Chapter Fourteen

Tabitha's Secrets

Ginny was already down at the Quidditch pitch with Katie Bell and Ron. As the other two greeted Harry warmly, she busied herself with adjusting her robes. "Er, Ginny?" Harry said. "Could we talk for a minute?"

Ron gave him a funny look, but Harry shook his head. "I'll explain later," he said, walking towards the other end of the pitch with Ginny.

They walked silently, side-by-side for several minutes before Harry said, "I'm sorry. Really, really sorry."

"I liked you, Harry," Ginny said angrily. "And I thought you liked me, but ... but you just pushed me away after you kissed me!"

"I know. I feel horrible," he replied, looking down at his feet. "I was thinking of what Ron would say ..."

"Why should you care? We like each other. Even if he did mind, what business is it of his? I mean, you're all right with his dating Hermione!" Harry continued looking at the ground. Ginny sighed. "Well, you are a brainless git when it comes to girls, I'll give you that," she said. "If you knew anything, you'd have kissed me just now while I was rambling, like you did last time."

Harry gave her a confused looked. "What?"

She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "I should still be mad at you."

"You mean you're not?"

"Well, that depends. Do you still care whether my brother approves of who you like? Or are you going to ask me to Hogsmeade with you?"

"You would still go with me?"

"Are you asking me to?"

"Er, will you go with me to Hogsmeade, Ginny?"

She kissed his cheek. "You've got loads to learn. Come on, let's practice. Everyone's here now."

Harry stood there, gaping, as she walked back across the pitch. Had he just been forgiven, simple as that? He didn't understand women any more than he did last year—in fact, between Ginny and Tabitha, he was as lost as if he were studying Ancient Runes.

Ginny ran off after practice to find Hermione, no doubt to tell her that Harry had apologized. That left Harry and Ron alone on the pitch, putting away the practice balls and locking up the school brooms. Harry wasn't exactly sure how to broach the subject of him and Ginny, but he had to tell Ron now. "Er, Ron, I guess you and Hermione are making the trip to Hogsmeade a proper date?"

Ron shrugged. "I guess. I think Hermione'd like that. But that would leave you. I think we're best just going as the three of us."

"Well, I, er, sort of have a ... a date."

"Brilliant! Who is it? Not Cho, you're done with her ... is it Parvati? Or Lavender? Is she a Gryffindor?"

Harry nodded. "She's a Gryffindor ... she's, er, had a crush on me for a while, and I've only just started liking her like that ... and, well, honestly, we kissed a few weeks ago after Quidditch tryouts, but I acted stupidly and then she and her friends were mad at me, but now we've made up and we're going into Hogsmeade together ..." He was well aware that he was rambling, but he couldn't stop.

"You don't mean Ginny, do you, Harry?" Ron said in surprise. Harry, expecting an outburst of rage, instead got a thrilled cuff on the arm when he nodded. "Harry, you stupid git, why didn't you tell me this ages ago?"

"You mean, you want me to go out with Ginny?"

"Honestly, mate! I was trying to let you know all last year. You're loads better than any of her other boyfriends." Ron shook his head, laughing. "Ginny! Mum'll be so pleased. She loves you, Harry, and she'd just go bonkers if she knew that you and Ginny were a couple. Dead brilliant, mate."

Harry sighed in relief. "Good, I was so wor—"

He and Ron stopped as voices approached. A woman and a man were talking to each other breathlessly, sounding very much like a couple looking for some privacy. Ron and Harry exchanged mischievous looks and darted behind the Quidditch storage shed. They listened quietly as the couple approached.

They opened up the storage shed, and Harry and Ron shrank against the wall as if the people were going to search for eavesdroppers. The door of the shed slammed shut, and the boys peered around to see what was going on.

Tabitha McNoira and Charlie Weasley were bathed in moonlight in the middle of the pitch, each mounted on shining brooms. Charlie was opening the box containing the Quidditch balls; he removed a Quaffle and said, "Goal-scoring tonight?"

To Harry and Ron's surprise, Tabitha leaned over and kissed Charlie lightly on the lips. "How about the Snitch? For old-times' sake."

Charlie grinned, and removed a Bludger, a small club, and the small, round, wriggling Snitch from the box. Tabitha tapped the Bludger with her wand and muttered something. "Watch out," she said. "That's going to fly right at you."

She shrieked as Charlie dove towards her on his broom, knocking them both to the ground. Tabitha giggled madly, clutching the Bludger so it wouldn't go flying at their faces. Charlie helped her up, kissed her, and then they released the two balls into the air.

"I thought she was married to Lupin!" Ron said, looking sick.

"Well, apparently she fancies Charlie," Harry replied.

"Ugh, what does Charlie see in her? She may be pretty, but she's as mean as Snape! Meaner, even."

"She's hiding something," Harry whispered. "Whenever I look at her, I know she is. She told me tonight that she hates me."

Ron looked at him, shocked. "She told you that she hates you? Just like that?"

Harry nodded. "Her exact words were, 'I hate you.' But then I left and I looked through the keyhole and she was crying! I dunno what to make of her, Ron."

"She's a bloody troll, that's what she is. I'll be da—whoa!"

The Bludger hurtled itself right at Charlie, who was flying fast after the Snitch. Tabitha appeared out of nowhere, whipping through the air faster than Harry had every seen anyone fly. Charlie heard the Bludger behind him and made a sharp turn. In a move that defied everything Harry knew about flying, Tabitha swooped quickly underneath Charlie (who'd nearly flown right into her when he turned), ducked the approaching Bludger and immediately turned herself around and flew at the ball, slamming the club towards the Bludger with Herculean force. The club broke in half and the Bludger, dented, fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Ron and Harry watched with their mouths hanging open. Bludgers were extremely durable magical objects; the Slytherin Quidditch team's Beaters were always large, strong-looking older boys who couldn't fly well but could certainly knock someone out with a well-aimed swing. But never, never, had either Harry or Ron seen someone (a woman especially) who could render a Bludger unusable. Yet Tabitha had done that with one swing.

She and Charlie descended on their brooms, the Snitch forgotten. Tabitha was clutching her right arm and rolling her shoulder socket. "You must have done some damage with that one!" Charlie whistled. "I've never seen you pull a move like that!"

Tabitha smiled and kissed him. "I save my best for you. Besides, you'd have been toast if that hit you." She winced. "But I did hurt my shoulder."

Charlie brushed her long hair off her shoulder. "Well, then I have a job to do," he grinned, rubbing her shoulder tenderly.

Ron looked disgusted. "Let's get out of here," he said. "I can't take much more." As they walked up to the castle, he said, "And I thought Bill and Fleur were bad during her English lessons. 'One more try, and then you'll have to pay me with a kissy-poo!' Fred, George, and I just about puked whenever she came to the Burrow. I'm glad she wasn't allowed at Grimmauld Place. I'd've killed myself long before you got there." He shook his head. "Tabitha? Honestly, Harry, there must be something wrong with Charlie."

But Harry wasn't listening to Ron. He was thinking. He knew he heard clearly that night in Grimmauld Place. Lupin and Tabitha were married, he was sure of it. Was Tabitha possibly entertaining a romance with Charlie behind Lupin's back? Harry didn't want to think so ... she hated him, but otherwise, she seemed like a good person. Unless that was all fake.

The map. She took the Marauder's Map for a reason ... Harry had thought to spy on Snape, but what if she was spying on other people? Like Dumbledore, or Harry. She must be getting close to Charlie and Lupin for information, Harry thought. She lied to me about Malfoy being a Death Eater to throw me off ... but it's her. Tabitha had to be working for Voldemort. Harry shuddered to think of how much she must already know, from the meetings, from Lupin, from Charlie, from Dumbledore, from Harry himself.

They had reached the common room. Ron gave the Fat Lady the password, and they climbed through the portrait hole. Hermione and Ginny were waiting for them.

Hermione gave Harry a half-smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but Harry held up his hand. "It's over, all right, Hermione? Let's just forget everything from this year. I've been a jerk and I know it."

She smiled. "Well, I'm glad you know it," she said in her characteristically bossy voice. "Now, this has been killing me. I found out about the dragons' blood ..."

"Not yet!" Ron interrupted. He looked around the busy common room, then motioned for everyone to sit in a small, quiet corner.

"I know you two have been seeing Tabitha on the weekends," Harry said to the girls. They exchanged guilty looks.

"We know you don't like her, Harry," Ginny said. "But, honestly, we don't know why ... she always says good things about you."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "Well, that's funny, as she just told me before Quidditch practice that she hates me!"

Hermione shook her head. "You misheard her, Harry, you must have. She always says how intelligent you are. She says Lupin and Dumbledore have told her that, and then she looked at your O.W.L. scores, and for the past few weekends she was going on about you teaching the D.A. again because you did so well last year. And Dumbledore's told her everything about what you've done the past few years, and of course we filled her in on some things, and she thinks you're just the bravest—"

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. "You told her about all that?" he hissed. "Hermione, she was only saying those things about me because she wanted you to give her information! You snapped at us for telling Phineas Nigellus how Sirius died, and then you go an tell Tabitha all that!"

"Harry, she's a teacher, and a member of the Order ..."

"And a spy for Voldemort," Harry added. Ron looked at him in surprise.

"How do you figure that, mate?" Ron said.

"I realized it on our way up here," Harry replied. He looked at the girls. "After we saw Tabitha and Charlie down at the Quidditch pitch. Alone. Together." Hermione and Ginny didn't look very surprised. In fact, they looked guilty again.

"Don't tell us that you knew!" Ron shouted. Everyone in the common room turned to look at them. Ron ducked his head in embarrassment.

"We visit Tabitha at her flat," Ginny said. "Well, the flat she shares with Charlie, up on the sixth floor. She tried to keep it from us, but Charlie came in one day while we were there ..."

"I told you she and Lupin weren't married," Hermione said pointedly.

"Or they are and she's just using Charlie, or both of them," Harry replied. "Tabitha is just getting close to all of you for information. She's going to turn on you just like Wormtail did to my parents! We have to tell Dumbledore."

"Harry, don't go jumping to conclusions," Hermione said. "Let's wait for a bit and see if we can find out more about Tabitha. I just don't think she's a bad person ..."

Harry sighed. "You just don't want to believe that she is because she's been so nice to you. But we don't know anything about her. Unless you two ...?"

Hermione and Ginny shook their heads. "Not much," they said. "She was raised by her grandparents in Ireland. She lived in America for a few years, but that's it," Hermione added. "That's all she told us. I even asked her about when she went to Hogwarts and switching houses, but she changed the subject. And it was by accident that we found out about Charlie. That's all."

A wave of exhaustion crashed over Harry. "I've got to get to bed," he yawned. "But tomorrow, you two had better start finding things out from Tabitha."

Harry met with Lupin as scheduled the following week. Ron and Hermione had helped clear the common room so Harry would have some privacy when Lupin (or at least, his head) arrived in the fire. Harry had so much to ask, but he wanted to keep their meeting brief, in case the Floo network was still being monitored. "Professor Lupin," he said. "Who was Sirius protecting when he gave up his position as Secret Keeper for my parents?"

"You and your parents, of course," Lupin said. "We all knew Voldemort would go right for him—"

"I know he was protecting someone else," Harry interrupted.

Lupin stared at Harry for a moment. Finally, he shook his head. "Harry—I can't tell you. It's not my place."

"Well, is it your place to tell me what's going on with you and Tabitha?"

"What do you mean?"

"That night I overheard you talking about Snape, I also heard something about a wedding, how you two were glad you didn't wait. Are you married to her?"

To Harry's surprise, Lupin laughed. "Oh, Harry, no! You misunderstood us. We're not married."

"Then what—"

"It's not my place."

Harry sighed loudly. "Well, can you tell me just whose place is it to tell me anything that's going on these days?"

"You dislike Tabitha very much, don't you?"

"Of course I do. She hates me."

"I hate to tell you this then, Harry … but she knows so much that you should know. You need to ask her all this."

"But Professor—"

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more, Harry. I have to go. Please, reconcile matters with Tabitha, will you? We're all on the same side here!"

Lupin's head disappeared from the fire with a 'pop." We're not on the same side, though, Harry thought. Tabitha is a spy for Voldemort.

The weeks leading up to Halloween gave no new information about Tabitha. He needed to unmask her, to show Dumbledore and everyone in the Order that she had been deceiving them all.

The Hogsmeade weekend finally arrived. Harry was nervous about having a proper date with Ginny. His trip to Hogsmeade with Cho Chang had been disastrous last year, but he assured himself that Ginny was different. He knew how to talk to her.

Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione strolled through the all-wizarding town without a purpose. They would make their last stop the Three Broomsticks, where they would fill themselves with hot butterbeer. They stopped in a Quidditch supply shop, and Ron salivated over the brand-new display of Chudley Cannons merchandise. Harry secretly bought Ron a violently orange-tinged broomstick-polishing kit to give to him at Christmas.

As they left the shop, they noticed that every Hogwarts student in the street seemed to be heading in the same direction, towards Zonko's Joke Shop. "Maybe they're giving stuff away," Ron said hopefully.

But when they arrived at the shop, they saw that the crowd had been attracted by a very large display of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products. A huge sign proclaimed, "Zonko's: Proud to Be the Only Hogsmeade Establishment to Carry Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!"

"Well," Hermione said approvingly. "They certainly know how to market themselves."

At some point in the madness at Zonko's, Harry had found Ginny's hand and held it firmly as they walked towards the Three Broomsticks. Ginny didn't say anything, but he saw a smile creep onto her face.

They sat in a back booth with their steaming mugs of butterbeer and watched as students and teachers from Hogwarts filtered in and out. Charlie and Hagrid came in and waved at Harry's group, but sat alone, their heads bent together as they no doubt discussed dragons or something equally as secretive. Tabitha entered a few minutes later, by herself. Harry watched as Charlie looked up and smiled discreetly at Tabitha. She sent him a coy smile back, but took her drink and sat by herself, poring over a thick stack of parchment.

"I'd like to know what exactly she's up to," Harry growled softly.

He was eating breakfast several mornings later (on Halloween) when the mail came. A large owl dropped The Daily Prophet next to Hermione's plate. "When did you start getting that again?" Ron asked.

"Well, they may only print rubbish most of the time, but sometimes their rubbish can give us some insight as to what's going on," Hermione said, her nose stuck in the pages. A few minutes later, she sighed and set the paper down. "Except for today. There are just more articles about how the Ministry is actively pursuing Voldemort and the Death Eaters are still in Azkaban, for now at least."

"Anything more about Sirius being cleared?" Harry said hopefully. Hermione shook her head. "It'll take loads more time for that to happen," she replied.

Harry finished eating and picked up the paper, browsing through it casually. He was turning the page and sipping pumpkin juice at the same time, and what he saw made him spit the juice out all over the paper.

"What is it?" Hermione exclaimed. "Did I miss something?" She grabbed for the paper frantically, but Harry held onto it firmly. He had to be mistaken. But there was no mistaking it ...the eyes, the hair, her hatred for Harry, even the possibility that she was working for Voldemort—this explained it all.

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny looked at Harry expectantly. After several minutes, he lowered the paper and said in a hollow voice, "She's a Lestrange."

"Who?" they demanded.

"Tabitha."

Hermione grabbed for the paper. There were the pictures of the imprisoned Death Eaters—Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange among them. Had Harry had a photograph of Tabitha McNoira, he could place it beside Bellatrix Lestrange and no one would say that the two were not related. The glossy black hair and the dark, penetrating eyes were the same, though Bellatrix was more heavy-lidded. They had the same smooth, white skin. Harry had seen Bellatrix in person last spring and he knew she was of similar build to Tabitha and was certainly old enough to be her mother. It would explain why Tabitha was raised by her grandparents, why she hated Harry. Her parents weren't dead, but they'd certainly been lost to her. Harry's defeat of Voldemort when he was just a baby, an infant wizard who had no idea he was to be a legend, had led to the arrests of many Death Eaters. Without Voldemort in power, they either lied their way of Azkaban, or faced it gleefully like the Lestranges did (it was torturing Neville Longbottom's parents that earned them their sentence of life imprisonment).

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny didn't know how to respond. The picture of Bellatrix Lestrange was the damning evidence. Tabitha far too much resembled her; it explained too much of what Harry had speculated. He wanted to run right to Dumbledore, but Hermione stopped him.

"No, Harry," she said. "Dumbledore knows who her parents are. He's not going to think she's a spy just because you think she is. For now, we just have to sit tight until we know more. Ginny and I haven't found out anything, and besides—"

"You're still fond of her," Harry said. Ginny and Hermione turned pink, but didn't answer. Harry snorted. "Some friends."

Ron was about to say something, but the girls stopped him. "Let him cool off," Ginny whispered. Harry put his head in his hands for the rest of breakfast, thinking of Tabitha and her awful, murderous parents … her mother, who killed Sirius. Harry wasn't sure if he could sit tight for much longer.

Soon, they went off to their first lessons, rage bubbling furiously inside Harry.