Chapter 34:

Hermione and Alicia landed on their foot as Harry fell to the grass and there was a thump of Ron stumbling too. Hermione instantly began to walk around in a circle as Alicia moved for the bags to dig out the tent.

"Protego Totalum… Salvio Hexia…"

"That treacherous old bleeder!" Ron panted, emerging from beneath the Invisibility Cloak and throwing it to Harry. "Hermione, you're a genius, a total genius, I can't believe we got out of that!"

"Cave Inimicum… Didn't I say it was an Erumpent horn, didn't I tell him? And now his house has been blown apart!"

"Serves him right," said Ron, examining his torn jeans and the cuts to his legs. "What d'you reckon they'll do to him?"

"Oh, I hope they don't kill him!" groaned Hermione. "That's why I wanted the Death Eaters to get a glimpse of Harry before we left, or at least Alicia, so they knew Xenophilius hadn't been lying!"

"Why hide me, though?" asked Ron.

"You weren't supposed to be there." Alicia said obviously as she waved her wand and the tent shot up into position before her.

"You're supposed to be in bed with spattergroit, Ron! They've kidnapped Luna because her father supported Harry! What would happen to your family if they knew you're with him?"

"But what about your mum and dad?"

"They're in Australia," said Hermione. "They should be all right. They don't know anything."

"You're a genius," Ron repeated, looking awed.

"Yeah, you are, Hermione," agreed Harry fervently. "I don't know what we'd do without you."

She beamed, but became solemn at once.

"What about Luna?"

"Well, if they're telling the truth and she's still alive —" began Ron.

"Don't say that, don't say it!" squealed Hermione. "She must be alive, she must!"

"She's not much leverage if she's not." Alicia said thinking "If they want to control Lovegood than she needs to be alive."

"Then she'll be in Azkaban, I expect," said Ron. "Whether she survives the place, though… Loads don't…"

"She will," said Harry. He could not bear to contemplate the alternative. "She's tough, Luna, much tougher than you'd think. She's probably teaching all the inmates about Wrackspurts and Nargles."

"I hope you're right," said Hermione.

"Don't forget, Sirius survived that place for 12 years, and he survived because he knew he was innocent. Luna's even more so, she'll be alright." Alicia reminded them as she was first to enter the tent. The other three followed her as Hermione passed a hand over her eyes. "I'd feel so sorry for Xenophilius if —"

"— if he hadn't just tried to sell us to the Death Eaters, yeah," said Ron.

Ron made them tea as Alicia slumped herself into her favourite chair with a heavy sigh. After their narrow escape, the chilly, musty old place felt like home: safe, familiar, and friendly.

"Oh, why did we go there?" groaned Hermione after a few minutes' silence. "Harry, you were right, it was Godric's Hollow all again, a complete waste of time!"

"What did I tell you." Alicia grumbled

"Best we start listening to her." Harry chuckled as she shot him a look.

"The Deathly Hallows… such rubbish… although actually," Hermione continued as a sudden thought seemed to have struck her, "he might have made it all up, mightn't he? He probably doesn't believe in the Deathly Hallows at all, he just wanted to keep us talking until the Death Eaters arrived!"

"I don't think so," said Ron. "It's a damn sight harder making stuff up when you're under stress than you'd think. I found that out when the Snatchers caught me. It was much easier pretending to be Stan, because I knew a bit about him, than inventing a whole new person. Old Lovegood was under loads of pressure, trying to make sure we stayed put. I reckon he told us the truth, or what he thinks is the truth, just to keep us talking."

"Well, I don't suppose it matters," sighed Hermione. "Even if he was being honest, I never heard such a lot of nonsense in all my life."

"Hang on, though," said Ron. "The Chamber of Secrets was supposed to be a myth, wasn't it?"

"But the Deathly Hallows can't exist, Ron!"

"You keep saying that, but one of them can," said Ron. "Harry's Invisibility Cloak —"

" 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' is a story," said Hermione firmly. "A story about how humans are frightened of death. If surviving was as simple as hiding under the Invisibility Cloak, we'd have everything we need already!"

"Oh Hermione." Alicia muttered and they all turned to her "It doesn't mean literally defeating Death and living forever! It's about mentally accepting it and understanding that it's not the end. Not hiding from it. I bet people who were brought back, so it said by the stone, would tell you it's not to be frightened of in the first place. The cloak could give you time to put your affairs in order, and the wand, well you brag enough and your ends coming isn't it."

"Where'd yo get that from?" Harry asked. Alicia sighed and sat up.

"What was the whole point we went to find out about that symbol?" she asked. None answered. "Because Dumbledore wrote it in Hermione's book and then it crept up on us a few times. Dumbledore wrote it. Now I don't know if he believed in them but for the minute say we did. He was not scared of dying. Ever. He told us in our first year, remember Harry. Death is nothing but the next adventure."

"Dumbledore wouldn't believe in this rubbish." Hermione said

"Actually I think he may have." Alicia said and Hermione gapped at her

"They're not real!"

"Says who?"

"There's no proof!"

"Muggles have no proof magic exists either yet they believe in it. To most of them it's completely farfetched and yet there's a complete other world hiding below them. Just because there's not proof of something doesn't mean it's not real. There was no proof I survived the killing curse for 15 years too, yet I did and some people believed that as well." Alicia said "Just because it's not in a factual book." she rolled her eyes and sat herself back down again.

"You know, we could do with an unbeatable wand," said Harry, turning the blackthorn wand he

so disliked over in his fingers.

"There's no such thing, Harry!" Hermione continued.

"You said there have been loads of wands — the Deathstick and whatever they were called —"

"All right, even if you want to kid yourself the Elder Wand's real, what about the Resurrection Stone?" Her fingers sketched quotation marks around the name, and her tone dripped sarcasm. "No magic can raise the dead, and that's that!"

"When my wand connected with You-Know-Who's, it made my mum and dad appear… and Cedric…"

"But they weren't really back from the dead, were they?" said Hermione. "Those kinds of — of pale imitations aren't the same as truly bringing someone back to life."

"Which is sort of what the book said happened. The girl wasn't actually there Hermione." Alicia shot in.

"Yeah she, the girl in the tale, didn't really come back, did she? The story says that once people are dead, they belong with the dead. But the second brother still got to see her and talk to her, didn't he? He even lived with her for a while…"

Concern and something less easily definable appeared in Hermione's expression. Alicia looked at her brother and sighed as Hermione glanced at Ron, the girl was afraid: He had scared her with his talk of living with dead people.

"So that Peverell bloke who's buried in Godric's Hollow," he said hastily, trying to sound robustly sane, "you don't know anything about him, then?"

"No," she replied, looking relieved at the change of subject. "I looked him up after I saw the mark on his grave; if he'd been anyone famous or done anything important, I'm sure he'd be in one of our books. The only place I've managed to find the name 'Peverell' is Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. I borrowed it from Kreacher," she explained as Ron raised his eyebrows. "It lists the pure-blood families that are now extinct in the male line. Apparently the Peverells were one of the earliest families to vanish."

" 'Extinct in the male line'?" repeated Ron.

"It means the name's died out," said Hermione, "centuries ago, in the case of the Peverells. They could still have descendants, though, they'd just be called something different."

"Like Gaunt." Alicia said and Harry turned to her. "Remember him. Marvolo Gaunt."

"Marvolo Gaunt!"

"Sorry?" said Ron and Hermione together.

"Marvolo Gaunt! You-Know-Who's grandfather! In the Pensieve! With Dumbledore! Marvolo Gaunt said he was descended from the Peverells!" Harry suddenly raved in remembrance and Alicia waved a hand to him to answer Ron and Hermione's question.

Ron and Hermione looked bewildered.

"The ring, the ring that became the Horcrux, Marvolo Gaunt said it had the Peverell coat of arms on it! I saw him waving it in the bloke from the Ministry's face, he nearly shoved it up his nose!"

"The Peverell coat of arms?" said Hermione sharply. "Could you see what it looked like?"

"Not really," said Harry, trying to remember. "There was nothing fancy on there, as far as I could see; maybe a few scratches. I only ever saw it really close up after it had been cracked open."

"Blimey… You reckon it was this sign again? The sign of the Hallows?"

"Why not?" said Harry excitedly.

"Let's find out." Alicia said and she moved to her bag to pull out her Pensieve and the tangle of memory phials she'd taken from Dumbledore's office. She paused however.

"Hmm." she hummed and then put her wand to her temple. The other's watched as the strand was rather short when it broke from her head and she dropped it in the pensieve. She swirled the contents slightly before prodding it with her wand.

The four crowded around the glowing basin to look as the ring rose up out of the pensieve and turned, revolving on the spot. It was the same ring, still rather ugly and black-stoned which held a crack in it. The four leaned even closer to get a better look. The stone had cracked down a vertical line and with a very close inspection, the four could just make out the triangle and circle of the symbol they'd been hunting.

"You were right Harry."

"This proves nothing." Hermione snapped

"Right, we have Ignotus in Godric's Hollow, who's grave is I don't even know how old, with this symbol on it and now we have a ring, a family heirloom with the same sign on it that's said, by it's owner, to be passed down by a Peverell as well. The Gaunts lived in a shabby house miles from Godric's Hollow Hermione, how did the sign get to both places?" Alicia asked "A place where an invisibility cloak was passed down and a stone in a ring?"

"That's it!" Harry said, his excitement building, "The Resurrection Stone!"

"Okay, it's a stone, in a ring, let's not go that far yet." Alicia said before Hermione could start an argument. "But it's definitely been passed down from the Peverells who were said to possess something of that nature. That cannot be denied, proof or not." she added looking at Hermione.

Harry ignored his sister as he stared at the ring.

"Marvolo Gaunt was an ignorant old git who lived like a pig, all he cared about was his ancestry. If that ring had been passed down through the centuries, he might not have known what it really was. There were no books in that house, and trust me, he wasn't the type to read fairy tales to his kids. He'd have loved to think the scratches on the stone were a coat of arms, because as far as he was concerned, having pure blood made you practically royal."

"Yes… and that's all very interesting," said Hermione cautiously, "but Harry, if you're thinking what I think you're think —"

"Well, why not? Why not?" said Harry, abandoning caution. "It was a stone, wasn't it?" He looked at Ron for support. "What if it was the Resurrection Stone?"

Ron's mouth fell open.

"Blimey — but would it still work if Dumbledore broke — ?"

"Work? Work? Ron, it never worked! There's no such thing as a Resurrection Stone!"

"I bet you eat those words." Alicia said "This isn't the first time you've doubted something and been wrong."

Hermione had leapt to her feet, looking exasperated and angry.

"Harry, you're trying to fit everything into the Hallows story —"

"Fit everything in?" he repeated. "Hermione, it fits of its own accord! The sign of the Deathly Hallows is on that stone! Gaunt said he was descended from the Peverells!"

"A minute ago you told us you never saw the mark on the stone properly!"

"Well there's your 'properly' for you." Harry said pointing at the pensieve.

"Where d'you reckon the ring is now?" Ron asked Harry. "What did Dumbledore do with it after he broke it open?"

"It wouldn't be lying around, and I doubt he'd leave it for the ministry to find." Alicia said thinking.

But Alicia had had a thought. Harry was to die, well he was to be hit with the killing curse, there was a slight possibility Dumbledore had believed in the Hallows, and he had only made a guess at Harry's survival. Had he decided on something else to put in place to keep Harry alive? Had he put them on the path of the Hallows to make Harry master of Death when he faced Voldemort? She wasn't sure if they stopped you from dying, but that didn't mean everyone believed that too.

"Harry?"

But it seemed Harry scarcely heard Hermione: He had pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and was running it through his fingers, the cloth supple as water, light as air.

He suddenly gasped as he looked at it.

"Dumbledore had my Cloak the night my parents died!" His voice shook slightly. "My mum told Sirius that Dumbledore borrowed the Cloak! This is why! He wanted to examine it, because he thought it was the third Hallow! Ignotus Peverell is buried in Godric's Hollow…" Harry was walking blindly around the tent, feeling as though great new vistas of truth were opening all around him. "He's my ancestor! I'm descended from the third brother! It all makes sense!"

Alicia grimaced.

"Great, that makes us distantly related to You-Know-Who." she mumbled, realising.

"Harry," said Hermione again, but he was busy undoing the pouch around his neck, his fingers shaking hard.

"Read it," he told her, pushing his mother's letter into her hand. "Read it! Dumbledore had the Cloak, Hermione! Why else would he want it? He didn't need a Cloak, he could perform a Disillusionment Charm so powerful that he made himself completely invisible without one!"

Something fell to the floor and rolled, glittering, under a chair: He had dislodged the Snitch when he pulled out the letter. He stooped to pick it up before suddenly, filled with shock and wonder, he shouted.

"IT'S IN HERE! He left me the ring — it's in the Snitch!"

"You — you reckon?" Ron looked taken aback and both Hermione and he looked at Alicia. She blinked at Harry. Even she had to admit there was no proof of the stone being in the snitch but that didn't mean it wasn't. If Dumbledore wanted to give it to Harry without anyone else getting in the way, the Snitch did make sense in that aspect. But that didn't mean it was true.

And then, suddenly, Harry's excitement, the hope and happiness he'd been feeling, was gone.

"That's what he's after."

The change in his voice made Ron and Hermione look even more scared.

"You-Know-Who's after the Elder Wand."

Alicia frowned.

Of course. An unbeatable wand. It didn't matter if you believed in the Hallows, the stories of unbeatable wands were everywhere regardless. Hallow or not, there were powerful wands out there and he wanted one. He needed it to beat Harry, who's wand had thawed every other option. He went to Ollivander, and he went to Gregorovitch. Someone had stolen it from Gregorovitch, but they hadn't been able to see what it was for it was too small and concealable. And that thief, they already knew, was Grindelwald.

Harry walked to the entrance of the tent, forgetting about Ron and Hermione as he looked out into the night, thinking…

It took him a few minutes but Harry turned back around. Alicia was looking at him from her seat and Hermione and Ron were still standing in the same place, Hermione still holding Lily's letter and Ron at her side looking slightly anxious.

"This is it," Harry said, trying to bring them inside the glow of his own astonished certainty. "This explains everything. The Deathly Hallows are real, and I've got one — maybe two —"

He held up the Snitch.

"— and You-Know-Who's chasing the third, but he doesn't realise… he just thinks it's a powerful wand —"

"Harry," said Hermione, moving across to him and handing him back Lily's letter, "I'm sorry, but I think you've got this wrong, all wrong."

"But don't you see? It all fits —"

"No, it doesn't," she said. "It doesn't, Harry, you're just getting carried away. Please," she said as he started to speak, "please just answer me this: If the Deathly Hallows really existed, and Dumbledore knew about them, knew that the person who possessed all three of them would be master of Death — Harry, why wouldn't he have told you? Why?"

"But you said it, Hermione! You've got to find out about them for yourself! It's a Quest!"

"But I only said that to try and persuade you to come to the Lovegoods'!" cried Hermione in exasperation. "I didn't really believe it!"

"He was scared of them." Alicia whispered and everyone looked at her.

"What?" the three asked.

Alicia's forehead creased. "Dumbledore knew of the Hallows, possibly. He inked it into Hermione's book, but years ago, he signed his name with it to Grindelwald. Back before Grindelwald did anything. The two of them, they wanted dominion back then, what a perfect way to do that than to have the objects that mastered death."

"Alicia that doesn't tell—" Hermione began

"I'm not done." Alicia said standing. "Dumbledore met Grindelwald before Ariana's death, and her death is still a mystery. Despite this, Abeforth, according to Rita's book and several witnesses, blamed Dumbledore for Ariana's death and Grindelwald left straight after. It seems something went wrong, and maybe it was this obsession with the Hallows, with the power, that caused the argument and lead to Ariana's demise? If that happened, wouldn't that be enough to scare you into never telling another?" Alicia asked "Dumbledore always cherished how humble Harry and I were, we looked into a mirror of desire and saw our families, not power, and he never wanted to corrupt that. So why tell us of something that makes you powerful and masterful? Especially when Harry would desire it more than others?" she said pointing to him

"Why would Harry—" Ron began

"Because the Prophecy said only one of them can survive. What better way to survive than with the Hallows that master Death?" she asked cutting him off as well. "Hand someone that answer and tell them straight out… it'll make them crazy. Have them fight for realisation, and the outcome is completely different." Alicia said looking at Hermione. "If Dumbledore told us we needed the sword to destroy Horcruxes, we'd have broken into Hogwarts to get it and probably have ended up worse off than Godric's Hollow or the Lovegoods. Telling us things straight up, isn't always what's best." she believed

"You just made all that up?" Ron thought

"No i didn't." she said simply.

"There's nothing about Ariana being killed by her brothers." Hermione said strongly

"And yet, when Dumbledore took that potion that made him hallucinate, he was blaming himself for something and wanting to apologise. The second he saw that ring he forgot all about it being a Horcrux and he put it on in his haste to see his family again, and apologise by the sounds of it. That's how his hand got cursed." Alicia said "I think something went wrong with Ariana, and Dumbledore was turned off of the power because of it. I mean how many times was he offered the highest power, Minister of Magic, and turned it down? It scared him I bet."

Ron and Hermione stared at her while Harry looked at his snitch.

"Besides, it's not the main mission he gave us, it seems more like just an extra…" she mumbled and Harry nodded.

"Dumbledore usually let me find out stuff for myself. He let me try my strength, take risks. This feels like the kind of thing he'd do."

"Harry, this isn't a game, this isn't practice! This is the real thing, and Dumbledore left you very clear instructions: Find and destroy the Horcruxes! That symbol doesn't mean anything, forget the Deathly Hallows, we can't afford to get sidetracked —"

Harry however was simply turning the snitch over and over again in his hands as though expecting it to break open.

She appealed to Ron.

"You don't believe in this, do you?"

Harry looked up. Ron hesitated.

"I dunno… I mean… bits of it sort of fit together," said Ron awkwardly.

"Yeah the stone being in your Snitch is a wild guess." Alicia added to Harry and he looked annoyed. "Doesn't mean it's not true, but still." she said and turned back to Ron.

"When you look at the whole thing…" He took a deep breath. "I think we're supposed to get rid of Horcruxes, Harry. That's what Dumbledore told us to do. Maybe… maybe we should forget about this Hallows business."

"Thank you, Ron," said Hermione.

"Also, if we go hunting for Hallows, we'll run into him when we go for the wand, and it's not time yet." Alicia said to Harry. "You wanna go after the wand then feel free, but I suggest not doing so until the Horcruxes are gone. And if you're right about the stone in your snitch than that's the only Hallow left." Hermione let out a breath of relief.

"I'll take first watch." she decided

And she strode past Harry and sat down in the tent entrance, bringing the action to a fierce full stop.

"Alicia, if the wand is real, and He's after it, where would it be?" Harry wondered

"Well, we know Gregorovitch had it, and we know Grindelwald stole it from Gregorovitch…" Alicia said thinking before she stopped. She laughed and Hermione turned angrily. "Well, it's obvious." she realised. Harry looked at her waiting. "Dumbledore has it."

"What?" Ron asked

"Grindelwald was powerful all the way until the end when Dumbledore defeated him. No one could beat him, but Dumbledore managed it. If Grindelwald had the wand, and no one managed to beat him while he had it till Dumbledore did, than obviously it must have lain with Dumbledore." Alicia said chuckling.

"What happened to him being scared of them?" Hermione huffed

"Well…" Alicia thought "Dumbledore hated violence and gain over others…" she said thinking "The Elder Wand is followed by a bloody path in History… If Dumbledore had it, than that stopped the fighting for it. No more bloody path. And Dumbledore wasn't the type to boast was he? He took it, I bet less for himself, especially after everything, and more to protect others. If I was compelled to do what Dumbledore did, I'd do it for that."

Hermione turned away with no other words to say.

"So where would it be now?" Ron wondered "With Dumbledore gone I mean?"

"Snape." Harry said

"No, I don't think so." Alicia said instantly. "Remember the wand went flying off the astronomy tower and Snape definitely didn't have time to collect it before he ran off."

"But he's headmaster now." Ron said

"I doubt it wouldn't have been found before than, then there's the question of where it even is on the grounds if no one had." Alicia said obviously. Besides, Snape killed Dumbledore because Dumbledore asked him too, doubtful that counts as winning the wand. she believed. "It'll either be with Dumbledore, in Hogwarts or someone picked it up and it walking around with a wand that doesn't work for them properly, like how the Blackthorn wand doesn't work for Harry right." she shrugged.

No more was said about the Hallows that night and with Alicia taking the watch after Hermione, the three were silent. Alicia knew Harry wasn't asleep, his mind was buzzing too much, but the other two slept soundly, ignoring any thoughts or desires of the Hallows.