Chapter VII
The common room was alight with fury and fear. Katie Bell had been cursed on her way back to Hogwarts after visiting Hogsmeade. A couple of students had found her body lying in the snow and had brought her back to the Hospital Wing. There were rumors being spread that she had been transferred to St. Mungo's because the curse was too potent for Madam Pomfrey to deal with.
Harry had already left Fleur and returned to the common room by the time he heard about Katie. Ron and Hermione had let him know as eyes turned to him expectantly, as if he would concoct some solution without a moment's hesitation.
"It's awful. Awful and senseless. I can't imagine who would have done something like that," Hermione said.
"Or why," Ron added.
"It's not as if Katie was a high profile target. She was just another student. A half-blood too. Not their usual target," Harry said.
"That just makes this even worse. It shows how unconcerned You-Know-Who is with attacking students," Hermione said.
There was a crowd of Gryffindors seething in the center of the common room, trading theories about how and why Katie had been cursed. Most were outlandish but what they all had in common was that someone from Slytherin was behind it. Harry wasn't looking forward to the next Dueling Club meeting. Putting dueling spells into the hands of angry teenagers may have been a necessity but that didn't make it smart.
"Do we know who found her?" Harry asked.
"Her friend Leanne got help for her," Hermione said.
"You want to look into this?" Ron asked.
"I'm sure Dumbledore is going to but it can't hurt to have a few more eyes on this. The more people looking into it the better," Harry told them.
Katie being cursed hit Harry especially hard. He liked her. She had been a fun and kind member of the quidditch team for as long as Harry had been on it. He couldn't say that he knew her all that well outside of quidditch but she was a good person. A Gryffindor. She didn't deserve what had happened to her. If there was anything he could do to figure out what had happened to her Harry would do it.
His first thought was of Malfoy. It would make sense. He was working for Voldemort, doing something inside the school, and Death Eaters had never been particularly concerned with the lives of those that opposed them. A half-blood Gryffindor certainly fell into that category.
Dumbledore would know more, no doubt, but Malfoy was the prime suspect as far as Harry was concerned. He would have to keep a closer eye on the other boy. Malfoy had been quiet for most of the year, making Harry even more suspicious than he already would have been. A quiet Death Eater was somehow more worrying than an obnoxious one.
"Incoming," Ron said.
Neville, Seamus, and a few younger Gryffindors were walking over to where they were sitting. Their eyes were fixed on Harry. Most of the common room was watching their approach, waiting for something. An idea of how to move forward.
"You've heard," Seamus said. It wasn't a question. Every Gryffindor had heard.
Harry nodded and saw the crowd muttering amongst themselves.
Neville stepped forward with an assertiveness that was, Harry thought, rather unlike him. Even considering the changes he had been going through. "We have to do something. Show that we're not weak. We won't stand to be attacked like that. People should be safe at Hogwarts."
There was a rumbling of agreement in the crowd.
"There's nothing we can do right now," Harry said, eyes shifting to each of the students confronting him.
"There is," Seamus disagreed. "We know who did this; let's not pretend we don't. It was the Slytherins. They're working for You-Know-Who. Maybe not all of them but they're there. Spies and enemies. Eating with us, taking classes with us, and laughing at us as we cower in the halls trying not to get cursed ourselves. From what I heard Katie got lucky. If she hadn't gotten to Madam Pomfrey so quickly then whatever had cursed her would have killed her. Who's to say that they'll stop with her? We need to show that we're strong; that we're willing to fight back."
"We can't fight back if we don't know who to fight against," Harry objected. He could see the crowd's mood turning against him. They wanted action, a show of strength; not reasoned debate.
"Like father like son," Neville said grimly.
"Crabbe. Goyle. Malfoy. Nott. Their parents are all Death Eaters. If we want to send a message we'll send it through them," Seamus said.
"That's what the Dueling Club is for, isn't it? To teach us how to protect ourselves?" Neville asked, somewhat rhetorically. It was like Neville was intentionally trying to stoke up the crowd, feed the resentment and fear that had just been waiting for a catalyst like Katie. That would make it difficult for Harry to go against them. There was a simmering rage there, directed against the Slytherins. The self-confidence that the Dueling Club had given Neville, and the rest of the Gryffindors, was being turned against the Slytherins.
"If we attack them for retribution this will only escalate. Voldemort will do more to hurt us than we can do to hurt them," Hermione said.
Ron nodded. "We might even end up hurting innocent people ourselves if we attack them. That's not something that Gryffindors do. Or have we all forgotten that?
"Gryffindors don't just sit back and let their friends get cursed either," one girl in the crowd shouted. There was a shout of approval from the rest of the Gryffindors.
Harry stood up. "We're not going to go around cursing innocent people because we're scared. Is that something Katie would want us to do? No. She would be ashamed to be in the same house as us if we did something like that. The difference between the Death Eaters and us is they don't care who they hurt. We do. Anyone here who goes around indiscriminately cursing Slytherins because they're frightened and angry is no real Gryffindor."
Gryffindor Tower quieted, the students considering what he said. There were a few abashed faces in the crowd. Harry knew it wouldn't last long though. Resentment couldn't be bottled forever. It needed an outlet, a way for people to feel like they were doing something to improve their conditions. Without that it was only a matter of time before they would strike out against the Slytherins.
"We can't just let them get away with this," Neville said, but his voice was weaker, less sure, and the crowd seemed to notice.
Harry sensed his advantage and pressed, an idea occurring to him. "And we won't. Tomorrow night the entire school is going to hold a vigil for Katie Bell, by the lake, and we aren't going to leave until every student and faculty and ghost is there with us, holding a candle in solidarity. We're going to show that this school is united against the threat we face."
"And who's going to get them there?" Seamus asked, more curious than disbelieving.
"I am. You are. Everyone here is." Harry said.
"For Katie," someone said. There was a general noise of assent, students murmuring Katie's name as if it was a charm to ward off evil. The two best things to get people together, Harry thought. Senseless violence and self-righteousness.
Seamus went away with the other students, apparently satisfied, but Neville wasn't placated. "It's a nice idea but it won't actually do anything," he said.
"It might, it might not. But anything is better than indiscriminate violence," Harry said.
Neville just shook his head, a frustrated look coming over his face, and left the common room.
"You're turning into a real activist, Harry," Hermione said, sounding amused.
Ron wore a more equivocal expression. "Neville may have been wrong about wanting to go around cursing people but he was right about one thing. This 'vigil' won't do anything. It's not going to slow You-Know-Who or any of his supporters down at all. They won't stop attacking people because we stand around protesting."
"Probably not," Harry said, trying not to let his annoyance with Ron show. "But I had to say something. Give them something to do. They were all looking to me to come up with something. They act like I'm some kind of messiah that can magically fix their problems."
Ron and Hermione looked at each other.
"Probably because you've been teaching them all how to fight for two years now."
"And because you've fought Voldemort three times."
"And because you're the Triwizard Champion."
"And because you showed them just how good you are when you dueled Fleur."
Harry waved his hand, as if to say that all of that was nothing. "I'm not a leader. I'm just trying to survive," he said.
"So are they," Hermione said.
"People need dramatic examples to look up to; I don't think you're a leader either mate, but you are an example," Ron said.
They looked at Harry like he had to be dense to not have figured that out, before turning back to each other and rolling their eyes. Harry figured the best way of dealing with them would be to ignore them.
"Well now I've got to figure out how to organize a school wide vigil for Katie," he complained.
"It won't be as hard as you're thinking," Hermione said. "Everyone who heard you will get the word out until, by tomorrow, it will have spread to the entire school. You're underestimating the Hogwarts rumor mill and how much people are frightened and upset by this. Most people will do anything to show their solidarity in times of crisis when they feel threatened."
"It may be stupid but you know we'll be there," Ron said, clapping Harry on the shoulder.
Harry was still getting stares from the people who were left in the common room. They were curious, but no longer bubbling with misguided anger. Now they had something to channel their anger into. It was a success, if only a limited one. The underlying problem was still there.
"Violence is the path of least resistance for fear and frustration. It's good that you're channeling it into something else," Hermione said.
"Did you two notice how Neville was behaving?" Harry asked.
Ron sat up in his chair, his bland expression giving way to clear interest. "It was like he was someone else. I've never seen Neville act like that before. I think the Dueling Club and the DA have worked wonders on him. He's never been so confident before. He was practically leading the common room."
"But not down the right path," Harry said.
"It is worrying," Hermione agreed.
"You know what happened to his parents. Can we blame him for wanting revenge for them? Even if he's not getting the ones who did it to his parents a Death Eater's a Death Eater," Ron said. His callousness toward the Slytherins worried Harry. He didn't seem affected by the idea of them being attacked at all. Harry wasn't sure whether that was just a manifestation of Ron's usual distaste for Slytherins or a more worrisome side effect of the general malaise that Harry had seen in him since the quidditch tryout.
"We're better than that," Hermione said firmly.
"Clearly not all of us," Ron retorted, though more mildly than before.
Harry interrupted them. "It doesn't matter now. Neville won't do anything without the backing of the rest of Gryffindor. He's not some vigilante. Now we just have to focus on getting the word about the vigil out so that people don't give up on us. If that happens, the Slytherins will be targeted next."
Ron wasn't willing to let the subject be. "Really though, who do we think did this? It had to be the Slytherins."
"Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor," Harry reminded him.
"And the rest of the Death Eaters weren't. It's just a matter of odds; even wizards can be logical sometimes," Ron said, aiming the last part more at Hermione than Harry.
Hermione didn't respond, unsure of how to deal with Ron's logic. To an extent, Harry agreed with him. He wasn't wrong. Slytherins comprised the vast majority of Voldemort's forces and, even if it hadn't been Malfoy, the perpetrator was likely someone from Slytherin. But, Harry reminded himself, that didn't mean that they could start blaming everyone in their house without evidence.
What they were fighting was, above all else, a war of ideas. It was pureblood vs muggleborn, tradition vs innovation, conservatives against progressives. If they stooped to the methods of the Death Eaters they would be legitimizing their tactics. It would send a signal to the rest of the wizarding world that they were no better than the Death Eaters.
That, in turn, would radicalize those who were on the fence about the war; sympathizers who, because of the methods of the Death Eaters, weren't willing to actively aid their cause. If one side no longer held the moral upper ground Harry suspected that Voldemort's ranks would swell, negating any possible advantage that could be gained from more draconian methods.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore. What's done is done. Tomorrow we'll hold the vigil. If that doesn't work and the rest of Gryffindor is still out for blood we can talk about this some more," Harry said.
"Fine with me," Ron said, getting up without further comment and heading up to their dorm room.
Hermione glanced over at Harry, looking worried, and said, "He's been acting like that for a while now. Usually he bounces back quickly. This time I'm pretty nervous."
"This has been going on since the quidditch tryout?" Harry asked.
"That was the start, I think, but it's more than that. What happened to his dad last year shook Ron. Every day his family is putting their lives at risk. That's not something we have to worry about. He spends every day frightened that he's going to lose them. His talking about odds is nothing new. He threw some numbers out from the last war a few nights ago. He said that there was almost no chance that if his family fought against Voldemort that they would all survive. That it was just a matter of who died."
"None of the Weasleys are going to die. Not if I have anything to do about it." Harry felt the hollowness of his own words. It wasn't like he could be with the Weasleys while they were going on missions, or even just going about their daily business. He hadn't been able to protect Sirius, or Cedric, or even Katie. Maybe Ron was right to worry, he thought.
Hermione picked up on his self-doubt and said, gently, "He's not wrong, Harry. We're here, in school, trying our best to learn and get better so that we can, one day, fight against Voldemort, but there are dozens of witches and wizards out there who could swat us aside without a second thought. At Hogwarts you're a hero; out there you're just another wand. The world is dangerous and people get hurt all the time. Ron isn't wrong about that, no matter how much we might want him to be."
The idea of any of the Weasleys, who had treated Harry like one of their own, dying in the course of the war, had never even occurred to Harry. Even after what had happened to Mr. Weasley he had never seriously considered that they might die. Losing Sirius was bad enough. He had only had a year with his godfather but he had grown to love him. Losing any of the Weasleys would be just as awful; like losing a sibling or a parent, he imagined.
"What can we do?" Harry asked.
Hermione shrugged. For once, she too was out of ideas. "All we can do is be there for him, to make sure he doesn't dwell on it too much. He's been spending a lot of time studying lately. Trying to get stronger. You don't see him in the Dueling Club because you're working with the younger students but he's improved a lot."
"I'll keep an eye on him," Harry promised.
"Good. That's all we can do right now. He needs to know that we're here for him," Hermione said.
The common room had cleared out somewhat while they had been talking so Harry noticed Ginny's entrance. She looked around the room for a moment, as if she was trying to find someone, until her eyes landed on Harry and she smiled.
Hermione saw where Harry was looking. She said, "Looks like Ron's not the only Weasley that needs comforting. I'm going to start on our Transfiguration essay." She got up and went to the girls dormitory.
Not for the first time Harry wondered exactly how much Hermione knew about his relationship with Ginny. The two of them were fairly close, roomed together when Hermione visited the Weasleys, and it wouldn't surprise Harry if she had been slipping Ginny advice. It would fit with Hermione's meddling personality as well; perhaps helping to assuage her guilt over drifting closer to Ron and feeling like she had left him alone.
"I've been looking for you," Ginny said, sitting down on a chair opposite Harry. She pulled it forward so that their knees were almost touching, then drew her legs up and under herself.
Her hair was a bit mussed, falling haphazardly around her ears, and, noticing where Harry's eyes were drifting, Ginny brushed her hands through her hair, straightening it and pushing it back behind her ears. Her cheeks reddened and Harry resisted the urge to smile at her, fearing it might be seen as mocking.
"You missed a bit of a scene here," he said instead.
"I'm sure my dorm mates will tell me all about it," Ginny said, her focus clearly on something else.
"Then what can I help you with?" Harry asked, trying not to sound as if he were hurrying her.
"I broke up with Dean," she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth in one great burst, as if it marked a new epoch.
Harry's reaction was more guarded. "How did he take it?"
"Pretty well. Said he had fun but he could tell that we weren't too serious and he wished me well. Didn't seem heartbroken at all to tell you the truth. It was almost a little offensive," she joked.
"I don't think that we should be seen together right after you broke up with Dean. It might seem…insensitive," Harry said.
"You don't have to worry about that. I think our date will be quite private," Ginny flirted.
"You still haven't told me what to expect."
"And I'm not going to. Telling you would spoil the surprise. On Saturday I'm going to take you somewhere very special, that I promise you've never seen before, and our date is going to blow your mind."
"I've seen some incredible things," Harry said. "You might find me harder to impress than you think."
"When the time comes you'll know I mean exactly what I say," Ginny said.
She didn't seem inclined to reveal any more to Harry. She was getting a lot of enjoyment out of holding the date over his head, trying to make him curious about where she was going to take him. Harry wasn't sure if he should be frustrated with her coquettishness or just curious about where she could possibly take him.
It had to be somewhere in Hogwarts. The next weekend wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend. Unless she was going to try to sneak him out of the castle. That would certainly fit with her personality.
"You're going to have to find someone to replace Katie," Harry said. There was nothing further to say about their date, unless he wanted to let her tease him about it endlessly.
Since Ginny had taken over the quidditch team from him she had been driving her squad relentlessly. It wasn't quite as intense as Wood's training sessions had been but for a fifth year in her first few weeks of the captainship it was a grueling regiment. Harry suspected that a few of the new members would be close to regretting joining.
"That's the awkward part," Ginny said, playing with her hair nervously. "Dean is the next best chaser."
Harry couldn't help but to laugh at that. There were few things more awkward than interacting with one's ex. Harry still avoided Cho whenever he could help it. To have Dean on the quidditch team would be a constant irritant for Ginny. Though he supposed that it helped that their parting had been amicable.
"It could be worse," Ginny said philosophically.
"Sure. You could've been dating McLaggen."
"Don't even joke."
"I've heard that some girls find him quite attractive."
"Sure, if you like dumb, big, and arrogant."
"I thought that's what all girls went crazy over."
"Now that you mention it you're right. Makes me wonder why I even bothered to ask you out."
"I thought that I asked you out."
"It was a mutual decision?"
"Good enough for me," Harry said.
There was a moment that bordered on the tender where Ginny just stared at Harry, her head half-cocked, a light smile playing over her face, like he had just done something exceptionally charming. With the fire behind her, framing her hair, Harry thought she had never looked prettier.
"With the way the girls in Gryffindor have started talking about you I'm going to have to beat them off with a stick," Ginny said.
"Or the Bat-Bogey Hex," Harry suggested.
"The school might frown on me using magic to hex my dorm mates."
"They won't care if you hit them with a stick?"
"I doubt it. That's far too muggle to get Filch or McGonagall excited."
"I'll keep that in mind for future reference."
Ginny's head returned to a more normal position, blocking most of the direct light from the fire, ending her halo. She bit her bottom lip, not in a seductive way, but in the way someone has when they're about to ask something that they think is a sensitive topic.
"You and Fleur are pretty close, right?" Ginny asked.
"I think so. Does that bother you?" Harry asked. A warning note played in his head; he had heard of, but never seen, the famous green eyed monster that the twins had always warned him was just lurking beneath the surface of most women. Admittedly, he doubted that they had been thinking of their little sister when they told him that but the point remained.
"I'm just a little confused and I wanted to see if you could clear it up. She and Bill are getting married soon, just got engaged, and yet they're across the world from each other and don't do anything but exchange letters every now and again. I wrote to Bill asking him about them and he didn't seem to think anything is wrong with that. I know Bill can be oblivious but Fleur isn't. Has she said anything to you? I don't think that Bill is trying to neglect her. He's madly in love with her. He's just…spacy."
"She hasn't said anything to me. You think she's unhappy?"
"I think she's probably lonely and upset that Bill isn't making more of an effort to be with her. She hasn't known him all that long so she probably doesn't get that this is just how he is. It doesn't mean anything except that he's focused on something else. He's the most single-minded person that I know. I wanted to make sure that she wasn't taking out her frustration about Bill on someone else, or doing something that she would regret," Ginny said, seeming to pick her words with great care. More cautiously than he had ever seen before, in fact.
"Do something she would regret? Like what?" Harry asked.
Ginny hesitated, as if afraid to voice her thoughts. "She's beautiful, lonely, and feels neglected. I'm not trying to imply anything. I just wanted to make sure that her engagement with Bill is still on and nothing's going to get in the way."
What Ginny was alluding to struck Harry and he couldn't keep the surprise off of his face. The idea of him betraying Bill with Fleur was just wrong. Yes, he and Fleur were friends; he was closer to her than anyone else in Britain in all likelihood. Yes, she was lonely and possibly feeling neglected. Yes, she was beautiful and intelligent and talented and dauntless. But going from that to a relationship between the two of them was ridiculous. It would be a betrayal of not just Bill, but Ginny, and all of the Weasleys.
Harry would be lying if he had never thought about it before. Sometimes he couldn't stop thinking about the night he saw her nearly naked. She was beautiful and he got along with her better than almost anyone else he knew.
However, there was a vast difference between thinking about a beautiful woman and actually pursuing her. Harry hadn't, to his knowledge, ever done anything around her that would suggest that he was interested in her. There were always thoughts, especially when she had unintentionally tested his restraint after they had been drinking. He had fantasized about her, he couldn't deny that either. But those didn't total up to a relationship; to her cheating on Bill with him.
There was also no real indication that Fleur felt like that about Harry. She teased him, and they got along well, and she was comfortable around him, but that's what friendship was like. Fleur was just naturally less uptight than someone like Hermione, looser. French.
Harry thought back over all of their encounters, searching for something that would indicate some desire on Fleur's part, but he couldn't find anything. For some reason, that left him feeling almost disappointed, as if he had been hoping that once he cast his mind back the clues would all lock into place and he would realize that he had been completely oblivious at the time.
"No, of course not. Nothing like that is going on," Harry said, aware that the pause had been dragging on for an uncomfortably long time.
"I didn't think so," Ginny said, hurrying to reassure him. "I was just worrying about my family."
"I can talk to her about Bill if you want. Did he ask you to find out?" Harry asked.
"You don't have to do that. He's too dense to even see that she would be upset. I don't want to worry him. If she hasn't told you anything then she's probably not that upset. You're probably her closest friend here, after all. Bill will be back for Christmas. It's only another month until they're reunited. I'm sure things will hold until then."
What he had told her seemed to have satisfied Ginny but left Harry with more questions about his relationship with Fleur than ever before. Did they act like there was something between them that would make Ginny think there was something there? Harry didn't think that he had given off any such impression but he couldn't be sure. Doubt crept in. It was hard, with any beautiful woman, to keep friendship separate from physical attraction, but Harry felt that he had been enjoying Fleur's company for her talents and personality instead of any superficial crush. Her beauty was a bonus, not the reason behind their friendship.
"Anyway, I should probably go and get some homework done. I don't want to be swamped before our date," Ginny said. She looked as if she was going to lean in and give him a quick kiss but thought better of it. The common room wasn't exactly private. Instead she just gave him a quick smile and went upstairs to the girl's dormitory.
Harry was left sitting in a chair by the fireside, wondering when he had been dubbed the de facto leader of Gryffindor, how he was going to marshal the school, what his date with Ginny would be like, and, the thought that, for whatever reason, seemed most important; whether or not there was some spark between him and Fleur.
He pulled his transfiguration textbook out of his pack and tried push his mind away from brilliant blue eyes.
"I still think that book is dangerous," Hermione said.
"There's no hidden brain, Hermione. Just some notes in the margins," Ron said, bored. They had been having the same argument for the past couple of weeks. Or rather, Hermione had been lecturing Ron that he shouldn't be using the Half-Blood Prince's potion's textbook and Ron had been ignoring her.
The book was rather inoffensive in Harry's opinion. It didn't write back if you wrote in it, didn't smell awful, and helped both Ron and Harry in what was usually their worst class. Ron shared the book with Harry when they were working on group potions and their class ranking in Potions had inverted itself because of that. Sometimes Harry wondered if Hermione wasn't just jealous because of their undeserved success. Ron was Slughorn's favorite protégé after Harry. In a way, neither of them deserved the praise they received from him.
Slughorn had already invited the two of them to his next party, which would be in early December, more than a month away. He said that he wanted them to have more than enough time to find dates and had given them an exaggerated wink.
Harry supposed that if their date went well he should ask Ginny. Nobody else came to mind. Most of the girls of Hogwarts were a complete mystery to him. Though Ginny was likely to receive an invitation of her own to Slughorn's party. Slughorn had mentioned to Ron in passing that she had made quite an impression on the guests at the last party.
Hermione was still nattering away at Ron about the book. Harry just hoped that she wouldn't set off Madam Pince, who had seemed even more on edge than usual, likely because of the attack on Katie. It was like she expected someone to start flinging curses around the library. Rather uncharitably, Harry wondered if she would be more concerned with the students or the books.
"Just be careful; don't trust everything you read in there," Hermione said.
"I will be," Ron promised, somewhat less exasperated than Harry had expected. Hermione and Ron shared a look for a brief moment, expressions somewhere between confused and indecipherable, and then Hermione turned away, digging through the plethora of books in her bag. She didn't resurface for nearly a minute.
Since Fleur had suggested that there was a tension between Ron and Hermione that would inevitably break and lead to a relationship, Harry had been watching the two of them more attentively than usual. There were signs that Fleur was right; stolen glances, lingering touches, and a more accommodating behavior than either of them usually adopted. They were dancing around the issue but it was there, some attraction, buried and unacknowledged. Or perhaps acknowledged but suppressed, like a desire too perverse to be named.
Everyone seemed to be pairing off, Harry thought. Ron and Hermione. He and Ginny. Fleur and Bill. The simple time of unromantic friendships was passing them by. Thanks to Fleur, or because of her, Harry was watching his two friends fall for each other, ending the uncomplicated friendship that the three of them had enjoyed for years. He hoped they would be happy, thought they could be successful together, but was couldn't shake the slight sadness that change brought.
It wasn't just their relationships that were changing. They, as people, were changing too. Ron, who had always been less than serious about his studies, had started to pull his grades up to a level that even Hermione could appreciate. He was putting in more time training at the Dueling Club than almost anyone else, except maybe Neville and Harry himself. Ron had been infected with the bug of self-improvement.
Harry suspected that it went back to what Hermione had told him. Ron was worried about losing his family, and was willing to do whatever it took to keep them alive. His fear was changing him into something else; a fighter. Some of his easygoing nature had gone with his transformation. Smiles and laughs didn't come as easily.
Ron's changes were the most dramatic but Harry saw something similar happening with Hermione as well. Her studying had taken a more extra-curricular bent; she wasn't aiming for absolute mastery of the spells and skills they were learning in class but rather focusing on things that she thought would be helpful to them during a war. Locating spells, healing charms, versatile potions, and quick transfigurations. All things that would be useful in a prolonged duel of the sort they had encountered at the ministry. All things that would be useful for survival.
None of them were blind to the real war that was being fought outside of the gates of Hogwarts. They couldn't join it yet, but they would be prepared when they could.
The training that Harry had been having with Fleur and the books that Dumbledore had given him had allowed Harry to improve in leaps and bounds. His arsenal of spells had precipitously, and the spells in Dumbledore's books were far more potent than what he was accustomed to. A number of them were dangerous to the user after prolonged usage, like the one he had used against Fleur, but Harry consoled himself with the thought that it was better to know them and never need to use them, than to ignore them and find himself in dire need of them.
While he knew he wouldn't stand a chance against Voldemort he was willing to give himself good odds against the average Death Eater. Fleur's advantage over him in duels was slipping; she struggled to beat him and occasionally Harry was able to pull a win himself.
Every victory brought with it a mix of grumbling and praise from Fleur. She didn't know about the books that Dumbledore had given him so it seemed she attributed most of his progress to her own teaching abilities.
"For enemies," Ron said, reading something out of the potions book.
"For enemies?" Hermione sounded worried.
"There's a spell incantation here, no wand movement listed, and all the note says is 'For enemies.'"
"Sounds like something we should cast on Malfoy. You know, just to test it out," Harry said, rolling his eyes in Ron's direction when Hermione rose up, affronted.
"You two can't honestly be thinking of using the spell," Hermione said, her voice rising with unrestrained disbelief. A few people at a nearby table shot her dirty looks but she didn't notice.
"Whoever made the notes in this book is a genius. They're going to get me an Outstanding in Potions. I'd be lucky to scrape an Acceptable without it. Can you imagine how impressive the spell must be if it's even half as good as the potions notes?" Ron sounded excited at the prospect of seeing the Half-Blood Prince's handiwork in action. A good Potions grade was one thing but a cool spell was worth failing for.
"He's right. This spell could be incredible; one that nobody will see coming. We should at least try it out. We can use it in the Dueling Club room. Nobody'll be in there right now and we can try it out on a dummy. In a controlled setting. With supervision," Harry said, dangling the caveats in front of Hermione.
"It could be dark magic," Hermione said.
"It could be a shield to the Killing Curse. At this point I'd believe this guy could come up with anything," Ron said.
"You have to let Harry and I with you when you cast the spell. And in a controlled setting," Hermione said. She didn't seem pleased but Harry suspected she knew Ron well enough to know that the spell was going to be used at some point. Better somewhere it could be controlled if something went wrong.
They packed up their books and went to the Dueling Club room. It was, as Harry had predicted, empty.
The three of them lined up in front of one of the dummies and Ron glanced down again at the potions book. "Sectumsempra," he said, practicing the pronunciation.
"Strange incantation," Harry said.
"Very hissy," Ron agreed.
"Just get on with it," Hermione said. She was gripping her wand, a few books on counter-spells strewn on the floor around her. At least one of them was prepared for the worst, Harry thought.
Ron took his wand out of his pocket, set the Potions book on the ground, and aimed at the dummy. "Sectumsempra."
A jagged white line slashed the dummy, cutting ragged wounds into its hide. They ran deep, not cutting all the way through, but the depth of the wounds was uniform, as if the spell wasn't intended to cut all the way through. As if it was meant to cause just enough damage to be mortal, but not enough to be instantaneous.
Unlike with what happened after the dummy sustained normal spell damage it didn't start to fix itself. The wound started to close over but then the magic sputtered out and it was left with the same jagged wounds.
"Dark magic," Hermione said, not able to keep a triumphant note from entering her voice.
"Nothing ambiguous about that," Harry said. He got closer to the dummy and stuck one finger into the wound. It ran even deeper than he had expected, and that was on Ron's first casting. Harry knew few spells that did so much damage. And none that could be cast with so little practice and effort.
Ron looked shocked at what the spell had done. He glanced down at the Half-Blood Prince's potion's book as if it had betrayed him. "I didn't think it would do anything like that," he said.
"For enemies," Hermione repeated ominously.
"Are there any other spells like that in the book?" Harry asked.
Ron hesitated, then said, "There are a few other spells in the book but they don't do anything like that."
"And how, exactly, do you know that?" Hermione asked, her voice low and dangerous.
"You didn't," Harry said, shaking his head.
"I tried one out earlier on one of my dueling partners. Levicorpus. All it did was lift her into the air by an ankle," Ron said, sounding sickened.
"That may be the stupidest thing you've ever done," Hermione said.
Harry didn't disagree with her but he wasn't going to make Ron feel any worse. Apparently the book did have a darker side. Not the same league as Riddle's diary but it wasn't quite so benevolent as Harry and Ron had believed. Potions hadn't been the Half-Blood Prince's only hobby. Hermione had been right.
"I think that, from now on, as a general rule, we shouldn't cast any spells that come from strange books," Harry said. For a moment he thought about the books that Dumbledore had given him but then he dismissed them. They weren't strange books. Dumbledore wasn't the type to give Harry dark magic and tell him to learn it. Especially without even so much as a warning.
"Agreed," Ron said.
"At least we only ruined a dummy," Hermione said.
Harry groaned. Ron and Hermione turned to him. "We ruined a dummy. Fleur's going to kill me."
Ron started making a sound that sounded suspiciously like a whipping noise. Hermione just laughed at him.
"Maybe she won't notice," Harry said.
A pile of stuffing dropped from the dummy onto the floor. It creaked for a moment, then toppled on its side.
Harry sighed.
Word about the vigil for Katie had spread throughout the school like a virus. Harry had only told a few people about it but despite that the school was buzzing. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were solidly behind Katie. Numerous students had come up to Harry promising to be at the vigil or telling him what a good idea they thought it was.
The Ravenclaws were more ambivalent. Harry hadn't expected them to be as excited. It wasn't, strictly speaking, a pragmatic response to what happened to Katie. It would be harder to galvanize them than the more emotional Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors.
The least enthusiastic were, as expected, the Slytherins. Most of them seemed utterly uninterested in any vigil, reasoning that she wasn't dead and a vigil would do nothing for her. Some of them found the very idea worthy of their contempt. The idea of respecting a schoolmate who was incapacitated in the hospital didn't seem to register with them.
Harry had chosen the side of the lake for the vigil. There was mystique to it, a sense of the ancientness and immovability of it that was soothing in times of turmoil. The water was still, rippling only occasionally as some creature broke the surface and then descended again. The bright moon wasn't enough to cut through the murky surface, leaving the lake a black hole, sucking light in but utterly mysterious to those looking upon it, hoping to find some answers.
The light from Hogwarts illuminated Fleur walking down by the side of the lake, a thick cloak wound tightly around her. Harry paused his conjuring. His candles were nothing special to look at, being crude thick stubs of white wax, but they would do their job. Having never been to a vigil before, Harry was really only guessing at what would be appropriate.
"You look like you could use some help," Fleur said.
"I need to conjure a couple hundred candles," Harry said.
"You really don't do things by halves, do you?"
"This wasn't intentional. It just…happened."
"A word to the wise, Harry; never let people know that the things that happen to you weren't planned. You're much more intriguing if people think you're always in control. Just look at Dumbledore," Fleur said.
"Dumbledore is always in control," Harry retorted.
"Of course he is," Fleur said, giving him an embellished wink. She began conjuring long white candles with paper skirts to protect hands from dripping wax. Her candles had spiraling patterns on them, no two quite the same. Compared to Harry's, hers were art.
She glanced over at the pile that he had made. Delicately, she said, "Perhaps let me handle the candles and you start on something else."
"I don't think there's really anything else to do."
"Just let me handle the candles, Harry. Yours are absolutely abominable."
Shrugging, Harry sat down on the dry ground. Fleur had a look of concentration on her face as she produced the candles, flicking her wand every now and then to stack them like pyramids at strategic positions around the lake. It was already more than Harry had ever thought about doing.
While she worked Fleur was humming a tune to herself, something that sounded like a lullaby. Combined with the light of the moon and the dark lake, the lullaby was almost enough to put Harry to sleep. He entered a half-awake state where time seemed to alternatively jerk, wiggle, and run. Minutes felt like hours and an hour was just a second.
He couldn't have said when Fleur joined him on the ground. Hundreds of candles were piled on the ground, each exquisite and unique. A ring of them were embedded in the ground around the lake, burning solidly without dripping wax or diminishing in any way. Tendrils of light reached across the lake, meeting in the middle, forming an intricate, unbroken spider-web of shadow and light.
Fleur's humming had finished, bringing him out of whatever fugue state he had entered. They sat together, staring at the lake, waiting for the first of the students to arrive.
Ron and Hermione joined the two of them by the lake, the first to arrive. Leanne, Katie's friend, joined soon after.
Fleur touched the tip of her wand to some candles, lighting them, and handed one out to Leanne, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Then she took one herself.
The grounds would have been bright even without any other lights. Hogwarts glowed a cheerful yellow, matching the flickering of their candles. Harry could see their distorted reflection on the lake shimmering unnaturally.
"You're doing a good thing," Fleur whispered in his ear. Her breath fluttered against him, warm and pleasant, and sent a shiver down his spine. He didn't respond, trying not to think about how her breath made him feel or what Ginny had said to him.
Students trickled down from the castle, then started coming in great clumps, dozens at a time. Candles were passed through the crowd, the elaborate pyramid stacks dwindling and finally disappearing. The grounds were lit up as students held their candles to the sky. Despite the gathered crowd the grounds were silent. Every face was solemn.
The students began to spread around the circumference of the lake, seeming to set it ablaze with the reflected light from hundreds of candles. Nobody said a word. There was a sense of gravity in the air. Leanne stood stoically next to Harry, her eyes bright, focused on the lake, not even seeming to acknowledge the crowd. She was buried in her own thoughts and Harry didn't think that she would care if five or five hundred showed up.
There were no Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs missing from the lakeside vigil. Many of the Ravenclaws and even a congregation of Slytherins joined the vigil, silently accepting the lit candles.
The crowd continued to swell as the night wore on. Though he wasn't sure, Harry felt as if some of the fugue state from earlier was still working on him, distorting his sense of time. He couldn't have even hazarded a guess as to how long they had been there. From the looks on the faces around him he wasn't the only one.
At some point Leanne had started crying. Her crying was silent and proud; she wasn't shaking or moaning. Rather, her tears were dignified signs of appreciation for the support being shown. Harry put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it briefly, before letting it drop. She nodded back at him, her expression conveying gratitude where words would have failed.
From the castle came a group of professors and staff: Dumbledore. McGonagall. Flitwick. Sprout. Pomfrey. Sinistra. Hagrid. Slughorn. Even Snape. They all soberly accepted candles from Fleur and joined the growing circle around the lake. Dumbledore took up a position next to Harry, not looking at him, focusing on the lake with the same intensity as everyone else.
They stood in silence and the night waxed and waned. None broke from the circle. There were stoic and saddened faces. Most of the school had turned out for Katie.
"Say something," Fleur whispered to Harry.
He raised his eyebrows at her but she just pushed him forward to the front of the line around the lake, then aimed her wand at him and cast the Amplifying Charm. His startled gasp was magnified around the lake, drawing the attention of the congregation. Harry glared back at Fleur but she just smiled innocently.
He cleared his throat, then started hesitantly. "We're here tonight in a show of solidarity for Katie Bell, who was senselessly and cruelly attacked on her way back from Hogsmeade yesterday." Harry paused, thinking of where to go next. The crowd didn't rush him, or give any impression of restlessness.
"When I first joined the quidditch team, I hardly even knew what the rules of the game were. I had no idea what I was doing. Katie took me aside after the end of the first practice and asked me if I wanted help. She stayed with me for hours, teaching me things that most people here knew as children. Rules, terms, moves, anything I needed help with. No matter how idiotic my question was Katie never got annoyed or impatient."
There were a handful of nodding heads and rueful smiles around the lake, as if people were remembering their own interactions with Katie.
"Katie was like that with everyone. She was cheerful, kind, and self-sacrificing. But...that didn't matter to Voldemort. Or maybe it did, and that's why he chose her."
There was no wind. The candles were still. The grounds seemed to Harry to be holding their breath. Everyone around the lake had their full attention on him; he looked out and saw dozens of faces he knew and dozens he didn't and could only hope that he didn't sound like a bumbling ass.
He continued, less assured then before. "It just seems like…every time I meet someone who's just a genuinely good person, Voldemort does everything he can to destroy them. He did that to all the people who were petrified in my second year. He did that to Cedric last year. And he tried to do that to Katie. I don't have any answers. I'm not smart enough to outthink Voldemort, or strong enough to fight him directly, but I don't think that means I'm powerless, or that anyone here is."
"If I'm being honest with you, I've always thought that the only way we could lose is if we give up. People always act as if I've done something special, as if being the Boy-Who-Lived means something, but it doesn't. I'm not stronger than anyone, I'm not braver, and I'm definitely not smarter. The only thing I can say about myself, the only thing I take any pride in, is that I won't ever give up. And…I think that's what frightens Voldemort the most. Because he knows that no matter how many times he tries to take away the best of us, like Katie, and like Cedric, the rest of us will never give up. He knows that, and that's why we frighten him. That's, well, that's why he does this to us. It's just him trying to make us give up."
Nobody spoke, moved, or even dared to breathe. A hush settled over the assembled crowd. Harry felt his heart drop, sure that he had just made an ass of himself, that his words had done nothing but made him out as a sententious fool.
Dumbledore made his way through the crowd to Harry. His eyes were lively, reflecting the light of the candle, seeming to have depths that Harry could never even hope to understand. He draped a companionable arm over Harry's shoulder and guided him softly away from the crowd toward the path back to the castle.
Fleur, Ron, and Hermione fell in step behind them. The faculty followed soon after, and Harry soon heard the entire school shifting, following, and talking amongst themselves quietly.
Their vigil was ended.
"Powerful words, Harry," Dumbledore said.
"I sounded like an idiot," Harry said, his face burning with shame. He was going to get Fleur back for that. Somehow.
"No. You sounded like a man trying to make sense of a cruel world. Your words were kind and true, and that's why they resonated with everyone who heard them. I think, when the time comes, those who would have otherwise stayed out of the fight, or cowered when their help was needed most, will remember your words. They will not give up." Dumbledore said.
He let his arm drop from Harry's shoulder and split off, moving a respectable distance away, making room for Ron, Hermione, and Fleur to crowd him.
"When's the campaign starting?" Ron asked.
"Campaign?"
"I just assumed you were running for Minister of Magic with a speech like that," Ron said. Harry refrained from swatting at him only because he had a feeling that there were eyes on them.
"I thought it was very moving," Hermione said. "Leanne was crying."
"You spoke well, Harry," Fleur said. She sounded as sincere as Harry had ever known her to be. Her words lit something in him that Ron and Hermione's, even Dumbledore's, hadn't been able to.
"We'll have to see if it actually does anything," Harry said.
Fleur smiled at him and said, "I have a feeling that it will. You're getting quite a reputation around here. Basilisk slayer, chief enemy of Voldemort, teacher to the young and hero to the downtrodden. A speech like that means more coming from you than it would from anyone else."
The sound of the crowd grew more and more as they got farther away from the lake. The unearthly seriousness that had struck the assembled students silent diminished in power. It was the same sense that one got from watching a tragedy unfold on stage, and then leaving and allowing it to fade into memory. Harry just hoped that people would remember it; that it would compel the frightened and apathetic to action when their help was most needed.
"It looked like the entire school was out there," Ron said.
"Most. Not all," Fleur said. There was a shared sense that those who hadn't bothered to show up were, almost without a doubt, enemies. It was tantamount to saying that they weren't a part of Hogwarts. That what happened there didn't matter to them.
Harry hadn't seen Malfoy there.
"It was a good idea. I think it calmed down the angriest students and agitated the indifferent ones," Hermione said.
"We can't let anyone else get hurt at Hogwarts. This is the one safe place left in Britain," Harry said.
"We've got the Dueling Club. We're still going to teach them how to protect themselves, aren't we?" Ron asked.
"Yes. Yes we are," Harry said, a slow-burning fire lighting in his voice.
AN: Sorry for the wait. Things got busy but they're settled down now and I hope to resume a more normal updating schedule. I'm not happy with this chapter but it has edged into tolerable territory only due to the uncomplaining editing work of the good people over at DLP.