Please, come back, Harry thought despairingly over and over again.
The rain was pouring now and what had been solid ground was starting to turn into mud. If he did not soon find a way to free himself of the Invisibility Cloak, he would die dirty, alone and terribly wet. If only he could reach his phoenix wand, or the Elder Wand…
As he thought this, the Elder Wand gave a shudder and Harry was certain that it was starting to react to his state of panic.
Get the Cloak off me, he thought imperatively, hoping that the Wand would take this as a command.
It did not work, however, and he felt his body sinking lower into the muddy ground, his rib cage unbearably crushed. He could hear thunder and heavy rain falling on the trees. If the Elder Wand was not responding, then he needed his phoenix wand, or any wand, otherwise he was doomed.
"Accio wand," he managed to voice out, spitting and sputtering, but no wand came to him.
As he gasped for air, black spots began to fill his vision. He was going to pass out. He couldn't breathe. And then he thought of Ginny. He couldn't bear the idea that she was chatting away with Krum while he was alone for what felt like his last moment. If only his thoughts would reach her. There was so many things that he wanted to say… but it was too late now.
He could already make up the front page of the Daily Prophet.
Famous Harry Potter was discovered dead in a puddle of mud late in the afternoon by his three friends. All evidences seem to indicate that the hero who destroyed Lord Voldemort drowned after falling face first into a pond during heavy rainfall. Harry Potter will be mostly remembered for his close relationship to Albus Dumbledore, the late Hogwarts Headmaster…
"Harry! Where are you?"
At first, he thought that he had imagined her voice coming through the rain. Ginny, he thought with a speck of hope.
Something flashed across his face and suddenly he was free. Rolling on his side, he sucked in as much air as his lungs could withstand, which only made him feel worse. If he did not control his breathing, he was going to pass out for certain.
"I'm here now. Take deep breathes." It was Ginny's voice again. He had not imagined it.
The weight had lifted miraculously from his back and neck but his body was now violently shaking all over. He was on his hands and knees now, but he couldn't get up just yet.
"Ginny," he said weakly, trying to get his eyes to focus. "How did you…?"
"Harry, I heard you in my mind. And then I saw… It was like someone placed an image in my head. Impervious."
As she said this, the rain that had been falling so heavily stopped right away and started to flicker lightly around them instead. He could still hear it in the trees, but it wasn't falling on his head and glasses anymore.
"Thanks, Ginny. Thanks for coming back."
"We thought you were walking ahead of us because we heard a noise and footsteps, but it was actually Luna under a Disillusionment Charm that we were following. And then, at about the same time we realised that you were missing, I heard your voice in my head."
He could see her clearly now. Her face was drained of color, but the glittering rain was shining around her like an aura.
"I think it was Legilimency. I didn't know you could do that. It was really strong; it nearly knocked me out. What happened?"
"I dunno," he said, pulling himself up with on hand on Ginny's shoulder. "It was the Cloak. It did something funny. I couldn't get it off me."
"Where's your wand?"
"I dropped it."
Ginny did not waste time looking for it. She used a Summoning Charm to gather the phoenix wand and the Cloak, and then together she and Harry made their way to the house as fast as they could manage. They were met on the way by Ron and Hermione who were both in such a state of near-panic that they had forgotten to protect themselves against the rain. A minute later, they were standing in the untidy lobby of Luna's house, dripping water all over the wooden floor.
"I'm sorry about the Cloak, mate," said Ron grumpily.
"Harry, what happened?" Hermione cut in fretfully. "Why didn't you follow us? Why are you so filthy?"
"Hi, Harry."
Luna Lovegood had appeared through the threshold of the living room, a brown cloak wrapped around her and her wand held aloft.
"Are you really Harry?" she asked straightforwardly.
"My Patronus is a stag," Harry replied quickly, imitating Krum.
"Everyone knows that."
She was staring fixedly at his face, her wand in an attack position that he recognised as one he had taught the DA.
Harry looked over at Hermione and Ron for support, but both of them seemed to be waiting for a confirmation that he was really himself. Not that he had done anything worthy of suspicions, but they had probably received the same treatment upon their arrivals. Only Ginny seemed annoyed by Luna's scepticism.
"Can't you tell it's him, Luna? Honestly, this is ridiculous," she said, pressing a reassuring hand on Harry's arm.
In the meantime, Harry was wracking his brain to find something that only he and Luna would know about. And then it hit him.
"We both heard voices from behind the Veil of that weird Stone Arch in the Department of Mysteries."
The smile on Luna's face seemed to indicate that he had given a right answer.
"Yes, I remember that. I knew it was you, in any case, Harry. It's in your eyes. My turn now: my Patronus is a Nargoyle."
"It's a rabbit. You shouldn't joke about stuff like that, Luna," Hermione scolded her. "We could decide to jinx you."
This did not seem to affect Luna. Instead, she went on explaining.
"My Patronus is really a Nargoyle, Hermione. Nargoyles are shape-shifters. You ought to know that. Well, I guess you don't know everything."
Hermione opened her mouth to argue, but Ron stopped her gently with a kiss on the cheek.
"It's really Luna, which is all that matters, 'Mione," he said softly. "Harry and I still think you're the brightest witch of your age, even if you don't know about Nargoyles being shape-shifters."
"Ron, you know that it is absolute rubbish," Hermione complained, pushing him away lightly. "You shouldn't encourage her…"
"Hermione, Luna's old enough to believe in whatever she wants, even Nargoyles. You all right, mate? You look awful. What happened to you anyway?"
Harry was trying to siphon the mud off his clothes with his wand, but he was shaking so much that his efforts were useless. Ginny ended up doing most of the cleaning while he was explaining his near-death experience. Even dry, he felt strangely cold and unsteady. He would have given anything for a warm blanket and a Butterbeer. Ron and Hermione were looking at him with the same look of dismay that they had had last year when he had informed them that he had been unable to perform his Patronus. This was not helping him feel better about what had just happened.
"I think the Cloak turned on me," he said, gathering his thoughts. "You didn't cast any spells on it, right? You just threw the Cloak?"
"Yeah, just the Cloak," Ron replied, sharing a worried look with Hermione. "We had agreed behind your back that I ought to put you under it if there was any trouble," he explained with a hint of shame in his voice.
"It was for you own good, Harry," said Hermione rapidly. "But what do you mean by 'turned on you'?"
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. It was as though the Cloak had done it. If it hadn't been for Ginny, he would have died alone out there. This had been the worse part of being stuck under the Invisibility Cloak: the loneliness, not being heard or seen. He wondered how anyone could live like that. Had his ancestor Ignotus Peverell actually lived under the Cloak? Was that even possible, to live like a ghost?
"I think it tried to kill me," he answered after some reflection.
Wanting to avoid the look of horror on Hermione's face and the inevitable questioning that we sure to ensue, he turned to Luna.
"Where's your dad? We're here to talk to him."
Luna was looking at Harry up and down as though she was appraising some mysterious new creature. Her eyes darted from his still trembling hand to his face and then his shirt.
"Durmstrang, that's interesting," she commented hazily. "I'm guessing that you're staying at your godfather's house. My dad is in the lab with Viktor. Follow me. Lumos."
She lit up the tip of her wand and Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Harry did the same.
"Lab?" muttered Ron to Harry's ear. "What does she mean by 'lab'?"
Harry merely shrugged. The thought of the Lovegoods having a laboratory was not surprising, but the prospect of visiting it did nothing to calm his nerves. He remembered that Luna's mother had been killed by one of her own experiment and he wondered vaguely if her father had witnessed the accident. However, this did not seem like a good occasion to ask Luna for details about her mother's death.
She took them through the dark living room which was peculiar for all of its empty bookcases.
"We prefer to keep all of our books downstairs now. They are all quite rare and dangerous," she told them in reply to their inquisitive looks. "The lab is the safest place in the house. Dad rarely leaves it nowadays, which is fine really because the rest of the house is infected with Tumblers."
"Tumblers?" uttered Ron. "I used to be afraid of them when I was a kid. They look like spiders. They live inside the walls and eat rocks. Sometimes they nibble their way out and then they creep under your bed and…"
"Ron, stop it," hissed Hermione warningly. "There are no such things as Tumblers. They exist only in fairy tales."
"Sometimes they are mistaken for spiders," Luna's voice cut in, low and wistful, "but they are quite real, like many things you find in Fairy Tales, like the Deathly Hallows."
"We didn't tell her anything. She figured it out," said Ginny, glancing back at Harry.
"It wasn't hard, really," Luna continued dreamily. "We don't keep secrets, my dad and I."
They had reached the kitchen area and were now facing a heavy wooden door with many steel locks on it. Luna drew a circle with her wand around the locks while muttering an incantation, and then the door swung opened with an ominous screeching sound.
"Watch your steps," she said, taking the lead down the narrow stairway. "Thunder like that makes the Gremlins want to come out of the basement and this is the only exit. They tend to get aggressive when they fail at getting out. Did you know Blast-Ended Skrewts are allergic to Gremlin saliva?"
"Why would you keep Gremlins in your basement?" Ron asked exasperatingly when the steps under his feet creaked loudly.
"Oh, they're great at keeping Boggarts out. Here we are."
They had reached the last step and were now standing on the threshold of a cozy living area complete with rickety chairs, a cluttered writing desk, very old tapestries, and red carpet on the floor. In front of them was a solid steel door that had a doorknocker in the shape of a lion's head, but no lock. Stepping closer to the wall, Luna pulled out an old-looking key from under her cloak and placed it in an almost invisible keyhole in the brick wall. Luna turned the key three times and knocked three times on the brick wall. There was a sound like stones being moved and a section of the wall opened up to a brightly lit room. The steel door, on the other hand, remained closed.
"What's in there?" Ron asked.
"Oh, that's my mum's room. Dad wanted to keep her close to us."
"Her mother's dead body is in there?" Ron whispered when Luna was out of earshot. "I wouldn't want a corpse in my house."
"It's not a corpse," said Ginny quietly. "It's her mum."
She had stopped in front of the steel door and was pressing her hand lightly against it. There was a kind of sadness about her standing there that Harry could not quite understand. Leaving Ron, Hermione and Luna to step first into the laboratory, he remained behind and silently came to Ginny's side.
"I don't think her dad ever gave up the idea of bringing his wife back," Ginny whispered sympathetically with a side glance at Harry. "Luna says that she tried to talk him out of it, but he's still looking for a way."
Harry immediately thought of the Resurrection Stone around Hermione's neck. What would Xeno Lovegood do if he knew she had it?
"He wouldn't…"
"Yes, he would," Ginny replied back before he could finish his sentence. "He would bring her back, just like George would bring back Fred, like mum would bring back dad, like Ron would bring back Hermione. It doesn't mean that it's right, or that they are bad people. It just means that we have our weaknesses."
He knew that she was right, but a part of him did not want to know what any of his friends would do with the Resurrection Stone. Hermione was keeping it safe, but if something happened to Ron, he was not sure if she would be able to resist using it. He was not sure if he could withstand the desire to use it.
"You're not weak," he said softly to Ginny. "And it won't happen. I'm not going to let anything like that happen."
She turned to him and smiled. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She was looking at him in such a way that he felt himself blushing despite of the fact that he was so cold.
"I'm not like you, Harry. When I thought you had died… When I saw Hagrid carrying your body… You were dead for a few minutes, and during that time I came up with about a hundred ways to bring you back."
"Don't," he said a little briskly. "If it happens… Don't bring me back."
Ginny's eyes suddenly became wide with realisation. She seemed rooted on the spot.
"Why are you saying that?" she whispered.
"Well, you know… I don't… It's not natural."
"You came back."
"I wasn't really entirely dead…"
"You were hit by the Killing Curse."
"I had my mother's protection…"
She was touching his face now, his forehead, and his hands.
"You're so cold. You're cold as death, Harry."
"It's related to the Deathly Hallows or to the weird mark on my chest. I'll be all right once the Hallows are destroyed."
But she wasn't listening to his rationalization. When she spoke, it was in a low whisper as thought she was voicing out some unbearable truth.
"Harry, are you dying?"