Disclaimer: Nope. Coming up with some funny line for each disclaimer is really difficult. So I'll say, just nope.
Author's Note: Thank you for the review. Yes, the Potters definitely messed up a lot of lives. They have so much to answer for.
I really hope you all liked Sam. Please let me know what you think of him. He's my favorite character in this entire story, as he's based on a real person who has come to mean so much to me. His wisdom has helped me on my life's journey. I hope I can convince you all to care about Sam as much as I do.
Anyway, we're now back to Gabriel, Ron, and Hermione in the aftermath of Sirius's announcement.
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Ron Weasley had known something was very wrong when Gabriel didn't return to the common room for ages and ages. After McGonagall had gone with him to Dumbledore's office, Ron and Hermione had waited up for him. After everyone else had gone to bed, they remained on the couch they always sat on, concern etched into their features as the time ticked by and Gabriel still didn't come back.
Eventually, when both of them felt their eyes closing, they decided to go up to bed. Ron had unpleasant dreams that night, and when he awoke in the morning, he was so happy the night was over. Normally, he wasn't at all a morning person - whenever his alarm went off, he would groan and want nothing more than to go back to sleep. But this time, never had there been a sound that filled him with such relief.
Thank Merlin, he thought when he saw Gabriel partaking in his usual morning routine. But as they said good morning to one another, he knew instantly that something was wrong. "What is it? What happened last night?" he whispered as they made their way downstairs to the common room.
"Listen, there's no time to talk about it now," Gabriel said, his face holding so many emotions that Ron could not decipher. "But I promise, after classes today, I'll tell you and Hermione everything."
Ron wanted to argue, but he couldn't. If this was really big, Gabriel would need the time it would take to tell them. He couldn't deny the impatience he felt, though - something was up, and he wanted to know what.
And he knew Hermione felt exactly the same way when Gabriel whispered the same thing to her. The trio tried to act as though nothing was wrong, but from the strange looks they got, they didn't think they had succeeded. Once again, people tried to sneak looks at Gabriel - they didn't want to get on his bad side after the confrontation two days ago.
"Are you okay?" Neville asked Gabriel during breakfast. Gabriel was trying to eat, but he looked awful and it was plain to see it was the last thing he wanted to do.
"I'm fine," Gabriel murmured, but Neville wasn't convinced. Neither were Ron and Hermione, who exchanged worried glances.
Never had classes gone so slowly. Usually, the last week of school involved final exams, but because of the excitement of the Triwizard Tournament, all exams had been completed before the Third Task. It was assumed that the atmosphere after the task would be one of celebration - even if Hogwarts didn't win, the students would have been distracted, and not done their best on the tests. Unfortunately, the horrific events of the task had made this supposition true, but not in the way all the students had hoped for. There were no celebrations, only confusion and fear.
Ron and Hermione could see that Gabriel was struggling to concentrate in classes. They had Charms with Flitwick, and Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. They would have had Defense Against the Dark Arts, but obviously, all of those classes had been cancelled.
"I wonder who will be the teacher next year," Hermione said as they made their way to lunch.
"I'm not sure I want to know," Ron replied. "I'm already dreading it."
"The only teacher we had who ever did us any good was Professor Lupin," Gabriel stated. "It's ridiculous that he had to leave because some people can't get their head out of their bottoms."
Hermione sighed. "Yes, he was a really great teacher. He shouldn't have had to leave the way he did. I wonder if he still keeps in touch with Snuffles."
At the mention of that name, Gabriel got a look on his face that Ron couldn't figure out. "Gabe, did something happen to Snuffles?" he asked with concern. Was this what Dumbledore had told him last night?
"Snuffles is fine," Gabriel said. "Look, I promise to tell you everything after classes, okay? We'll meet in that classroom we've been going to lately."
"All right." Hermione agreed reluctantly, and they continued on to lunch.
xxx
Ron had prepared himself for all kinds of things, ranging from something about the Potters' interrogation to Sirius's recapture. Whatever Gabriel was going to tell his two best friends, it was something huge. The afternoon's classes had gone by at a snail's pace; it was as if time had deliberately slowed down just to drive Ron insane. He could have sworn that the clocks in the classroom had stopped working properly.
But eventually, it was time to reenter the classroom they had been to twice since Sunday. It seemed as though this week was so full of important revelations, and Ron honestly wasn't sure how much more his best mate's mind could process.
But when they were sitting in the classroom in their customary positions and Gabriel was telling him and Hermione what had happened the night before, he never could have imagined that this would be what he would hear. Once the words had been spoken, he saw Hermione's face go completely white. A gasp of horror left her lips, and Ron knew he didn't look any better. His brain repeated the words over and over again - You-Know-Who's back.
"You-Know-Who ... killed Harry?" Ron asked quietly, praying to Merlin that he had heard wrong.
"Yeah," Gabriel said, the devastated look on his face only making the situation more real.
"Oh, my God," Hermione breathed. "And he used him in some kind of ritual? What on Earth did he do?"
"I'm not sure," Gabriel said softly. "Sirius didn't tell me the details, and I didn't ask. Honestly, I didn't want to know. It's awful enough that he had to die the way he did."
Hermione's face seemed to go even whiter as something struck her suddenly. "The Triwizard Tournament," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
"What about it?" asked Ron, everything going hazy around him. "What about the tournament?"
"When Harry Potter's name came out of the Goblet of Fire ..." Hermione said, her mind putting the pieces together. "At that time, of course, you thought you were him. This whole thing was a set-up, Gabriel, don't you see? As far as everyone knew, you were the one who was meant to participate in all the tasks. It was you who ..." She stopped, unable to go on.
Gabriel nodded, his brown eyes full of a terrible understanding. "I'd have been the one kidnapped off of school grounds and taken to Voldemort," he said, his voice almost inaudible.
Ron felt sick. Harry's lifeless body played behind his eyelids again. There had been so many times since it had happened that he had to keep telling himself that the boy dead on the ground was not his best friend. Even when Gabriel was standing right beside him, the image wouldn't stop showing up. He had thought it would go away after Sunday morning when they'd talked about it, and yes, the image had become less frequent since then. But it still came to him from time to time, especially at night when he was behind his bedcurtains. But now, it came roaring back with a vengeance, because he realized that that was exactly what his best friend had been set up for - to be sprawled on the ground, lifeless, while the crowd stared in horror.
Hermione was clearly thinking in the same fashion, because she was in tears. Gabriel instantly put his arm around her, realizing what she was thinking about, and he reached out to Ron as well. They had been best friends for years, but Ron had never really hugged Gabriel before. They'd always pounded each other on the back to show their affection, but now, Ron let himself be embraced by him as well. It was unusual for Gabriel to reach out like this, but he obviously needed the physical contact - to reassure them that he was still here, and to reassure himself of the same thing.
Eventually, Hermione stopped crying, and the three best friends let each other go. "S-sorry," Hermione mumbled, her voice shaking. "I'm just ..."
"It's all right," Gabriel said gently, his eyes haunted. "I'm all right."
"Does Sirius know who put Harry's name in the goblet?" asked Ron as he felt a new surge of guilt slice through him. There he was, accusing his best friend of putting his own name in the goblet when, the whole time, he was being set up to be nothing more than a plaything to be used in a terrible ritual, and then he would have been murdered. Ron knew that everything was forgiven, but with this new bit of information, it was hard not to focus on what a horrible friend he had been.
Gabriel gave Ron a knowing look, realizing what he was thinking. He smiled slightly, as if to reassure him that they were okay. They had always been able to communicate like this. "No," Gabriel said in answer to his question. "Sirius didn't know the answer to that."
"It must have been whoever was pretending to be Moody," Hermione surmised. "It sounds like the whole thing was planned out. My God, poor Harry."
Obviously, Ron had never known the other boy, but had spent a lot of time over the past year with feelings of extreme anger towards him. Even when Gabriel had told him Harry had been completely clueless about what the Potters had done, he couldn't help but resent him. It was only now, when the boy had died in such a cruel fashion, that Ron felt truly wretched about what had happened to him. He remembered the look of abject terror on Harry's face at the end, and shuddered at the thought of what he must have gone through in his final moments.
And then, the true ramifications of what Sirius had told Gabriel dawned upon him. He remembered the old stories of the First War that he'd heard from his parents - they had told him how profoundly terrible the times were then. His uncles, Gideon and Fabian, had both been killed by Death Eaters at the end of August 1981, two months before You-Know-Who was defeated the first time. Gabriel had encountered the monster three times already - once when he was an infant, once when he was on the back of Quirrell's head, and once as a memory of a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle. The night Gabriel's parents had died, You-Know-Who had not been there himself - it had been four Death Eaters that had murdered them. Ron hadn't ever come face to face with You-Know-Who, but could only imagine how truly evil he was.
And now, he was fully back. He wasn't a wraith anymore, or a memory. He had a body again, and there was no doubt that a second war would begin. And he knew one thing for sure - the monster wasn't going to stop hunting Gabriel and everyone who associated with him. He thought of all the members of Gabriel's Muggle family who couldn't defend themselves, and understood how terrified he must be for them - Merlin, he'd just found them. Ron remembered Gabriel mentioning that Harry Potter was involved in some prophecy; that was why the Potters had escaped, after all, and kidnapped Gabriel to take Harry's place. The prophecy was null and void now, and that fact filled Ron with complete and utter dread. And he also knew that anyone who defied You-Know-Who was a target. And Gabriel had done that more than once.
But Ron decided then and there that he wasn't about to go anywhere. And he could see from the look on Hermione's face that she wasn't about to leave Gabriel's side, either. In a strange way, it seemed as though everything the three of them had been through had led to this moment. It seemed inevitable that You-Know-Who would come back.
But they would fight. It had always been the three of them, together, ever since he and Gabriel had stumbled into the girls' bathroom to rescue Hermione from a mountain troll. And the three of them it would remain. Ron was scared - frightened out of his mind - for his family, for Hermione, for Gabriel, and - he couldn't deny this - for himself. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to die.
But some things were worth fighting and dying for. The two people in this classroom would be worth every drop of blood, every sacrifice. He wouldn't abandon them now, no matter what happened. He could see in Gabriel's eyes that he was terrified, too, that he wanted nothing to do with this war. But You-Know-Who wasn't about to give him a choice. And Ron knew that Gabriel wasn't about to run and hide. He had always amazed Ron with how he had faced his fears. This was the boy who had screamed at him and Hermione at the end of first year, "Do you want to stop Snape or not?" Little were they to know what they would encounter that night, and Gabriel had been through a terrible ordeal and almost not come out the other side. But even after emerging from that life-threatening experience, he was ready to fight again.
Ron knew that he wasn't as brave as Gabriel, not by a long shot. He had always thought of himself as a coward. But now, staring into his best friend's eyes and the ones of the girl who meant everything to him, he vowed not to be one anymore. The time had come when he had to make a choice, and he knew that sticking by Gabriel was the right one.
"Who else knows about all of this?" Ron asked quietly, breaking the silence that the three of them had been sitting in for some time.
"Dumbledore's tried to tell Fudge, but he won't believe it," Gabriel said slowly. "He thinks it's just fear-mongering."
Hermione's face was furious, and Ron felt anger sweep over him as well. "I don't believe this," she fumed. "How can he possibly think Dumbledore's lying?"
"Incompetent arsehole," Ron muttered, livid. "Stupid, idiotic moron."
Hermione nodded her head in complete agreement. The fact that she didn't instantly chastise Ron for using a swearword showed just how enraged she really was.
"Yeah, exactly," Gabriel said. "Dumbledore's going to tell the school at the Leaving Feast. Sirius says he'll land himself in a whole lot of trouble once he does so, but he doesn't care. And I agree with him. People need to be prepared."
Hermione looked stricken. "This is so horrible," she murmured in disbelief.
"You know what'll happen, don't you?" asked Ron, his mind racing. "Students will tell their parents when we go home the next day, and parents will tell their children not to buy it. What will Dumbledore accomplish by telling everyone?"
"It's better than leaving it alone," said Hermione at once. "Even if only a minority believes it, that's better than no one doing so, isn't it?"
"What about your family?" asked Ron hesitantly. He despised having to bring the subject up, but he felt it was important to do so. "Is Dumbledore going to tell them?"
He could see the fear in Gabriel's eyes as he answered. "Yeah," he replied quietly.
"You know he's going to do everything he can to protect them, right?" asked Hermione, laying a hand on Gabriel's shoulder.
"And us," Ron agreed with a reassuring smile.
"Yeah, I know," Gabriel said, but Ron knew that he was still scared, and couldn't blame him. He'd finally gotten what he'd wished for, but now they were all in danger because You-Know-Who wasn't going to leave him alone. It was so incredibly unfair. When would his best mate ever get a break? "Have you ever heard of the Order of the Phoenix?"
"I thought I heard Mum talking about it years ago. She said something about Uncle Gideon and Uncle Fabian being in it," Ron replied. "They died a few months before You-Know-Who fell the first time."
Gabriel nodded. "I'm really sorry to hear that. Sirius told me that the Order was founded by Dumbledore in the 1970's. Apparently, the Ministry wasn't doing enough to fight Voldemort, so the Order did what they couldn't. Sirius said he and Remus and ... the Potters and Pettigrew ... they were a part of it."
Ron tried not to flinch every time Gabriel used You-Know-Who's name. Even after all this time, he still hadn't gotten used to it. "What else did Sirius say about it?" he asked, knowing that the last thing Gabriel wanted to do was discuss the Potters, let alone that treacherous rat Peter Pettigrew. Ron still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that that vile scum had been his pet, and no matter how much he'd griped about him, he'd loved him.
"Yeah. It's being reformed, and since so many of their number were killed last time, they're recruiting new members. They're going to send bodyguards to protect me this summer wherever I go." The boy looked extremely unhappy about this. "And they're going to guard my grandparents' home at night. I know it's necessary, and I know it will help keep everyone safe, but ... I hate this."
"Of course you do," Hermione said, and Ron nodded in understanding. "I imagine they're going to keep themselves hidden unless they're really needed?"
"Yeah, that's what Sirius said."
There was another silence as all three teenagers tried to get to grips with the way things were. Ron felt anger, sadness, and fear in equal measure. You-Know-Who was back, and he would do grotesque things to the wizarding world again. His head pounded with everything this would mean.
Suddenly, Ron opened his eyes wide, having realized something that seemed so obvious now. "Malfoy knows," he burst out, remembering the hideous smirk on Malfoy's face when he and Gabriel had locked eyes lately. "His slimy dad must have told him."
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked. "Do you really think Mr. Malfoy would trust him with that sort of information?"
"You saw the way he was looking at Gabriel, Hermione. Of course he ruddy well knows."
"I agree with Ron," said Gabriel. "He's never looked at me like that before. I had a feeling he knew something we didn't."
"Be very, very careful around him," Ron warned. "Please, Gabe."
"I will," Gabriel promised. "Those looks he's been giving me are really nasty."
Hermione still looked skeptical, but didn't argue further. Ron was relieved; the last thing he wanted to do was get into a row right now. He was glad Gabriel hadn't been there during the Yule Ball debacle; he'd been celebrating Christmas with his family. In hindsight, Ron had been a stupid git. Merlin, he wanted to stop doing that. He'd been unreasonably angry when seeing Hermione with Viktor - he'd treated her horribly. It was never going to happen again.
"Gabriel," said Hermione earnestly, and Ron could see the resolve in her brown eyes. "We need you to know that no matter what happens, we're here for you. I know this is a scary and uncertain time, but you matter to us more than ever."
"Yeah, you can't get rid of us that easily, so don't even try," said Ron, sincerely hoping that Gabriel would get the message. "And you know your family is going to support you, too."
"That's what Sirius said too," Gabriel replied, looking back and forth between Ron and Hermione with a desperate, vulnerable look in his brown eyes. "I don't want you to get hurt," he said, and it was the first time Ron had ever heard true fear in his voice.
"It's our choice, Gabriel," Hermione said, putting her arm around him. "You're not forcing us to be your friend, you know? We're making that decision on our own."
"And if we do get hurt, it won't be your fault," Ron said quietly. "So quit being a stupid pillock and just accept that we're not going anywhere." He gave Gabriel a smile, hoping he would appreciate the humor.
Gabriel still looked like he wanted to argue, but Ron and Hermione would have none of it. Hermione kept her arm around him, and Ron slung his own arm around him on his other side. Gabriel was surrounded by love and friendship, and he wasn't going to stop them from being around him, no matter how hard he tried.
It took several minutes, but finally, Gabriel relaxed. He gave Ron and Hermione such a look of gratitude that it caused Ron's chest to tighten. No one had ever looked at him like that before - he didn't deserve such a look. He felt unworthy of such trust and loyalty.
But he had it, and he wasn't about to ruin what he had with the two people who meant the absolute most in the world to him. Never, ever again.
