Chapter Eight: Managing

"What do you mean you let them leave?"

Arthur Weasley had been married to Margaret Mary Prewitt for more than half his life. As a matter of fact, it was actually much more than half, as last June they had quietly celebrated their thirtieth anniversary. While those years had been both stormy and chaotic, he'd never actually been frightened by her before.

Until now.

Molly was working up a very, very large head of steam. As Arthur watched this, rather speechless, he remembered something that the twins had often advised their siblings of: Never let her get into her stride.

Oh, how true.

"Molly..."

"Don't you 'Molly' me, Arthur Weasley! I want an explanation, and I want it now!"

"Molly, if you'd..."

"Because I cannot believe that any sane man would actually agree to allowing four children run off together, to Merlin knows where..."

"Molly!" Arthur raised his voice and bellowed. In all the years they'd been together, there had been less than five times that he'd raised his voice in this home. But this time... this time it was warranted.

Predictably, the pretty brown eyes of his wife widened... and she was silent.

"Molly, they are not children."

"They are, Arthur. Why, Ron can't even get a laundry charm..."

"Molly, they haven't been children for a very long time."

"They're none of them eighteen!"

"Hermione will be eighteen in a matter of weeks, and Harry and Ron are both of age... Ginny..."

"Ginny isn't yet sixteen, Arthur."

"She will be."

"Not until next week!"

"Age has nothing to do with this, Molly. You know what Harry has to do."

"I know what Harry has to do. Not Ron. Not Hermione... and certainly not Ginny!"

"Did you really think that they'd let him go alone?"

"Letting him go alone or not wasn't their choice to make!"

"Yes, it was."

"No, it..."

"Molly," Arthur tried to calm her, pulling her into his arms. "If we had kept them from going, do you actually believe we'd have been able to keep them here? The first time our backs were turned..."

"Which is no excuse whatsoever for letting them..."

"Molly... they had to."

"No!"

"Yes," Arthur felt her begin to shake with sobs. "Yes, Molly. They're intelligent, all four of them. They're together. They'll be fine."

"Arthur, you can't possibly be suggesting that we don't follow them?"

"We have our own duties to see to, here, Molly."

"I am going after my children!"

"No, you're not."

"I am!"

"Molly, in a few days, there will be nothing left of the Burrow. We have to be gone by then."

"What are you talking about?"

"Harry..." Arthur paused. Perhaps bringing up Harry's plans at this point wasn't such a good idea. "We're going into hiding."

"We are not! I will not hide from that... that..."

"We are, Molly."

"But... but if the children come back... we..."

"They're not coming back. Not until they've done what they need to."

"But..."

"I've flooed the twins..."

"The twins? What on earth for...?"

"Harry made arrangements with them. They're our secret keepers, Molly. They're taking us away tomorrow."

"No..."

"Yes. Now, don't you think we'd better begin packing? Because I know you won't leave without your clock."

With that, Molly glanced at her family clock... the clock they'd only just added the hands for Harry and Hermione to a month ago.

All four hands of the missing teens pointed at "travelling".

The following morning found the four up early. Harry had slept surprisingly well after heading out of the tent to see Hedwig for a moment before going to bed. He'd found her and Pig roosting on a low branch over their tent. Hedwig had hooted softly, and he'd given them a few owl treats and then gone to bed.

When he rose in the morning, he found Ginny sitting in the kitchen stirring a cup of tea and staring off into space.

"Morning," he said quietly. "Ron and Hermione up yet?"

"I haven't seen them," she said, staring into her cup.

"You okay?" He asked, getting himself a cup and sitting down across from her.

"Just thinking about... Mum. Home. Wondering if..."

"They'll be safe. Fred and George will have gotten them out by now. Your Dad knew what was happening."

"You spoke to him?"

"Yes," Harry nodded. "I told him to contact Fred and George as soon as we were gone, that they would be coming, and to be ready. He said he'd get your Mum and the others out. They're safe, Ginny."

"I know... it's just..."

"You want to go back?"

"No," she smiled sadly. "I want this to be over."

"Me, too," Harry said. "How about breakfast?"

"It's Ron's day to cook," Ginny pointed out.

"Right," Harry smirked. "Well, I'm hungry now. What have we got?"

The two of them put a decent breakfast on the table, and were just sitting down when Ron and Hermione came in.

"What time is it?" Ron asked.

"Just after seven," Hermione said.

"Bloody hell..." Ron sat down heavily and poured himself a cup of tea. "Far too early."

"We need to get back to London," Harry pointed out. "But first, we have to scope out a place here that we can apparate to with no one noticing, in case we want to come back here."

"I think it would be a good idea to move around a bit, Harry," Hermione said. "Less likelihood of being recognized."

"I agree," said Harry. "But it's a good idea to have somewhere that we can apparate to quickly, that we all know. That way, we can get here individually if we need to."

"There was that grove just outside of town,"Ginny said. "It seemed private enough. We could check it out this morning."

"Can I eat first?" Ron asked, indignantly. "Man, I hate being a morning person."

Hermione snorted with disbelief before turning her attention to her own meal.

In the end, they packed up and headed towards the grove that Ginny had noticed on their walk out the day before. They found it to be quiet and private, and perfect for their needs should they have to come back.

"Take a mental picture," Hermione instructed. "Something to envision when you need to get back here."

"Hermione, you can be so incredibly anal, you know that?" Ron said shortly.

"Who was it who passed their test the first time, Ron?" she asked coolly. "And who was it who didn't?"

"Point taken," Ron grumbled.

"Lighten up," she said. "We're all up early."

They apparated out to the same alley in London and made their way to the Guildhall Library, which Hermione seemed quite excited about.

"How far is it?" Ron asked an hour later as they walked.

"Not far now, Ron," Hermione said. "It's not far from St Pauls...see, there!"

The four made their way into the building, and Harry was impressed. This was nothing like the Hogwarts library. This was more like... well, it was far larger, for one thing. And brighter, and there didn't seem to be a Madam Pince anywhere in sight.

Hermione eagerly rushed ahead, and the others attempted to keep up with her.

"Excuse me?" Hermione approached a very un-Pincelike creature behind a desk. Harry and Ron exchanged looks. If this was was muggle librarians looked like...

Ginny snorted.

The pretty blonde woman smiled at them. "Yes?"

"We're looking for the microfiche collection for the nineteen sixties and seventies... could you help us?"

"Of course. Anything in particular?"

"Well," Hermione glanced at Harry. She'd pulled it off twice now, but Harry could see that lying to a librarian went directly against Hermione's grain.

"We're studying unsolved murders during that time period," Harry said calmly. "School project."

"It's August," the librarian said, looking oddly at him.

"We go to boarding school," Ginny said. "They assign summer homework."

The librarian laughed. "And you're just beginning your research now... a few weeks before school lets in. Typical," she laughed again, and stood from her desk. "Follow me, I'll get you set up."

Ron seemed only too happy to follow the shapely woman, and Hermione shook her head disgustedly.

She led them to a quiet study room with several computer screens. "All of our microfiche records are now digitized," she said, leaning over and clicking with the mouse through several menus. Ron stood back, a slight grin on his face. Hermione shot him a rather nasty look and sat down at the first computer. The librarian set up the others, and wished them luck.

Three hours later, Ron stretched tiredly. "Nothing. Not a damned thing."

"Keep looking, Ron," Harry said, leaning over his own screen. "There's got to be something here..."

"Harry?" Hermione said. "I've found and printed off several possibles, but..."

"But?"

"But this... Harry, I think you ought to look at this."

Harry stood and walked over to her. She had just printed something off and handed it to him. He read.

"What is it?" Ginny asked Hermione quietly. Hermione continued to watch Harry.

"It's the news report from Godric's Hollow the night my parents died," Harry said. "From the muggles point of view."

They were all silent for a while, Harry contemplative. Suddenly, he put the report down on the pile next to Hermione and straightened.

"Alright. Come on... time for some lunch and a break. We can come back to this this afternoon."

They spent a few hours that afternoon in the library again, and then found a caravan park on the outskirts of London that they could take the tube to. They all fell into bed that night, exhausted.

The following weeks were spent, researching at the libraries and reading what they found after setting up their tent at night. Hedwig and Pig were always close by, and their days fell into something like a routine, although certainly not the one they were used to.

They switched between several caravan parks, and did their shopping daily. Ginny was found to be, by far, the best cook, and Ron the worst. They generally ended up having beans on toast on the nights that it was his turn in the kitchen. Before they knew it, it was the first of September.

"I wonder..." Ginny mused that evening as they ate their dinner of tinned soup and some baguettes that they'd bought from a bakery that day.

"Hogwarts didn't open this year," Hermione said firmly. "I know it didn't."

"Doesn't matter if it did or didn't," Harry said. "We have a job to do."

"Harry?" Ginny looked at him. He sat, ignoring his dinner and reading one of the newspaper printouts from their day at the library.

"Hmm?"

"What are we going to do when it gets cold?"

"What do you mean?" Harry looked up at her, the oddly distracted look on his face that he got when his attention was divided. Ginny smiled fondly.

"I mean, when it gets cold, in the fall, the caravan parks close."

"What?" Ron looked up. "How do you know that?"

"Because the last three we've checked into, including this one, have a great big sign at the front telling their rates... and from October to April they read 'closed'."

"I doubt it will matter," Hermione said. She'd abandoned her own bowl and stood working at the long table where she was piecing together a timeline based on the articles they'd found.

"The park being closed is a problem, Hermione," Ron said.

Hermione glanced at Harry. Harry stared back.

"Hermione's right," he said, after a moment.

"How so?" Ginny asked.

"It's not going to matter, because we won't be here."

"Where will we be?"

"There's a huge chunk of time missing, Ron," Hermione pointed out, coming to sit down next to him. "We're finding plenty of stuff after nineteen seventy two... but until then..."

"The first twelve years that we're looking at, there's nothing that could be attributed to Death Eaters," Harry pointed out. "Nothing that could be suggestive of Voldemort having returned to England."

"Where do you think he was?"

"Europe," Harry said. "Eastern Europe. When he attacked my family, after the spell rebounded on him, he went to Albania, and didn't return until Quirrell ran into him."

"So why do you think that he was there before?"

"Because I think he returned to what he knew... a place he felt safe. He travelled, sure... but I think it was mostly through Eastern Europe and Asia. He learned a lot through those years. Dumbledore said he was hardly recognizable as the same person who Dumbledore knew when he taught him at Hogwarts. He studied the Dark Arts intensely in those years. Where better than..."

"Durmstrang," Ron spat.

"Or the area, at least," Harry agreed.

"Harry,"Ginny's brow furrowed. "Eastern Europe is colder than here."

"Yes."

"So..."

"We'll manage, Ginny."

"Harry, we have another problem," Hermione said.

"What?"

"How are we going to travel freely in Eastern Europe, in some of the most patriarchal countries in the world... I mean, Ginny and I are..."

"What do you mean?"

"Harry, some of the places in this area... a single woman travelling alone with a man... we could have problems."

"Well, that's where we need to go. We'll manage."

"How?" Hermione said quietly as she watched Harry leave the room and head to his bedroom.

"Harry says we'll manage, Mione," Ron put a hand on her shoulder. "Then we'll manage."

"Tell me again, exactly why we're tramping through this bloody forest, bloody freezing, at three in the morning?" Ron complained, shivering violently.

"Because this is where he lived... when he was separated from his body, Ron. This was where he came. This is where Wormtail found him, this is where Bertha Jorkins died, and this is where I hope to find some clue as to the whereabouts of the last bloody horcrux to be identified!"

"The diary, the ring, the cup, the locket, that bloody bitch of a snake, and Voldemort himself," Ron listed them off. It had become a kind of mantra to them. They were the horcruxes they knew, and even after four months of searching, they had not made any headway on identifying the seventh and final horcrux.

Their early success, on the first day of their quest, in finding Helga Hufflepuff's golden cup under the floorboards in the old orphanage building had given them encouragement too early. Now, early December and in Albania, they were beginning to feel dejected. Hermione kept reading over their notes and mumbling to herself, and Ginny watched Harry with sad eyes.

"The last bit... it must have been made when they were here..."

"No," Harry said. "It was Nagini. She was made here... Bertha Jorkins died here..."

"Then what are we doing here if we know who died and what was made at this site?" Ron stopped dead. "Why aren't we looking for where he was before this?"

"We have no way to tell, Ron," Harry grunted as he climbed over a fallen log, looking back at Ron. "I don't know where he was before... and I'm not even sure of where he was after... but either way, I have a feeling there will be a clue here to point us in the right direction."

"Get moving, Ron!" Hermione said from behind. "The slower you move, the faster we freeze!"

Harry turned, to lead on, and stopped dead.

"Harry?" Ginny sensed the change immediately, and pushed past Ron and jumped over the log to come to a standstill at Harry's side. "Oh..."

"He was here," Harry said quietly.

"What is it?"

"Looks like the skeleton of a horse... a small horse..." Ron said. Harry walked forward, Ginny close at his side.

"Not a horse," Harry squatted lifting the long pointed horn. "Not a horse."

"Oh, no," Hermione gasped. "He didn't?"

"He did in the Forbidden Forest," Harry said. "Why not here?"

"Because... because..." Hermione sobbed. Ron's arm came around her and she turned into his chest. "Oh, how could he? There are so few of them left!"

Harry stood and looked at Ginny. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and Harry swallowed. Helplessly, he reached out and pulled her to him.

They didn't often touch beyond holding hands. Harry avoided it when he could. Touching her had far too strong an effect on him. But now, here, at the site of such a sacriledge, he needed to hold her. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and took a deep breath. He'd learned over the past four months that the flowery scent he associated with her came from her shampoo, but the smell was still purely Ginny. He breathed deeply again.

"Let's get out of here," Ron said quietly.

"We need to have a look around," Harry said. "If... this... is here, then it's probably where he stayed..."

They spent a long time searching the area, and only moved away when they heard voices in the distance. Early morning hikers walking through the forest between the two towns it divided. Finally admitting defeat, they headed back to the town where they were staying, and to the small inn they had rented rooms in. Mr and Mrs James Prewitt and Mr and Mrs Arthur Evans had been staying in various inns and hotels throughout the area for the past month. Two honeymooning couples, according to their papers, Mr Prewitt and his pretty red-headed wife were said to be friends of several high-ranking British officials, and Mrs Prewitt's brother and his new wife were indulging in a long-planned visit to the area where Mrs Evans had had a penpal in years past, accounting for her ability, albeit limited, with the language.

But as nice as the young couples seemed, it didn't mean anyone should talk to them. As a matter of fact, Harry and the others were finding the locals particularly closed-mouthed about other foreign visitors. Remarkably closed-mouthed.

This had been Harry's last idea. At this point, he wasn't sure where to turn. All he did know was that Voldemort had been here, but whether or not the locals had known he was there, well, that they couldn't find out without asking outright, and he certainly didn't want to bring that kind of attention to them.

And this was their last night here. He'd agreed to move on in the morning if they found nothing at the site, and nothing was what they'd found, except the remains of the long-dead unicorn. Harry felt like crying, but he was too tired.

Entering the inn, Harry automatically took Ginny's hand. Given the fact that they had been passing themselves off as two married couples, they had begun to show little signs of affection in public. Hermione had blushingly pointed out that, if they really were recently married, they would hardly walk around without showing any affection, and that they had to play their roles. Harry had silently given in. Touching Ginny wouldn't be difficult. The difficulty would be in stopping the behavior when it was no longer required.

Which was one more reason why he didn't much want to leave the area.

He sighed as they climbed the stairs to the doors to their rooms. The rooms were across from each other, which was a difficulty in itself. In most towns, there were reasonably modern hotels, and they were normally able to get a room with an interconnecting door. The two couples entered, and simply rearranged themselves from inside, out of range of the curious eyes of the locals.

In this hotel, Ginny crossing to stay with Hermione and Ron coming back would certainly have raised some eyebrows, and they didn't want to risk doing magic unless they had to. They had been forced to make do. Ron was sporting a crick in his neck from sleeping in the armchair in the room he and Hermione were sharing, and Harry had become intimately acquainted with the floorboards of the room he and Ginny had.

And this morning he'd spent ten minutes standing in the shower sniffing her shampoo bottle.

"Let's try to get a couple hours sleep," Harry said in a low voice when they reached the opposite doorways. "Have a nap, meet for dinner later, and then get a good nights sleep, we need to be away early in the morning."

"Where...?" Ron began, but Hermione kicked him lightly in the shin and he remembered himself. They never talked about where they were going until they were on their way. Harry insisted that it was safer, and it would be impossible for anyone to overhear their plans that way.

"Mione, have you got any of those dried sausages...?" They heard Ron asking as they separated.

Ginny giggled, "He's never not hungry, is he?"

"Not for as long as I've known him."

"It seems strange..."

"I know," Harry glanced around, opened the door of their room, and entered closely behind her. "Not out here."

"Sorry," Ginny looked instantly contrite. Hermione had started answering to "Mione", despite her dislike of the name that Ron had taken to calling her, in order to not draw attention with her unique name. Ginny had suggested that she, herself, should take her mother's name, but Harry had steadfastly refused, and simply started calling her "Smidge", Bill's pet name for her. Ron and Hermione had followed suit.

Closing the door behind them, Harry watched her for a moment. "You should get a bit of sleep if you can."

"So should you," she folded a pair of jeans that had been laid across the bottom of the bed. Harry's. Lightly, she placed them on the armchair. She tried to avoid touching Harry's things. It made her feel strange.

"We both should," He said, eyeing the bed. It was a double, exactly like the one in Ron and Hermione's room, the two best rooms the tiny inn had to offer.

"I'll... read. You rest."

"You've been up all night, just like me," Harry said, thinking with a sinking heart of the hard floor he'd slept on the night before and the three nights previous to that.

"Harry?"

He looked up at her.

"It's a double. We could both get some rest."

Harry swallowed. To sleep next to her...?

"Are you... sure?"

"It's not like you're going to jump me or anything..." she flushed.

Don't be too bloody sure... Harry immediately silenced the taunting voice in his head.

"If you're sure...?" he glanced at the armchair. He'd tried it the first night, but couldn't stretch out, and had finally thrown the cushion on the floor and slept there. The bed looked much more comfortable.

"I'm sure. Come on..." Ginny smiled, then turned down the bed, stripped to her underwear and climbed in.

After a while of living together in the relatively small area of the tent, they'd all left modesty behind. Harry had seen Ginny, and Hermione for that matter, in nothing but their knickers. It had just ceased to matter once they'd been together, sharing what was, in effect, a tiny home, for months. He thought nothing of Ginny changing in front of him, nor of his changing in front of her, or Hermione for that matter.

Harry, clearly looking forward to a decent sleep on a mattress, stripped and crawled in beside her. The warmth under the covers seeped into him, and he sighed. Ginny giggled, and he felt a soft touch on his face. His hand, instinctively, flew up and caught hers as it hovered there.

"Your glasses, Harry... you need to take them off," her voice was soft, faint. He'd startled her.

"Thanks," he removed them and placed them on the bedside table, settling down into the pillow facing her, his eyes were closed in seconds, his breathing regulated in minutes, and Ginny laid there, watching him sleep.