Chapter Fifty-One: Jinx

A white rose, blooming in the darkness.

Reaching out for her with charred fingers- flying away, far and high into the sky.

"Will you raise the stakes?" Magnetic grey eyes capture hers and he reaches down to offer her his hand, lifting her to her feet.

"I've known you a long time now." He smiles, graciously inclining his head in acknowledgement of her words, as the dance begins. Slow it is, ancient and rich in tradition and dignity. They part, each bowing to his or her opposing partner, and standing on the teachers' dais, Professor Dumbledore raises his hands, facing the orchestra behind him.

"All your life." A suavely confident smile transforms his sombre face, and he takes her hand again, leaning forward to peck her on the cheek as the dance draws them together, his peculiarly colourless hand drawing hers up to his lips. The music rises, and he kisses the ring on her finger. She pulls her hand away, his touch as cold as ice, as the dancers form two lines, and stride apart.

He looks at her, blood bright and red on his lips.

"You haven't forgotten?" he asks, his face twisted with anxiety. "But you promised, Ginny!" Petulant, he seems younger, reaching out to her, and she shakes her head- but he beckons, and the dance draws them closer, as the storm presses home outside.

The dancers parade to left and right, and though she buffets against it, the music of the dance draws her back to him, and he watches her fondly, a confident smile on his face. "Dance with me." He takes her arms, and they begin to waltz, the rouged print of his bloody hand seeping into the satin sleeve of her wedding dress.

Thunder crashes against the walls of the hall, and lightning etches itself upon the glass panes. His hand catches her in the small of the back and she twirls, gracefully from his arms to curtsey, standing before him across the central aisle.

"First, we bow to our opponent."

Next to her, Luna Lovegood bowed to Severus Snape, as the lightning smote the windows for a second time, harsh and jagged against the purple night.

The man in grey touched his fingertips to his lips, and held out a white rose.

"A gift. He wilts in my keeping, you see." The smile again, and the lightning struck for a third time. She touched her hand to her chest, and brought it away slick with blood, as Dumbledore struck up the music once again- a melody loud and discordant as the man with grey eyes takes her hands again, and the blood flows down her wrists on to her gown already flowing scarlet. He draws her close to him, parting his lips, and his mouth is filled with red.

"Can't you hear it, Ginny?" he whispers as he kisses her in tenderness, wading through the great sanguine river. Faster, the violins saw, until bowstrings weep tears of blood. Louder, sound the great horns, as Professor Dumbledore's hands rise and fall, twin wands conducting the orchestra.

Naked she is, and the thick tide of red rises up about her shoulders, his hands holding her arms above her head, and the window cracks as the lightning strikes for a third and a fourth time.

"Can't you hear it?" he kisses her again, grey eyes kind, pleading, and the blood rises higher, all about her naked figures dancing, glistening red, until they slide beneath the surface.

Faster and louder the symphony is played, a danse macabre, wild and manic. The conductor turns, a pale, serpent face lifted to the heavens, as the sixth stroke of lightning breaks apart the hall, and strikes down upon the wands of the serpent.

"Can't you hear the music?" It swells, great waves of blood flowing down the shattered hall towards them, and she cries out in fear and distress, turning away as the serpent rises. Again, the lightning forks down, and it strikes the face of the serpent-man, forcing him to his knees. She lets go the hand of the grey-eyed man, reaching her pale arm imploringly up toward the raging heavens as the serpent falls, the ocean of blood closing above her head.

"Speak." That last word carries her down into darkness and silence.


Fighting to breathe, her arms clawing at the soft, enveloping darkness around her, warm and red, trying to struggle upwards, to break the surface… pushing back the blankets, smothered in the red tide, a sudden chill on her stomach, her hands entangled in the bedclothes, the snarled and tangled grip upon her hair her own… She kicked out, fighting off the drowned hands below, pulling open streaming eyes and drawing in one harsh, long breath after another.

"Are you all right, Ginger?" Marion Williams propped herself up on one elbow in the darkness, a fuzzy shape in the fuzzy blackness, her voice sounding concerned. "You've been snorting and grunting like a hippogriff in labour."

Ginny sat up in bed, bunching her pillows up behind her and drawing her knees up, hugging them with clasped arms over the blankets. Her eyes sought out the midnight blue of the sky outside the dormitory window, and found the familiar pale moon.

"Fine," she answered, a little croakily, and swallowed, to wet her throat. "Just a nightmare, that's all." She could hear her breathing, whistling slightly, hard and fast, and swallowed again, staring straight ahead into the blackness of the room. "Sorry- I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You sure you don't need me to get Madam Pomfrey or anything like that?" the other girl asked.

"No- really, it's fine." Ginny nodded to herself, lowering the blanket a little, letting the cold night air chill the beaded sweat on her forehead, arms, and throat. It was a commonplace sensation- she remembered lying in bed with a fever when she was very small, the cold of the night the only relief she'd felt for almost two days. It was a feeling that assured her she was awake again. "I just… want to sit up for a while. Go back to sleep. Thanks," she added, feeling it was somehow necessary.

"All right." The humped shape in the other bed turned over. "See you in the morning."

"Mm." Ginny nodded the apology in the darkness, and closed her eyes, letting her head sink forward. She did not sleep- but it seemed to her that a face took shape in the waiting darkness, a burned and blackened face screaming in agony, and she jolted backwards, afraid to open her eyes lest she should see it with her open eye- but equally compelled to do so.

Nothing but the still darkness of the bedroom confronted her, the stars swimming in their empty sea outside the window. Not daring to close her eyes again, she drew her lips back from her teeth, kicking off the covers and holding her knees, until her teeth chattered from the cold, and she pulled the blankets forward over herself once more, turning on her side and laying down. This had not been her first nightmare these past few days. Abruptly, she pushed the covers back to her waist once more, sitting up and pressing her now cold hand against her forehead. At least her nightmares were just that- warnings from her own mind. She tried to close her eyes, resolved, squeezing them tight, but tiny dots of colour jumped and swam in her vision, their waving, tiny, endless self-absorbed motions curiously familiar. She opened her eyes, and, peering hard into the gloom, stared hard into nothingness until she could see the same with her eyes open as with them closed.

Sitting with her back against the bed head, the redhead massaged her clammy forehead with the heel of one hand. She sighed, not wanting to look at the clock. The quality of light outside the window- or rather, the absence of it- told her that it was far from dawn, sometime in the long and desolate hours. Her roommates had drifted off to sleep, now, the rhythm of their breathing subtly changed. Again, she closed her eyes- not hoping for sleep so much as to guide her imagination along some more pleasant path- but, although no horrors loomed up in her mind's eye, the nagging and unpleasant instinct that, when she next opened her eyes, something would be in front of them intruded again and again on her train of thought. She almost gave in- almost opened them in panic, but a certain hard knot of defiance took hold inside her, and she held both eyes firmly, rigidly closed, listening to the room, her senses heightened.

Everything was as it should be. Ginny reassured herself firmly of that- but the very nature of that combative determination which had driven her to resist her fears had now driven the vestiges of sleep from her, and she sat, listening and waiting, growing more wakeful and, paradoxically, as the fear receded, ever more taken by the temptation to open her eyes and see.

There was nothing to see. She stated that rather firmly to her own contrary mind. A dark room. Four beds- aside from her own. Three sleeping girls. She tried to visualise the room before her closed eyes, imagining them, placing them as if linked to her.

There was Marigold- that was easy, the Remembrall she kept on her bedside table was something Ginny could almost feel, not so much by itself as by the way it gently nudged against the castle around them. That was a thought. She felt her brow crease in a frown, and scratched the tip of her nose with one forefinger. That was what the dancing motes before her eyes had reminded her of, of course- Milner's Thaumometer and the magical field inside it.

Letting her head fall back, she slowly opened her arms, leaving them to lie flat on the bed, while her hair flowed over the bedstead behind. A faint twinge of amusement came to her, despite the nightmare not so long ago, as she visualised herself.

Trelawney, she decided. Passed out and fallen over backwards potted on a gallon of sherry half way through prophesying someone's death. Probably Harry's. It usually is. Either that or some Veela trying to impress someone.

Focus, Ginny.

Now, then, that was the Remembrall- yes, the charm around it was a fairly silly thing, really.

They'd made a basic one in Charms last term- it reached into the holder's mind and plucked, reflected, and amplified randomly chosen memories- just flashes of thought- smells, tastes, glimpses of vision- all to jog the memory of the ball's owner, to stir up old recollections in the hope of finding the right one. The problem, of course, was that if you knew how it worked, and consequently became conscious of, and looked for all the images flung back at you, it became much less likely to do its job successfully, since all it would remind you of was the desire to remember.

She let her thoughts brush against the magic- as she had done in Grimmauld Place, thinking her way into the nooks and crannies of the old spells.

It helped, she found, having watched the thaumometer during Milner's class. The sensations were weak, flighty, hard to pin down. She found herself imagining how the vortex would have reacted to such and such a feeling. Perhaps- something like a ripple, the faintest whisper of a disturbance from the background swirl where the stolid and squat sensation of the quiescent Remembrall rested in Hogwarts' magical field.

Her frown growing more intent, Ginny visualised that swirl of magic in her mind, imagining that ripple, that bump in the fabric, and feeling where it seemed to fit in. Something else? Yes- not far away, another note being played. She wasn't sure what it was- close to the ball, she thought, probably the same table. Some small charmed object or other.

Hermione's restrictions had exasperated her. In the weeks since Christmas, when the two of them had had time to paw over Hermione's notes and theories on Harry's scar, which had been infrequently enough, as first Blaise' story, then the Ministry's machinations, had impressed their way to the forefront of their activities, Ginny had seen the debate on theory against practice repeated, on a number of occasions.

She respected the elder girl's judgement. Ron had explained the concept of 'Hermione is probably right' to his sister around a fortnight before Ginny had, in fact, met Hermione for the first time, and Ginny was still inclined to agree with it- however, equally like her brother, she was also occasionally inclined to add the second axiom; 'This gets annoying.'

A little defiantly, although not entirely sure who she was rebelling against, she tensed her own body, visualising her wand, lying on top of a little carved owl-shaped wandstand- a gift from her brother Charlie, a year or so ago- and focusing her thoughts on the feel of magic, flowing through it. She twisted her mind in a particular way, feeling the almost audible tone which arose, the subtle shiftings of the overall harmony. It was a matter of instinct- that was all. Of course, blindly throwing spells together with no thought to the consequences was dangerous- Ginny's impatience rose at the thought- but what, it seemed to her, her brother's girlfriend stubbornly refused to accept was that Ginny was doing nothing of the sort. Theory was important- of course it was. She knew full well that she would not have been able to do half the things she had done without Hermione's assistance- the Switching Spell on the portraits at Grimmauld Place, for instance- if it hadn't been for Hermione and the Black family library, she wouldn't have even known how the spell was supposed to work- but, once she knew, once she had a feel for it- then the actual process of changing things was not something she could do in some wonderful methodical 'safe' way.

Please show your working.

I just did it. It worked. That was my working.

Ginny gritted her teeth, and snatched up her wand from the tabletop, feeling small sparks flickering from her hair.

She was being unfair. It wasn't Hermione. Ginny knew in a hundred years she couldn't have worked out the answer to Harry's scar- even if she had been in any fit state to consider the problem at the time. The best she would have been able to come up with- the best she had come up with, since then, was to acknowledge that the scar was vaguely 'Voldemort coloured'. She wasn't even sure what that meant, to be honest with herself, but it was the only way she could find to articulate that curious sensation of touching, seeing, hearing magic- that was all of those perceptions and yet none of them at the same time. Still, it would have been- had been- quite meaningless without the framework of logic and reason that the older girl had built up.

Nodding to herself, as if trying to fix that more firmly in her errant thoughts, the young woman took several calming breaths, looking steadily at the tip of the wand in front of her. She moved it through the dark obscurity of the room, gently sweeping motions, doing her best to create neither spark nor sound. It had taken some time to get accustomed to a new wand- and it had not been an even or a steady process. In Diagon Alley, the thrill of the fight and her own desperate need had flowed out through her magic- as Professor Milner had told Harry, magic and adrenaline together were both a dangerously addictive cocktail, and a natural combination. Ginny could even- dimly- imagine she saw how this might be. It was- or, at least, it seemed- as if her mind and her magic flowed together, then raw emotion smoothed the pathway, not merely feeding the magic but- she sought for a metaphor inside her mind and came up with an image of her father, many years ago, sitting cross-legged in the dusty backyard, the better part of an old Ford Anglia scattered around him, and trying to explain the concepts of oil and lubrication to Fred and George. The twins had learned something useful to them from that discussion- they had learned that oil was flammable, and now Ginny supposed that she had gained something from it as well. Yes, that was it, as much as anything else. Raw emotion smoothed the path- but it also took the spell caster ever further down the road into undirected and uncontrollable magic, because, when oil is involved, there too is also involved a certain tendency to slip.

Without that urgent, burning need, she had found things took longer, at first, than she had anticipated. Oh, spells still worked, but- unused to the phoenix feather core- she had found herself clumsier, slower, than previously, and it had taken a week or so to get used to the very different feel of the new wand. She'd returned to first principles- going over some of the first spells she'd learned and used, taking the time to apply some useful weather-proofing to Helena's Nest in the process. She'd learnt how to cast a simple warming charm in her first year. True, she'd nearly set her socks on fire doing it, and hardly helped matters by trying to waft the incandescent smoke away with one of her textbooks- she wondered, for a moment, shrugging her shoulders, if that might just possibly have had something to do with Tom Riddle's haste and eagerness to transfer himself to Harry's ownership. Unlikely, she decided. Still, by her second year she had been proficient enough in that charm to keep her toes warm when they'd all had to camp in the Great Hall out of fear of Sirius Black, and had added to that ability with a reasonably efficient draught-excluding jinx that she'd picked up from one of her mother's old Witch Weekly editions and tweaked a little until she'd got it how she liked it. That had at least made her corner of the tent rather more comfortable than anybody else's when the family and Harry had gone to see the Quidditch World Cup, and the following year Professor Flitwick had taught them a very neat little impermeability charm which would keep the rain from coming in through the windows of the Nest with no extra tampering required.

It had not taken her long to catch up on herself- after all, she had used Harry's own holly wand on an intermittent basis over Christmas without any particular difficulty- but, then, perhaps again there was quite some difference between using a wand that you knew you were only borrowing, and so applied extra effort instinctively, and between using a wand that was your very own. None the less, by the time of Thursday's duel she had managed to synthesise the instincts of using a birch-and-dragon scale wand with those of holly-and-phoenix-quill wand, and found birch-and-phoenix quill every bit as satisfactory as she had predicted it would be when she had fought with it in London.

Still- perhaps that was part of it. Silently, she slipped from beneath the covers and went to stand on bare feet by the window. The frustration, the pinned feeling she'd briefly had of having to inch along at a slower pace-

"Idiot." She hissed the insult to herself, and grinned regardless. Nonsense. The experience had helped her more than it had hurt her- she'd grown into this new wand as an adult, not a child, and learned its ways and quirks with a keener eye than an eleven-year old could possibly have had. She knew full well what the truth of the matter was- and she hadn't needed dark dreams to explain it to her.

Voldemort. Ginny leant her arms on the window's edge and peered out at the night, looking across the tower towards the far turret where Harry was sleeping. It wasn't just about helping him. It never had been- just the thought of what Voldemort was- what he really was, and the dreams he dreamed made her shudder, and an ugly little knot of anger form somewhere in her stomach- and that would have happened even if she had never heard the name 'Harry Potter'.

Ginny closed her eyes again, feeling the world around her with that obscure and uncertain sense. She toyed with it sometimes, reaching out with her mind, as if trying to feel others. Harry? No. Too far away- at least, too far away to be anything clear- there was a sort of general impression of wizardries in which she supposed she might possibly be able to catch a hint of Harry- but that was all. She turned back, walking steadily towards the bed, keeping heel and toe in line, and hoping not to tread on any spiders, a slight smile on her face. There was something irrepressibly wonderful about Hogwarts that nearly everyone she'd spoken to seemed to share, and that hope and eagerness resonated in its magical field. Climbing back into the bed, she drew it around herself with the blankets. It was warm. It was comforting. It was beautiful- and it was this power, this world of magic, that Voldemort was corrupting, twisting into some black and dank wasteland of warring powers. Ginny felt her anger growing, her will gathering, and the tapestry of restful magic distorting, the harmony growing fainter, discordant. She turned sharply on to her back, staring up at the ceiling again.

"It's sick," she whispered, remembering the Imperius Curse, twisting in her mind. "It's disgusting." That brought back another horrible memory- the face of Lucius Malfoy, cold and set, his wand levelled before him- and the burning agony of the Cruciatus as it seemed to swell and stretch beneath her skin and press apart the balls and sockets of her joints, hooked needles gouging into her flesh. She sat up, leaning over the side of the bed, and feeling her stomach heave, swallowing hard, eyes tight closed. "And I- I won't have it on my world," she said to the night, her voice cold and determined. "Not any of them. Not after--" she baulked, the burning face of her brother once more rising in her closing eyes- but this time it brought a cold anger, not fear or despair, "I will not."


Grass and sky traded places in his vision as Harry clung to his broom for dear life, accelerating forwards and downwards, his eyes darting to and fro, his mind reaching out behind them. Something flashed towards him from one side, and, gritting his teeth and lying low on his Firebolt, he flew still lower, the ground roaring past, a sonic concussion roaring in his ears as the Bludger whipped past, spun in mid-air and precipitated itself at Seamus, some way ahead.

"Friendly practice, I said!" he heard Ron bellow. "You break my Chaser and you'll have to find me a new one, Kirke!"

Harry rolled upright as he banked into the turn, ignoring Andrew Kirke's rather red-faced apologies to Seamus and Ron, as someone's orange-socked foot flashed in front of his eyes, inches from his face.

For an instant the Golden Snitch danced close in front of him, seeming to skip up and down, keeping pace with him as he precipitated forwards, and then, as if caught by a fishing line from some celestial angler, it lifted sharply up and away. Harry hauled up the stem of his broom, braking as best he could, pouring his power back into his ascent- and the Snitch dropped, wings folding, into a hand he stretched out on instinct quicker than he could think about it, as a shrill note sounded from Ron's whistle.

The boy breathed a slight sigh of relief. He wasn't playing his best today, he was well aware of it, and, for once, was rather glad not to be set against Ginny.

She flew past him on her way down to the foot of Ron's goal hoops, winking at his slightly distracted expression as she did so.

"You look like I feel," the girl commented, taking hold of his broom with one hand and using her other to fight her Comet's inclination to tilt inward towards the Firebolt, maintaining their parallel flights and borrowing Harry's speed into the bargain. Harry shot a glance sideways at her, a rueful twitch of his lips acknowledging the tired strain in her eyes.

"Not bad, everyone," Ron was saying, dismounted from his broom by the time they arrived, and leaning on the post of the middle goal hoop. "Harry, you're not a ghost, so stop trying to fly through people. Andrew- yeah, well, you heard what I said- but if that had been Maria Henbane or any of those Ravenclaw Chasers and not Seamus then you'd have done well then. That Bludger came at you at a bad angle to start with."

As Ron went on with his analysis, Hermione rose from her sheltered corner behind the lee of one of the stands, and came over to join them- nervously ducking to avoid a buzzing Bludger which was thus far evading Kirke and Sloper's efforts to restrain it.

"Any sign of Dumbledore and Hagrid yet?" Harry asked her anxiously as he stepped from his broom.

The bushy-haired witch shook her head. "Not yet," she told him glumly, her lips slightly pinched. "It's a long way to the village and back on foot, Harry," she looked up, feeling the need to add some sort of comfort to her words.

Professor Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts the night of the Evening Prophet's announcement- Harry had seen the lights going on in his tower, and the very next morning observed him striding into the Forbidden Forest, his normally kindly face pale with some great anger. He had been going to speak to the centaurs- Neville had allegedly seen him standing, close to the forest's edge, talking to one of them later in the day. What had arisen from that meeting, Harry was not quite sure- but certainly, no troops of centaurs had been observed making their way into Hogsmeade to declare themselves non-human.

Firenze- the great palamino Divination teacher- had been rather more visible, not to mention audible, in his expressions of contempt for Ministries of Magic - 'short sighted wizards who deny their own knowledge and dress their power in the foolish pantomimes of Muggle bureaucracy rather than admit the ineffable courses of the stars'- but for all the centaur's high-minded dismissal of the Ministry's ruling, and, indeed, for all he loftily answered concerned questions from his admiring pupils- by a curious coincidence, most typically the female members of his classes- by proclaiming that destiny would follow its natural pattern, and the simple-minded edicts and prejudices of fools who would not lift their eyes to the heavens could have no effect upon it- for all that, none the less, Ginny had reported to Harry that the ground-floor Divination classroom's tiled floor was crazed with cracks, a great furrow of tiles reduced almost to crimson powder where Firenze had strode up and down, hooves pounding angrily on the floor in his distraction and wrath- and, when Sybil Trelawney had, largely although not entirely in innocence, asked her fellow teacher what, precisely, he intended to do if the Ministry attempted to force the issue, Firenze's reply of "What will come, will come," had carried an overtone which spoke rather more of belligerence than of fatalism.

"He'll be all right, Harry," Ginny told him, quietly, as the rest of the team gathered round, listening to Ron's critique of their performance. Harry looked at her quickly, and she gave him a slight, sad smile. "It's not like last year," she went on, and Harry realised she was referring to Hagrid, not Firenze. "You can't get a better character witness than Dumbledore, can you?"

Hagrid had gone to Hogsmeade's local government offices earlier that Saturday morning to present himself, trudging down towards the village, his big shaggy head hanging, while Dumbledore's slighter figure moved ahead, trying to engage the groundskeeper in animated conversation as they moved away, watched by various groups of students, some sympathetic- others less so. Ron and Neville had both been reprimanded by Professor McGonagall for coming to blows and hexes with a couple of seventh-year Slytherins who'd loudly expressed the hope that he would be replaced by someone human and normal.

Harry had felt almost too numb to act, watching his two old friends disappearing into the distance along the path towards the school gates, a hard knot of anger in his stomach. Dumbledore had refused his request for a meeting on the Friday, observing calmly to Harry that he was more than capable of sitting in his office disintegrating ornaments and fulminating on new and unflattering descriptions of the Acting Minister of Magic without Harry's creative assistance. The young man had taken that as a flippant dismissal- but had later that day noted Professor Milner, who was still spending much of his free time in the Headmaster's Office working on his survey of the school's protective wards, coming down to dinner rubbing his ears as if pained, and rather pale and shocked of face.

"She's doing it again," he muttered to himself, contradicting her words. "Just like before."

He'd had a hastily written letter from Remus shortly before Quidditch practice had begun- there was no address given, but being brought by Hedwig Harry rather assumed that the letter had, at least, passed through Grimmauld Place. Signed only as 'Moony', which Harry privately supposed was not, perhaps, the most cleverly inpenetrable nom-de-plume available under the circumstances, the note simply assured Harry not to worry, that all was well, and that selfsame 'Moony' was entirely capable of looking after himself. None the less, Harry had scanned the Daily Prophet anxiously. He, personally, would only be inclined to write a letter assuring anyone that 'all was well' if it quite definitely was not, and, if Lupin was still based at Grimmauld Place, under the Fidelius Charm, he would be incapable of giving an account of his place of abode or a character reference which would satisfy the Ministry of Magic.

Tomorrow's Prophet was promised to contain a list of 'rogue' non-humans, comprising those persons known or suspected by the Ministry of having hybrid or non-human origins, but who had not yet reported their details to the Ministry in accordance with the Registration Act. Acting Minister Umbridge had herself given a statement to the morning's edition , accompanied by a photograph which Neville had wordlessly ripped out and pinned up on the Gryffindor common room notice board for use as a target for anyone wishing to practice their hexwork, in which she had hastily responded to the many criticisms levelled at the Act, explaining, in terms so saccharine that Harry almost expected the newsprint to caramelise before his eyes, that of course, the Ministry of Magic was quite well aware that all manner of people might have perfectly innocent reasons for not having registered in due time for the first week's census. Some might be away on holiday, or busy at work, or simply have missed the news. The Ministry considered the Act to be as much about protecting the innocent as punishing the guilty- surely all right-thinking citizens would understand what a saving grace it would be, for any poor soul afflicted with were-blood or similar deformity and wrongly accused of a crime to be able to apply to the Ministry for his or her Registration records to confirm his or her whereabouts- and, of course, to demonstrate whether any other dangerous individual might have been in the correct locale at the time.

The list was, Umbridge had apparently told the reporter with aching sincerity, in no way whatsoever to be considered a 'Wanted' list. Why, it was simply there so that friends and neighbours would be able to see if someone they knew or were close to was included on it, so that they could politely remind them of the need to register. She had personally, so she informed him, spoken to nearly a dozen unfortunately 'afflicted' persons, who were deeply grateful to her for the chance to set the record straight and clearly demonstrate that they were living their lives in an above-board and subject-to-scrutiny manner. The innocent would have nothing to hide.

When asked why, in that case, nearly a dozen wizarding households around the country had been discovered empty and deserted by Ministry officials sent to remind people of their obligations, the Acting Minister had sadly and solemnly told the reporter that, although she was deeply regretful to ever make the slightest allegation without evidence, it was the very real fear that such hybrids and non-humans had infiltrated the wizarding community with malicious intent in very large numbers that had motivated the Act in the first place.

"They are in our streets and our villages," she had said. "In our school- on our trains. Even in our very own Ministry- there are rumours that the tragic death of my predecessor Cornelius Fudge may have been partially due to treachery from within. I know that some innocents may be frightened, fearful of the heavy hand of the law. They need not be. I ask them to come forward. If they have been misled into this position of hatred and fear for their own government, it is a simple matter for them to tell their story- and in doing so to perform a valuable service, for we shall learn who our real enemies are, and their candour will be rewarded with our trust. To those that remain hidden- they are in danger. By no fault of their own, poor creatures, they are the natural allies of You-Know-Who and his kind, and it is likely that those amongst them who are already in His service will soon ensnare others. For the cause of public safety, the Ministry has no choice but to treat them as a potential threat."

The players changed out of their Quidditch robes and tramped slowly up towards the castle through the January chill, passing Ron's copy of the Quibbler between them, after Clare had applied a wind-repelling charm to the pages which was more or less successful.

Harry accepted it from Jack, unable to resist a grim smile at the cover's depiction of the gold witch and wizard emblems of the Ministry standing quaking in fear at the sight of a small werewolf placidly washing itself, while a large phalanx of caricatured Death Eaters stole up behind them. He studied the contents page. Perhaps it was due to Aloysius Milner and Lovegood's own daughter's involvement with the Association and the Order of the Phoenix, or perhaps 'Editor: S. Lovegood' himself had taken some offence at the Registration Act, but it was quite clear that the Quibbler had set aside its ordinary extraordinary editorial policy in favour of what the editorial itself, from beneath a photograph of a small, ordinary looking man with a pinched, rather pained face, and close-cropped grey hair, described as 'A Special Issue'. Notwithstanding one slightly confusing article on the subject of the mating habits of the Genevan Shin-Digging Beetle, which Harry suspected had mainly escaped the editor's deftly-wielded hatchet thanks to the writer's suggestion that inaction on the part of the Ministry of Magic was largely responsible for the beetle's decline in modern France, there was very little in the magazine which did not, one way or another, set itself very fairly and squarely at odds with Delores Umbridge, ranging from a sublimely contemptuous expose of Ministry policy from 'a senior source within the Auror organisation' who had signed herself under the pseudonym of 'Frustrated Godiva', through to Augusta Godwit's Bow-tie Registration Act, a lengthy and involved piece of proposed legislative brilliance requiring the registration as a suspicious personage any wizard caught wearing a bow tie within thirty miles of the Ministry of Magic.

He felt a warm glow spreading through him, and a sudden rush of affection towards the rather eccentric periodical. Unbalanced the Quibbler might be- indeed, downright deranged was occasionally a fairer assessment, but this was the second time the peculiar magazine had stood up to the Ministry on his side.

"I notice there's nothing from Rita Skeeter," Ginny observed, continuing to read over his shoulder.

"Apparently Luna's father had to 'let her go'," Hermione broke in, hands in her pockets, as she walked up the hill ahead of them, Ron's arm conspicuously encircling her waist. "'She would reject the most obvious scientific information available all the time', according to Luna, 'and her English grammar was appalling.' She looked at Ron, a very faint smile on her face working its way through the sombre frown that had hung there since the night before last. "The typesetting gremlins got very upset with her in the end."

"Words cannot express how deeply I'm not sorry," Harry commented acidly.

"She might regret it yet," Ginny mused. "The word is that the Ministry are going to go after unregistered Animagi next."

"Fine," Harry sighed. "They can go after Dad and Sirius then. I'd like to see Umbridge try and blame that on me."

"She probably would, at that."

"Anyone else noticed they're asking for people to submit articles for next month's edition?" Seamus frowned. Ginny nodded.

"Fancy writing something, do you?" she asked.

"Not me," Seamus rejoined with a laugh. "I don't reckon I go together with deathless prose. Broke my quill in the History of Magic exam."

"Harry and I'd probably have got higher marks if we'd done that," Ron observed. "What about you, 'Mi?"

Hermione shook her head.

"I don't even want to think about her any more than I have to right now," she told them, gloomily, as they reached the top of the driveway. "I know- satire's only about pretending to joke… but I don't even feel like pretending to do it at the moment." With a shrug of her shoulders, she set her foot on the first step. "I'm going to the library for a bit- coming, Ron?"

With a slightly awkward backward glance at Harry- a glance which quickly dissolved into a confused expression perched somewhere uncomfortable between sly amusement and vague embarrassment when he noted his friend and his sister crowded over the magazine together, Ron nodded, following her up the steps and returning Seamus' grinning comments with a bland smile. Harry watched the two of them disappear inside with a faint pang, and dismissed it with an internally raised eyebrow and a shake of the head. After all, how exactly did he suppose Ron and Hermione had felt last term- to say nothing of the fact that Ron and Hermione openly and almost officially going out together was infinitely less embarrassing and complicated a prospect than the previous eternal state of flux.

"It's easier to try worrying about things we can do something about," he decided under his breath, making some sense of his feelings, and Ginny nodded.

"Not… entirely sure if my brother and His-Own-Ninny would really like being put in the same category as Ickle Tommy and Devastating Delores, but I get the point." She sighed. "Just as long as those two don't start kissing on top of the Astronomy Tower."

"Gin," Harry shook his head, sliding an arm around her and steering the two of them away from the doors and down towards the lakeshore, "That is a disgusting idea."

"Imagine the wedding."

"I'd rather not."

"Imagine the children," Ginny went on, ruthlessly.

"I'd really rather not!" Harry choked, as she dug an elbow into his ribs. "Although they'd probably look a bit like Lavender did after Tonks hit her with that transfiguration jinx," he noted, after a moment. "Maybe you ought to send that in to the Quibbler?"

"Me?" Ginny's cheeks flushed, and she looked away for a moment, mouth working soundlessly as if trying to hastily come up with an appropriate retort, but unable to find anything quite appropriate. Harry squeezed her slightly. The two of them knew each other well enough now- although obviously not in some senses, in others Ginny was very much like family to him, and he to her- it was easy to forget at times how reticent she still could be around those she did not know.

"You could use another name," Harry suggested, not wanting to insult or embarrass her by withdrawing the idea, for all he'd only meant it with slight seriousness. "Jinx, maybe?" he suggested, giving her a sideways look.

Ginny looked up at him shyly, her face still a little red, but rolled her eyes.

"Er, yes, Harry," she gave him a doubtful glance. "Because that's all of one syllable different," the young woman finished, wrinkling her nose at him. "I'm sure that'd fool everyone and anyone. Actually, knowing Bum Ridge, it probably would."

"Or The Blushing Red Kitten," Harry amended, slipping out of her embrace and ducking out of the way of his girlfriend's elbow just in time.

"The Red Kitten'll make you blush if you don't watch out!" Ginny dived for him, pursuing Harry down the hill.

"Erm- quite."

Harry brought himself to a sharp halt at the edge of the woodland, facing the new speaker where he stood in the shade of an aged pine. Ginny stumbled into the back of him and he caught her with one hand to support her- as she recognised both the voice and the man behind it as he half-stepped out into the light. "I am sorry, Harry, Virginia," Dumbledore smiled absently, patting at his pockets. "I had been hoping to speak to Harry for some time- I did not wish to interrupt a tender moment," he observed, his eyes mischievous.

Harry, though, was watching the Headmaster, his face grown both hollow and nervous.

"Is Hagrid back?" he asked. Dumbledore's smile lowered slightly.

"Yes, I suppose we must be serious," he sighed, sadly. "Yes, Harry- you need not fear for your friend on this occasion, at any rate. Whilst I cannot say that I was pleased by either the import or the tone of the Ministry Officials' questions, it seems that my observation that, were Hogwarts to lose Hagrid's valuable services, the village of Hogsmeade might well soon find itself awash with all manner of unusual and ill-mannered denizens of the forest seeking gainful employment and nourishment, appeared to carry some weight."

"I ought to go and see him," Harry started, but the Headmaster restrained him with a look.

"I think not," he sighed, and, coming closer, Harry noted a strong and distinctly beery aroma coming from Professor Dumbledore's clothes and beard, for all the man's eyes were as bright and clear as ever. "We felt it necessary to repair to the Hogs' Head for some time afterwards to drown our sorrows. Hagrid will not be especially good company today, and I think it would be kinder to his self-esteem to allow him some privacy until that state has passed, don't you?"

Harry nodded.

"I suppose so- is he going to be all right about it, do you think?" he asked, knowing the answer to that before Dumbledore replied.

"He will do better than many, Harry." The old man looked at him speculatively, a queer sort of reluctance manifesting on his face. He remained silent for long enough for both Harry and Ginny to begin to feel rather awkward, unsure of themselves, standing before him as if waiting for his judgement. Finally, Professor Dumbledore nodded to himself, a little absently. "Walk with me a moment, Harry?" he asked, putting a thin hand on the boy's shoulder, and looking thoughtfully at Ginny from beneath his brows. "Would you forgive us for a moment, Virginia?" he asked, contritely enough. "Harry and I have shared confidences on a number of occasions before this. This time pays for all, as the saying does not entirely go."

Ginny nodded, a puzzled frown on her face, and touched Harry's hand. Harry tried to put an apology into his glance. Dumbledore's apparent decision to exclude her from their counsel made his teeth clench a little, and a faint intimation of anger gathered somewhere in his mind- but still, the Headmaster's gentle authority had some considerable sway over Harry Potter, and the strange, almost dejected look in the old man's eyes carried an imperative he found it very hard to disobey. The girl met his look, a certain irritation telling somewhere behind her own eyes, but she spoke softly.

"I'll meet you somewhere quiet when you're ready," she told him, slipping away.


"You do remember you've left school, don't you?" Ron shook his head, facing Tonks with a resigned grin. He had been attempting to work out how, exactly, he had ended up carrying both Harry and Ginny's brooms, as well as his own, in one hand, while embracing Hermione with the other. Not that the latter task was especially difficult or inconvenient, his brain hurriedly pointed out to him, on the off chance that his girlfriend might conceivably be capable of plucking any treacherous or damaging thoughts out of his skull and reading them back to him. Reason told him that this was unlikely- however, in such matters Ron was of the opinion that Reason was far too trusting and likely to lead him into trouble.

As for Tonks, she had been leaning against the staircase inside the Entrance Hall, arms gloved and folded, her black hair loose on her shoulders, and a disconsolate and faintly surly expression creasing her face.

"What's up?" Ron asked again, in a moment, in a rather different tone of voice. The Auror swung herself upright.

"Wanted to have a word with Harry," she nodded out through the doors, "But I guess Dumbledore's got to him first." She cleared her throat. "Oh well, probably the best thing, really." She glanced around, and beckoned them towards the nearest classroom. "Ginny with them?" Ron nodded in reply. Tonks sat down on the edge of a chair, narrowly avoiding disaster.

"Well," she said bitterly, when Hermione and Ron had both found chairs of their own. "It's all up, then."

"How d'you--" Ron began, before Hermione cut him off.

"Lupin knows how to take care of himself," the girl began, mistaking Tonks' meaning. The Auror shook her head, faint rivers of dark brown flowing up through her raven locks.

"He shouldn't even have to try," she muttered, "But that's not what I mean." She kicked a desk moodily. It collapsed. "We've looked everywhere. Every single Ministry employee. Every damned Auror, every bloody Obliviator, every unspeakable Unspeakable- even old Fudge's personal staff. Any one who had the faintest reason to be in the area that Amoeba Vendetta thing came from. Anyone who didn't have any business being there, but who might have managed to sneak out and get there anyway." Tonks scratched her head. "We went back from about as long as that Portkey-fish could have been active, right up to the minute before you lot first saw the Giant Squid in trouble out on the lake." She paused, stretching one arm. "Months, months we've been at it- and not one single flipping thing."

"You found the Portkey--" Ron protested, but this time Tonks was the one who interrupted him.

"Whose Portkey, though, Ron?" she muttered. "It doesn't match the magical signature of anyone we've got on file- and Ministry employees get catalogued and checked as a matter of course."

"Did you check to see if anyone was missing from the records?" Hermione asked. Tonks nodded.

"No one. Living or suspiciously missing presumed dead," she added, after a second. "Don't think that didn't occur to us."

"Then it wasn't Umbridge?" Ron scowled, baffled.

"What about using someone else?" Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Someone untraceable?"

Tonks gave her a look.

"If they're untraceable, then how exactly am I meant to trace them?" she enquired, sharply.

"Well it's worth a try, isn't it?" Ron retorted, his tone defensive- but Tonks cut him off once more.

"I know- I'm sorry, Hermione," she added, with a weary smile. "Things are getting to me a bit as well. I just thought we were… so close, that's all." With a sudden growl, she folded her arms. "Back when I first found that bloody fish I really thought that was going to be it, you know? We'd get the chance to tell that old cow to pack her bags and maybe even march her off to Azkaban, if we were lucky… and now, after all that, all that work goes nowhere at all. You know Umbridge did it. I know it. Dumbledore knows it- and we can't do a thing to prove it- and it feels like it's my fault. We're right back where we started. "


"I am sorry that I refused you when you asked to see me yesterday morning," the Headmaster told him. It was the first thing Dumbledore had said for some time, as they strolled slowly around the lake, the Headmaster pausing to look at various plants and rock formations as if for all the world it was a pleasant summer afternoon, rather than a blustery winter. They had walked close by the headland on which stood Helena's Nest, and Harry had seen the light burning in the windows, feeling a certain envy for Ginny and the meagre shelter of those stone walls. "I am afraid that I was not in full control of my feelings, and preferred to express them in private," Dumbledore continued candidly. "I apologise if I was rude to you."

"I understood," Harry told him, with a smile, as the turn of the path took them away, back into the woodland. Dumbledore came to a halt, watching him curiously.

Harry explained.

"You wouldn't want to hear some of the words Hermione was using the night Umbridge announced it in the Prophet."

The Headmaster's eyebrows lifted quizzically.

"Miss Granger is very widely read," he commented. "I am always ready to be impressed by the breadth of her vocabulary." He took Harry's arm in a light grip, and turned them once more along the path, meandering along beneath the overhanging eaves of the forest. Skeletal fingers of deciduous trees brushed at Dumbledore's hat as he stooped beneath them. "However, I fear you do not wholly understand, Harry- not yet." His hand shifted to Harry's shoulder, and he looked at him, his shadowed face wan and tired. "Remember that I taught Delores Umbridge- yes," he went on, pushing a trailing briar back from his face with the other hand. "Just as I taught poor Bella Black and Tom Riddle before either of them." The old man turned his face back to the path. "I remember a little girl with a shrill voice and a rather loose regard for the truth." He continued, thoughtfully. "She always wore pink, as I recall- whenever she had the choice, and was always exceptionally loud and exuberant- although a little shy, if I recollect aright, if the topic of conversation shifted to herself. It is not easy, Harry, to treat those that you have helped to raise, as enemies- especially as you will always know, in part, that their faults are in some measure due to your own errors and omissions in their education and care."

"People make their own choices, Professor," Harry protested, after a moment. "The best teacher I've ever had taught me that one."

"We sculpt our own fates and destinies," Dumbledore responded, an ironic smile touching his lips. "True, Harry- but it is a sad truth, and one's mind forever eagerly offers new twists and turns of thought in order to deny it- especially as we rapidly approach the point where it becomes necessary to face those who have chosen… unwisely, and condemn them to taste the fruits of their mistakes."

The younger man stopped walking, a chill that owed nothing to the January climate creeping down his spine as his old mentor's voice hardened.

"We cannot allow Delores to continue unchecked any longer, Harry," Dumbledore said, and his eyes closed. "I have always held that I am Headmaster of Hogwarts- no matter what Delores believes, I have never held any ambition to be Minister for Magic- either openly or behind the scenes… but," he went on, more firmly, "You will find that the responsibilities of any positions of power overlap. I believe a wise student of mine once referred to it as the 'fundamental interconnectedness of all things'. While Delores' activities inconvenienced the Order of the Phoenix, I considered it my duty to work around her, as far as possible- for we were both working in the area which was properly her responsibility. However, she has crossed a line that you and I both know we cannot allow her to cross- and there seems little hope that she will exercise the wisdom to return of her own free will. Therefore, Harry, I am afraid that- once I have warned her in clear terms of the danger she faces- if she still insists on pressing forward with her plans as before, we shall have no choice but to use force."


When Harry had first come to Hogwarts, the short winter days up in the northern latitudes in which the school resided had been one of the lesser wonders to surprise him. Since then, he had grown accustomed to Hogwarts' harsh Scottish winters, and neither the dark nights nor the grey cold particularly disturbed or depressed him. Still, by the time the clock struck five, it was already well and truly past the fall of night, and, looking up, the first stars were becoming apparent to his vision as he walked quietly round the side of the Nest, marshalling his thoughts. He'd half expected Ginny to have retreated to the school by this time, but, it seemed, she had become as lost in her work as he had in his conversation with the Headmaster. He looked in through the rough little window. Ginny had tied her hair back behind her head, and was sitting cross-legged on the bench, her wand propped upright between two books, illuminating a third, open in her lap. She frowned as she read, her left hand keeping her place while her right moved, distractedly, to and fro, feeling imaginary fields of magic in the air. The boy's lips drew back into a thin smile, to see her so focused on the task at hand, and he silently stole around the side of the little building to the doorway.

"Homework, Gin?" she started abruptly, knocking her wand over and closing the book with a heavy thump.

"Lumos," Harry knelt, retrieving the birch wand and passing it back to her. Ginny took it from his hand quite quickly, a slightly angry note in her voice.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Harry leant against the doorframe, giving her space as she re-lit her own wand and tucked the heavy textbook away beneath The Two Towers. "Or spy on you," he added, with a penetrating look. Ginny held his gaze, her chin lifting slightly, brown eyes locked on green defiantly.

Harry gave her a questioning look.

"Well- I'm not going to start telling you off, Ginny," he admitted, putting one hand behind his head. "It's not my job to order you about."

"You're wrong-" she said it softly, but the faint yet undeniable hostility that had been in her face when she'd first seen him look at the books faded a little. "There are a few orders you can give me, Mr Potter- so long as we're talking about the war, not about you and me," Ginny added, with a ghost of a smile. "Still, there's a couple of orders I won't take from anyone- especially not from you. The first is to leave you behind- and I think another one is to do nothing. I can't do that." Her eyes moved away, focusing on the light of her wand, and Harry stepped inside, his shadow looming high on the walls and ceiling behind him, as black as the night outside the windows.

"I didn't ask you to," he said, quietly taking his seat on the other side of the pile of books. "I just asked you to be careful."

"I am being careful!" Ginny seized the books in one hand and placed them out of the way behind her in one movement, looking hard at Harry again, her eyes flashing. "Harry- I'm not Florence Lovegood. I don't know what happened to her- but she knew she was getting into something dangerous. You're the one who heard Milner's story. You're right- she made a mistake- I don't know what- you don't know what- we don't even know what she was working on- but if you and Hermione are trying to say that just because Luna's mother managed to blow herself up doing something seven years ago then I can't do anything now and I've just got to sit here-- then I'm sorry, but I can't do that, Harry. I've got to do it."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Harry held out his hand. "Listen, Gin- I know. I know what it feels like- knowing you can do something, knowing you can't not do it- and I know there's still more than half a chance I won't get through this alive- and you want to know something else?" He leant forwards, his eyes wide and dark. "I know full well that there's a good chance you won't either- and that some of that'll be my fault, because you're helping me." His jaw snapped shut, and he bit his lip, the pain in his face reaching out over the flash of anger. "And that's just the way it is. You're right. It's your business as well- it's your choice to make- and it doesn't make any difference- wouldn't make any difference if you were my sister, my wife, my friend or my enemy… it'd still be your choice. I don't have to be happy about it- but I do have to let you make it." He drew a deep breath.

Ginny took his hand. Slowly, she let her head tip backwards, contemplating the shadows on the ceiling for a long time.

"I think we were meant to have settled all this last summer- when we all took a certain Oath, remember?" she said, in that clarity of tone that comes after anger has run its course and ebbed away. She released his grip and touched his cheek with the same hand. "Quite a bit's happened since then, though."

"You could say that."

"I just did."

"You're useful that way," Harry told her, with a twisted sort of grin. "Anyway-" he licked his lips, looking down at the bench between them. "I'd look a bit of a twit if I asked you to stop now," he went on, words almost falling over themselves in an awkward rush. Ginny tilted her head questioningly.

"We're going to put a stop to Madam Delores Jane Umbridge," Harry's voice was flat. "… and I know how we're going to do it."

"I thought Dumbledore said…" Ginny raised her eyebrows.

"He told me to leave it alone? Not do anything?" Harry enquired, reaching up and taking her hand in his, looking rather pointedly at her. He held her hand to his lips and kissed it, looking intently at her through his spectacles. "Quite a bit's happened since then, though," he repeated her words, and let her hand go.

For a moment, Ginny held her hand where he had released it, as if willing him to continue, and then she nodded. "What's the plan, then?" she asked, brightly- so brightly that Harry suspected it of being more than a little feigned, for all the smile extended to her eyes.

Harry looked away, sliding his bag on to the floor beside him and leaning down to search through it. "We're going to need a spell," he told her. Ginny's lips quirked.

"You've changed your tune," she scolded him- although this time her tone was without bitterness in it. "One minute it's 'don't take risks', the next it's 'I need a new spell'-" she broke off, as Harry carefully slid his gold pensieve from his bag and laid it on the bench between them, looking up and capturing her eyes with his own as he did so. She swallowed. That pensieve carried bad memories for her- in more senses than one. Her heart beat a little faster in her chest, and her breathing changed- and it was not closeness to Harry that wrought either alteration, on this particular occasion.

"It's not exactly a new spell, Gin," he said, his voice unhappy. He blinked, sharply. "You need to know--"

"I'll do it," she told him quickly, as much to silence the voices of fear and doubt in her own mind as anywhere else. He took her hand again.

"This is going to take us somewhere very dark, Ginny. Maybe too dark, in the end-"

"Then we go down together." Ginny held his gaze, her lips set and her face proud, as Harry raised his wand to his temple, and pressed its tip against his skin.


Author's Notes:

Yes, I did just initial him as 'S' Lovegood. ;-p

The name 'Xenophilius' doesn't really fit the Mr Lovegood who's appearing in the first couple of chapters of the sequel to this, which I'd planned prior to reading canon DH, so Lovegood's gone for another name, like young Virginia.

Review Responses:

Dogofalldoom: For Milner, comedy is a survival strategy. On the flipside of that, survival is frequently a comedy strategy as well.

evil-mastermind666: The centaurs are not overly impressed by the labels applied to them either. You've just read Firenze's reaction to this- the rest of the gang's views on the subject won't be shown for a little while yet. As for Bum Ridge herself… wait and see. : )

Jazna: Oh, it irritates me as well when stories get abandoned permanently- that's why I was absolutely determined not to let it happen here- but, equally, if I hadn't had the break, things just wouldn't have worked. I haven't been idle- I've written up the plotline for most of the rest of the story, and a number of very key scenes are finished. A couple of evil cliffhangers, a couple of speeches, and a few moments that will hopefully be more tear-jerking than stomach churning. Oh, and speaking of stomach churning moments, Harry's eventually going to get a new nickname from Fred and George…

Wolf's scream: "A need to run as fast as possible just to stay in one place" does sum up how Hermione must feel, I think, faced with trying to keep Harry, Ron, and Ginny in order.

Jedimacewindu: That was quick- you've got from 18 to 30 in a few days. The use of new spells is fairly unavoidable, given one of the main plotlines- and besides, it's fun. I'm saving up a few noisy spells for the end of this story, as well, although minor variants of two of them have been seen so far.