Chapter 26
Harry
I flick my eyes up from the ink container in my hands as Ron pushes open the door to the study, bringing with him a tray of biscuits and a glass of milk.
"Mi sent you?" I ask as Ron kicks the wood shut with his foot before joining me at the desk.
Ron's cheeks turn a little pink before giving a small shrug.
"Your girl is right mad. She said I better go talk to you since spousal abuse is illegal in London."
I scoff at the redhead as he places his snack on the office table and drops into the chair across from me. He picks up a biscuit with chocolate chips and dunks it into his milk, his eyes flicking up to watch me.
I float the corked container of ink sitting on Sirius's desk, making it do pinwheels and flips in the air.
"I know," I say. "I can tell."
When Ron twerks one of his eyebrows up in question, I tap on my forehead with my finger.
"I can feel her," I tell him.
"That's so weird," he says, shaking his head.
I huff out a tight laugh.
"Yeah. You're telling me. I'm still getting used to it."
Ron nods, then shakes his head again. He's making me dizzy. The inkwell clatters back to the tabletop, and I quickly right it before it can burst and spill all over.
"Nah. It's not that," Ron says. "You've always had this weird brain melding thing. Remember in second year, when you kept bringing her flowers in the hospital wing? Then when you found that paper in her hand? You knew exactly what she was trying to say all from a page ripped out of a library book. It's freaky. I think what's weird is that it's not all that weird."
I couldn't agree with him more.
He shoves the cookie into his mouth, then pushes the plate towards the middle. I pick a biscuit off the ceramic but drop it back without taking a bite.
"'Mione reckons you need to stop biting everyone's head off," he says through the squished-up biscuit. My shoulders tense to fight. Ron cuts me off before I can respond.
"Before you bite my head off, I think she's right."
Fuck.
The tension slides right off my shoulders, landing somewhere roughly around my knees.
"Yeah, she usually is," I agree, leaning back in Sirius's office chair. I have another budding headache, and I dig my fingers into my eye sockets, willing the pain away.
"I forgot!" Ron says, before standing up and digging into his pocket. He tosses a small vial at me, and I catch it from the air. "'Mione says you're making her head hurt."
I hold the tiny pain potion between my forefinger and thumb, biting on my cheek to prevent the smile tugging at the corner of my lips. Without a word, I pop off the cork and swallow the abhorrent liquid in one gulp. Almost immediately the throbbing behind my eyes begins to ease.
I swear I hear the words Thank you whisper through my mind. Is it weird that I'm sorta coming to love that? We probably wouldn't have died last time, if we'd have been able to read each other's thoughts.
"So," Ron starts, and I can hear the hesitation in the way his voice squeaks and quakes. "You lost the plot a little bit back there."
I give him a dirty look.
"This is supposed to make me not yell at you?" I question him.
Ron raises both hands in front of him, in the universal sign for peace.
"Look. I'm not trying to pick a fight, okay. But Hermione is downright scary when she's angry, and once the shock wore off, she was so narked her hair was floating. You gotta stop going off half-cocked at people, Mate."
Not having a better comeback at my disposal, I give Ron the middle finger. He seems to take that as a good sign.
"Mum always used to say if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," he says with a shrug, and I scoff at the thought of Molly Weasley trying to keep her brood from insulting each other every few seconds.
"How did that work out for you guys?" I ask with a small smile.
"Not very well," he confirms with a grin, then eats another biscuit.
We sit in silence for a few moments, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
"I know I buggered it all to hell," I say, finally meeting Ron's eye. "I know I did. I'm sorry, okay? But I'm just so angry, all of the time. I just want to hit someone, until they feel as lousy as I do. The only thing I care about these days is keeping Hermione alive, and if I don't get my shite together, I'm going to be the one that gets her killed."
Even now, I can feel my impatience zipping along under the surface, just biding its time until something happens to set me off again and the rage finds an outlet for release.
"I seem to bounce between unimaginable terror and indescribable fury, and neither of those emotions are doing me any favours. The only time I don't want to hit something is when I'm with Hermione, and call it a hunch, but I don't think she'd tolerate being locked away for the rest of her life."
"Probably not," he frowns.
He takes another bite of his cookie, face closed and introspective. He leans back in his chair and crosses his legs at his ankles.
"Snape kills Dumbledore huh?"
I exhale a heavy breath and try to keep my voice even.
"Yeah. End of sixth year. Voldemort charged Draco Malfoy with doing it, but when he got his chance…" I close my eyes and bring up the memory of that night. Of the terror on Malfoy's face, and the way he lowered his wand. I hear the way Dumbledore begs Snape for mercy echo in my ears. "Draco couldn't bring himself to do it. Then Snape showed up and killed Dumbledore himself. They fled. A month later, the ministry fell, and me, you, and Mi were on the run."
Ron scratches at his cheek, his eyes flicking between me and the plate of biscuits.
"I don't want to make you mad, and please don't go off the handle again, but Dumbledore didn't seem all that peeved about it."
Unable to keep still with all the frustration coursing through me, I shove up from the chair, and start to pace the room. My wand is in my hand, though I don't remember pulling it. I flick the wood between my forefinger and thumb, and Ron cringes when it starts to snow.
I clear the spell with a wave of my hand and shove my wand back in its holster.
"I know," I growl, and dammit it just doesn't make sense! "He looked downright chuffed. Which is just daft. Why would Dumbledore be happy Snape kills him in the future? Dumbledore's death, well, it was the beginning of the end. Three months after that, the world was upside down and my face was plastered on wanted signs as Undesirable Number One."
Ron sits up straight again.
"What was I then? Undesirable number two?" he jokingly asks. He looks a little green around the gills.
"No," I tell him with a laugh. "You and your brothers put the ghoul in pyjamas and gave him boils, then your dad put it out that you had Spattergroit. No one knew you were with us. Hermione was on the list though. They knew she was with me when she didn't show up for school that year and failed to register as a muggle-born with the ministry."
"Register as a muggle-born?" Ron repeats with horror, lacing his voice.
"Yup," I confirm, hitting the end of the office and turning to pace the other way. "They made all muggle-borns register, then stripped them of their wands and accused them of stealing their magic from real witches and wizards."
"But Dumbledore had no way of knowing that the ministry would fall so soon after his death," Ron asserts, sitting on the edge of his seat.
I turn on my heel and scoff at him.
"You're saying that Dumbledore let Snape kill him. Right?"
Ron shrugs, then nods his head.
"Yeah. Yeah I am."
Which, I guess could make a fucked up sort of sense. But still...
"Dumbledore is the smartest wizard alive. Sure, he's just as fallible as the rest of us. He'd be the first to admit it. But you can't tell me he didn't know that he was the only thing standing between Voldemort and the rest of us." My voice rises as my temper flares. "Dumbledore was the only person Riddle ever feared. The arse may have been trying to kill me since I was a baby, but he certainly didn't fear me."
The thought is almost laughable. I run my fingers over my forehead.
"It was pure dumb luck I survived him as many times as I did. Dumbledore had to know. He had to," I insist. "Which means if he let Snape kill him, for whatever fucked up reason it was, he knew the world would go ass over pear without him. Everything that happened afterwards was all his fucking fault!"
Instead of agreeing with me, or fighting with me, Ron's eyes glaze over. He blinks in a distracted sort of way, and his head lists to the side of his neck. Whatever he's seeing, it's not in the room with us here.
"It's like in those stupid books 'Mione keeps making me read," he says distractedly.
My head jerks in amusement. It's barely been twenty-four hours and he's already complaining about the workload she's assigned him? I hate to break it to him, but it's only going to get worse from here. Wait until he sees her OWL study schedules. It's enough to make a grown man cry.
"She only bought you the books yesterday, Ron," I laugh.
Ron stares at me with a blank face.
"Are you kidding me? She brought me back a whole pile from the Hogwarts library the same day we all heard the prophecy, along with a note from McGonagall giving me permission to borrow them over the summer. I'm dreaming about strategy by this point."
Mi bringing a bewildered Ron a stack of books and informing his fifteen-year-old counterpart that he's now our head of tactics is such a her thing to do that it makes my heart feel twice as light.
"You should see the stack of books she gave me," I commiserate with him. "Not to mention the pile we brought home from the bookstore. You heard her in the kitchen this morning. She wants to write a paper on being Bonded Mates. She already has a list of experiments she wants to try."
I ignore the way my face heats thinking about the differences between my stacks of books and his.
I'm not ashamed to admit we put quite the dent in that bookstore's inventory.
Okay, well, I'd be ashamed to tell Ron.
But by the end there, I was kinda having fun. I have a feeling that this is one subject where Hermione's voracious appetite for knowledge is going to come in handy. I have zero issues feeding into her book habit if the end result is Mi on her knees in front of me with her hands tied behind her back.
"What kind of experiments?" Ron asks, learning forward with his eyebrows raised.
Just like that, I've gone from fury at Dumbledore to fantasizing about shagging my new wife. I shake my head to clear it of the randy thoughts and get my mind back on track.
"You don't want to know," I assure him, putting up a hand to forestall the questions still on his tongue. "Trust me."
He wrinkles his nose.
"Yeah, okay. Maybe you're right." He wipes his hands on his jeans, then pokes himself in the chest. "But I'm right about Dumbledore. It's like a giant game of chess!" Ron says, glancing around the room. He spies a sinister-looking chessboard on top of a cabinet in the corner and jumps from his chair. His motions are slow and careful as he carries the set over to the tabletop. I push all the items on Sirius's desk and the plate of biscuits to the side so Ron has space to deposit the board.
We each take a chair again, pulling them closer to the desk.
He picks up two of the white pieces.
"You're the white king," he says, jiggling the piece in his hand. "You're the most important position, but that also makes you the most vulnerable." He places the piece in the middle of the board, keeping his fingers gripped on its head. "You can move any direction, but you have to take baby steps, as all the other players always have you in their sights. The king should move as little as possible, directing his team from the safety of the back, and only expose himself for the final strike."
He puts the king down and moves the queen to his right hand.
"Dumbledore's the queen." The white queen looks like an angel, with a neck cuff like Queen Elizabeth the First. "He's the most powerful player on the board. He can jump around the boxes and make plans in the background, while keeping you safely ensconced in the castle. But sometimes in chess, sacrifices must be made." Ron places the queen in the middle of the board, then tips it over with his finger. "Any good player would be willing to surrender his queen, if it kept his king in play."
I pick up the black king, and stare into it's horrible face. The pieces are carved from marble, and the battle of good versus evil is detailed in the cherubic-like expressions on the white pawns, and the evil snake-like sneers on the black.
I place the black king in front of the white and knock it to join it's other flat on the board.
Disgust licks up my spine.
"Don't you get it Ron? Even one person sacrificed in the name of saving me is one person too many!"
Ron picks up the white knight, squeezing it in his fist.
"It's not about you, Harry."
His voice isn't harsh, but his words are clipped and short.
My eyes tighten in frustration. My cheeks puff out with air, before I let it go in a heavy exhale.
Ron runs his hand over his face and tries again.
"I stand by my assessment. You are the white king. But it's about more than protecting you until you're ready to fight him. It's about stopping You-Know-Who before he gains so many followers that he becomes unstoppable. It's going to take all of us to do that. Sacrifices will have to be made."
Ron moves the pieces around on the board, until it looks like we're in the middle of a game.
"I know it feels like everything is resting on your shoulders. I won't deny that after hearing that prophecy, a good portion of it is. But that's what the rest of the players on the board are for. To take out the opposing team so that only their king is left."
"So, you're saying I should worry about killing Voldemort, and say bugger to everything else?" I ask, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
Ron doesn't take the bait.
"I'm saying your goal is narrow and specific. To be the final king on the board. Keeping everyone else alive isn't your responsibility. We all have our parts to play, even Snape and Dumbledore. I hate the greasy git just as much as you do, but you've done what you can to warn of what's to come. The rest is out of your control."
I stare at the chess set, as Ron moves the pieces here and there.
"Wouldn't Hermione be the queen, if I'm the white king?" I ask.
"Hermione may be your queen," Ron replies, without a hint of laughter in his voice. "But she didn't start out that way. Hermione is a pawn." He picks up a white pawn, and pushes it across the board until it hits the other side. Like magic, it blossoms into a second queen, different and somehow more beautiful than the first. "A pawn that just got promoted."
I sometimes forget that Wizards chess has rules of its own.
"What position are you then?" I ask, feeling my shoulders relax for the first time in hours.
"I'm a knight, of course!" he says with a smirk.
I place my finger on the head of the black king, jostling it to and fro.
"And when we have the black king isolated and alone?"
Ron's grin is positively wicked. He flicks the black king out from under my finger, and it goes skidding across the board.
"We kill the bastard."
I'm in the middle of getting my ass kicked in an actual game of chess when the study door opens for a second time.
"Your lady wife says you're brooding," Sirius says as a way of introduction, pushing his way into the expansive space. Remus and a stranger in a leather jacket with a flannel tied around his hips follow him into the room.
"Wife?" the stranger asks with a curious smile. My face falls when I remember that I'm still not technically fifteen.
Remus shakes his head no in answer to the stranger's question, and shoots Sirius an exasperated glare from behind the stranger's head.
"An expression," Moony says, then steps in between the man and the desk. Moony gives me a warm smile, and I feel my face answering him in return. He opens up his arms to us. "Nathanial Smythe, may we introduce you to Ronald Weasley, and Harry Potter-Black. Harry, Ron. Meet Nate. He's here to help train you."
"Harry's our Godson," Sirius says with pride, stepping aside and allowing me space to rise from the chair. He squeezes my shoulder, and I put my hand on top of his, feeling the warmth from his skin radiate over to me.
"Hi," I say, reaching out my hand. Nate takes it in a firm grip, looking me up and down before turning to shake Ron's hand next.
"So, this is the boy wonder, huh?" Nate asks with a smirk, and Ron snorts through his nose then coughs to cover it up.
The American Auror has blonde hair pulled back into a knot at the top of his head and is wearing jeans cuffed at his ankles. A pair of well-worn dragonhide boots cover his feet, and he's tan enough to look like he just stepped out of a movie about California.
"That'd be me," I agree with a sigh.
Without warning or provocation, he pulls his wand, silently shooting a bevy of spells in my direction. Ron shouts in alarm, falling backwards over the chair at his side. Remus and Sirius both skirt out of the way. I drop to the floor while pulling my wand, ending on my side with the strongest shield I can cast. Spells bounce off the barrier in half a dozen different directions, glancing off of knick-knacks and in one instance, hitting Sirius in the side.
He bursts into barking giggles as a tickle jinx explodes over his skin.
I ignore him.
I kick the chair I was sitting on in Nate's direction and throw out a matter melter jinx that collides with the leather. It hits the chair at the same time the chair collides with Nate's knees, and he grabs the back out of reflex. As soon as his fingers make contact the leather starts to soften and the man stumbles forward on his feet.
He's already starting to laugh when I throw out a body bind that he barely manages to shield in time.
"Okay, okay," he chuckles, throwing up his hands. "I concede." I climb onto one knee, not lowering my shield. "I just wanted to see how your reflexes were," he says through laughter. Remus flicks his wand, and Sirius stops laughing with a snarl. He grumbles under his breath as he fixes the chair and the broken lamp that fell from the desk.
Nate reaches out a hand towards me, and I take it with only a moment's hesitation and allow the man to haul me to my feet.
"Did I pass?" I question, allowing my irritation to shine through. I wipe my hands on my pants, cleaning them of the dust from the floor. Then I rub the back of my head where the hilt of the sword smacked into my skull.
"To get started with? Absolutely. But by the time I'm done with you, that reaction time will feel like it took ages."
He smirks with his hands crossed over his chest, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet.
I have a feeling my snapping at people who sneak up on me is not going to get any better.