9. The passing of the wand

The Weasleys were all assembled at dinner when Hermione came in.

A quick 'hi,' was all she could manage as she meekly took her place at the table between Ron and Ginny.

She had spent the best part of a minute on the doorstep, trying to empty her thoughts as much as possible before going inside. It hadn't been that easy. She had been halfway across the village when the presence of The Dreaming Mage in Harry's occult bookshop finally struck her as significant. It wasn't that unusual for a wizarding book to make it into a muggle bookshop, and J. Brabizon Barrett, with his bushy white whiskers, fez and velvet suit, would seem like your average crank to a muggle, but it was possible that wizards were behind the occult bookshop. And if there were wizards involved, then it was possible that a brainwashed Harry might be under their control. But now she couldn't think about that now, she would seem even more distracted than usual.

As she sat down, a spoon, knife and fork arranged themselves in front of her and a bowl of hot soup landed on the table. To her surprise, she had actually arrived more or less on time for dinner. She glanced over at the clock. Dinner seemed to be later than usual. Is it on purpose?

It had momentarily fallen silent at the table, which struck her as odd. She looked quickly around, but everyone seemed to be eating their dinner just as usual. She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, took up her spoon and methodically began to sip her soup.

'Tough day, Hermione?' asked Mr Weasley with a smile. She looked up from her soup.

'Uh … yes, a little bit.' She paused for a moment. 'I had to do some field work, and that left me behind with my usual work, so I had to stay a bit later. Demelza was helping me.'

'Oh yeah, I forgot Demelza's working at the Ministry now,' said Ron. 'How's she getting on?'

'What do you mean, you forgot?' Hermione replied in a low voice. 'You must have only seen her a couple of weeks ago.'

'Oh yeah, you're right,' he replied airily.

'In any case, she's getting on very well,' Hermione continued. 'I think there's every chance the Ministry will take her on permanently.'

'Good for her,' remarked Ron, dropping his spoon into his empty soup bowl with a clang. 'She's not a bad quidditch player either,' he added.

'To be fair, Ron,' put in Ginny, 'she's better than not bad.'

'Shame she was on the Gryffindor team that lost the Quidditch Trophy to Slytherin,' Ron shot back.

'Doesn't change the fact that she was a really a good chaser,' Ginny countered.

'Phenomenally good peripheral vision,' Hermione murmured. Ginny turned and gave her an odd sort of look.

'Well, say hi to her from me next time you see her,' Ron continued.

'Will do, Ronald,' said Hermione, half smiling at him.

Hermione took little part in the dinner table discussion. She didn't have any comment when Mrs Weasley mentioned that the Cradocks were getting a house elf, and how could they afford such a thing. The Cradocks were a slightly smaller and somewhat better off wizarding family whose house was no more than a hundred yards from the Burrow, halfway up a nearby hill. The Cradock children were all younger than the Weasley children, so they hadn't played together all that much in childhood. The Cradock boys had always been particularly wary of Fred and George.

Hermione already knew about the Cradocks' house elf, as she had bumped into Hortensia Cradock, the eldest sister, on a previous evening's walk home. As a child, Hortensia had often been playfully mooted as Ron's future wife, but the only time Ron had ever shown any interest in her had been when he found out she was going on a teaching internship at Beauxbatons. Hermione had no worries about the Cradocks' house elf being mistreated: Mr and Mrs Cradock weren't the kind at all. They had only got one, so Hortensia said, because of her mother's health. Ron's mother made no mention of this being the reason for the house elf, and Hermione didn't think it her business to bring it up. So she stayed silent.

The meal came to an end, the dirty plates cleared themselves away and the various family members began to get up and drift away from the table. Hermione lingered in the kitchen. Once the table was clear, she took some papers out of her bag and started to look over them.

She began to leaf absentmindedly through the papers, skipping vast sections of the lengthy document and arriving too quickly at the end. She started again from the beginning and made a second, slower pass through the document, until she alighted on a particular annex that caught her interest: 'Minutes of the inter-departmental meeting of September 13th'. She passed rapidly through the opening sections of the minutes, stopping at a section halfway down the third page:

'Comments by Isaac Edwards, para-magical investigator (external contractor), and Argenta Coyle, Witchfinder Liaison Officer:

Citing increased Witchfinder activity, Isaac Edwards made a request for his service contract to be amended to include provision for an additional full-time equivalent. Edwards mentioned in particular the case of a mob being raised against a wizarding family by the name of Venn, who had been living for a number of years in the village of Canewdon, Essex, which despite being inhabited chiefly by Muggles has a tradition of cunning folk and is normally regarded as safe territory by wizards. A small mob was led to the village from a nearby town. The mob banged pots and pans and chanted slogans in front of the Venns' house then daubed the house with red paint before smashing its windows with stones and trying to physically assault Nathaniel Venn, one of the Venn children, as he arrived home from school. The mob was eventually dispersed by Muggle police, who made no arrests. The mob was apparently raised by a man who styled himself as a witchfinder.

On other matters, Argenta Coyle mentioned that the only collaboration between witchfinder liaison and the rest of the Ministry was ad hoc and based on personal contacts. She also presented a logbook of anti-wizard graffiti collected by Hermione Granger of the Department for the Care of Magical Creatures.

Mr Knott, the deputy head of the Muggle Liaison Office, said in reply that the question of amendments to the contract for para-magical activities would be forwarded to the Legal Department and expressed his concern at the reports of heightened anti-wizarding activity in the Muggle world.'

Ron ambled back into the kitchen. He walked up to the table and looked over Hermione's shoulder.

'Annual report on Muggle relations? What an exciting read.' Hermione turned around swiftly.

'Do you mind, Ronald?'

'Calm down!' he retorted.

'I am calm,' she replied, softening her voice as much as she could.

'Seriously,' he continued, 'do you really have to bring your work home with you? It's bad enough how long you spend in the office every day. And anyway, you're not even in that department. What do you need to read their report for?'

She elected not to snap back at him.

'You're right, Ron,' she replied, 'I shouldn't. But I can't make proper sense of my work if I don't have an overview of how everything works in the Ministry. I go to meetings where I have to fight to get our department's view across with people who seem to know everything and who look at me as just some naive upstart. I have to know as much as them even to be taken seriously.'

'You'd have thought you managed that when we defeated old Voldemort,' said Ron.

Really, Ron, you're calling him 'old Voldemort' now?

'Maybe. But you'd be surprised how quickly people forget. And to be honest, there are plenty of people who don't know that I even had anything to do with it. Some people have asked me Oh, were you at the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione?'

Ron snorted.

'I reckon I'd punch someone in the face if they asked me that.'

Hermione narrowed her eyes slightly.

'Well, I'm pleased to hear that they haven't asked you at least. But you know, there are plenty of people in the Ministry, and pretty much everywhere else for that matter, who didn't exactly cover themselves in glory when the Death Eaters rose to power. Those people know very well who did what back then and they don't want reminding. And when they see you or me or Ginny anyone else from your family, they're reminded of what they did, and they resent us for it.'

'I see your point,' said Ron. 'But I honestly can't say I've experienced it.'

'I have experienced it,' said Hermione firmly. 'I've seen the look on their face and heard their tone of voice when they speak to me. And I'm not so unreasonable that I'm just going to put it down to them thinking that a woman shouldn't be doing the job I do.'

There's some of that all right too, but anyway …

'You're probably right,' said Ron. 'But the thing is, the Battle of Hogwarts was what? Four years ago? You can't quite blame people for wanting to get on with things.'

'I understand that,' Hermione replied. 'But it's not like I ever bring up the past with them. Heaven forbid!'

'Anyway,' Ron continued, suddenly rather riled, 'when that idiot did what he did and did a bunk, it sort of took the shine off it in some people's eyes.'

Hermione shrugged impatiently in reply.

'If Harry hadn't defeated Voldemort those people wouldn't be here to gossip about him.'

Ron frowned.

'Doesn't excuse what he's done since.'

This isn't the time to get worked up over this.

'No it doesn't, but defeating Voldemort makes …'

'…Makes what he did to my sister pale into insignificance?'

'I'm not comparing the two things.'

'Sure about that?'

'I don't condone what he did, Ron, you know I don't.'

'But you're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt?'

'I'm waiting to hear his side of the story.'

'Well, you'll be waiting a long time by the look of it.'

She paused before replying. Is this the moment to tell him?

When she made no answer, Ron began to mooch away from the table, as if he had reached his limit in the conversation.

'Ron,' she began, a little more tersely than she intended, as she found it annoying to have to call after him. 'I know it's something of a taboo round here to …'

'To what?' he replied. She couldn't quite decide whether his brow was furrowed out of curiosity or anger.

At that moment, her mobile phone began to ring in her bag. She scooped it out and looked at the screen:

'It's Demelza,' she said. 'Probably work-related,' she added, but Ron didn't seem to be in need of a justification. He nodded, smiled ruefully at her and left the room. Is he glad to avoid that subject?

Now alone in the kitchen, she leapt on her phone and answered it.

'Demelza? Yes, I'm fine. Yes, I can talk now … I've already given it some thought. I think there'll have to be a confrontation with Harry and Ilaria, if it's really her that's involved. You'll have to tell me more about her. She was in your year at Hogwarts, wasn't she? … I'm going to get Harry's wand, I think we'll need it … Don't worry about work. I quite understand if you can't take time off, being an intern. You've been loads of help already.'

Having put her phone away, she sat back down and looked at the report still open on the table. What she had read worried her, but she couldn't concentrate on it anymore, so she closed the report and looked away into space. Isaac Edwards had a reputation for eccentricity and a dour, bleak demeanour. Argenta Coyle she remembered as a strange, sulky Ravenclaw girl a couple of years younger than her. She had been a surprise choice for Hogwarts head girl in her year, although Hermione remembered Professor McGonagall speaking rather enthusiastically about her. Very sharp girl. More than meets the eye. Both Argenta and Isaac had seemed genuinely surprised when Hermione had contacted them to pass on her information about anti-wizard graffiti. No one ever helps us, Argenta had commented. But now wasn't the right time to be dealing with that particular issue.

She put the report back in her bag, making a mental note to go and see Isaac and Argenta again as soon as possible. She would also have to look into whether the Ministry had any intelligence on the occult bookshop on Exmouth Market.

She pulled out her ponytail and ran her hand through her hair. Then she let her head sink down into her hands, her hair hanging down until it was just touching the table's surface. I'm going to get Harry's wand. That was what she had told Demelza. It was what she had decided as she walked the last part of the journey home through the village. It was only then, out in the night air, that she had been able to start thinking straight again. Sitting on that bench in the churchyard after he had walked away, she hadn't been able to put a coherent thought together..

Memory charms … memory charms are the key. She had two theories: either someone had cursed him after he walked out on Ginny that night, or he had performed the charm himself to try and erase the memory of guilt over what he'd done. Priori incantato would have given a strong indication of what had happened, but there was no guarantee it would work a year later. She didn't have any idea of who would curse him; in any case it couldn't have been Ginny. But she couldn't believe that he would do something so dangerous either. Memory charms were tricky. You could erase a single memory if you were very subtle with the charm, but more likely you would wipe a whole load of memories all around it, or even a person's entire memory. What did I do to those Death Eaters that night on Tottenham Court Road? How much damage did I do? She could still see their dazed, staring expressions as they lay on the floor of the café.

She raised her head and looked out across the kitchen: the lights were low and the room was silent. The others were in the parlour or upstairs. She looked keenly into the semi-darkness on the far side of the kitchen, towards the unlit fire. We did what we had to do. But it still comes back to us in quiet moments, when we're alone. And if you're very subtle with a memory charm … you can wipe away the guilt …

There were several reasons why she needed his wand, not least to give it back to him at some point. But if he had performed the charm with his wand, perhaps the same wand would be needed to undo it. The book she had on the subject suggested this was possible. How she was going to get it wasn't so clear. Stealing it from Ginny's bedroom was out of the question. She would have to ask for it. Maybe Ginny and Ron's response would surprise her. Maybe it was her last evening at the Burrow.

She went quietly upstairs. Ron was playing on his games console. To her surprise, he switched it off when she entered the room and turned to her frostily.

'What's this about you taking time off work? Since when do you take time off? I thought you were supposed to be making your mark …'

She started to open her mouth, but he cut her off.

'Dad told me. He asks me: are you and Hermione going away somewhere? I say: what? He says: I heard that Hermione has applied for time-off at short notice. I say: that's the first I've heard about it. He says: Oh dear, have I put my foot in it? Of course he bloody has, and it wouldn't be the first time! So what's going on?'

Well, so much for bringing it up carefully. She took a deep breath.

'I think I've found Harry.'

He didn't immediately say anything in reply. Her words seemed to linger in the air between them. A frown passed across Ron's face.

'If you've found him, I suppose that means you've been looking for him.'

Don't even think about going looking for him, Ron had said the night Ginny turned up distraught at the Burrow. That had been almost a year ago. But still …

'Actually I haven't been looking for him.'

Not strictly true …

'Demelza saw him completely by chance and told me.'

'Oh, so that's why you're suddenly so friendly with Demelza?'

'No, that's got nothing to do with it. I've always liked her. Anyway, she told me, and I had to … well, see for myself.'

Ron folded his arms.

'And did you?'

'Err …yes.'

'Get a good look at him?'

'Yes. I …err … spoke to him too.'

'Did you? Even better. Send his regards, did he?'

Suddenly she felt like crying.

'He didn't know me, Ron! He wouldn't know you either, or Ginny, or anyone! His memory's gone!'

'Is it?' Ron's eyes were wide open now. The dirty look on his face shrivelled away.

'He has a different name, a different job, a different … life, even. I think he's under a memory charm.'

'What? Why?'

'I don't know! That's why I need to find out what happened!'

A slightly suspicious look returned to Ron's face.

'And I suppose you're off now to find out?'

'Well … don't you think I … I mean … do you want to come and help me bring him back?'

Ron's expression didn't lighten.

'You were going to tell me, were you? You weren't just going to leave a note and disappear?'

She swayed slightly on the spot. She hadn't worked out all the details, including what she would do if Ron did say no. Would I have left a note?

'Ron, I'm telling you now. And I'm asking if you want to come with me. Will you help me look for him?'

Ron reflected for a few moments.

'And if I do, what will I tell Ginny?'

Good point. She groped around for some sort of reply.

'Don't you think he'd have come back and apologised to her if he wasn't under a memory charm?'

Ron looked unmoved.

'I don't know. Depends when it happened.'

'Wouldn't Ginny want to know whether he didn't apologise on purpose or because he can't?'

Ron shrugged.

'How should I know that?'

'Well, do you think Harry should be left out there on his own, with all his memories gone?'

'No … but …'

'But what, Ron?'

'Well, he might be happier like that. You just said he has a job, a new life. Maybe he's even better off without all those bad memories. If he hasn't got a head full of bad memories, I don't know who has.'

She could feel tears welling up again, but she choked them back.

'You can't be serious, Ron. You think he would be happy not being able to remember you … or me?'

Now Ron's face clouded over.

'Well … no … I mean this is such a weird mess I don't know what to think. And anyway, what am I supposed to say to Ginny? Hi Ginny, Hermione's found Harry. He doesn't know who he is or who we are but he's made a new life for himself, fancy coming and seeing how he's getting on?'

'I'll talk to Ginny.'

'You'll talk to her?!'

He seemed to find the idea almost funny.

'Well, I'll have to talk to her,' she replied. 'I need her to give me Harry's wand.'

'Why do you need Harry's wand?' came another voice. Ginny was standing in the doorway.

Harry's wand had remained in Ginny's possession since she had returned to their flat and found the wand lying on their bedroom floor, abandoned along with all of the rest of Harry's possessions.

Hermione turned around to face her.

'I've found him,' she said in a kind of monotone. 'I think I'll need it to bring him back.'

'Bring him back? What makes you think he needs bringing back?'

She struggled to think of a reply. There was a simmering violence in Ginny's eyes.

'By the way, Hermione, thanks for being a really good friend and going behind my back.'

'Ginny, I didn't go looking for him. He was found by accident. And not by me.'

The fury in Ginny's eyes seemed to abate a little. It was her turn not to say anything.

'Don't you want to know where he is, what he's doing?' said Hermione.

Ginny shook her head firmly.

'No, he's made his bed, he can bloody well lie in it!'

She took a step towards Hermione, her fists clenched.

'And another thing, his wand stays with me until he comes to claim it. I'll let him have it then, and that'll be the end of it.'

I won't let you. She struggled to control the thoughts flashing through her mind. She didn't like the look of them.

'Well, Ron and I are planning to go and look for him anyway.'

'That's diplomatically put,' remarked Ron from behind her.

'Ron?' said Ginny, turning on him with a horrified look. 'I thought you promised me not to go looking for him!'

'I didn't actually say I would come,' said Ron, his face a picture of conflicting emotions.

'Ron, I thought …' Hermione began, her head reeling all of a sudden. 'At least I had the impression …'

'Well, I was just thinking about it,' he added more categorically.

Things were not going well.

'Ginny,' she began again, trying to take a more conciliatory tone, 'you know that I don't for a moment condone what Harry did. The absolute first thing he should do is apologise.'

Ginny smiled at this.

'He's been unavoidably detained for the past year I suppose? What do you think an apology's worth when it comes a year late?'

'Hermione thinks he's been put under a memory charm,' said Ron from his armchair.

'That's convenient,' said Ginny. 'So he forgot to apologise.'

'I understand why you're seeing things this way,' began Hermione again, 'but it's true. There's a real danger that someone has tampered with Harry's memory and is taking advantage of him, as we speak.'

As she spoke the words she remembered Ilaria de Angelis. She could easily be behind Harry's memory loss, wiping his memory as a way of seducing him. She hadn't met her more than a handful of times, but she remembered once seeing a certain look on her face in Harry's presence. Maybe Ginny would think differently if she told her. Even though she had no proof that the Ilaria Harry had spoken to on the phone was the same Slytherin witch. She reckoned she was 80% certain it couldn't be a coincidence. But 80% wasn't good enough. And telling Ginny could push her into doing something stupid, and dangerous.

Ginny listened in silence, a harsh smile again on her lips.

'That's not up to your usual standards, Hermione. I have a different theory: Harry performed the memory charm on himself out of cowardice, and strolled off guilt-free into a new life.'

'The thought occurred to me too,' Hermione replied quickly. 'And if you'd have let me perform priori incantato on the wand we would have had a better idea. We might at least know that a memory charm was the last charm performed on it.'

'I told you last time you asked, Hermione, it wouldn't have changed anything. And anyway, I know what happened.'

'You do?' Hermione exclaimed. 'Did you perform priori incantato?'

'I don't have to,' Ginny replied. 'I know him well enough to know that he did it to himself. And unlike you, I don't need to try and cook up theories to absolve him of his guilt.'

'I don't want to absolve him of his guilt!' Hermione retorted. 'What he did was terrible. But can you deny he has enemies who would want him out of the way? Or people who want to keep him under their control? I know he can be reckless, but would he really do something so risky? Unless you're an expert at memory charms, you risk doing all sorts of damage to yourself. You don't just pluck out the offending memory and go back to business as usual.'

'Dumbledore could,' Ron remarked.

'Thanks Ron,' Hermione replied tersely. 'I should have said that only a wizard of Dumbledore's abilities could do it.'

'Oh, Harry Potter has a pretty high opinion of his own abilities in magic,' said Ginny with bright sarcasm.

'But do you really think he would use magic to try and … hide from his conscience?' Hermione replied. 'Surely you can't think so badly of him, Ginny?'

Ginny snorted in reply.

'And surely you can't think so well of him, Hermione?'

Hermione looked at her with a puzzled kind of air.

'But of course you can, I forgot you're his best friend. His most loyal friend.'

Hermione paused and took another deep breath.

'I think we're getting off the point. I don't think that the question of who is a better friend to Harry is relevant.'

'That's because there's no doubt in your mind as to who it is. But you don't know Harry as well as I do. As far as I know you've never shared his bed. You haven't been witness to his … dark desires.'

Ginny, are you really saying this?

'I don't need to share his bed to understand him.'

Hermione's tone was placatory, but firmer.

'You may think you understand Harry, Hermione, but really you don't get him. I get him.'

Hermione looked coolly at Ginny. She could hear her heart thumping in her chest and pictured her blood pulsing erratically around her body.

'I have never, ever given you reason to be jealous of me.'

Ginny smiled.

'You don't think so? I could give you literally hundreds of instances, all the subtle little ways you assert your ownership of him, right in front of me. And I'm not the only witness.'

Hermione turned to face Ron, who looked down at the floor, a hard expression on his face. She turned back to Ginny.

'Ginny, you can keep your … conjugal bed. It's nothing to do with me. Like you say, that's your domain. But don't judge my relationship with Harry on your terms. You talk about the darkness in Harry like it's something that would scare me, like I wouldn't be able to deal with it. But I have seen it. It's part of him. He took it with him into the Forbidden Forest that night and brought it back with him too. And he's certainly never tried to hide it from me. Really knowing him means knowing that side of him. Apart from that, everything else is yours.'

Ginny smiled bitterly.

'I suppose you believe what you say. Maybe you even think you're not hurting me by saying it. But I wonder, is your relationship with Harry really so much purer and better than mine? What really went on in that tent, Hermione, once Ron was stupid enough to leave you two alone? What proofs of the sanctity of your relationship did you give one another?'

Hermione felt light-headed. She clenched her fists, as if to steady herself. She tried looking at Ron. His gaze was pointedly rooted to the carpet.

'I can't believe you're trying to demean what happened. Harry thought he was going to die. I thought I was going to die.'

Ginny's face was hard and dry, drained of all its usual softness.

'Yes, it's amazing what two people will do in such situations, especially when they're sleeping together alone, night after night.'

'For Heaven's sake, I swear it wasn't like that!'

Ginny seemed to draw back a little. But now Hermione felt herself falling headlong.

'If you really knew what he was going through then you wouldn't say the things you've said tonight,' she snapped. 'If you really knew him you wouldn't be so suspicious of him.'

Ginny looked like she was about to bite through her own lower lip.

'And you really think you do,' she hissed.

And she felt it again, the solidarity in despair that had bound them together in those days. She couldn't help but relive it.

'I know him because I was there with him all the time. I saw guilt for something he hadn't even done gnawing away at him. I saw how terrifyingly alone he felt. I had to try and share that feeling, even though there was no way I could. Not completely anyway. I couldn't turn away from it even for a second and I can't turn away from it now.'

It was almost as if the walls of the Burrow had fallen away, and she was back in the tent with him at some dreary hour in the depths of the night, the two of them facing one another, his face grey with worry. All she could do was to lock her hand in his and slowly stroke the skin of his clenched fist.

The sound of Ginny's voice broke through the memory. She was speaking in a low, pained voice.

'The night he put his hands around my throat to choke me,' she began, 'he did it to defend you in a way. He said something like what you just said too. I told him he was pining for the bad old days and he didn't contradict me. You say exactly the same thing. You're like his echo, in fact. I bet you love hearing me say that.'

I do. I admit it.

'But that time is over, thank goodness. And your time is over too.'

Hermione stood a little taller, clenching her fists even tighter to bring her trembling under control.

'Well, it rather looks like we could say the same about you,' she remarked, more petulantly than she had intended. It drew a smile from Ginny, but she looked at her through eyes slit with anger.

'Oh, I suppose you're right … Or rather, his time with me is over. It was over the minute he raised his hands to my throat.'

The image of Harry with his hands around Ginny's throat flashed before her. But the image was incomplete: she couldn't see his face; she couldn't process it properly.

'I can't give up on him,' she said after a while. 'Not ever. That's why I'm asking you for his wand.'

There was a pause. Ginny spoke first. Her voice was calmer now.

'I'll give you his wand if you like, since you're so desperate to get him back. But you'll be doing it alone.'

As she spoke her eyes shifted slightly towards Ron, who saw her look and obviously understood it.

'You should have said you felt this way,' he murmured to her. His voice was more consolatory than she could have hoped to expect after all that had been said. She nodded, although she wasn't quite sure what she was nodding at.

'Ron, have you really given up on him?' she asked softly. 'Don't you want to believe that despite whatever has happened to him, he must really be bitterly sorry for what he's done?'

Ron seemed to be squinting half at her, half at Ginny.

'I don't know,' he replied. 'He still attacked Ginny then ran off into the night like a coward. I haven't seen him back here since, begging for forgiveness. Which is the least he could do.'

Hermione's expression hardened.

'Well I still think he hasn't come back because he can't. Now I've seen him I believe that more than ever.'

Ron shrugged.

'Yeah, I can see that's what you think. But you wouldn't be saying that if he had attacked you.'

Her reply died in her throat. She looked from one Weasley sibling to the other. She started to form a different reply then stopped.

'I know what her answer would be,' said Ginny, cutting in quickly and glaring at Hermione. 'So please spare us it. Anyway, the last words on his lips before he … did what he did … were to defend you, to defend you over me. So I guess it's fitting that you should return the favour.'

Now she took a very determined step towards Hermione.

'But I should warn you: if you do get your precious Harry back, you might not like what you find. You like him dark and damaged, you say. But you don't really know what you're saying. You're not prepared for the real Harry: a short temper, easily bored. A little bit violent; a little bit unhinged. He bites, Hermione. Your vision of Harry the guilt-ridden saint, the sad hero, is sort of touching. Maybe I even sort of believed it once. But really, at your age it's pathetically naive.'

Hermione listened to Ginny, her heart pounding. They looked at each other in silence. Then Hermione reached out her hand.

'Give me the wand,' she said in a low voice.

Ginny looked at her oddly. 'It's yours,' she said finally, her voice suddenly calmer, almost matter-of-fact. 'I'll leave it for you on the back step.'

'Ok.'

'I don't know what this memory charm business is all about,' Ginny continued. 'I honestly hope he hasn't done himself some sort of permanent damage, but I told you my theory already: He's a coward, I'm sorry to say. He did it to himself.'

A first wave of exhaustion passed through her.

'If he did it to himself and wiped his entire memory then he really did have no way of apologising.'

Ginny shook her head.

'You say it like apologising would have made a difference. If you're the sort of girl who would forgive Harry for everything he did to me, good luck to you. Goodbye, Hermione.'

She wanted to reply, but found that she was too exhausted to dredge up the words from inside her. Ginny waited no more than a few seconds before walking out of the room. A few moments later they heard her bedroom door slam shut. Hermione turned to Ron, who looked as if he was about to come apart at the seams. He half scowled, half smiled at her and shook his head. She sighed deeply, trying to release the pressure built up in her shoulders. As she sighed, a tear slipped from her eye and rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly, then turned on her heels and walked slowly out of the room.

It was past eleven when she opened the back door of the Burrow and looked out into the night. She looked down and saw the wand lying innocuously on the doormat. She picked it up, turned it over in her hand for a moment, then stuffed it into her bag. She stood on the doorstep, tears welling up in her eyes again. She wiped them away and started to walk away down the path.

'Hermione.' It was Ron, shivering in his jumper.

'You're not coming with me after all, surely?' she asked, turning back where she stood. He took a few steps down the path towards her.

'I think this is something you have to do by yourself.'

'Yes, I think it probably is.'

They looked at each other in silence.

'Ginny has to understand that I'm not … I'm not a threat to her. This isn't about that. You don't really think I'm …?'

Ron screwed up his face.

'No I don't think I'd go that far.'

'Maybe you can get Ginny to think the same way.'

He snorted under his breath.

'I'm not sure I can.'

'Maybe not.'

'But if she asks me my opinion, I'll tell her that I don't think you're …'

I can't really ask for more than that.

'Ron, you're a good person.'

'Oh thanks.'

'I'm really sorry.'

'I know you are. Anyway, I sort of knew this would happen sooner or later.'

'Ron, don't …'

'No no, let me go on. Despite everything, it's better this way than if one day he were to be brought back here dead.'

She looked at the ground. He put his hand on her shoulder.

'Thing is, Hermione, I walked away, more than once. You never could. If there was a chance that Harry could be found, you were bound to go after him in the end.'

She continued to look at the ground.

'You make it sound like I'm choosing him over you.'

He gave no answer. She looked up.

'It really isn't like that.'

'It is really though. And we all know it.'

'It's one detail, Ron. It's such a little thing.'

'Maybe you believe that.'

He lowered his hand and took a step back.

'Take care of yourself, Hermione.'

'You too,' she said almost silently, and kissed him on the cheek. 'I'll see you.'