway and felt sisterly instincts kick in. She jumped up impulsively. "I'll..." she trailed off. *Wait, what am I doing?*
"I'll do it." she finished with a sigh, shooting Ron a 'you owe me big time' look.
Hermione brightened and Ron grinned at her. "Are you sure?" Hermione said. "I mean--thanks. I just--want to wait for Harry, and--are you sure?"
"Yes." Ginny sighed. * I'm sure I'm going to regret this.*
"Well, tell him the password is Fizzing Whizbees..." Hermione paused, her eyes misting a little. Not that she could be blamed, really, the poor girl had been more than tense the past few months. "Thanks, Ginny."
"It's not a problem." Ginny replied, and with another meaningful look at her brother, she set off after Malfoy.
Ron watched her go as Hermione sat down next to him with a slight sigh. "Thank God." she said. "Honestly, that boy is an absolute nightmare, I can't even believe they let him come back after..." she sighed again, "you know."
Silence closed over them again, but this time it was deafening--there was nothing to distract him, and sitting with Hermione was vastly different than sitting with his sister, there were so many more nuances involved, scent, sound, touch...he shivered slightly.
Hermione opened her mouth, hesitated, and then shut it firmly.
"What?" Ron asked.
"It's--nothing, I just," she hesitated again. "He *is* coming, right? I mean, he wouldn't just...not."
*Yes,* Ron thought. *He would.* "Maybe he missed the train." he replied dutifully.
"Maybe." Hermione bit her lip and looked unconvinced.
"Look," Ron said soothingly. "He'll be here. And if he wasn't coming--he'd owl us or something."
"Yeah, but--" Hermione paused. "He hasn't written all summer. At ALL. Ron, what if something hap-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Ron clamped a hand down over her mouth. "Hermione," he said sternly. "V-Voldemort is dead. Nothing has happened to Harry. He's FINE."
He started to take his hand away, put it back as she began to say "But-"
"He's FINE." Ron repeated, enunciating carefully.
Hermione sighed and nodded, and Ron took his hand off her mouth.
"I just...worry about him."
"I know. Me too." *Sure, let's talk about Harry again, why not? It's all we ever talk about; it's all anyone ever talks about.*
"He seemed so...far away, last year. And when he left, there was still so much to think about, so much to do, that I could ignore it, but now it's like-" her voice broke. "Like there's this...hole...and...he's our best friend, Ron," She swallowed hard against the lump rising in her throat. "What if...what if we just weren't there for him enough...What if he hates us? I couldn't bear it if he hated me!" She started to cry silently.
"Hermione," Ron said soothingly, trying to ignore the fact that she had just voiced his own fears. "Harry does not hate us. He had a rough year. We all did. He needed some time."
"But..." she said in a small voice. "Where is he?"
"On his way here, I assume."
"And if he's not?"
"Then he's in Romania."
"So you think he's not coming back?"
"I didn't SAY that, I-"
At that moment, the door swung open, and a boy tramped in, shaking water out of his hair and looking generally a mess. His glasses were askew, his cloak was trailing haphazardly from his shoulder, but he looked up at them and they saw he was grinning.
Once again the hall was silent, but it wasn't uncomfortable or tense. It was simply complete. And a little reverent, for both parties.
Harry dropped his luggage and climbed the stairs to the landing where they sat. Ron rose to his feet, and helped Hermione up, all three of them grinning stupidly.
"It's not raining." Ron said.
"I came across the lake. I fell in." Harry replied.
And then Hermione shrieked and jumped on him, and it was like they had never been apart, and Ron laughed, the first free, young laugh he had in ages, and wondered whether something this good was too good to last.
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Ginny wasn't entirely sure how she came to be tramping around the rose gardens seeking out Draco Malfoy.
Well, that wasn't exactly true. She knew how--she'd volunteered to go find him, and then followed him out into the gardens.
The question she was really asking was why.
But the roses remained silent and inscrutable, and their simple, untainted beauty served only to disgruntle her further as she stomped down the path, muttering angrily.
"I'll do it, SURE I'll do it. I mean, my day was going pretty well, so of course, right, I must volunteer to have a chat with king ferret. Of course. Why don't I just volunteer to have someone perform an entrails-expelling curse on me?"
She wasn't frightened of Malfoy like most people were, but her dislike of him was intense, coupled with the fact that he looked almost exactly like his father, the man who had once tried to kill her. The only difference between the two, was the delicacy in his features, lent him by his mother, which gave him less of a rigid handsomeness and more of a loping grace that in some lights strikingly reminded her of Sirius Black, which made her like him even less. How dare someone as horrid as Malfoy take on the resemblance of Harry's godfather?
Not to mention the fact that leaving Ron alone with Hermione would probably do her brother no good anyway, he had his tongue and his heart tied in knots over the girl. The only time she saw light in his face was when Hermione was around, though, and Ginny would have given her life to make him happy. So, she knew, would Hermione, even though they didn't talk much anymore. No one talked much anymore. Unless it was about Harry, the only thing that everyone could agree on. She wondered if it was difficult to be a beacon of hope.
The quite startling appearance of Malfoy interrupted Ginny's brooding.
He was sitting on a stone bench and facing away from her, his face tipped towards the moonlight as if he were drinking it in. He seemed wholly out of place among the roses, with their soft colors, he was incongruous and entirely too male for this scene. And, she noted with some satisfaction, he looked nothing like an angel, fallen or otherwise, rather more like a tear in a beautiful piece of silk, or a black streak painted haphazardly across the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Too dark, too solid, too sharp for the ethereal atmosphere of the rose gardens.
She sighed reluctantly. The sooner she got this over with the better. "Malfoy." she said petulantly.
He turned to face her, but as he did, something happened. Everything seemed to flicker in front of her, going out of focus, and sliding back in, but when it did...she wasn't looking at Malfoy sitting on the bench, rather, another boy, in another garden very like the one at Hogwarts, but completely different in a way she couldn't quite explain.
The boy was pale, not quite as pale as Malfoy, with black hair and blacker eyes, rimmed with a soft blue. She knew the face, but not the _expression, and everything had the buzz of unreality about it, as though a very thin veil were covering her senses making it all softer and hazier. The boy wasn't smiling malevolently, smirking, or sneering like she was accustomed to. He looked concerned.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, his voice sounded strange and far away.
Ginny pinched herself hard.
"T-tom?" she stuttered. "What...are...are you...."
Her vision flickered again and she was looking at Malfoy, whose _expression was as baffled as she'd ever seen it. "What are you talking about, Weasley?" he said scathingly.
Ginny rubbed her temples. "Nothing. Hermione wanted me to tell you..."
Malfoy's face blurred and flickered in front of her, like when her father brought home a muggle television set once and spent hours changing channels, the set would flicker for a moment...she closed her eyes, ignoring the stab of pain she felt at the memory of her father. When she opened them again, Tom was standing and moving towards her, his brow furrowed with concern.
"Who's Hermione? Are you sure you're alright?"
"No, I--" Ginny felt very close to tears. "What's happening?" she whimpered.
Tom's face flickered and Malfoy came back into view. He was standing, eyeing her warily as if preparing to run away. "What?" he snapped. "Granger said what? What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing!" she said fiercely, ignoring the pitching, nauseous feeling in her stomach. She swayed slightly and tried to gather her wits. "Hermione said Professor Dumbledore..."
Flicker.
Tom frowned. "Professor Dumbledore? What did he say?"
Ginny stared at him. "Who are you? What's..."
But now it was Malfoy frowning. "Weasley, what ARE you going on about? You look like someone slipped botuber pus in your pumpkin juice, and let me tell you; green is not really your shade."
She glared at him, but realized she really did feel ill...if only the ground would stop moving...
"You look...sick." Tom hedged. "Why don't you sit..." She flumped onto the hard flagstones, "down?"
Malfoy peered down at her. "Are you drunk?"
"No, I just...." she blinked and stared at the ground, ordering it still. "I'm....supposed to tell you..."
She looked up to see Tom's worried face. "Tell me what? Are you feeling all right?"
"Fine." she answered automatically.
"Tell me what?" Malfoy wanted to know.
"Professor Dumbledore--to see you." Ginny gasped.
Tom held out a hand to help her up. "About what?"
Ginny took Malfoy's hand and stood shakily. "You helped me up."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows.
"But...you hate me."
Tom looked hurt. "Of course I don't, what are you talking about? I-"
"-don't think much about you, Weasley." Malfoy sneered.
She glared at him suspiciously and he gave her a wolfish grin. "And after all," Malfoy's lips moved, but Tom's voice came out, and Tom's eyes looked at her. "I am a gentleman."
Ginny snatched her hand away from him and clapped it over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She backed away quickly, gasping out "Fizzing Whizbees," before turning and running full tilt back to the castle.
Draco stared after her, frowning.
"Fizzing Whizbees?"
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Next Chapter: Blaise is broody, Harry has a bad dream, and in case you were wondering about Ginny's hallucinations...well, in that case you're out of luck, actually.
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Sunrise in Romania dawned so darkly and silently on its inhabitants, that if you weren't looking for it, you were sure to miss it. Rather than the breathtaking palette of pinks and golds streaking the sky, there was a gradual lightening behind the heavy rain clouds that had been hanging overhead for the last week.
Completing the dreary picture was a castle, a stronghold, so huge and ancient that if it hadn't been enchanted with a number of anti-muggle charms, it would have been infested with anthropologist and tourist alike. Which would have been an unfortunate decision on their part, as they might have found themselves face to face with a Peruvian Vipertooth: a dragon with an alarming taste for humans; or a Ukrainian Ironbelly: known to reach a weight of six tons.
The castle was the camp for a team of Magizoologists studying dragons, and at the moment, everyone inside the camp--wizard and dragon alike were sleeping peacefully.
All except for one.
Huddled near the dragon pens was a thin boy with untidy black hair and bright green eyes behind round spectacles. His posture was one of defeat, though his face still betrayed signs of youth.
The dragons had roamed the earth for hundreds of years, the castle had stood in its place for more than an age, yet Harry Potter felt older still.
At the moment, his eyes were fixed on a small mountain of letters on the packed dirt floor of the pens, but he wasn't reading them. He'd already memorized every word.
Dear Harry, Hope you're well. Charlie says that you're really enjoying Romania. Things are just chaos here. Everyone's asking for you, you wouldn't believe some of the letters we've gotten. We all really miss you Harry, we hope you come home soon...
Harry, Congratulations on being made quidditch captain mate. Hermione's got Head Girl, and bloody Malfoy is head boy. What a life. You can bet that prat will be lording it around every chance he gets. That's something to look forward to next term. Anyway, see you soon...
Dear Harry, Seamus's memorial was yesterday, and I really hoped we might see you there, or in Diagon Alley, but Charlie said that you bought everything by owl- order. We can't wait until term starts and we can see you again, I think this is going to be a really good year, of course N.E.W.T.S. will be really difficult, but...
"So...what do you think?" Harry queried dully, his eyes flicking away from the letters. "Are these on the level, Norbert old buddy?"
The Norwegian Ridgeback slowly lifted one massive eyelid long enough to give him a deeply reproachful look, as if to say 'You're disturbing my sleep for this?' before lowering it again in slumber.
"That's what I thought, too." Harry sighed.
He slumped back against the cold stone of the wall, pressing his forehead against it and taking another sip of firewhisky. His summer had been spent half in and out of an alcohol induced stupor, sitting in his room most days and staring for hours at a time at nothing, or hiding out in the dragon pens talking to Norbert, the only person he could stand to be around these days.
Charlie's friends had mercifully refrained from talking to him, and he stayed out of their way as often as possible, usually seeing them only at mealtimes, when there were more pressing matters to discuss-- like the nearby farmers complaining about how many of their cows were disappearing, or the Vipertooth that still tried to kill anyone that got near it.
"They may as well just say 'Dear Harry, we all know you've gone completely crackers since killing Voldemort, although we have no idea why, as you should be really happy about it, and frankly, we're quite bitter about the matter. But we're not going to say anything because we think it would further unhinge you and you'd become a power-maddened fiend and kill us all. Love, the World.'"
His mirthless laugh echoed eerily in the cavernous dragon pen, and he was reminded suddenly and strongly of a church.
*A church for fire-breathing lizards, and a boy who lost his faith before he even realized he had it.*
Harry had only been in a church once, the day he arrived in Romania and had to wait in the small muggle town for someone to pick him up. He'd wandered into every building on the plain street, and finally into a tiny, white building; dustier and more silent than the library at Hogwarts. The stained glass windows threw bright patches of light on the floor that creaked as he moved across it.
Growing up, he knew only that church existed. The Dursleys had always maintained that church wasn't a place for people like him. Although they hadn't attended much either. There was a derogatory term for people like the Dursleys: Chreasters. Those who have the nerve to show their sinning faces only at Christmas and Easter, packing the church, filling the pews and making it difficult for regular, Christ-loving faithful to get seats, thus provoking disdain and resentment. Harry fielded enough disdain and resentment on his own time, and hadn't bothered to argue when they trussed Dudley up in his Sunday best (which actually made him look like a humongous prat, not to mention an Easter egg, Harry thought with no little amount of vindication) and sent Harry off to Mrs.Figg's.
Later, he spent Christmas and Easter at Hogwarts, and it hadn't crossed his mind again.
He wondered idly what day of the year it was, and if the faithful were on their way to churches everywhere to pray for salvation.
*Why pray to a dead man? * He thought bitterly. *I'll save you. It's what I do.*
Years ago, the night of Sirius's murder, a night that was so clear and sharp that it sliced his heart open whenever he thought about it, he remembered Hermione warning him not to go after Sirius--
*"You...this isn't criticism, Harry! But you do...sort of...I mean--don't you think you've got a bit of a--a--saving-people thing?"*
He'd been furious at the time, and now...and now...it didn't seem to matter whether or not he was playing the hero because to everyone else he was the hero, and so he must do a pretty damn good job of pretending.
*You were wrong, Hermione. I AM a saving-people thing. It's my Destiny, capital 'd,' cue the trumpets.*
He glanced back at the letters and felt a cold wave of dread wash over him. In a few hours time he would be on his way back to Hogwarts.
*We miss you. We hope to see you soon. Translated; we hope you haven't gone off the deep end.* "And what a tragedy *that* would be." Harry muttered. He took another swig of firewhisky. "It would have been so much easier for everyone if I had died." he said conversationally to Norbert, leaning closer to the dragon's cage. "If I had somehow managed to get myself killed along with Voldemort." he paused. "Then..." he coughed and rubbed roughly at his temples. His head felt like it was swimming. "They could all mourn me in peace, without the inconvenience of a real person." He let his throbbing head fall into his hands. "I'd probably have a wing named after me at St.Mungos, and they could have their bloody memorial...like for Seamus...I didn't save him...I- " a sob was fiercely trying to get out of his throat be he was just as stubbornly refusing to cry. "And everyone could have got on with their lives. What use am I to anyone now?" He sighed breezily and pulled his cloak tighter around him.
"You know," he continued after another sip of whisky, though he felt his equilibrium leaning dangerously to the left. "Jesus...died for other people's sins." he paused. "But I'm living with mine, and..." He felt his eyes burning, but that could have been from the alcohol.
*And it's so much harder to live. *
Unbidden, a picture of Ginny Weasley came into his mind, the way she had looked at that final moment. Her eyes had looked so huge, so empty, so frightened, and her mouth was open...it had taken him a moment to realize that she was screaming, would have been screaming, had she possessed the air. Not as if he would have been able to hear her. His own screams were too loud in his ears. But her eyes...they had screamed louder than her throat ever could. They had been so empty, and yet brimming over with something...
Something that had touched him. An untainted part of him buried deep below the scar tissue. In the end, he knew, that was what had saved them all. A hidden reservoir of innocence and trust and love and...hope, deep inside him, waiting to be found. And it had almost killed them both.
He had never thanked her.
Then again, no one had ever thanked him, either.
It made him angry only because he then felt as though he hadn't done a thing. It wasn't his life he was risking, and it wasn't even him making the decisions. It was his Destiny.
People had embraced him, wept over him; some people had the nerve to touch his scar as if it were some sort of talisman. They'd even thanked God for him.
And there was that word again.
God.
Religion.
Faith.
His last scrap of faith in humanity, in the world, had been spent defeating the dark lord, and now that it was gone, he had a hard time remembering what it had felt like, and even where it had come from. It was the question that kept him awake at night as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling until his internal clock told him it was morning and he either rolled over and went to sleep, or crept down to the dragon cages for a chat. He never slept at night.
At night, he only thought. And only about one thing. His faith. Where had it come from, and where had it gone?
He'd only ever gotten one answer. "Would you like to hear my theory about me?" Harry asked Norbert. The dragon didn't answer, but then, he was a dragon, and they didn't specifically talk, so much as they tried to eat you. "Well here it is." Harry said. "You see, I thought something came next. Something after Voldemort, something other than Destiny. Voldemort was supposed to die, and it would end, I would be over...this..." he struggled. "Fear." he worried at his lower lip thoughtfully. "This gnawing feeling...like I'm trapped."
At least before, his fear had a name. Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Thingy....and they could all be defeated. Now there was no Voldemort, he had been defeated, and it was almost worse because his fears remained. And he didn't really feel like fighting them anymore.
"We have met our enemy." Harry intoned blandly. "And he is ourselves. Or something. Right, Norbert?"
The dragon slept on indifferently. Harry wanted to lie down next to him and sleep for the next ten years.
Instead, he pointed his wand at the letters on the ground and muttered "Incendio." He felt a sick pleasure course through him at the sight of the flames.
Then he stood up, brushed off his jeans, and headed to the kitchens to scrounge up some breakfast.
Overhead, the rumble of thunder and the distant cry of an Augurey promised rain. Unfortunately, the Boy Who Lived didn't put his faith in promises anymore.
____________________________________________________________________________ ______
Like it had been in those last crucial days, everything that was left to be said had been said, and everything that hadn't--unanswered questions, unresolved tensions, secrets darker than most would guess--couldn't be said. So the silence between Ron and Ginny, while not entirely comfortable, also wasn't particularly unusual.
They were sitting on the landing of the main staircase, long legs dangling over the side, through the railing, as they watched the students arrive, like an ocean, wave after wave of people crashing and breaking against each other as the filed into the great hall. "Bet you're glad you came early." Ron said at one point.
"Yeah." Ginny agreed, and they lapsed into silence again. The crowd was alternately loud and soft, as though they were not sure noise was allowed yet. The long silence of the past year was stretching its fingers into this one and taking hold. Ron felt a stab of uneasiness and anguish at the thought, and wished absently that Fred and George were there to drop a bag of dungbombs on the lot of them. Or even that Peeves was there. But the poltergeist had been told under no uncertain circumstances was he to frighten anyone, as everyone was still twitchy, and having stunning spell flying through the air on the first day of term was a very bad idea.
"Do you want to go down for the sorting?" Ginny asked absently
Ron glanced down at the frightened looking first years trailing into the hall in a steady trickle. He could see Professor McGonagall, but couldn't hear what she was saying, though from the familiar look on her face he imagined he didn't really need to, having heard the same speech seven years before.
"Nah." He shrugged. "You can, though."
"No, it's okay."
Silence.
Ron gave his sister a sideways glance. "You should at least go down and eat." This was true. Ginny, who had never been stout, had steadily been losing weight over the summer. The only indication she gave that she had even noticed was to comment once that her shoulders stuck out in a funny way. Her eyes seemed unnaturally large in her face, which looked thinner and more tired than the rest of her, though her skin was still the peaches and cream complexion of her childhood. Hermione had the same tired look, if slightly less pronounced, and she managed to smile sometimes, in between worrying about Harry.
"Uck." Ginny's mouth twisted in disgust.
"What?" Ron queried.
"Oh, it's jus--" she pointed down into the entrance hall. "Malfoy and Parkinson."
Ron glanced in the direction she was pointing and saw Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson standing quite close together, half obscured by the bust of Griselda the Grotesque. Pansy was facing away from them, but they could see Malfoy's face, and to Ron's delight he looked thoroughly annoyed.
"Uck." Ginny said again. "I can't stand girls like her. Or guys like him, for that matter. Why do people like him?"
"Must be his winning personality." Ron answered dryly.
"Oh, Malfoy," Ginny simpered in a mockery of Pansy. "Despite the fact that you're an enormous prat with no sense of decency whatsoever, I believe you're just misunderstood, even if you will plot to kill me behind my back, I just can't resist you, you mysterious hunk!"
Ron smirked.
"I understand. I *am* irresistible to women." Ginny continued, deepening her voice in a dead-on impression of Malfoy's laconic drawl. "You see, I used to be an evil Death Eater, but defeat and the subsequent death of my posse made me, well, you might say impotent. So now I'm just a big fluffy ferret with bad teeth."
Ron raised his eyebrows and chuckled. Ginny probably didn't give a damn about Malfoy or Parkinson, she was continuing to avoid the subject they'd been avoiding all night, the reason they were really up here instead of at the feast. Namely, the conspicuous absence of his best friend. But that was alright, it was nice to hear more than one sentence out of her.
Pansy reached towards Draco, raising her arms, and Ginny drawled "No, not the hair! Never the hair!" Pansy stomped her foot and put her hands on her hips. "But there must be some way I can express my undying love for you." Ginny squeaked before changing back to the deep drawl as she said, "No, brooding and scowling is my job. And trying to scare first years, and prancing around like a humongous poof is truly thanks enough." she laughed a little and then falsetto, "I understand, I have a nephew who's gay, so..." She paused again to quell her giggles and drawled "Say no more! There are still semi-evil deeds to be done. And I'm almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel I like SO much. Quickly, to the Draco-mobile, away!"
They were almost breathless with laughter as Pansy stomped into the great hall, and Malfoy swept out into the gardens.
"No more muggle comics for you, Ginny," a laughing voice said behind them.
Ron looked up. "Hermione! Where've you been?"
"Professor Dumbledore wanted to tell me about Head Girl duties, and actually, Malfoy's supposed to be up there right now. ..argh. I suppose I'd better go chase him down..." she paused. "So...he's not here yet?"
"Who?" Ginny asked. "You-know-who?" "Yes, let's all start calling Harry 'you-know-who', good plan." Ron said sarcastically. "Well he's not here." Ginny told Hermione, ignoring him.
"Oh." she sighed. "Well, I'll just go get Malfoy then."
Ron's face fell, by a fraction of an inch, but Ginny saw it anyway and felt sisterly instincts kick in. She jumped up impulsively. "I'll..." she trailed off. *Wait, what am I doing?*
"I'll do it." she finished with a sigh, shooting Ron a 'you owe me big time' look.
Hermione brightened and Ron grinned at her. "Are you sure?" Hermione said. "I mean--thanks. I just--want to wait for Harry, and--are you sure?"
"Yes." Ginny sighed. * I'm sure I'm going to regret this.*
"Well, tell him the password is Fizzing Whizbees..." Hermione paused, her eyes misting a little. Not that she could be blamed, really, the poor girl had been more than tense the past few months. "Thanks, Ginny."
"It's not a problem." Ginny replied, and with another meaningful look at her brother, she set off after Malfoy.
Ron watched her go as Hermione sat down next to him with a slight sigh. "Thank God." she said. "Honestly, that boy is an absolute nightmare, I can't even believe they let him come back after..." she sighed again, "you know."
Silence closed over them again, but this time it was deafening--there was nothing to distract him, and sitting with Hermione was vastly different than sitting with his sister, there were so many more nuances involved, scent, sound, touch...he shivered slightly.
Hermione opened her mouth, hesitated, and then shut it firmly.
"What?" Ron asked.
"It's--nothing, I just," she hesitated again. "He *is* coming, right? I mean, he wouldn't just...not."
*Yes,* Ron thought. *He would.* "Maybe he missed the train." he replied dutifully.
"Maybe." Hermione bit her lip and looked unconvinced.
"Look," Ron said soothingly. "He'll be here. And if he wasn't coming--he'd owl us or something."
"Yeah, but--" Hermione paused. "He hasn't written all summer. At ALL. Ron, what if something hap-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Ron clamped a hand down over her mouth. "Hermione," he said sternly. "V-Voldemort is dead. Nothing has happened to Harry. He's FINE."
He started to take his hand away, put it back as she began to say "But-"
"He's FINE." Ron repeated, enunciating carefully.
Hermione sighed and nodded, and Ron took his hand off her mouth.
"I just...worry about him."
"I know. Me too." *Sure, let's talk about Harry again, why not? It's all we ever talk about; it's all anyone ever talks about.*
"He seemed so...far away, last year. And when he left, there was still so much to think about, so much to do, that I could ignore it, but now it's like-" her voice broke. "Like there's this...hole...and...he's our best friend, Ron," She swallowed hard against the lump rising in her throat. "What if...what if we just weren't there for him enough...What if he hates us? I couldn't bear it if he hated me!" She started to cry silently.
"Hermione," Ron said soothingly, trying to ignore the fact that she had just voiced his own fears. "Harry does not hate us. He had a rough year. We all did. He needed some time."
"But..." she said in a small voice. "Where is he?"
"On his way here, I assume."
"And if he's not?"
"Then he's in Romania."
"So you think he's not coming back?"
"I didn't SAY that, I-"
At that moment, the door swung open, and a boy tramped in, shaking water out of his hair and looking generally a mess. His glasses were askew, his cloak was trailing haphazardly from his shoulder, but he looked up at them and they saw he was grinning.
Once again the hall was silent, but it wasn't uncomfortable or tense. It was simply complete. And a little reverent, for both parties.
Harry dropped his luggage and climbed the stairs to the landing where they sat. Ron rose to his feet, and helped Hermione up, all three of them grinning stupidly.
"It's not raining." Ron said.
"I came across the lake. I fell in." Harry replied.
And then Hermione shrieked and jumped on him, and it was like they had never been apart, and Ron laughed, the first free, young laugh he had in ages, and wondered whether something this good was too good to last.
____________________________________________________________________________ ______
Ginny wasn't entirely sure how she came to be tramping around the rose gardens seeking out Draco Malfoy.
Well, that wasn't exactly true. She knew how--she'd volunteered to go find him, and then followed him out into the gardens.
The question she was really asking was why.
But the roses remained silent and inscrutable, and their simple, untainted beauty served only to disgruntle her further as she stomped down the path, muttering angrily.
"I'll do it, SURE I'll do it. I mean, my day was going pretty well, so of course, right, I must volunteer to have a chat with king ferret. Of course. Why don't I just volunteer to have someone perform an entrails-expelling curse on me?"
She wasn't frightened of Malfoy like most people were, but her dislike of him was intense, coupled with the fact that he looked almost exactly like his father, the man who had once tried to kill her. The only difference between the two, was the delicacy in his features, lent him by his mother, which gave him less of a rigid handsomeness and more of a loping grace that in some lights strikingly reminded her of Sirius Black, which made her like him even less. How dare someone as horrid as Malfoy take on the resemblance of Harry's godfather?
Not to mention the fact that leaving Ron alone with Hermione would probably do her brother no good anyway, he had his tongue and his heart tied in knots over the girl. The only time she saw light in his face was when Hermione was around, though, and Ginny would have given her life to make him happy. So, she knew, would Hermione, even though they didn't talk much anymore. No one talked much anymore. Unless it was about Harry, the only thing that everyone could agree on. She wondered if it was difficult to be a beacon of hope.
The quite startling appearance of Malfoy interrupted Ginny's brooding.
He was sitting on a stone bench and facing away from her, his face tipped towards the moonlight as if he were drinking it in. He seemed wholly out of place among the roses, with their soft colors, he was incongruous and entirely too male for this scene. And, she noted with some satisfaction, he looked nothing like an angel, fallen or otherwise, rather more like a tear in a beautiful piece of silk, or a black streak painted haphazardly across the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Too dark, too solid, too sharp for the ethereal atmosphere of the rose gardens.
She sighed reluctantly. The sooner she got this over with the better. "Malfoy." she said petulantly.
He turned to face her, but as he did, something happened. Everything seemed to flicker in front of her, going out of focus, and sliding back in, but when it did...she wasn't looking at Malfoy sitting on the bench, rather, another boy, in another garden very like the one at Hogwarts, but completely different in a way she couldn't quite explain.
The boy was pale, not quite as pale as Malfoy, with black hair and blacker eyes, rimmed with a soft blue. She knew the face, but not the _expression, and everything had the buzz of unreality about it, as though a very thin veil were covering her senses making it all softer and hazier. The boy wasn't smiling malevolently, smirking, or sneering like she was accustomed to. He looked concerned.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, his voice sounded strange and far away.
Ginny pinched herself hard.
"T-tom?" she stuttered. "What...are...are you...."
Her vision flickered again and she was looking at Malfoy, whose _expression was as baffled as she'd ever seen it. "What are you talking about, Weasley?" he said scathingly.
Ginny rubbed her temples. "Nothing. Hermione wanted me to tell you..."
Malfoy's face blurred and flickered in front of her, like when her father brought home a muggle television set once and spent hours changing channels, the set would flicker for a moment...she closed her eyes, ignoring the stab of pain she felt at the memory of her father. When she opened them again, Tom was standing and moving towards her, his brow furrowed with concern.
"Who's Hermione? Are you sure you're alright?"
"No, I--" Ginny felt very close to tears. "What's happening?" she whimpered.
Tom's face flickered and Malfoy came back into view. He was standing, eyeing her warily as if preparing to run away. "What?" he snapped. "Granger said what? What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing!" she said fiercely, ignoring the pitching, nauseous feeling in her stomach. She swayed slightly and tried to gather her wits. "Hermione said Professor Dumbledore..."
Flicker.
Tom frowned. "Professor Dumbledore? What did he say?"
Ginny stared at him. "Who are you? What's..."
But now it was Malfoy frowning. "Weasley, what ARE you going on about? You look like someone slipped botuber pus in your pumpkin juice, and let me tell you; green is not really your shade."
She glared at him, but realized she really did feel ill...if only the ground would stop moving...
"You look...sick." Tom hedged. "Why don't you sit..." She flumped onto the hard flagstones, "down?"
Malfoy peered down at her. "Are you drunk?"
"No, I just...." she blinked and stared at the ground, ordering it still. "I'm....supposed to tell you..."
She looked up to see Tom's worried face. "Tell me what? Are you feeling all right?"
"Fine." she answered automatically.
"Tell me what?" Malfoy wanted to know.
"Professor Dumbledore--to see you." Ginny gasped.
Tom held out a hand to help her up. "About what?"
Ginny took Malfoy's hand and stood shakily. "You helped me up."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows.
"But...you hate me."
Tom looked hurt. "Of course I don't, what are you talking about? I-"
"-don't think much about you, Weasley." Malfoy sneered.
She glared at him suspiciously and he gave her a wolfish grin. "And after all," Malfoy's lips moved, but Tom's voice came out, and Tom's eyes looked at her. "I am a gentleman."
Ginny snatched her hand away from him and clapped it over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She backed away quickly, gasping out "Fizzing Whizbees," before turning and running full tilt back to the castle.
Draco stared after her, frowning.
"Fizzing Whizbees?"
____________________________________________________________________________ _____
Next Chapter: Blaise is broody, Harry has a bad dream, and in case you were wondering about Ginny's hallucinations...well, in that case you're out of luck, actually.