Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
Short one this, no action, no killing, and nothing at all violent in this one...
Enjoy!
Chapter 95
There was ice all over the walls of their living room; it had lingered for the whole day. Hoarfrost coated the chairs and the sofa, the windows and floor, icicles hung from the ceiling, and thrust from the floor, formed from fury, now melting.
The house echoed with its soft dripping, and the hollow, cold reverberations were the only measure of time within its walls.
'Harry,' Fleur said softly, squeezing the fingers she had been holding since he had arrived.
'I'm going to see her again,' he said firmly, and some of the frost fell from the walls, running in small waves of water down to the floor where it lapped about their ankles.
Fleur said nothing, but her frown spoke volumes.
'What?' He demanded.
'The resurrection stone does not bring people back, Harry,' she reminded him. 'Salazar was already little more than a memory, no matter how much he meant to you, but Katie,' she leant forwards, shivering slightly, 'she will be little more than a shadow of our friend.'
'I know.' Some of the water at his feet refroze, thin spines spreading from the surface of the puddle. 'It will not be the same,' he admitted softly, 'but it will be better than nothing.'
Anything is better than nothing.
'You know the story of the resurrection stone,' she warned gently, 'this gateway unto death opens both ways.'
'It does not bring back the dead,' Harry said eventually, wrestling with the painful truth. 'My death will not re-unite us, nor would I leave what I have in this world behind for Katie, the conjured spirit will be a small comfort, and,' his voice cracked, 'one I think I might need.'
'I understand,' Fleur shifted closer, squeezing his fingers again, 'I would be more than distraught if I lost Gabrielle.'
For a long while Harry stared at the longest of the icicles, which descended fully four feet from the light fitting, plunging through the table, and, as it melted, dripped into the spreading pool of water on the floor. The drops that fell from it threw wide ripples across the room, lapping gently against the walls.
'He let her die,' Harry continued, voicing, for the first time since he had apparated here, his deepest grievance.
'Who?'
'Who do you think?' Harry laughed bitterly. 'The man would see me a martyr. He knew who Malfoy was after all along, so when I warned him he told me not to worry, and I foolishly listened, seeing what I wanted to see instead of what was really there.'
'Dumbledore,' Fleur deduced carefully. 'He has the resurrection stone too.'
That alone would have been enough to set Harry against him, but after Katie, after his continued attempts to shepherd Harry towards his martyr's mirage, he no longer felt that simply stealing away the stone would suffice.
'I will take it,' Harry promised her, 'somehow I will take it, but I need to be careful, Katie is gone because I underestimated that old wizard. I will not make the mistake twice.' Fleur sagged with visible relief, and he shot her a small smile, grateful for her concern.
'And in the meantime?' Fleur asked, releasing his hands.
'Vengeance,' Harry whispered coldly, he could not forget the part that Malfoy had played, Voldemort's puppet, and he would not forgive it. Around him the dripping stopped, the water refreezing into jagged, sharp spears that jutted up around the two of them as magic swirled around him.
Fleur's fingers flared with blue fire, keeping his cold at bay as best she could without setting fire to anything he hadn't already ruined.
'Stop it, Harry,' she shivered as her flames guttered out, 'control your magic!'
He blinked, seeing the swirling storm of snow and ice that surrounded him, and Fleur's blue nails and lips.
I'm hurting her.
She was hunched against the stinging ice, and invasive cold, but unwilling to take so much as a step away from him.
Enough.
Harry's fingers curled around the slender shape of his wand, and, driving the emotions deep down inside, he flourished it, sweeping the ice away.
'Thank you,' she shivered once more, then briefly cast a handful of warming charms upon herself. 'That ritual had a profound effect, I see.'
'Volatile,' Harry reminded with unspoken apology, even with all his occlumency he couldn't clear feelings so intense from his mind, not without embracing the nothingness completely, and he would rather have the pain than that dreadful, hungry emptiness .
All of the emotions were compressed into a small, boiling, freezing burst within his breast, not gone, just contained, but buried they no longer dominated his thoughts and he began to piece things back together more pragmatically.
'I need to return,' he realised. 'I've been away too long already, everyone will already have noticed my absence, and I should go back.' He frowned, fingers clenching around his wand that was crackling with green, glowing sparks at the very idea of returning close enough for vengeance. 'But if leave now, I'll do something we may both end up regretting,' he smiled ruefully, 'I won't be able to help myself.'
'Go,' Fleur nodded resignedly, knowing he had little choice, 'but don't get caught.' She swept forwards and caught him in a brief, tight embrace. 'Damned either way,' she whispered. 'Blamed, or condemned.'
Aren't I always, he thought darkly.
'I would rather be condemned for vengeance than blamed for harming a hair on Katie's head,' he told Fleur seriously.
'I would rather you were neither,' she replied just as gravely, 'so,' she had still not let him go, 'don.'t. Get. Caught.'
'I won't,' he promised, sitting back down, 'but, since I have already been missed, I might as well linger as long as I can.'
Fleur blinked at him gratefully, descending gracefully next to him, then appraised the room critically, vanishing the water with a flick of her wand, and carefully repairing the lights, table, and furniture.
'It is a good thing you came back here,' she decided once the room was restored, looking faintly tired. 'Your magic does not like to have what it was ruined restored, and I can only imagine what might have happened to anything or anyone nearby.'
'There might not be much left of the Three Broomsticks,' Harry admitted quietly. He could not clearly remember leaving, only that he had been angry, enraged beyond coherent thought or reason, more so than he had been here with Fleur, and even the recollection was enough to cool the air around him.
'I've finished a new project,' Fleur told him carefully, showing him her wand, and twirling it beneath his eyes so he could see the runes engraved around it. 'It's one of the few parts I could decipher from what I copied off your cloak.'
'What does it do?' Harry inquired, happy to be distracted.
'It prevents it being summoned by anyone other than its master,' Fleur explained. 'I can only use it on my wand, since I do not know enough to replicate the enchantment properly and get an item to accept me as its master, but my wand has already chosen me.' She stroked the rosewood fondly. 'It's as much a piece of me as anything could be.'
'Beautiful within and without,' Harry remembered absently, and Fleur blushed faintly, curling her toes on the chair beside her.
'You can summon wands?' Harry raised an eyebrow, he'd always assumed that something so simple just wouldn't work.
'Not from its owner's hands,' Fleur reassured him, 'no wand would betray its wielder so easily, but if you were powerful enough you might be able to take it from their person, or from the floor nearby them even if they were aware and resisted.'
'Like the Disarming Charm, then,' Harry deduced.
'I imagine they're rooted in the same principle somewhere,' Fleur agreed. 'One day I intend to understand every rune, and pattern on all three of the hallows,' she sighed wistfully.
'And the archway,' Harry told her, just as curious as she was to see how they worked, even if he doubted he would ever be able to enchant something like that himself.
'I will not be able to get to the archway,' Fleur said with no small measure of disappointment.
'I guess you'll just have to make your own, then,' Harry smiled faintly, unable to muster anything more.
'Maybe,' she mused. 'It would make a very interesting project.'
'Each to their own,' Harry frowned. A gateway to nothing was something he wanted nothing to do with.
'You have your projects, I have mine,' Fleur shrugged, a glimmer of understanding in her eyes. 'Speaking of which?' Fleur crooked an eyebrow in an awkward imitation of him, trying her best to look more curious than concerned.
'No more rituals,' Harry placated her, 'I need to be able to destroy horcruxes, and defeat Voldemort, there's little more I can do with rituals in such a small time frame.'
'So what else are you doing?' Fleur asked, not fooled.
'There might have been some experimental magic planned,' Harry admitted, unrepentant. 'Nothing too dangerous.'
'Show me?'
'It's not really got anywhere,' Harry said, flicking his wand out regardless, since he knew Fleur was unlikely to take that for an answer. 'I had a look through the old copies of the Daily Prophet in the library, as well as some research in books I shouldn't be seen reading. I re-read my book on inferi too, and a handful of books on duels from Salazar's collection, but mostly I've ben researching Gringotts; it's unbelievable how little we seem to know about what is actually down there, but I digress,' he said wryly. 'Gellert Grindelwald has half a tome dedicated to the spells and tactics he invented for duelling,' he nodded appreciatively, 'so I've been trying to recreate some of his more powerful spells from the accounts.'
'I am surprised you found books like that in Hogwarts' library,' Fleur frowned, 'even the restricted section. There was nothing like that that I saw when I was there.'
'The Room of Requirement provided them,' Harry explained, 'someone must have stashed them there, and never reclaimed them, so when I needed them, it gave them to me.'
He opened his left hand, silently summoning an orange from the bowl on the side of the kitchen. Levelling his wand at the fruit he focused, directing the air around the orange with his magic, and with a soft snick a thin slice of peel spun across the table.
'An invisible, wordless cutting curse?' Fleur looked distinctly unimpressed by Grindlewald's creation.
'No,' Harry shook his head, 'it's a combination of very advanced transfiguration and charms. If you conjure something, they are tied to your intent, like my butterflies, unless that is somehow altered by another piece of magic, this spell imbues the air with my intent, placing at under my control just as something I conjure would be. It's hard to counter if you don't understand it, and quite powerful actually.'
'It doesn't look like it,' she frowned.
Harry's lips twitched, and with a gentle tweak of his wand the orange was pulverised onto the table's top, flattened into a very fine, thin layer of paste.
'Oh,' Fleur smiled teasingly, dipping a finger into the fruit and sucking the juice off. 'Your example was just terrible.'
Harry levelled his wand at her, flicking the air through her hair to leave it in disarray. Fleur pouted at him under her scattered hair, and Harry was immediately reminded of Katie, whose hair had been in constant chaos.
'I need to go back,' he murmured, the good humour that had taken hold in his absence of memory faded in the face of his returning fury.
'Your trip with Dumbledore is tonight,' she warned.
Harry blinked.
How could I forget?
'Maybe I'll get lucky,' he shrugged, standing to apparate back to the Chamber of Secrets.
'I prefer it when you have a plan,' Fleur grumbled, worried.
'I have one,' Harry assured her.
Malfoy. Destroy the locket. Start looking for a way to steal the stone.
'Is it more than a handful of vague objectives?' Fleur asked sweetly.
'Of course.' Harry paused when she frowned. 'Maybe?' he tried. 'No,' he admitted when her expression didn't change, 'but it's worked so far.'
Except for Katie, he thought bitterly.
'I'll find out more details before I act against Dumbledore,' he promised, 'unless something irresistible crops up, that is.'
'Go,' Fleur told him biting her lip, 'go before I decide I don't want to risk you not coming back to me and come with you.'
If you could come with me I would take you in a heartbeat, Harry thought sadly, but he said nothing, knowing it would only upset her more, or, worse, tempt her into trying to come, and apparated away.
The Chamber of Secrets was cold, dark, and silent.
The weight of his isolation was almost crushing within it, and in the moment he stood alone there he had never missed the acerbic greeting of Salazar's painting, nor Katie's bright warmth so much.
Unable to resist the saturating sadness he strode across the bridge to stand in the office and look up at the empty outline on the wall over the door.
Soon, he promised it. Soon.
Turning back to the doorway a glint of gold caught his eye.
Picking up the small bottle by its cool cork Harry eyed the mouthful of potion calculatingly.
'Maybe I'll get lucky,' he repeated thoughtfully, tucking the vial into his pocket.
There were twelve hours of liquid luck in the small bottle, more than enough to see him through his revenge, and, hopefully, its influence might even be enough to reveal some way of stealing the stone from Dumbledore.
He didn't bother disillusioning himself when he left the chamber this time, the time for subterfuge, and subtlety was drawing to an end, and he was growing sick of having to sneak around while Dumbledore and Voldemort stood proudly in the light.
The bathroom was empty, though a handful of the stalls were full, so he hurried out, ignoring the vaguely suggestive looks he received from a handful of Hufflepuff boys in the year above. They would likely wait around to see which girl followed him out, but he couldn't care less. He snorted to himself as he strode towards Gryffindor Tower, as if he'd ever betray Fleur in such a manner.
When he walked in through the entrance the entire room fell silent.
'Harry,' Neville said, relieved, 'you're ok.'
'I'm just fine, Neville,' he replied, lacing his voice with sarcasm.
'We're sorry to hear about what happened,' Ron said earnestly, looking like he fully understood for once. 'We all liked Katie, and Voldemort will pay for hurting her.'
Hermione sniffed quietly.
'Will you tell us what happened?' Ginny asked quietly. 'Neville said we should wait for you to tell us what happened to her.'
As if they haven't all been talking about it for the last day, he thought venomously. They just want to see if what I say is the same.
'She was killed,' Harry said flatly, walking away from them up towards the dormitories. Neville trailed after him, shaking his head when some of the other Gryffindors attempted to follow.
He plodded slowly up and over to his bed, seething silently.
When he pulled back the hangings he found his Firebolt sitting there.
'Her dorm mates gave it to me,' Neville explained from the doorway, 'I thought you should have it back.'
Harry wrenched the hangings closed, unable to stand the sight of it.
'Do you know who?' Neville demanded, fists balled at his side.
'Yes,' Harry answered, 'I know exactly who-' He stopped, mid-sentence, and tilted his head to indicate they had company. 'Wrong dormitory, Hermione,' he said evenly.
'I didn't come here to sleep,' she said, raising her hands, 'and I didn't come to argue either.' Hermione leant on the doorframe next to Neville, wringing her hands awkwardly. 'I'm really sorry about Katie, Harry,' she offered, 'I know the two of you were close, we'll find whoever is responsible and send them to Azkaban.'
'Azkaban?' Neville laughed. 'You mean Voldemort's new summer home?'
'You know what I mean,' Hermione frowned.
'The Ministry doesn't have the time or the resources to investigate,' Harry said simply. 'A student was killed by a cursed artefact in the middle of a war, someone will tell her parents, someone will decided that the trail is too vague to find a culprit, and that will be that. M- Whoever did it will get away with it.'
'Malfoy,' Hermione said, eye narrowed. 'You were about to say Malfoy.'
'So what if I was?' Harry shrugged. 'It's not our place to dispense justice.' Hermione looked shocked, but after a brief moment composed herself and looked quite approving.
Neville understood the real message.
Not justice. Revenge.
'Is Katie still here?' Harry asked quietly.
'She's in the hospital wing,' Hermione told him softly. 'You can go visit her if you want to, I'm sure Madam Pomfrey would let you in, or you can just use your cloak.'
Harry nodded, and turned to leave, following Hermione down the stairs, then stopping so he could continue talking to Neville without her hearing.
'Malfoy did it,' he said calmly, tasting the fury on his tongue in a burst of iron.
'You're going to get him back,' Neville realised.
'And you should stay well clear,' Harry told him. 'What I said about the Ministry investigating is true so long as there is little evidence, reputation or motive, but I will have enough of the latter two to warrant suspicion, even if there will be no proof.'
'So let me do it,' Neville offered.
'Could you kill him?' Harry asked. 'Do you think you're capable of it?'
'I want it almost as much as I wanted Bellatrix and her accomplices dead,' Neville answered hotly.
'They'll accuse me regardless,' Harry told him sincerely. 'There's no point in risking the both of us.'
'Can you not wait?'
'No,' Harry gritted. 'I can't, and I won't.'
They continued down the stairs into the common room, Neville looking troubled, but resolute..
'I'll come with you to the hospital wing,' Neville offered.
'If you want,' Harry agreed. Katie had been his friend too, so he deserved to say goodbye as well, if he hadn't already.
'I was watching Malfoy while we were in Hogsmeade,' he heard Ron whisper to Hermione as they passed their table, 'he was in Scrivenshaft's at the time, but he could have used the Imperius, or got one of his friends to get the necklace to Katie.'
'Angelina and Alicia said that Harry bought her chocolates as a present,' Hermione said slowly, and Harry paused, not believing what he thought he might be about to hear, 'but the box had a necklace in instead.'
'You're not suggesting…' Ron trailed off incredulously.
'I don't know,' Hermione wilted under the weight of Ron's disbelief, 'but I can't help it but feel there's something wrong going on somewhere, and it isn't just Malfoy.' Her voice wavered. 'People just seem to die around him for no reason, but he carries on like he's not affected by it at all, and that scares me, Ron.' For a very brief moment Hermione looked absolutely terrified. It was a fleeting instant, but it brought to mind Ginny's face when she had awoken in the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago. 'So many in the Order, Lupin, Snape, Victor,' he tone wavered, 'your dad, and now Katie, his closest friend, and he's just walking around in the common room like it was another day. You locked yourself in your room for a month.'
'Harry's stronger than me,' Ron said simply.
He passed out of earshot, unable to linger without becoming obtrusive, or absolutely furious that Hermione thought he did not care.
Icy footsteps trailed in his wake, and Neville, who had heard every word that Harry had, stared apprehensively at the frosty footmarks.
'What are you going to do to Malfoy?' Neville murmured.
'I don't know,' Harry answered, pausing before the doors to the hospital wing, 'whatever feels… justified.'
The doors creaked when they opened, but Madam Pomfrey was not present.
The only figure was in the furthest bed, a familiar form, draped in white.
A flick of his wand unfurled the sheet, baring Katie's face, and shoulders. Neville swallowed, clenching his jaw and turning away to hide wet, burning eyes.
Harry stared down at the girl who had loved him.
She was plain in death.
Her hair still found itself strewn across her face, but the warmth had faded from her face, the life that had glittered in her eyes was gone, and the girl in the bed below him who looked like Katie, simply was not her anymore.
The beautiful, gleaming opal necklace that now adorned her neck, shimmered faintly with eerie green light, resisting Harry's efforts to remove it, and coiling tighter into Katie's equally pale throat.
Harry's fingers tightened on his wand, and the necklace trembled, falling from her neck to slip down the sheet onto her chest.
'It looks expensive,' Harry said distantly, levitating the ornament above the form of his friend, and staring at the glittering malice of the moon-pale stones.
'Expensive?' Neville stared at him, nonplussed.
'Very,' Harry nodded slightly, lips curving, 'it would be most remiss of me not to return it to its owner.'
Neville's mouth flattened into a thin, hard line, as he watched the ornament defend gracefully into Harry's pocket.
'Goodbye, Katie,' Harry said quietly, and remembering what he had promised her before he reached down and took her hand. 'I promise not to get caught doing something stupid,' he echoed, but this time there was no smile, no tight, warm grip on his hand as she clung to what little she could keep of his affection.
Katie's lips were cold, dry and dead, but he kissed them gently all the same. Fleur would understand. Neville did. His friend watched with clenched fists as Harry rose and swept the sheet back over Katie's face.
'I think,' Harry said slowly and apologetically, 'that I need to be alone for a little while, Nev.'
'That's ok, Harry,' Neville was still staring furiously at the shrouded figure of their friend.
'Will you do me a favour?' He asked gently.
'Of course,' Neville nodded.
'My Firebolt, Katie's Firebolt,' Harry exhaled slowly, 'take it outside somewhere and burn it.'
'Burn it?' Neville repeated disbelievingly.
'I do not ever want to see it again,' he replied evenly, and with deceptive calm. 'Burn it, the handle, the stirrups, every last twig until it is in as many ashes as Katie's dreams for the future.'
'I will,' Neville promised miserably.
'Thank you, Nev,' Harry called out gratefully, and his friend turned and left him alone without another word.
It was not long until he had to leave with Dumbledore now but, he cast a quick spell to check, there was still some time left before their horcrux hunt.
Long enough for vengeance with a little luck, his fingers slipped to the small vial of swirling gold in his pocket, easily long enough.
AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who does!
