"Together we can face any challenges as deep as the ocean and as high as the sky."
-Sonia Gandhi
Lydia and Harry were more than happy to see Ron back with them. Hermione, on the other hand, still had not warmed back up to him. She often made a point of rolling her eyes whenever he spoke and only ever glared at him. Lydia had spent too much time with the both of them to know that this wouldn't last long. If they could get over the Crookshanks-Scabbers argument in third year, they could get through anything.
Harry was particularly happy about the fact that he finally had a wand of his own, however much he hated it. It was a wand made of blackthorn that Ron had stolen from one of the Snatchers. He still couldn't produce very powerful pelts, but it was better than them having to share wands.
Ron, who was still feeling guilty about leaving them, was going over everywhere the other Horcruxes were, as though to make up for everything that he had said. Lydia didn't mind though, she had soon forgotten everything that he had said and was just glad he was on their side again.
"Let's go over everything again...Albania, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade...," Ron repeated, "So, we got the locket and the diary and Dumbledore destroyed the ring..so what's left?"
"The Hufflepuff cup, something of Ravenclaws and something of Gryffindors. I think he wanted something off each founder," Harry said, "But I don't know what,"
Lydia frowned, "That's only six...so there's still another one?" She paused for a moment,"Hey, you don't think that the Sorting Hat is a Horcrux do you? It did belong to Godric Gryffindor,"
"Don't be ridiculous, Lydia," Hermione sighed, "He can't make the sorting hat a Horcrux,"
"I feel like he can probably do what he wants," Harry said. He glanced at Lydia, "That is a stupid idea though. We probably would have noticed if the Sorting Hat was a Horcrux,"
"Just trying to be helpful..." She muttered, "What about the Sword?"
"Can a Horcrux destroy a Horcrux?" Ron asked, looking over at Hermione.
She took a few moments to glare at him before she shrugged, "I don't know. If it is a Horcrux, I truly do not know how we'll destroy it,"
"What about the Killing Curse?" Lydia asked, "you can't survive that,"
"You did," Ron pointed out.
"You know what I mean..."
They seemed to have been having variations of this conversation for days. Lydia was starting to get slightly bored of it, but she forced herself to be included in it. She had never quite appreciated how big the world actually was until they stared hunting for Horcruxes. They had exhausted most sensible places to go and look for Horcruxes and were now being faced with the terrifying prospect of possibly having to return to Hogwarts. To Lydia, it made sense that Voldemort would have left a Horcrux there. He viewed Hogwarts in the same way that Lydia and Harry did: home.
"It's just too dangerous," Hermione said, "Snape is Headmaster now and I can't even begin to imagine how many Death Eaters are there now. If by some miracle we get in, I can guarantee that there is no way we could ever get out,"
"Then we get help from the inside!" Harry said eagerly, "You can't say that McGonagall or Flitwick wouldn't help us! You can do those Patronus messages, can't you?"
"I practiced before we left but that's not the point," Hermione said, "it would probably get intercepted and then put everyone in danger!"
Lydia sighed. She hated how right Hermione was all the time.
"She has a point, Harry," Lydia said, "Anyway, if there was a Horcrux at Hogwarts, Dumbledore would have found it,"
"Not necessarily," Harry said, "He even admitted himself that he would never dream of knowing all of Hogwarts secrets,"
"That might be true, but he knew Hogwarts better than anyone. If one was there, he would have found it - don't look at me like that, you know it's true,"
They moved again that day to outskirts of a farm that Lydia snuck into to get some eggs. She felt slightly guilty about stealing, but compensated by leaving some money. Harry told her to get over herself and was kind enough to remind her that she had done much worse than steal some eggs.
"You left money, stop worrying about it," Ron said, happily scooping scrambled egg onto her plate, "It's either eat these great eggs or starve. What would you rather do?"
Hermione had been uncharacteristically quiet all day. Lydia was worried that she was either going to have some sort of breakdown or do that thing where she started to talk non-stop for the few days. She was sat in one of the armchairs, flicking through The Tales of Beedle the Bard, though Lydia was quite sure that she wasn't reading it at all.
"I think we should go and speak to Xenophilius Lovegood," Hermione said loudly.
"Why?" Harry asked, "What's he got to to do with anything?"
"Don't you think it's odd how this symbol has been popping up everywhere?" Hermione asked, shoving the book into Harry's face, "Mr Lovegood wore it around his neck at the wedding, Viktor seemed to get really offended by it, it's in this book, we saw it in Godric's Hollow and Dumbledore knew about it!"
"How do you know Dumbledore-"
Hermione grabbed another book off the floor and showed it him. It was a copy of, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. Harry made a face at it but Hermione ploughed on, looking quite frantic.
"I took this book from Bathilda Bagshot's house. He wrote letters to Gellert Grindelwald. They were friends," Hermione explained, "And, look-" she opened the book and showed them a copy of a letter, "-look how Dumbledore signed his name,"
Gellert-
Your point about Wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES' OWN GOOD - this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been given power and yes, the power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled. We must stress this point, it will be the foundation stone upon which we will build. Where we are opposed, as we surely will be, this must be this basis of our counter arguments. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that we met resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary ad no more. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang! But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus.
Dumbledore had not written his name with an 'A', but with the triangular symbol that had been following them around. Lydia sat back in her chair, frowning at the letter. That did not at all seem like the Dumbledore she had known. That was the sort of narrative that a magical supremacist would follow. Harry looked quite shell shocked.
"He agreed with Grindelwald?" He asked.
"I don't think he completely agreed with him, Harry," Hermione said gently, "I don't think he wanted to have complete control of Muggles,"
"That's not what it says there!" Harry said furiously, "He said that we have 'the right to rule'. He sounds like You-Know-Who!"
"He was only seventeen-"
"I'm seventeen! You don't see me acting like that!"
"Yes, but we're in a completely different situation than Dumbledore was when he was seventeen," Lydia said, "If You-Know-Who had never killed our parents, we'd be completely different,"
"We wouldn't be like-"
Ron cleared his throat loudly, "We should do a vote on who whether or not we should go to see Lovegood or not,"
"I think it's a bad idea," Lydia said.
"I don't," Harry said, "I want to find out what this symbol is," he was looking at Dumbledore's letter as though it had personally offended him.
"All in favour of going to Xenophilius Lovegood's house, put your hand up," Ron said brightly. His wand went in the air even before Hermione's, who was still glaring at Ron as she did so. Harry also put his hand up, infuriating Lydia.
"Sorry, Lyds," Ron said, clapping her on the back, "Three to one,"
"You're only doing this to get back in Hermione's good books," Lydia snapped.
"Cheer up. Besides, it's the Christmas holidays! Luna will be home!"
The next morning, they packed everything up and left for the Lovegoods. Ron had a vague idea of where they lived for they actually lived quite close to The Burrow and took the lead. She wondered if it was more subdued than usual with George not being there. It was strange being so close to The Burrow but not going. Lydia's stomach tumbled at the thought of Mrs Weasley's cooking but she carried on after Harry, Ron and Hermione, anyway. There was no point in dwelling on something that she couldn't do. Ron seemed to determinedly not looking in the direction of his homes. Harry was probably too busy thinking about Ginny to think about much else.
"That's gotta be it!" Ron said, panting slightly and pointing at an unusual looking house on the top of a rather steep hill, "where else would Luna have grown up?"
"You better be right, Weasley," Lydia said, "my legs are killing,"
"It kind of looks like a rook," Ron said, tilting his head to the side slightly.
"It looks nothing like a bird," Hermione said.
"No, not the bird. The Chess piece...the castle- you know what, never mind," he said, "let's go,"
Ron got the top of the hill much quicker thanks to his ridiculously long legs. By the time Lydia made it over the top of the hill with Harry and Hermione, she was sporting a painful stitch in her side. Ron, however, was grinning at them all and rather looked like a man who had just been told he'd won the lottery.
He lead the way up to the slightly crooked house and pushed the broken gate open, on which three handwritten signs were written: "The Quibbler Editor: X. Lovegood," - "Pick your own Mistletoe!" - "Keep off the Dirigible plums,". The zigzagging path that lead to the front door was overgrown with a variety of odd plants, none of which Lydia have ever seen in the Herbology greenhouses at Hogwarts. At the front door of the house there was a bush covered in orange, radish-like fruit that Luna sometimes wore as earrings.
Hermione shoved Lydia and Harry forward, "It's you two, Mr Lovegood wants to help, not us," she knocked on the door three times and then took a step back.
Barely ten seconds had passed and the door was yanked open, revealing Xenophilius Lovegood. His hair was dirty and unkempt and he was wearing a dirty nightshirt. His eyes travelled over Ron, then over Hermione and finally came to rest on Lydia and Harry. She couldn't read what expression was on his face, but she knew that it wasn't one of happiness to see them there.
"Hello, Mr Lovegood. I'm Harry, Harry Potter. This is my sister, Lydia Potter," he said, holding out his hand.
Xenophilius did not take his hand. So Lydia took over.
"We're sorry for turning up unannounced," she said, "but we need to talk to you about something important. Could we please come in?"
"I...I am not sure that is advisable," Xenophilius whispered. He cast a look around the room as though expecting someone else, "This is rather a shock to the system - you shouldn't...I'm not sure that I should..."
"It won't take long, sir," Lydia continued, "we shouldn't be here long," she paused for a moment, "I don't know if you know, but we're friends with your daughter, Luna,"
"F-fine..fine, do come in, do come in," he said, moving aside to let them in.
They were barely in the house when Xenophilius slammed the door shut behind them. Lydia looked around, a smile playing on her lips. Only Luna could live somewhere like this, and she was quite sure that Luna must have helped a lot in the decoration of the place. It was a circular room painted in overwhelmingly bright primary colours, on which birds and flowers were painted. It was what Lydia assumed the inside of Luna's brain looked like. Above them, Lydia could hear a lot of clattering and banging. What on earth could Luna be doing? Lydia could tell by the look on Ron's face that he couldn't wait to find out. No one amused Ron quite like Luna Lovegood.
"We should go upstairs," said Xenophilius, though he still looked very uncomfortable.
He lead them up a winding, wrought iron staircase to the top floor. Hermione tried to ask what Luna was doing, but he completely ignored her and carried on. The room above seemed to be a combination of a workspace and living room. It was completely cluttered and tiny. There were piles and piles of books on every surface. Delicately made models of creatures that Lydia had never seen, hung from the ceilings. Lydia glanced around, expecting to see Luna in the corner, but she was nowhere to be seen.
"Mr Lovegood, what's that?" Hermione asked suddenly, pointing at something on the other side of the room.
Lydia looked over at whatever she was pointing at. It was an enormous, grey spiral horn, not unlike that of a unicorn.
"It is the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," said Xenophilius.
"No, it isn't!" Hermione said.
"Hermione," muttered Harry, "Now isn't the time,"
"But Harry! That's an Erumpent horn! It's a Class B Tradeable Material and it's an extraordinarily dangerous thing to have in a house!"
"It's a what? How do you know?" Ron asked, edging away from it as far as the cluttered room would allow.
"There's a description of them in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them!" Hermione explained, "You know that it can explode at the slightest touch!"
"Ah," Xenophilius said, "my Luna told me about you, Miss Granger..."
"Anyway," Harry said, clearing his throat, "We need your help, Mr Lovegood,"
"Yes...well...helping Harry and Lydia Potter...that's quite dangerous these days..." He muttered, "very, very dangerous, in fact..."
"I thought you were all for us helping Harry and Lydia? That's what it says in your magazine, anyway," Ron said.
"Where is Luna, Mr Lovegood?" Lydia asked, "Let's see what she has to say about this,"
"She is down at the stream fishing for Freshwater Plimpies. Perhaps you would like to go and find her, Miss Potter?" Xenophilius said.
"M-me?" Lydia said, "Yeah, sure." She stood up.
"I don't think we should split up-"
"It's fine," Lydia said, "It's only Luna,"
"The stream is behind the house. She'll probably be at Bottom Bridge," Xenophilius said, with the air of someone trying to end a conversation as quickly as possible.
She left the room and walked down the stairs, quite happy to get out of the house. Lydia loved Luna, but she wasn't sure she was too keen on her father. He seemed to have backtracked on all the words of support he had written on behalf of Harry and Lydia. She was also quite happy to get away from a house that contained an exploding horn. Lydia had no idea how he would have managed to come across something like an Erumpent Horn, but she was quite sure that it wasn't legal.
Lydia walked around the back of the house and walked along the edge of the stream, holding her wand tightly. She felt quite vulnerable being so out in the open, but she couldn't imagine there being many Death Eaters in Ottery St Catchpole. Then again, she never would have thought that Snape would have killed Dumbledore. Sure, he might have killed her or Harry, but never Dumbledore.
"Luna?" Lydia called, as she neared the bridge, "Are you here?"
There was no answer. Lydia supposed that Luna would be so far in her own little world that she wouldn't be able to hear her. When she got the bridge, however, and she couldn't see Luna, Lydia grew confused. Maybe she was at the wrong bridge. There was a noise overhead and Lydia looked up. Three dark cloaked figures flew overhead and Lydia felt her heart sink. Luna wasn't here at all, and Xenophilius Lovegood was more than happy to give them up to the Death Eaters.
"Oh, you absolute fucker," she muttered.
"Hey! There's the girl! Get her!" One of the Death Eaters shouted.
"Really?" Lydia groaned as a Death Eater landed in front of her, his wand outstretched.
"Stupe-"
"Protego!" Lydia said quickly.
"They said you were more dangerous than this," the Death Eater taunted, "said I should watch out if I ever end up duelling you,"
"Would you like me to be full on because I should warn you, if I do, there's every chance that I will win," Lydia said, backing up as he advanced on her.
The Death Eater laughed, "That's what your Fiancé said. He said that you've never actually lost a duel,"
Lydia lowered her wand, "you've never met my-"
"Yes, I have," he said, smiling slightly, "who do you think caught him? He put up quite a fight, he did. He shut up once I hit him with the Cruciatus Curse...well, not quite shut up," he laughed again, "but there was a lot less fighting, I'll tell you that much,"
"Is he alive?" Lydia asked, "Tell me, is he alive?"
"For now,"
Before she could stop herself, Lydia had shouted, "sectumsempra!"
At once, Lydia took off running back up the stream and kicked the door open. Halfway up the stairs, there was a massive bang and Lydia almost tumbled all the way back down. Coughing as dust rose up around her, she pulled herself back up the stairs and froze as she ran into the other two Death Eaters. They had their back up to her and had no idea she was there. Having no idea what to do, Lydia crept back down the stairs and to the bottom floor. Harry, Ron and Hermione wouldn't leave without her, but they also might not have any choice.
She ran back out into the front garden and looked up at the house. The top of it had been half destroyed. Lydia jumped out of the way as some debris almost fell on top of her. She couldn't see Harry, Ron or Hermione. What if they had been killed in the blast?
"Harry?" She yelled, "Ron? Hermione?"
There was a crack and Lydia jumped as Hermione appeared next to her with Harry and Ron. They looked unhurt, though thoroughly pissed off.
"What happened?" Lydia demanded.
"Not now," Harry said, grabbing her hand, "Hermione, go."
Lydia's feet thudded to the ground and her knees almost gave way. Harry grabbed her tighter.
"Are you OK?" He asked, "What happened?"
"I went to find Luna, but she obviously wasn't there, and then those Death Eaters came. There was a third one and...and...and..." she took a deep shuddering breath, "and..he mentioned George," she burst into tears.
Harry wrapped his arms around her, "Is he...is he..."
"He said he was alive..." Lydia whispered, "for now,"
Ron put his hand on her back. "We'll find him, Lydia, I promise,"
It took her a few moments to pull herself together but she finally took a step back from Harry and nodded, wiping her eyes. "Yeah. We'll find him,"
"What happened whilst I was gone?" Lydia asked.
Hermione put the tent up with a flick of her wand, "the sign is the sign of the Deathly Hallows,"
"The Deathly what now?"
"There's a story in The Tales of Beedle the Bard," Hermione said, "Called the Tale of the Three Brothers. It's a fairytale about death. According to the Beedle the Bard, Death approached three brothers and gave them whatever they wanted. One brother wanted something to bring back the dead, and so Death gave him the resurrection stone, which brought people back to life. The other brother wanted a wand more powerful than any other, and the third wanted a Cloak of Invisibility which would allow him to avoid Death for the rest of his life. Those three things together are called the Death Hallows. Whoever owns them all, would be the Master of Death, and could never die,"
"Oh," Lydia said, "So loads of rubbish,"
"No!" Harry exclaimed, "No! It's not loads of rubbish!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, "We should be looking for Horcruxes, Harry, not Hallows-"
"But that's not what he's looking for!" Harry protested, "You-Know-Who wants the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility! That way, he's the Master of Death!"
"He's already the Master of Death with the Horcruxes," Ron pointed out, "He can't die unless-"
"Dumbledore wanted me to find them so that I could defeat him," Harry said quietly, "If we have the Elder Wand-"
"-that doesn't exist-" Hermione interjected.
"-there's not way we wouldn't be able to defeat him!" Harry said.
"They don't exist, Harry," Hermione said impatiently, "Horcruxes, not Hallows, remember?"
"You say they don't exist, but the Chamber of Secrets was meant to be a myth, wasn't it?" Ron said thoughtful.
"The Chamber of Secrets doesn't make someone the Master of Death though, Ron. No one can be the Master of Death. It's impossible. Death comes for us all whether we like it or not!" Hermione snapped.
"What a lovely thought,"
"But, Hermione, don't you see? It's so important that we look for them! That's how we defeat Vol-"
"HARRY NO!" Ron yelled.
"-demort-"
"Snatchers are gonna come for us!" Ron said, jumping up, "Oh - no...we didn't...we didn't put the enchantments up! We need to do something-"
"Whoever's in there, come out! You got half a dozen wands pointing at you and we don't really care who we curse, do we lads?" A voice yelled.
"This is a bad day," Lydia muttered, "This is a terrible day - hey! What are you doing?" Hermione had grabbed her hand and was pulling her towards the mouth of the tent.
"The moment we got out of here, we run. All right?" Hermione said fiercely, "And we stay together,"
No one argued.
"OK," Hermione said, "Three...two...one...GO!"
They burst out of the tent and took off running. Lydia was trying to focus on not tripping over with Hermione close behind her. Curses and jinxes flew over their heads, cracking against the trees. A branch off an old tree fell to the ground with a loud thump, separating Lydia and Hermione from Ron and Harry.
"STUPEFY!" Lydia yelled.
The jet of red light hit the Snatcher closest to her in the chest and he fell backwards. Lydia waved her wand and the other one quickly went down. Hermione turned to her, her eyes wild and shoved her in the chest, pushing her away from her.
"Find us!" Hermione screamed and then she ran away.
"'Mione! Wait!"
Lydia's foot caught on a protruding tree root and she toppled backwards. The ground suddenly sloped and she tumbled backwards, finally coming to a rest at the base of an ancient looking tree, the wind knocked out of her. She lay there for a few seconds, trying to remember how to breathe. Her surroundings were eerily quiet and she had no idea where the others were.
Limping slightly, Lydia snatched her wand of the ground and clambered back up the slope. She gasped and ducked down just as two Snatchers walked past her. They froze for a moment and looked around. The sounds of leaves crunching under boots told her that she was once again alone.
Then the panic set in. She slid back down the slope, and for a moment, she sat cross legged on the floor, holding nothing but her bag and her wand and wondering what on earth she was going to do. She had never tackled anything alone before. Harry, Ron and Hermione had always been by her side through everything and now they were gone. Her mind jumped to the worst conclusion and he quickly shut it down. They would get out of this. She would get them out of this.
Somehow.