Chapter 20

The journey through the halls of Hogwarts and around the teachers making their rounds was made as quickly as silent travel allows, but to Harry it seemed like it took an eternity. Every step they slowly took, every second they halted behind a corner consulting the Map, was wasted time. It was Fee's life ticking away while they snuck like thieves through the castle. And to make matters worse, even though Fee's life was his main concern, he would occasionally glimpse Ginny out of the corner of his eye and the words that he had said to her earlier would reverberate in his head. He pushed them back into the dark, forgotten corners of his mind and willed them to be silent. It would work for about thirty steps. He knew that dwelling on it wasn't helpful and that it would hinder him once the fighting started, but somehow he couldn't completely shut his subconscious up.

Once outside where there weren't any patrols, the group began to hurry and cared less for stifling the sound of their travel. Ron and Harry's speed had picked up so much from the anticipation built up within them that they were nearly running when they finally reached the Willow. Hermione and Ginny weren't far behind, and Ron had already grabbed a long stick to poke the knot with when they appeared beside the boys.

"Quick! Get in!" he hissed while he remained holding the knot down. His words were useless. Hermione and Ginny had already slipped through the hole when he said them, and Harry wasn't far behind. Ron slid in behind Harry, and they traveled single file, hunched over, through the passage.

It seemed to Harry that all the previous times he had commuted through this tunnel, it had been faster. To his memory, even floating an unconscious Snape and dragging a shackled Wormtail through the passage had taken less time than it was now. He knew that it was because of the severity of the situation, that they were jogging through the tunnel as fast as he could, but he couldn't get the image of Fee surrounded by Death Eaters out of his head. It was burned in there, lingering just before his sight so that no matter what lay in front of him, he could still see her in his imagination.

Harry growled in frustration and tried to pick up his speed only to trip over a root and stumble into Ginny. She looked behind her coolly, silently helped Harry regain his footing, and then continued on as if he was merely a stranger who she had only helped in passing, as courtesy dictated. Did that mean she was really angry with him, or that she couldn't care less? She couldn't be incredibly angry, could she? Not when they were running toward potential death.

Death. There were so many lives at stake for this one night. Not only his, Ron's, Hermione's, Ginny's, and Fee's, though they were the ones he cared for the most. Death Eaters would most likely die tonight too. Harry didn't like killing, he tried not to, but he knew that it was inevitable. Some of the men and women he hit with curses during battle died. Some died at the hands of their master for not capturing Harry and his friends. Some died nightly because he had yet to find a way to kill Voldemort. So many dead. So many lives that were worth something, that could have grown into something.

But he was saving one tonight, wasn't he? He was making a difference. His presence in the past was going to save someone who had died the first time around. And if that caused repercussions he hadn't yet considered, then at least his conscience was better off for the deed. He wouldn't stay up late into the night wishing that he had tried to save Fee, as he often sat up wishing he hadn't gone to the Department of Mysteries that night, hadn't convinced Cedric to take the trophy with him, hadn't asked the entire Order to hide in Russia with him… Fee wouldn't become one of these 'hadn't's.

Hermione was out of the passage. They had reached the Shrieking Shack. Harry was both relieved and terrified. The thrill of danger that always invaded his spirit when he knew that he would have to fight was there, preparing him for what was sure to come.

"We all know where we're going?" Hermione asked solemnly, eyeing them each in turn. It was written across her face that she knew the harm this one night could cause. She knew they might not all return.

Ron and Harry nodded, but Ginny bit her lip and shook her head. She had never gone to the Riddle House before.

"I'll take you," Ron offered instantly. She was his sister. She was his responsibility. If she demanded that she go along, then he might as well make sure that she wasn't harmed in getting there.

But Harry had a sudden thought. There were so many lives at stake for this one night. He might die. Ginny might die. He didn't want either of them going into this with what had happened earlier left ignored. He knew that he didn't have much time for apologies and explanations, and he wasn't planning on giving her many of those. But he didn't want anything to happen to either of them when they were both upset with each other. Once they reached the Riddle House, any and all thought of Ginny would be erased from his mind, and he didn't want to have to wait until after the fight, after God only knows what had happened, to clear the air.

"No, Ron," he said quietly. "I can take her. You and Hermione go on ahead; we'll see you in a second."

Ginny glanced at him frostily, but it was lacking the menace that usually accompanied her glares when she was truly upset with someone. Once Hermione and Ron had vanished with two small pops, she folded her arms and asked stiffly, "Shouldn't we be going too?"

Harry nodded. "Soon. Look, Ginny-,"

She cut him off, putting a finger over his mouth to silence him and saying, "Look. I know you're going to spout some long, mostly likely deeply heart felt and convincing speech about how terribly sorry you are, and I'm probably going to listen and forgive you. I want to forgive you. I want to forget everything you said that hurt me, because I know you said them because you care about me in your freakishly protective way. I want everything to be better between us, but I don't want it to be because you think we'll die and you have to make amends. We'll go into this tonight, get Fee out of there, and we'll both come out of it alive and well. Then, if you still want to make things better, I want to too. But not before then, okay?"

"Ginny, I don't want to go into this with that fight hanging over me! I don't want to come out of battle thinking about it."

"Then go into it knowing that I can't forgive you right now- it still hurts a little too much for that- but that I have every intention of forgiving you once this is over and we can have a long chat about it."

"Gin-."

"We should go now." Her voice was barely a whisper, but somehow it overrode his. There would be no reconciling tonight then. But she was probably right. The fight was still a little too fresh for both of them, and he knew that he wanted to save Fee more than stay in the Shrieking Shack much longer.

"Alright," Harry said. "Take my arm, and be prepared to run if I take us too close to the house." Then they too disappeared, leaving behind an empty house.

Ron and Hermione were there within seconds of there Apparation, grabbing each of them roughly by the arms and pulling them back into the leafless bushes.

"Where are we?" Harry whispered instantly, peering through the branches to try to get a feel for their location.

"We're about four hundred meters from the house," Hermione whispered. "Ron and I figure this is the only place we could Apparate to with the house being our destination. Frankly, I'm shocked that it let us get this close."

Harry nodded, but still had to whistle quietly at the distance between them and their destination.

"We'll never get through," Ron muttered sourly, eyeing the dozens of Death Eaters patrolling the ground before them.

"We've still got the Invisibility Cloaks with us," Ginny murmured, her eyes trained on a robed figure that had just been forced to turn and run when the ground before him started trembling and sparking. "But that won't help us avoid the traps."

"It won't help us get in, either," Harry replied. "If there's Anti-Apparation shields up, then there's bound to be a load of barriers blocking people from walking in too."

Hermione nodded. "I just ran a test of them before you two showed up. So far I've found three separate but fairly standard spells around the perimeter, and he's in the middle of creating the blood sacrifice spell that was around all the Horcrux hiding spots. But that one's not through yet, so we won't have any trouble getting past that."

"And the standard ones?" Harry asked.

"Have an alarm system built into them set to go off if anyone disassembles the shields." Hermione's answer was prompt, and the frown on her face was prominent.

"So how do we get in?" Ginny asked, but her attention was only half focused on the answer. She was busy probing the air in front of her with her wand.

Hermione chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully, but her reply came relatively quickly, so Harry was sure that she had been thinking this through since she first ran her diagnostic spells. "The only thing I see is that two of us will need to confund the alarm spell into thinking that all the shields are still in place. Then the other two will disassemble the shields, we'll all slip through, reassemble them, and release the Confundus charm. After that our only problem is getting around the guards and traps."

Harry snorted lightly and Ron asked, "You just made that up on the spot, did you?"

Hermione shrugged slightly, "I've been thinking about the possibility of the shields and alarms working in tandem ever since we decided to come here. It seemed reasonable that Voldemort would have it set up that way. This was the only thing I could come up with that might work."

"So who's going to do what?" Ginny asked. "I know I probably couldn't cast the Confundus charm."

"Then you and Ron can lower the barriers," Harry replied. "Ron's gotten through enough of them to know how to break past the standard ones, and you'll know the spells once he explains them to you."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "And you can cast the Confundus charm, can you?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe. We all know that I'm better at more complicated spells than you are, and Hermione's already proved that she can do that spell, so even if I can't, she might get us through. Okay, Invisibility Cloaks in place? Right. Ron, Ginny, don't start lowering the shields until Hermione and I deal with the alarms, okay? We don't want the guards swarming us before we even get through. So just- watch for us to nod or something."

And with that they began. Hermione whispered to Harry what exactly he was supposed to do in order to perform the charm. He listened attentively, swung his wand a few times until she approved his wand movements, and then finally decided that they had wasted enough time.

"You do it first," Harry whispered. "Crouch Jr. mentioned in fourth year that powerful magic is harder to confund, but I think that if you get most of it, I should be able to get the rest."

Hermione nodded, her mouth set in a grim line, and flicked her wrist. She mouthed the words, but if she said them aloud Harry couldn't hear. Her gaze never left the empty air in front of her, but after several minutes of silence, she finally glanced over at Harry. He gripped his wand determinedly, and in his mind saw Hermione showing him the movements over and over. He raised his wand, whispered the words, and prayed to whatever deity was listening that it worked.

There was an expectant silence that stretched across there little hideaway. Ron and Ginny looked at Harry and Hermione with wide eyes and bated breath, Hermione and Harry were watching the air, tensely waiting for any signal that there spell had worked. And then the air around them seemed to relax slightly. Hermione's shoulders loosened, and she glanced over at the siblings behind her. She gave one short nod then returned to holding the spell.

Ron and Ginny worked swiftly. Harry had been right before: Ron had much practice when it came to dismantling the more common security spells, and with his instruction he and his sister quickly worked through them all. They grabbed their friends' shoulders and pulled them over the threshold that could somehow be sensed rather than felt or seen. Once across, they reversed the spells quickly and Hermione and Harry stopped confunding the alarm. They both sagged with relief and allowed themselves a short rest before continuing on.

Avoiding the Death Eaters was easier than any of them would have thought possible. They weren't disciplined it seemed, for their slow meanderings around the grounds were not in the least difficult to dodge. They most likely assumed that nothing would ever get passed the spells guarding the property.

The traps placed sporadically across the lawn were more difficult to dodge. Ginny had taken to scanning the ground before them for any sign of sorcery while the others wove around the masked patrols. She had to pull the other three back several times to keep them from stepping on a particularly lethal patch of earth. It was time consuming, and although the distance was not incredibly great, it took the four nearly half an hour to cross it. None of them were willing to take any chances.

The entrance to the house itself was guarded by a mere blood offering spell, a favorite of Voldemort's, they had learned. Harry had worried that they would need a Dark Mark to get it, but luck- as it often was with Harry- was on his side, and it appeared the Voldemort had yet to realize the practicality of that type of guard spell.

They slipped in unnoticed, hardly daring to believe that it really had been that easy to get in. Suddenly, around the corner they heard a crash. All four spun instantly to see what it was, and in doing so ran straight into six Death Eaters who were running at them from the opposite direction.