Harry, Hermione and Ron finished their sundaes.
"What shall we do now?" Ron asked.
"Bookshop," Hermione suggested, a gleam in her eyes.
Ron groaned. "You've been in there practically every day since you came to London!"
"Yes, well," Hermione responded primly, "I don't have access to magic books while I'm at home. I need to catch up."
"I suppose we could look at the books for school next year.." Harry said, somewhat unwillingly.
They were expecting their final year to be very difficult. They were all taking a full batch of NEWTs. Harry was still well ahead of most of his classmates in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and he was doing all right in most of his other subjects. He continued to struggle with Potions. Snape had only allowed him and Ron into his NEWT classes at Dumbledore's special request. They had both managed Es in their OWLs, which was better than they had feared. Even Neville had scraped an 'Acceptable'. The rumour was that all of Snape's students had done significantly better in their OWLs than the marks he gave them in class would have suggested. Hermione had received a special commendation from the examiners.
Harry thought it was amazing his studies were still so much on track. His sixth year had been no less eventful than any of his others at Hogwarts. In some respects, the year had been what Hermione called "phoney war". Voldemort was still building his forces and had made no overt strikes. Dumbledore continued to co-ordinate the defences; as far as Harry could tell, the main efforts had been directed at mobilizing allies and raising awareness. There had been no public, outright clashes. The year had however included the Hogsmeade fiasco, when a bunch of Death Eaters had attempted to kidnap Harry as he wandered alone by the Shrieking Shack, brooding over the death of Sirius. It was Snape who had fought them off, all of them, in an impressive demonstration of raw wizarding power. In the process, he had blown his cover as a spy and ended up in St Mungo's for a week. After that, Harry had paid more attention to the instruction that he should not visit Hogsmeade unless accompanied by grown wizards.
Thinking of Snape, his fingers strayed to his Fireheart once more.
It was almost buzzing now. Harry could feel it vibrating against his neck. Strange…
"Hermione!" he said. "Can you help me find a book about the properties of Fireheart stones?"
"Oh yes," she said enthusiastically. "The very best is Alfredo's Heart of the Fire: the mysteries of the magical stones. Let's go and see if they have it in…"
Harry blinked and shook his head. How Hermione absorbed and retained so much information was astonishing to him. The bookshop did have the volume; Harry bought it. He slung it into a bag, intending to read it after dinner that evening.
But when they returned to 12, Grimmauld Place, Lupin, Mad-Eye and Tonks had dropped by, to welcome Harry to Headquarters. Fred, George and Ginny arrived home from the joke shop shortly after. The evening turned into an impromptu party. Butterbeer flowed. Fred and George demonstrated a number of their recent inventions, to great acclaim from everybody except Mrs Weasley. Despite the success of the joke shop, she obviously was still not entirely reconciled to it.
Harry laughed and shouted with the rest.
He didn't think about the strange behaviour of his Fireheart stone, and forgot he had intended to consult his new book.
As the evening wore on, the Mark on my arm burned yet more fiercely. It now hurt too much for me to even consider engaging in some useful activity. I sat on my couch, cursing, and wondering where Dumbledore was. I had tried to contact the Order, but the emergency wards would not allow even my head access to the Floo network. I was trapped here. I had sent an owl to Dumbledore, but as I had no notion of where he was, I could not tell when help might arrive. Or, indeed, whether it would at all.
Surely, I told myself, this would stop some time soon. Surely. It must….
I paced around to distract my mind from the pain in my arm. It was now pulsing from the tips of my fingers to my neck. My arm felt molten. I decided that walking helped. Flinging a thicker cloak around myself, I headed for the grounds. My breathing was harsh and ragged, and I stumbled rather.
I was used to pain.
I would endure.
The spell struck me as I staggered across the front lawn.
"Come to me."
My eyes, half-closed in pain, snapped open. I gazed around, startled. The grounds looked deserted as ever.
No: he couldn't be doing this. Not in Hogwarts. Not without eye contact.
"Come to me."
The voice was alluring, a silver coating to its menace. I gritted my teeth and tried to head back to the castle. The compulsion to head in the opposite direction, and make for the gates, beat over me in waves.
"Come to me."
The Siren spell, I thought dizzily. Voldemort had somehow managed to find a way to cast the Siren spell on me. He would force me to rush immediately to his side, or suffer the consequences.
Not only my arm, but my whole body, turned molten when I recalled what those consequences would be.
It had to be whatever experiments he had performed on the Dark Mark. He must have found a way to use the Mark to cast spells on its wearers, even where no eye contact existed. Ordinarily, the Mark, disgusting indelible brand that it was, could only act to summon; to call Death Eaters to the side of their Lord.
The Siren spell was not a summons. It was a demand. An insistent demand, that throbbed through every cell of my body. Foggily, I dredged my memory for the counter-charms.
There were several counter-charms to the Siren spell. And they all had one thing in common. They could only be cast by a third person. You could not release yourself from its hold once you had been caught by it. And here was I, alone…I sent out a silent cry to Dumbledore. Help me…
"Come to me."
I wanted to go to him.
I had to go to him.
The pain of the compulsion overrode even the pain in my arm, from which this deadly spell was emanating.
I would have chopped it off if I had thought it would help; but the Dark Mark was imprinted on more than my fore-arm. The binding went deep.
"Come to me."
I shouted in protest. Nobody heard. There was nobody here except the house elves, and they would all be in the kitchens.
I fell to my knees. My body, against my will, was trying desperately to reach the Hogwarts gates.
No. I tried to master it, to force it still. Endure. Stay. Be still. Endure.
"Come to me."
Crab-wise, I crawled across the grounds. I collapsed from time to time, as the impulses from my brain sent out contradictory signals. This way. No. That…No… My arm was on fire. My whole body was on fire. My bones were melting in a thousand suns. I had to go to him, had to leave, had to get outside of Hogwarts so I could Apparate to the side of my Lord…
The grounds are extensive. I do not know for how many hours this creeping progress went on. My knees and hands began to resemble raw meat. I had torn my own lip through biting it so hard. I barely noticed.
Finally: the gates. I yelled in triumph, even while the portion of my brain which continued to hold out against the agonies screamed in warning.
I tottered grimly onwards.
"Come to me."
Soon, there would be an end to this, soon…there were the gates…I just had to get through them, and then I could leave, answer this irresistible call…
The first time the emergency wards rose to prevent me leaving, it did not hurt. It was like running into a very thick mattress: yielding, but implacable.
As I continued to flail against the invisible barrier, the wards intensified in their efforts to repel me.
With the pain from the Siren spell already coursing through my veins like broken glass, I barely noticed.
"Come to me."
I growled in frustration, and flung myself against the wards once more.
This time I felt it. It was a lightning shock. Sharp, intense, fast. It hurt, but the wards were still warning me. They had not yet turned the full force of their power against me.
"Come to me."
I could not. I knew then that I was going to die. Here. Now. On my hands and knees at the gates of Hogwarts. The Dark Lord would be denied his prey.
"And then," George said, mopping his streaming eyes with his hand. "The hag turns to the vampire, and she says – "
A roar of laughter erupted.
The kitchen was ablaze with lights and merry noise. Harry laughed along with his friends. He felt warm, and slightly fuzzy.
The Ancient and Noble House of Black would have had a fit, he thought, if they could have seen this. (Oh, Sirius…) The kitchen was redolent with the aroma of Mrs Weasley's excellent cooking. Bottles of butterbeer, hot mugs of gingered tea, other spicy beverages Harry was not familiar with: they all combined to create an atmosphere of festivity and cheer.
Harry felt happy.
Hermione was chatting with Lupin about some charm or other she thought fascinating. Ron was giggling over some joke or other that Fred had just played on Ginny, who looked torn between anger and amusement. Mad-Eye's mad eye was rolling furiously in his head.
It stopped at Harry's chest.
"What's that, boy?" he asked in his growly voice.
"Oh – my Fireheart stone," Harry said, rather proudly.
"Hmm. Feeling all right, are you?"
"Yes, perfectly," Harry said in surprise. "Never better. Why?"
"Hmm. Your Fireheart doesn't seem to think so. Look at it."
Harry frowned at the stone, lifting it from his chest by its cord. The blue flame was whirling furiously. When he touched the surface of the stone itself, he yelped.
"OW!"
"Hot, is it?" Mad-Eye said. "It's a warning, lad. That stone's channelling."
"Well, it isn't me," Harry repeated firmly. "Look. I'm absolutely OK."
"Can see that. Magical stones aren't really my thing. Something's wrong, though, boy. I can tell you that."
Harry took the stone off his neck and stared at it for a while longer. He decided he had better not wear it if the stone was in such a volatile and unpredictable mood. He didn't really understand Firehearts yet, after all, and he had no wish to blow himself up in the kitchen of the Order of the Phoenix Headquarters. Better put it away for now, he decided. Much safer.
He dropped it in his pocket, resolving to have a really thorough read of that book he had bought the next day, and picked up his Butterbeer.
This was an excellent party.
I was being torn apart. The Siren spell was Voldemort's hook through my heart. I had to go to him. It went beyond longing, beyond desire. It was compulsion. Leave. Leave now. Come to me. Come to me or die.
The wards, with equal ferocity, were repelling me. You will stay, they told me. Stay. You may not pass. Stay or die.
The two opposing forces collided in my flesh. I could no longer think. My awareness was limited to a haze of red agony. I had no sense of my surroundings any more. I was just a blaze of pain in this single moment of existence that seemed to extend for eternity. The unutterable language of hurt streamed from my lips in a thin keening.
With my last conscious thought, I willed for death, and wept silently for the help that was not to come.
Nobody ever had come when I cried for help. Not in my entire life. Oh....just the one time, just the one time, when Dumbledore gave me my second chance....Where was Dumbledore?
And had I not always known I would end like this?
Alone. In agony.
I abandoned myself to the furnace.