Chapter 10
Christine washed her face quickly trying to reduce some of the redness her crying had left. As her dormitory door creaked open she felt her stomach drop. Slowly, she walked down the winding staircase to find Harry moodily staring into the fire. Christine swallowed nervously as she picked her way across the room to sit next to him.
"Hi Harry," she choked out trying to keep herself from breaking down into sobs again. He remained silent and his gaze remained transfixed on the waving flames. "Harry, I really need to explain what happened earlier. It's important," she explained.
Harry looked into her eyes and saw the urgency flicker behind them. He sighed loudly and nodded his head for her to continue. Christine looked around for a place where they could have a little privacy. Her eyes fell on a corner of the common room, that was partially hidden behind curtains and tables. She reached over, took his hand and guided him to the hidden corner.
"Um, Harry, that letter I got today had some really bad news in it," Christine started. She looked down at her hands and picked at her nails for a moment. She took a calming breath and spoke again.
"Harry my dad's been transferred to Australia," she sputtered. She could feel the tears begin to roll softly down her cheeks. She didn't dare look into the eyes that were wide with shock.
"Are you sure? I mean is there anyway that it's a mistake?" he asked quietly. Christine could sense the despair in his voice and it only made the tears in her eyes fall faster. "Is there anyway that you could stay?"
"It's not very likely. My parents made it very clear that I have to stay with the family until I'm old enough to be on my own."
"I can't believe this. How much time do we have?" he inquired again, somberly. Christine was afraid to tell him the news. She wiped the newest water droplets from her eyes before answering.
"'Til the end of the week."
"What!" he shouted at the top of his voice. Their house mates turned to look at the direction of the shadowed corner. Harry led Christine out of the common room and into the corridor where they would be alone.
"You can't leave that soon," Harry reasoned, "Dumbledore will have had to make the arrangements for you to transfer to the Australian school."
"That must be taken care of because my parents are coming to get me from Hogsmeade on Friday."
Harry began to pace back and forth in front of the Fat Lady as he searched for a way to keep Christine with him through the end of the year.
"Ah!" he screamed as he slammed his fists against the walls over and over again. It took all of Christine's strength to keep him from hurting himself as he took out his rage on the stone. She embraced him in a tight hug, and his emotion seemed to vanish as her arms held him.
"What am I going to do with out you? Everything I've ever loved or wanted has been taken from me," Harry began. There was a moment of silence in which Christine only cried harder into Harry's chest.
"But then, maybe it's for the best."
"What?" Christine asked in disbelief as she moved away to look him in the face. "How can this possibly be for the best? Harry, I'm leaving on Friday. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to come back to England. How can you say something like that?"
"Easily. If I have no one to love, Voldemort can't use them to get to me," he replied; his voice was completely empty of emotion. Christine pulled even further away from him, and just stared. She became angry and hurt as the words he had just spoken kept replaying in her head.
"Harry, that is the most pig headed thing I've ever heard you say. How can you turn your back on love when it's been your protector all your life? Love is what kept you alive when Voldemort murdered your parents, love is what kept you alive in the Department of Mysteries, and love is what you need to destroy that evil man. Now you dare to lose faith in it? That's like deserting your parents, Sirius," she paused as if this next statement was going to kill her, "even deserting me. How could you?" Christine cried.
She ran past him and back through the portrait hole where the stares of her house mates again followed her up to the dormitories. She ran into the room to see Parvati, Lavender and Hermione talking. When they saw the tears pouring out of her eyes, immediately they began to bombard her with questions.
"I need to clear my head," was the only response she would give the girls. She whipped her cloak out of her trunk and ran back out of the tower. She ignored Harry as she passed him near the portrait hole.
The air was crisp, cool and swept through Christine's body as she walked through the courtyards of her school. Her face was frozen not only from the wind, but from the trickling streams of tears that left cold, shining paths of water on her face as she cried. She went out to the lake side and sat down on the iced over rock that she and Harry had talked on so long ago. The trees rustled in the wind, and she could hear the same wind whistling over the soft wakes it created on the icy water. The sunset painted the sky a reddish orange color and for the first time that day Christine caught herself smiling a little.
Snow crunched underneath her shoes as she began the trek back to the tower. Her breath froze the moment it escaped her lips and fragile flakes of snow began to fall from the sky. Her hair bounced over her shoulders with every stride she took. She reached her dormitory to find the same three girls sitting on their beds talking, only this time she knew what the topic was.
"Well, this certainly has been an exciting afternoon," Christine said sarcastically with a sniffle as she tried to lighten the mood a little. The other girls remained silent, not wanting to upset her. Christine busied herself with getting ready for bed as dinner ended an hour ago; not that she minded, her appetite was nonexistent.
"I guess you've all heard that I'm leaving Friday?" Christine guessed as she made herself comfortable on her bed.
"So soon?" Hermione asked. "Oh Merlin, I didn't think you'd be leaving that quickly. That means my plan isn't going to work," she explained more to Parvati and Lavender than to Christine.
"What plan?" The girls exchanged looks with each other before Parvati spoke up.
"Ok don't get mad, but we thought that if we wrote to our families and asked if you could stay with us through the summer, you might be able to stay." Christine's eyes began to water again.
"Thank, that's really sweet of you, but it's an inconvenience for your families. I wouldn't want to impose and my parents probably wouldn't let that happen." It was silent again for a minute until Christine thought out loud.
"Has anyone seen Harry since I left earlier?"
"No, Seamus said he didn't want to talk to anyone," Hermione hesitated a second before she continued. "He also said that you two had some sort of a row or something. Is that true?"
Christine nodded her head and told her friends the events of the afternoon. Before she could remember feeling drowsy, she and the other girls were fast asleep in their warm beds. She woke herself up in the middle of the night as the argument of the afternoon haunted her like a bad dream. As she glanced over the grounds underneath the dormitory window, a soft tapping noise came from the door. She grabbed her cloak that was strewn across her bed and silently crept over to the door and cracked it open.
"Harry, how did you get up here?" she asked as the surprise of his presence washed over her like a bucket of ice water.
"Can I talk to you?"
"What? Now?" Christine looked totally bewildered.
"Yeah, now. The common room is empty." He gently took her hand in his and began to draw Christine out of the room and down the stairs. They sat in front of the fire on the comfortable couches and settled themselves.
"I've been thinking about what you said earlier and you're right. I just... It's so frustrating you know. Since I was a baby everyone who's ever loved me has been taken away from me. My parents, Sirius and now you. Well, I don't know if you love me, but I guess that you at least like me," Harry chortled softly. Christine smiled softly and sat and listened to the wind outside the castle walls for a minute before she spoke up.
"I've never been in love Harry, I don't even know if I'm old enough to know what it is. But I know that if it's what I think it is, I think I fell a long time ago," she told him sweetly. He smiled back at her.
"I thought about what we're going to do about you leaving. I know I can't stop it, but I thought that we could make the best of it. You know, just be together until you leave." He looked to her for approval.
"The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was what you told me this afternoon," he continued.
"Harry, about that, you didn't deserve to be treated like that. I let my temper get the better of me. I knew you were upset about me leaving and that you were just venting. I hope that's not how you really feel anyway," she said with a questioning glance.
"Christine I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out so brutally. I only meant that when I have to fight Voldemort if I love no one, then he won't be able to use them as a hostage."
"Harry is living with no happiness worth it? I don't think you could live like that. Always distancing yourself from everyone around you and never giving yourself a chance to be happy. Who knows when you're going to fight Voldemort? That's one of many things you can't predict. You may not fight him for years to come and you're willing to live a life of solitude based on the unpredictable," Christine professed.
"But that's one thing I can predict," Harry stressed as he got up. "I can predict that if I keep myself from loving you Voldemort won't be able to take you away from me."
"If you keep yourself from loving me, you're denying love itself."
"Don't you see? This is the only way I know that I can keep you safe. I have no other choices!" he screamed.
"Keep telling yourself that Harry. Maybe then you'll believe it," she answered back.
"What are you talking about? I do believe it that's why I said it."
"Yes you said it, but your eyes deny it," she whispered. Christine, who had somehow managed to come within an inch of his face, turned on her heel and quietly slipped back into her dormitory.
Thursday came sooner than anyone expected. None of the sixth year Gryffindors were focused on their schoolwork as they knew what was coming the next day. After lessons, Christine found herself in her dormitory, packing her trunk. Her mind wandered over all the years she spent in Hogwarts. She remembered everything and yet, seemed to be forgetting everything.
Harry had been distanced from everyone all week. He kept to himself most of the time and never let himself get caught up in a conversation with any of his friends. His appearance looked sloppy now a days as he had taken to waking very early in the morning and would wait for Christine in the common room. But he never talked to her. He just watched from where he sat by the fire and wouldn't even look away when she caught him looking at her. Once or twice, she had seen him rub his eyes and massage his head before he knew she was there. On one morning, she had even thought she had seen tears glistening on his face in the firelight.
Her trunk packed and bed made, Christine sat silently on the window sill of the room. She wanted to memorize the scenery of the castle grounds and remember all the little details. As she watched everything go on below her, she noticed a figure strutting around the edge of the forbidden forest. It was odd to see as the figure looked too young to be a professor and too old to be a student. As her eyes traced the movements of the figure, it disappeared.
"What you looking at?" Lavender asked Christine as she entered the room and set down her things.
"Nothing," Christine lied, "Just trying to make a picture of the grounds before I have to leave."
"We're all going to miss you. I can't imagine coming to Hogwarts without you here. You were the one that first broke the ice between all of us remember? It was after our first week of lessons and we were still afraid to talk to each other," Lavender said.
"Yes I remember. We haven't had a song in a long time," Christine joked. "Do you remember the song I sang?"
"No, I just remember thinking 'What on earth is going on here? This girl is singing some song about meeting a wizard.' Then I found out that you were a muggle born and it explained everything," Lavender teased.
"Oh thanks very much. It's nice to know that you think I'm crazy because I sing songs from muggle musicals."
"Well actually at first I was jealous of you. You seemed to be great at everything and then you add this awesome singing voice on top of it, huh, I could've hit you." Lavender smiled before she began to leave. At the door she turned around and told Christine that Harry, Ron and Hermione were looking for her.
"Why didn't they come and get me themselves? Hermione can come up here," Christine thought to herself.
She shrugged and made her way downstairs. She found Harry sitting with Hermione and Ron whispering in front of the fire. It was like every other time something had happened and the friends stayed up late to figure out what it meant.
"What's going on?" Christine questioned the huddled group.
"Dumbledore wants to see us," Harry replied.
"What about?"
"We don't know, but Twopenny is waiting outside the portrait hole to take us to Dumbledore's office. Come on, we have to go."
Once inside Dumbledore's office, the friends found it empty. Their headmaster was nowhere in sight and for the first time there was an uneasy air about the room. The usual cheeriness and welcoming feelings Christine always felt in the office were gone. The pictures of the past headmasters and headmistresses were still. When Dumbledore finally did enter the office, his sparkling blue eyes were exhausted. He looked his age, old and fragile.
"Miss Davet, I am glad to inform you that you will not be leaving us tomorrow as planned."
"What? You mean I get to stay?" Christine echoed happily.
"Yes, but for your protection," Christine settled back into her uncomfortable chair and the kids were silent again as Dumbledore continued to explain himself. "You see, we have discovered that Hogwarts and Hogsmeade have been surrounded by Death Eaters. That's why all the trips to Hogsmeade this term have been cancelled. Harry, do you still have that wonderful map of yours?" Harry nodded his head. "Good. We have told all the heads of houses that students are to remain in their houses and that once everyone is inside we will be placing strong security measures on all the entrances. Harry, if I could borrow that map, it would be much appreciated."
"Sir, would our hiding place be of any use?" Harry questioned.
"Possibly, where is your hiding place located?" Harry began to describe the hidden cove where he asked out Christine and as his description went on, Dumbledore's demeanor changed.
"Harry you cannot ever go to that place again!" Dumbledore demanded. "Promise me, you will not go there!" Harry nodded his head completely lost as to why Dumbledore would become angry with him for this.
"Professor, why is that a bad place for us to hide?" Ron inquired.
"It serves as the headquarters for the Death Eaters operations. Two of the Order's members discovered the hideout the week after Christmas, thanks to the information you shared with Professor Twopenny."
"How did that help them Professor?" Christine questioned.
"When you say the phrase, 'rivers curled and snow unwhirled' before you Apparate it will transfer you to the headquarters."
"But, I found that place on the Marauders' Map and I've never seen anyone walking around in that area," Harry insisted.
"They are under the influence of an Evanesco Potion," Dumbledore explained.
"An Evanesco Potion? I thought Evanesco was a charm that made objects disappear," Hermione asked in complete puzzlement.
"You are quite right Miss Granger. Evanesco is a charm that makes objects disappear. However, when Lord Voldemort was in power all those years ago, he created a potion that would hide his Death Eaters. He discovered that by taking two elements from the nature of the area, placing the charm on them and then liquefying the combination, he would be able to disguise his Death Eaters as part of the earth. That is why they do not show up on Harry's map, they have taken the potion and cannot be detected by any of these tracing spells."
"But then wouldn't we be able to see them walking on the map once they left that area?" Ron reasoned.
"Not if they Disapparated from the area," Hermione answered. Dumbledore nodded his head in agreement and silence fell again.
"Now, if the Death Eaters are able to storm the castle and the Order is unable to stop them, I want you to promise me that you four will keep everyone in your house. We have already informed the Prefects, Head Boy and Head Girl and they are going to do the same. The charms should be strong enough to keep all the houses safely hidden. Food and water will not be a problem as the house elves are hidden as well and will continue to take care of the houses. But I want you to promise me you will stay inside your house. You are not under any circumstances to leave Gryffindor Tower until a member from the Order comes to get you."
"How will we be sure that it's a member from the Order and not a disguised Death Eater?" Christine thought quickly.
"Only the members from the Order know where the houses are going to be hidden. They will be the only ones to know how to get into the houses," Dumbledore professed. "Promise me, that you won't leave the tower. Promise me."
The students nodded their heads in understanding, before Dumbledore instructed Twopenny, who was standing outside the door, to take them back to the common room.