"That was," Harry paused, searching for the right word, then finally settled on, "illuminating."
"That's one way to put it," Ron said, entering the tent right behind him. "Or maybe it should be the reverse. Is there such a word as darkenating?"
"No," Hermione said, sounding bone-weary, "but I know what you mean well enough. We know more, but every bit of it is horrible."
The three of them had spent the day observing Malfoy Manor. They had spent the day doing reconnaissance, deciding that they needed to have some idea what they were facing before they went into the mouth of the beast. Now, Harry wasn't even sure whether they would be able to enter it at all. The closest they had managed was peering through the windows while they were under the Invisibility Cloak, and even that had been risky and disheartening.
"I almost feel sorry for Malfoy," Harry said, then added immediately, "but only almost."
Apparently, Draco wasn't often at Hogwarts this year. The Marauders Map rarely showed a trace of him, though Harry didn't exactly keep an eye out for his name. If he had been there, he had been called home. They had seen him arriving at the front gate. He looked drawn, far too thin, and he had paused for a long time before he entered. Harry and Hermione had managed to follow behind him, but Ron chose to loiter outside the gate on his own as the cloak really wasn't big enough for all three of them anymore. Polyjuice potion had made him look completely different, but it was still a risk. As he quietly kept watch, Hermione and Harry stole towards the massive old manor and had managed a glimpse of the comings and goings. Harry recognized Narcissa Malfoy seeming to wander through the rooms of her own home like some sort of ghost. Lucius had appeared shortly before nightfall, an expression of strain written into his features, which had aged remarkably since the battle in the Department of Mysteries, the last time Harry had really looked at him clearly. He had been there the night Dumbledore died, of course, but that had been at night, and the dim light had either hidden the marks of his stress or they hadn't been quite so deeply entrenched in his face.
Hermione had tapped Harry's hand once to point out a house-elf going by one of the windows. The soiled towel she (at least, Harry thought it was a girl) was wearing was even worse than Dobby's tea towel had been. He was almost certain she had looked at the pair of them under the cloak and seen something because she looked startled for a moment, but she said nothing and continued washing the massive windows as though her life depended on it. Maybe it did.
A veritable parade of Death Eaters came and went all day. Most of them were people Harry didn't recognize. However, he caught sight of the Carrows once, and at another time a man with a cruel face and arrogant expression. Hermione had very quietly whispered the word "Rodolphus" in his ear, and he nodded, understanding it was one of the Lestrange brothers.
As the day wore on and the sun became lower, something it was starting to do noticeably earlier now, it seemed more people were arriving, perhaps for some sort of meeting. That seemed too risky, so Harry had carefully guided Hermione back towards the gate. They waited until a pair of wizards came through again and used the opportunity to slip past unnoticed. Ron was outside, impersonating a Muggle road worker fixing cracks in the street. Harry had gently bumped his arm in a pre-arranged signal, and all three of them had returned to the tent in its hidden spot, guarded by twice the usual number of wards.
"What would you even call the decorating style in that place?" Ron asked. "Early Gothic Horror? Medieval Pure-Blood Classical?"
"Try horrid," Hermione said. "Not a single flower, not a speck of color other than green so dark that it might as well be black, nothing. It's like a place with no hope at all."
"Whatever goes on in there, it's not good," Ron agreed. "I didn't even get a decent look inside the place, and I have a bad feeling I'm going to have nightmares tonight."
"I know the feeling," Harry said, neglecting to mention that his own dreams were likely to be looks into what Voldemort was really doing right now. "And yet, at the same time, it seemed like everything was really expensive."
"I'm certain it is," Hermione said. "Everything in there—the paintings, the furniture, even the draperies—all of it felt costly, arrogant, and soaked in generations of strict bigotry."
"How exactly can draperies be soaked in generations of strict bigotry?" Ron asked, looking a little concerned for Hermione's sanity.
"I don't know. They just are," Hermione said. "Granted, I've probably been reading a tad too much Jane Austen of late and it's creeping into my speech patterns, but considering where we are, it seems apropos. That or some Dickensian, Bleak House-esque manor house."
"Whatever it is, it isn't cozy," Ron said. "Next to that monstrosity, Privet Drive looked friendly."
"It reminds me a little of Grimmauld Place," Harry agreed, "only at least there the people made it better. Here, they just make it worse."
"Yes," Hermione said, looking pensive. "I'm not sure Draco could have turned out any other way, growing up in a place like that."
"Maybe not," Ron said, "but Sirius didn't."
"True enough," Hermione said with a sigh. "I wonder sometimes how old he was when he realized he didn't want to be like the rest of his family."
"Birth?" Ron ventured.
"Really, though," Hermione said earnestly. "Think about it. He was surrounded by nothing by pure-blood mania from the time he was born until he left for Hogwarts. Was it just innate in him that he found the whole thing stupid, or did something happen? He was already open-minded at twelve when he befriended the rest of the Marauders, so it must have happened before then."
"I don't know," Harry said, thinking back on his godfather sadly. "There's a lot I suppose we'll never know about him."
"Well, Harry grew up in the same sort of situation, and he never acted like the Dursleys," Ron pointed out.
"Yes, but I was never part of their group," Harry said. "I was always the outsider, even at home. I knew that their attitude was wrong because they were doing it to me. I never had the option of being one of the ones treating other people that way. If I had, and I'd grown up that way, I don't know what I would have been like."
"Nah," Ron said dismissively. "You'd still be the same Harry."
Harry wasn't so certain. It was difficult to say what paths he might have taken if his life had been different, but then he supposed that was true for anyone, really.
Suddenly, a walnut hit him in the head.
"Stop thinking deep thoughts," Ron said. "We've got enough food for months thanks to Dumbledore, and it's an insult to his memory to spoil dinnertime by sitting around being maudlin thanks to the likes of the Malfoys. Grab a fork and tuck in, mate."
Hermione was producing a full ham from her beaded bag along with potatoes and salad as Ron spoke, and the little kitchen table in their tent almost glowed with the rich colors of the food. Harry let himself smile, then did exactly what Ron said and put the more depressing thoughts out of his mind at least until after pudding.
When they were done eating, with even Ron looking pleasantly full and not saying a word about being hungry, they sat in their accustomed placed in what passed for their sitting room, each with a decidedly different but silent expression. Harry looked pensively at the tent's door, wondering what was happening at Malfoy Manor right now and whether it was foolhardy to consider trying to enter what appeared to be a popular meeting spot for Death Eaters. For all he knew, Voldemort was sitting before the hearth there right now. Ron, on the other hand, appeared content, leaning back on the couch and staring up at the ceiling of the tent, a small smile on his face. Hermione, though, was sitting with her head hanging forward, her eyes lowered, and a strange sadness on her features.
"Why so glum, chum?" Ron asked when he noticed her.
"Oh, it's nothing," Hermione said. "I'm just thinking about something that happened years ago when I was on the Hogwarts Express for the first time."
"Right," Ron said. "I remember. You were wandering about with Neville looking for his toad Trevor."
"Yes, and you had dirt on your nose," Hermione said with a small smile that he returned before her expression became troubled again. "But before that I was in a compartment with three boys who were all nervous about going to Hogwarts for the first time. I struck up a conversation with one of them, and he seemed nice enough at first."
Harry blinked.
"You're talking about Draco, aren't you," he said.
Ron nearly fell off the couch when she nodded.
"He didn't know I wasn't a pure-blood, you see," Hermione said, "and I didn't know yet that sort of thing mattered to some people in the wizarding world. When he found out a few days later, he was furious and stopped speaking to me, of course. It took me a while even to understand why."
"His loss," Ron said, but he still looked stunned.
"Yes," she said, "but I think maybe, for at least that little time, I saw who he might have been if he hadn't been raised to hate everyone who wasn't like him. Just a shadow of it, mind you, but still, it makes me wonder how he would have turned out if he hadn't been raised in that horrid house."
"But he was," Ron said, as though that was obvious. "So he's a git, and that's that."
"True enough," Hermione said, shrugging and let the mood pass, "but I can't help feeling his parents are the ones who made a deal with the devil and he's the one to pay for it."
She paused, then a familiar look came into her eyes.
"You're thinking of a story," Ron said, suddenly grinning.
"I suppose I am," Hermione agreed, smiling back. "Is anyone in the mood for one?"
"I am," Harry said, settling more comfortably in his chair. "I could use the distraction."
"Same here, plus it'll give me some time to digest that beautiful ham before I try to sleep," Ron said, sighing happily. "Bless Dumbledore, wherever he is."
"Well, we don't want anyone to get indigestion, so I'll do it," Hermione said. "Once—"
"Upon a time," Ron said automatically, and she only slightly rolled her eyes.
"There was a poor miller who had a wife and a daughter," Hermione said. "He had once been quite prosperous, but he had fallen upon hard times."
"Why?" Ron asked at once.
"I don't know," Hermione said. "Maybe the mill broke and he couldn't fix it, or maybe the wheat didn't grow well so he had nothing to grind. The story never says, only that all he had left to his name was the mill along with a rundown house and a large apple tree that grew behind it."
"At least he could eat the apples, I suppose," Ron said, "or even sell some of them if he got tired of eating them."
"True, but perhaps it wasn't the time of year for apples yet," Hermione said.
"Well, then he has a problem," Ron agreed. "Apple blossoms are pretty, but you can't eat them."
"No, you can't," Hermione said. "One day, as he was walking through the forest, the miller met a strange man who seemed to know a great deal about him. He told the miller that he could fill his home with riches if he would only agree that in three years he would give the man whatever was standing behind his house right now in exchange."
"So, the tree?" Harry asked.
"That's what the miller thought as well, and he consented to the agreement, though he didn't really expect much to come of it," Hermione said.
"I suppose the bloke could sell the apples himself or even cut down the tree and use the wood for something," Ron said.
"Except that's not at all what happened. When the miller returned home to tell his wife about the unlikely deal, she came running out of the house, looking frightened," Hermione said. "'Husband!' she said, 'Whence came all these riches? They suddenly appeared from nowhere at all!'"
"Well, that's odd," Ron said, frowning.
"The miller ran into the house and his wife was telling the truth. Every last corner of the house was packed with gold, silver, jewels, fine furniture, and a thousand other expensive things," Hermione said.
"All for an apple tree?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"Even the miller began to suspect something was wrong," Hermione said. "He told his wife of the deal he had made, and she began to weep. 'Oh, fool! It's not the tree he wanted! Our daughter was behind the house today, hanging the laundry up to dry!'"
"Uh oh," Harry said. "That's a problem."
"But he can't seriously think this stranger is going to show up and just claim his daughter, does he? You can't barter away a person! That's outright slavery, that is," Ron said, getting angry.
"Unfortunately, that was only half of his problem," Hermione said. "You see, it turned out that the stranger was the devil in disguise."
"That's a bit of a leap," Harry said. "How did they suss that out?"
"I suppose the ill-gotten gold was a clue, but the wife actually puts that together very quickly in every version of the story, so I suppose we're supposed to just go with it, as the miller does."
Ron gave her a look or deepest weariness and said, "Let me guess. He gives his daughter to the literal devil, who by the way, in my head looks an awful lot like Lucius Malfoy."
"Well, he tries, but it doesn't quite work that," Hermione said. "The girl was very good and pure and holy, you see, so when the devil came by in three years to take her away, he wasn't able to touch her."
"Ha! Okay, so, granted, I don't think anyone in my family would pass that particular test, so off in a handbasket we'd all go, but good for her," Ron said. "Is that the end?"
"Not even close. You see, the devil was furious, and he told the farmer that he must refuse to let the girl bathe until she became filthy, and then she would be worthy to be taken away to hell," Hermione said.
"I… wait, what?" Ron said, looking baffled.
"I've got to admit, I don't get it either," Harry said. "How is being literally dirty supposed to make her less good?"
"They do say cleanliness is next to godliness," Hermione said, shrugging. "I suppose in this case the physical manifestation of impurity would be enough for the implication of moral impurity of some kind, in the same way that many fairy tales use physical beauty as a hallmark of a character possessing equal beauty of spirit and character."
"So, if you're a good person, you're automatically hot?" Ron asked.
"In the realm of fairy tales at least, that often holds true, but not always," Hermione said. "There were scads of fairly dreary Victorian morality tales for children in which a bad, homely, ugly little girl became beautiful if she underwent a change of heart, and of course 'Beauty and the Beast' did the same thing with a male. The stories had the unfortunate side effect of making some children equate beauty with virtue and anything less than physical perfection with someone who deserved to be picked at for their obviously evil or morally low nature, even if they were really very nice."
"So people would assume Fleur was a good person and someone like, say, Moaning Myrtle was a bad one?" Ron said.
"Yes, and we know that's not true," Hermione said.
"Myrtle did save my neck in the second task," Harry said. "She's certainly not completely horrible, though that girl Olive whose brother's wedding she crashed might say differently."
"Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with Fleur really," Ron said.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Seriously! She was smart enough for the Goblet of Fire to pull her name out of everyone at Beaux Batons, she loves Bill despite the problems they're bound to have from him being a partial werewolf, and she's a good member of the Order of the Phoenix and even volunteered to help get Harry safely out of Privet Drive," Ron said stoutly.
"Right, I'm sure Little Miss Perfection will be such a crucial part of the war effort, you know, unless it gets her robes wrinkled," Hermione said sniffing disdainfully. "I can just picture her snooty reaction if we had to ask her for help some fine day. I'd wager we'd be turned away like beggars at the door."
Ron shook his head, frowning, but Harry could recognize jealousy when he saw it, and in spite of the fact he had no problem with Fleur and thought Hermione was being a little too catty, he was secretly pleased at the obvious sign that Ron's interest was being returned.
"Well, let's hope we don't wind up having to go to Bill and Fleur's doorstep for help and just get back to the story," Harry said.
"Yes," Hermione said, shaking herself primly to refocus. "The father did as he was told and refused to allow his daughter to bathe."
"For how long?" Ron asked.
"A day," Hermione said.
"That's it? I was thinking a year or something," Ron said. "Unless she fell in the pigsty, how bad could she get in a single day?"
"Apparently sufficiently filthy," Hermione said, "but she kept weeping into her hands at her fate."
"I don't ruddy blame her," Harry said.
"Yes, but the devil did just that when he saw that her hands were clean from her tears, and this enraged him," Hermione said. "He turned to the father and ordered him to chop off his daughter's hands by the next day or else he would take the miller instead."
"Oh, come on!" Ron said. "That's a good mile too far there!"
"Unfortunately, the father didn't see it that way. He went to the girl and explained the situation, and she said—"
"She said, 'No, you got yourself into this mess; you get yourself out!'" Ron said firmly, then his shoulder sagged forward. "There's not a chance in the world that happened, is there."
"No, she said that as she was his child, she must be obedient to him in all things, and that he had the right to chop off her hands, which he did," Hermione said.
Harry and Ron looked at one another. Ron looked like he was going to be sick.
"Uh huh," he finally said. "So what happened then? Did the devil come back and slap the miller around with the girl's hands? Because that would be appropriate."
"No," Hermione said. "He did come back, but he found it impossible to touch her, even when she was filthy—"
"From not bathing in, what, two days now?" Ron said.
"Apparently," Hermione said, "but it foiled him nonetheless, and he disappeared, absolutely furious."
"Sounds like that gold spinning fellow you mentioned. What was his name again? Kevin? George? Coriolanus?"
"Do you mean Rumpelstiltskin?" Hermione asked, stifling a laugh.
"Yeah, that one," Ron said. "Didn't he crack himself in two and leave a chasm to hell in the princess's living room floor or something?"
"Yes, good memory," Hermione said. "He doesn't appear to have left a hole in the floor, though, and he does leave behind all the gold and jewels and things."
"Probably cursed, the lot of 'em," Ron said.
"Maybe, but the father looked at his daughter and said that he could use the wealth to let her live comfortably the rest of her days," Hermione said.
"So what's she do? Go sit in a corner and knit jumpers emblazoned with 'World's Best Da' with her feet?" Ron asked.
"No, actually, she says she can't live there anymore and is going out into the world to seek a different life," Hermione said.
"Well, bully for her!" Ron said, smiling. "All right then!"
"So, at her request, the father tied her hands to her back, and she set out the door," Hermione said.
"Wait, what?" Harry said.
"Yes, for some reason her hands, or possibly her lower arms, it's difficult to tell which, are tied onto her back when she leaves," Hermione said.
"But… why?" Ron asked. "At the very least, that's unsanitary."
"I don't know, but if I had to make a guess," Hermione said, "I'd say she didn't want to leave any part of her behind that might be found and used against her somehow. A lot of dark spells call for bits and pieces of people."
"You know, that's something," Harry agreed, then a thought struck him that made him feel queasy. "I've seen someone use a chopped off hand in a spell, so it's certainly possible."
"That's right," Hermione said, looking shocked. "I almost forgot about Wormtail. And… oh, there's another thing coming up that makes it even more of a weird coincidence, but we'll get to that in a minute."
"So what did the girl do next?" Ron asked. "Hands on her back or not, I admire her for leaving that father of hers. I hope things turn out okay for her."
"We'll see. She went off into the wide world, and some took pity on her, others didn't, but at last she was very hungry, really on the point of starvation, for she couldn't find any work she could do," Hermione said.
"Poor kid," Ron said, shaking his head. "Patriarchy's concept of ownership of female offspring by the male parent with the attendant connection to purity sure stinks!"
Hermione blinked at him in surprise, but a slow smile spread over her face, right up to her eyes.
"It certainly does," she agreed. "Well, finally, she came to a garden filled with fruit trees. What happens next changes a bit depending on what version of the story you read."
"What's the first one?" Harry asked.
"In that one, there's a moat around the garden, and the girl cries out to God to let her in or she will die. At that, an angel appears and shuts off the water gate so that the moat dries up, and she's able to enter the garden," Hermione explained.
"Well, that's lucky," Ron said. "What's the other one?"
"There's a hole in the hedge around the garden and she goes in that way," Hermione said.
"Less dramatic, but then if you've got the devil running about trying to kidnap girls by making them slightly grungy and chopping off their hands, it makes sense that an angel might show up at some point," Ron said.
"Yes, plus there's the whole symbolism of a walled garden filled with fruit surrounded by water and watched by an angel," Hermione said. "It has quite a bit of Eden-like imagery to it, only she's permitted in and there's no taboo against eating the fruit. She comes across as a sort of perfected Eve."
"Right," Ron said, smiling in a way that told Harry he had very little idea what Hermione meant.
"Regardless of how she gets in, she goes up to a pear tree and eats one as its hanging from a branch, using only her mouth," Hermione said.
"I guess she'd have to at that," Ron said. "That'd be difficult, that. Bit like bobbing for apples."
"Only, like you mentioned Hermione, it's a pear, not an apple, which means if she is in Eden, she's not eating from the wrong tree," Harry said.
"Oh, marvelous catch, Harry!" Hermione said delightedly, earning a small frown from Ron. "However, the gardener does see her."
"What's he do?" Ron asked.
"Nothing. He's frightened because he thinks she's a spirit, particularly in the version where there's an angel standing there with her," Hermione said.
"Can't say I blame him," Ron said. "Bit out of the ordinary, that."
"Unfortunately, the king came to visit the garden the next morning, and when he counted the pears, he realized one was missing," Hermione said.
Ron's brow furrowed in confusion, and he looked at Harry for confirmation.
"She did just say the king was counting pears and realized that exactly one pear in his entire garden was gone, right?" Ron asked.
"That's what I heard," Harry said.
Ron slowly turned his head to Hermione.
"Uh, okay, so how exactly would he miss one pear? Also, why is his hobby pear counting?" Ron said. "Is it like counting sheep when you can't sleep? Go out in the garden and count the pears until you're good and groggy?"
"I have no idea," Hermione said with a shrug. "I agree, it's odd, and in another version the gardener sees her eating a pear on three consecutive nights and he alerts soldiers who throw her in prison for stealing, which makes a little more sense."
"You know, all things considered, I think I like the one with the pear-counting king better," Ron said. "At least he doesn't get a bunch of soldiers to shove in prison a nice, handless girl, who's probably suffering from major blood loss into the bargain, for the crime of eating a pear."
"Yes, well, in the counting one, the gardener explains he's seen the girl who ate the pear, but she was dressed in snow-white and accompanied by an angel, so he was afraid to do anything," Hermione said.
"Fair point," Harry said.
"So the king lies in wait with a priest that night, and when she arrives, the priest asks her if she is from heaven or the world, and she says she is only a poor girl abandoned by everyone," Hermione said. "The king, hearing this, said he would not abandon her and took her into the castle."
"That's fairly nice of him," Ron said. "Okay, the king who's obsessed with counting pears is otherwise a decent sort of fellow."
"And in the other version?" Harry asked.
"The prince gets her out of jail and puts in her charge of the chickens," Hermione said.
"Huh," Ron said. "Okay, neither one is too bad."
"Yes, well, in the one with the king, he falls in love with her and marries her and has a pair of silver hands made for," Hermione said.
Harry felt a chill go down his spine, and the color must have drained from his face because Ron looked at him with a worried expression.
"Mate? You alright, there?" Ron said.
"Wormtail," Harry said.
Realization dawned on Ron's face, and he glanced at Hermione, who seemed to have expected something like this.
"It does seem awfully reminiscent of what happened with Pettigrew," she said. "He lost his hand and had it replaced with one made of silver, just like the Miller's daughter."
"You reckon it's another case of the Muggles getting wind of actual magic and switching up the details?" he asked.
"It's so similar that it very well could be," Hermione agree. "The coincidence would be uncanny."
"Okay, that's just eerie, that is," Ron said, shuddering. "Is it the same in the other version of the story with the prince?"
"No, she doesn't end up with silver hands in that one," Hermione said. "The prince does fall in love with her while she watches the chickens, and they marry, and after his father the king dies, the prince becomes king in his place."
"Not the uncle who marries his mother and killed his father who was his brother?" Ron said, giving a knowing grin.
"No, nothing like Hamlet's problems, thankfully," Hermione said with a small laugh. "Eventually, in both stories, the king who marries the girl with no hands has to go off to war, and he leaves his wife, who is now pregnant with their first child, in the care of his mother."
"Leaving her with the mother-in-law? That never really seems to end well," Ron said.
"And it doesn't this time either, but for a completely different reason," Hermione said. "The girl had a child, a healthy baby boy."
"So far there's no problem," Harry said.
"Not yet, but the queen sent a letter to her son to tell him the child had been born. The messenger who was hired to bring it stopped to rest by a river and fell asleep," Hermione explained. "While he was sleeping, the devil, still angry over losing the girl, changed the letter to say that the girl had given birth to a horrible monstrosity, a changeling child."
"Changeling?" Ron asked.
"Humans used to believe that fairies would sometimes steal human children and replace them with changelings. Sometimes they would look the same as the child and sometimes they didn't, but they didn't act the same, usually being cranky or odd, and people would believe the original child had been spirited away to the land of the fairies," Hermione said.
"So… they were colicky?" Ron asked uncertainly.
"Possibly."
"Even so, at least they got something right about the Fae for once," Ron said, shaking his head. "Fairy godmothers! I ask you, what were they thinking!"
"They just don't know any better," Hermione said, "sort of like wizards who scream into telephones or cover an entire envelope with stamps."
Ron looked a little embarrassed but remained silent.
"Anyway, the king read the changed letter and was very sad, but he wrote back that his wife and son were to be treated with kindness until he returned," Hermione said.
"Okay, I'm still liking this fellow," Ron said.
"Yes, but on the way back to the castle, the messenger stopped at the same spot and fell asleep again, and once more the devil, furious over his inability to kidnap the girl, changed the letter again."
"He really needs to get over this," Ron said. "Maybe get a hobby? Use a loaf of bread to suck some poor girl into hell and turn her into a statue again? Stamp collecting, since he really likes interfering with the mail so much? Maybe learn to play the ukulele?"
"The ukulele?" Hermione said. "Why the ukulele?"
"Dunno," Ron said, shrugging. "Why not? You think the accordion would be better?"
"No. The only person capable of making an accordion something other than an instrument of torture is Weird Al," Hermione said.
"Who?" Ron asked.
"He's a Muggle musician who writes songs that poke fun at other songs," Hermione said. "He's very funny, but his music makes more sense if you already know the other songs he's referencing. Maybe when this is all over, I can play some of it for you. You'd probably like it. And Fred and George would adore it."
"Ever hear of him, Harry?" Ron asked.
"Vaguely," Harry said. "Anyway, what changes did he make to the letter?"
"Oh, that was really terrible," Hermione said. "The letter said the king's mother was to have both the girl and the baby executed."
"What?" Ron said, looking horrified.
"Yes, in the other one it's just banishment, but the original story said she was to be killed. The king's mother was just as shocked as you are, so she wrote again to her son to be sure that this was really what he wanted, but the devil waylaid the letters again. In one, the message was just the same, that the girl and her son were to be banished, but in the other version, it's much worse and the devil makes it look like the king suspects his mother of disobedience and commands that when his wife and child are killed, she keeps the girl's eyes and tongue as proof to present to him when he returns," Hermione said.
"What is wrong with these people! There's going too far, and then there's that," Ron said, looking ill. "Tell me the mother didn't do it? Please?"
"No, she didn't," Hermione said. "She told the girl with no hands to run away, and she did, carrying her child with her. The king's mother had a doe killed and kept its eyes and tongue to fool her son, whom she now believed had gone mad."
"This reminds me a little of 'Snow White,'" Harry said.
"Yeah, the huntsman," Ron agreed. "I liked him. He reminds of Hagrid."
"Yes, the king's mother does have some of the same characteristics of independent thought and a focus on morality independent of obedience to the monarch, and she uses the same ploy, though the doe as the replacement for the queen shows up in 'Sleeping Beauty' while the hunstmas used a pig," Hermione said. "There's probably some connection among them, but I'm not sure what."
"Anyway, what happens to the girl?" Harry asked.
"Oh, in the first story, she leaves carrying her child, and in the other one, since she still has no hands, her child is tied to her back along with her chopped off hands," Hermione said.
Ron looked repulsed, then asked, "Why? Those things have to be getting pretty ripe by now."
"I don't know. She just does," Hermione said.
"Weird fashion accessory," Ron said. "Something tells me it's not going to catch on for this spring's runways."
Hermione sighed, but went on, "She didn't go far, though, before help came to her."
"Good," Harry said. "She's been through more than enough. Who shows up?"
"In the original version, we're told it's a snow-white virgin, which is probably meant to be the same angel that let her into the garden," Hermione said. "In that one, she's welcomed into a little house in the woods that had a sign on it that read 'Anyone can live here free.'"
"That's a nice idea," Ron said.
"Yes, it may be a reference to some sort of shelter set up to house people who were refugees or poor or hurt," Hermione said. "The angel takes the child from her back and nurses him for her, then puts him in a lovely bed to sleep."
"Okay, that's a little odd, and I'm wondering what the nutritional properties of angelic breastmilk are, but with everything else happening, I'm just going to carry on listening," Ron said.
Harry laughed a little before saying, "I'm guessing the other version is different a bit?"
"Yes. The Brothers Grimm were the ones who recorded this, and they changed it quite a bit between their first draft and their second. The first one had much stronger religious overtones, obviously. In the second one, the girl meets a kind old man in the woods sitting by a spring, and he holds the baby for her while she nurses her son," Hermione said.
"Nice of him," Ron said a little uncertainly. "Really awkward, but nice."
"After that, the man told her to go over to a tree nearby and wrap her arms around it three times, and when she did, her hands grew back," Hermione said.
Ron tipped his head, considering, and said, "I'm still going with it, though it makes no sense. At least she gets her arms back even if Madame Pomfrey would never be able to pull off something like that.."
"Does the other version get her hands back, too," Harry asked, then added, "the one with the silver hands?"
"Yes, she does too," Hermione said. "Her hands do grow back over time while she stays in the little house, so it happens in both stories. Also, the old man shows her a house where she can stay, though she isn't to go outside of it or let anyone in unless they ask her three times in God's name."
"That sounds like it could be some kind of protection spell," Harry said, considering. "The thing about not going outside seems a little like the Fidelius Charm."
"It does, doesn't it," Hermione said excitedly. "That's another bit of real magic in this, then."
"So, who was the Secret-keeper, then?" Ron asked.
"The old man or the angel, I suppose," Hermione said. "Either way, it seems a safe choice, and she was safe there for the next seven years until the king came home."
"The war went on for seven years without the king coming home?" Ron asked, looking deflated.
Harry knew what he was thinking, and he couldn't help wondering himself if this war would continue for that long or even longer with them wandering the countryside, looking for Horcruxes with no success until finally they either stumbled blindly into one or were caught by Death Eaters.
"Well, yes," Hermione said carefully, and Harry knew that she had picked up on what Ron was thinking, too. "But that was in olden days when it took Muggles months to travel distances we can manage in seconds."
"I suppose," Ron said glumly, "but still. It's a long time."
"And a long time for the poor girl to be stuck in the house," Harry said. "I'd have gone stir crazy."
"When the king did finally come home, his mother met him and told him that she had done as he'd asked and had his wife and child either banished or executed, the more extreme one showing him the doe's eyes and tongue. He was stunned and said he'd ordered no such thing, much to his mother's relief," Hermione said. "So she told him that instead, she had sent the girl and child away for their own protection."
"That worked out at least," Harry said.
"Yes, the king was very grateful, and he swore an oath that he wouldn't eat or drink until he found his wife, leaving that very minute," Hermione said.
"But he's been gone seven years," Ron said. "In that time, she could have gone anywhere at all! That's a stupid oath."
"Yes, and he spends another seven looking for her," Hermione said, "and he keeps his oath."
"So he's dead, right?" Ron said.
"No, he stays alive," Hermione said. "It's meant to be a miracle."
"But by this time the kid is, what, fourteen or so?" Ron asked.
"Yes, and his mother named him Filled-with-Grief," Hermione said.
"Normally I'd say the kids in school would make his life torture over that, but as he hasn't gone outside in fourteen years, I suppose that's not the problem it would normally be," Ron said, shaking his head. "As bad names go in these things, that's still pretty bad. Not as bad as Prince Florimund, but close."
"In any case, the king finally stumbled across the little house in his wanderings," Hermione said. "The angel invited him inside and offered him food, but he refused, saying he wished only to rest before he continued to look for his wife and child."
"Okay, so definitely she's the Secret-Keeper," Ron said.
"The king took out a handkerchief and put it over his face so he could rest. Then the angel went into the other room and told the girl that her husband was in the next room. She got up, and she and Filled-with-Grief went to look at him, but the cloth fell from his face as he slept, and the girl told her son to put the cloth back on his father's face," Hermione said.
"Bit odd, but for this story, that's normal," Ron said.
"Then Filled-with-Grief said, 'But, Mother, you have said I have no father but God in heaven, so this wild man cannot be my father!'" Hermione said.
"Kid's got a point," Harry said. "As far as either of them know, his father ordered them both killed for no reason at all."
"True, but I suppose the girl trusted the angel," Hermione said. "Meanwhile, the king woke, hearing the girl say he was her son's father. At first he didn't believe it because she had hands, and his wife didn't, but she explained they had grown back, and the angel brought out the silver hands from the other room as proof."
"Sounds just a bit like Ashyweeper's slipper," Ron said.
"I suppose it does, providing proof of identity via an unusual object with potentially magical significance," Hermione said thoughtfully. "I was never really clear on whether the silver hands could move or not. Anyway, after that, they went home, the queen rejoiced, and the king and the girl who now had hands repeated their wedding ceremony and lived happily ever after."
"What about the one with the old man?" Harry asked.
"Oh, in that one the king is travelling all that time with a servant, who complains that he's tired and wants to rest at a little house they are passing. The king looks in and thinks that the girl is his wife, but then decides she isn't when he sees she has hands. He calls out, 'Let us in, for God's sake!' but she refuses. When he asks why, she says he must call two more times, which he did," Hermione said.
"That just seems sort of rude," Ron said.
"It's strange, but it follows the rules the old man set down, so she's being obedient, which works in her favor," Hermione said. "After the third time, the king walks in, and he realizes that it really is his wife and child. The next morning they began their journey home, and the little house disappeared behind them."
"And they lived happily ever after?" Ron asked.
"I assume so, yes," Hermione said.
"Uh huh," Ron said. "Okay, so what I'm taking away from this is You-Know-Who came up with the idea for Wormtail's hand from a Muggle fairy tale."
"Possibly," Hermione agreed. "Perhaps the orphanage he was in had a copy of Grimms' fairy tales. It's certainly not out of the realm of believability that they might."
"Well, if he read these things regularly as a kid, that might explain a lot," Ron said.
"Except, if that's the case, he never picked up on any of the ideas of bravery and kindness and hope in them," Hermione said, "just the bad bits."
"I liked this one, though," Ron said. "It's bonkers, but the girl was okay, and she had a good bit of courage, having to go off on her own twice."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Hermione said, stretching. "I suppose we'd better sleep soon. We'll need to plan what we're doing tomorrow carefully."
"I suppose," Ron said, taking one more slice of bread, folding it into quarters, and then stuffing the whole thing in his mouth at a go.
Hermione stared at him in a mix of fascination and repulsion.
"What?" he managed to mumble around the bread.
"Nothing at all," she said. "Good night to you both."
"Night," Harry said, and Ron waved as his mouth was still full.
In a few minutes, all of them went to their usual spots to sleep, but Harry woke in the middle of the night with a start. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming, and he was glad of it because he was sure it hadn't been pleasant. He glanced at the watch Mrs. Weasley had given him and realized it was only two o'clock in the morning. He yawned, glancing around the room and seeing Ron, but Hermione's nook with the curtain in front of it was empty. A quick glance around the tent showed she wasn't there at all. Harry frowned and decided to find out where she was.
Quietly, he toed on his shoes and, wand in hand, slipped through the tent flap, which was slightly open. He saw Hermione at once, standing about eight feet away, still well within the borders of the enchantments she had used to protect them. She was facing away from him, looking in the direction of Malfoy Manor.
"I know you're there," she said quietly, not moving.
"Why are you out here?" he asked, going up to her now that he knew she was aware of his presence. "It's freezing."
"I couldn't sleep," she said, sighing, still looking at the house. "Harry, I don't think a Horcrux is in there. You-Know-Who entrusted one to the Malfoys already with the diary, and it doesn't make sense that he'd do it again. It's bad tactical planning."
"You're probably right," Harry said, looking at the distant, dark form of the enormous house. "It does look like the kind of place he'd like, though."
"It does," Hermione agreed, still looking at it. "I hate that house and everything it represents, especially what it did to someone I thought was a friend once upon a time. It was one of the reasons it hurt so badly when Ron said I had no friends that Halloween. I didn't. By that point he'd found out I was Muggleborn and turned into a little beast."
Harry couldn't help but shake his head in disbelief.
"Hermione, are you sure he wasn't just playing you the whole time? Maybe he wanted information on Gryffindor and thought you could be useful," he said.
She finally looked over at him and shook her head slightly.
"No. I thought of that, but we met on the train, so I wasn't even in Gryffindor yet," Hermione said, her expression tentative. "There's something else, too."
"What?"
"Do you remember in second year when the Basilisk Petrified me?" Hermione said.
"Of course. It's a little hard to forget that," Harry said, "but even unconscious, you still managed to solve the mystery of what was going on and warn everyone."
"Oh, Harry," she said, taking a shaky breath. "No one ever did figure out what really happened, did they?"
"I don't understand," Harry said.
"I did find out about the Basilisk when I went to the library," Hermione said, "and that was why they found me with a mirror in my hand, checking round corners."
"Right, and you had the page from that book tucked into your other hand, the one you'd written the word 'pipes' on," Harry said.
"No," she said. "I didn't."
"I don't—"
"Harry, can you really picture me ripping a page out of a Hogwarts library book?" she said. "And why would I need to? I already knew it was a Basilisk, and I had no bloody idea it was using the plumbing. Plus, do you think Madam Pomfrey wouldn't have noticed I was holding something in my hand during all those weeks I was in hospital?"
Harry stared at her, slowly beginning to understand.
"That's not possible," Harry said.
"No one else could have done it," Hermione said. "The Malfoys had the diary, they came up with the whole plot to frame Ginny, and I'm guessing old Lucius knew about the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and how it would be able to get around the school without being seen."
"And you think Draco did, too?"
"I've wracked my brain to think of any other explanation," Hermione said. "There isn't one. When you told me what happened and I saw the page, I recognized the handwriting. Mine's tiny, Harry. You know that. I was surprised neither of you realized it looked completely different. But Draco always finishes his i's with a circle instead of a dot, exactly like someone did in the word 'pipes.'"
"Hermione," Harry said, his mind trying to wrap itself around this information and coming up against a brick wall that refused to allow him to accept it, "he's a git."
"Of course he's a git," Hermione agreed as though this were perfectly obvious. "It doesn't excuse the literally thousands of horrid things he's done and is probably still doing. I'm not arguing otherwise."
She looked back at the house again, and Harry saw sadness in her eyes.
"His father made a deal with the devil, but it was his child who paid the price," Hermione said quietly, repeating what she had said before the story began.
They stood there silently for a few seconds.
"Never tell Ron," she said suddenly, giving Harry a desperate look. "Please."
"Not a chance," Harry said. "That would be… bad. Very bad."
She snorted slightly as though it were the biggest understatement she'd ever heard, but nodded in agreement, then threw a parting glare at the manor and turned back towards the tent.
"I'm going in to see if I can catch a few hours of sleep. Coming?"
"In a few minutes," Harry said, and she slipped silently back into the tent.
Harry shivered in the cold night air and regarded the Malfoy home critically. No. Not a home. He'd never been to a place that seemed less like a home, except maybe for Grimmauld Place. If Hermione was right, and he figured she probably was, Draco was indirectly responsible for Ginny not being murdered and Voldemort not coming back to power years earlier than he did, though Harry doubted those were the reasons he did it. The real reason was even more unbelievable.
Fighting enemies was a lot easier if he just hated them, but looking at the cold, forbidding outline of Malfoy Manor silhouetted against the night sky, he was struck with the realization that there were things about his adversaries that he would never know, things that might even move him to pity.
He pulled his jumper more tightly around him and went back into the tent, hoping sleep would carry him off again to a dreamless rest until they could decide what to do in the morning.
