Narcissa smiled at Albus Dumbledore and glided into his office. "An unexpected pleasure," he said. "Where, if I may be so bold, is young Draco?"
"At the beach," she said. She summoned a small, tinkling laugh. It wasn't quite as insipid as the one she used for the motley crew of Death Eaters, but it wasn't genuine either. "Covered in sun protection charms, of course, off gallivanting in the waves with Harry and Sirius." He held out a chair for her, and she sank into it. She'd spent hours as a girl practicing that drop. It took a lot more thigh and core strength than anyone would have expected to sink down into a chair with delicate grace.
Funny how men always underestimated women in even the smallest ways.
Dumbledore sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers. "I hate to be self-deprecating, but I can hardly believe you came all the way up here just to visit an old teacher."
Narcissa did the dimpling smile. "No," she admitted. She glanced at the door and allowed herself what her mother would have called 'a very pretty hesitation.' "How secure – ?" She let her voice trail off.
"I can promise you anything said in this office remains confidential," Dumbledore said.
Narcissa pulled a tiny scrap of parchment from her pocket. "As Lucius' wife, I'm sure you understand, I am sometimes privy to conversations that are… private." Really what she meant was that Voldemort and his ilk ran their mouths in front of her as if she was nothing more than a piece of furniture. She hadn't liked it the first time around, and she liked it less now. However, what she was about to artfully hand over to Albus Dumbledore wasn't something she'd overheard while passing out starters but something her own son had told her before he was born.
Dumbledore took the piece of parchment. "Like Grindelwald before him," Narcissa said, pretending not to see Dumbledore's flinch, "the Dark Lord has an interest in the Hallows."
"The Hallows?"
"You and I both know they are nothing but a children's story," Narcissa said. "That doesn't make his fixation any less genuine. And he thinks he has a lead on one of them."
"Might I ask which one? The Cloak of Invisibility, perhaps, to hide himself from Death?"
"No," Narcissa said. "The Resurrection Stone." She watched his face and, for a brief moment, raw hunger came into his eyes. He hid it quickly enough, but she felt a wave of pity for the old man. Power was a drug, and she'd seen enough men poisoned by it to recognize the symptoms. "He thinks it's been set in an old ring belonging to the Gaunt family, and he means to find it."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I know very little about his plans," Narcissa said, the lie sugar on her lips. "I do know they are generally unpleasant, and if he does get his hands on this thing and it turns out to be nothing but an old ring, he's going to be —." She paused. "Displeased."
"I will look into it," Dumbledore said. "And I would appreciate it if you pass along any other unpleasant plans you overhear."
Narcissa rose. "I will do that," she said. "With my son the best friend of the child who saw to his last demise –." Again she did one of her little pauses and let Dumbledore fill in the blanks. It didn't take a prodigy to know befriending Harry Potter posed risks to her now. Her and her son. Her hand was on the doorknob when she turned to say one last thing. It was more than she'd meant to tell him, but perhaps she owed him the chance to avoid his own fate. "If you do find it," she said. "Be careful. Anything the Dark Lord is after is surely cursed. It would be foolish beyond belief to put it on."
Dumbledore smiled at her, and she knew he was going to slide that ring onto his finger exactly the way Draco had told her he would. "I will keep your warning in mind," he said, and then she let herself out.
Well, she'd tried.
. . . . . . . . . . .
It isn't fair. The ink splattered where Neville mentally jabbed at his diary. The words themselves appeared without a quill, without a wand, without a word. He could write on parchment without so much as murmuring a charm, but handwriting and ink splotches still reflected his mood. He turned on one heel and paced in his room, stopping to look out the immaculate glass window to the lawns and greenhouse below. I don't want to be cooped up here all summer.
If Albus Dumbledore had seen the words appear in response to his thoughts in the diary, he would have drawn back in shock. Minerva McGonagall would have narrowed her eyes in unhappy speculation. It was magic beyond a schoolboy, magic beyond even most fully-trained adult wizards. It was a level of skill and control only found in prodigies.
Dumbledore and McGonagall both remembered the last prodigy they had known.
Neville Longbottom, however, had no idea this was anything more than slightly unusual. Certainly, he didn't go around writing out his essays via thought where any of his fellow students could see him, but that was more to avoid jealousy than because he understood this was rare and dangerous and disturbing. What he knew was that Pansy Parkinson had written to him, a long letter detailing all of the things everyone planned to do this summer. What he knew was that his grandmother would never let him floo over to Harry Potter's the way even little Muggle-born Hermione could. Now when Draco might be there. Not when Sirius Black had reconciled with his cousin. Not when a taint of the woman who had tortured his parents into insanity could linger in the curtains and draperies of the Black townhouse. It all made sense, and it was all so hideously unfair. Draco hadn't done anything wrong. Harry hadn't. But because of who they were, he was left to wither away here all summer, a plant without deep enough soil for its roots.
How is this summer any different than last summer? Tom asked, the words appearing without a single splotch or blot as Neville stalked back across the room to glare at his diary. His most prized possession. We can work on magic together. It's not as if your gran will notice.
This year Voldemort is back, Neville wrote. This year everything was different, which was why it was so unfair everything was still the same. Not that anyone seems to care. Harry and Draco are planning to go to the beach. Pansy wants Hermione to take her shopping in Muggle London. And I'm stuck here.
There was a long pause during which his words sank into the bottomless sea of the diary, and the response sat, unmoving, beneath the surface of the pages. At least, Tom wrote, What do you mean Voldemort is back?
Oh, thought Neville. Of course, Tom wouldn't know who Voldemort was. As he paced, he explained. A Dark Lord. Tortured his parents to death. They'd talked about that before – at some length – but now that Neville spilled more of his soul into the diary, he realized he'd never named the villain of the piece. And now he's back, and I need to get revenge. Kill him, he meant, not that he was sure that was possible. The bastard had already pulled himself out of one grave, but Tom had taught him so much if anyone could do it, it would be him.
Revenge is a good thing, the diary said slowly. It is vital to make sure anyone who hurt you can't ever do it again.
Make them afraid, Neville wrote. It was one of Tom's most basic lessons. Magic was the power behind the threat, but if you were frightening enough, most of the time, no one would challenge you.
Who do you think will be fighting Voldemort?
Harry. Even if he was wasting his summer at the beach, Harry wouldn't back down from a fight. And Draco. Whatever Harry did, Draco did. And, well, whatever Draco did – except for Quidditch – Hermione did.
But they are spending the summer at the beach?
Yeah.
Without you.
Yeah.
Are you sure you should risk yourself helping them?
. . . . . . . . . . .
Hermione hesitated in front of the beach umbrella. Sirius had plunged the supporting pole into the sand and unrolled sunshades that now drooped from the unimpressive top, piling on the sand in faded greens and whites. It all looked like something her grandmother might have triumphantly produced from the attic and, judging by the sidelong glances, some of the Muggle mothers on the beach were casting in their direction, she wasn't the only person who thought it should have been thrown out years ago.
"It's fine," Sirius said impatiently. "I borrowed it from Cissa. You know she only buys the best."
Hermione sighed, pushed aside one of the hanging sunshades, and stepped under the umbrella. She immediately stopped, frozen, and looked around with wide eyes. Harry stumbled into her in his headlong dash through the hanging fabric, and she stepped to the side. Pansy was on his heels, and she stepped in without batting an eye. Hermione wished she was that nonchalant about everything. The tent was huge – easily the size of a small cottage – and comfortable chairs just worn enough to seem unfussy were scattered around. Sirius ducked in, Remus behind him, and both grinned at her. "Not what you expected?" Sirius asked.
"How?" Hermione was so flabbergasted she couldn't even form a complete sentence.
"It's bigger on the inside," Sirius said.
"Undetectable extension charm." Blaise sauntered in behind her, and Hermione's jaw clenched at the casual condescension in his voice. "Not something you have at home, Granger?"
"Obviously not." Draco gave him a quick shove. "Don't be a wanker, Zabini."
Blaise tossed her a smile that was almost insincere and shrugged. "Not like I know what Muggles have."
"Here's the short version," Pansy said. "See if you can follow it: no magic."
"I'll keep that in mind." Blaise ambled across the wooden floor and began rummaging in a picnic basket. It must have had an undetectable extension charm on it as well, because he pulled out a glass bottle, tossed it to Potter, and said, "Catch" before pulling out another one for himself, a third he tossed to Draco. A fourth he handed to Hermione with what would have been courtesy if he hadn't added, "I know you aren't coordinated, Granger."
"Bugger off," she muttered, but it was more pro forma than really angry. It was hard to be really mad at a person who acted like a jerk but seemed to expect at any moment to be told to leave. Not that it was at all reasonable to insult people if you were afraid they didn't want you around, but her mother had given her some book designed to answer 'all your questions about growing up' and that people didn't behave rationally seemed to be an ongoing theme of the answers. Rather than engage with Blaise Zabini and his irrational nastiness, she set down her beach bag and pulled out the big towel she'd bought in preparation for this excursion. It seemed a bit unnecessary now that she was standing in an actual small house, and she didn't know what she ought to do with it.
Sirius must have sensed her hesitation. "There's hooks by the entrance," he said.
Pansy was busy fishing her own bottle out of the hamper. She'd managed to step on Blaise's foot as she passed him, and he was pretending it didn't happen. Draco and Harry were floating their bottles in front of them in blatant disregard of summer no-magic-doing rules, and Sirius was ignoring them. Hermione felt like she should point out that wasn't the way things were supposed to work – that she was sure Narcissa Malfoy wouldn't approve – but all she did was hang her towel – red with a gold dragon – on the first hook.
"Dragons?" Blaise asked. "I thought your Gryffindor types were all – "
"She's always had a thing for dragons," Pansy said. She rolled her eyes. "Since forever."
"I like them," Hermione said. The towel suddenly seemed embarrassing and gauche. Maybe she should have gotten the plain red one, or the red and white striped one her mum had liked.
Draco chased away all her nerves by looping an arm over her shoulder. "And, conveniently, they like you," he said. He kissed the back of her head.
"Oh," said Blaise. "Oh, you have to be kidding me."
"Nope," Pansy said. "Welcome to cutesville. Population, them."
"We used to be cute," Harry said to her.
Pansy snorted. "No one is cute like they are," she said. "They found true love at eleven or something, and it'd make me sick if I spent any time thinking about it."
"Nice," Draco said.
"I only speak truth," she said. She pulled the top away from her ginger fizz and took a long drink.
Blaise grinned at her, and she sniffed, but Hermione recognized the little toss of her hair. She wasn't having him fetch her things quite yet, but she would be by the end of the day, and by the end of the summer, he'd be doing it eagerly. Hermione wasn't jealous, exactly. She didn't want anyone but Draco and never had. Still, there was a magic to the way Pansy attracted boys, and Hermione would be lying to herself if she claimed she didn't want at least a little of it.
Her ruminations were stopped when Blaise pulled a small ball from his pocket. The arm Draco had on her shoulder tightened, and Hermione could feel the lure of Quidditch. She tried not to let herself groan out loud, which became harder when Harry sucked in his breath with all too obvious delight.
"You can't chase a snitch where Muggles can see you," Remus warned.
"It's just a regular ball," Blaise said. He grinned at Harry and Draco. "Just a friendly game of catch."
"Friendly my arse," Pansy muttered, but the three boys had already disappeared into the open air and sunshine, their shouts of rivalry and joy getting fainter as they ran down the sand toward the water.
"Well," Sirius said, settling down into one of the wide chairs. "What do you two plan to do while they're distracted by balls?"
Pansy pulled a copy of Witch Weekly from her bag. "As if we needed boys to keep ourselves entertained," she said. "Grab that dragon towel of yours. I want to give you the 'Which Member of the Weird Sisters are You' quiz.'
"What?" Hermione asked, but she followed Pansy out into the sunshine. There must have been some kind of notice-me-not spell on the raggedy beach umbrella because no one seemed at all surprised to see five teens emerge in short notice from under it. "Why do you even read those things?"
"Self-knowledge," Pansy said. They found a spot far enough away from the umbrella that neither Sirius nor Remus would be able to overhear them, but not so far away that going back for more ginger fizzes would be a pain. Pansy plopped down on her own towel and flipped the magazine open. Hermione could see Draco, Harry and Blaise running at the water's edge. Harry tossed the ball and Draco leapt up, hand stretched out to snatch it away from Blaise. "Are you paying attention to me?" Pansy demanded. "We're doing this quiz. Which of these sweets would you be: a chocolate frog, an every-flavour bean, or a sugar quill."
Hermione focused on the absurd question. "How does this have anything to do with the members of the Weird Sisters?"
"Just answer the question."
"Fine. A sugar quill, obviously."
"Figures." Pansy made a mark in her magazine and Hermione lay back, flung her arm over her eyes, and relaxed into the sun. If every day was like this, the summer holiday could last forever. It was hard to believe anything bad could ever happen on a day like this.