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So far... By the summer of 1987, The reborn Hermione has befriended Harry and his family (Sirius and Hestia Black) and is recruiting supporters to the cause of rooting out Ministry corruption. Read on...

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Chapter 10

Judgement Day


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It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Although the Grangers garden shed had become Hermione's gold foundry and a place to brew any especially volatile potions, her 'mission control' was primarily a spare bedroom which she had enlarged with a spell. It was overdue for an additional stretch. Benches and shelving filled much of the space, and most were stacked and jammed with reference books, archived newspapers, ingredient containers, and other witchy paraphernalia.

It was well after dark, one month before Hermione's eighth birthday; thunder rumbled distantly and raindrops had begun to glisten in the lamplight reflected from the window. She rose up from her research, stretched wearily, and went to look out. The last half of August was sulking in its own humidity. She recalled a bad-weather-day in her past life – a howling wind had her huddled under the bedclothes before running into her parents' room to be comforted.

She smiled sadly at her younger self's unnecessary fear and at her own ignorance: if only she had taken the trouble to memorise other events from the coming months and years. Yes, cooler weather would follow in a week or two, she recalled, marking the end of summer, but what significant occurrences might help in her quest? She glanced back at the scattered Daily Prophets and Quibblers – some events would change but much would remain the same. London, 1987... she pondered, Ah yes, of course! It wasn't THIS little storm that scared me – it was something much worse!

With a low growl, the sky flickered, silhouetting the larch tree – but Farrimond was out hunting. She glanced at her watch: well after eleven – her parents were most probably asleep. A wave of weariness told her she ought to be so too; old memories did not reduce the needs of a young mind.

The invocation of Aculus came as she turned to go to her own room. Something between a groan and a sigh of resignation was exhaled from the girl's lips. The weeks of waiting for Mike Worthing to be alone prompted her not to delay the summons for a single moment. She walked to a rack of vials, picked out a bottle of Polyjuice potion, poured enough for one hour into a goblet, then dropped in a single hair from the box marked 'Adam' that stood beside the rack. She drank. After dressing in a man's robe, and pulling on big boots, her final task was to draw a tendril of memory from the side of her temple and place it in a vial which she then secured in her pocket.

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The Lab Technician's Memory

In the near-darkness of his study, Mike Worthing reached cautiously for his wand. Greater London, including Kent, was being soaked by the last of the lazy summer storms, but it wasn't thunder he had heard; someone – or something – uninvited was with him in the room!

"Come out, I know you're there!" His back was stiff but not so sore as to stop him getting to his feet and casting a little additional illumination. He blinked in the sudden glare. The youngest kids were away holidaying with friends, and Catherine and Isobel would never enter his office without knocking. His son ought to be asleep but...

"Terry?" Mike peered at the figure of a man near the door – it was shadowy and vague despite the light, and far too big to be his son. A sudden bright flash of lightning revealed the ghostly translucency of the intruder, and Mike shuddered with the thunderclap that followed. "How did you get in here! Are you a friend of Terry's? Of Isobel?" – he knew the apparition was not.

"Neither, but I do offer you friendship," was the reply in a soft deep voice. "I come to bring you opportunities, hope, and a little relief from your burden, Mike."

The cautious businessman frowned. "In return for what?"

"All that I offer, I give freely."

"Yet you sneak into my home at night! How is that even poss–?"

The whites of his eyes suddenly flashed in the uneven glare, and his wand was high a moment later. "Stupef–!"

Even before he could complete the incantation, the wand had spun from Worthing's grasp towards the visitor and clattered against the toes of the apparition's size twelve boots which – for only that moment – were solid enough to casually kick it aside.

The big man – unharmed by the curse – sighed and floated forward through one of the two panelled pillars in the centre of the large room. "While I am immaterial you cannot harm me."

Worthing cringed back, and his voice was an emotional croak. "No wizard can pass through a Fidelius protection without leave of the Secret Keeper! What manner of creature are you? What have you done with my wife?"

"Calm yourself. I have never seen your wife; I'm sure she is fine. I am no creature but I am as you see..."

The man became fully opaque, yet his face remained a shadowy enigma. He drew his own wand, pointed it back over his shoulder, and summoned Mike's which then proceeded to float forward and present itself with a flourish to its original owner. Mike Worthing stared at it doubtfully for a few moments then snatched it out of the air. "So, you think you have proved you are superior but nonaggressive? I shall need more than that to be convinced you mean no harm."

"What do you care – you who are already dying!" cried the visitor. "Take a seat, Mike, physical exertion is not good for you at this time."

A chair hovered itself into position behind the shaking man. He felt it nudge the back of his legs invitingly.

"I shall not rest until I know you do not threaten my family!"

"It is because you are a caring man that I am here. There is an opportunity for you to do much good through the coming years."

"I shall not be around that long, shall I!" cried Mike.

"Why then have you not taken yourself to the healers?"

"I have consulted with them. They can extend my life only if I receive continual treatment at St. Mungo's but I cannot spare the time; I need to first prepare my daughter and provide for the welfare of my family when I am gone."

"You will not succeed, Mike. They are all going to die – your entire family."

The wandlight failed but even the dingy yellow lamplight was enough to reveal the pallor of Mike Worthing's shocked expression as he sank back onto the chair. "Why?" he gasped. "What are they to you? ... Take me, but please spare them," he added in a tiny voice.

"I'm sorry, Mike. It is not I, nor even magic that will kill them."

"Then what?"

"You have, I believe, a Pensieve?"

Worthing blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Wha...?"

"A Pensieve? A runic memory bowl? You have one?"

Mike nodded involuntarily. His mouth moved wordlessly as he tried to process the new direction of their conversation – as well as the implications of losing all his valuable knowledge to the stranger. He whispered near-inaudibly, "No... you cannot..."

But the big man smiled reassuringly. "It is not your memories I seek to expose, but one I have brought with me. I am known as Adam Brown. I foresee the ruination of mankind. I wish to show you what is to come and the demise of your home and family."

Mike was clutching his chair and swaying. "Help me... please help me..."

The intruder sprang sideways in the direction of Mike's gaze and opened the cupboard he was indicating. "I'm sorry, Mr Worthing! I'm so sorry. I didn't expect your illness to be so far advanced!" The tone of the deep voice had turned quite childish but Mike was in too much pain to notice.

"The green vial..." he gasped.

"This one...?" Adam Brown unstoppered the potion and held the rim of the bottle to the thin line of Mike's lips, cradling the back of his head with the other hand.

"I'll be alright now, thank you." Mike straightened himself up and a little colour showed again in his cheeks.

Adam also seemed to compose himself. "I ought not to have assumed... that is, I ought not to have used shock to persuade a good man to do what is right. I apologise."

There was a strange look on Mike's face. "Who are you, really?"

"I was... I ever am, a Gryffindor; it is still difficult for me to wholly trust a Slytherin, let alone believe you might help save the world – both magical and Muggle."

"Why should I help them? They are not my concern."

"You hate Muggles?" Adam knew the answer but was giving his host time to recover.

"I have no particular interest in them. Clearly we wizards have superiority because they have no magical ability."

"And if I could persuade you of their equality? Of their vast superiority in fields other than magic?"

"Impossible," said Worthing. ... "How?"

"The Pensieve, is it in this room?"

Mike gestured to a cabinet not far from the window. He raised his wand then lowered it again. "Would you? I'm not quite strong enough yet."

The bowl was summoned onto the main desk and Adam helped Mike to sit beside it.

"You London traders travel a lot?" said Adam. "You know the central area well? Muggle landmarks, that sort of thing?"

Another nod.

"These insights are as memories." Adam took a tiny vial from a pocket in his robes, and, with his wand drew out a silvery tendril which he shook off into the Pensieve then swirled around. "Come..."

Hesitantly, Mike lowered his face close to the surface of the liquid, and peered down. The inside of the grey bowl now seemed immensely wide and high, so much so that he suffered a slight sense of vertigo. He braced himself, pressed his face to the surface, then descended into the memory. Adam followed.

Around them was a gloomy, flattened amphitheatre that stretched to the horizon. But this glassy crater had no seating – only desolate, stone rubble, cracked and broken and blackened. The sky was a turmoil of grey dust and grim clouds giving an effect of twilight, except occasionally a lighter area above suggested the toiling sun was striving to its midday zenith. A single ghostly old woman dressed in a filthy white laboratory coat sat upon a coarse block of concrete, weeping.

"Who is she? It's a cruel penance to endure alone. What is this place? A cold and crippled hell? Is this my destiny too when I go on?"

Mike regarded the woman gloomily for a while, judging her to be only in her mid-sixties yet with thick bushy hair as silvery-grey as any centenarian. Broken down in her prime – and by what? He yearned vainly to comfort her but knew she could be naught now but a memory.

He scanned around once more; there were no other people nor any living creature in sight.

"How did you come by this recollection? Is it her memory? It must be. She died... here? Yet you obtained the memory from her ghost? How?"

Adam did not answer immediately; he had closed his eyes tightly as if to block out the blasphemy of the woman's plight. Finally, he opened his eyes.

"She is long dead and of no importance to us," the big man said bitterly, and there was a catch in his voice. "Her name was Hermione; she grieves endlessly for all that has been lost."

As they watched and waited, the transparent lady eventually arose and, still sobbing, began picking her lonely way forward through the debris. The two men followed.

The spectral woman stopped before a great masonry block, toppled but almost intact. Its surface was pitted and scarred. A darkness had fallen across it, yet her translucency cast no shadow. The woman fell to her knees as if in prayer.

"Recognise anything?"

Mike shook his head. "Should I? In this world below worlds?"

Adam's large boot kicked meaningfully against a curved, flattened fold of heavily encrusted metal enwrapped by a melted tangle of struts; he gestured down at it with his head. Mike stared. He gasped. "Is that...?"

"Remnants of a baby carriage – yes. Taken for a walk to visit the–"

"Great Merlin! How? A young mother in this lost netherworld? Where is...?"

"The child?" Adam caught Mike's attention, eye to eye, before he continued. "Partly smeared within the crush and the rest sprayed by the fiercest, hottest wind you can conceive. That stain next to it was the mother, no doubt. Likely the husband is that shadow ahead – scorched vapour is all."

Mike clutched at where his stomach normally would be but he had no physicality in this memory. He wafted his hand frantically in front of his face as if to suck in enough air, but he did not even stir the lethal mirk. The woman hobbled onward as in a dream, but Mike shook his head vigorously.

Adam said, "Do you not wish to follow her? to know why that family was here, Mike?"

"I desire only to leave this place, but your manner suggests it would be wise to endure..."

They proceeded through the chaos. Mike Worthing had often used his Pensieve but never before experienced a sensation of weight as he did now; a strange burden seemed to be pressing heavily upon his imaginary body as he espied half-familiar scraps of human indignities. "How did they get to this alien place? I heard that Muggles have reached the moon; is that what this world is? Muggles cannot vanish their waste as we do, so they deliver it here? Broken furniture, useless building debris, even their dead?"

Again the ghostly woman stopped, this time before an extended scattering of debris.

"What do you make of it?" said Adam. He and Mike stood before a lengthy stone block against the side of which lay a heavily eroded form – three times human size and outline, but melted, fused, and twisted grotesquely. If the shape still had a face, it was looking at them bitterly.

"A fallen statue?" said Mike. "But why send it here into this madness?"

"It was never discarded waste, Mike, it was constructed at this location."

"Here? Why?"

"Consider the figure to be originally upright, and atop a tall pillar," said Adam, softly, "just about ... there." He pointed to where the woman stood looking around mournfully in all directions. She buried her face in her hands and emitted a faint, high-pitched wail.

The wind blew visibly across the bleak, dusty landscape, and, though he could not feel the weather, Mike shuddered. Reluctantly, beginning in a kind of awed whisper but rising to a shrill cry, he said, "It was a monument erected right here? We can't still be on Earth! For pity's sake, Brown, we just can't!" – he wished to shake the shoulders of his apparently-calm escort but could not – "Where then are we!"

"Not just any monument, Mike. This is all that remains of Nelson's column."

Mike Worthing looked dazedly about, shaking his head – more as a gesture to the man with him than to perceive anything he might have missed. "But wh... I don't understand. What is this deathly field? What are you saying?"

"This is – or was – Trafalgar Square. It's all gone."

"It cannot be... no, you're wrong. See? there'd be other buildings around here. I've travelled through often so–"

"All gone."

"No, you don't understand me, Brown. I mean beyond the buildings that surround the square. We're in London, remember?"

"All gone. Westminster, Big Ben, Parliament, even Diagon Alley – all of the greater city and suburbs and most of the home counties. All gone in one flash."

Mike's eyes widened in disbelief and horror. "NO! NO! Wh-Where's–! Which direction is–!" He gnawed hopelessly through his phantom knuckles.

"Kent was that way, Mike. I'm sorry." He pointed to where the sky was darkest.

"Was? WAS, you say! My family are there! When did this happen! Yesterday? How long ago! They might yet be alive!" In a panic, he turned instinctively on the spot, then, when Disapparition failed, he began to run, stumbling through and over piles of bricks and masonry clutter. He did not get far – no further than the woman had remembered seeing. Brown watched him walking back as the memory ended and they were abruptly returned to Worthing's study.

"It's not a past memory, Mike, it's the likely future, but with your help it can be changed."

Adam let him alone for many minutes while the man ruminated on the experience. A glance at the clock on the wall confirmed there was only fifteen minutes left before his Polyjuice wore off.

"What do I do?" said Mike, eventually.

"First you report to St. Mungo's. They can commence treatment that will delay the growth within you for decades. Initially, you need only spend occasional days there so the rest of the time you will be free to continue working without pain. Eventually, they will insist you spend more time under bewitchments at the hospital, and be confined to a wheelchair. They'll confirm there is no cure – but they will be wrong."

"What! How can–! You mean...?"

"In 2023, a Muggle researcher, working alone in the field of genetics, will make a significant breakthrough. By the following year, she will have made the remedy available freely to terminal patients despite opposition by the drug companies."

"A cure? ... I won't die? You're certain?" Mike's eyes were bright with shining hope for the first time in several years, then he said quietly, "You have no idea what this means to me – to expect death... then to be spared."

Adam replied just as softly, "Believe me, Mike, I do know."

"It was her, wasn't it? That woman we saw in the Pensieve? 'Hermione', you called her? But what happens to her? I can't bear it if she saves me, yet her ghost suffers that pitiless waste endlessly! What year was that we saw?"

"It was April, 2044. A terrorist with a single de-orbiting plasma drone vaporised the city and irradiated many miles around it. In that same month, the atrocity was repeated in several other British cities as well as throughout the world. In Britain, less than a million people survived... for a while."

Mike understood enough to shake his head in denial but Adam continued, "Do not trouble yourself. That woman was no ghost but had rendered herself semi-visible for safety and immaterial so the intense radiation would pass harmlessly through her. Later in life, she abandoned both magic and science for a while before accepting that wickedness is in neither way of life – it is in their misuse. Using both, and her wide-ranging skills and powers, she helped establish several of the larger village-states and lived long enough to wish she hadn't. Eventually, in despair, she again gave up magic and science as both being too late to save mankind."

Mike Worthing blinked away tears. "Your mother? She taught you that immateriality spell?" He sought closely some likeness in Adam's face but the shadowy features flowed and flickered obscurely. "No, no, that cannot be right – she'd be much older..."

Adam watched him working it out.

"She's you, isn't she? You're her? You're Hermione."

Adam's laughter boomed out dryly. "Come on now, Mike. How could that be possible? That woman would still be little more than a baby this year, wouldn't she? – maybe seven or eight at most."

Mike wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "Your daughter then...? She was – is – your daughter?"

"You need only know she was a Muggle-born yearning for knowledge and truth and meaning. In a long life, the witch had several careers within both the magical and Muggle communities – including the genetic research which will save your life and–"

"Thank her for me then, if you can," cut in Mike. "And if you can bless her in some way, then do that too, for my sake."

Adam needed a few seconds before he could reply, "She shall know what you have said, Mike – you have my word."

He turned away for a few moments longer, deep in thought, then glanced at the wall clock again. "Listen, I have to leave but I will return to discuss how your business skills, your Muggle trading knowledge, and your Ministry connections could help the future of our world. You will not be alone; others will play their part too. Meanwhile, with your daughter's help, your business will be fine."

"Wait! There is a lot I still want to know! How is it that Muggle technology can be so powerful, so... superior to magic? Even Voldemort and Dumbledore together could not have reduced a city – indeed, the entire world – to ash."

"That is something for you to ponder. Goodbye, Mike..."

Adam faded as he drifted slowly backwards through the closed upper-floor window into mid-air, back into the dying thunderstorm with a last flash and a crash and a dying rumble, then he was gone.

"Perhaps a teensy bit over-melodramatic?" smirked the unseeable Aculus while they glided down together to the agreed woodland Disapparition point.

"Oh, I think I made an impression," said Hermione as the Polyjuice enchantment began to fail, "I thought it went rather well."

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Duplicity

The last days of August were quite busy for Hermione. She helped Harry study and practise with his trainer wand as usual – while pretending to learn herself. Perhaps she did absorb a little from Madam Gawtley's clever guidance after all, especially about Harry himself.

Certainly Hermione had become more aware that Harry had been rather too coddled by Sirius and Hestia's love. The tough, sharp edge she'd noticed when first they'd met on the Hogwarts Express was blunted. Hermione had heard a commotion and paused in the train's corridor – that was when she'd heard Harry say, I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.

She'd almost forgotten that! A tingle had ran up her spine and the hair on the back of her neck had pricked up as the eleven-year-old Harry had bravely confronted Malfoy and his gang who then had run off after some sort of brawl. Yes, yes, there had been sweets all over the floor and, too bashful to praise Harry for his courage, she had rather sniffily told him and Ron to get their school robes on and practically accused them of fighting!

What a bossy know-it-all she had been! Harry's daring and his reckless disregard for rules had been the correct approach all along when dealing with troublemakers like Malfoy. Well, the Dursleys had been responsible for toughening up Harry in her previous life; this time she would help temper him without the cruelty. Hopefully, he would be prepared for the rough-and-tumble of Hogwarts by the next time they travelled on that train.

Hermione also spent extra time researching events of recent years in the archives of the Daily Prophet. She could not take for granted that all the events of her previous life were still true – the experience at Fortescue's ice cream parlour had demonstrated that. After a momentary lapse of concentration, she had almost given hints of her prior knowledge to the Blacks. Certainly their suspicions would have been aroused if she had not stopped herself in time, and the less that knew, the less chance there would be of her being uncovered by a temporary lapse like her own had been.

On the threshold of Flourish and Blotts, she paused. The invisible raven on her shoulder cocked his head on one side but said nothing that might interrupt the thoughts of his mistress. The witch sighed today with a man's sigh but her doubts and fears were still those of a young girl. The other event at the ice cream parlour had unnerved her even more than the Blacks' suspicions. The cause of her seeing déjà vu glimpses of the near future was still unresolved. She had already searched for answers in Knockturn Alley's occult bookshops but perhaps the answer lay here under her nose within the most popular information store? She pushed on in.

Another year or two, and Hermione might pass as a small eleven-year-old seeking school books, but for now, she was Polyjuiced as a well-dressed middle-aged man, short and bald with a fat paunch, and felt rather out of place because the shop was crowded with children buying school books.

A young shop girl guided her unnecessarily to the Magical History section then – perhaps seeing the potential of a nice tip from a wealthy-looking customer – stood politely nearby in case further help were needed. But Hermione knew most of these lovely books like the back of her hands! Little had changed apart from the addition of two or three newer editions. She slid out a favourite then pushed it back. Which of these many reference works might mention anyone suffering from her own malady?

Taking out Wizards and Witches Down the Ages she began to browse but was distracted with happy thoughts evoked by the excited chatter of the children around her. Her mind went back to those delightful days leading up to her admission into Hogwarts. The endless pages of enchantment! The discoveries! The delights of new knowledge! The amazing tales of witches and wizards past and present! There had been the exciting promise of the train journey and meeting other new magical students including Harry and Ron – and goodness! Her mind froze in astonishment. Was that Ron she had just glimpsed through a gap in the shelves, here and now in Flourish and Blotts!

Blinking, Hermione turned aside before remembering she could not be recognised. Peering through the tall shelf of books she focused on the back of the head of red hair. Wait! Ron would not be eleven yet, nor would he be so avidly studying a book in the Potions section. Might it be... Percy? There was no doubt when the boy turned and his serious expression came into view. "This primer, I think, Mum."

Eyes wide, Hermione tilted her head sideways to see Mrs Weasley – still plump but younger-looking and without the tragic care lines of her older, bent self when she had laid a tiny posy of dark blue hyacinths upon her husband's coffin to convey an unspeakable anguish.

"Are you alright, Mister?" piped up the shop assistant behind her.

Hermione became aware of the tears glistening down her own cheeks, and quickly began rubbing them away with the back of her hand as she turned. Then she stopped still in shock, her hand still pressed motionless against her stubbly man-face. It was not the shop assistant who had spoken.

"Are you poorly?" the girl spoke again. It was a tiny, six-year-old Ginny with her hand clutched by...

"RON!" Hermione could not have stopped herself blurting out the name even if she had tried. The little boy blinking up at her with a comically-bewildered expression had been her friend, lover, husband, and ultimately, her burden. Now he was a concerned brother tugging his little sister away from the peculiar old man who was crying into his book.

"Do we know you?" The-hands-on-hips stance conveyed Molly Weasley's question as more of a challenge. Beside her stood Percy and the twins with Ron and Ginny now peeping out from behind their mother stout hips: most of the Weasley clan facing off against a cornered deviant trapped in a dead-end aisle.

"Uuh... sorry, no, but... erm... the Weasleys..." Hermione thought quickly. "Well, you Weasleys were well-known and admired for standing up against You-know-who. It was a shock to see my heroes in reality. Sorry, I get emotional these days – I lost a lot of friends myself." She held up her book. "I was just reading about some of the dark wizard's victims." Hermione hoped they wouldn't check the narrative she had open because it might have been about anyone from Merlin to Merwyn the Malicious.

But Mrs Weasley was all sympathy now. "Well, yes, of course. I understand. We'll leave you in peace. Come along children."

With shoulders still tense, Hermione watched them shuffle along to the Charms section.

"Did poor 'iddle Ronniekins have a nasty fwight?" she heard Fred say, followed by an added jibe from George that she couldn't quite hear. But she did see Ron shrink a little from his previous brave-protective-brother posture.

Hermione winced. In an intimate moment, Ron had once invited her into his mind. He had not mastered Legilimency himself, though he'd had partial success with Occlumency. But that vulnerable night, despite all their differences, they had been so close he'd wanted her even nearer. The experience was a shock. She understood as never before how deeply, deeply hurt Ron had been when Harry – already with so many great accomplishments – had become Hogwarts Tri-wizard Champion. Yet well before that, the long-term badgering by the twins had been as cruel as any pack of wild dogs against a sibling runt. Ron's innocent young mind had been crucified and permanently scarred. Yet further in his mind she'd also seen the parental admiration focused on his other brothers which had added to his already-damaged self-worth. Without meaning to, and without ever knowing it, his own family – including herself – had driven Ron to his self-destruction.

She and Ron had cried together that night, and Mr Weasley had dragged his son's drunken corpse from the river Otter less than a week later. Poor, brave, loyal, never-quite-good-enough Ron. He had always remained faithful but in the end, even his own wife had overshadowed him.

A bitterness seized the young-old witch and one hand moved softly through the air. Over in the Charms section, the twins' heads banged together – hard.

"What'd you do that for!"

"Me! It was you!"

"Was not!"

Hermione whispered, "Time for you to begin exercising your special skills, Aculus."

No audible response was needed; she felt the breeze as the raven winged invisibly across to perch close by Fred and George. Hermione could not hear the bird's carefully-timed mimicking but she could tell from the expressions on the faces of the twins that they were becoming confused. Confusion is good to begin with, thought the witch, influence can come later. But another little voice in her head – it was always in Harry's older voice – was gently chiding, Hang on, isn't it too late to help Ron?

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Cruel To Be Kind

All September, Aculus roosted in or near The Burrow. At opportune moments, he whispered ghostly in the twins' ears, suggestions and reminders that Hermione had given him. Mostly the boys were separate when this happened, and the voice each heard was their own, but occasionally both would together hear a harshly-blended tone that chilled the nine-year-old boys with fear. Such was the enchanted warning of the harbinger of doom; the deathly words that only magical ravens may utter. At such times the twins would avert their gaze and fall into a subdued mood, unwilling to speak to each other; afraid to hear their own voices.

Never once did the raven allow anyone else to overhear, and the twins were too filled with the new insecurity imposed on them to confess to or discuss their experience with anyone but themselves – and that rarely. Occasionally they glanced at each other in a furtive way, but a growing shame became a wedge between them. The ethereal words, which appeared to originate almost within their own heads, scraped away the malicious humour that had previously sugar-coated their guilt – just as surgery might expose an awful and hitherto-unknown deformity.

Why so cruel to your own?

There is blood you cannot see – yet it is on your hands.

How slowly you push him over the edge...

Care now for your brother else weep o'er him later.

His corpse will call you from the river.

The last whisper sent the boys wailing through the house and nothing Mrs Weasley could do would persuade them to explain their distress.

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—oOo—

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Author's Notes

My strong support for Ron and my claim of his loyalty is, I confess, a reaction against the many bashing fics which, while fun (heh, heh,) deliberately make him evil so they have something to bash. My view is that, apart from minor squabbles that most of us have with childhood friends, there were only two significant situations for Ron to answer to. The effect of the cursed locket was entirely to blame for driving Ron away from the Horcrux hunt. The book makes it clear that within a minute or two of being clear of its influence he tried to return – but could not because of the enchantments hiding the tent area. The other occasion was when Harry told him he had not put his name in the Goblet of Fire. Again, the book explains how distraught Ron was because of years of being overshadowed by his older brothers and then by Harry and Hermione. Add to that the numerous times he stood by his friends and even risked his life. Given his background, Ron Weasley might be the best of them all. That said, I'm not a hardcore Ron fan, only a canon truth fan, and I like to see him as JKR wrote him.

It might seem I'm being hard on the 'lovable' Weasley twins but their relentless two-onto-one teasing and, yes, bullying, of Ron was, I feel, a major factor in weakening his self-confidence. Hopefully Fred and George will be a little more considerate and thoughtful in my story's future.

Thanks to everyone for comments and reviews. These are most welcome and very encouraging. Let me know of any weaknesses or faults – I'm always trying to improve my writing so feedback is really useful. :)

- Hippothestrowl

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