"A Most Ingenious Paradox"
[A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Penpusher]
Chapter Nine - The Last Battle
Harry awoke wondering what on earth he had been doing the previous evening to warrant such a monumental hangover. He opened gritty, sticky eyes to focus blearily on the white circle of Ginny's face swimming above him. She looked tired and ill, with huge black circles under her eyelids. As she saw him stir, she spoke over her shoulder to someone out of Harry's field of vision.
"George, he's awake thank goodness!" Ginny turned worried eyes back to Harry.
Harry rubbed a hand over his face and sat up, wincing as light from the room's chandelier lanced through his head. The first thing he noticed was that he was still in the West Room, but he could now see dull daylight through chinks in the curtains. Little by little, an unusual sound intruded upon his consciousness: an odd hoarse gasping, as though someone were labouring through a severe asthma attack without the benefit of salbutamol.
"Ginny," he began, gingerly massaging his temples, "what's the noise?"
Harry was horrified to see Ginny's eyes abruptly fill with tears.
"Oh, Harry!" she cried, and buried her head in his shoulder. He held her close for a short while, then she started to speak.
"It's just awful," Ginny said in a tight whisper. "Right at the end, when Cho - or rather, the thing that looked like Cho - was trying to get you to go over to the dark side, Hermione -"
Ginny choked, trying to swallow a sob. Harry took her hands in his, squeezing the fingers urgently.
"Yes, Ginny," he began rapidly, looking into her face. "Hermione tried to curse Cho, and it backfired. Yes, I know all that - I was there, remember?" Ginny nodded, trying hard to gain control of her voice.
"Yes, of course," she whispered. "Well, when Hermione's curse hit the bubble, it - it broke."
"Yes, yes, I know," Harry shook Ginny's hands lightly in agitation. He sighed, feeling the muscles ache all over his body.
"The Invocation I used must have been at least partially successful," he continued. "After all, we're still alive." Ginny's smaller fingers all but crushed his hands.
"Harry, will you listen!" she wailed. "Cho threw the death curse at Hermione. At the time, I thought you must have got in first with whatever magic you used to finally banish Voldemort and his allies, but when we woke up this morning, we found that Hermione was - was dead."
Harry froze in appalled disbelief. Ignoring the pain in his head, he freed himself from Ginny's embrace and moved quickly to where Hermione lay, still and cold. Ron crouched over her, oblivious of anything else in the room. He did not touch the body in any way but merely stared at her pale, lifeless face. Tears streamed unashamedly down his cheeks in a more or less constant flow and his breath came in harsh sobs, tearing and painful. Lee stood by Ron's side, obviously at a loss to know what to do.
"He's losing his voice," whispered Ginny coming up behind Harry. "He's been like this since he woke up."
"Yeah, and that's not all, Harry." George came over. He looked drained and haggard. "They got Fred."
Harry turned incredulous eyes on George at this further devastating blow and felt his stomach lurch with a sick foreboding. I've failed, his mind screamed at him. For all my vaunted power, my skills and training, I couldn't protect them. Harry Potter sank to his knees in utter weariness and buried his face in his hands.
As far as morale went, there wasn't much further for them to go down. Incessant sobbing had deprived Ron of the ability to speak. He refused to leave Hermione's side, staring emptily at her dead face, hugging his shoulders and rocking himself in agony. George was inconsolable: charged with protecting his helpless brother, he had let the powers of darkness snatch Fred from under his nose. He acted as though he had lost his right arm and was still numb from the shock. Lee's analytical brain seemed unable to process the events of the previous evening, but it was Harry who ultimately seemed to be taking the brunt of the tragedy on his shoulders. Brooding darkly, he sat cross-legged in a corner of the West Room, speaking to no one, his mind going round and round in panicked fugues. There seemed to be no way forward.
Some little time later, Ginny decided she'd had enough. Someone had to make some kind of stand here, and despite all their prior courage and bluster, not one of the men was capable of fighting his way out of a wet paper bag at present. Whatever complexities had entered her life since her unexpected liaison with Harry, she simply couldn't allow her own wounded feelings to interfere with the safety of her family. Despite their easygoing exterior, all the Weasleys had come equipped with a core of toughened steel, and the youngest was no exception. Accustomed to making her way by persuasion rather than fiat, Ginny was surprised to find her resolve hardening. Leadership material she wasn't, but right now she seemed to be all they had left.
Bullying Harry, Lee and George out of the West Room to shower and change their clothes was a good introductory lesson for Ginny in the art of giving orders. Ron, of course, refused to move or even to hear her, but eventually, using a combination of persuasion and downright threats, she cajoled him into observing some of the niceties of hygiene. Ginny then headed for the kitchen, mentally planning a good, hot lunch to restore some lost energy. Exploring the depths of the larder and fridge, she assembled the makings of a halfway decent meal. Once we've got some food inside us, things will seem less desperate, she thought hopefully. Drawing back the curtains from the large kitchen window, she paused in surprise.
"Well, that's something you don't often see in high summer!" she muttered to herself in puzzlement.
Lee Apparated to the flat to procure some clean clothes for Ron and himself. Half expecting the place to be dominated by incessantly ringing messageglobes and piles of owl post, he was surprised to find everything orderly and rather eerily quiet. Glancing out of the window, he scratched his head, perplexed; the street was blanketed by a thick white cloud. Dense, glutinous fog, impenetrable and totally unseasonable, made the city unrecognisable.
"I don't like this." Lee muttered, flattening his nose against the glass. "I don't like this at all."
Back at Harry's House, Ginny's chilli con carne turned out to be surprisingly tasty, but for all the attention the men paid, it could have been sawdust and cardboard. When they had finished all they were going to eat, Ginny put down her glass of juice gently but decisively.
"Okay," she said quietly, "What's the next step?"
Lee stared in amazement bordering on stupefaction.
"You want to go on, to continue with this - this downright stupidity, after what happened last night?" he protested. "We don't stand an earthly. A mouse would have a better chance taking on a manticore. Ginny, he flattened us! How we escaped with our lives, I'll never know. And you can sit there, cool as a cucumber, talking about our next step? Our next game of dice with death?"
"Certainly I can," Ginny replied firmly, skewering Lee with the directness of her glare, "because I must. One of my very best friends has been brutally murdered and I'm going to miss her badly." She paused to let that sink in before continuing. "However, before I grieve for her, I want to do my damnedest to ensure that whoever is responsible pays for what they have done. My brother's life also stands on a knife-edge, at the mercy of Hermione's killer. Think about that for a moment. What do you suggest we do, Lee? Abandon Fred? Consign him to the scrapheap? Just one more loss; one more casualty to Voldemort's lust for power? For Merlin's sake, do you think he'd back off if it were you and not him that Voldemort chose to take? You can bet your bottom dollar he wouldn't even dream of it!" Ginny sat back, her eyes fixed on the computer wizard until he looked away abashed.
"And besides," Ginny continued in a quieter voice, "if we don't get moving soon, George will try to find Fred on his own." She paused to smile at her sibling, getting a faint twitch of the lips in reply.
"I know my brothers very well, thank you," Ginny continued, "and I can assure you that they look after each other's interests to almost ridiculous levels. I'm not about to let him go off half-cocked and get himself killed, now am I?" She silenced George's feeble attempt at a protest with a look.
"So, I'll ask again," Ginny concluded, turning to fix each and every one of them with her stare. "What have we got to go on?"
There was a clatter as Harry dropped a teaspoon in his mug of half-cold tea. He sighed wearily and gave her a look almost of dislike.
"Alright, Ginny," Harry said tiredly. "Alright, you've made your point." He sat up in his chair and put a hand to his forehead as if trying to coax his brain to come online.
"Well, the first thing to do is to find Hermione's notes," Harry said finally. "I guess they must be in her study."
A muscle at the side of Ron's face twitched slightly at the mention of Hermione's name, but otherwise he betrayed no reaction. Ginny held up a small notebook.
"Check," she replied. "What do you need to know?"
"The exact time of the next conjunction," Harry answered. "Also the other points in the world where lines of power intersect. He's not going to use the temple again, not after last night, so he's got to find somewhere else to make the transfer. Hermione should have recorded details of her conversations with Professors Sinistra and Radcliffe. You can use them to calculate other intersection points, Ginny. I suggest when you look for correlations you confine yourself to England and the rest of the British Isles. The closer the better. I don't suppose Voldemort will want to cause Fred's body any more distress than necessary, so he'll only move as far away from here as he has to."
"Okay then," said Ginny, closing the notebook and gesturing to Lee with a kind of grim efficiency. "Let's get moving. Come on Lee, get that immense brain of yours in gear and help me!" With Lee in tow, Ginny swept out of the kitchen and into Hermione's study, closing the door behind them.
Harry rose from the table then paused, looking down at Ron. Harry put a hand on Ron's shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly.
"Ron," Harry began in a low voice. Ron grunted, but otherwise gave no sign. Harry continued.
"Ron, I've got to do a couple of things - for Hermione you know."
Ron's head jerked up at the mention of her name.
"Don't you touch her!" he said in a low, hoarse voice. "You mustn't do anything to her body now, please. She's been through enough, hasn't she? Let her rest in peace." Harry tightened his grip on Ron's arm.
"I've got to use a couple of enchantments, Ron," said Harry, gently. "To make sure that Voldemort can't use her body for evil means."
"What do you mean?" demanded Ron, looking at Harry for the first time. "That bastard can't touch her now, can he? I mean, she's - she's dead, isn't she?"
Fresh tears began to well up and Harry patted his friend's shoulder awkwardly.
"I have to make sure he can't reach her," Harry explained. "We can't take her with us when we leave this house, Ron. We'll have to leave her here alone. I need to make sure that Voldemort can't move her anywhere else, or even try to - reanimate her."
"You mean like a - zombie?"
Harry nodded gravely. Ron considered for a moment and an expression of extreme distaste rippled across his face. He looked back at his friend.
"Do what you must," Ron said quietly. "I don't want him to abuse her body, particularly now she can't defend it herself."
Harry nodded, gave Ron's shoulder a final pat then went to perform the necessary tasks.
After a while, George went in search of Harry. He admitted to himself that he was curious about the measures Harry needed to take to ensure the safety of Hermione's remains, but he was also anxious for Harry himself. That concern underwent a manifold increase at his first sight of Harry, still in the West Room, standing above Hermione's lifeless body gazing at her familiar, well-loved face.
Harry had evidently finished whatever spells he needed to cast, but he made no attempt to leave. He merely stood shaking his head over and over again, deep in grief and remorse.
"Hermione," he murmured. "Oh, Hermione, my friend, forgive me; I failed you. Ron, I'm so sorry." He buried his face in his hands in heartfelt grief, his shoulders heaving.
"Ron knows it wasn't your fault." George spoke quietly, leaning a hand on Harry's shoulder, trying not to alarm him. Harry started violently and spun round, shaking off the consoling hand with unnecessary vehemence. He turned towards George with a face so full of anger and loathing that the other man took an involuntary step backwards.
"Not my fault?" Harry spat, his voice dripping with self-contempt. "Not my fault? If I hadn't been so damn rattled by that manifestation of Cho Chang, I'd have noticed the attack on Hermione. You know how levelheaded she was; she would never have made such an elementary mistake if she hadn't been got at! I should have twigged when she was so wand-happy earlier on. I screwed up, George, it's as simple as that. I screwed up - and Hermione paid the price."
The last was grated out through clenched teeth and Harry turned away, falling silent, gazing at Hermione with an anger and despair terrible to behold. George swallowed on a dry, tight throat then he grabbed Harry roughly and swung him round so that their faces were inches apart.
"Now you just listen to me," he began, deadly quiet. "You're our leader, our oracle of all wisdom, the one we all look up to. Certainly you screwed up; most leaders do once in a while if they're worth their salt, and You- Know-Who is no Sunday-school picnic. Yes, if you'd done things differently, Hermione might still be alive; I'll buy that. But I might not still be here - or you, or Ron, or Ginny, or Lee, or any number of the millions of other people who are on this planet, wizards and Muggles alike." George paused to draw breath, and went on.
"Whatever happened last night, we've still got to keep on fighting, and we can't do it without you. You're the one person we just can't afford to lose: we need you to safeguard Ron and the Grail, and to plan out what we're going to do next, never mind provide the leadership in the final battle. If you collapse on us, then we might as well write off Fred's life as well as Hermione's. Just accept that they both died for nothing, and sit on our arses waiting for the end." Seeing a flicker of reaction on Harry's face, George pressed home his advantage.
"Harry, Ginny and Lee are beating their brains out trying to get a fix on those calculations. Once we've worked out where to go, we've got to have some kind of a plan. Some idea what to do when we get there." George was virtually spitting in his vehemence. "This is my brother's life we're talking about, not to mention the future of the civilised world. Come on Harry: think!"
George was shaking Harry so hard the man was beginning to see stars. Eventually, Harry exerted enough pressure on George's biceps to free himself from the painful grip.
"Okay, okay, George: you've made your point."
George released him, wincing as he rubbed at the bruises on his upper arms. Harry looked up. His face was haggard from strain and lack of sleep, there were deep shadows under his eyes, but his expression was calm and his eyes at last were clear. Harry Potter was a going concern once again. George expelled a soft sigh of relief.
"Okay," he said, quietly. "What first?" Harry stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Ginny, Lee and Hermione's notes," he replied succinctly, "and if they are not fruitful, perhaps an emergency Apparation to Florence to consult the good Professor Radcliffe again might be in order."
On arrival back in the kitchen, they found Ginny and Lee buried in Hermione's notebook scribbling calculations on some scrap parchment.
"We're in luck, Harry," Ginny greeted him. "Hermione had already made some preliminary calculations. We've found only two possible places, and one of those is a far weaker intersection than the other. I'd put very good odds on the first."
Harry looked carefully at their results and nodded.
"I'm inclined to agree," he affirmed. "Well done! You're sure there are no others?"
"Positive." Lee was totally dogmatic where he knew himself to be right.
"Where is it exactly? Geographically, I mean," asked Harry. Ginny was already checking an atlas.
"Not too far, actually," she told him. "Near Amesbury on Salisbury Plain. It's quite a tourist attraction so we'll have to be careful." She looked up at them, the beginnings of a smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. "Believe it or not, it's at Stonehenge."
~ooOoo~
The rest of the day was something of a blur, a haze of preparation. Harry had snapped straight back into his customary decisiveness and, by a mixture of encouragement and downright bullying, achieved his object.
They would drive to Amesbury, Harry proclaimed. There was no way they could Apparate even half the distance and still be in a fit state to rescue Fred, so they would have to travel the distance in his car instead.
"Why don't we just Port there?" suggested George. "Fred's Ministry Portkey's still at the flat; I know where he keeps it. All we need to do is set it to take us to Amesbury, or somewhere far enough away to be circumspect and Bob's your uncle!" Harry shook his head.
"No, George," he replied firmly. "The last thing we need is to alert Voldemort to our presence. Whether we can maintain the element of surprise remains to be seen, but I want to keep as low a profile as possible. As from now, we are tourists travelling in the West Country."
George backed down, but he was evidently not happy with the situation. During a suitable pause, he grabbed hold of Harry's arm and propelled him over to the window.
"You must have noticed this, but I guess you've been rather too preoccupied to take it in," George said, gesturing to the impenetrable greyness inches away from their faces. Harry frowned. He reached out an involuntary hand to the window.
"This is - not right," he muttered.
"I'm with you there!" replied George with some heat. "And you expect me to drive through this all the way to Somerset - in Fred's titchy little car! Harry, we'll never get there; we'll be lost or crushed in a pile-up before we've covered half the distance." Harry's index finger tapped his bottom lip thoughtfully.
"Okay," he said, making a decision. "We'll hire a bigger car; something with a four-wheel drive, an off-road vehicle, so if we get caught in traffic, we'll have some means to avoid it." George shook his head slowly.
"Harry it'll take too long," he protested. "We'll waste the rest of the day hanging around Muggle car-hire places. By the time we find Fred, if we ever do, it'll be too late!"
"May I make a suggestion?" Ginny approached them determinedly, having caught the tail-end of their conversation.
"What you're looking for is a Landrover or a Jeep - something like that, yes?" she asked. George nodded.
"Yeah," he replied. "And they don't just hand those out without checking your bona fides pretty thoroughly first." Ginny smiled, not without malice.
"Strangely enough," she began, "I think I know just where to find one."
~ooOoo~
"Flamel's Stone!" Lee clapped a hand over his mouth as Ginny swung the big Jeep into the driveway of Harry's House, spraying gravel over his feet. Her face obstinate and determined, she opened the driver door and jumped down, slamming it after her.
"Where on earth did you get it?" Lee demanded, his eyes taking in every square inch of the high-performance car.
"Never you mind." Ginny brushed past him, moving smartly over to George and Harry, her head held high.
"Good enough, boys?" she asked sardonically. Harry nodded, his eyes alight with admiration.
"Too right, it is!" he responded with a grin. "I won't ask how you did it, Ginny, but, well, thanks. Thanks a million." He crossed over to the car and opened the boot in preparation for stowing their gear. George looked down at his little sister suspiciously.
"If I didn't know better," he said in a low voice, "I'd say that vehicle was borrowed. Does he know?" Ginny shrugged negligently.
"He'll know soon enough," she replied, in an offhand manner, "but by then, we'll be far enough away for it not to matter." George shook his head.
"I'd always thought it was the male Weasleys who were guilty of sailing close to the wind," he said.
"If he didn't want me to drive it, he should never have given me a key," Ginny replied impassively. "After all, the only time he let me take the wheel was on long journeys." She gave a wry smile. "He use to fall asleep in the front passenger seat."
"Seriously, Ginny," George caught her arm. "Do you really think you should be doing this?" Shaking him off, Ginny faced her elder brother, her face implacable.
"This is the quickest way I can think of to get down to Stonehenge and rescue Fred, bar Apparating," she growled. "If you don't like it, you're welcome to stay here and defend my honour, but if you want to be part of this, then I suggest you shut up and get in!" Holding up his hands in mock- dismay, George backed away, moving towards the driver door. Casually, he held his hands out for the keys.
"And if you think you're driving this thing when the only vehicle you're familiar with is Fred's old banger," Ginny shot back, "you need to spend some time in a soft room at St. Mungo's. Get in the passenger seat and start map reading - you can take over when you've worked out what the controls do!"
~ooOoo~
Ginny had planned the route, provided food for the journey and prompted Lee to pick up his, Ron's and the twins' voicemail and phone in messages to their various departments at the Ministry. Ron himself could not be roused from his catatonic stupor.
Ginny also drove the first leg with George map reading, this last task made almost impossible by the weather conditions. The impenetrable blanket of fog covered the entire south and west of the country. The road conditions were potentially extremely hazardous and Ginny drove in an edgy silence for forty-five minutes before the gang realised that they had scarcely seen a car since leaving London. The sole topic of news interest on every Muggle radio station was the unseasonable weather and the gang endured more than an hour of mindless chit-chat before George irritably pushed the off switch.
Lee and Harry sat in the back of the car with Ron between them, trying in vain to stir some life into him. For most of the time, Ron was immovable, locked inside his own mind. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he turned to Harry and spoke with great clarity.
"It wasn't anything to do with you that Hermione and I split up, you know."
"Huh?" Harry was puzzled. Ron continued.
"I know you blamed yourself," he sighed. "We had to spend a lot of time with you when Cho - you know, but it had nothing to do with the relationship going down the tube. I buggered that one up all on my own."
"What do you mean?" Harry was still puzzled.
"Oh, we'd been going out for two years, and Hermione wanted some sort of commitment," Ron continued. "She wanted to know whether we were going to get married, or drift apart. You know Hermoine; always well prepared for everything. You see, she wanted to try to plan her life. If we were going to get married, she wanted to have a family while we were still young and put her career on hold for a few years. However, if we weren't, she was going to study for the Bar straight after leaving Hogwarts. I was too young really to make a decision like that, so we split. Well, not immediately, but when it became clear that I wasn't going to put a ring on her finger while we were still at school, she more or less assumed that we would go our separate ways once we left. I precipitated the split by attempting to persuade her otherwise, I'm afraid." Ron gave a wry grimace.
"She's a strong-minded person, is my Hermione." Ron paused, swallowed then continued in a lower voice. "Was a strong-minded person, I meant to say." His lower lip quivered then he seemed to deliberately take his mind off the hook again. Harry was unable to rouse Ron again for some hours.
While the Range Rover ate up the miles, Harry spent the time trying to plan some kind of strategy to deal with Voldemort once they reached Stonehenge, but he found that his brain refused to function. He felt listless and vague, such indistinctness made worse by the blankness of the windows as the miles ticked by.
"Shock probably." Lee answered succinctly when Harry mentioned his odd detachment. "I'm not feeling entirely myself either. Let's be honest: it would take someone with a will of iron not to be affected by what happened last night."
Oddly, it never once occurred to Harry during that long, tedious journey, that they might be wrong about the location, that their sudden ability to second-guess Voldemort might just be a little too convenient. Harry went over and over the possibilities, trying to jump-start his brain into putting together a suitable plan of action. However, short of turning up and launching into a full-scale sorcerous battle, he could come up with nothing even vaguely resembling a strategy. I'm losing my touch, he thought despairingly. Gritting his teeth, he went through their options for the fiftieth time.
"Do you know anything about Stonehenge, Harry?" George broke into Harry's deliberations. "I know it's famous, but I've never been there and, apart from seeing the odd picture in the newspapers, I don't know very much about it. I presume it's magical - these things usually are. Do you know anything that might help us tonight?" George was now driver and was desperate for something to take his mind off the sea of grey just beyond his windscreen.
"A little," Harry replied. "Stonehenge is a special place, a centre of magic so powerful that even some Muggles can sense it. It's really very old, you know. The first wave of building began in about 3,500 BC."
"Wow!" Ginny's eyes were wide and interested. "But how did they build it without modern technology?" Harry smiled.
"That's one of the major questions about Stonehenge. How did these primitive people transport blocks of stone weighing as much as 26 tons originating in Wales, where they were evidently hand-hewn, all the way to a site in the middle of Salisbury Plain? Even when they got them there, the massive job of erecting them in concentric circles, and also placing other huge blocks over the tops of them, like lintels on doorframes, seems inconceivable for primitive people. And the fact that the ancient Brits looked after their monument generation after generation - continuing with the building, repairing and nurturing what was already there - for two thousand years! Most of our buildings, even wizard maintained ones, scarcely last for more than a few hundred years. The other major question is what did they build it for?"
He paused, steepling his fingers, deep in thought: Harry had snapped into university lecturer mode.
"Most Muggle theories centre on the connection with the heavenly bodies," Harry told them. "In the 1960s, an eminent astronomer claimed to have proved that the ancients used Stonehenge as a kind of calculator for astronomical and astrological events. He discovered that certain of the key stones corresponded with certain events, such as the solstices and equinoxes, and thereby deduced that the ancients knew very much more about the heavens than we give them credit for - not to mention the science of construction!" Harry scratched his head with a wry smile.
"Of course, what they don't know is that Stonehenge dates from a time when wizards didn't have to keep their existence secret from Muggles, quite the contrary. Muggles and wizards co-operated in the building of Stonehenge for a very definite purpose. This co-operation lasted for centuries, and Stonehenge was maintained, loved and looked after, until the Dark Ages, when magical people and creatures were persecuted and all but wiped out."
Here Harry paused again, gathering his thoughts.
"Stonehenge was deliberately built on intersecting lines of magic, just like the temple, which gave access to other worlds, other dimensions. The ancient wizards used these connections for knowledge, divination, the development of their own powers, and many other purposes. It wasn't all good, though. Some less scrupulous sorcerers used the access to create portals through which to summon supernatural beings, demons and elementals usually, to give themselves added power over other people, mainly Muggles. In fact, one could say that by doing this, they were responsible for the later persecution of the magical community. By subjecting the world to a virtual invasion of dark beings, far more powerful in this dimension than in their own, these dark wizards were a strong factor in the fall of civilisation and the descent into the Dark Ages. It was to drag Britain out of this primitive lawlessness that the laws proscribing magic and magical creatures were made and enforced - to the grief and suffering of the magical community throughout the world." There was a pause.
"Probably just as well in the end," commented George, glancing away from the road for a moment. "If we still had to co-operate with Muggles, we'd never get anything done!"
"Oh, I don't know, George," put in Lee. "Some wizards aren't all that good at decision-making either. Look at Cornelius Fudge. He's been sitting on the fence for so long he's got a permanent groove in his backside! And I hear that he was once a fairly decent wizard - of course, that was a long time ago. Considering his official line about Voldemort's return while we were still at school, I was surprised he managed to keep his job!"
"Lee!" admonished Ginny, shocked, "This is your boss you're cheerfully slagging off!" Lee shrugged.
"Only to you, and I've probably got enough on every one of you to ensure your silence!"
The car erupted in sudden, relieved laughter, abruptly ceasing at a howl of anguish from Ron. He turned a furious face around his friends.
"How can you do this?" he demanded, hoarsely. "How can you laugh and joke and make light of things? Don't you realise how serious the situation is? Don't you realise what it's already cost us? Hermione's . Hermione was ." He couldn't continue.
"She was the best friend anyone ever had, Ron." Harry finished for him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She was good, kind, brave and intelligent, but above all, she loved all of us and she gave her life to keep us safe." Ron was shaking his head miserably.
"I loved her, you know," he burst out. "I loved her more than life. And I never told her; I let her get away. She went to her grave never knowing that in all my life, there was never anyone else."
"She knew, Ron. She knew, and she loved you too."
The words came from George. Unnoticed by the rest, he had carefully drawn into a layby and parked, keeping the engine running. Ron raised his head disbelievingly. George turned around in his seat and nodded forcefully.
"You forget, I lived in the same house for a while," he continued. "I talked to her and listened to her problems when life was getting her down. She said there could never be anyone else for her; that you had always been the one she wanted to be with, but you had to find that out for yourself. She was waiting for you, Ron. She would have been there for you, if she'd lived."
Ron stared at his brother in astonishment then buried his face in his hands.
"Ron," continued George, urgently, "she wouldn't have wanted you to opt out like you're doing now. You know how much courage she had. She'd be gutted if she thought she was responsible for you crouching in a corner, so overwhelmed by your grief for her that you couldn't even help us fight her killer!"
There was a tense silence after this chilly speech. Slowly Ron raised his head.
"Alright, George, I get the picture," Ron said, in a low, rough voice. "I'm not about to stand around while you all rush in and get yourselves flattened - " He shifted awkwardly, winced and pulled a large package out of his pocket, staring at it in bewilderment. "- even if my main function in life seems to be to childmind a cup! What's this doing here?" It was the Grail, still wrapped in its supermarket polythene bag. Harry saw it and smiled.
"You never bothered to take it out of your pocket," he replied cheerfully. "Now that's what I call being a guardian! I'm glad you brought it, Ron. Who knows - perhaps you were meant to."
"You said it's a very powerful entity, Harry." George put the car into gear, and pulled out on to the road again. "What can it do? Would it be of help to us against Voldemort?" Harry shrugged and looked helpless.
"Ron and I tried to research it and got absolutely nowhere," Harry sighed. "We would have visited Professor Radcliffe again, but time was too short. Anyway, from all we could discover, the Grail is a law unto itself. It is immensely powerful, but it can't be manipulated. It has great healing properties, but only through the attainment of self-knowledge. We can't use it, if that's what you mean, but it may possibly prove to be some sort of ally."
"What if Voldemort should capture it?" Ginny's lovely face was anxious.
"My dear, if Voldemort should get through the portal between the worlds and take possession of Fred's body, nothing will ever stop him again." Harry told her sombrely. "If he wants the Grail, he'll get it however we try to hide it."
Ginny's heart sank, so much so that she scarcely noticed the endearment.
It was late afternoon by the time they approached Amesbury, not that any of the gang could actually see any daylight through the fog. Harry was perversely reminded of Hermione's dinner party when he and Ginny had stood together looking out of the West Room windows at a truly beautiful sunset, the antithesis of this one. He sighed: the world had seemed a much more optimistic place such a short time ago.
Lee had taken over as driver and was so unsure of the directions, he felt the need to check their position every minute or so. Finally, Ginny, who was stoically map reading, pointed out of the window.
"There!" she exclaimed, as several vast standing stones loomed out of the mist. "Is that direct enough for you?" Lee drew the Jeep to a screeching halt at a dead end.
"I can't get any nearer," he complained, peering into the murk at a closed gate with a warning notice attached to it. "We'll need to climb over fences, or something if we're going to get there on foot. Apparently a huge increase in tourists to the region during the nineteen-seventies resulted in serious erosion to the stones, so English Heritage fenced them off and you can only view them from a distance now."
Harry slammed the boot shut and approached Lee carrying several long somethings and wearing a wide grin.
"Forget wire cutters or bolt shears," he said smugly. "In this gloom, we'll be able to fly straight to the outer circle without being spotted by so much as a sparrow!"
Lee looked down to find himself holding his own broomstick. Slowly, his face creased into a matching smile.
~ooOoo~
"What do you think?" George passed the binoculars to Ron, the long grass tickling his nose as he moved. Peering through the lenses, Ron took a long look at the surrounding countryside and sighed.
"Nothing," he replied. Ron was still pale and prone to periods of abstraction, but he was doggedly trying to suppress his grief and shock and act normally, at least until the crisis was over.
"Not a dicky bird," agreed George. "They'd better hurry up. Sunset's only about an hour away, not that you'd notice in this murk!"
George was right; the dampness of the air had seeped into their very bones, but they could discern no life among the stones as yet, only swirling tendrils of fog. Ron looked up as muted footsteps approached.
"Anything yet?" Harry's face loomed out of the mist closely followed by Lee. George shook his head soberly.
"Nothing. Just fog, stones and more stones." George got stiffly to his feet and held out a hand to Ron. The two brothers brushed grass from the jeans.
"Right then." Ron handed the binoculars to Lee. "We'll drop by in half an hour, okay?" Harry and Lee crouched down in the long grass, trying to get comfortable. George and Ron retired to the shelter of a large rock near the ditch where they had stowed their gear. Presently, Ron got to his feet and wandered a little way over towards a field with sheep and a barbed wire fence. George watched him go, wondering whether to follow when Ginny appeared out of the mist. George smiled and patted the ground next to him.
"Warm enough?" he asked. Despite the fact that it was high summer, the fog had taken all the heat out of the air. Ginny nodded.
"Yes, thank you," she replied. "You know, it's not really particularly cold, it's just damp. Such odd weather, and all over the south of the country too!"
"Yes," George replied speculatively, but he wasn't given a chance to hold forth on the British climate.
"George?" Ginny's eyes were questioning.
"Yes, sister mine?" responded George lightly with a smile.
"Tell me, was that the truth?" Ginny asked bluntly. "You know, your conversation with Hermione about Ron? What you told him in the car?"
George didn't answer immediately. He pursed his lips and ran a hand through his hair then turned to look her straight in the eye.
"No," he said, flatly. "I lied." Ginny nodded, her lips pressed firmly together.
"I thought so," she replied. "Hermione never even spoke to me about Ron, so I very much doubt she'd have opened up to you. So why did you pretend that she had?"
"To get Ron out of his stupor." George replied, simply. "To make sure he would be a bit more than the passenger he's been for the last few hours."
"George!" Ginny was shocked. "How could you do that? To lie to someone who has just been so dreadfully bereaved - your own brother no less - just for the sake of - of."
"Survival perhaps?" George finished in a very gentle voice, then took her shoulders between his huge hands and looked straight into her eyes. "Ginny, my own and only sister, do you really believe that after this evening any of us is likely to see daylight again?"
A cold hand started to move down Ginny's spine and she stared dumbly at her brother. He smiled sadly and stroked a hand over her lovely hair.
"Can you honestly trust that we're going to defeat Voldemort, even with the redoubtable Harry on our team, busily pulling rabbits out of hats like he's been doing for the past few days?" George smiled sadly. "You-know-who will crush us, Ginny, like flies in autumn, and with as much indifference. But we've got to try, don't you see? I know we can't win, but what's the alternative? Going back home and waiting for Voldemort to find us there? Just like Harry famously said before he went after the Philosopher's Stone, when he was only eleven: it's only dying a bit later than we would have done, because we're never going over to the dark side. So how much longer has Ron got on this earth? If a downright lie from a brother who loves him will make his last few hours more useful and bearable than they might have been, then I'll take that on my conscience gladly."
Ginny looked away, tears welling up in her eyes. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and glanced up to see Harry looking seriously at George.
"Of course you're right, old friend," Harry said quietly. "We can't possibly win. All we can do is die heroically trying to save Fred, and you never know: we may actually weaken Voldemort before our time is up. Anyway, it's what I'm going to try to do before he kills me. It's the least I can do for Fred and Hermione."
"I'm with you there!" George agreed, giving Harry a high five. The two men looked at each other uncertainly, then George reached out and pulled Harry into a rough embrace.
"It was good, wasn't it?" George said in rather muffled tones. "Living together, working together, fighting the dark magic. We were a good team - weren't we?"
"The best, George," replied Harry, his throat so tight he was virtually whispering. "No one was ever better!" He patted the other man on the back and pulled away, blinking slightly.
"I came to tell you it's your watch," he continued, giving George time to recover. "Ron's already taken over from Lee. Nothing's happened yet."
George nodded and walked off slowly, leaving Ginny gazing in bewilderment at Harry. He shrugged helplessly.
"I'm sorry, Ginny," Harry said sadly. "I wish I could conjure up some vague hope for us, but deep inside I know there's just no way I can take on Voldemort again and win. It was down to a few ancient spells I learned on my travels, and some incredible luck that we've made it this far. They know we're coming, I'm certain of that, and they'll show us no mercy. I've got no more tricks up my sleeve, just my love of life, and of all of you, my friends, and my determination not to let it all go without a struggle." Ginny looked up at him and smiled bravely.
"Whatever happens, Harry, I'm glad we decided to fight back," she replied stubbornly. "I'd rather die resisting to the last than live on without my friends and my brothers, just waiting for the end." Harry smiled at her fondly and stroked a wayward tendril of hair away from her face.
"You know, Ginny," he began thoughtfully, "I realised something last night, when that manifestation of Cho appeared. I realised that when she died, I was so convinced that it was my fault that I didn't allow myself to grieve for her properly. Over the years, I tried to forget her, but I could never quite escape the conviction that her love for me had caused her death. Last night was proof positive that, despite the Muggle car that crushed the life out of her, it was Voldemort who was really responsible for her death."
Ginny held her breath lest she in some way shatter the fragile confidence beginning to emerge between them.
"But last night," Harry continued, "when Voldemort offered her back to me in exchange for Fred, I knew that the hold she had on me was gone forever. It was Voldemort who took her in a very deliberate attempt to weaken me, and he had succeeded. Now he was trying to corrupt me using the same technique. I knew Cho was dead; I saw her body. But Voldemort thought I had sunk so low I would be satisfied with a facsimile. Pah!"
Harry gave a sharp exclamation of disgust and suddenly pulled Ginny close against his chest. Tilting her chin towards him, he looked down into her face, his eyes wide and unshuttered.
"He didn't know about you, about us; perhaps he still doesn't," he whispered. "Only you made it possible for me to resist that dreadful temptation."
He began to kiss her - soft, blind kisses one might give a child who had woken in the night. Ginny leaned into his body, holding him hard as though she would never let him go.
"I love you," she murmured. "I've always loved you - you know that."
"Yes," he whispered into the fading light.
~ooOoo~
As the darkness deepened, the fog seemed to thin out a little and the new moon, slender as a lemon rind, began to appear sporadically between the patches of mist. George, who was on watch, eased stiffening limbs, grunted quietly then exhaled with relief.
"They're here, Harry," he said quietly, passing the binoculars. "I'm positive I saw Wormtail."
Harry drew a sharp breath at the sight of his old enemy once more, performed a careful sweep of the area and nodded to himself. He then turned to George.
"Okay," he said, half-reluctantly. "I think this is where you do your stuff, George."
The red-haired man nodded grimly then took off over the grass, quickly fading from sight.
"Wha .. How ..?" Ginny spluttered looking first at Harry, then at the rapidly disappearing form of her brother. She planted her hands on her hips.
"What's going on Harry? And don't tell me I don't want to know, because I do!" Harry's face creased into a smile at her determination.
"Okay, Ginny, but I think you'd better make a promise to keep this dead secret, okay? You too, Lee - if you don't already know about it."
Lee raised his eyebrows but made no further comment. Harry scratched his head.
"Well," he began, "The plain unvarnished truth is that George is an animagus. So is Fred, actually."
"What!" exclaimed Ginny, after a considerable pause. "But - they've never been registered or anything. How did this happen and when, Harry? It's a very difficult thing to become an animagus - how did my two lazy brothers manage to achieve it?"
Harry had the grace to look a little shamefaced.
"You remember that holiday they both took in California, all expenses paid by the Ministry because I was helping them perfect their Glamour art?" she nodded. "Well, we couldn't practice glamour charms all day, could we? So I sort of helped them out with the animagus magic. It all went remarkably smoothly, really."
"What animals do they transfigure into?" asked Ginny, with interest. Lee guffawed.
"Why don't you just take a guess, little sister?" he suggested, with a broad grin. Ginny thought for a moment.
"Not weasels, surely?"
"Got it in one!" Harry smiled. "So now, if by some incredibly lucky chance we manage to get out of this jam alive, you've got to keep very quiet indeed about this. If it gets out at the Ministry, your brothers will be carpeted for sure, and besides, once everybody knows about it, the element of surprise has gone. George is just doing a bit of recce for us - he'll be back within ten minutes or so."
But he wasn't.
Ginny was beginning to feel very odd. The strange, dream-like quality Lee had put down to shock seemed to have intensified as the light faded, and she found her eyesight adjusting, just as it had in the temple. She marvelled at the strange qualities she could see in the very rocks and vegetation around her, and when she looked towards the edifice of Stongehenge itself, the lines of power radiating from the stones were almost blinding in their intensity.
Harry fidgeted, constantly glancing at his watch. Finally, he sighed.
"We'll have to make a move or we'll be too late," he said. "George must have met with difficulties. We'll try to find him as we go."
"Harry," Ginny grasped at his arm, her eyes full of the strange radiance. "It hasn't happened yet. I know it hasn't. Fred is still safe. Please don't do anything now."
Harry stared at her in puzzlement.
"What do you mean?" he asked then cut off his own question. "We haven't got time for this, Ginny, I'm sorry. Let's get going - we've got to do something!"
"Wait!" shouted Lee, "Our broomsticks! At least they'll give us a fighting chance!"
"Yes!" replied Harry, with sudden energy. "Well done, Lee, at least someone's brain is still online! Okay, let's get to it."
Ginny stood entranced, her head tilted slightly to one side as though listening intently for something. She paid no attention to the hustle and bustle going on around her. Her youngest brother approached with both their broomsticks
"Here you are Ginny." Ron handed her the Firebolt. "Ginny?" he queried, uncertainly as she made no move to take it. Ron looked carefully into her face. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated, staring at nothing.
"There is power," Ginny said, faintly. "Great power in the earth. Power of rocks, stones, sky and sea. It - resists his advance. We must help, it's our only chance." Ron frowned.
"Ginny, what are you talking about?" he protested. "We've got to go fight You-Know-Who now, so stop freaking out on me and get on your broomstick!"
He flung the Firebolt at her and all but pushed her on to it. Mechanically, she kicked off from the ground and followed the others, but the strange out-of-this-world feeling would not leave her.
As they circled above the massive structure, Harry could see that they were none too early. The place was crawling with Deatheaters and Fred was stretched out on a massive flat stone, manacles at his wrists and ankles. Wormtail had already begun the Summoning. Harry angled his broomstick to swoop down on the altar.
The battle was short and decisive. It was clear right from the start that Wormtail and the other Deatheaters were ready for them, almost expecting them to strike exactly when they did. As Harry plummeted towards the altar, intending to sweep the unconscious Fred from its surface and climb back up into the sky, Wormtail quickly cast a binding spell which sealed Fred to the surface of the stone, making it impossible for Harry to do more than retreat empty handed. Ron fared little better. Having ploughed into a waiting group of Deatheaters, he discovered that they were more than ready for him and was fighting desperately to fend them off. Harry could see the flashes and smoke from high in the sky as he banked hard, preparing for another dive. Lee was nowhere to be seen, but a commotion off to the left somewhere indicated that he also was fighting for his life.
"BE STILL!" A curiously quiet, evil voice rang out in everyone's ears. The fighting stopped instantly and all eyes turned towards the altar. The figure of Voldemort had materialised, unsteady and two-dimensional it was true, but as going a concern as Harry had ever seen him.
"In a few moments," the figure said, "I shall take possession of this new body, and through it the world!"
There was a ragged cheer from the Deatheaters. Voldemort gestured to them.
"Bring me the prisoners."
Harry watched in pain as Lee and Ron were flung unceremoniously to the ground before Voldemort. Ginny followed swiftly on their heels, still looking dazed: she didn't even seem to have pulled her wand out of its holster.
"And here is one more," smiled Voldemort. He snapped his fingers. "Wormtail?" Immediately, Wormtail delved in a pocket to produce a small, struggling creature with red fur. Voldemort pointed his wand at it.
"Transform, or you die now!" The weasel immediately shimmered and enlarged, becoming a dejected-looking George Weasley. He shrugged at the others.
"I'm sorry," he said. "They were ready for me, even in my animal form!"
"Silence!" roared Voldemort. He looked upwards, straight at Harry who was still on his broomstick, concealed by the low cloud.
"Potter," he said, in a quieter tone. "As you can see, I have your friends. It is possible I will spare one of them, if you will give yourself up now."
Harry had no choice. He flew his broomstick as close to the ground as possible, sliding gracefully from its polished handle to stand next to Ron. He looked at them sorrowfully, but no words would come. He tried to catch Ginny's eye, but she was still caught in her trance, her eyes vacant, her lips vibrating slightly. Voldemort smiled, an evil, satisfied smile.
"So, Potter, we meet again, but in circumstances which are, I fear, not exactly to your liking." Harry sighed.
"There have been no pleasurable occasions on which we have met, you know that, Tom," Harry replied almost amiably. Voldemort frowned.
"You will not call me by that name." Harry raised an enquiring eyebrow.
"Whyever not?" he said. "It's your given name, isn't it?" Voldemort growled angrily.
"The name of my father - that cursed Muggle, who I killed as soon as I had attained a modicum of power. I do not acknowledge him, or his name!"
"That's a shame," said Harry, mildly. "My father's name was James. You killed him too. Do you have some problem with fathers, Tom?"
Voldemort was angry enough to explode and seemed to control himself only with difficulty.
"You will die very painfully and slowly for that, Potter," he snarled, softly and with undeniable menace. But Harry was no longer paying attention to Voldemort; neither was anyone else. They all stared at Ginny.
Ginny stood a little apart from the others, serene and empty-eyed in the face of death. The Deatheaters surrounding her drew back in confusion as an odd metamorphosis commenced. She was still trancelike, but a greenish light emanated from her robes and her face began to glow with a ghostly radiance. She held her arms up to the standing stones surrounding them and spoke in a suddenly clear, resonant voice; a voice completely unlike her own:
"When the Dead One returns to claim his own, the Living Boy and the Dryad must unite in love, and take the Cup of Plenty from the hands of the Pure One to return it to its rightful place."
Slowly, she turned towards Ron and held out her hands. There was no recognition in her eyes.
"You are the Pure One, the keeper of the Grail." she said, "I am the Dryad. Give the Grail to me so that it may be returned to its proper place."
Unable to tear his eyes from her face, Ron fumbled in his pocket until he produced the Grail, golden and shining in the eerie green light. Voldemort gave a sudden hiss, quickly choked off. Ginny took the chalice, turned and moved across the grass towards Harry, almost as if she were gliding.
"Harry," she said, and her voice had taken on an extra resonance that cut through the sudden silence like a knife. "You are the Living Boy. You must join with the Dryad now, through the Grail."
Harry understood none of this. Nothing that was happening now made any sense to him, despite his long association with arcane magical practices and occurrences. Nevertheless, in blind faith, he moved towards the creature that was Ginny and placed his hands over hers, grasping the cup securely. Just as before, in the temple, he felt a sudden surge of power stab through his mind. Ginny was there with him, part of him, merged in a unity of consciousness which this time knew no barriers, no obstacles, merely the love and trust of two generous souls whose faith was only equalled by their bravery.
Ginny, what's happening?
I wish I knew! All I know is that I'm following instructions.
What instructions? Who from?
Again, I don't know. Harry, look at the Grail!
In response to the mental instruction, Harry focussed back on the outside world and saw the golden cup begin to glow with an inner light. As he watched, the radiance increased, spiralling out towards the surrounding Deatheaters. Paralysed, they gazed curiously at the light then howled in agony as it touched them. A wash of brilliance sent the gang reeling back, hands over their eyes. All except Harry and Ginny who stood motionless, holding the Grail firmly between them.
Squinting against the glare, Ron could just discern something taking shape. Its outlines were human, but it seemed to consist entirely of a pearly opalescence. Its robes were pure white, not wizard robes but something resembling the flowing drapery worn by the ancient Greeks. There was a deafening silence then the figure spoke in a clear, silvery voice, curiously androgenous:
"I am a Lord of the High Magic, remote from the affairs of your plane. The pursuits of good and evil are not my concern, yet once I lived among you and for this reason, and for the sake of the artefact you bear, I have answered your call for help.
"You face great danger to your immortal souls in this place, but you undertook the burden freely for the sake of the love you bear each other, and to save your world from mortal peril. For these things I honour you, and also the one of your number who has been struck down in her earthly body.
"The one who seeks to harm you is no longer part of your world and his attempts to pass between planes are illegal and cannot be tolerated. However, his destruction would threaten the eternal balance and equally cannot be contemplated. Therefore I shall return you to your own plane with the assurance that you will no longer be threatened by your enemy at any time during the remainder of your natural lives."
"What?" stuttered Harry. "You mean Voldemort will still be alive?"
"If the existence he holds at present can be so described, yes." the figure replied equably. "You have done as much as you are able, but his ultimate destruction lies in another future at other hands. However, I will banish him to a far plane where his destructive power will serve him not at all in the business of survival. Farewell my children: may your lives be long and may happiness stay with you always."
The light grew more and more intense until, shielding their tear-filled eyes with their hands, each of those left fell away into merciful darkness.
Then there was total silence, broken only by the distant sound of birdsong: dawn had come at last.
**********************************************
Harry awoke instantly, all in one moment, and sat up suddenly, staring. The first thing he saw was Ginny, hovering anxiously over him. As she saw him stir, she spoke over her shoulder to someone out of Harry's field of vision.
"George! George, he's alive and awake, thank Merlin!"
The grinning figure of George Weasley appeared and grasped Harry's hand, pulling him bodily to his feet. Harry thought he must be hallucinating as the same face seemed to be sporting an identical grin over Ginny's shoulder, but to his delight he realised it was Fred. Almost simultaneously, he heard a shout of wonder and disbelief and turned to see Ron, his eyes overflowing with tears of astonishment and gratitude, holding tightly to the hand of a bleary-eyed and rather confused Hermione! Harry looked around him, expecting to see open sky, grass and the huge standing monoliths of the great monument known as Stonehenge. Instead he realised that he and the others were back inside the West Room at Harry's House, and sunlight was pouring in through the windows.
"Well, well, well!" he murmured quietly, the beginnings of a smile creasing his face. Ron, still clutching Hermione's hand as though he expected her to suddenly disappear, brought her over to Harry, his face childlike with wonder.
"Harry, she's alive," he said, unnecessarily. "How? What happened here?"
"Of course I'm alive!" retorted Hermione, impatiently. "What on earth are you wittering on about, Ron?" Harry shook his head, his smile rapidly becoming a grin.
"The High Magic." he replied. "Who knows what motivates it, or even what it is? But it saved us this time. And it was all down to you, Ginny." The red-haired girl stared at him with wide eyes.
"Me?" she squeaked. "But I didn't - I mean, I don't remember - "
"You called the High Magic, sister mine!" George told her, enveloping her in a bear hug, "I really didn't know you had it in you, but you were the Dryad the prophecy spoke of."
"Yeah, and Ron really was the Pure One, despite all the jibes from you two."
It was Lee speaking to the Weasley twins, who at least had the grace to look slightly abashed. Harry turned to face his friends.
"Last night," Harry began thoughtfully, "if indeed it was last night, I banished Voldemort and his minions from this room. The Invocation I used was a very old one, taught to me by Albus Dumbledore shortly before he died. He told me never to use it except in the direst circumstances, when my very soul was in danger of destruction." Harry wandered over to the window and looked out into the morning.
"Albus didn't explain why he was teaching it to me, or even what the spell would accomplish," Harry continued, "but I believe its power transported us out of this house, out of this world, onto another plane of existence, where we could call upon higher assistance to save both ourselves and our world." He shook his head in wonder.
"Albus knew I would be fighting for my life, without his help." Harry looked at the others in bewilderment. "Did he foresee this very situation, do you think? I know he was many things, but I never heard him described as a Seer."
Ginny stared at Harry, her eyes enormous, her hand over her mouth.
"The Lord of the High Magic, who helped us. Do you think - was it - Dumbledore? He said he had once lived among us ." Her voice trailed off in awe.
"He said he would return us to our own dimension too," said Ron, breathlessly. "He must have been responsible for bringing Hermione back."
"I don't believe Hermione ever really died in this world," replied Harry, thoughtfully. "I think my spell took her beyond the reach of the Avada curse just in time, but prevented her from accompanying us any further, leaving her in some kind of - limbo, if you like."
"Of course I didn't die, Harry!" Hermione retorted. "What is this fixation you all seem to have with my death?"
"The Lord also said he would banish Voldemort to a far less friendly world than you sent him to, Harry." added George, ignoring Hermione's outburst.
"I hope he keeps his word!" growled Lee.
"Look, I'm a bit confused." Hermione interrupted in a protesting voice. "I seem to have missed out on something here - more like several somethings actually, and Ron won't let go of my hand. He says he's afraid I'll die on him again!"
The others laughed.
"Go on, Ron, take her away and tell her all about it." George said, patting Ron on the arm.
"And don't come back until you're married - or at least engaged!" shouted Fred after their retreating backs. Harry snuck a quick look at Ginny, but she wouldn't quite meet his eyes.
"Hey!" shouted Lee from a far corner of the room. "Look at this. I mean, is this thing supposed to still be here?"
He pointed to something standing quietly on its own, nearly touching the wall, just as bright and golden as it had been when Ron had taken it out of the temple.
"The Holy Grail," whispered George reverently. Harry said nothing, merely walked over to it and picked it up without hesitation.
"The power," he said, faintly, "has gone out of it, I think. At least for the time being." He smiled and looked round at the others.
"I think this had better become the property of the Ministry; for now at any rate," he decided. "Anyone mind if I'm credited with its discovery?"
Grinning like a maniac, Harry promptly ducked and ran from the West Room as Fred, George, Lee and Ginny followed him, pelting him over the head with pillows.
Author's Notes
The distribution of this story is for personal use only. Any other form of distribution is prohibited without the consent of the author. Disclaimer: this is a non-profit enterprise. Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling, except the plot and David Markland, both of which belong to Penpusher. Tribute to: Susan Cooper's incomparable "The Dark is Rising" sequence for use of the "High Magic"; Dennis Wheatley for a plot device; and many, many other fanfiction writers whose works of all kinds and in very differing genres have been an immense inspiration to me. The quotations used as chapter titles are too numerous to credit here. Full details available on request, but Shakespeare and The Bible should yield most of them.
And all the thanks in the world to Becky (aka williara) for being a superb beta.
Chapter Nine - The Last Battle
Harry awoke wondering what on earth he had been doing the previous evening to warrant such a monumental hangover. He opened gritty, sticky eyes to focus blearily on the white circle of Ginny's face swimming above him. She looked tired and ill, with huge black circles under her eyelids. As she saw him stir, she spoke over her shoulder to someone out of Harry's field of vision.
"George, he's awake thank goodness!" Ginny turned worried eyes back to Harry.
Harry rubbed a hand over his face and sat up, wincing as light from the room's chandelier lanced through his head. The first thing he noticed was that he was still in the West Room, but he could now see dull daylight through chinks in the curtains. Little by little, an unusual sound intruded upon his consciousness: an odd hoarse gasping, as though someone were labouring through a severe asthma attack without the benefit of salbutamol.
"Ginny," he began, gingerly massaging his temples, "what's the noise?"
Harry was horrified to see Ginny's eyes abruptly fill with tears.
"Oh, Harry!" she cried, and buried her head in his shoulder. He held her close for a short while, then she started to speak.
"It's just awful," Ginny said in a tight whisper. "Right at the end, when Cho - or rather, the thing that looked like Cho - was trying to get you to go over to the dark side, Hermione -"
Ginny choked, trying to swallow a sob. Harry took her hands in his, squeezing the fingers urgently.
"Yes, Ginny," he began rapidly, looking into her face. "Hermione tried to curse Cho, and it backfired. Yes, I know all that - I was there, remember?" Ginny nodded, trying hard to gain control of her voice.
"Yes, of course," she whispered. "Well, when Hermione's curse hit the bubble, it - it broke."
"Yes, yes, I know," Harry shook Ginny's hands lightly in agitation. He sighed, feeling the muscles ache all over his body.
"The Invocation I used must have been at least partially successful," he continued. "After all, we're still alive." Ginny's smaller fingers all but crushed his hands.
"Harry, will you listen!" she wailed. "Cho threw the death curse at Hermione. At the time, I thought you must have got in first with whatever magic you used to finally banish Voldemort and his allies, but when we woke up this morning, we found that Hermione was - was dead."
Harry froze in appalled disbelief. Ignoring the pain in his head, he freed himself from Ginny's embrace and moved quickly to where Hermione lay, still and cold. Ron crouched over her, oblivious of anything else in the room. He did not touch the body in any way but merely stared at her pale, lifeless face. Tears streamed unashamedly down his cheeks in a more or less constant flow and his breath came in harsh sobs, tearing and painful. Lee stood by Ron's side, obviously at a loss to know what to do.
"He's losing his voice," whispered Ginny coming up behind Harry. "He's been like this since he woke up."
"Yeah, and that's not all, Harry." George came over. He looked drained and haggard. "They got Fred."
Harry turned incredulous eyes on George at this further devastating blow and felt his stomach lurch with a sick foreboding. I've failed, his mind screamed at him. For all my vaunted power, my skills and training, I couldn't protect them. Harry Potter sank to his knees in utter weariness and buried his face in his hands.
As far as morale went, there wasn't much further for them to go down. Incessant sobbing had deprived Ron of the ability to speak. He refused to leave Hermione's side, staring emptily at her dead face, hugging his shoulders and rocking himself in agony. George was inconsolable: charged with protecting his helpless brother, he had let the powers of darkness snatch Fred from under his nose. He acted as though he had lost his right arm and was still numb from the shock. Lee's analytical brain seemed unable to process the events of the previous evening, but it was Harry who ultimately seemed to be taking the brunt of the tragedy on his shoulders. Brooding darkly, he sat cross-legged in a corner of the West Room, speaking to no one, his mind going round and round in panicked fugues. There seemed to be no way forward.
Some little time later, Ginny decided she'd had enough. Someone had to make some kind of stand here, and despite all their prior courage and bluster, not one of the men was capable of fighting his way out of a wet paper bag at present. Whatever complexities had entered her life since her unexpected liaison with Harry, she simply couldn't allow her own wounded feelings to interfere with the safety of her family. Despite their easygoing exterior, all the Weasleys had come equipped with a core of toughened steel, and the youngest was no exception. Accustomed to making her way by persuasion rather than fiat, Ginny was surprised to find her resolve hardening. Leadership material she wasn't, but right now she seemed to be all they had left.
Bullying Harry, Lee and George out of the West Room to shower and change their clothes was a good introductory lesson for Ginny in the art of giving orders. Ron, of course, refused to move or even to hear her, but eventually, using a combination of persuasion and downright threats, she cajoled him into observing some of the niceties of hygiene. Ginny then headed for the kitchen, mentally planning a good, hot lunch to restore some lost energy. Exploring the depths of the larder and fridge, she assembled the makings of a halfway decent meal. Once we've got some food inside us, things will seem less desperate, she thought hopefully. Drawing back the curtains from the large kitchen window, she paused in surprise.
"Well, that's something you don't often see in high summer!" she muttered to herself in puzzlement.
Lee Apparated to the flat to procure some clean clothes for Ron and himself. Half expecting the place to be dominated by incessantly ringing messageglobes and piles of owl post, he was surprised to find everything orderly and rather eerily quiet. Glancing out of the window, he scratched his head, perplexed; the street was blanketed by a thick white cloud. Dense, glutinous fog, impenetrable and totally unseasonable, made the city unrecognisable.
"I don't like this." Lee muttered, flattening his nose against the glass. "I don't like this at all."
Back at Harry's House, Ginny's chilli con carne turned out to be surprisingly tasty, but for all the attention the men paid, it could have been sawdust and cardboard. When they had finished all they were going to eat, Ginny put down her glass of juice gently but decisively.
"Okay," she said quietly, "What's the next step?"
Lee stared in amazement bordering on stupefaction.
"You want to go on, to continue with this - this downright stupidity, after what happened last night?" he protested. "We don't stand an earthly. A mouse would have a better chance taking on a manticore. Ginny, he flattened us! How we escaped with our lives, I'll never know. And you can sit there, cool as a cucumber, talking about our next step? Our next game of dice with death?"
"Certainly I can," Ginny replied firmly, skewering Lee with the directness of her glare, "because I must. One of my very best friends has been brutally murdered and I'm going to miss her badly." She paused to let that sink in before continuing. "However, before I grieve for her, I want to do my damnedest to ensure that whoever is responsible pays for what they have done. My brother's life also stands on a knife-edge, at the mercy of Hermione's killer. Think about that for a moment. What do you suggest we do, Lee? Abandon Fred? Consign him to the scrapheap? Just one more loss; one more casualty to Voldemort's lust for power? For Merlin's sake, do you think he'd back off if it were you and not him that Voldemort chose to take? You can bet your bottom dollar he wouldn't even dream of it!" Ginny sat back, her eyes fixed on the computer wizard until he looked away abashed.
"And besides," Ginny continued in a quieter voice, "if we don't get moving soon, George will try to find Fred on his own." She paused to smile at her sibling, getting a faint twitch of the lips in reply.
"I know my brothers very well, thank you," Ginny continued, "and I can assure you that they look after each other's interests to almost ridiculous levels. I'm not about to let him go off half-cocked and get himself killed, now am I?" She silenced George's feeble attempt at a protest with a look.
"So, I'll ask again," Ginny concluded, turning to fix each and every one of them with her stare. "What have we got to go on?"
There was a clatter as Harry dropped a teaspoon in his mug of half-cold tea. He sighed wearily and gave her a look almost of dislike.
"Alright, Ginny," Harry said tiredly. "Alright, you've made your point." He sat up in his chair and put a hand to his forehead as if trying to coax his brain to come online.
"Well, the first thing to do is to find Hermione's notes," Harry said finally. "I guess they must be in her study."
A muscle at the side of Ron's face twitched slightly at the mention of Hermione's name, but otherwise he betrayed no reaction. Ginny held up a small notebook.
"Check," she replied. "What do you need to know?"
"The exact time of the next conjunction," Harry answered. "Also the other points in the world where lines of power intersect. He's not going to use the temple again, not after last night, so he's got to find somewhere else to make the transfer. Hermione should have recorded details of her conversations with Professors Sinistra and Radcliffe. You can use them to calculate other intersection points, Ginny. I suggest when you look for correlations you confine yourself to England and the rest of the British Isles. The closer the better. I don't suppose Voldemort will want to cause Fred's body any more distress than necessary, so he'll only move as far away from here as he has to."
"Okay then," said Ginny, closing the notebook and gesturing to Lee with a kind of grim efficiency. "Let's get moving. Come on Lee, get that immense brain of yours in gear and help me!" With Lee in tow, Ginny swept out of the kitchen and into Hermione's study, closing the door behind them.
Harry rose from the table then paused, looking down at Ron. Harry put a hand on Ron's shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly.
"Ron," Harry began in a low voice. Ron grunted, but otherwise gave no sign. Harry continued.
"Ron, I've got to do a couple of things - for Hermione you know."
Ron's head jerked up at the mention of her name.
"Don't you touch her!" he said in a low, hoarse voice. "You mustn't do anything to her body now, please. She's been through enough, hasn't she? Let her rest in peace." Harry tightened his grip on Ron's arm.
"I've got to use a couple of enchantments, Ron," said Harry, gently. "To make sure that Voldemort can't use her body for evil means."
"What do you mean?" demanded Ron, looking at Harry for the first time. "That bastard can't touch her now, can he? I mean, she's - she's dead, isn't she?"
Fresh tears began to well up and Harry patted his friend's shoulder awkwardly.
"I have to make sure he can't reach her," Harry explained. "We can't take her with us when we leave this house, Ron. We'll have to leave her here alone. I need to make sure that Voldemort can't move her anywhere else, or even try to - reanimate her."
"You mean like a - zombie?"
Harry nodded gravely. Ron considered for a moment and an expression of extreme distaste rippled across his face. He looked back at his friend.
"Do what you must," Ron said quietly. "I don't want him to abuse her body, particularly now she can't defend it herself."
Harry nodded, gave Ron's shoulder a final pat then went to perform the necessary tasks.
After a while, George went in search of Harry. He admitted to himself that he was curious about the measures Harry needed to take to ensure the safety of Hermione's remains, but he was also anxious for Harry himself. That concern underwent a manifold increase at his first sight of Harry, still in the West Room, standing above Hermione's lifeless body gazing at her familiar, well-loved face.
Harry had evidently finished whatever spells he needed to cast, but he made no attempt to leave. He merely stood shaking his head over and over again, deep in grief and remorse.
"Hermione," he murmured. "Oh, Hermione, my friend, forgive me; I failed you. Ron, I'm so sorry." He buried his face in his hands in heartfelt grief, his shoulders heaving.
"Ron knows it wasn't your fault." George spoke quietly, leaning a hand on Harry's shoulder, trying not to alarm him. Harry started violently and spun round, shaking off the consoling hand with unnecessary vehemence. He turned towards George with a face so full of anger and loathing that the other man took an involuntary step backwards.
"Not my fault?" Harry spat, his voice dripping with self-contempt. "Not my fault? If I hadn't been so damn rattled by that manifestation of Cho Chang, I'd have noticed the attack on Hermione. You know how levelheaded she was; she would never have made such an elementary mistake if she hadn't been got at! I should have twigged when she was so wand-happy earlier on. I screwed up, George, it's as simple as that. I screwed up - and Hermione paid the price."
The last was grated out through clenched teeth and Harry turned away, falling silent, gazing at Hermione with an anger and despair terrible to behold. George swallowed on a dry, tight throat then he grabbed Harry roughly and swung him round so that their faces were inches apart.
"Now you just listen to me," he began, deadly quiet. "You're our leader, our oracle of all wisdom, the one we all look up to. Certainly you screwed up; most leaders do once in a while if they're worth their salt, and You- Know-Who is no Sunday-school picnic. Yes, if you'd done things differently, Hermione might still be alive; I'll buy that. But I might not still be here - or you, or Ron, or Ginny, or Lee, or any number of the millions of other people who are on this planet, wizards and Muggles alike." George paused to draw breath, and went on.
"Whatever happened last night, we've still got to keep on fighting, and we can't do it without you. You're the one person we just can't afford to lose: we need you to safeguard Ron and the Grail, and to plan out what we're going to do next, never mind provide the leadership in the final battle. If you collapse on us, then we might as well write off Fred's life as well as Hermione's. Just accept that they both died for nothing, and sit on our arses waiting for the end." Seeing a flicker of reaction on Harry's face, George pressed home his advantage.
"Harry, Ginny and Lee are beating their brains out trying to get a fix on those calculations. Once we've worked out where to go, we've got to have some kind of a plan. Some idea what to do when we get there." George was virtually spitting in his vehemence. "This is my brother's life we're talking about, not to mention the future of the civilised world. Come on Harry: think!"
George was shaking Harry so hard the man was beginning to see stars. Eventually, Harry exerted enough pressure on George's biceps to free himself from the painful grip.
"Okay, okay, George: you've made your point."
George released him, wincing as he rubbed at the bruises on his upper arms. Harry looked up. His face was haggard from strain and lack of sleep, there were deep shadows under his eyes, but his expression was calm and his eyes at last were clear. Harry Potter was a going concern once again. George expelled a soft sigh of relief.
"Okay," he said, quietly. "What first?" Harry stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Ginny, Lee and Hermione's notes," he replied succinctly, "and if they are not fruitful, perhaps an emergency Apparation to Florence to consult the good Professor Radcliffe again might be in order."
On arrival back in the kitchen, they found Ginny and Lee buried in Hermione's notebook scribbling calculations on some scrap parchment.
"We're in luck, Harry," Ginny greeted him. "Hermione had already made some preliminary calculations. We've found only two possible places, and one of those is a far weaker intersection than the other. I'd put very good odds on the first."
Harry looked carefully at their results and nodded.
"I'm inclined to agree," he affirmed. "Well done! You're sure there are no others?"
"Positive." Lee was totally dogmatic where he knew himself to be right.
"Where is it exactly? Geographically, I mean," asked Harry. Ginny was already checking an atlas.
"Not too far, actually," she told him. "Near Amesbury on Salisbury Plain. It's quite a tourist attraction so we'll have to be careful." She looked up at them, the beginnings of a smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. "Believe it or not, it's at Stonehenge."
~ooOoo~
The rest of the day was something of a blur, a haze of preparation. Harry had snapped straight back into his customary decisiveness and, by a mixture of encouragement and downright bullying, achieved his object.
They would drive to Amesbury, Harry proclaimed. There was no way they could Apparate even half the distance and still be in a fit state to rescue Fred, so they would have to travel the distance in his car instead.
"Why don't we just Port there?" suggested George. "Fred's Ministry Portkey's still at the flat; I know where he keeps it. All we need to do is set it to take us to Amesbury, or somewhere far enough away to be circumspect and Bob's your uncle!" Harry shook his head.
"No, George," he replied firmly. "The last thing we need is to alert Voldemort to our presence. Whether we can maintain the element of surprise remains to be seen, but I want to keep as low a profile as possible. As from now, we are tourists travelling in the West Country."
George backed down, but he was evidently not happy with the situation. During a suitable pause, he grabbed hold of Harry's arm and propelled him over to the window.
"You must have noticed this, but I guess you've been rather too preoccupied to take it in," George said, gesturing to the impenetrable greyness inches away from their faces. Harry frowned. He reached out an involuntary hand to the window.
"This is - not right," he muttered.
"I'm with you there!" replied George with some heat. "And you expect me to drive through this all the way to Somerset - in Fred's titchy little car! Harry, we'll never get there; we'll be lost or crushed in a pile-up before we've covered half the distance." Harry's index finger tapped his bottom lip thoughtfully.
"Okay," he said, making a decision. "We'll hire a bigger car; something with a four-wheel drive, an off-road vehicle, so if we get caught in traffic, we'll have some means to avoid it." George shook his head slowly.
"Harry it'll take too long," he protested. "We'll waste the rest of the day hanging around Muggle car-hire places. By the time we find Fred, if we ever do, it'll be too late!"
"May I make a suggestion?" Ginny approached them determinedly, having caught the tail-end of their conversation.
"What you're looking for is a Landrover or a Jeep - something like that, yes?" she asked. George nodded.
"Yeah," he replied. "And they don't just hand those out without checking your bona fides pretty thoroughly first." Ginny smiled, not without malice.
"Strangely enough," she began, "I think I know just where to find one."
~ooOoo~
"Flamel's Stone!" Lee clapped a hand over his mouth as Ginny swung the big Jeep into the driveway of Harry's House, spraying gravel over his feet. Her face obstinate and determined, she opened the driver door and jumped down, slamming it after her.
"Where on earth did you get it?" Lee demanded, his eyes taking in every square inch of the high-performance car.
"Never you mind." Ginny brushed past him, moving smartly over to George and Harry, her head held high.
"Good enough, boys?" she asked sardonically. Harry nodded, his eyes alight with admiration.
"Too right, it is!" he responded with a grin. "I won't ask how you did it, Ginny, but, well, thanks. Thanks a million." He crossed over to the car and opened the boot in preparation for stowing their gear. George looked down at his little sister suspiciously.
"If I didn't know better," he said in a low voice, "I'd say that vehicle was borrowed. Does he know?" Ginny shrugged negligently.
"He'll know soon enough," she replied, in an offhand manner, "but by then, we'll be far enough away for it not to matter." George shook his head.
"I'd always thought it was the male Weasleys who were guilty of sailing close to the wind," he said.
"If he didn't want me to drive it, he should never have given me a key," Ginny replied impassively. "After all, the only time he let me take the wheel was on long journeys." She gave a wry smile. "He use to fall asleep in the front passenger seat."
"Seriously, Ginny," George caught her arm. "Do you really think you should be doing this?" Shaking him off, Ginny faced her elder brother, her face implacable.
"This is the quickest way I can think of to get down to Stonehenge and rescue Fred, bar Apparating," she growled. "If you don't like it, you're welcome to stay here and defend my honour, but if you want to be part of this, then I suggest you shut up and get in!" Holding up his hands in mock- dismay, George backed away, moving towards the driver door. Casually, he held his hands out for the keys.
"And if you think you're driving this thing when the only vehicle you're familiar with is Fred's old banger," Ginny shot back, "you need to spend some time in a soft room at St. Mungo's. Get in the passenger seat and start map reading - you can take over when you've worked out what the controls do!"
~ooOoo~
Ginny had planned the route, provided food for the journey and prompted Lee to pick up his, Ron's and the twins' voicemail and phone in messages to their various departments at the Ministry. Ron himself could not be roused from his catatonic stupor.
Ginny also drove the first leg with George map reading, this last task made almost impossible by the weather conditions. The impenetrable blanket of fog covered the entire south and west of the country. The road conditions were potentially extremely hazardous and Ginny drove in an edgy silence for forty-five minutes before the gang realised that they had scarcely seen a car since leaving London. The sole topic of news interest on every Muggle radio station was the unseasonable weather and the gang endured more than an hour of mindless chit-chat before George irritably pushed the off switch.
Lee and Harry sat in the back of the car with Ron between them, trying in vain to stir some life into him. For most of the time, Ron was immovable, locked inside his own mind. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he turned to Harry and spoke with great clarity.
"It wasn't anything to do with you that Hermione and I split up, you know."
"Huh?" Harry was puzzled. Ron continued.
"I know you blamed yourself," he sighed. "We had to spend a lot of time with you when Cho - you know, but it had nothing to do with the relationship going down the tube. I buggered that one up all on my own."
"What do you mean?" Harry was still puzzled.
"Oh, we'd been going out for two years, and Hermione wanted some sort of commitment," Ron continued. "She wanted to know whether we were going to get married, or drift apart. You know Hermoine; always well prepared for everything. You see, she wanted to try to plan her life. If we were going to get married, she wanted to have a family while we were still young and put her career on hold for a few years. However, if we weren't, she was going to study for the Bar straight after leaving Hogwarts. I was too young really to make a decision like that, so we split. Well, not immediately, but when it became clear that I wasn't going to put a ring on her finger while we were still at school, she more or less assumed that we would go our separate ways once we left. I precipitated the split by attempting to persuade her otherwise, I'm afraid." Ron gave a wry grimace.
"She's a strong-minded person, is my Hermione." Ron paused, swallowed then continued in a lower voice. "Was a strong-minded person, I meant to say." His lower lip quivered then he seemed to deliberately take his mind off the hook again. Harry was unable to rouse Ron again for some hours.
While the Range Rover ate up the miles, Harry spent the time trying to plan some kind of strategy to deal with Voldemort once they reached Stonehenge, but he found that his brain refused to function. He felt listless and vague, such indistinctness made worse by the blankness of the windows as the miles ticked by.
"Shock probably." Lee answered succinctly when Harry mentioned his odd detachment. "I'm not feeling entirely myself either. Let's be honest: it would take someone with a will of iron not to be affected by what happened last night."
Oddly, it never once occurred to Harry during that long, tedious journey, that they might be wrong about the location, that their sudden ability to second-guess Voldemort might just be a little too convenient. Harry went over and over the possibilities, trying to jump-start his brain into putting together a suitable plan of action. However, short of turning up and launching into a full-scale sorcerous battle, he could come up with nothing even vaguely resembling a strategy. I'm losing my touch, he thought despairingly. Gritting his teeth, he went through their options for the fiftieth time.
"Do you know anything about Stonehenge, Harry?" George broke into Harry's deliberations. "I know it's famous, but I've never been there and, apart from seeing the odd picture in the newspapers, I don't know very much about it. I presume it's magical - these things usually are. Do you know anything that might help us tonight?" George was now driver and was desperate for something to take his mind off the sea of grey just beyond his windscreen.
"A little," Harry replied. "Stonehenge is a special place, a centre of magic so powerful that even some Muggles can sense it. It's really very old, you know. The first wave of building began in about 3,500 BC."
"Wow!" Ginny's eyes were wide and interested. "But how did they build it without modern technology?" Harry smiled.
"That's one of the major questions about Stonehenge. How did these primitive people transport blocks of stone weighing as much as 26 tons originating in Wales, where they were evidently hand-hewn, all the way to a site in the middle of Salisbury Plain? Even when they got them there, the massive job of erecting them in concentric circles, and also placing other huge blocks over the tops of them, like lintels on doorframes, seems inconceivable for primitive people. And the fact that the ancient Brits looked after their monument generation after generation - continuing with the building, repairing and nurturing what was already there - for two thousand years! Most of our buildings, even wizard maintained ones, scarcely last for more than a few hundred years. The other major question is what did they build it for?"
He paused, steepling his fingers, deep in thought: Harry had snapped into university lecturer mode.
"Most Muggle theories centre on the connection with the heavenly bodies," Harry told them. "In the 1960s, an eminent astronomer claimed to have proved that the ancients used Stonehenge as a kind of calculator for astronomical and astrological events. He discovered that certain of the key stones corresponded with certain events, such as the solstices and equinoxes, and thereby deduced that the ancients knew very much more about the heavens than we give them credit for - not to mention the science of construction!" Harry scratched his head with a wry smile.
"Of course, what they don't know is that Stonehenge dates from a time when wizards didn't have to keep their existence secret from Muggles, quite the contrary. Muggles and wizards co-operated in the building of Stonehenge for a very definite purpose. This co-operation lasted for centuries, and Stonehenge was maintained, loved and looked after, until the Dark Ages, when magical people and creatures were persecuted and all but wiped out."
Here Harry paused again, gathering his thoughts.
"Stonehenge was deliberately built on intersecting lines of magic, just like the temple, which gave access to other worlds, other dimensions. The ancient wizards used these connections for knowledge, divination, the development of their own powers, and many other purposes. It wasn't all good, though. Some less scrupulous sorcerers used the access to create portals through which to summon supernatural beings, demons and elementals usually, to give themselves added power over other people, mainly Muggles. In fact, one could say that by doing this, they were responsible for the later persecution of the magical community. By subjecting the world to a virtual invasion of dark beings, far more powerful in this dimension than in their own, these dark wizards were a strong factor in the fall of civilisation and the descent into the Dark Ages. It was to drag Britain out of this primitive lawlessness that the laws proscribing magic and magical creatures were made and enforced - to the grief and suffering of the magical community throughout the world." There was a pause.
"Probably just as well in the end," commented George, glancing away from the road for a moment. "If we still had to co-operate with Muggles, we'd never get anything done!"
"Oh, I don't know, George," put in Lee. "Some wizards aren't all that good at decision-making either. Look at Cornelius Fudge. He's been sitting on the fence for so long he's got a permanent groove in his backside! And I hear that he was once a fairly decent wizard - of course, that was a long time ago. Considering his official line about Voldemort's return while we were still at school, I was surprised he managed to keep his job!"
"Lee!" admonished Ginny, shocked, "This is your boss you're cheerfully slagging off!" Lee shrugged.
"Only to you, and I've probably got enough on every one of you to ensure your silence!"
The car erupted in sudden, relieved laughter, abruptly ceasing at a howl of anguish from Ron. He turned a furious face around his friends.
"How can you do this?" he demanded, hoarsely. "How can you laugh and joke and make light of things? Don't you realise how serious the situation is? Don't you realise what it's already cost us? Hermione's . Hermione was ." He couldn't continue.
"She was the best friend anyone ever had, Ron." Harry finished for him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She was good, kind, brave and intelligent, but above all, she loved all of us and she gave her life to keep us safe." Ron was shaking his head miserably.
"I loved her, you know," he burst out. "I loved her more than life. And I never told her; I let her get away. She went to her grave never knowing that in all my life, there was never anyone else."
"She knew, Ron. She knew, and she loved you too."
The words came from George. Unnoticed by the rest, he had carefully drawn into a layby and parked, keeping the engine running. Ron raised his head disbelievingly. George turned around in his seat and nodded forcefully.
"You forget, I lived in the same house for a while," he continued. "I talked to her and listened to her problems when life was getting her down. She said there could never be anyone else for her; that you had always been the one she wanted to be with, but you had to find that out for yourself. She was waiting for you, Ron. She would have been there for you, if she'd lived."
Ron stared at his brother in astonishment then buried his face in his hands.
"Ron," continued George, urgently, "she wouldn't have wanted you to opt out like you're doing now. You know how much courage she had. She'd be gutted if she thought she was responsible for you crouching in a corner, so overwhelmed by your grief for her that you couldn't even help us fight her killer!"
There was a tense silence after this chilly speech. Slowly Ron raised his head.
"Alright, George, I get the picture," Ron said, in a low, rough voice. "I'm not about to stand around while you all rush in and get yourselves flattened - " He shifted awkwardly, winced and pulled a large package out of his pocket, staring at it in bewilderment. "- even if my main function in life seems to be to childmind a cup! What's this doing here?" It was the Grail, still wrapped in its supermarket polythene bag. Harry saw it and smiled.
"You never bothered to take it out of your pocket," he replied cheerfully. "Now that's what I call being a guardian! I'm glad you brought it, Ron. Who knows - perhaps you were meant to."
"You said it's a very powerful entity, Harry." George put the car into gear, and pulled out on to the road again. "What can it do? Would it be of help to us against Voldemort?" Harry shrugged and looked helpless.
"Ron and I tried to research it and got absolutely nowhere," Harry sighed. "We would have visited Professor Radcliffe again, but time was too short. Anyway, from all we could discover, the Grail is a law unto itself. It is immensely powerful, but it can't be manipulated. It has great healing properties, but only through the attainment of self-knowledge. We can't use it, if that's what you mean, but it may possibly prove to be some sort of ally."
"What if Voldemort should capture it?" Ginny's lovely face was anxious.
"My dear, if Voldemort should get through the portal between the worlds and take possession of Fred's body, nothing will ever stop him again." Harry told her sombrely. "If he wants the Grail, he'll get it however we try to hide it."
Ginny's heart sank, so much so that she scarcely noticed the endearment.
It was late afternoon by the time they approached Amesbury, not that any of the gang could actually see any daylight through the fog. Harry was perversely reminded of Hermione's dinner party when he and Ginny had stood together looking out of the West Room windows at a truly beautiful sunset, the antithesis of this one. He sighed: the world had seemed a much more optimistic place such a short time ago.
Lee had taken over as driver and was so unsure of the directions, he felt the need to check their position every minute or so. Finally, Ginny, who was stoically map reading, pointed out of the window.
"There!" she exclaimed, as several vast standing stones loomed out of the mist. "Is that direct enough for you?" Lee drew the Jeep to a screeching halt at a dead end.
"I can't get any nearer," he complained, peering into the murk at a closed gate with a warning notice attached to it. "We'll need to climb over fences, or something if we're going to get there on foot. Apparently a huge increase in tourists to the region during the nineteen-seventies resulted in serious erosion to the stones, so English Heritage fenced them off and you can only view them from a distance now."
Harry slammed the boot shut and approached Lee carrying several long somethings and wearing a wide grin.
"Forget wire cutters or bolt shears," he said smugly. "In this gloom, we'll be able to fly straight to the outer circle without being spotted by so much as a sparrow!"
Lee looked down to find himself holding his own broomstick. Slowly, his face creased into a matching smile.
~ooOoo~
"What do you think?" George passed the binoculars to Ron, the long grass tickling his nose as he moved. Peering through the lenses, Ron took a long look at the surrounding countryside and sighed.
"Nothing," he replied. Ron was still pale and prone to periods of abstraction, but he was doggedly trying to suppress his grief and shock and act normally, at least until the crisis was over.
"Not a dicky bird," agreed George. "They'd better hurry up. Sunset's only about an hour away, not that you'd notice in this murk!"
George was right; the dampness of the air had seeped into their very bones, but they could discern no life among the stones as yet, only swirling tendrils of fog. Ron looked up as muted footsteps approached.
"Anything yet?" Harry's face loomed out of the mist closely followed by Lee. George shook his head soberly.
"Nothing. Just fog, stones and more stones." George got stiffly to his feet and held out a hand to Ron. The two brothers brushed grass from the jeans.
"Right then." Ron handed the binoculars to Lee. "We'll drop by in half an hour, okay?" Harry and Lee crouched down in the long grass, trying to get comfortable. George and Ron retired to the shelter of a large rock near the ditch where they had stowed their gear. Presently, Ron got to his feet and wandered a little way over towards a field with sheep and a barbed wire fence. George watched him go, wondering whether to follow when Ginny appeared out of the mist. George smiled and patted the ground next to him.
"Warm enough?" he asked. Despite the fact that it was high summer, the fog had taken all the heat out of the air. Ginny nodded.
"Yes, thank you," she replied. "You know, it's not really particularly cold, it's just damp. Such odd weather, and all over the south of the country too!"
"Yes," George replied speculatively, but he wasn't given a chance to hold forth on the British climate.
"George?" Ginny's eyes were questioning.
"Yes, sister mine?" responded George lightly with a smile.
"Tell me, was that the truth?" Ginny asked bluntly. "You know, your conversation with Hermione about Ron? What you told him in the car?"
George didn't answer immediately. He pursed his lips and ran a hand through his hair then turned to look her straight in the eye.
"No," he said, flatly. "I lied." Ginny nodded, her lips pressed firmly together.
"I thought so," she replied. "Hermione never even spoke to me about Ron, so I very much doubt she'd have opened up to you. So why did you pretend that she had?"
"To get Ron out of his stupor." George replied, simply. "To make sure he would be a bit more than the passenger he's been for the last few hours."
"George!" Ginny was shocked. "How could you do that? To lie to someone who has just been so dreadfully bereaved - your own brother no less - just for the sake of - of."
"Survival perhaps?" George finished in a very gentle voice, then took her shoulders between his huge hands and looked straight into her eyes. "Ginny, my own and only sister, do you really believe that after this evening any of us is likely to see daylight again?"
A cold hand started to move down Ginny's spine and she stared dumbly at her brother. He smiled sadly and stroked a hand over her lovely hair.
"Can you honestly trust that we're going to defeat Voldemort, even with the redoubtable Harry on our team, busily pulling rabbits out of hats like he's been doing for the past few days?" George smiled sadly. "You-know-who will crush us, Ginny, like flies in autumn, and with as much indifference. But we've got to try, don't you see? I know we can't win, but what's the alternative? Going back home and waiting for Voldemort to find us there? Just like Harry famously said before he went after the Philosopher's Stone, when he was only eleven: it's only dying a bit later than we would have done, because we're never going over to the dark side. So how much longer has Ron got on this earth? If a downright lie from a brother who loves him will make his last few hours more useful and bearable than they might have been, then I'll take that on my conscience gladly."
Ginny looked away, tears welling up in her eyes. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and glanced up to see Harry looking seriously at George.
"Of course you're right, old friend," Harry said quietly. "We can't possibly win. All we can do is die heroically trying to save Fred, and you never know: we may actually weaken Voldemort before our time is up. Anyway, it's what I'm going to try to do before he kills me. It's the least I can do for Fred and Hermione."
"I'm with you there!" George agreed, giving Harry a high five. The two men looked at each other uncertainly, then George reached out and pulled Harry into a rough embrace.
"It was good, wasn't it?" George said in rather muffled tones. "Living together, working together, fighting the dark magic. We were a good team - weren't we?"
"The best, George," replied Harry, his throat so tight he was virtually whispering. "No one was ever better!" He patted the other man on the back and pulled away, blinking slightly.
"I came to tell you it's your watch," he continued, giving George time to recover. "Ron's already taken over from Lee. Nothing's happened yet."
George nodded and walked off slowly, leaving Ginny gazing in bewilderment at Harry. He shrugged helplessly.
"I'm sorry, Ginny," Harry said sadly. "I wish I could conjure up some vague hope for us, but deep inside I know there's just no way I can take on Voldemort again and win. It was down to a few ancient spells I learned on my travels, and some incredible luck that we've made it this far. They know we're coming, I'm certain of that, and they'll show us no mercy. I've got no more tricks up my sleeve, just my love of life, and of all of you, my friends, and my determination not to let it all go without a struggle." Ginny looked up at him and smiled bravely.
"Whatever happens, Harry, I'm glad we decided to fight back," she replied stubbornly. "I'd rather die resisting to the last than live on without my friends and my brothers, just waiting for the end." Harry smiled at her fondly and stroked a wayward tendril of hair away from her face.
"You know, Ginny," he began thoughtfully, "I realised something last night, when that manifestation of Cho appeared. I realised that when she died, I was so convinced that it was my fault that I didn't allow myself to grieve for her properly. Over the years, I tried to forget her, but I could never quite escape the conviction that her love for me had caused her death. Last night was proof positive that, despite the Muggle car that crushed the life out of her, it was Voldemort who was really responsible for her death."
Ginny held her breath lest she in some way shatter the fragile confidence beginning to emerge between them.
"But last night," Harry continued, "when Voldemort offered her back to me in exchange for Fred, I knew that the hold she had on me was gone forever. It was Voldemort who took her in a very deliberate attempt to weaken me, and he had succeeded. Now he was trying to corrupt me using the same technique. I knew Cho was dead; I saw her body. But Voldemort thought I had sunk so low I would be satisfied with a facsimile. Pah!"
Harry gave a sharp exclamation of disgust and suddenly pulled Ginny close against his chest. Tilting her chin towards him, he looked down into her face, his eyes wide and unshuttered.
"He didn't know about you, about us; perhaps he still doesn't," he whispered. "Only you made it possible for me to resist that dreadful temptation."
He began to kiss her - soft, blind kisses one might give a child who had woken in the night. Ginny leaned into his body, holding him hard as though she would never let him go.
"I love you," she murmured. "I've always loved you - you know that."
"Yes," he whispered into the fading light.
~ooOoo~
As the darkness deepened, the fog seemed to thin out a little and the new moon, slender as a lemon rind, began to appear sporadically between the patches of mist. George, who was on watch, eased stiffening limbs, grunted quietly then exhaled with relief.
"They're here, Harry," he said quietly, passing the binoculars. "I'm positive I saw Wormtail."
Harry drew a sharp breath at the sight of his old enemy once more, performed a careful sweep of the area and nodded to himself. He then turned to George.
"Okay," he said, half-reluctantly. "I think this is where you do your stuff, George."
The red-haired man nodded grimly then took off over the grass, quickly fading from sight.
"Wha .. How ..?" Ginny spluttered looking first at Harry, then at the rapidly disappearing form of her brother. She planted her hands on her hips.
"What's going on Harry? And don't tell me I don't want to know, because I do!" Harry's face creased into a smile at her determination.
"Okay, Ginny, but I think you'd better make a promise to keep this dead secret, okay? You too, Lee - if you don't already know about it."
Lee raised his eyebrows but made no further comment. Harry scratched his head.
"Well," he began, "The plain unvarnished truth is that George is an animagus. So is Fred, actually."
"What!" exclaimed Ginny, after a considerable pause. "But - they've never been registered or anything. How did this happen and when, Harry? It's a very difficult thing to become an animagus - how did my two lazy brothers manage to achieve it?"
Harry had the grace to look a little shamefaced.
"You remember that holiday they both took in California, all expenses paid by the Ministry because I was helping them perfect their Glamour art?" she nodded. "Well, we couldn't practice glamour charms all day, could we? So I sort of helped them out with the animagus magic. It all went remarkably smoothly, really."
"What animals do they transfigure into?" asked Ginny, with interest. Lee guffawed.
"Why don't you just take a guess, little sister?" he suggested, with a broad grin. Ginny thought for a moment.
"Not weasels, surely?"
"Got it in one!" Harry smiled. "So now, if by some incredibly lucky chance we manage to get out of this jam alive, you've got to keep very quiet indeed about this. If it gets out at the Ministry, your brothers will be carpeted for sure, and besides, once everybody knows about it, the element of surprise has gone. George is just doing a bit of recce for us - he'll be back within ten minutes or so."
But he wasn't.
Ginny was beginning to feel very odd. The strange, dream-like quality Lee had put down to shock seemed to have intensified as the light faded, and she found her eyesight adjusting, just as it had in the temple. She marvelled at the strange qualities she could see in the very rocks and vegetation around her, and when she looked towards the edifice of Stongehenge itself, the lines of power radiating from the stones were almost blinding in their intensity.
Harry fidgeted, constantly glancing at his watch. Finally, he sighed.
"We'll have to make a move or we'll be too late," he said. "George must have met with difficulties. We'll try to find him as we go."
"Harry," Ginny grasped at his arm, her eyes full of the strange radiance. "It hasn't happened yet. I know it hasn't. Fred is still safe. Please don't do anything now."
Harry stared at her in puzzlement.
"What do you mean?" he asked then cut off his own question. "We haven't got time for this, Ginny, I'm sorry. Let's get going - we've got to do something!"
"Wait!" shouted Lee, "Our broomsticks! At least they'll give us a fighting chance!"
"Yes!" replied Harry, with sudden energy. "Well done, Lee, at least someone's brain is still online! Okay, let's get to it."
Ginny stood entranced, her head tilted slightly to one side as though listening intently for something. She paid no attention to the hustle and bustle going on around her. Her youngest brother approached with both their broomsticks
"Here you are Ginny." Ron handed her the Firebolt. "Ginny?" he queried, uncertainly as she made no move to take it. Ron looked carefully into her face. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated, staring at nothing.
"There is power," Ginny said, faintly. "Great power in the earth. Power of rocks, stones, sky and sea. It - resists his advance. We must help, it's our only chance." Ron frowned.
"Ginny, what are you talking about?" he protested. "We've got to go fight You-Know-Who now, so stop freaking out on me and get on your broomstick!"
He flung the Firebolt at her and all but pushed her on to it. Mechanically, she kicked off from the ground and followed the others, but the strange out-of-this-world feeling would not leave her.
As they circled above the massive structure, Harry could see that they were none too early. The place was crawling with Deatheaters and Fred was stretched out on a massive flat stone, manacles at his wrists and ankles. Wormtail had already begun the Summoning. Harry angled his broomstick to swoop down on the altar.
The battle was short and decisive. It was clear right from the start that Wormtail and the other Deatheaters were ready for them, almost expecting them to strike exactly when they did. As Harry plummeted towards the altar, intending to sweep the unconscious Fred from its surface and climb back up into the sky, Wormtail quickly cast a binding spell which sealed Fred to the surface of the stone, making it impossible for Harry to do more than retreat empty handed. Ron fared little better. Having ploughed into a waiting group of Deatheaters, he discovered that they were more than ready for him and was fighting desperately to fend them off. Harry could see the flashes and smoke from high in the sky as he banked hard, preparing for another dive. Lee was nowhere to be seen, but a commotion off to the left somewhere indicated that he also was fighting for his life.
"BE STILL!" A curiously quiet, evil voice rang out in everyone's ears. The fighting stopped instantly and all eyes turned towards the altar. The figure of Voldemort had materialised, unsteady and two-dimensional it was true, but as going a concern as Harry had ever seen him.
"In a few moments," the figure said, "I shall take possession of this new body, and through it the world!"
There was a ragged cheer from the Deatheaters. Voldemort gestured to them.
"Bring me the prisoners."
Harry watched in pain as Lee and Ron were flung unceremoniously to the ground before Voldemort. Ginny followed swiftly on their heels, still looking dazed: she didn't even seem to have pulled her wand out of its holster.
"And here is one more," smiled Voldemort. He snapped his fingers. "Wormtail?" Immediately, Wormtail delved in a pocket to produce a small, struggling creature with red fur. Voldemort pointed his wand at it.
"Transform, or you die now!" The weasel immediately shimmered and enlarged, becoming a dejected-looking George Weasley. He shrugged at the others.
"I'm sorry," he said. "They were ready for me, even in my animal form!"
"Silence!" roared Voldemort. He looked upwards, straight at Harry who was still on his broomstick, concealed by the low cloud.
"Potter," he said, in a quieter tone. "As you can see, I have your friends. It is possible I will spare one of them, if you will give yourself up now."
Harry had no choice. He flew his broomstick as close to the ground as possible, sliding gracefully from its polished handle to stand next to Ron. He looked at them sorrowfully, but no words would come. He tried to catch Ginny's eye, but she was still caught in her trance, her eyes vacant, her lips vibrating slightly. Voldemort smiled, an evil, satisfied smile.
"So, Potter, we meet again, but in circumstances which are, I fear, not exactly to your liking." Harry sighed.
"There have been no pleasurable occasions on which we have met, you know that, Tom," Harry replied almost amiably. Voldemort frowned.
"You will not call me by that name." Harry raised an enquiring eyebrow.
"Whyever not?" he said. "It's your given name, isn't it?" Voldemort growled angrily.
"The name of my father - that cursed Muggle, who I killed as soon as I had attained a modicum of power. I do not acknowledge him, or his name!"
"That's a shame," said Harry, mildly. "My father's name was James. You killed him too. Do you have some problem with fathers, Tom?"
Voldemort was angry enough to explode and seemed to control himself only with difficulty.
"You will die very painfully and slowly for that, Potter," he snarled, softly and with undeniable menace. But Harry was no longer paying attention to Voldemort; neither was anyone else. They all stared at Ginny.
Ginny stood a little apart from the others, serene and empty-eyed in the face of death. The Deatheaters surrounding her drew back in confusion as an odd metamorphosis commenced. She was still trancelike, but a greenish light emanated from her robes and her face began to glow with a ghostly radiance. She held her arms up to the standing stones surrounding them and spoke in a suddenly clear, resonant voice; a voice completely unlike her own:
"When the Dead One returns to claim his own, the Living Boy and the Dryad must unite in love, and take the Cup of Plenty from the hands of the Pure One to return it to its rightful place."
Slowly, she turned towards Ron and held out her hands. There was no recognition in her eyes.
"You are the Pure One, the keeper of the Grail." she said, "I am the Dryad. Give the Grail to me so that it may be returned to its proper place."
Unable to tear his eyes from her face, Ron fumbled in his pocket until he produced the Grail, golden and shining in the eerie green light. Voldemort gave a sudden hiss, quickly choked off. Ginny took the chalice, turned and moved across the grass towards Harry, almost as if she were gliding.
"Harry," she said, and her voice had taken on an extra resonance that cut through the sudden silence like a knife. "You are the Living Boy. You must join with the Dryad now, through the Grail."
Harry understood none of this. Nothing that was happening now made any sense to him, despite his long association with arcane magical practices and occurrences. Nevertheless, in blind faith, he moved towards the creature that was Ginny and placed his hands over hers, grasping the cup securely. Just as before, in the temple, he felt a sudden surge of power stab through his mind. Ginny was there with him, part of him, merged in a unity of consciousness which this time knew no barriers, no obstacles, merely the love and trust of two generous souls whose faith was only equalled by their bravery.
Ginny, what's happening?
I wish I knew! All I know is that I'm following instructions.
What instructions? Who from?
Again, I don't know. Harry, look at the Grail!
In response to the mental instruction, Harry focussed back on the outside world and saw the golden cup begin to glow with an inner light. As he watched, the radiance increased, spiralling out towards the surrounding Deatheaters. Paralysed, they gazed curiously at the light then howled in agony as it touched them. A wash of brilliance sent the gang reeling back, hands over their eyes. All except Harry and Ginny who stood motionless, holding the Grail firmly between them.
Squinting against the glare, Ron could just discern something taking shape. Its outlines were human, but it seemed to consist entirely of a pearly opalescence. Its robes were pure white, not wizard robes but something resembling the flowing drapery worn by the ancient Greeks. There was a deafening silence then the figure spoke in a clear, silvery voice, curiously androgenous:
"I am a Lord of the High Magic, remote from the affairs of your plane. The pursuits of good and evil are not my concern, yet once I lived among you and for this reason, and for the sake of the artefact you bear, I have answered your call for help.
"You face great danger to your immortal souls in this place, but you undertook the burden freely for the sake of the love you bear each other, and to save your world from mortal peril. For these things I honour you, and also the one of your number who has been struck down in her earthly body.
"The one who seeks to harm you is no longer part of your world and his attempts to pass between planes are illegal and cannot be tolerated. However, his destruction would threaten the eternal balance and equally cannot be contemplated. Therefore I shall return you to your own plane with the assurance that you will no longer be threatened by your enemy at any time during the remainder of your natural lives."
"What?" stuttered Harry. "You mean Voldemort will still be alive?"
"If the existence he holds at present can be so described, yes." the figure replied equably. "You have done as much as you are able, but his ultimate destruction lies in another future at other hands. However, I will banish him to a far plane where his destructive power will serve him not at all in the business of survival. Farewell my children: may your lives be long and may happiness stay with you always."
The light grew more and more intense until, shielding their tear-filled eyes with their hands, each of those left fell away into merciful darkness.
Then there was total silence, broken only by the distant sound of birdsong: dawn had come at last.
**********************************************
Harry awoke instantly, all in one moment, and sat up suddenly, staring. The first thing he saw was Ginny, hovering anxiously over him. As she saw him stir, she spoke over her shoulder to someone out of Harry's field of vision.
"George! George, he's alive and awake, thank Merlin!"
The grinning figure of George Weasley appeared and grasped Harry's hand, pulling him bodily to his feet. Harry thought he must be hallucinating as the same face seemed to be sporting an identical grin over Ginny's shoulder, but to his delight he realised it was Fred. Almost simultaneously, he heard a shout of wonder and disbelief and turned to see Ron, his eyes overflowing with tears of astonishment and gratitude, holding tightly to the hand of a bleary-eyed and rather confused Hermione! Harry looked around him, expecting to see open sky, grass and the huge standing monoliths of the great monument known as Stonehenge. Instead he realised that he and the others were back inside the West Room at Harry's House, and sunlight was pouring in through the windows.
"Well, well, well!" he murmured quietly, the beginnings of a smile creasing his face. Ron, still clutching Hermione's hand as though he expected her to suddenly disappear, brought her over to Harry, his face childlike with wonder.
"Harry, she's alive," he said, unnecessarily. "How? What happened here?"
"Of course I'm alive!" retorted Hermione, impatiently. "What on earth are you wittering on about, Ron?" Harry shook his head, his smile rapidly becoming a grin.
"The High Magic." he replied. "Who knows what motivates it, or even what it is? But it saved us this time. And it was all down to you, Ginny." The red-haired girl stared at him with wide eyes.
"Me?" she squeaked. "But I didn't - I mean, I don't remember - "
"You called the High Magic, sister mine!" George told her, enveloping her in a bear hug, "I really didn't know you had it in you, but you were the Dryad the prophecy spoke of."
"Yeah, and Ron really was the Pure One, despite all the jibes from you two."
It was Lee speaking to the Weasley twins, who at least had the grace to look slightly abashed. Harry turned to face his friends.
"Last night," Harry began thoughtfully, "if indeed it was last night, I banished Voldemort and his minions from this room. The Invocation I used was a very old one, taught to me by Albus Dumbledore shortly before he died. He told me never to use it except in the direst circumstances, when my very soul was in danger of destruction." Harry wandered over to the window and looked out into the morning.
"Albus didn't explain why he was teaching it to me, or even what the spell would accomplish," Harry continued, "but I believe its power transported us out of this house, out of this world, onto another plane of existence, where we could call upon higher assistance to save both ourselves and our world." He shook his head in wonder.
"Albus knew I would be fighting for my life, without his help." Harry looked at the others in bewilderment. "Did he foresee this very situation, do you think? I know he was many things, but I never heard him described as a Seer."
Ginny stared at Harry, her eyes enormous, her hand over her mouth.
"The Lord of the High Magic, who helped us. Do you think - was it - Dumbledore? He said he had once lived among us ." Her voice trailed off in awe.
"He said he would return us to our own dimension too," said Ron, breathlessly. "He must have been responsible for bringing Hermione back."
"I don't believe Hermione ever really died in this world," replied Harry, thoughtfully. "I think my spell took her beyond the reach of the Avada curse just in time, but prevented her from accompanying us any further, leaving her in some kind of - limbo, if you like."
"Of course I didn't die, Harry!" Hermione retorted. "What is this fixation you all seem to have with my death?"
"The Lord also said he would banish Voldemort to a far less friendly world than you sent him to, Harry." added George, ignoring Hermione's outburst.
"I hope he keeps his word!" growled Lee.
"Look, I'm a bit confused." Hermione interrupted in a protesting voice. "I seem to have missed out on something here - more like several somethings actually, and Ron won't let go of my hand. He says he's afraid I'll die on him again!"
The others laughed.
"Go on, Ron, take her away and tell her all about it." George said, patting Ron on the arm.
"And don't come back until you're married - or at least engaged!" shouted Fred after their retreating backs. Harry snuck a quick look at Ginny, but she wouldn't quite meet his eyes.
"Hey!" shouted Lee from a far corner of the room. "Look at this. I mean, is this thing supposed to still be here?"
He pointed to something standing quietly on its own, nearly touching the wall, just as bright and golden as it had been when Ron had taken it out of the temple.
"The Holy Grail," whispered George reverently. Harry said nothing, merely walked over to it and picked it up without hesitation.
"The power," he said, faintly, "has gone out of it, I think. At least for the time being." He smiled and looked round at the others.
"I think this had better become the property of the Ministry; for now at any rate," he decided. "Anyone mind if I'm credited with its discovery?"
Grinning like a maniac, Harry promptly ducked and ran from the West Room as Fred, George, Lee and Ginny followed him, pelting him over the head with pillows.
Author's Notes
The distribution of this story is for personal use only. Any other form of distribution is prohibited without the consent of the author. Disclaimer: this is a non-profit enterprise. Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling, except the plot and David Markland, both of which belong to Penpusher. Tribute to: Susan Cooper's incomparable "The Dark is Rising" sequence for use of the "High Magic"; Dennis Wheatley for a plot device; and many, many other fanfiction writers whose works of all kinds and in very differing genres have been an immense inspiration to me. The quotations used as chapter titles are too numerous to credit here. Full details available on request, but Shakespeare and The Bible should yield most of them.
And all the thanks in the world to Becky (aka williara) for being a superb beta.