Chapter Two

If there was one thing Ron was grateful for the morning after Harry's birthday, it was that they had patrol and not an actual training session with Mackenzie. He had gone with Harry to the pub to meet up with Neville, Seamus, and some other people from school – much to the dismay of his mother. She didn't think it was a very good idea for the boys to be out so late. Ron had to refrain from telling her that he went out all the time and Remus never seemed to mind as long as he knew where he and Harry would be. Really, what was the point of being an Auror in training if you had to stay locked in a house all the time? Now, he kind of wished he had, since it was nearly three when he had finally crawled into bed, meaning he only had the chance to catch a few hours of sleep before he had to get up again. He and Harry had both skipped their morning run to get in some extra sleep. It was only the third time they had done that since starting training. If Mackenzie had seen them walk in the way they were, she probably would have had them pulling double shifts for the week.

As it was, the Auror numbers had been slim to begin with, and after Moody had fired the lot involved in letting Harry be kidnapped because they were trying to bait the Dark Lord, their numbers were all but diminished. As per Moody's order, the trainees were split into pairs and designated a set of areas to patrol three days a week, while the other two were still spent in training. Ron knew his dad wasn't fond of the idea of sending out people who had only three months of training, but in times of war Moody had the final say over the Aurors. In just three more months, they would be done the training program and would have full Auror status anyways.

His mum had had a fit over him and Harry being out alone, looking for Death Eaters. She had yelled at Moody for an hour straight, telling him he couldn't do that. Moody had simply responded in a dead calm voice that this was war and this was what he and Harry had signed up for, so she better get used to it. That was almost a month ago and his mum was still fuming from the conversation.

He, Harry, and every other trainee had been given the graveyard shift to start. It was a sort of test Moody was putting them through. If they could alter their sleeping patterns with only a day's notice and make it through two weeks of it, they would be ready to patrol on their own during the day. Those two weeks had been murder for Ron. He couldn't keep track of the time or day, only knowing when he had to go to work. When the two weeks were up, he only had a weekend to get himself back to his old routine before heading back out on patrol on Monday morning.

In their six weeks doing this, they had done little more than confiscate presumed dark objects and then hand them over to the Department of Mysteries to be examined. There was the occasional report of a Death Eater sighting while they were on duty, but they never turned out to be true. Death Eater activity always seemed to happen on someone else's watch. Ron wasn't looking for a full-scale attack, but he needed to do something. He was crawling out of his skin with all the walking around, doing nothing.

"You need to stop doing that," said Harry from beside him.

"What?"

"That look on your face, like any one around you could be a Death Eater," Harry clarified for him. "It's scaring people off."

"Good," said Ron with a note of satisfaction. "That means fewer people for us to search through."

"Ron, not every person is a Death Eater."

Ron turned sharply to Harry. "Do we have to do this again? I might as well be out here with Hermione the way you keep nagging me."

Harry turned away with a scowl, but kept his mouth shut. He was not about to start a fight with Ron when he would have to spend the next eight hours with no one else for company.

Ron frowned in response, while he quickly scanned the area in front of him. Harry had really been getting on his case lately, and he wasn't sure how much more of it he could take before his fist ended up in his friend's jaw.

At first, it had been great when Moody had assigned him and Harry as partners. There was no one else he would trust with his life more than Harry. But Harry didn't seem to like how he would treat everyone as a suspect, even when Ron knew that was exactly how Moody acted and that was probably what had kept him alive to this day. Ron had finally found something he was really good at. Maybe Harry's problem was he didn't enjoy what they were doing enough. To him it was just a job and that was all.

He felt Harry lay a hand on his arm, and instead of being startled like he should have, immediately reached for the wand on his belt. He knew Harry would only do that if there was trouble.

He followed Harry's line of sight, and spoke in a hushed tone. "The girl?"

Harry nodded.

"How many?"

"There's only two of them, I think," he said, briefly closing his eyes. Since Moody and Lupin had agreed the ability to use his mind powers could very well save his life, they wanted Snape to teach him not only to control it but to use it as well. They had been worried in the beginning, opening his mind like that would leave him vulnerable to Volemort, but with the potential peril he faced almost every day they decided it was worth the risk. It was still exhausting if he used his powers for too long, but his abilities were likely the most valuable asset he and Ron had. He forced himself to use them now and then as a safety measure. He had a feeling that was why he had been partnered with Ron in the first place, because Moody didn't want anyone else learning of his abilities.

"Have they spotted us yet?" Ron asked as they quickened their pace. Their wands were still concealed to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

Harry nodded. "They know we're following." He reached out with his mind again. "They're taking her down the next street on their left," he said, rubbing his forehead wearily.

There wasn't time for Ron to ask if he was all right. They had to move quickly. "I'm going to go cut them off at the other end."

He took off without waiting for Harry to acknowledge him. He stealthily weaved his way through the people on the streets, only breaking into a dead run when he was down the alley next to the one Harry said they had been heading for. He had his wand out now, and his breathing was surprisingly calm considering the pace he had just run at and that he was about to have his first Death Eater confrontation since joining the Auror program. He counted off a few extra seconds in his head, wanting to give Harry time to get to the other end. Then he flung himself around the corner, his wand aimed and a spell he was going to throw already in mind. He saw Harry easily, standing midway into the alley, but there was only a handful of wizards walking through the street. They took in the sight of the drawn wands and Auror robes and scrambled out of the alley.

Ron met up with Harry halfway through the street, in front of a teahouse shop. His friend was running a furious hand through his hair.

"Damn it," Harry swore.

"Look, maybe you read them wrong," Ron said to him. "Or they knew they were being followed and changed their plans at the last second."

"No, I didn't get it wrong," Harry insisted. "They have to be here."

Ron blew out a frustrated breath. They had just had their first encounter with a Death Eater and they had let them get away. As horrible as he was feeling, he was sure it was nothing compared to what Harry felt. "We could search through every shop here – "

The glass windows in the teahouse blew out and the shards flew at Ron and Harry. The force of the explosion sent them sprawling to the pavement, while the shards of glass showered down around them. Fortunately, their dragon hide robes protected them for the most part. Ron craned his neck to see the teahouse engulfed in flames. He felt something wet dripping down the side of his head and face and then nothing…

Remus Lupin paced anxiously around the kitchen of his house. It wasn't helping to ease his nerves at all, but sitting down was not an option. Since he had heard on the wireless about the explosion in Diagon Alley, he had been in touch with every Order member he could get a hold of, trying to find some news about Ron and Harry. Molly was a mess. She had been torn between coming there and staying at Grimmauld Place in case Arthur tried to get a hold of her. In the end, she had decided to stay there. It was eight o'clock now – six hours after the attack, and all he had managed to get out of it from Arthur's brief appearances in his fireplace was that Harry and Ron were not dead. It wasn't as comforting a thought as it should have been because of the seriousness of the casualties being reported.

When he heard the screen door swing open, he moved faster than he could have done even in werewolf form. Harry and Ron were standing there – and he used the word 'standing' loosely. They looked haggard and their robes were torn and covered in scorch marks. Harry's face was covered in tiny cuts and a bruise was forming above his right cheekbone. Ron looked much the same way except with a large gash above his right eyebrow.

"Hey, Remus," Harry said with a shaky smile.

"Are you two all right?" Even as he asked it, he knew they weren't. "What the hell happened out there?"

"Death Eaters grabbed this girl in Diagon Alley," Ron explained, sinking wearily into a kitchen chair.

"We thought we had them ambushed, but they ran into the teahouse shop and blew the place up," Harry took over for Ron.

"Bastards," Ron muttered under his breath.

"It was a mess, Remus," Harry said, leaning against the doorframe for support. "Magical Law Enforcement Squad came to put out the flames and collect the bodies. No one inside survived. They took the injured who were in the adjoining shops to St. Mungo's."

"I need to tell Molly you're safe in case she doesn't already know. And you better go see Hermione, she's been worried sick. She's in the study."

Lupin left to use the floo system, while the boys trudged down the hall, all the while with Ron trying to flatten his hair over the eye with the cut, but was met with little success.

They stumbled upon a rather unusual sight in the den. Hermione was sitting there, an open book in her lap, one hand on the page, while she stared off as if in some kind of a trance. Somehow, she seemed to know they were standing there and stopped what she was doing. She flew off the couch and flung herself into Ron's arms.

"I was so worried," she cried. "No one would tell me anything at the Ministry. I couldn't even get down to the Auror department because it was closed off." She let go of Ron and gripped Harry's hand tightly. She looked back at Ron, the relief vanishing from her face when she saw the nasty gash above his eye. "Ron, your eye. What happened? You should get that looked at."

He gently swatted her hand away. "Hermione it's fine. The Healer at the scene checked us both out. She said we're lucky to be alive but fine."

"But why didn't she heal it?"

"Because there were other people there that needed her help a lot more than Harry and me."

She let the matter drop, knowing it was enough that he and Harry were alive. "What was it this time?" When Ron and Harry just sort of glanced at each other, she said quietly, "another muggleborn?"

"That's what they think, but Moody's keeping the identity of the girl a secret until they know more," Harry said quickly.

"But it's also just as likely it was another one of those suicide attacks, where they were trying to take out as many people as possible," Ron added.

"What were you doing when we walked in?" Harry asked her, trying to get off the topic of the attack.

"Oh, that," she said, suddenly a lot less talkative. "Just a bit of reading."

"Don't you usually have to be looking at the pages for that to work?" Ron said.

"Well, yes," she said slowly. "I was trying out a charm altered to the point where it allows the individual to absorb what's on the pages without actually having to read them." She looked expectantly from Ron to Harry, already imaging their reproach. They didn't disappoint.

"You're trying out experimental spells on yourself again?" Ron said in a heated voice. "Don't you remember what happened last time?"

"It's different now," she protested. The first time she had tried something outside of work, it had knocked out the power in the house and the floo system. "In a controlled environment – "

"This is not a controlled environment," Ron cut her off. "This isn't some goddamn lab at work either. You shouldn't even be practicing this stuff without someone around to monitor you. I have a right mind to go down to your department and scare the shit out of that boss of yours."

"I know what I'm doing, Ron," she said defiantly. "I'm careful."

"It's not that we don't think your careful," Harry stepped in, his voice much calmer than Ron's. "It's just that a lot of these spells and charms are pretty intense from what you've told us. There's a reason why they get tested out in a secure setting before they're available for every day use."

Ron was glad at least one of them was calm enough to make the point he had been trying to get across all along. The things Hermione was trying were unstable and all it would take was one little mistake and they would have disastrous results on their hands. Of course, she didn't see it that way at all.

"I need to talk to Lupin about something," Harry said to them. "I'll see you two later."

When Harry had left, she said to Ron, "I don't want to fight about this."

"We don't have to," he said, his voice finally betraying the exhaustion he was feeling. "I'm going to shower." Without another word to her, he turned and walked out of the room.

"I thought you would have gone home by now," said Lupin, when Harry joined him in the kitchen where he was making tea.

"Ron and I were talking with Hermione. Did you know she's trying out experimental charms outside of work again?"

"I should have figured that was what all the yelling was about," he answered. "She's a very determined young woman, Harry," he added, seeing the frown on his face. "I have to believe she would never intentionally put herself or the occupants of this house in danger. You and Ron are out there every day, putting your lives at risk. She needs to feel she's contributing."

Harry rubbed a weary hand over his forehead. He believed as Lupin did where Hermione was concerned, and he also understood her need to feel like she was contributing, but he wished she would go about it in other ways.

"Is that what you want to talk about – your concern for Hermione's well-being?" Lupin asked.

"Er, no, not really," he answered, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "I wanted to ask if you know of any books on telepathy or other mind powers."

Lupin looked genuinely surprised by his question. "Knowledge of those subjects are pretty rare, as there have only been two full-fledged telepaths since the late eighteen hundreds, and only a few others with much more limited abilities in the last century. Anything on empaths is just as rare. I do have some contacts I can look up. I'll see what I can find out for you."

Harry nodded his appreciation. Any information Lupin could provide him with would be better then what he knew right now, which was next to nothing. The next time he talked to Hermione he would ask her as well. There was no telling what she might be able to get her hands on at the Ministry library.

"Do you mind my asking why the sudden interest in your powers?"

"Maybe it might help me to understand them better," he said with a shrug.

"Do you want to tell me what you're looking for in particular?" Lupin said. "It might help me in finding what you need."

He was hoping to avoid telling Lupin the real reason, but it didn't look like he was going to be able to do that. "I think I might be having problems controlling my abilities."

Lupin's brow creased with concern. "How do you mean? I thought the lessons with Severus were going better now."

"They are, and it's not about control in general. I'm talking about when I'm around one particular person."

"Harry, you're going to have to tell me more than that if you want me to help." It looked like the young man had already said more than he wanted to, so he gently pushed him by saying, "you'll probably feel more comfortable telling me than Severus. I guarantee he'll ask the same questions."

Harry sighed, resigned. "When I'm with this certain person I feel like I lose all ability to think and reason, but that's only part of the problem. I think maybe by accident I might be projecting my own thoughts and feelings to this person subconsciously. At the same time I can feel exactly what she's feeling and it just makes everything worse."

"How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know, a few months maybe?"

Lupin frowned. "You should have said something before now, Harry."

"I thought I had it under control, but its getting worse whenever I'm around her." He felt his cheeks flush at the thought of what Ginny did to him.

"Who is this person?"

"Does it really matter, Remus?"

"As a matter of fact, yes it does. If you have some sort of attachment to this individual it might explain a lot. There have been some accounts of wizards with your abilities, experiencing feelings and emotions to the extreme with someone they have a connection to."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" He demanded.

"I didn't know you were involved with anyone. Even if I had known I probably wouldn't have said anything because I didn't want you to think you couldn't have a normal relationship. Now that I do know your experiencing this level of intensity, we need to look into it. Not only for your safety, but for the other person as well."

Harry looked panicked. "Is she in danger?"

"Probably not, but the mind is a very complicated and intricate thing. We need to be sure it won't have lasting effects. If it were anything else, I'd respect your privacy, Harry, but I'm afraid I have to know. It will stay between us but you need to tell me who it is."

"It's Ginny," he admitted after a while, as he averted Lupin's gaze. He didn't want to see the disappointment surely to be present in his eyes. The Weasley's were the closest thing he had to a real family, and he was throwing all that away for a couple of intense snog sessions with Ginny. He had no right to even be thinking the things he did about her. "It's not what you're thinking. We're not involved," he went on, feeling the need to explain himself. "We're – it's just complicated."

Lupin regarded him carefully. "I'm not judging you, Harry, but I think it's best to proceed with prudence in this matter. Until we figure out exactly what's going on, you should probably limit your direct contact with Ginny."

He gave a meek nod. It wouldn't be that hard to comply with Lupin's request, as he had planned on doing the same thing himself. He would just have to be extra cautious about coming around the house when she was home.

"I meant what I said Harry," Lupin's voice drew him from his reverie. "This will stay between us."

That did little to make Harry feel better about the situation he had gotten himself into. All he had to do was leave Ginny alone and none of this would have happened. But no, he had to drag her into his fucked up life, when she already had a perfectly stable relationship with Dean – something she deserved and he would never be able to give her. Things would probably go a lot better for him if he just stayed away from the opposite sex entirely.

Ron turned on the taps and hot water began spraying out of the showerhead. He was in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head, when a knock sounded at the door. He swore under his breath. Of course his sister would wait until he was just about to jump in the shower to decide she needed to use the loo.

"Go away, Ginny. You can wait ten minutes," he shouted through the door, tossing his shirt onto his Auror robes that were lying in a heap on the floor.

"Ron, it's Hermione."

He pulled the door open, wondering what was so important she couldn't wait until he was out of the shower. "Look, Hermione I'm tired and sweaty and I don't want to fight, so can't this wait until later?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay after what happened today," she said earnestly.

"I told you, it's just a scratch – "

"No, not about that," she interrupted gently. "I wanted to see if you wanted to talk about what happened."

That threw him. He had misjudged her intentions completely. He thought she had come up looking to continue what they had started in the study, but what she really wanted was to see for herself that he was all right.

"I thought maybe you didn't want to say anything in front of Harry," she went on. "I know you probably feel like you have to keep this stuff hidden from me, but you don't. You can talk to me about anything, you know that, right?"

He pulled her into the bathroom with him and closed the door so they could have some privacy. "It's not that I don't want to, so don't take this the wrong way, but I can't. It's my job, Hermione. You shouldn't have to deal with this too."

"Ron, I deal with this every day – whether I'm here or at work. Don't worry about me, I can handle it. Being in a relationship means you never have to go through anything alone."

"We'll talk later, okay?" he said to her, and she gave a faint nod in return. He didn't want to tell her any of it, but he also knew it would be next to impossible to keep from her everything he had seen since joining the Auror program. He just needed to wait until he wasn't feeling so drained, otherwise he might end up telling her everything.

"You are being careful, aren't you?" He asked, his tone much more serious now.

She actually had the nerve to roll her eyes at him. "Ron, of course I'm careful."

"Careful like Harry and I are careful, or careful like how you used to be?"

She narrowed her brown eyes at him. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

She was tapping her foot impatiently, waiting for his answer and he knew there was no way out of this without making her angry. "All I'm saying is that with everything that's going on you shouldn't be taking unnecessary risks."

"You are unbelievable, you know that?" She jabbed an angry finger at his chest. "You and Harry are the ones out until all hours of the morning, drinking and doing Merlin knows what else, and you still have the nerve to stand here and lecture me about being careful!"

"I'm sorry," he said, wringing his hands through his hair. "It's just been a really long day, and I didn't mean for that to come out sounding the way it did."

"I should go," she said, ignoring his apology.

She turned the handle, but Ron placed his hand on the door to keep it from opening. He had this little routine of theirs memorized. They would fight, then one of them would attempt to apologize, then fight some more before finally making up.

"You can't keep me in here," she said, her tone incensed.

"Oh, yes I can. That is until you say you're not mad at me anymore."

"You're insufferable!"

"It's what you love about me," he said seconds before leaning down and capturing her lips in a passionate kiss.

She tried to resist him at first, but her attempts were futile. When she realized where he was going with this she pushed him away.

"You're mad. Remus and Harry are right downstairs."

"That never seemed to bother you before," he said with a smug grin.

She opened her mouth in indignation, then shut it, blushing furiously.

"But you're right," he continued. "Especially if you're still mad at me we probably shouldn't do this. You can leave," he said gesturing towards the door. He was giving her a way out, but he also knew she would never take it and that's why he was giving her that infamous lopsided grin of his.

She kissed him hard on the mouth, pulling back a second later to say, "I'm not mad anymore."

"I already knew that," he said kissing her in return. A split second later a new idea formed in his head. He pulled her under the showerhead with him, never breaking contact with her. While she grazed her fingernails over his chest, he reached in front to undo the buttons on her blouse. It obviously wasn't fast enough because she pushed his hands away to do it herself, breaking the kiss long enough to toss it on the floor with his other clothes. That only served to turn him on further. He pushed her back against the slick tiles. He removed his lips from hers, so they could both have a second to catch their breath. She reached up to push the wet bangs out of his eyes, and he caught her hand in his own as she let it drop back down.

"I love you, you know that don't you?" He said, staring into her brown eyes. "I know we fight a lot, but I don't mean any of it," he said, running his thumb over the back over hand.

"I already knew that," she said smiling up at him, before lacing her fingers around the back of his neck and pulling him down for a deep kiss.