Anywhere but in Between
I only own the plot.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the wonderful encouragement. Some of your reviews literally had me smiling for hours…it feels so good to have something you work on appreciated on such a level.
By the way, has anyone seen the trailer for Goblet of Fire? I love it, and I'm so excited. Question: How many of you think Ron is looking at Hermione for the first time in her dress robes when they show him at the beginning of the trailer? His face is shocked at first, then he sort of smiles and steps forward…maybe it's just my wishful thinking. I downloaded the trailer off the net, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Viktor looks pretty dishy, too!
Well, on with the show.
Chapter 22 – At The Beginning
For over three months there wasn't even the merest whisper of trouble in the air, and that was making Ginny more nervous than anything. The silence was disturbing. They were all positive that something was in the works, but to have absolutely no proof…
Harry's Auror training was quick and intense. Apparently, they had been simply waiting for the day that he would come walking through their door. He was very busy trying to keep up with the duties of the Aurors, all the while keeping an ear out for any news that might help them build a case on Malfoy, who had mysteriously vanished from sight shortly after the holidays.
The ministry had listened to them all - Ron, Harry and herself - and agreed that it was indeed possible that there were still Voldemort supporters out there that had slipped through the cracks. However, with nothing solid to go on, they couldn't make a move against any one individual unless they had cause to.
This reasoning angered Ron the most. He kept grumbling about how stupid it was to wait for someone to be attacked, possibly killed, so they could have proof. He was angry with the ministry, and with himself. As a profiler, he felt that by now he should have some kind of idea what Malfoy and his cohorts would be up to, but he was coming up blank, along with the rest of his team.
Ginny hated to see her brother like this. He was pushing himself way too hard and taking it way too personally. She had decided this morning that he needed a break, and so she was on her way to collect him from his office and drag him to lunch, whether he liked it or not.
When she entered his office, she could see that she was just in time. He was bent over his desk, his elbows on stacks of papers with his hands folded around the back of his neck. He looked more strained and tired than she'd seen him in a while. His eyes were flying back and forth over the words on the document laid out before him, and he was muttering to himself under his breath.
"Ron," she said, breaking into his private musings. His head snapped up and she could see the dark circles under his eyes. "Come on, big brother, I'm taking you to lunch."
"Nah, thanks though Ginny," he said, giving her a quick smile before going back to the paper. "Too much to do around here today."
"You have to eat," she said, entering his cluttered office and taking a seat across from him. "You can put this off for an hour, and you'll feel much more clear-headed when you come back to it."
"Not hungry," he said, and she could see that in his mind, she was already out of the room. She leaned across the desk and snatched up the paper in front of him. "Hey," he said, attempting to grab it back. "Ginny, I'm busy."
Apparently, she had to try a different approach. "I know, but I really need to talk to you," she lied, scrunching up her face in what she hoped was a sad, desperate look. "Please?"
He stopped trying to reach for the paper in her hands and his eyes grew serious. "What is it? Is it you and Harry?"
Ginny silently sent up a prayer that it was most definitely not her and Harry. "Yes," she said, making her voice sound very small. "It's me and Harry."
Ron sighed, patting her hand gently. "Alright, Gin. Let me just tell my boss I'm taking off for a bit."
Ginny watched as Ron spoke with an older wizard a few doors down. She hated lying to her brother, but if it was the only way to get him to take care of himself, if only for an hour, then so be it. He'd forgive her easy enough.
"What do you mean, you and Harry are just fine?" he said sharply, his eyes narrowing at her from across the restaurant table. "I only agreed to come because you said you needed to talk to me about him."
"No, actually I only said I had to talk to you. You assumed Harry and I were having problems," she reasoned. His eyes remained narrowed in anger, but she didn't care. As long as he ate something and had a chance to see something besides the four walls of his office, she didn't care.
"Ginny, I really was busy. I don't have time for leisurely lunches in town," he argued. "I usually just grab something on the go and get back to it."
"I know, Hermione told me," she said. At Hermione's name, Ron's eyes lost some of their anger.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, looking uncomfortable at the thought of his sister and his girlfriend discussing his life.
"She said that you haven't been yourself lately," she explained. "She says that when you see her after work you're preoccupied and tired, and you can't stop talking about this Malfoy thing."
Ron opened his mouth as if to argue back, but nothing came out. He had an unreadable expression on his face as he ran a hand through his hair. Finally, he sighed deeply. "She's not angry with me or anything, is she?" he asked, looking as if he were almost afraid of the answer.
"No, of course not," Ginny replied quickly. "She's just worried about you, like I am. You look horrible Ron, if you want the truth, and you have to start getting some rest or you're going to drive yourself crazy."
"Ginny, you don't know how frustrating it is to know, deep in your bones, that Malfoy is up to something big, and not be able to do a damn thing about it," he said wearily.
Ginny scoffed at him. "I don't know how frustrating it is? Ron, we're all in the same boat, here. We all know he's going to make a move, but we don't know what it is."
"Yeah, but it's my job to know what it is," mumbled Ron, and Ginny finally saw what was bothering him so much. He was quiet for a minute, as the waiter filled their water goblets, and when he left, Ron shrugged helplessly.
"Harry's an Auror, so if I don't figure this out before it comes down to a battle, or another war, he'll be on the front lines…again. Hermione works at the hospital, and if we fight again, she'll have to see all of those innocent people stretched out before her. Mum and Dad know that if there's another battle, we'll all be involved, and they can't take losing any of us…" he trailed off, and Ginny swallowed thickly to keep the lump from rising in her throat.
She took in his helpless expression and she had never felt so proud of him in all her life. Here he was, practically killing himself to figure out what Malfoy had planned before it became deadly to anyone, just so everyone else would be safe.
"You'll figure it out," she asserted quietly, giving him a small smile. "And if worst comes to worst, and you don't, we are going to be just fine. We were before, and we will be again. You can't take on this burden all by yourself."
"I know," he admitted. "I just feel that the answer is right under my nose, and I've been overlooking it."
"Well, what is it that you already have? Perhaps if you talk about it, it'll make more sense to you," she said, settling back in her chair.
"We don't have much. Not much has happened in the last few months, and any time there was a suspicion of something going on, by the time the ministry intervened, there was nothing to find. It's almost like we're two steps behind," he said, the frustration evident in his voice.
"What else?" she asked.
"I only know three things for sure," he said. "If Malfoy is going to move against us, he won't act alone. He never has, and he's not strong enough or smart enough to pull it off without help. Second, he'll start by attacking people he thinks are helpless, weaker, less-trained than he is so he'll be assured some kind of victory. He never did anything unless he thought he could succeed, or buy his success."
Ginny nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with what Ron had said so far. She had to admit, her brother certainly knew what he was doing.
When he didn't finish his list, however, she had to prod him to continue. "And?"
"And what?" he asked, suddenly becoming very interested with the pattern of the tablecloth.
"You said there were three things you knew for sure," she replied.
"No I didn't," he answered quickly. Too quickly.
"Ron, you are a horrible liar. What's the third thing you know for sure?" she said, trying to pin him down with her gaze. His eyes refused to meet hers, however, and then she knew. Somehow, without him having to say it out loud, she knew the third thing Malfoy would do for sure.
"He'll come after me," she said in a flat voice, and Ron flinched ever so slightly. She nodded, knowing that she had hit it right on the mark. "Of course. He blames me for his father's imprisonment, and since that's where he died, I become his father's killer."
Ron sighed deeply again, raising his eyes to her. "Ginny, I could be wrong about this, and I'm hoping I am. Either way – "
"You're not wrong about this," she said evenly. "You're brilliant at what you do, at strategy, and it makes perfect sense. But either way," she said, cutting a severe look at him, "you're not going to let anything happen to me, is that right?"
"Of course I'm not going to –"
She cut him off again. "Alright, stop. Stop right there. You are not going to concern yourself over this, because I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself. If you and Harry start playing boy heroes again, protecting little, helpless me, you're going to miss something. Then it will have been my fault that someone else suffers, or God forbid, dies, because everyone was so busy looking out for me that they forgot to do their jobs."
"We don't think you're helpless, Ginny," Ron said in such a quiet voice that she had to strain to hear. His face was clouded as he continued. "We know you're capable of protecting yourself, it's just that, with Percy first, I wouldn't be able to handle it if you…"
He trailed off, and Ginny reached across the table for his hand. "I'm not going anywhere, big brother, so don't write me off just yet."
He chuckled softly, patting her hand on top of his. "You just need to promise me that you won't go off anywhere on your own for a while, at least until I know more about what's going on. I have this awful suspicion that he's going to make his move soon. Malfoy was never one known for having any kind of patience."
"I promise," she said, realizing that even if she wanted to go off alone, she couldn't. Not with still living at home, working at the ministry and visiting Harry as often as she did. There was always someone around. She was never really alone.
"Good," he said, seeming to relax enough to begin picking at his food. "I'm still mad that you tricked me into lunch, but I'm also kind of glad you did."
Ginny smiled as he dug into the potatoes in front of him. If there was one thing she never should have worried about, it was Ron's appetite disappearing for too long.
By the time June arrived, Hermione was at her wit's end. She hated the strain that everyone was under – especially Ron. He hadn't slept properly in over five months, and even though he said that he was fine about ten times a day, she could tell that he was beginning to come to the end of his tether.
She wished she could help him in some way, but her duties at the hospital took up every spare moment of her time. She couldn't afford to go off and 'solve the mystery' with Ron and Harry like she used to at school. She had patients, and they needed her even more than the boys did.
Sighing to herself, she rounded the corner of the Emergency wing before she had even realized this wasn't the floor she was supposed to be on. Today, she was on rounds on the children's ward. She stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, sighing again at her distracted thoughtlessness, and turned on her heel to go back where she belonged.
Suddenly, without warning, the doors to her immediate right burst open and a woman was being magically whooshed past her into a private room. She was screaming so loudly and so fearfully that it sent shivers up and down Hermione's arms as she stood outside the room, almost paralyzed.
The last time she had heard screams like that was during the siege on the ministry, when the Death Eaters had attacked. The commotion, the chaos, the piercing bone-chilling shrieks of dozens of people falling at the hands of those monsters…
"Dr. Granger, are you available?" a healer's assistant called from the bedside of the hysterical woman. Hermione spared a quick glance down at her files, and saw that most of her patients were in their treatment sessions at this point in the day.
"Dr. Granger!"
"Yes, yes I'm free," she said quickly, rushing into the woman's room. When she saw the woman more closely, a horrific feeling of déjà vu swept over her. The shrieking was one thing, but to see the same look of unmitigated terror that she had seen over three years ago was another thing completely. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had grabbed her and thrown her back into the past.
She knew now that somewhere, Malfoy and whomever he was working with or for had made their first move.
Hermione barked out a few orders to the assistants in the room, and then called for a backup doctor. She wouldn't be able to stay with this woman very long, since she had to eventually see to the children on her floor, but for now, she had to do what she could to calm the patient.
"M'am, can you tell me your name?" she asked, checking all outward signs and performing a quick sweep of the arms and legs. The woman, however, kept screaming as if death itself was chasing her, and finally, Hermione had to wave her wand to conjure up a sedative. She wouldn't be able to touch this poor woman without it, and she had to do an examination to see what spell had her in such a state.
In mere moments, the woman's eyes closed slowly, allowing Hermione time to do what she had to do. None of the counter-curses seemed to be working however, since despite being much, much calmer, the woman was twitching like mad.
About five minutes later, a man Hermione only knew as Dr. Yardley appeared at the door and told her that he would take over from here. She handed him the file, wished him luck, and left to attend to her other patients.
All throughout the rest of her rounds, her mind kept snapping back to the woman on the floor above her. She knew that she wouldn't be able to rest at all that night without knowing what was wrong with her. Since her shift ended in a few minutes, she decided she'd stick around and find out as much as possible about the situation.
When she reached the floor, however, there was no sign of a doctor anywhere. With as hysterical as the woman was earlier that day, Hermione found it very odd.
"Excuse me," she said, stopping a passing assistant. She glanced down at the older woman's nametag. "Alice, where is this woman's doctor?"
The assistant shrugged helplessly. "He had other patients to see. Said there wasn't much more he could do for her... thinks her mind is completely gone. She's saying things that couldn't possibly be true, saying she's seen people that have been known to be dead for the last few years."
Hermione's blood ran cold in her veins. "What has she said? Who did she say she saw?"
"Well, she named a few old Death Eaters, ones that were on the list of the dead after the war. McNair, Goyle, Adams, Farnsworth, Vickers, the list just kept going – about thirty names in all. Poor dear," she added, casting a sorrowful look at the door. "It's one thing to be put under a curse, but to start seeing dead people…" she shuddered.
Hermione's chest constricted so tightly that she was sure she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. As Alice walked away, Hermione withdrew inside herself as she always did when she was trying to figure something out.
They never did any examinations of the bodies of the fallen Death Eaters, she recalled. Most people just wanted to clear the bodies out of the ministry and continue rebuilding.
She smacked the files she was carrying against her forehead. How could they have been so stupid…so careless. No one had examined or autopsied the bodies, and if they had in fact been under some kind of enchantment, the Death Eaters would be re-organizing when summoned to do so.
But Malfoy? She didn't buy it. They would never follow him into battle. Not a spoiled, privileged, young, inexperienced young man who didn't even fight during the first war. It didn't add up. There must be someone else pulling the strings. Someone powerful and dangerous enough to have concocted this safety measure in the first place. Someone who was loyal enough to Voldemort to literally rise from the dead to defend his true cause.
Hermione found herself walking into the woman's room without even thinking twice about it. She needed to know what this woman saw that was so horrible, so terrifying that it had taken over ten hours just to get her to stop twitching uncontrollably on the bed.
As she approached the woman's bed, she could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage. What if she woke up screaming, and she couldn't calm her down again? Should she wake a patient who was finally resting just to get information out of her that she was clearly terrified of revealing?
Luckily she didn't have to find out. Just as she put a hand out to gently wake the patient, someone else's came down on her shoulder. Stifling her own scream of fright, Hermione swung around to see Dr. Yardley staring at her disapprovingly. He gestured out of the room, and she led the way into the brightly lit ward.
"What is it you thought you were doing back there, Dr. Granger?" he asked reproachfully.
"I'm so sorry," she said, sincerely meaning it. "I wasn't thinking clearly. I should have come to find you, sir, because I need more information about that woman in there and what she saw today."
Dr. Yardley sighed deeply, running a hand over his weary face. "Listen, Dr. Granger. Ms. Adderson is delusional. She didn't stop screaming until well after noon, and then when she did, she started babbling about people who have long since died."
"I know," Hermione hastily explained. "One of the nurses on the floor said the patient was naming former Death Eaters who reportedly died in the war."
"Yes, she was."
"Dr. Yardley, this is very important. I need to know everything she said. Everything," she emphasized, when she saw the older man's face cloud with confusion.
"I don't see how the ramblings of a very disturbed woman could possibly –"
"Look!" Hermione yelled, completely dropping all pretenses of professional demeanor. "I don't care if you don't understand. If I'm telling you it's important, then I expect you to believe me!"
Silence rang out in the corridor after the echoes of her rant had dissipated. Dr. Yardley considered her for a long moment, before sighing in resignation.
"Fine. If only to keep you from waking my patients, Dr. Granger, I'll repeat exactly what she said to me. You have to promise me one thing, though. After I tell you what she said, you will leave my floor immediately, and you will not, under any circumstances, enter that woman's room without my explicit permission."
Hermione listened with a heavy heart as he reported that Ms. Adderson claimed to have been taken to a house, much like an old-style English Manor, and was surrounded by the same men and women that Alice had mentioned earlier. And her stomach practically dropped out of her when the doctor went on to say that a young, silver-haired man stood listening off to the side while the supposedly surviving Death Eaters taunted her mercilessly.
"This silver-haired man," Hermione interrupted quietly, "did she happen to mention a name?"
"No, but she did say that he was talking to someone in the shadows, and that's where her story becomes completely preposterous."
"And why is that?" Hermione asked, almost afraid of his response.
"Because she says that right before she was let go, a woman approached her and told her she was being allowed to live to deliver a message," he said, now starting to look slightly uncomfortable.
"What was the message?" she said, even more quietly than before.
"It's ludicrous, I tell you. The poor woman believes that she was allowed to live so everyone will know that You-Know-Who, although dead, is not forgotten in the hearts of those who believe. She said that the woman in the shadows made it expressly clear that she was to survive long enough to tell others that death is waiting for them at the beginning."
Hermione felt like her knees were about to give out. "The beginning? What does that mean?"
"It means nothing, Dr. Granger. I told you, she's delusional," he said, finality in his voice.
"Was Ms. Adderson able to tell you who the woman was who approached her?" she barely managed to get out. She had a sinking suspicion she already knew, seeing as how there could only be one woman smart enough, deadly enough, to completely befuddle the entire Ministry of Magic into thinking she was dead. There was only one woman who was that loyal to her master. Only one who had something to live for, enough to assume the role of a dead person for so many years.
"I told you, it's totally preposterous," he demanded.
"Try me."
"Fine," he said, clearly past his limit of patience with her. "She said the woman was Bellatrix LeStrange. A woman who has been dead for the past three years."
Hermione closed her eyes, as her senses went into overload. She could feel the ground move underneath her as her feet rocked her unsteadily.
"You look pale," Dr. Yardley said, bracing her with a hand. "You mustn't trouble yourself over this. She has been put under so many hexes that she barely knew her name. It's pure gibberish, if you ask me, and I for one won't be losing any sleep over such nonsense."
Hermione could only nod stiffly at him as he gave her one last look to see if she was alright, and moved on down the hall to another patient's room.
"Oh my God," she whispered into the silence that followed the retreating sound of his shoes. She stood utterly still for a very long moment, trying to gather some kind of a hold on herself.
In the next instant, however, she sprang to life, running for the elevators as if being chased by the devil himself.
Harry listened to Hermione re-enact her conversation with the doctor with a sinking heart. The more details she gave, the more it felt as if someone was crushing him under a five ton weight. As Ginny listened to Hermione, she looked more and more frightened, and Harry knew why. He, himself, had never seen Hermione look so…unglued.
When Hermione finished retelling all the information she had gotten, the silence that enveloped them all was so heavy it threatened to crash down upon their heads. Ginny was staring into the fireplace, her face ashen and her hands shaking like mad. Ron was sitting next to Hermione on the couch, one hand holding hers. He, too, was staring off into space blankly.
Harry clutched his wand so tightly that it cut into his palm. He tucked it into his robes as his mind played over the same thought again and again. So this was it. Malfoy had found a way to keep some of the Death Eaters alive, and he was going to make his move. Death was waiting for them at the beginning.
There were too many unanswered questions, and he needed to know the answers.
"How are they all still alive? How is Bellatrix alive?" he asked, to no one in particular. "It just doesn't seem possible that they could remain hidden all these years."
Hermione nodded. "I know, that was bothering me too. People have been posted everywhere, looking for signs of insurrection. Surely, none of them could have resisted going into public once in all this time."
Ron was pacing now, and Harry could see him trying to make the pieces fit. "It's like they made themselves invisible," he said aloud. "All these years…do you think they used invisibility cloaks?"
"Too simple," Hermione replied, her gaze now focused on the fire as well. "And too untrustworthy. What if they'd come off as they were walking around somewhere. Plus, you can still be heard under a cloak."
"What about a spell to make someone invisible?" tossed in Ginny. "The whole lot of them could have been charmed by Voldemort or by someone else right at the end of the battle just in case…"
"Yeah, but people saw their bodies," reminded Ron. "It couldn't have been a re-animation spell. They couldn't have come up with all the ingredients they needed on the spot like that, and besides, with all the magic going on in that building, the spell wouldn't have worked."
Harry was thinking so hard his head began to hurt. He dropped his head into his hands, and felt the outline of his scar. Voldemort had planned for this. He had made a safeguard in his grand scheme and if they couldn't figure this out, he would wind up winning after all.
He couldn't let that happen. People had fought too hard the first time, risked and lost so much. They needed to piece this together as quickly as possible.
Ron slammed his fist against the mantle of the fireplace angrily. "How could they do that? How could we have been living right on top of them all these years and never know they were there?"
Something in his words caused Harry to sit up straight. He had heard that before. At some time, in some way…
Suddenly, he knew how the Death Eaters had remained hidden in plain sight.
"Malfoy was their secret keeper," he said simply, staring at Ron. "He was the only one who knew they were alive, and we could walk right into their houses and not see them."
"Of course," Hermione whispered, looking angry with herself for not having figured it out sooner. "Of course…"
Ginny leaned back against Harry's legs, as if trying to draw support. "That's all well and good, you guys, but it's not going to help us figure out what their next move is going to be. It doesn't help us figure out what Bellatrix meant by 'the beginning', does it?"
Ron resumed his pacing, muttering almost incoherently to himself. "The beginning…what does that…beginning…it's not the Riddle house…"
Hermione watched him pace with a worried expression etched in her face. She sighed quietly, and finally turned her eyes away as if it was too painful to watch him any longer.
Harry wanted to say something to her, to erase the look off her face, but he couldn't find the words of comfort. He reached out to touch Ginny's head, at least grounding himself enough in reality that he could remain focused.
Ron was facing the wall, but his mutterings were much clearer. "What do they all have in common? They are witches and wizards who were all trained in the dark arts. But that's not the beginning. Their homes? Many of their parents were never found to be Death Eaters. Besides, how could they attack all those places at once and still remain strong in numbers?"
Ginny looked over her shoulder at Harry, who read her concern for her brother clearly in her eyes. He gave her a small half smile of encouragement. "Don't worry. He always talked to himself when we played chess."
Ginny seemed to accept the explanation, and continued to watch Ron as he guided himself around his thoughts.
"It has to be somewhere vulnerable. There aren't enough of them to attack somewhere like the ministry. They won't take on great numbers of more powerful witches or wizards, either…"
Suddenly, his body grew extremely rigid, and he whipped around to face them.
"Harry, you have to get to the ministry right now and tell them to send as many people as possible to Hogwarts!" he commanded, striding over to the table to collect his wand.
"What?" Harry exclaimed, stupefied. "Ron, you can't be serious! Hogwarts has about a million protections on it, especially since the war. They wouldn't be foolish enough –"
But Hermione, after only a moment's consideration, had leapt up off the couch as well. "Harry, Ron's right. If they are going back to the beginning, it's got to be Hogwarts. They were all students there at one time or another, weren't they? It's the beginning of their magical training. It allows them to know all the little secrets that protect Hogwarts as well…it's got to be the school."
Ron stopped moving long enough to pierce Harry with a look. "Think about it. Malfoy is a coward, and their side is weak. He's going to go to the one place where he knows he can be stronger, and smarter than the majority. There are only so many teachers there to protect all of those students. They'll demolish half the school before they know what hit them."
Harry didn't need any more convincing. He grabbed his cloak and took out his wand, but before he could disapparate, Ginny grabbed his arm.
"I'm coming with you," she said evenly.
He opened his mouth to protest, but he knew from her look it would be no use. He nodded slightly, but touched her cheek in earnest. "You promise me, right now, that once we get to Hogwarts, you won't go off alone. Malfoy is going to try to separate us so he can get you by yourself."
"And Bellatrix is going to try and get you alone, too," she reasoned, covering his hand with her own. "I'll promise you if you promise me."
He kissed her quickly and nodded. Then he looked over to Ron and Hermione, who were holding each other very close, looking into each other's eyes.
"Where are we going to find you two?" he asked, drawing Ron's attention.
"We're going to fly on ahead to the school to see if we can at least get the kids sent home before they decide to attack," he said resolutely.
Ginny flinched beside him, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. "What if they're already there?" he asked, visions of his best friends walking into that all alone flying through his mind.
Hermione smiled weakly at him. "Then you'd better do a damn good job convincing people at the ministry quickly, Harry."
The four of them looked at each other for a long moment, none saying another word. Then, raising their wands, they all disapparated, each hoping that they weren't already too late.
Wow, that was monumentally difficult to write. I am very glad that this is almost over. That took a lot out of me!Next chapter will be the battle at Hogwarts, and then one more chapter to wrap things up. There may be gaps in the storytelling of the next chapter, just because I am following four people. I'll try and streamline it as much as possible.
As always, thanks for reading…and if I can ask a favor…I really would like to know what you specifically think about this chapter in particular. It was by far the most difficult for me to produce, but I tried my absolute best…I'm no J.K. Rowling.