Loveless

Chapter Two
The Wolf at the Door

An hour later, as darkness had fully fallen and their arrival at Hogwarts grew near, the compartment door slid open, and a pale, sniveling face appeared. He seemed shocked for a moment, and he opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing.

"The Weaslette, Potter?" he asked incredulously a moment later.

"Shut it, Malfoy," Harry responded, Ginny scooting over and Harry standing. "And get out."

"Going to make me, are you, Potter?" Malfoy scoffed, "Your mates aren't here; no Mudblood to tell you what to do, no Weasel to back you."

Harry withdrew his wand. He'd looked over the curses in his sixth year Defense texts a few times over the summer. He knew some good ones now. "Where are your mates, Draco? Off with your dad?"

Malfoy smiled a slight smile, "Yeah, actually. They're busy tonight. Say, Potter, where are your mates?" he asked with a wink.

Harry felt the blood fall from his face and Ginny rise beside him. "Get out, Malfoy."

Malfoy pulled out his own wand, holding it on Harry. He smiled at the black-haired boy, and then cast his gaze toward Ginny, sizing her up. "How much do you want for her, Potter? Twenty? Thirty Galleo—?"

"Confringo!" Harry shouted.

The curse rushed at Malfoy and collided into him before he could summon a defense; he was blown against the wall through the open compartment door, smashing into it and sliding down to the ground, motionless. Harry crossed swiftly to the door, slid it shut, turned the latch to lock it, and muttered "Colloportus."

"He'll be fine," Harry said to Ginny's somewhat worried look. "That was just a blasting curse. He'll have a headache for awhile. But nothing permanent." Harry wasn't quite as convinced as he sounded; the blasting curse, though not lethal, was certainly harsher than a simple banishing charm would have been. The great git deserved it, he reminded himself. And he had.

"I think something's happened, Harry," Ginny said a moment later. "The way he said... What if Ron and Hermione didn't just miss the train?" Their mutual assumption had been that their absence was the fault of tardiness, but Malfoy's suggestion had frightened her. It was the old fear; that gnawing, back-of-the-mind sort of fear that she carried with her everywhere, but which she never considered as more than an abstraction. She felt herself before a terror greater than fear. What if they...?

"I'm sure they're fine," Harry soothed as well as he could, an amateur at it still. "We're going to get to Hogwarts and find Ron and Hermione snogging in a broom cupboard," he joked. "I'm sure they'll be there, Ginny; Voldemort wouldn't just attack them out of the blue. Not now, when everyone knows he's back." Even to him, his logic seemed flawed; they sounded like the words he could have said a year earlier, when no one believed he was back. Could Voldemort work in the open now? Now that he had been recognized by the world at large? Harry was ill at ease. "The Order will have seen to their protection."

"Yeah," Ginny said, dejected. "You're probably right." She didn't believe him any more than he did. But a thing spoken is irrevocable, and so she was silent. "I wish we had a way of knowing."

"Yeah. I had thought Dumbledore might've put minders on us too. For protection. We could've gotten information from them." Harry smiled. "But if they could keep silent through what we've been doing..." Harry laughed, "Well, they'd be too good for the Order, anyway."

Ginny smiled, looking up at him. "They could've set off fireworks and I'd not have noticed."

Harry grinned at her and started rubbing her hand with his. "It's a nice feeling." He pressed his lips to the left side of her neck, kissing her from behind. He wanted to recapture their peripheral ignorance. He wanted for them to escape into one another; he wanted her to forget her fears and he his.

He felt Ginny shiver against his kiss and lean back into him softly, and he curled an arm around her waist in response, his hand resting on her stomach.

Harry would have been quite content to sink into the feeling of that moment for an eternity, that blissful ignorance of the passing time and falling sun, but as Hogsmeade grew near, they both feared that to every dream there was an end.

When the train rolled in to Hogsmeade, the first and most unusual thing that Harry and Ginny noticed was the number of red-robed Aurors on the platform. The next thing they noticed, which alarmed them more even than the Aurors, was that Dumbledore stood at the head of them, his wand in his hand, waiting for the train's grinding halt.

"Something's happened," Ginny said, white.

"Or is about to," Harry supplemented.

"Wands out, you reckon?" Harry asked, then shuddered, remembering. And he then very suddenly felt very cold.

He saw Ginny nod, pulling out her wand, and he followed suit, suspecting that the rest of the train probably had the same idea. He looked out the compartment window very nervously, his eyes scanning the crowd of Aurors, half expecting to see Lucius Malfoy's cold eyes staring back at him, a wolf amongst the sheep. But he could not make out the faces well enough to recognize any of them. They could be faced with a crowd of wolves.

Tense, Harry and Ginny put their wands away, clasped hands more tightly than they otherwise might have, and exited their compartment to join the long queue to the exit. A few glances were swept at them by their fellows. Some older students looked in curiosity at their clasped hands, some approving; some students, first years, nudged their friends with their elbows, getting a good glance at the famous Harry Potter for the first time; others looked at Harry like they were awestruck: Harry didn't know it, but the Prophet's hailing him as Savior was now a widespread belief. The first years had spent the last two months hearing about how Harry Potter would save them all. Others, however, were by far more interested in the congregated Aurors and teachers, valuing their safety more than Harry Potter's love life.

"If Michael Corner doesn't put his eyes back in his head," Ginny said in a low voice after a few minutes of being in queue, "I'll keep them."

Harry grinned for a moment, then threw a dirty look Corner's way. He seemed to get the idea. His face reddened somewhat and he then turned away quickly.

Ginny made a disapproving sound and Harry laughed. "Sorry – he keeps his eyes."

As the line grew shorter and Harry and Ginny grew nearer to the one exit, Harry could not help but notice how tense everyone seemed. Despite joking with Ginny, he believed the words of their earlier exchange: Either something had happened or was about to. Had it been only an increased Auror presence at Hogsmeade Station, Harry would not have felt so nervous, but the only thing that would get Dumbledore down to Hogsmeade was an imminent threat. He was unable to see out of the train now, and he reckoned he would rather be able to; the inclusion of a variable at this moment could prove disastrous.

After a few moments, Harry and Ginny, their fingers still laced, had reached what was very nearly the front of the queue; for the first time in several minutes, they could see out of the train. What they saw did nothing to reassure their nerves. The Aurors who had been standing together on the platform earlier were now spread out, wands raised, their eyes trained on spots in the sky, waiting. Standing before them all was Dumbledore, his wand held in his hand and eyes scanning left and right, up and down with some speed. He did not seem nervous, but cautious, rather, and in a way Harry and Ginny had not seen since that day the year before.

They would have held fast forever to his stance of guarded readiness if it would have meant he did not look upon them the way he did when he caught sight of them. A smile unlike any either teenager could recall upon his face, Dumbledore looked at them with something like tragedy behind his spectacles. He moved forward when Harry and Ginny had reached the front of the exit queue and withdrew a timepiece from his robes.

"Hello, Mr. Potter, Ms. Weasley," he greeted without a smile. "I shall have to ask you both wait for me in my office; when I have secured the safety of my students, I shall join you."

"Sir, what's happened? Where are—"

"Please, Ms. Weasley, I shall explain everything in its right place."

Perhaps it was his brevity as much as anything that alarmed them. It was routine for the Headmaster to allow for a response to all he said, from his greeting to his dismissal, and that he denied them these courtesies spoke of an urgency as deep as they'd feared.

Wordlessly, the Headmaster offered the timepiece to Harry and Ginny and, with a tap of his wand, sent them away to Hogwarts' innermost sanctum.

When Harry and Ginny arrived in Dumbledore's office, voices that had been speaking silenced themselves; the portraits on the walls of Headmasters and Mistresses past had several ways of evading questions and suspicion. Some of them, Phineas Nigellus leading the charge, feigned sleep, while others averted their eyes or made loud, ordinary conversation with their neighbors, all in the name of ignorance.

It was not unusual, Harry knew, for the portraits to act like this; it seemed that every time Harry was in this office, the portraits were acting this way. To Ginny he said so.

"Not always," she replied. "I had... well... I had tea with Dumbledore once. They were lovely then."

Harry grinned slightly, honestly at the idea of what to Harry's imagination was a twelve year old Ginny and much-senesced Dumbledore enjoying a spot of tea. Wistfully, however, he reflected that he had never met with Dumbledore under such circumstances.

"I suppose I only ever come here when something horrible's happened." Looking about and seeing nothing to suggest that Dumbledore's office had been half-destroyed just a few months earlier, Harry remarked, "Dumbledore cleans up pretty well; you'd never know this place was in ruins last June."

"Ruins?" asked Ginny, alarmed.

Harry grinned in all honesty now. "I might've smashed a few things, last time I was here."

"Why?"

Now the smile faded from Harry's face, replaced with a look of relative passivity. "It was after the Department of Mysteries. We talked about Sirius... And then he told me about—"

"Yeah," Ginny said softly, stopping him.

"I think I'll have to apologise," Harry said after a moment's silence. He sniffed and looked about. "It wasn't his fault."

Ginny nodded, slipping her hand into his. A small smile flashed across Harry's face for a moment, but neither his heart nor mind were in it. "I suppose I haven't got a great track record, being in this office." Looking up for a few moments at the snoozing Headmasters, he predicted a continuation. "I don't think tonight will change anything."

"I wish he had explained himself. I want to know why we're here." The same question that had plagued their minds earlier, aboard the train, had not been answered; had something happened, or was something still yet to? It was better to know something horrible than to wait, allowing time for their imaginations to dream up something more horrible still.

"Phineas!" Harry called out, his voice raised and directed at Sirius' ancestor. The portrait, however, did not rouse itself from its fake slumber, preferring to avoid any sort of confrontation in favor of continuing to eavesdrop.

"Phineas!" Harry called out again, louder this time. Still the portrait slept.

"Phineas, stop pretending or I'll charm you pink!"

With a loud yawn and a dramatic shudder, Phineas Nigellus allowed himself to depart from his feigned dormancy. He opened his eyes, took one glance at Harry and Ginny, and at once turned up his nose. "Oh," he snarked, "it's you."

"Yeah," Harry snarked back, rolling his eyes and squeezing Ginny's hand slightly, "us. Why are we here?"

Phineas Nigellus scowled. "You are here at the pleasure of the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He gave something of a humph. "You are worth no further explanation."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Will any of you," addressing all portraits, "tell us what's happened, if something's happened, if something is about to?"

Phineas must have gotten upset at no longer being the centre of attention, so it was he who spoke. "Dumbledore has asked us to make no mention of why you are here; he wishes to explain things himself. A request of the Headmaster of Hogwarts always will be honoured by us." Phineas Nigellus glared about the room, enforcing his last. Harry could not help but notice, however, that a number of the looks cast by the portraits at the pair were sympathetic. And aimed at Ginny.

"They won't tell us anything, Harry," Ginny whispered to him.

"I know," he whispered back. "But it was worth a try." He sighed and pulled himself and Ginny onto a double-seated armchair. "If anything happens here, we'll know about it. Hogwarts has a lot of security charms; I reckon at least one of them is an alarm."

And so they sat in silence together, keeping close and counting time as one. They were both nervous, fearful that something horrible had happened. Neither had seen Ron or Hermione on the train, and it was to them that their thoughts immediately went. If something had happened, and the last thing Harry had ever said to them, in a letter no less, was that he was fine, and would they please stop worrying about him... He didn't think he could bear the idea of his last words to them being an annoyed dismissal.

"It can't be them," Ginny whispered to him. "It can't be."

But then, why were they not too sent to the safety of Dumbledore's office? What if it was Neville? Or Luna?

For the first time in his life, Harry Potter wished that something horrible was going to happen.

The door to Dumbledore's office creaked open, the man himself standing in the threshold, looking wearier than Harry had ever seen him, wearier even than he had that night some months earlier. He was not impressive, standing before the door frame; he lacked his usual posture, the customary smile upon his face and in his eyes. It was as they looked upon him, old and unimpressive, that they noticed his charred, blackened right hand.

"Professor!" Harry almost shouted, jumping to his feet, believing the Headmaster's hand the result of some lost battle. "Your hand, sir — what's happened? Is anyone else hurt?"

Stepping into the office proper, Dumbledore reflected that, under different circumstances, he might have laughed. "The school is not under attack, Harry, I assure you; this," he indicated his right hand with his left, "is an older wound."

Dumbledore sighed as he proceeded to cross the room, making his way to the high-backed chair behind his desk. Harry and Ginny sat in silence, relieved by the news that Hogwarts was safe, if disturbed by Dumbledore's deformity, and waited for him to proceed.

When Dumbledore had settled himself into his chair, the ancient Headmaster seemed to tire considerably; as he opened his mouth to explain what he had to, his every muscle seemed to fail. "This morning," he began, "there was an attack." His eyes cast themselves at the surface of his desk, unable or unwilling to look either adolescent in the eyes. "Lord Voldemort believed that you, Harry," Dumbledore still would not meet his eyes, "would be traveling to King's Cross with the Weasley family."

"No." The blood fell from his face, gaping. "No!"

The solemnity of Dumbledore's nod was horrible. "We think Lord Voldemort and as many as a dozen of his Death Eaters were present. There was nothing they could have done."

Ginny, whose hand Harry was holding, was perfectly still. Harry looked at her, his own vision beginning to fail from tears. She was white as death. Her breath was still as the tears began to fall. Harry pulled her face to his chest as her breath began again, her body shaking and wracked with violent, lurching cries.

Holding Ginny's face to his chest, Harry voiced what they both were hoping so hopelessly in a tremulous tone. "Were there... Did anyone...?"

His face fallen, Dumbledore finally looked into Harry's eyes, tear-stained face for tear-stained face. "Not as such."

Harry made a sound, a communication that begged Dumbledore's clarification, but he could not say it. His throat was too constricted for words. "De... Dementors?"

"No. There is one survivor... for the moment." Guessing that Harry would next want to know who, "Ron Weasley is still alive, but... The Healers do not expect him to see tomorrow." Dumbledore sniffed uncharacteristically. "He is at St Mungo's, as are the bodies, should you wish to... to say good-bye."

Ginny nodded into his chest, Harry stroking her hair. "Yeah." They couldn't all be... "Who... how many?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry uneasily. "Twelve. Molly, Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, Percy, and Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Fleur Delacour, Mad-Eye Moody, and Kingsley Shacklebolt."

Whatever blood was left in him fell away. Hermione? The Weasleys? All of them dead. Because Voldemort had thought Harry would be with them. And of course he had thought that. Harry had always gone to King's Cross with them. He would know Harry's usual modus movendi. They had died, all of them, for their mere association to him. Execution by affiliation. They had died because they were friends to him. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who had treated him like a son. Ron and Hermione, his first and closest friends. Mad-Eye Moody, the grizzly Auror who had captured so many Dark Wizards, who had been a kind of second leader to the Order. Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had helped Harry escape being arrested the last year. Bill, who had been dating Fleur Delacour, who had always been Ginny's favorite brother. Charlie, who had saved Norbert all those years ago. Fred and George, whose passion in life had been laughter. And Percy! Percy, who had only weeks before reconciled with his family, who had only weeks earlier made Mrs. Weasley weep with joy at having her whole brood in one piece again. And now there was no one left but Ron, lying in a bed in St Mungo's, to die before the morning, and Ginny, whose entire family had just been wiped out. She was an orphan. She was alone. Oh Ginny...

He wasn't sure when the tears began to fall. He couldn't feel them. But now he was a mess. They were all gone. The Weasleys who had loved him as one of their own. Hermione, whom he'd loved like a sister. Fleur, Kingsley, Moody – all dead. Ginny was alone, and so was he. She was all he had, he all she had.

His face was on fire. All he could do was cling to Ginny. She needed him. And he needed her. He needed to feel that he wasn't alone. And she needed to feel it too. Everything was disintegrating. The room fell away. All that was left was her. She was like him now. An orphan. Completely alone. She was now everything he had never wanted for her to have to be. She was him. No home. No family. He could bear to be alone, at least he thought he could. He had had sixteen years of lovelessness to prepare him. She had always been loved. She had never been alone. And now she was. And from that moment, from then and for ever, one had nothing and no one but the other.