Chapter 25 - In My Perfect World
Ginny stood silently gazing intently into the fire. She couldn't be absolutely sure but she had a suspicion that something was terribly wrong with Hermione.
Her behaviour when Ginny had asked about Ron last night was the very least of her concerns.
No, it was something else, Ginny spotted Harry on the sofa and took a seat beside him while trying to recall the image from her mind.
Ginny closed her eyes and leaned back into the chair hoping that the image was perhaps a figment of her imagination and nothing else.
"Oh um, I don't think that's such a good idea right now. I'll talk to you guys in the morning okay? Okay."
Ginny furrowed her brow in confusion.
"Ginny? Is everything -- okay? Did you get the book from Hermione?"
Ginny quickly compacted the thought into the back of her mind, she would definitely give her brother the third degree when he came back but right now she had nothing to go on but that look in Hermione's eyes, and the last thing she wanted to do was cause undue panic.
"Gin?" Harry questioned a little louder this time when his girlfriend didn't answer.
"Oh, no I didn't get it -- the book I mean."
"Is everything alright?"
Ginny sensed the concern in Harry's voice and gave him a comforting smile.
"Yeah, just a little bit worried about Ron that's all," Ginny explained quickly deflecting the focus of herself.
"Did Hermione say something?"
"No, she said he's fine. She looked a bit flustered but said she'd talk to us before breakfast."
"This'll be her then?" Harry said as he turned round at the sound of footsteps descending the staircase. And sure enough a much more composed Hermione entered the common room.
After Hermione positioned herself in her favourite armchair the group remained silent for a few minutes.
Hermione with a dreamy smile and far off look in her eyes stared out the nearby window.
Harry chuckled and Ginny rolled her eyes at her friend.
"Enough!"
Ginny's voice cut through the silence.
"Honestly, if we knew that being with Ron would make you this happy we should have got you two together after the Yule Ball. Goodness knows how much trouble that would have saved us," Ginny said exasperatedly.
Hermione gave a lopsided smile before breaking into a full on grin. She covered her blushing face in her hands and laughed happily.
"What'd he do to make you so happy?" Harry finally asked.
"And please, try to keep it a P.G. 14 rating," Ginny added.
"It's nothing like that, it's just that," Hermione paused and looked over at her friends, "I think I found a way to stop Ron from dying."
"You're the one arent you?"
Ron turned around to see a centaur standing just behind him.
"I'm sorry?" Ron looked at the male centaur in confusion.
"The True Seer?"
"Oh," Ron laughed uncomfortably before answering, "Sure I guess so."
Ron looked up warily at the Centaur.
Jessica had told him to unpack and meet her back in the centre of camp. But when he showed up she was no where to be found. He was about to take a seat on one of the logs around the fire but the other Centaurs didn't look to happy about it, so instead he had settled for standing. No one had talked to him for the long hour that he stood there although several had glared at him suspiciously, that was until the young centaur had walked up behind him.
Ron relaxed when he noticed the centaur smile at him.
"Don't worry about the elders, they look angry, but I heard a lot of them praising you before you arrived."
Ron gave a disbelieving look causing the young centaur to laugh.
"I'm Chiron," the centaur introduced himself before extending a hand towards Ron.
"Nice to meet you Chiron, I'm Ron," Ron smiled relieved to find at least one nice person he could talk to for the next week.
"I guess we'll be training together," Chiron stated simply.
"What do you mean?"
"You mean she didn't tell you?" Chiron asked in surprise.
Ron shook his head in response.
Chiron looked as though he were about to say something but stopped himself. An almost sorrowful looked passed over his features before he walked away.
'Well so much for making friends,' Ron thought to himself.
"Ready?"
Jessica's voice jolted Ron from his thoughts and he turned to see Jessica standing beside him a bag lying on the ground beneath her.
"What's in there?" Ron asked curiously.
"You need some more basic training before you join the other centaurs," Jessica replied before lifting the bag and handing it to Ron.
Ron buckled under the weight but quickly recovered and hastily followed Jessica through the forest.
"One of the centaurs, Chiron, mentioned something about me training with him. Is that true?" Ron asked Jessica as he followed her, while not trying not to trip over unseen tree roots.
"Hmmm," Jessica answered half-heartedly before disappearing amongst some shrubbery.
Ron hurried to follow her, the last thing he wanted was to be lost in the forest.
Ron pushed his way through the shrubbery and hastily looked around to find Jessica, when he finally spotted her moving quickly to the left of him he quickened his own pace to catch up with her. When he finally did, he tried questioning his teacher once more.
"I mean, I know you said we'd be training with the centaurs but I kinda just assumed that they would be talking about how to interpret dreams and stuff like that."
"Hmmm," Jessica responded again in a clearly uninterested tone.
Ron looked up and finally noticed the focused expression on Jessica's face. It wasn't that she was ignoring him it looked more like she was trying to listen for something, her eyes darted from left to right and she often closed her eyes to focus on a sound she heard before hurriedly moving forward.
"Where exactly are we going?" Ron asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
Jessica stopped walking causing Ron to bump into her. Once he had regained his composure Jessica looked back at him.
"Can you hear anything?" Jessica asked in an uncertain voice her forehead furrowed in confusion.
Ron stopped for a moment to listen, he was just about to respond to the negative when a faint noise caught his attention. Ron turned to his right and walked a few paces before pausing and straining his ears to focus on the distant sound.
"There's a waterfall over in that direction," Ron stated pointing through the trees.
He looked back at Jessica for some kind of response but she simply looked in the direction he had pointed at. Nodding her head as though finally realising something she walked past Ron and towards the trees.
"Come on then," Jessica finally spoke.
Ron sighed before hurrying after his strange teacher.
Silence greeted Hermione's sudden statement.
Harry looked from Hermione to his girlfriend.
Did he hear that correctly?
"Wait, could you repeat that?" Harry finally asked.
"Hermione, that's not very," A pained expression crossed Ginny's face before she continued "Don't you think that we've tried to find a cure --"
"Not a cure," Hermione interjected, "Just a way to stop him from using up all his 'life-energy'."
"Does this have anything to do with all the research you've been doing?" Harry questioned when he remembered Ron asking him and Ginny to help Hermione research.
"Well in all honesty, I found out more by just talking to Ron. The time I spent in the library only supported my suspicions."
"And what's that?"
Hermione turned and smiled at Harry's question.
"That True Seers are a very secretive bunch."
Harry noted the mischievous glint in Hermnione's eyes that he had all too often seen in Ron's. Clearly, their red-headed friend was rubbing off on know-it-all Hermione Granger, it was entertaining to say the least.
Harry glanced over at his girlfriend, and noticed the sceptical look on Ginny's face.
"Alright then, what's your master plan to save Ron?" Harry questioned an all to eager looking Hermione.
"Well its all still theoretical and I'll need to talk to some more people to be absolutely positive but -- I think the reason that True Seers die at such a young age, I mean the youngest I've read about was only 17 when he died, is that they are trying to contain all the thoughts of people the world over."
Harry and Ginny blinked at Hermione a few times before either of them said anything. Ginny was the one who broke the silence.
"I honestly didn't understand any of that."
Hermione sat contemplating for a moment before she got up from her seat and began pacing in front of them.
"Okay, think about it like this then. How many 'pure-blood' witches or wizards are there left today?"
"I don't know a handful to say the least," Harry answered, slightly at a loss as to how this related to Ron.
"Exactly!" Hermione responded excitedly.
"Think about it, they're a dying breed. Trying desperately to keep their lines pure while avoiding extinction at the same time. Doesn't that sound an awful lot like the way True Seers behave? I mean, ignore all that Death-Eater and sadistic rubbish that the pure-bloods carry on with and there is a definite similarity between the two groups. The impression I got from talking to Ron and from the way that awful woman acts towards other people, is that True-Seers are trying to stop lunatic's like Trelawny and the like trying to 'pollute' their pure line of seers."
"Even if this is all true, what does this have to do with Ron?" Ginny interrupted, finally gaining interest in the conversation.
"Well like I was saying before, if there is only Jessica and Ron left who are true seers than they're trying to control all the emotions and thoughts of all the people in the world or at the least the people that they are surrounded by."
"Yes, that's why they isolate themselves!" Ginny added excitedly, she was beginning to understand what Hermione was hinting at and if it meant that Ron could live a relatively normal existence then she would do anything to help her friend.
"That's why I think that rather than isolate true-seers they should be exposed. Like I said before, I found almost no information on True Seers in the library or the restricted section, if rather than hiding them away from society we teach people about their abilities than maybe it would be easier to detect potential true seers. Of course, you'll always get people who'll pretend to be True Seers but at least this way Ron won't be isolated from us."
"I still don't get it," Harry looked from his girlfriend to Hermione in confusion, "It's easy enough to say that we'll introduce people to the secret lives and training patterns of true seers but how does that help Ron reduce the amount of life-energy he uses up? If anything exposure to people will only deplete the amount of energy he uses, since he'll need to work harder at blocking them out."
"Not if everyone knows how to block their thoughts and emotions," Hermione explained giving Harry an expectant look.
Harry could almost have hit himself over the head when the sudden realisation of what Hermione was talking about occurred to him.
"Occlumency!"
Hermione smiled triumphantly at both Harry and Ginny.
"Occlumency."