Prophecy Repeated, chapter twenty.
Disclaimer:-
Harry Potter belongs to J.K.Rowling, her various publishers and Warner Brothers. This story and any new characters belong to me.
RECAP.
They have now returned from their holiday in Spain and France and are back at Hogwarts.
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If Lucius seemed a little distracted when they all returned from their holiday, everyone was too busy with the pre-new-school-year preparations to notice.
Another school year opened with the special mixture of supreme organisation which is uniquely Hogwarts.
After a break of over a month from their training for Lucius and Gail, two months for the other students, Harry wanted to work them harder than ever. Hermione's wiser counsel prevailed when she drew up a new training schedule for them all, staff included, even for Harry.
Lucius especially threw himself into the training like never before. When he wasn't in lessons or his spell defence lessons with Gail, he was training with other Slytherins. When he couldn't find a Slytherin to practice with, he trained with anyone else who was free, be they Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or even Gryffindor.
Harry was impressed. "He makes me seem positively laid back, doesn't he?"
Ginny and Hermione weren't so sure. "I'm not sure it's healthy doing nothing BUT training," Hermione had objected, but when she had mentioned that to Lucius he had just brushed her comment aside with a disdain she hadn't seen from him in a long time. It surprised and hurt her a little as over the previous two years, Lucius had grown to respect the muggle-born professor a lot.
It took Ron to bring an end to his seeming obsession with constant training, by challenging Lucius to a wizarding duel, with the restraint charm removed from his wand.
It had been the end of one of Lucius and Gail's private lessons with Luna. As they went to leave, Ron came into the room. "A private word, please Lucius."
Luna and Gail went to wash as he said, "Do an old man a favour. I'm getting a little out of practice. Would you mind if we had a duel."
"Sure," agreed Lucius, though he had a suspicious look in his eye. "When?"
"How about right now?"
The duel was short, even shorter than Ron had expected. About three or four minutes into the duel, Gail had returned, wanting to know what Ron had wanted to say privately to Lucius.
Momentarily distracted, Lucius found himself in a body bind.
"That's not fair," cried Gail as she released Lucius from the spell.
"No," agreed Ron. "But Lucius, you wouldn't have fallen for that six months ago. You're overdoing it so much you're losing your edge."
Lucius was about to reply with a snappy retort when he looked at the determination in Ron's face and thought better of it.
"I've trained aurors long enough to know what I'm talking about. I've seen it too many times before. Lose your edge and you get yourself, or someone else killed."
Lucius looked ashamed.
Ron saw the sudden loss of confidence in the boy in front of him and decided to calm down a little. "That doesn't mean give up. But you need something else in your life apart from training. You need to relax a little."
"I don't have time," Lucius said, this time in a defeated voice.
"You have time. You can't fight him before you're ready and if you push yourself like this, you never will be. I'll ask Hermione to draw up a timetable, when you can train, and when you can do your school work, but also when you must just relax, or go and play, or just enjoy yourself."
"And how many people die while I'm playing?"
"Not as many as will die if you lose, which you will, if you don't remember there's a life out there actually worth fighting for."
Lucius didn't reply.
"That's settled, then. Come to our quarters just before you go to bed tonight and Hermione will give you your new timetable.
That evening, it was Hermione who opened the door. "I've come for my new timetable," he muttered.
Smiling at him, Hermione handed him a parchment with the new timetable she had drawn up, in conjunction with Harry, Ron and Luna, the three who were mostly responsible for the training. "Keep it with you at all times," she instructed.
He took it without looking at it and began to turn away. Then, clenching a fist to steel himself, he turned back. "Professor?"
"Yes?"
"I, er... I owe you an apology. The other day. You were trying to help..."
"It's okay, Lucius. I could probably have been more tactful. I sometimes forget that I'm not always lecturing in a classroom. Now, go to bed. You might notice. Tomorrow you have the day off. It's a Sunday, so relax and enjoy it."
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Lucius got up early as usual and began what had begun his morning run outside. Right from the start of his training with Luna, Ron and Hermione had insisted that muggle-style physical fitness be part of his training program. Gail and some of the others had joined him most days the previous year, but this term he had taken to rising early to avoid everyone and run alone.
He was only a few hundred yards into his run when he noticed Harry running beside him. "Stop," gasped Harry. When they had stopped, Harry took a deep breath and said, "I'm getting too old for this."
"Did you want something, sir?"
Harry handed him the parchment. "You forgot this. Hermione said to keep it with you at all times."
Looking at him strangely, Lucius took the offered parchment and put it into his pocket. He began to run again. Before he'd taken more than a few steps, the parchment became too hot to bear in his pocket and he had to take it out and drop it on the ground.
The moment it hit the ground, it wrapped itself into the shape of a howler. "Lucius," it screamed at him. "You are supposed to be relaxing today. Now don't let me catch you training for the rest of the say."
Lucius looked at Harry, who was grinning. "We got Ginny to do the voice for the howler," he explained. "She's almost as good at it as her mother was."
"How?" Lucius was asking as he suddenly saw Ron, Hermione and Ginny walking down from the castle towards them.
When they got there, Hermione explained, "That parchment is charmed. Ron thought you wouldn't stick to the timetable, so it's charmed to let us know if you are training when you shouldn't be."
"It also lets us know if you don't have it with you," added Harry.
Lucius glared at Ron, who shrugged his shoulders in a helpless sort of gesture.
"Don't blame, Ron," said Harry. "I insisted on it."
"And if I ignore the howler?"
"Remember that Hermione is still one of the brightest witches of the age," replied Ginny. "Let's just say I wouldn't advise it."
"You have no right..." Lucius began.
"No," Ginny insisted. "You have no right to put everybody at risk like this, because that's what you're doing."
"I didn't ask for this damn prophecy."
"Neither did I," said Harry quietly.
Uncertain of what to answer, Lucius turned and ran away. He thought he'd won the battle of wills when none of the four ran after him. What he didn't see was the parchment form itself into a paper aeroplane similar to those used as memos in the Ministry and begin to fly after him.
Gail meanwhile was down at the lake with some of the other students, paddling in the shallow water at the edge of the lake. Quite a few of the students, from all the houses, liked to have an early morning swim before breakfast, at least until it got too cold. Even this early in September some of them were debating whether the lake was too cold for a swim or not. A few brave ones were already swimming, others were staying back on the shore, while Gail and one or two others while paddling at the water's edge, trying to summon their courage to go in deeper.
Suddenly their attention was grabbed by someone yelling. They looked up to see a shape high above and flying at them. Instinctively, Gail reached for her wand only to realise that she hadn't brought it with her.
The shape grew larger until they could make out it was Lucius. A second later he splashed into the lake and soon came up spluttering.
As he angrily swam then walked to dry land, Gail couldn't help noticing how his T-shirt clung to every muscle. She tried not to grin, but he'd seen her.
"I'm glad you think it's funny," he snapped angrily.
Quite a few of the other girls were enjoying the view as well.
"What happened?" Gail asked.
Lucius held up the parchment, which became dry the moment it left the water. "This happened. The damn thing followed me and the moment it touched me it became a portkey and brought me here."
Lucius was so angry he didn't even think about casting a drying charm on himself as he stormed back to the castle.
"You had no right," he yelled at Harry's retreating figure.
Ginny turned and walked to face him.
"He has every right. As headmaster here he is responsible for the safety of every one of you and he will do whatever is necessary, even to prevent you coming to harm by exhausting yourself."
"You don't understand, none of you."
"Who do you think you're talking to, Lucius?" she replied. "All our lives from the moment we started here were dominated by Harry's prophecy. I watched his face every time there were more killings and saw him try to live with the guilt. I saw him try to push everyone away to protect us. And I saw Hagrid carrying his body as Voldemort proclaimed that he'd killed him."
"But it was his prophecy, not yours. You had a choice."
"A choice," Ginny said bitterly. "You can't choose who you fall in love with."
"But you stayed away."
"I had no choice. I was under age. If I'd have gone with him, I'd have given away their position every time a spell was cast. Do you really think I'd have stayed behind in Hogwarts if it wasn't for that, whatever Harry said about protecting me?"
Lucius didn't reply.
"And he still has this thing about protecting, you know? He'd take over and fulfil your prophecy for you if he could. That's just who is. We came here, Harry accept this post, for one reason and one reason only. To support you, and to see you through. Your father had my parents killed, you know that?"
Lucius nodded.
"That was to try to persuade Harry not to come here, but we came anyway. So Harry has every right to train you as he judges is right. We had to tell Harry over and over again, and I'll tell you too. You are not alone in this. My parents may have been the first to die, but they weren't the last, and there'll be a lot more. Perhaps he'll kill Harry next, or me. We don't know what he has planned. But we choose to be here. And if he kills me for that choice, I still won't regret it. You have a choice too."
"What choice?"
"You can walk away. You can simply refuse the prophecy, just as Harry could have refused to die. That's your choice. Accept your role, or walk away. But if you accept your role, don't put yourself and all of us in danger by trying to go it alone."
"So what do I do?"
"Slow down a little. You're not even sixteen yet and Gail's only just fourteen..."
"Keep Gail out of this."
Ginny's head snapped up in anger. "Don't you think I would if I could? She's my daughter, just as much as the children I gave birth to. Do you think I want her in danger? Do you think I want either of you suffering like this, when you should be playing quidditch or swimming in the lake or..."
Ginny suddenly looked at Lucius, standing there still dripping, and laughed. "I guess Hermione got that bit right anyway." She cast a quick drying spell over him. "Come on, I can smell breakfast."
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Author's note...
This one was a bit longer coming due to lack of inspiration. The next chapter MAY take even longer as over the next month I am moving house. As that means not just me and my stuff, but all the animals from the refuge I run (rescueddoggies dot com), and all of their stuff, kennels, fencing etc., that's going to take a lot of my time over the next month. To encourage me to make time to write, please review.