Title: Finis
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Harry Potter, and all of the characters and places associated with it, is a product of the creative genius that is J. K. Rowling. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the mythos that I'm borrowing belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. The only thing I own is the plot and any original characters.
Distribution: If you want to post this anywhere else, ask first. I'll say yes, but I want to know. Also, give me credit for it.
Summary: India Cohen is dead, and a new Slayer has been called. Harry Potter x-over.
a/n: After a long hiatus where I dealt with real life (such a pesky thing) I'm back. insert cheers or groaning I would've been back earlier, but I decided to stay away after instituted the no-review-reply rule. What can I say, there was just something more fun and...I don't know, more traditional in replying directly in the chapter.
I finally got a livejournal. It's lala-lady-r. I'm going to be putting updates there first. I think most of my review replies, or at least more detailed replies, will be there, too. Feel free to drop by and give me advice on how to work the stupid thing. I still can't believe that I was one of the first people to come up with a cool myspace, but I can't figure out a livejournal. It's hard. Oh yeah, if you've got any pairing suggestions or things that you want to see happen, just pop it in a review or a comment. I've lost the original version of this chapter, and all of my outlines, so suggestions... Much appreciated.
Still, here's the new chapter, I hope you like it, and don't forget...Please Review!
Chapter Four
A Very Strange Hospital Patient
"Do you think she's alright?" Ginny whispered in an undertone.
"Dunno, she's bound to be feeling right pleased after her parents died."
"Don't take that tone with me, Ron. There's no need to be sarcastic."
"Children, children, do act civilized," Fred said, adopting a pompous tone strangely reminiscent of Percy.
"You're telling us to act civilized?" Ginny could be quite eloquent in her use of italics.
"Try not to sound so shocked."
"I can sound how-,"
"Oh, my ears," Harry muttered, unheard.
"Why don't you all shut up?" George suggested.
This started another minor storm of bickering until Harry finally added his input to the conversation.
"Do any of you even remember what you were talking about in the first place?" he asked.
This actually quieted the Weasleys. For a few moments, Ron and Ginny had the decency to look rather ashamed, but the twins were, predictably, irrepressible.
"Sure we do," Fred said.
"We were discussing the lovely Madam Hermione, psychic extraordinaire," George chimed in.
The other three scowled upon hearing that. Three days had passed and Hermione still hadn't explained how she'd known her parents were dead. She'd whispered to Harry that she would tell him and Ron later, but they hadn't been able to be alone with her. There was always a Healer, or an Order member, or another Weasley with them. Security had been heightened on all of them, and Hermione had even been placed in a private room instead of in a ward, a privilege usually reserved to witches and wizards who'd donated sizable sums of money to St. Mungo's. So Harry and Ron had been forced to listen to the twins' far-fetched theories about Hermione's supposedly otherworldly knowledge, something that angered them as much as it did Ginny.
"Would you two stop going on about that?" she asked now. "It's not funny. She's sitting in there, feeling Merlin only knows what, while you harp on about her psychic abilities. You should be ashamed of yourselves. For Merlin's sake, her parents are dead." This last was added in a furious hiss, with Ginny casting an anxious look over her shoulder as if it could magically tell her whether or not Hermione had heard them talking.
Now Fred and George really did look abashed. An awkward silence fell, and Ron broke it with a hesitant,
"D'you think we should go in, then?"
"Er, yeah," Harry said.
Ginny, who was closest to the door, knocked. A faint "Come in," was heard, and she pushed her way inside. The others followed close behind.
"Hey, Hermione," they said uncomfortably, almost simultaneously.
It really was odd. She was looking at them with that familiar glint in her eye, the one that said "I know something." Harry had a feeling she'd heard everything they'd said, but immediately dismissed the thought. It was impossible. They'd all been standing at least a foot away from the door, and talking in whispers, too. There was no way she could've heard. Extendable Ears and spells were out of the question, as well, since the Healers were forbidding her from using magic as long as she was under the influence of the potions; to that end, she wasn't supposed to use anything with enchantments or charms on it, like Extendable Ears. Harry grinned as he remembered her reaction to that particular rule. He couldn't remember Hermione ever swearing, but she'd certainly come up with more than a few colorful words to scream at the Healer.
He was still grinning when he turned back to the conversation that had started without him. The others had perched on the end of Hermione's bed, and he quickly moved over to join them. Ron was sneaking food from the basket Mrs. Weasley had sent with them while Hermione pretended not to notice. Ginny was telling her about Bill and Fleur's wedding preparations. Complaining, would be a better word for it. Yes, Ginny was very good with italics. Then Hermione looked at him.
"How are your ears, Harry?" she asked innocently.
"What are you on about?" Ron asked, looking from Hermione to Harry.
Harry, for his part, paled immediately. There was no way she should have heard him. Even Ginny, Ron, and the twins hadn't heard him. She gave him a small half-smile and he saw a piece of paper whisk out of sight beneath the blankets. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, Hermione was saying,
"Oh, nothing really. Just something Harry mentioned earlier."
"Oh, alright then."
Harry tried to catch her eye as the conversation resumed. Eventually, she winked at him, a distinctly un-Hermione-ish move. I'll tell you later, she mouthed. Harry spent the rest of the visit in silence. He was busy trying to figure out what was happening with Hermione and whether or not it had anything to do with the Horcruxes.
After half an hour or so, they left, with Harry being too preoccupied to invent a reason to stay behind and talk with Hermione. The twins escorted Harry, Ron, and Ginny to the Burrow, with Harry under cover of his Invisibility Cloak, then departed for their store. Mrs. Weasley was busy cleaning the Burrow for the wedding (she was determined to make "dear Bill's" wedding nothing less than absolutely perfect; whether part of this decision was influenced by a need to impress her soon-to-be in-laws, one can only guess) and the other Weasleys had left for work. Harry quickly suggested a "game of chess" in the attic with Ron, their new code for "we need to talk", effectively excluding Ginny. He didn't like seeing the hurt look on her face as they walked off, but there was nothing else for him to do. He'd already made his decision. Being with Ginny was dangerous. Now he just had to keep reminding himself of that.
"So what'd you want to talk about?" Ron asked once they reached the attic.
He flopped onto his bed and looked at Harry expectantly. Harry sat down next to him and explained what he'd said in the hall while Ron and his siblings had been...having a disagreement. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could see comprehension dawn in his friend's eyes.
"You mean when she was asking about your ear, she..." At Harry's nod, he breathed, "Blimey."
"I know," Harry nodded. He looked around the room and pointed his wand at the door, nonverbally Imperturbing it so no one could hear what was happening inside. "You don't think it has anything to do with Voldemort, do you?"
Ron looked startled. "What, you mean with the," his voice lowered – "Horcruxes?"
"Yeah. You don't think she found something, do you? She said she'd be researching. It explains why he sent Snape and Lestrange after her."
Ron seemed uncertain.
"I don't know. If you're right, I get the first two gits," Harry took this to mean Snape and Lestrange – "being there, but what about Malfoy? I thought You-Know-Who wasn't all that pleased with him. Why would he have sent Malfoy along?"
Harry thought about this for a moment.
"Well, I s'pose he could be okay with Malfoy now. After all, he did get the Death Eaters into the school, and Snape did kill Dumb- kill Dumbledore."
Even as he said it, Harry knew that wasn't the case. Voldemort was hardly forgiving, and he wasn't likely to send Malfoy along on a mission that involved his precious Horcruxes, or anyone who had information regarding one. Come to think of it, he was sure that Voldemort wouldn't want to risk anyone besides himself learning about his Horcruxes, especially not Death Eaters like Snape and Lestrange, who were fiercely ambitious, or Malfoy, who was likely to report to his equally ambitious father. No, if Voldemort had suspected Hermione knew anything about his Horcruxes, he probably would have gone to find out what she knew himself.
He repeated this theory to Ron, who seemed to find it much more convincing.
"But that still leaves us with no idea of they were doing there." he finished.
Ron took his time in answering.
"Well, maybe," he began slowly. "They were just there to try and do her in for, well, for being your friend." He sent Harry an apologetic look as he said this. They both knew what issues Harry had with being the "Chosen One". One of those issues was sulking in a bedroom downstairs. "And she's Muggle-born, too. Bet he figured that would make a nice little article on the front page of the Daily Prophet. What if the attack had nothing to do with how she knew about her parents? Hell, maybe she's not "psychic", or whatever, at all. She could've overheard us yelling about it in the hall. The Healers probably took their time in telling us she was awake while they did tests, or something."
Harry was feeling rather dumbfounded by the time Ron stopped speaking. At last he recovered his voice enough to say, "When did you get so logical? You're usually coming up with as many mad theories as I am."
Ron grinned.
"What can I say? Someone has to channel Hermione while she's in the logic, and if I don't, you'll just "run off and do something stupid."" He did a scarily good impression of Hermione.
Harry laughed.
"I can see you have the utmost faith in my abilities," he said.
Ron shrugged.
"Of course I do, but someone has to keep your ego in check. Can't have the "Chosen One" running around with a head fatter than Percy's. He'd be outraged. On second thought, you're the most fantastically wonderful wizard ever."
Harry swatted at him, but Ron ducked out of the way.
"The second Hermione says that to me, I'll believe it," he responded, laughing.
"She's more likely to tell Kreecher that, instead," was Ron's reply. "Or possibly McGonagall."
"Then it'd be "most wonderful house-elf" or "most wonderful witch"."
"I'm not so sure about McGonagall," Ron said dourly. At Harry's raised eyebrow, he added. "Well, she hits hard."
Harry snorted and shook his head.
The two of them spent the remaining hour until Mrs. Weasley called them to dinner exchanging theories about Hermione, the Horcruxes, and Voldemort. As the theories steadily grew more far-fetched, Harry reflected that he and Ron should really talk to the Weasleys about their plans for next year instead of making jokes. They'd agreed something had to be done after getting back from St. Mungo's after overhearing the adults talking about the Grangers' death. Someone would have to tell them that there'd be no need to file papers of any sort, and no need to enroll them in Beauxbatons, when they wouldn't be going back next year. Neither one of them wanted to do it, and they'd come to an unspoken agreement to wait until after the wedding. He knew neither one of them wanted to spoil it for anyone, which the news undoubtedly would.
It was so easy to almost forget about Voldemort and the Horcruxes altogether, but the reminders were all around him. The obituary notices in the Daily Prophet were growing longer and most of the Weasleys were too busy to make it home for dinner. Mrs. Weasley still carried the clock around with her, and no one had mentioned anything when new hands marked "Harry" and "Hermione" had appeared on it the day after Hermione was attacked, Most of all, though no one mentioned it, Dumbledore lingered in their thoughts. Sometimes Harry wondered if his decision not to go back to Hogwarts hadn't been made just so he could avoid being in a Hogwarts without Dumbledore. Then he thought of the broken body lying on the ground, and he knew it was more than that.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pigwidgeon was at the window. He had something attached to his leg, and Ron hastily opened the window.
"That's odd," he said. "I didn't write to anyone."
"Ron, er, I think we should leave now," Harry told him, eyeing the smoking red envelope Pigwidgeon was carrying.
The redhead spotted it, too. He immediately turned so pale that his freckles looked like chicken pox. With shaking hands, he reached for the Howler and opened it. The two teenagers barely had time to clap their hands over their ears before an explosion of noise washed over the room.
"WOULD YOU TWO GET DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW?" Mrs. Weasley's voice screeched. "WE'VE BEEN WORRIED SICK! HALF THE ORDER'S BEEN OUT SEARCHING FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU HAD THE NERVE TO CHARM YOUR DOOR! DINNER'S BEEN READY FOR HALF AN HOUR! HURRY UP!"
Exchanging startled glances, they hastily ran out of the room and shut the door behind them, sighing in relief as the Imperturbing charm silenced the noise.
"Think she's mad, then?" Ron asked, grinning weakly.
Feeling distinctly worried, they walked downstairs to face Mrs. Weasley.
To their surprise, the Weasleys, along with Remus, Moody, Sturgis Podmore, and Hestia Jones, were calmly eating dinner. Mr. Weasley was there, too, which was something of a surprise, as he was usually to busy at the Ministry to come home and eat.
"Hello, boys," he said pleasantly as they entered. "We've just started. Have a seat."
Mrs. Weasley gave them a grin, and Ron elbowed Harry under the table. Harry felt nervous. Surely Mrs. Weasley wasn't just going to forgive them, not after that Howler she'd sent. However, the meal progressed happily enough. After a while, Harry began to observe something nervous in everyone else's expressions. Had it only been one or two people acting strangely, he would have dismissed it as his imagination, but he caught almost everyone at the table sending them anxious glances at one point or the other. He even tried to catch Ginny's eye and ask her to explain what was going on, but she ignored him for the rest of the meal.
Ron was equally mystified, and both of them had the feeling that this sudden tension in the room could be nothing good. Halfway through dessert (lemon pie and a generous bowl of homemade vanilla ice cream), Ron's nerves got the best of him.
"Would you lot just tell us what's going on, already?" he burst out.
"Sit down and finish your dessert, Ronald," Mrs. Weasley said.
"No," Ron said. "You've been giving Harry and me these looks all dinner long. If you want to yell at us, just get it over with. This whole silent-treatment thing is bloody disturbing."
"Listen to your mother," was all Mr. Weasley would say, while everyone else suddenly became very interested in their pie.
"I'm with Ron," Harry said. "I want to know what's going on."
No one said anything, but he didn't miss the looks exchanged between...well, between everyone that wasn't Harry or Ron.
"You know, if Dumbledore trusted me enough to tell me what he was doing, I think you could do the same," he began heatedly.
Mrs. Weasley let out a sigh.
"We wanted to wait until after dinner," she said tiredly. "Remus, I don't suppose you could -"
"Of course, Molly," he said, then turned towards Ron and Harry, who were seated a few seats down from him. "We thought you should at least eat something before you found out." At the teenagers' impatient looks, he rolled his eyes and said, "Hermione's missing."
Ron immediately started yelling at everyone within hearing distance for not telling them earlier, then started worrying about Hermione.
"What? Where is she? How could Death Eaters get into St. Mungo's? I thought she was supposed to have security! What the bloody hell made you wait so long to tell us?" he shouted, barely pausing for breath.
Normally, Harry would have been shouting right along with him, but he'd caught something strange in Lupin's voice, something that caused his mind to flashback to the piece of paper he'd seen Hermione hide under her blanket.
"What else do you want to tell us?" he asked, interrupting Ron.
Remus looked faintly amused.
"She wasn't kidnapped. It seems she left on her own. We think she escaped into Muggle London, but we can't be sure until you read this."
He withdrew a small parchment envelope from a pocket inside his robes and handed it to Harry. On the front of it, in Hermione's neat handwriting were the words Harry and Ron.
Harry wasn't sure whether he opened it, or if Ron had. The next thing he knew, the two of them were bent over the letter, heads nearly bumping, as they quickly began to read.
Dear Harry and Ron, she wrote.
I know you two are probably wondering what I was thinking. Well, I want you to stop. I am more than capable of taking care of myself, and if either one of you so much as thinks of lecturing me about this when I see you again, I will bring up every single rule you have ever broken in front of Mrs. Weasley. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can get to the real reason I'm writing this. I can't tell you exactly why I left yet, but I will. I want you to meet me on Saturday afternoon at 1 o' clock at Number 7 Ashford Lane. It's in London, so you'll have to Apparate. You can't risk being followed. And yes, I remember that neither one of you has a license yet. Trust me, the Ministry is far too busy to monitor underage magic, and they have no way to tell if an unlicensed wizard has an Apparition license. Unless you splinch yourselves, of course, but you'll try not to do that, won't you? I have something important to tell you both, but do not tell anyone else what I've written. I've Jinxed the envelope and this letter so that something highly unpleasant will happen to anyone who tries to read it (besides you two, of course). Trust me, alright?
Love,
Hermione
P.S. Knock on the Coffin.
Harry and Ron looked at each other as they finished reading.
"She didn't say much," Harry lied, trying to look suitably disappointed.
"Yeah," Ron added, "She just told us not to get into trouble and to not try and Apparate before we get our licenses or we'll end up splinching ourselves."
"Oh well," Mrs. Weasley sighed. "We'd been hoping she'd tell you where she was."
Moody didn't look convinced, but at a sharp look from Remus, he refrained from saying anything.
"You know, I think I feel up to a game of chess," Ron said. "How about it, Harry?"
"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed.
The two of them left the room, trying not to look particularly hurried. Harry could feel the letter burning a hole in his pocket. As soon as they reached the attic, Ron locked the door and Imperturbed it again. Thankfully, Mrs. Weasley's Howler was now finished. That was one mystery solved, at least. She'd probably thought the two of them had run off with Hermione, or something of the sort.
"So," Ron said, sitting on the bed. "What d'you reckon?"
"I think we should go. It doesn't look like a forgery, and Jinxing the parchment is exactly the sort of thing she would do. But what is she up to?" Harry wondered out loud.
"This sort of makes your You-Know-Who theory sound a lot more reasonable. Maybe she did find something. I can't figure out what she was getting at with that postscript. Knock on the Coffin. What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Dunno. You think we should go, then?"
"To London? Yeah. At least she's having us meet her after lunch. Mum'll be busy with cleaning up, and Ginny will probably be over Luna Lovegood's or hiding from you, Harry."
Harry grimaced in response. It hadn't escaped his notice that the youngest Weasley was avoiding him, but what could he do? It was what he wanted, wasn't it?
"Guess we'll just have to sneak away, then. At least you've got the cloak," Ron finished.
Harry nodded absently. The four days until Saturday seemed impossibly long.
