Chapter Four

Neville was lost in his thoughts.

His own mind was a familiar place for him. He'd spent most of his time with only his thoughts for company for a great deal of his life. It wasn't always comfortable; indeed, his own thoughts had been full of self-pity and self-loathing for several years. But a lot had changed last year. Last year, Neville's replacement had shown up and started the Defense League, and also convinced Neville to reconcile with his teacher and mentor. Neville had started to feel better about the idea that Harry Potter was the one with a destiny when he'd gotten to know him and realised he was as capable as any fifteen-year-old could be of such a task. Neville had been busy helping Harry teach the more inexperienced members of the DL, even going so far as to help them outside of the meetings when they needed more practice, and he'd felt free to see Dumbledore any time he wanted again. Now he'd been asked to be a prefect, as well, and those duties took the place of the DL.

His mind was familiar, but he hadn't spent much time there recently. He'd been busy. He had friends, now. Real ones. Perhaps it was only natural, because they were all prefects, but he'd begun to spend a lot of time with Ron, Ginny, Parvati, and Ernie and Hannah as well. Of course, he wasn't friendly with all the prefects. There were Draco, Blaise, Pansy, and Veronica to consider; the Slytherin prefects were a frightening lot. He sort of felt bad about things with Draco, seeing as he was, technically, a member of the DL. But he'd chosen his own path, and it didn't include anything to do with Neville. He was trying to make good with his own house now, and seemed to be gaining status there.

Neville supposed he ought to count Harry and Hermione in with his friends, despite how much they seemed to keep to themselves. They were so close to one another that they seemed almost self-sufficient. And yet they were always happy to see him, to talk to him, to study with him. Self-sufficient, but not aloof or unapproachable.

Neville had a good life now, even if he hadn't stopped worrying about his role in the struggle against Voldemort. What had him trapped in his mind today was thoughts of the DL. Harry had shown no inclination to start it back up. When Neville had asked him about it privately, Harry had said that since his godfather could now teach without fear of reprisal, they didn't need the DL. He also didn't think he'd have time. Neville found it a sketchy sort of answer. While it was true that Professor Black (who still got called Professor Rivers several times a day by students trying to get used to the idea that their teacher was an infamous character) had much better lessons these days without Umbridge to restrain him, the class was only catching up to what the DL had done. The members of the DL had mastered a few basic non-verbal spells and a lot of the most effective combat spells last year, and they were ready for something more difficult. It was merely an excuse on Harry's part, and his claim that he simply didn't have time was suspicious. He'd managed to lead the DL and plan their lessons last year while simultaneously leading Gryffindor's Quidditch team to win the cup.

Harry was up to something. Neville knew for a fact that he'd begun making regular visits to see Dumbledore, which was the only reason he didn't push Harry for an answer. If it was any of Neville's business, Harry or Dumbledore would have told him. So Neville had to accept that Harry was doing something with Dumbledore that was strictly "Chosen One" stuff. But that still left the DL needing instruction—especially with the tense climate in the halls these days. The prefects had to be particularly capable of breaking up fights. Neville and Ron and Ernie had talked several times about how they might get Harry or even Professor Black to start the DL up again. They hadn't come up with a solution.

Neville thought he had one. He just didn't know how to go about it. Would everyone think he was crazy? Laugh at him? But they needed this. He had to try.

Harry hitched his bag up higher on his shoulder as he mounted the stairs to meet Hermione in the library. Their schedules weren't quite as similar as they had been last year, and the work was harder and took more time, so the two of them had to find time together where they could. Hermione had dropped Care of Magical Creatures, but Harry had thought he ought to continue with it because he wasn't as comfortable as he'd like to be, and that meant they barely saw each other until dinner two days a week.

He heard angry voices on the landing above him. Alert, he shrugged off his bag and drew his wand before he paced up the rest of the staircase. He didn't want to appear too abruptly and alarm anyone, so he made sure his footfalls were loud enough to be heard. But whoever was up there wasn't listening for anyone approaching. It was a couple of bullies picking on a young girl, he thought.

"You aren't afraid of us, are you?" one of the boys laughed.

"We'd never hurt you, would we, Geoff?"

"Course not."

"But the Dark Lord, he goes after families like yours, that's all we're saying."

The girl was crying. "Leave me alone," she whispered. "Give me my bag." Harry recognized the voice of a girl in his own house, though he couldn't recall her name. She had a distinctive high pitch that he'd heard in the common room. He picked out the first spell he would use, if it came to wands, and prepared to defend her.

"Well, which is it? I could give you your bag, or I could leave you alone."

"You heard the girl," came a loud and commanding voice. "Give her back her stuff, and leave her alone."

Harry relaxed. Now there was an ally he could count on.

The bully boys laughed. "Or what, Macmillan?" one of them asked.

"Don't suppose you'd care about house points, would you?" Ernie asked thoughtfully.

"Can't take points if you can't speak," one of them said threateningly.

"Don't go saying things you don't mean," yet another voice spoke up.

Harry halted there, hearing Ron's voice. He decided not to make an appearance, unless for some reason Ernie and Ron couldn't handle it. The less the "Chosen One" came rushing to the rescue, the better. He just waited. He wanted to see how much they'd really learned last year.

"Who says we don't mean it?"

"I really hope you don't mean it," came yet another male voice.

"After all, we wouldn't want to have to report this," said a girl. "Although you'd probably find that a better alternative than us taking care of it ourselves."

Harry almost laughed at the ensuing silence. He'd give anything to see the faces of the two bullies who now found themselves facing Ernie Macmillan, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Ginny Weasley together. He'd be willing to bet that Parvati and Hannah would be along any minute.

"Aw, come on," one of the two bullies said at last. "We were just—"

"Langlock," Neville said in a very mild voice. "We don't like being lied to."

"Look here," Ron spoke up. "We know you were picking on the girl, and we know you're not going to get in a fight with four prefects here in the middle of the hall. So let's call it ten points from Slytherin and we all go on our way, all right?"

The bully who had not been silenced said, "Points for what? We weren't doing anything!"

"You made a girl cry," Ginny said in that low voice that meant danger to Harry only because he'd been on the receiving end of it a time or two. "You really shouldn't do that."

"I can—"

"Langlock," Ron said in the same calm voice as Neville. "You were about to insult a girl, too, and we just can't have that."

"It's really too bad that you're having such a hard time with non-verbals in Black's class," Ernie said in a sympathetic-sounding voice. "Or I'm sure you'd have bested all four of us by now."

"Ten points, and you're lucky we don't make it more," Neville said. "Goodbye."

A brief silence.

"You know, I think we'll leave the spell on you for now, actually. Don't worry, it'll wear off on its own after a few minutes. Until then, I think your silence might do the school some good."

"Ta ta," Ginny added.

A moment later, footsteps retreated up another staircase, and the four remaining friends began to laugh, with a sort of letting go of nervous tension.

"Are you all right, Kimberly?" Ginny asked the younger girl.

"Yes, thank you," she sniffled.

"That could have been much worse than it was," Neville said.

"Ah, there's no way they could have—or would have—done anything to all four of us," Ginny said.

"But when it's seventh-years?" Neville muttered.

"Good point, but until we have a solution to our problem, we just have to stay sharp," Ernie said.

"Gin, let's you and I take Kimberly here back to the common room in case those blokes are hanging around," Ron suggested. "Ernie, you all right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Neville?"

"I'm headed downstairs, anyway, I'll be fine."

"Okay."

They broke up, and when Neville descended, there was Harry standing in the middle of the stairs with his bag discarded behind him and amusement in his eyes. Neville paused for a second, surprised, then made a wry face and came down to meet Harry while Harry stooped to pick up his things and resheath his wand.

"Good work," Harry said, trying not to laugh. "I wouldn't much want to get into a fight with any of you, but the four of you together are pretty unstoppable."

Neville was looking at him with a curious expression, and Harry stopped being amused.

"What is it?"

"Just thinking about what might have happened if it was older students. They're Slytherin, and some of them have learned some pretty Dark spells that we're going to have a tough time with."

"This is about the DL again, isn't it?" Harry asked, realising where Neville's conversation was headed.

Neville's face made it obvious.

"Listen, Neville, it's not that I don't see the need for it. But I really don't have time. Dumbledore and I . . . we're working on something. Something pretty important. Honestly, if there was anyone I'd feel comfortable telling about it, it would be you, but not here and not now."

"I understand," Neville said with a serenity that surprised Harry. Only last year, he'd have been pretty upset about it.

"I'm sorry," Harry said. In truth, he might be able to find the time for once-weekly meetings. But he couldn't put the effort into it that the DL needed at this point, and someone else would be a better choice. There was only one person Harry could think of for the role, but he was waiting for him to realise it for himself.

"Really, Harry, don't apologise. I get that you have other responsibilities now. I was just wondering what you would think . . . I've been thinking about it a lot, thinking about who else might do it. And I wanted to see if it was okay with you, if, um, if I restarted the DL myself."

Neville was half-mumbling by the end, but Harry caught it. He laughed, and clapped Neville on the back.

"I've been hoping you'd figure it out," he grinned.

"What?"

"That you were capable of it. I can't think of anyone better, honestly. I was waiting for you to say something."

Neville was hilariously disconcerted by it. "So you wouldn't mind? I mean, it was your idea to begin with . . ."

Harry pulled from his pocket the item that he'd been keeping there for two weeks, waiting for Neville to make the offer. "Here," he said, flipping it to him.

Neville caught it. "A Galleon?"

"Hermione's charmed Galleon that changes all the other DL coins," Harry said.

"You keep it on you, even with the DL not meeting?"

"Just waiting to give it to you."

Neville clenched his hand around it possessively. "I know I can keep it going maybe until the end of the term, but after that, I'm going to need some help."

"Ask Sirius, and Dumbledore. They'll both have loads of ideas."

He'd have to suggest to Sirius that he sit down with Moody at one of the Order meetings to get some good input on what the DL might focus on. Of course, Sirius would probably figure that out all by himself.

"Oh, here," Harry said, handing over another Galleon. "I took Draco's back, so you don't have to worry about him."

Neville just looked at the coin in Harry's outstretched hand, and shook his head. "Keep it."

"Me? Why?"

"Just in case you find some time to come. Thought you might still want the practice even if you don't want to be in charge."

Harry put it back in his pocket gratefully. Neville knew better than any of the other students what it was like to be where he was right now. He would want the practice. Whether it helped or not, there was always that feeling that one more spell you could learn that meant the difference between surviving and not surviving. If he could hone himself just that little bit more . . .

"I'll come when I can," Harry promised. "See you later, Neville."

"All right, Harry."

"Neville? Thanks."

And without waiting for a response, he hurried up to the library for the study session he was now rather late for.

Harry finished describing what he'd seen (or rather, heard) on the stair landing to Hermione. She had insisted it wait until they were walking to the Gryffindor common room, so they could use their time in the library for actually studying.

"That's wonderful, for Neville. For everyone, I suppose."

"You're still going to go, aren't you, Hermione?" Harry asked her. This was the first it had occured to him to wonder whether or not she would be involved in the DL if he wasn't.

She looked down. "I don't know. I'm already ahead by quite a bit—"

"I think you should," Harry said, discarding the idea of sarcastically remarking on her turning down the opportunity to study more.

"You do?"

"There's no way you can know too much about Defense, especially not now. I'm sure Neville will be asking you to teach him how to make more of the coins soon, he's going to have a lot more takers now that Voldemort is out in the open. I won't always be able to make it to the meetings, but you should go." He knew she still felt overwhelmed by the other students sometimes, but she needed to break away from him a little bit and stop expecting him to act as her go-between to the rest of the school.

Hermione didn't want to discuss it any more, that was obvious. She changed the subject. "I think the way the prefects handled that situation was brilliant. It's nice to see that Ron and Ginny can work together. How many fights did you break up between them last year?"

"A lot." He snorted. "The problem is that Ron needs to get laid and Ginny needs to stop doing it so often. There would be a marked improvement in their personalities."

Hermione slapped at his shoulder. "How can you say that about her? She doesn't just sleep around like that."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "If you say so."

"Besides, give Ron a little time, you know? Sixteen is pretty young, isn't it? I mean, not counting you." Then Hermione turned a suspicious face on him. "Just how many people have you, um, you know?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Six. I think."

Hermione was startled. "You told me about that veela person when you were thirteen. And you said you had a girlfriend in Australia. Six?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, definitely six. Stephanie the Bulgarian veela, then another prostitute in Austria—which was a mistake, by the way—then we moved to Brisbane. I seem to remember two of the obligatory drunk college girls at the college parties, then Anna."

"That's only five," Hermione said suspiciously. "Which means the sixth one is in England."

Harry was turning very, very red. "I was going to tell you soon, so don't be mad that you don't know. I wasn't trying to keep it from you."

Hermione stopped, right in front of the portrait hole into Gryffindor. "It's a student?"

Harry bit his lip, then straightened his shoulders. "This was last year, before you and I started dating."

Hermione was livid. "Was it Ginny? I swear to you, Harry, if it was Ginny—"

"No, it wasn't Ginny. With her, there were too many strings attached. I didn't want to date Ginny, and she at least wants the guy to wine and dine her a little bit—"

That was the wrong thing to say, Harry. That was very much the wrong thing to say. There were bright red flashing warning signs in his head that told him he'd veered off into dangerous territory.

"So you just went with some girl who wasn't worth the effort? Some cheap little—"

"No. No, I did not go for someone who was easy. I just wanted something simple, something with a girl who wasn't looking for a relationship. And there was a girl who was willing for it to be just a one-time thing. But she was a really interesting girl, too. I didn't want just any random girl, it wasn't like that, I actually liked her."

Not helping, Harry. This is not helping. Well, what was he supposed to say about this? He'd planned on just one day coming out with it. Just saying, Hermione, I slept with someone last year, and I wanted you to know about it because you're my girlfriend and I want to be honest with you. That was all. He liked honesty. He was certainly not used to women who wanted an explanation for why he'd slept with someone or needed to know all the details about his past relationships. Were all normal girls like that?

Hermione was standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, looking more disgusted than he'd ever seen her look before. "Just tell me who it was."

"Look, Hermione, I want to be a gentleman about it. It's not that I wouldn't tell you, it's just that she doesn't need a bunch of people pointing at her in the hallway or calling her the Chosen Floozy or something. We both approached this whole thing with a lot of respect for each other—in fact, she's pretty much the only girl at this school who felt the way I did about it. I know I can trust you with it, but just think for a second . . . do you really want to know?"

"Yes, Harry, I really want to know."

"It was Luna."

"Luna Lovegood?" Hermione shrieked, making Harry wince. Oh, god, there were people coming down the hallway, and they had to have heard that. Why, oh, why couldn't they be doing this somewhere else? "She's not even . . . she's weird-looking!"

"I told you, she's interesting and I like her. I should think it would be a point in my favour that I didn't just throw myself at some girl with huge tits, if I wanted that I'd have gone for Lavender Brown—"

"Next on your list, is she?" Hermione huffed.

"No, urgh," Harry said, shuddering, "I can't even carry on a conversation with her, she's got no brains in her head."

Hermione looked stricken, at that. "So, this, you and me, is all about the fact that I have brains in my head? You think I'm interesting and you want to have sex with me, and after you dump me, I suppose you'll go for Professor McGonagall?"

"You're being ridiculous," Harry said hotly. "Not to mention hurtful. I haven't done anything to make you think that."

"Except have six sexual partners by the age of sixteen."

"Oh, so what? How does that suddenly mean that we were never friends and all this time I've spent with you is just so I can get into your knickers? When have I ever acted that way?"

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Want, as you so eloquently put it, to get into my knickers?"

"Well, yeah, eventually. But I can wait. I've told you that. I don't mind that you're not ready for it. I have been totally faithful to you, for your information, because I knew it would be important to you. As soon as we started dating, I stopped thinking about other girls. I am telling you about Luna because you wanted to know, remember? Most of this happened before I even met you."

Hermione's face was streaked with tears, though she didn't really look like she was crying. She just looked lost. "And you didn't think even once that you might, one day, meet a girl who wasn't quite as loose about sex as you? That the girl might feel just the tiniest bit inadequate?"

"Inadequate? Is that what all this is about?" Frustrated, Harry raked both hands through his hair. When he raised his arms, Hermione flinched. Harry forced himself to calm down a little bit. She had a reasonable fear of angry young men with a professed sexual attraction to her. He had to stay cool about this. "Hermione, how many times do I have to say it? You're my best friend as well as someone I feel romantic toward. You have ten times more of my heart than any of those girls did. And if I'd known back then how much it was going to upset the person I was serious about, I probably wouldn't have been quite as free as I was. I'm sorry this came up at such a bad moment. You should have been better prepared to hear it."

"It doesn't matter whether I was prepared," Hermione said, swiping at her damp cheeks. "Even if I knew what I was about to hear, it wouldn't change the fact that I'm not going to be able to make you happy. You can tell me all you want that you're willing to wait until I'm ready, but what if that's still years away? You're just not that kind of guy."

"I think you're selling me just a tad short, aren't you?" he asked angrily.

"And because you're not, you're never going to make me happy, either," she shot back. "We both have a lot of expectations that we can't meet for each other, and I think we should stop this now, before it gets worse. I can't remember the last time I was with you when I wasn't either crying or trying to help you save the world. I don't want that anymore."

"Hermione, stop. If you want me to back off, you can say that, but don't say you don't even want to talk to me anymore."

Hugging her arms around herself, she said, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Then she fled into the portrait hole and disappeared, leaving Harry standing out in the corridor wondering what point in that conversation he should have just bailed out on it and faked a complete memory loss or something. What exactly in hell had just happened?

"Witches," Sirius grunted, sounding amused.

Harry lifted his head from his hands. "What?"

'"Can't live with them, can't hex them," he expounded.

"So you do have some idea what just happened to me?"

"Some idea, yeah," Sirius said.

"Well?"

"It's a classic technique that women employ, Harry. She's obviously got something on her mind that she doesn't know how to share with you, and she's worked herself into thinking it's vital to your relationship and you were five minutes from dumping her. She just wanted to beat you to the punch. It might just be that your rather sordid past scared her, and she was actually afraid that you expect more from her than you do, but it seems to me that she's been doubting herself already for some reason." Sirius gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Have you been pressuring her?"

"No."

"It wouldn't surprise me if you had, you know, and now that I see what it's led to, I'm really sorry that I was so lax when you were younger—"

"Sirius. No. I've done the meaningless sex thing, and Hermione is someone that I want to have a relationship with. How many times do I have to say it, for Merlin's sake? I. Can. Wait. For. Her."

Sirius shrugged. "Just had to ask."

"Sirius, come on. What should I do?"

"Leave her alone."

"No, really. I mean, is she wanting me to chase her, to prove she's important to me, or something?"

"That very well may be. But I want you to listen to me, kiddo. I'm being dead serious, here."

"Okay."

"First of all, I think you ought to let that girl stand on her own for a while. She doesn't have self-esteem like you've got, and just by being yourself, you make her feel inadequate. It doesn't have as much to do with other women as she'd like you to believe. What she needs is some time on her own, to find out what she's capable of."

Harry fidgeted, knowing that he'd been thinking something similar right before their fight. "She's going to find out she's capable of a lot. She might not come back."

Sirius nodded. "I know. That's the other thing I want you to hear. If she doesn't . . . Harry, it might be for the best. Take a good, hard look at the situation you're in. Anyone around you, associated with you, is at the beginning of a dark time in their life. Me, Remus, people like us, we're going to be afraid for our lives for a little while. Voldemort's going to be coming after all of us because we're close to you. You think really hard about whether or not you want Hermione to be involved in that."

"She already made that choice," Harry argued. "She said she knew it was dangerous and she wanted to be part of it."

"I know that. But is that going to help you sleep at night, when she's hurt or killed, that she knew it would be dangerous?"

Harry stared past his godfather into nothing. "No. No, if anything happened to Hermione—or to you, or anyone else I love—I'd feel . . . well, Remus told you how I was when you got hurt at the Ministry fight."

"So you let her go, Harry," Sirius said, a look of pain and regret on his face. "You let her walk away, and you don't try to win her back. You let her walk right into safety that you can't give her, however nominal it may be."

Harry gaped at Sirius. "You're talking about Catalina, aren't you? Sirius, she wanted to stay together?"

"She wanted to come with me," he said with a tiny, lost smile. "I walked away from her. That's why we can't try to find them, Harry, not just because of the danger. It's because she was willing to risk it to stay with me and I told her no. I had to keep her safe, and to do that, I had to break her heart. She won't want me to find her."

Harry thought back to Catalina, to how happy she'd been with Sirius. Thinking about what it must have been like when Sirius refused to let her be with him, when he left her . . .

"You want me to do that to Hermione?"

"Harry, it won't be quite like that. You guys are much younger, and she's the one who is trying to distance herself from you right now. All I'm suggesting is that you ought to make sure she maintains that distance."

Harry thought about what it would feel like if he had to tell Mr. and Mrs. Granger that their one and only child was dead because he'd been selfish and kept her at his side when it was the most dangerous time to be there. And he thought he could force himself to cause Hermione some pain of heart if it meant that she would live through this war.

"I'm sorry," Harry muttered as he stood up.

"Sorry for what?" Sirius asked, rising from the other side of his desk.

"Making you talk about this stuff again."

Sirius smiled. "I love you. If there is anything I have learned in my life that helps you, then it doesn't matter to me if it's hard to talk about. I'm just glad that you made it to age sixteen and you still want to come talk to me."

"After all the places you've been and things you've seen? I'd have to be stupid not to want your advice," Harry said in surprise.

"That's another one of those things you don't seem to understand about people. Kids your age typically decide that it's the adults who are stupid and they're on their own trying to figure out the world with one another for advice."

Harry made a face. "The day I ask the guys in my dormitory for relationship advice is the day you'll see me disemboweled by an angry witch."

"Good to see you're not a total loss," Sirius teased. "Now then: I'm going home for the evening. You may feel free to mope about your break-up, but only after you complete your homework."

Harry shrugged. "It'll be a good distraction, anyway—and an excuse to stay away from everyone who's going to want to know what we were fighting about. Merlin, there'll be an article in the paper about it tomorrow, won't there?"

"Likely. Make sure they take the picture from your good side, would you?"

Harry playfully tossed an inkwell at Sirius as he ducked into the fireplace, but he arrested it with his wand and sent it back to the desk as Sirius waved goodbye.

The man's face had lost so much colour that it was nearly gray, and the quivering throughout his body was making even his lank hair shiver around his face. His eyes, impossibly wide, stared up at the figure before him, so lost in panic that he didn't even blink at the sweat dripping into them.

"Why are you doing this?" he said in a small, hoarse voice.

"You have a daughter, do you not, a thirteen-year-old whelp?"

"What does this have to do with Kimberly?"

"You are a Muggle," the man looming over him hissed. A huge snake was coiling around his feet. "And you sent your Kimberly to school with pureblooded wizards and witches as though she were their equal. You had the audacity to assume she belonged there."

"I don't understand, sir, I'm sorry. It was that Professor at the school, he came and said Kimberly was special, they invited her to come—"

"They, too, shall be dealt with. Your precious daughter, too. But first, you." And the man with gleaming red eyes smiled, as if in anticipation.

If Kimberly's father had known what Voldemort would do, he might have screamed and begged for his life. But Kimberly's father didn't know. He died without a hint of a struggle.

Many miles away, Harry Potter woke up with a vague sense of disturbance. The only explanation he had for it was a feeling that the bullies, that afternoon, had taken something very important from the girl they were tormenting. He rolled over and went back to sleep.