"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
Harry tossed and turned in his bed, consumed within dreams, as he heard the unmistakeable sound of a body hitting the floor, and felt his one-year-old self being lowered into his crib. Just as quickly, the scene shifted to Malfoy Manor, as he and Ron listened to Hermione's tortured screams; then, it was the graveyard, and he was screaming this time, as Cedric Diggory's body slumped and hit the floor; now, his mind was conjuring images of its own, not memories, as he imagined the grizzled, smirking face of Antonin Dolohov over Lupin's body. He yelled again, and then became aware of voices, drifting in and out of his vision, familiar voices.
"Harry..." he shuddered, as Fred Weasley's voice reached his ears.
"Harry..." called Lupin, an ethereal hand reaching out, grasping at his own, grasping at life.
"Harry..." came the voices; Moody, Tonks, Colin, Cedric, and even Albus Dumbledore...
"HARRY!" shouted another voice.
With a jolt, he awoke, and realised that the calls had been from another, very real voice. Neville Longbottom was stood anxiously over Harry's bed, looking very nervous and slightly scared. Only now did Harry realise his twisting and turning had left the sheets contorted, coiled around in an odd shape, and drenched in sweat.
"I... Neville? Where am I?" he said, stupidly.
"The dormitory... your bed?"
"Oh... right."
"Harry, are you alright? I came up from the common room and you were screaming..."
"Bad dreams," he muttered, and to his surprise, Neville nodded sagely.
"Tell me about it... Anyway, it's almost lunch, Ginny's waiting for you."
"Right," Harry said, grunting, and extricating himself from the tangled sheets, "Tell her I'll be down in a minute."
As Neville nodded, and made for the door, another little voice in Harry's head chimed up, and words seemed to escape his lips free of his own volition.
"Neville? Don't mention this to her. She'll only worry."
Neville nodded uncertainly, but nodded nonetheless. As he disappeared from sight, Harry checked the battered old watch of Fabian Prewett, and found that it was almost midday. With a sigh, he crossed the dormitory to the bathroom door, and went for a shower.
Half an hour later, when he emerged, Ginny had left the common room, apparently tired of waiting. Slowly, still trying to push the night's voices out of his head, he headed for the Great Hall. When he arrived, he found Molly, Ron, Bill, Fleur, Charlie and Ginny Weasley grouped together, along with Hermione, Neville and Luna. Anxious to avoid questions about his absence, he sat down at the very end, next to Bill, who nodded to him and began to load a plate with roast beef and chicken, before handing it to Harry. As Harry tore gratefully into the food, Mrs Weasley seemed to notice him for the first time.
"Ah, Harry, dear. Sleep well?" He nodded and gulped down a mouthful of food, as Neville shot him a sympathetic glance, and shrugged.
"Shouldn't we tell Harry what we've planned so far?" Neville said, and Harry was grateful to him for changing the subject.
"Yes, yes, of course," Molly muttered, and then continued, "Ron said you all needed to visit Diagon Alley, so we thought we'd all go tomorrow. The only problem is getting there... I can Apparate with one person side-along, so can Bill, Charlie, and Fleur, but we'd have to make two or three trips..."
"Actually," Hermione said, quietly, "I've got my Apparition license too, and all three of us were Apparating to get around last year."
"What?" Molly said, apparently surprised – Harry didn't know how else she imagined they'd been getting around – and staring from Harry to Ron. "Without your license?"
"Apparate without a license, or get done in by You-Know-Who. Tough choice," Ron admonished, and Molly looked rather taken aback.
"Well... I suppose we could risk a couple of unlicensed trips. I imagine Kingsley's guessed you could Apparate already, how else could you have been getting around?" she muttered, as though thinking it through for herself for the first time. Ron looked like he wanted to mention the dragon, but Hermione shot him a warning glare, and he stayed silent. "So, that just leaves Neville, Ginny and Luna to go by Side-Along. I can take Ginny..."
"We'll take Neville and Luna," Bill volunteered, nodding to himself and Fleur, "You want to go to Gringotts, right?"
"Yeah," Neville nodded.
"Best if I go with you then. The goblins aren't in too good a mood these days. Something about a break-in," he muttered, looking pointedly at Ron, Hermione and Harry in turn.
"Well then, it's settled. We'll go tomorrow morning. Does ten o'clock sound alright to everyone?" Mrs Weasley asked, and everyone nodded vague assent. Something was bothering Harry's still rather sleepy mind, though. Throughout the entire meal, Ginny had hardly looked at him once, even when he arrived in the hall so long after everyone else. As they walked out of the hall, she didn't leave with him, but stayed behind with her mother, while he left with Ron and Hermione. For once, however, he voiced his fears to them, and received incredulous stares in response.
"Harry, you can be really thick sometimes, you know that?" Hermione said.
"Thank goodness, I thought it was just me," Ron muttered, but was silenced with a glare.
"She's acting like there's nothing going on so Molly doesn't get suspicious," she continued, speaking very slowly, as if to a small child.
"Can you blame her?" Ron added.
"Oh... yeah, I think you're right," Harry murmured, realising he had blown the whole thing out of proportion, and wondering how many other times in his past he could have dispelled his worries if he'd only talked about them.
"Of course we're right. She's totally smitten with you, Harry, that isn't just going to stop," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.
Sure enough, twenty minutes after they got back to the common room and curled up in the armchairs by the fire, Ginny returned, muttered something about an "escape", and kissed Harry on the cheek, drawing up a chair to join them. With his nerves calmed, Harry began to chat away once more, trying to forget his dreams. He didn't mention them to Ron or Hermione, because he knew they would do exactly what Ginny had done the day before – sympathise and patronise and assure him it wasn't his fault.
The weather seemed to be reflecting Harry's innermost thoughts – steel-grey clouds had been rolling across the sky at lunch, and as the afternoon wore on, the heavens opened, and the castle was pelted with rain and hailstones.
Ron had noticed Harry's attempts to appear cheerful, and had guessed why he was putting up the pretence. He'd seen it countless times before – most clearly, he thought, in the weeks after Sirius' death. Harry was feeling guilty, and it didn't take a genius to work out what he was feeling guilty about. Nonetheless, he pretended not to notice. Harry would come around eventually; he would tell them when he was ready. In the meantime, he sat back in his armchair, with one hand in Hermione's, dangling over the side, and was content to chat away on anything and everything, just like the day before. He was distracted, however, by a loud shuffling noise, a few cries, and the sound of a door swinging open.
All eyes turned to George Weasley as he stepped into the common room. A half-drained bottle of firewhiskey was still swinging in his hand, as, to everyone's surprise, Angelina Johnson followed him through the door. George was red-faced and furious, and tear tracks were clearly visible on Angelina's cheeks.
"George, just listen," she pleaded as she followed him out of the door, shooting a pained glance at the four figures by the fire.
"I said go away," he muttered, in a dark, aggressive tone that was thoroughly unsuited to his usual, care-free persona.
"George, you can't just keep drinking like this!"
"Says who?" he said, raising his voice as he turned around to face her, and stared her down. She looked slightly cowed, and went quiet, but something in Ron was stirring – anger. He'd had enough of George acting like this, drinking himself into a stupor every day and night. Very deliberately, he stood up and paced over towards him.
"You should bloody listen to her, George!" he shouted, and now his brother rounded on him with an accusatory glare.
"Shut up," George said, slurring slightly. By way of a response, Ron took a step forward, and drew his wand.
"Reducto!" he yelled, to gasps from the others, and the glass bottle in George's hand shattered, showering glass and whiskey to the floor, as George himself swelled with rage.
"What the hell did you do that for?" he roared, but Ron barely blinked, feeling emboldened.
"Fred was our brother too!" he shouted back, waving a hand from Ginny to himself, and continuing, "He bloody died for you, and you're paying him back by drinking yourself to death!"
Everyone fell silent, as the harshness of Ron's words began to hit home. George gave him an odd look, somewhere between anger and shame. Then, without warning, he punched Ron in the face with a ferocity he usually reserved for Bludgers. Angelina and Hermione both let out little screams, Ginny gasped in horror, and he heard Harry kick his chair aside as he stood up. Before Harry could reach either of them, however, Ron had launched himself at his older brother, furiously punching his head and chest as they grappled, and George hit him hard in the stomach with his knee. Another savage punch from George, and Ron felt his upper lip burst, spilling warm blood into his mouth as he crashed a punch of his own into George's ribs. They had only been fighting for about thirty seconds when someone else reached them.
"IMPEDIMENTA!" Harry roared, and Ron felt himself catapulted several feet across the floor, as George was torn away in the opposite direction.
As the two found their feet, Harry was stood between them, wand raised, glaring at both Weasley brothers. Ron was still staring down the furious George, ignoring the warm dribble along his chin that he knew was blood. After a moment, George snorted contemptuously, swept around, and stormed out of the portrait hole. Angelina made to follow him, but found it slammed in her face. As she dropped to the floor, sobbing uncharacteristically, Ron rounded on Harry.
"Why did you do that?" he said, in the same harsh tone he had accused George in.
"What, you think he would've listened if you'd beaten him unconscious? If we want to do anything about George, we need to be smart, have a plan, not just beat the message onto his face."
Ron nodded. He wasn't really angry at Harry for intervening; it was just his anger at George spilling over. He pressed a hand to his bleeding lip, and winced slightly. He muttered something about cleaning it up, and turned to head for the dormitories, as Hermione insisted he use her bathroom, so that she could use a healing spell she'd been practising once he was done. Ginny was sat next to Angelina with an arm around her, as Harry paced over to the two, putting his wand away, and looking concerned. Mulling it over in his head, Ron had a feeling Harry wanted to plan and aid George's recovery to take his mind off his own thoughts...
Ten minutes later, Ron had doused his face with cold water in the bathroom of Hermione's dormitory. The angry red flush was gone from his cheeks, but his lip, no matter how hard he tried, would not stop bleeding. Finally, he headed back into the dormitory, resigning himself to letting Hermione test her healing spells on it. As she spotted him, she pulled out her wand, and beckoned for him to come closer.
"Come on, come on. Luna said these should work," she murmured, and Ron's eyes bulged.
"You learned the spells from Luna?" he asked – that did nothing to help his confidence. Hermione, however, ignored him.
"Tergeo," she whispered, but, after an initial cool rush against his mouth, he could still feel a shooting pain in the soft flesh of his lip. Seeing his doubtful expression, she continued, "That was just to clean the blood away. Now then... Episkey!"
There was a burning sensation in Ron's lip, followed by another rush of numb cold. When the sensation stopped, his lip was tingling slightly, but the pain was gone. Hermione was beaming proudly, and Ron had an awful feeling she'd never used these spells before, and had been expecting worse results.
"Good as new," she murmured, and kissed his lips as if to prove it. They both smiled, but when she pulled away, sitting down on the edge of her bed, she had a concerned, almost nervous look on her face. Quite suddenly, she said, "You're really worried about George, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Ron admitted, almost involuntarily, "He's not himself. He just sits in his room all day moping, won't even speak to Lee or Charlie or Mum and Dad... I know he's meant to be grieving, that's natural, but he's shutting himself away and drinking non-stop..."
"You've never been drunk, have you?" Hermione asked, and Ron felt this question was almost as unprecedented as her first.
"Well, no, most I've had was when we toasted Mad-Eye."
"Alcohol acts as a pain suppressant, in more ways than one. George is bound to be feeling physical pain from his injuries, but that's nothing compared to the emotional pain of losing Fred. The firewhiskey numbs both – while he's drinking it, he can forget, and he doesn't have to feel the pain..." she trailed off, as Ron looked curiously at her.
"How come you're such an expert? You've never been drunk either..."
"Drink problems are a lot more common in Muggle society than they are for wizards," she said, sadly.
"So... before we, or Angelina, or whoever, can get through to him, we need to stop him drinking?"
"And that won't be so easy because it means him accepting the pain..."
"Great..."
By the time Ron and Hermione re-entered the common room, Harry and Ginny had moved Angelina to one of the room's scarlet sofas, and were sat either side of her. Pulling chairs over from the corner near the fire, they sat down opposite the three on the sofa, and began to sit in silence, unsure of what to do or say next.
"We'll help," said Ron, finally.
"What?" Angelina was sitting up, her face still marked with tear tracks, and looked rather confused.
"We'll help sort George out, get him back on the straight and narrow," Hermione said, gently.
"Thanks," Angelina murmured, repressing another sob. "Just don't punch him this time, okay Ron?"
They spent the rest of the day discussing just how they were going to perform this miraculous feat. Everyone agreed with Hermione that they had to stop George drinking before they could even attempt anything else, and they began to discuss ways of curbing his addiction, some practical (usually from Hermione) and some less so (usually from Ron, including the use of poison, and ignoring the unwanted side-effect of possible death which particular plan entailed). The problems were large, and there were many of them – firstly, they would need to find George, wherever he had gone. Then, they needed ways of coercing or forcing him to come with them, and a place or method to make sure he couldn't drink. All that was before they even addressed the issue of Fred...
Having eaten a quick supper delivered by Kreacher, rather than go down to the Great Hall, they discussed various plans and problems for another few hours, then retired to bed, with Ginny and Hermione slipping off to their own dormitories, Harry and Ron heading for the boys', and Angelina leaving Hogwarts to Apparate back to her own home. As they clambered into bed, Ron was thinking of the next day.
"Hey, Harry. Diagon Alley tomorrow," he said, with a hint of excitement.
