AN: My deepest apologies to all those faithfully following this storyline so far. It's been months since I uploaded a chapter, and I've been kicking myself since then. My apologies, sweet ones.
Disclaimer: You know the drill.
Written for: Pichouette, who has been bugging me to finish Fata and Better Man and such. She has been a constant source of inspiration and humor and coolness.
Chapter 18: Convinced
"He is fading away."
"No, he is still strong."
"Not for very long."
"You speak lies, Parvati."
"I speak the truth, but it is truth you don't want to believe in."
Parvati laid a hand on Ron's shoulder. "You're the one who's lying to yourself. Harry is wasting away. He hasn't come down from his room in months. He returns his food to me almost untouched. He stays up there, morning to night, writing letters that he will never send."
Ron's fiery head was bowed, and he didn't meet her gaze. "He will come down. Soon." His voice was muffled, and Parvati knew that even he didn't believe in himself anymore.
"He will die, Ron, if you don't do something. You're the only one he listens to, now that Hermione is gone."
She fingered the stack of letters by the fireplace, letters that they sent off by Location Charms, only to be sent back unopened.
"Bring Harry back, Ron. You aren't the same without him."
Silence filled the small living room, pressing down on their ears. Ron imagined that if he listened very hard, he could hear a quill scribbling from the locked room above him, and teardrops falling onto damp parchment.
The very sound broke his heart.
He stood up abruptly, and Parvati started.
"Where are you going?" she asked, as Ron strode off in the direction of Harry's door. "What are you going to do?!"
Ron lifted his wand and pointed it at the door that hid his best friend. "Something I should have done months ago."
***
"It's depressingly quiet around here." Hermione murmured, drawing the curtains closed, shutting out the afternoon rain. Behind her, Draco lazed elegantly on the living room couch. "Isn't it?" he replied, lighting candles with indolent flicks of his wand. Hermione sighed softly.
"It would be good to have some changes around here, don't you think?"
Draco perked up. "Why not? Come on, darling, let's invite some Death Eaters over for tea!"
In spite of the damp weather, Hermione laughed. "You know that's impossible, Draco. After all," she moved to sit down beside him. "we hardly have enough teacups."
She leaned back into the couch, closing her eyes tiredly. Draco watched the shadows flicker on her face, silently congratulating himself on the quality of the candlelight. Reaching over, he gently traced her slight jawline with his finger. She murmured something incomprehensible and her eyelashes fluttered slightly.
"Hermione," Draco whispered, more to himself than to his sleeping love. "what would I ever do without you?"
***
"What in Merlin's name do you think you're doing?!"
Harry leaped back from the wreckage Ron had made of his bedroom door. He glared spitefully at Ron, who was blinking at the planks and pieces of wood at his feet. "Get out of my room."
Ron brushed the dust from his hair and glared back at Harry with equal venom. "No, I'm not leaving this room unless you leave with me."
Harry sniffed. Ron raised his wand and pointed it right between his best friend's eyes.
The green eyes registered shock, surprise, then a heartbreaking sadness.
"What do you want from me, Ron?"
Ron gestured at the broken door behind him. "I want you to come with me. I'm giving you your very late Christmas present."
***
She awoke to a darkened room, with the wavering flickers of the candles as her only source of light. The room was empty, save for a note on the table, written in Draco's beautifully archaic handwriting.
Gone swimming.
Hermione flopped back onto the pillows, which she had enchanted to be feather-soft long ago. A few minutes passed. Half an hour. Half and a quarter.
Until she finally got up again and wandered out into the freezing cold February to reinforce the wards.
And maybe drop by Draco at the pool.
***
Ron knocked down Moody's door in almost the same way he knocked down Harry's.
Only in a more civilized manner.
"Come in!" Moody roared at the polite knock at his door. It swung open and Ron Weasley strode in, looking more determined than the ex-Auror had ever seen him. Behind him lagged Harry Potter, tired and thin and bedraggled from being hauled two miles through a steady drizzle.
"And what may I do for you?" Moody asked, raising one bushy eyebrow at his visitors. His magical eye rolled over and fixed itself on Harry, who slouched in a chair and refused to meet anyone's gaze.
"I assume this has something—no, everything—to do with Ms. Granger and her Paladin duties?" Moody's normal eye went to Ron, but the magical one was fixated at Harry.
Ron nodded. "I want to bend the rules, Moody." he said quietly.
To his surprise, Moody laughed. "You've been bending rules since your first year in Hogwarts, Mr. Weasley, along with Potter here. I'll be glad to bend them a little for you… unless..."
The Paladin trainer went serious. "What rules do you need bending?"
Ron held up the Paladin handbook. "These ones."
Harry's eyes widened behind his rain-spotted glasses.
***
"I'm afraid you've caught me at a rather… improper time, Hermione darling."
Hermione raised an amused eyebrow. "You've been skinny-dipping, Draco? Alone?"
Draco smiled angelically. "Well, you were busy with your oh-so-important Paladin duties…"
Hermione placed a hand on her hip. "You listen to me. These 'oh-so-important Paladin duties' happen to be keeping you alive… I hope you remember that when you get old and gray."
Draco laughed. "I will never get old and gray." He followed this up with a risqué wink in her direction.
His Paladin sighed defeatedly. "Yes. I guess that's true." Hermione's lips curled in a sly smile. Her voice took on a mock-important tone. "So, my Charge… it's a Paladin's oh-so-important duty to know what you've got on under that towel."
Draco raised his hands and shrugged, the towel falling to the marble floor.
"Nothing much, really."
***
"This is impossible."
"Yeah, well, Harry here's known for doing the impossible."
"But this is against Ministry regulations!"
"And that too."
Moody slammed the Paladin handbook shut. "As much as I want to help Potter with his… predicament... I cannot bend the rules that far. I cannot set up a permanent residence license on an Unplottable location. Those are only handed out to Paladins and their Charges."
Ron was silent. Everything he had worked for, and everything he had hoped for seemed to be crumbling into dust.
Behind him, Harry was listlessly picking at his gloves.
"Paladins and their Charges…" Ron repeated in a slow whisper.
Something seemed to ignite within the redhead, and he suddenly sat up in his chair.
"How long does a Paladin's training take?"
Moody looked at him bemusedly. "Months, even years. Why are you asking me this?" Ron ignored that. "How long does a residence license take to create? On an Unplottable location?"
"Maybe a few days. Or instantly if the need is urgent. But it will take months to render a location Unplottable… especially if we have to find one first."
Ron stood up and thumped his hands on Moody's desk. "But what if we already have an Unplottable location, and all we need are the two licenses to live on it?"
Moody felt the urgency in the young man's voice, placed there by desperation and genuine concern.
"Less than an hour."
Ron's face split into a radiant smile. "Excellent. Moody, I would like you to draw up a Paladin license and a Charge license. Please give them to me within today. And please assist in the Relocation to the Unplottable location that I will name for you—"
Moody frowned, and held up a large hand, stopping Ron's stream of orders.
"Wait. Who is this Charge you have in mind, Mr. Weasley?"
Ron looked mischievous. "Mr. Harry James Potter himself, of course! This boy's been hounded by bloodthirsty Death Eaters since the day he was born! Why, I do believe there hasn't been a day since—"
"I understand." Moody sounded annoyed. "And who, may I ask, is the Paladin you have in mind for Mr. Potter?"
Ron's grin grew wider.
"Me."
"Preposterous." Moody looked almost disgusted. "You don't know jack scratch about Paladin duties."
"I know that they are supposed to be bound for life to their Charges. And tell me if I'm wrong, Alastor, but haven't I been bound to Harry since the day we met?"
Something burned in Ron's eyes, a fire that Moody could not bring himself to extinguish.
"I know about the dangers and the difficulties of being a Paladin, and I know that if any harm will come to Harry, I will suffer fatal consequences. But I don't need a magical contract to ensure that, Moody, because even without your magical testaments and covenants, I will most certainly die if any harm came to my best friend."
Moody was silent. … that a man is willing to lay down his life for his friend…
A sigh.
"All right." Moody shuffled the parchment scrolls on his desk. "I will have the licenses drawn out and sent to you as soon as possible. Expect them within today."
Ron smiled again.
"But wait. What Unplottable location are you suggesting we send you and Mr. Potter to?"
Ron leaned in conspiratorially. "You see, it's this little cottage that we call The Hellhole..."
