Chapter 13
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. - Robert Louis Stevenson
By the time Connor finished having breakfast with Professor Lupin, the sun had well and truly risen, and there were more than a few students out in the corridors and in the Great Hall. He spotted his friends at the far end of the Gryffindor table and went to sit with them, nursing a glass of pumpkin juice while they ate. He told them that he had spoken with Andrew and that the other boy had volunteered the information that they had already learned from his letter. Ivy and Rachel both showed signs of concern when they learned that the other boy's father was ill, and resolved to be nicer to him. Connor decided to wait to tell them about Andrew's grandmother until he could be sure that they would not be overheard. He knew that he could trust his friends not to say anything about it to anyone else, but he didn't want to risk anyone finding out from him by accident. Quentin was still given a hard time by many of the students in other houses because his grandfather had been a Death Eater; Andrew didn't need that kind of treatment if his father was really ill.
After breakfast, Connor heard Andrew and one of the other second year boys saying that they were going to an empty classroom for an informal study group. Connor waited until they were out of earshot, and then said to his friends, "Let go up to my room. I have something to tell you, and I don't want to be overheard."
They all nodded, and began to rise from the table when the post owls arrived. All eyes were cast upward and Connor was surprised to he his father's owl Hedwig among those making deliveries; Hedwig was rarely used for long distance deliveries anymore, as she was beginning to show signs of old age. Regular Snowy owls only tended to live about twenty-five years, and Hedwig was at least thirty; her magical powers seemed to be prolonging her life span. She circled once and then landed gracefully onto Connor's shoulder with a soft hoot of pride, then extended her leg to show that she had a tiny piece of parchment tied to it.
"I'll get it," Rachel offered, reaching over to untie the note, while Connor fed her a bit of sausage from his plate.
"Thanks Hedwig," Connor said softly, stroking her a few times. "If you need a rest, you can go to the Owlery for a while before going home."
Hedwig gave a small hoot of indignation, and dug her talons a little deeper than necessary as she took flight again, making Connor laugh a bit before turning his attention to the note. It turned out that there were two pages, and so he set them side by side on the table in front of him and tapped each, muttering, "engorgio" to expand them to their original size. His father must have reduced the pages to make the burden easier on his beloved owl.
"Hey Zack!" Connor said, "One of these is for you." He handed one of the pages to his friend and picked up his own letter and read it quickly with a broad smile. His parents had done it! They had convinced Mr. and Mrs. Ellis to allow Zack to spend the holidays with them!
"Wow!" Zack said excitedly. "I can't believe your parents talked them into letting me come!"
The others were excited for Zack, and they talked about their upcoming holidays as they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. When they got to the second year boy's dormitory, they all sat down on and around Connor's bed, and he told them about his dream, and about what he had learned from Professor Lupin.
"Andrew's grandmother was a Death Eater?" Ivy asked in astonishment.
"No, he didn't say that," Connor corrected. "He said that they thought that she helped them get into the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't say that she was a Death Eater herself."
"She might have been a sympathizer," Quentin said quietly. "Like my own Grandmother. My dad's mum wasn't a Death Eater, but she supported them; I guess that there were a lot of people out there like that. My Dad told me that Voldemort didn't usually accept women into his circle of Death Eaters, and that their wives were expected to be held in check by their Death Eater husbands."
Everyone was quiet at this announcement. Quentin didn't usually talk much about his family history, and so when he did, they were careful to be respectful of his feelings. Ivy shivered slightly at the thought of what it must have been like to be expected to serve a master of any kind.
"This is all so confusing," Zack said. "There were his supporters, and they were called Death Eaters, and then there were supporters of the supporters?"
"Something like that," Quentin said with a small smile. "Voldemort used fear as his biggest motivator and weapon, and it was pretty much a 'follow or be eliminated' type of situation then."
"But Connor's dad beat him, right?" Zack asked, the only one in their group not to have been raised knowing some version of the story of Voldemort's defeat.
"Right," Rachel said. "So the question is, why would Andrew think that it was Uncle Harry's fault that he has to stay here for the holidays, and what does that have to do with Andrew's grandmother being a supporter of the dark side?"
"It might not have anything to do with it," Connor said. "It might be as simple as it sounds. His father might really be too ill for Andrew to go home."
"Connor," Rachel said suddenly. "You told Professor Lupin about the woman in your dream, right?"
"That's what I just finished telling you," Connor said, irritated more by the fact that yet another mystery seemed to be unfolding for him than the fact that his cousin apparently wasn't listening properly. "That's how I found out that Andrew's grandmother...."
"Yes, yes," Rachel interrupted impatiently. "It's just that, if the woman you saw wasn't Bellatrix Lastrange, but Samantha Tillman instead, what does that say about your dream? If your parents never ran into Andrew's grandmother while they were there, then how could you be dreaming about it?"
"I understand what you're saying," Quentin said when Connor looked quizzical. "If your Dad doesn't have any memories of Samantha Tillman, then he couldn't be projecting them to you."
"They'd have to be coming from somewhere else," Ivy finished, catching on to their line of thinking.
"And if Professor Lupin comes to the same conclusion," Connor said.
"Which is likely," Rachel added.
"Then I'm right back at square one," Connor finished. "My parents will have Madam MacTaggart back up here faster than lightning."
"Well we don't really know the whole story of what your father remembers from that night," Quentin said comfortingly. "Maybe he did run into Mrs. Tillman, and you just don't know it... Professor Lupin already knew about her, didn't he?"
"Yes," Connor said. "But he also said that he didn't arrive at the Ministry until the end of that night. If Mrs. Tillman was the one who got them inside the Department of Mysteries, wouldn't she have disappeared before he got there?"
"This is giving me a headache," Zack said. "If she disappeared, where did she go?"
"Professor Lupin just said that no one ever saw her alive again," Connor said thoughtfully. "I reckon she must be dead."
"That's a strange way of wording it, though, isn't it?" Rachel said. "Why not just say that she was dead?"
None of them had an answer to that question, and the meeting came to a speedy close when they heard footsteps on the stairs approaching the boy's dormitory. They were slightly surprised to see Professor Lupin turn into the room, and all looked up at him slightly guiltily.
"What are you all up to?" he asked suspiciously.
"We were just playing...."Connor couldn't come up with anything to finish that thought, though, and groaned inwardly when Ivy and Rachel spoke at the same time.
"Truth or Dare," Rachel said.
"Spin the bottle," Ivy answered.
Professor Lupin raised his eyebrows in amusement and waited to see how they would explain themselves now.
"We were playing truth or dare," Rachel said calmly, "And I had just dared Ivy to play spin the bottle with Aiden."
Ivy blushed to the roots of her hair, and Zack and Connor laughed outright.
"You're not playing it with Magically binding rules, are you?" Lupin asked warningly, though it was hard to tell if he really believed them. "That's been against the rules at Hogwarts since Sirius forced James to... never mind. That story is hardly appropriate and will only give you ideas." He waggled his eyebrows at them with a grin, chuckling at their collective groan of disappointment. "I was actually looking for Andrew."
"I heard him telling Michael Hughes that they were going to be having a study group in the empty Charms classroom," Connor supplied.
"Thank you," Lupin said, and then stopped on his way out. "And stay out of trouble."
The rest of the week went by in a blur of activity as the castle was decorated for the coming holiday, and the students prepared to go home. The mood around the school was festive, and the teachers bemoaned the fact that none of the students were concentrating on their classwork, while secretly looking forward to the coming break themselves.
Connor had not had any more dreams since talking to Professor Lupin, and he had not received any owls about it from home. He was hopeful that Lupin had not mentioned anything to his parents, and that Madam MacTaggart would not be called upon to pay him another visit. Instead he focused on the fact that Zack was coming home with him the next day, and was busily making plans for everything he wanted to do over their break. Their last class of the day was History of Magic, and as Binns droned on about boring historical figures, the second year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were all either in a stupor or else passing notes back and forth to each other. Connor was scribbling idly on his parchment instead of taking notes, and was surprised when the door to the classroom opened and Professor McGonagall stepped in an interrupted the lesson.
"Students," she began after apologizing to Binns for the interruption. "I have here the schedule for departures for students who will be going home for the Christmas holidays. The schedule will also be posted on all Common Room notice boards, so there will be no excuses for tardiness. You will arrive in the Great Hall fifteen minutes before your scheduled departure time with all of your belongings. Do not leave anything necessary behind, as you will not be able to return for it until after the holidays. The Floo Network will be attached to the school by the fire in the Great Hall only, and it will be set up for departures only. If you miss your scheduled departure time, you will be placed at the end of the list. You will all be returning on the Hogwarts Express on January third. Are there any questions?"
A hand in the back of the room went up and a Ravenclaw girl with dark curly hair asked timidly, "How will the Muggleborn students whose parents don't have the Floo Network get home?"
Professor McGonagall's expression softened a bit at the anxiety on the girls face and answered, "A letter has already been sent to the homes of those students without the Floo Network. The Network will be connected to those homes for the day where possible, and those students with homes without a fireplace will travel by portkey. The students in need of portkeys will be given separate instructions by their head of house this evening."
After Professor McGonagall had passed out the schedules and left the room, Zack leaned over toward Connor and said, "Now that I think of it, my parents were a bit freaked out to see me stepping out of an enormous green fire last year. Maybe their decision to let me come home with you was partly because they didn't want to see that again."
Connor grinned at him, and Quentin, who was sitting behind him, snorted with laughter. Zack thought that maybe he would ask his friends to come to visit him for few days this summer, so they could see what Muggle living was really like. It would be interesting to see who was more affected by the different cultures, her parents or his friends.
When class let out, they all consulted their schedules, and found that Ivy would be leaving first, at 9:35 a.m., and then it would be Quentin (who was to go right before his sister) at 9:58 a.m. Connor noted that his parents must have let someone know that Zack was going home with him, as they both had the departure time of 10:13 a.m. Rachel was not scheduled to be leaving until after lunch with the rest of the Weasleys, but from what the schedule read, the entire departing student body would have cleared out by two o'clock in the afternoon, if everything went on the smooth schedule of roughly three departures per minute.
They all went back up to Gryffindor Tower pack their belongings, and the boys noted that Andrew had not come back to their room with they did so. Connor felt bad for the other boy, but didn't see how he could make him feel any better about his situation, and so he decided to leave the boy a small Christmas gift (a rather nice quill he had brought to school with him, but had never used) and hoped for the best. Once everyone was packed they went down to the Great hall for dinner and talked about how they were going to go about getting together over the break from school. The room was noisier than usual, filled with the enthusiasm of hundreds of students sharing a last meal for a whole fortnight.
"Are you all going to be going to Diagon Alley before Christmas?" Ivy asked the group.
"I know I am," Quentin said. "My mum mentioned something about Christmas shopping in her last letter."
"My parents will take me, as well," Ivy nodded.
"I could talk someone into bring us," Connor said, gesturing to himself, Zack and Rachel. "Whomever finds out they're going first should owl everyone else, and maybe we can all meet up. I don't think Zack's ever seen Uncle Fred and George's joke shop, and I have a ton of gifts to get, so I don't think it'll be too hard to convince someone to let us come."
They agreed on this plan of action, and then spent half of the night awake in the Common Room talking, too excited about going home to get much sleep. Even Andrew made an appearance and was seen talking to the other second year boys over in a corner, seemingly without a care in the world. When everyone finally went to bed, they were all too tired for dreams.
In the morning, the prefects directed students on where to take their trunks in anticipation of the morning's departures. The long house tables in the Great Hall had been push a little closer together than was usual, in order to make room before the large fireplace as students lined up in the order in which they were to Floo home. They said good-bye to Ivy after they finished their breakfast, and watched while she stepped up to the fire, and took a pinch of Floo powder from the jar that Professor Flitwick offered her. She stepped into the flames, pulled her trunk in after her and said loudly and clearly, "Longbottom Estate in West Cornwall!" They had a last glimpse of her closing her eyes tightly and taking a deep breath before the green flames rose to obscure her, and she was gone. No sooner had the flames died down, than another student was stepping into to space that Ivy had just vacated.
Connor, Rachel, Zack and Quentin went into the large entryway of the school to wait the few minutes until it was time for Quentin to take his place in line. It was crowded with students saying good-bye and rummaging around for last minute things, and so they simply stood in a cluster beside Quentin's trunk. Unfortunately, a smiling Vanessa soon approached, and directed a large seventh year boy wearing the Slytherin colors to put her trunk beside Quentin's. Once the older boy had gone, Vanessa's smile evaporated and she turned to hiss at Connor.
"You may have the rest of this school convinced that you're something special," she said with venom. "But I know that you're nothing but a freak, and I'm going to make sure that every single last person in this school knows it before the end."
"You can try," Connor said, facing her down with his own glare. "But you won't come out of it without a label of your own."
"Quentin," Professor Lupin's voice called across the Entrance Hall from end of the line of students waiting to leave the school. "Ms. Malfoy. It's time for you to join the queue."
"See you," Quentin said gloomily, dragging his trunk forward.
A few other students were called forward, and then Professor Lupin called Connor and Zack forward as well. In less time than they had thought, they were at the grate, and Connor stepped into the flames and held onto his trunk tightly before throwing down the pinch of powder and calling out, "Potter Headquarters, Warwickshire!"
Zack watched as Connor disappeared in a whirl of green flame, and swallowed hard. He had only traveled by Floo powder once before, and had been sick on the living room carpet when he'd arrived at home. He hadn't revealed that tidbit of information to his friends, but now he was afraid he was about to humiliate himself in front of the entire Potter family.
"Zack," Professor Lupin smiled kindly. "You're next."
Zack nodded and stepped forward, dragging his trunk upright beside him, and took a pinch of the powder.
"You'll have a great time with Connor," Lupin told him with a wink, perhaps sensing his unease.
Zack merely nodded again and threw down the powder, repeating the words that Connor had spoken only moments earlier, and then he, too, was gone.
