A/N: First of all, thank you to all of my readers so very much for your incredible patience. This final semester of law school has been absolute hell—but now, at long, LONG last, I am done. DONE. I graduate on May 22nd. Still have to take the Bar Exam, but as far as law school goes, I am finished and free. Never thought I'd see the day! And to celebrate, I have a double-update for your reading pleasure! Dumbledore's Men is also updated today! Enjoy!
Chapter Five: Arthur's Sister
Everyone started talking at once. "You think Voldemort could take Avalon?"
"You think Voldemort could find Avalon?"
"I dunno if Avalon is any more accessible from this world than Valinor."
"And even if it is, Salazar was famous for scorning Christian magic. I don't think his heir would try to use it."
"As the means to an end? He might. Avalon was the focal point of two magical forces—two opposing ones at that. If Voldemort could take it, it'd be worth leaving Stonehenge."
"HOLD, people!" Kingsley bellowed over them all. He tilted his head thoughtfully at Hermione. "That possibility has come up, and a lot of us at Headquarters think it has merit—we're hoping not, of course, since it means big trouble for us. But it begs the question: how the hell do we find Avalon?"
"If it's still located in a real place, there must be some evidence," said Marianne, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. Viktor was watching her, and Hermione guiltily found herself wishing that the roof would collapse on Marianne. "They've been investigating St. Michael's Mount and Glastonbury Tor for centuries."
"Glastonbury's not even an island."
"It got discredited anyway. I like St. Michael's Mount as a possibility, but if Avalon's there, nobody's ever found it."
Hermione bit her lip, debating how to bring up her dream, when she looked across the table and saw Harry's face. His green eyes were troubled as he met her gaze, and even as she realized he knew what she was thinking, he stood up. "Hermione's right."
They always shut up for Harry, she thought, without rancor.
"You're sure?" Kingsley asked. Harry nodded, his eyes not quite focused. "Dream?"
"Yeah. Last night." Hermione blinked. Not that prophetic dreams and visions were anything new to Harry, but that had been her first, and it couldn't be a coincidence if she and Harry had both dreamed of Avalon. But then…why would a dream like that come to her?
"What did you see?" Kingsley was asking Harry, with a wary expression. The Order had long since gotten used to Harry as a soldier, despite his age and his recklessness, but his visions still made most of them nervous.
"An island. Shining. The air was full of magic. It's close to the shore."
"Blimey, that's vague."
"Shh!"
Harry went on, "I know something's calling me there, but I didn't see anyone. It looked deserted." He gave a mischievous grin. "And Hermione's seen it too—haven't you?"
Everyone turned to stared at her, and she shot him a glare, but nodded. "I had a dream about it last night too. I didn't realize it was Avalon until just now, when we were talking. But someone was definitely calling me there; I'm certain of that. Only…" she searched her memory. "The person calling…she's not there anymore."
"She?" Half the room interrupted.
Hermione shrugged helplessly. "It was a 'she,' I just know it. It was like she was…sending me there, because she couldn't be there anymore. I don't know, it's just a feeling."
"Hey, how come you two are getting all the prophetic dreams?" Ron demanded. Harry cuffed him, grinning, but then he turned serious (or as serious as Ron ever got, anyway). "If Harry and Hermione are both having dreams where someone's telling them to get themselves to Avalon, we better get them to Avalon."
"Anyone else having interesting dreams they'd like to inform us of?" Roger asked.
"Only about my wife," said Giovanni, and everyone laughed. Several of the men made lewd noises, and Marianne and Hermione giggled. Ron leered at Giovanni, then saw Viktor smiling at Hermione and scowled.
Hermann snorted and shook his head at Kingsley. "It vould appear that ve vill be going to Avalon."
"I think you're right." They looked at Harry and Hermione in turn. "Anything in those dreams to give us a clue where the place is?"
Harry shrugged, and Hermione said thoughtfully, "The space between the island and the shore wasn't very large. More like a river or a big moat than a sea."
"St. Michael's Mount is not far off shore," said Alexiev.
"Glastonbury's inland," said O'Rourke. "But Avalon could have moved since Arthur's time."
"But were Potter and Granger dreaming of Avalon in Arthur's time or now?" someone pointed out.
"Argh!"
"Don't blame us; we didn't choose the dream!" Harry exclaimed.
"All right, all right, oy!" Kingsley said. "This calls for a report to Headquarters. Everyone hold tight."
He and Hermann vanished, and Hermione went around the table to sit with Harry and Ron. "D'you have any idea who was calling you?"
Harry pulled a face. "Nothing specific. If anything, it was…something not human."
"Voldemort?" Ron suggested, looking worried, but Harry shook his head.
"No, I'm sure of that. It was a lot…older. Not a person. Something…bigger."
Hermione leaned back in her chair and braced her knees against the table. "And that seems to be the only major difference between our two dreams. If it were Valinor, I'd say it was the Valar calling you," she quipped. Seeing her friends' baffled faces, she rolled her eyes. "You two never did read Lord of the Rings when we were assigned it in History of Magic, did you?"
"Well…" they began sheepishly.
"Valinor was the home of the Valar, who are considered the ancestral source of all magic. They created the magic peoples: the elves," she explained. Feeling someone watching her, she glanced sideways and met Viktor's dark eyes.
"Wizards are kinds of elves?" Harry exclaimed.
Hermione groaned, and Viktor scooted his chair over to them. "We were, but we are no longer. Humans gained magic when our ancestors crossed with the elves. They were a different race from the creatures called elves today."
"I remember a bit," Ron admitted.
"It is the origin of the term of 'pureblood,'" Viktor added. "In the most ancient history, only the men descended directly from elves possessed magic, while other men did not. They were the first wizards, and they ruled all men."
Harry snorted. "And here we are, fighting Voldemort."
"You're more right than you know," Hermione pointed out. "Wars over race and bloodline have been going on for thousands of years—not just between wizards either, but the Arthurian War was a wizard war. Arthur wasn't so much a king as a wizard warlord."
"Yeah, and he was a half-blood," Harry said. "I remember some of it. But it wasn't really about blood, there was something about ruling Muggles…"
"There were lots of reasons for that war," Hermione said. "It was the great war between Christian and pagan wizards as well—that's the reason Avalon was so powerful. Nobody ever managed to ground two fundamentally different forms of magic in one place before, and nobody has since."
"They are different, but not incompatible," Viktor said. "If they were, Avalon could not have anchored them both. That the people were at war does not mean the magics were."
"Oy?" said Ron.
Hermione shot Viktor a wry look. "Avalon was the stronghold of ancient pagan magic for hundreds, maybe thousands of years before Christianity came to Britain. When it did, the Christians wanted to push the pagans out, so they built a stronghold of their own there—an abbey, it's said—and anchored their power there. It held, but the pagan temple didn't lose its power like the Christians had hoped. They coexisted, even if their worshippers didn't follow their example."
"So where'd Avalon come from?" Harry asked.
"Who knows," Hermione replied, and yawned widely.
Ron grinned, "Someone hasn't had her third cup of coffee yet."
"Go snog a house elf, Ronald," she retorted, and went in search of a means of heating up some bathwater.
When Viktor got back from a shift on sentry duty, Shacklebolt and Hermann had orders. "We're to get back to Headquarters," Kingsley told them. "There'll be further instructions there."
"And off we shuffle," said O'Rourke. "They never tell us anything."
"That's right, detailed orders for Voldemort and his lot to get their hands on," Marianne said sarcastically.
Kingsley clapped his hands to forestall further arguments. "Enough chattering. Let's break this place down and be on our way! Sentries, keep your eyes open; this would be an easy time for Death Eaters to hit us."
"Such a cheery bloke," Viktor heard Ron saying to Hermione as they started Shrinking the gear.
Viktor and Alexiev got to work with Roger. "I'm hearing the Order's massing down there," he muttered to them.
"Is that a good idea?" Alexiev asked.
Roger shrugged. "Could just be a rumor. Or we could be getting new assignments."
"Or marching on Avalon like Muggles?" O'Rourke suggested as he went by.
Viktor grinned. "With drums and trumpets and flags." He was then treated to various attempts at demonstration by the others, using voices, bodies, and various handy pieces of metal.
"I personally like the idea," said a voice behind him, and Viktor moved hastily out of Hermione's way. "It seems braver than all this skulking around and ambushing."
"Braver for him or braver for us?" Harry demanded, pulling a face at her. He tossed his gear down and pulled out the silver sword he'd been carrying around. "Should I challenge Voldemort to a sword fight?"
"You'd probably win," Ron pointed out.
"En garde!" Hermione challenged Harry with a fire iron, and they only managed a few swings before she tripped over her own feet and crashed into Viktor's arms.
As everyone laughed and Hermann bellowed at them all to get back to work, Harry observed, "I think I won."
Viktor awkwardly maneuvered the giggling Hermione to her feet, his arm around her waist, and spotted Ron watching them. He hastened to detach himself and bent for a closer look at the sword. "Where did you get it?" He reached for it, but it clattered off the bags Harry had leaned it on.
"Don't break it," Ron said.
"It was Godric Gryffindor's," Harry began amiably, but when Viktor moved to right the weapon, it actually slid across the stone floor away from his hand. Viktor blinked, and Harry stepped forward. "What the…"
"Did that thing just move on its own?" Roger demanded. Ron and Hermione came closer, and Roger tried to pick the sword up, but he too couldn't seem to get his hand around the hilt. "Harry, what'd you do to it?"
"Me? I didn't do anything!" Harry protested. He picked the sword up and tried to hand it to Viktor, but the thing slipped away as though the hilt were covered in oil.
"I cannot touch it," Viktor said, fascinated. "It will not allow me anymore."
"You used it on Nagini," Hermione said.
"Maybe it's because you're not British," Marianne suggested, but neither she, nor Roger, nor O'Rourke had any luck. The sword would only suffer to be held by Harry. "Maybe just Gryffindors?"
"Ron, c'mere," Harry ordered, holding the sword out. By now, everyone in the base had gathered around to observe the strange event. Ron approached it as if it were a dangerous animal, but the sword dropped out of Harry's hand as he made to pass it over and clattered to the ground at the younger boy's feet.
Everyone stared at it with some trepidation. Then they all looked at each other.
"Weird," was Kingsley Shacklebolt's final pronouncement.
An hour later, they were walking to the Apparition Point a mile away. Harry had the sword fastened to his belt, and Ron and some of the others were amusing themselves by reaching toward it and watching it swing away—and usually tripping Harry up as a result.
"Knock off!"
"Cut the horseplay, you lot!"
Hermione rolled her eyes and walked closer to Viktor—well, to be fair, he had been getting progressively closer to her. "They never grow up."
"Someone should be allowed to have amusement in all this," he told her mildly. She shrugged. "Will your family be at Headquarters?"
"Not mine, they're in hiding. They couldn't fight this war anyway; they're Muggles," Hermione said. "Ron's family should be there, though. We haven't seen them in months. His mum's going to throw a complete wobbler about us having been gone so long," she added, grinning.
"You cannot blame her for worrying."
"No, I'm looking forward to it. I just hope Ginny's there."
Viktor frowned. "Ginny, Ron's sister?"
Hermione nodded and lowered her voice. "For Harry, I mean."
A rush of some strange feeling went through Viktor at Hermione's sly implication, but he managed to do no more than raise his eyebrows. "She and Harry are together?"
"More or less. They can't exactly go out in conditions like this, but she's been mad about him for years, and he finally wised up to it about a year ago. I think she's right for him," Hermione said, sounding very satisfied. "He's afraid of what Voldemort might try to do to her, to get to him, but she doesn't scare easily."
As their column squelched on through the mud—not unlike a Muggle march, he mused—Viktor remarked, "It must be difficult for them. Giovanni has not seen his wife in longer than a year. She too is a Muggle in hiding by our people. It is the only way to keep her safe."
"I suppose writing to her isn't an option from here?"
"Very rarely. He sends a letter each time we move on."
"Well," Hermione smiled fondly at the two boys up ahead. "Harry has an easier way of keeping in touch with Ginny." At Viktor's questioning look, she explained, "Something his father and godfather left to him. But they don't use it often, in case Voldemort's lot get clued in somehow. He hasn't talked to her since we went after Nagini."
Whatever Viktor thought to say next about how long people had been separated was forestalled by Shacklebolt bellowing, "All right, you lot, form up!"
"Where to?"
"Hogsmeade!"
"I do not know if I remember the way to Hogsmeade," Viktor blurted.
"It's all right; we're taking you Side-Along. Here," Hermione took his arm. Viktor couldn't help meeting her eyes as they stepped away from the rest of the group, while everyone else split into pairs.
"Granger, Potter, Weasley, Apparate out with the first group!"
"Yessir!"
"Right, then! First group, go!"
It didn't occur to Viktor to be nervous, although he disliked being the passenger in a Side-Along Apparition. Perhaps if his pilot had been someone other than Hermione Granger, he would have been nervous. The world re-formed on the edge of Hogsmeade village. "Headquarters is Hogwarts, then?" he asked her.
"Official Headquarters, at any rate," she replied. "Voldemort hasn't even bothered to try and take it. Dumbledore provided for us when he…" Her face fell. Viktor put a hand on her shoulder, and she sighed. "Don't worry about me," she said quietly, answering his unspoken words. "I…I hurt when he died, I don't deny it, but it was worse for Harry. Much worse." They watched Harry appear with Ron by his side, each having Apparated alone. The two were making rude jokes about Splinching, looking almost as young as Viktor remembered them. Perhaps Hermione was seeing it the same.
"Has Harry got over your Headmaster's death?" he asked Hermione delicately.
Shaking her head, Hermione looked grimly at him. "No. Not even close—oh, I know he looks well now, but there are times, lots of times when…" Her eyes were dark with emotion. "He never got over Cedric's death either, if not the loss itself, then the manner of it. The…carelessness of the killing. His part in it." Viktor grimaced, and she smiled ruefully, "I don't need to tell you it's pointless to try and convince Harry otherwise."
"Always he was prone to taking too much on himself, I remember," Viktor said, trying for humor and failing. Hermione was too unsettled.
"Sirius's death tore him apart. Sirius Black was his only family. Because of the thrice-damned Ministry, we couldn't even have a funeral. By the time he was exonerated, too much was happening. Not that there was a body to bury." Hermione shivered.
"What happened to him?" Viktor asked, unable to help himself.
"He fell through an archway in a chamber in the Department of Mysteries during a fight. Right in front of Harry. The archway had a veil hanging from it that…"
"—leads to Death," Viktor finished, astonished. "I did not know your Ministry had such a thing. Where did they get it?"
Hermione blinked at his vehemence. "I…well, I don't know, really, we just passed through the Death Chamber during the fight—it's a long story."
His manners catching up to him, Viktor put a conciliatory hand on her shoulder. "I am sorry. For Harry. And for you."
She smiled at him, wisps of dark hair escaping her plaits. "You don't need to worry about me, Viktor. I've been lucky in this war. My family is very small, and they're hidden well. Whatever this new campaign of Voldemort's is, it's got him distracted from sending his friends on their regular feedings. Fewer murders, haven't you noticed?"
"There have been lulls before, but with hope this may yet be a good sign," Viktor said. Hermione paced along the deserted facades of the abandoned village, waiting for the rest of the teams to Apparate in. He threw subtlety to the wind and caught her arm. "Why are you so afraid now? What has changed?"
She stared into his eyes for several long moments, then found them a wooden bench not completely rotted by the recent rains. Viktor saw, over Hermione's shoulder, Ron Weasley watching them, but he paid it no heed. Keeping her voice low, Hermione told him, "Harry's instincts, his 'gut feelings', there's really no denying their accuracy. Broad or narrow, helps us in the skirmishes a lot, but broad…" She took a deep breath and said, "If you could see all the visions and dreams that came to Harry when he was fourteen and fifteen, you'd see a greater pattern emerging: Voldemort rising, gaining power."
"I well believe it," Viktor said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "But now you say there is something new. New concerning Harry?"
She looked away, at the awnings flapping loosely in the wind over their abandoned shops, the boarded-up windows. "Harry's getting set on the idea that this is going to be the end of the war—a confrontation between him and Voldemort, direct, at Avalon. I want to think he's just being overblown again, but…I can't."
Viktor regarded her thoughtfully. "If you too are dreaming of Avalon, then perhaps it is your own instinct as well, telling you the war will end there. Are you not glad?"
"Well…yes and no."
"You are afraid Harry will die."
Hermione pulled a face. "I'm afraid a lot of people will die."
"Do your feelings tell you nothing else?" Viktor prompted. "Nothing that is cause for hope in the end?"
"Well…" She thought for a moment, then smiled faintly. "I feel like…almost that I know that…we're going to win?" She made it like a question, but Viktor understood why.
The rest of the teams had finished Apparating. "All right, people, let's move!"
Viktor glanced over his shoulder as they trooped their way up the Hogsmeade road. "The village has been abandoned?"
"Not abandoned," Hermione said. "At least I hope not. But nobody goes out in public anymore if they can avoid it. Diagon Alley's shut down too. A lot of the Death Eater attacks on wizards are just crimes of opportunity anymore. Even the twins have closed up shop."
"Who?"
"Ron's brothers, Fred and George," she clarified, gesturing in Ron's direction. "You remember from the Tournament—the bookies?"
Viktor grinned, "Ah, yes. They have a shop?"
"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. They opened it in Diagon Alley two years ago—didn't I write you about it? No? Hm, well, there was a lot going on that year, I suppose." The walk up the hill to Hogwarts was not exactly strenuous, but Viktor could not resist taking Hermione's arm. She did not object. "They were doing well too, until Diagon Alley was hit last August. They still send some stuff out by Owl order, but most of the time they're too busy with the Order."
Searching his memory, Viktor asked, "Was it they who made the sweets that caused tongues to swell and turned people into canaries?"
"Yes!" Hermione laughed. "Yes, those were some of their first inventions; I didn't know you got one!"
"Not me," he said, with mock-aloofness. "Alexiev. It was the morning before the Yule Ball. He was in a panic that they would not wear off in time."
Alexiev turned and stared in confusion when they both began to laugh at him. Viktor spotted Ron looking over his shoulder at them, but Harry grabbed the red-haired boy's arm and pulled him along.
Then they were over the hill on Hogwarts grounds, which looked both the same and different from what Viktor remembered. He and his teammates faltered at the sight of figures running towards them, but the Order members were not alarmed. Rather, many of them dropped their gear and went pelting to meet their families.
"RONALD WEASLEY, I SHOULD GIVE YOU THE HIDING OF YOUR LIFE FOR FRIGHTENING US LIKE THAT!" A small woman grabbed Ron by the shoulders and began shaking him vigorously as Harry laughed. Even if Viktor had not recognized her from three years before, there would be no mistaking her as Ron's mother. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WE'VE GONE THROUGH—and YOU, Harry Potter!" She released Ron with one hand and grabbed Harry by the ear, getting a yell of protest. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"
They kept walking toward the scene, but Hermione stepped back behind Viktor, giggling. "She'll start on me if she sees me."
Ron managed to detach himself when he and Harry were swarmed by a small army of redheads, undoubtedly his father and brothers, and Viktor spotted a girl among them, who went for Harry instead. "Sure it was all Ron's fault, Mum," she said, and pulled Harry out of the irate Mrs. Weasley's grasp to embrace him. The two of them bent their heads together, whispering something, even as the rest of the Weasleys came to greet Harry.
Hermione finally decided that a scolding from Ron's mother was inevitable and ran ahead to meet the family, where she was showered with kisses and embraces as if she were another daughter. Viktor followed more slowly, wondering awkwardly if he should re-introduce himself, but then he spotted a familiar—or rather, unforgettable—platinum blonde head among the red-haired crowd. "Fleur?"
"Viktor Krum!"
His former fellow Champion had not lost her Veela Charm, but she looked older, more like a goddess now than a fairy. It was Harry who pulled out of the crowd and motioned Viktor over. "You remember Krum?" he asked Ginny.
The pretty girl's eyes twinkled mischievously, "Sure, I do. Does Hermione know he's here?"
"Yes, Hermione knows!" Hermione growled at them from somewhere in the flock of Weasleys.
Fleur kissed him on both cheeks. "I am happy to see you again," she said. "You have met Bill, my husband?"
"Only once," said Bill, shaking Viktor's hand. "Welcome back." Viktor might not have been able to place Bill at all, but for his long hair and the fang hanging from his ear. Everyone bore a scar or two from some skirmish in the past few years, but Bill Weasley seemed to have been on the receiving end of something very nasty. His entire face was lined.
"I am sorry to have missed your wedding," Viktor told them.
Fleur waved his apology off. "It was rather fast, in ze end. Many things were happening."
Kingsley and Hermann were walking into the castle in the company of several Aurors and Professor McGonagall. The team leaders seemed content to let the rest of the group visit with their friends out on the grounds.
"Hogwarts is still secure," Viktor remarked.
"Still," said Fleur. "Zere are few safe places left here, but Hogwarts is one. It shelters many of our people."
"Your family is here?"
"Yes. Zey are safe." Fleur sighed. "As safe as anyone can be."
Once Mr. and Mrs. Weasley resumed fussing over and yelling at Ron, Hermione pulled herself out of the mob. She spotted Ginny keeping a firm arm around Harry, and grinned to herself. For all Harry's efforts to distance himself, once Ginny'd got her hands on him, there was no way she was letting him go. She was as stubborn as he was.
Giovanni, O'Rourke, and some of the other team members who weren't so fortunate to have their families here were opting to go into the castle rather than watch the reunion. Hermione felt a pang of sympathy for them.
Speaking of which… She was moving away from them, rummaging around in her pack for a parchment and quill to write a letter to her parents when she noticed everyone gathering 'round as if watching some kind of confrontation. Ron's indignant voice reached her.
"Think you'd better 'fess up as to your intentions, my lad!"
Viktor answered, sounding amused. "I am sure I do not know of whom you speak."
Oh, buggeration! Hermione dropped her rucksack and started back toward them. Confirming her suspicion, Roger and some of the others on the edge of the group looked at her and grinned.
She shoved her way into the group and saw Ron toe-to-toe with Viktor, which was rather funny as Viktor had a good six inches on Ron—who was by no means short himself, but who also had to be a good fifty kilos lighter. She would have giggled if it hadn't been for what Ron was having the unmitigated gall to challenge Viktor about.
"You know what I mean! What are you up to with Hermione?"
Viktor, fortunately, was more amused than irritated. "Why do you not ask her? She can speak for herself, no?"
"I'm asking YOU."
Viktor raised his eyebrows, then saw Hermione behind Ron, and his lips quirked. "I think it is not your business. Unless you are her next of kin and no one has told me."
"As good as!" Ron retorted, puffing his chest out.
Arrogant little berk! "Ron…" Harry muttered, seeing Hermione, but Ron wasn't done.
"Hermione's like a sister to me!"
Hermione folded her arms and said loudly, "Well!" Ron spun around. "I wish you'd told me that before we shagged!"
A collective whoop of laughter took half the observers to the ground, Ron turned the color of a tomato, Harry shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his ears, and even Viktor blushed. Hermione smirked, wider still when Mrs. Weasley shrieked, "RONALD WEASLEY!"
Ron tried to run for it, but his mother caught him by the ear as the twins started whistling. Satisfied, Hermione took herself away.
Viktor caught up with her. "I am sorry," he said sheepishly. "I did not want to insult him."
"Not to worry, that's my prerogative," she replied. Viktor blinked, evidently having needed a moment to realize that she hadn't been lying back there. "What?" She lifted her chin.
"Nothing," he said quickly, and she withheld a snort only through sheer willpower. Men.
Viktor was clearly flailing around for a way out of that conversation, and didn't wind up succeeding very well. "You are much older than I remember."
Blimey, thanks! But she grinned. "And you aren't?" She watched Harry and Ginny break away from the milling Order and make for the lake. Those two are so predictable. Then she sighed and shoved her vindictive mood away. "It's been a lot longer than three years, Viktor."
Viktor echoed her sigh. "You are right," he agreed. "It has been long since any of us was young."
Hermione nodded. Sunlight flashed on the lake, catching her eye, and she could see the silhouettes of Harry and Ginny, no doubt in search of some shrubbery to hide behind so they could commence snogging…
Sunlight glared in her eyes, and she was standing in another world.
She stared down the shoreline, across the water to the island, the island that filled her with a great longing. To be back there. To be home. The island was her home as this place would never be.
But on this shore, her heart was bound as well. There was a boy, some paces away, also staring across the water. He didn't look at her, but she felt as if she knew him. She belonged with him. She was supposed to be something for him.
A dark figure appeared, against the sun. She squinted, trying to see his face, but his towering form came toward the boy, ignoring her altogether. She wanted to shout a warning; an instinct made her want to protect this boy, but she couldn't move or speak. But the stranger didn't harm him, merely touched his shoulder and the boy turned away from her altogether.
Hermione felt the urge to cry out again, but not from fear. At least, not only fear. It was grief, and also outrage—how dare he! He had no right! She hated that man, and she did not want to see the boy go away with him.
But they went, and she stood there, paralyzed. A warning was rising in her throat, from somewhere deep inside herself.
"He has the power to save you or destroy you. You put your life forever in his hands."
Had she said it? Had she warned him?
She couldn't be sure.
She didn't want to see what lay beyond. She wanted to go home to the island, but not alone. Not alone forever. There was no one else to understand her.
No one else to love her.
Without him, she would always be alone…
But she could see the future as clear as the sun on the water. There was blood on this shore, everywhere. It was at her feet.
The boy was here somewhere; she knew it. And there was something she needed for him—she started to run down to the water, searching…
The dark man was there. She stopped. He was holding something out to her, something that flashed in the sunlight, and she winced. It might be too late to save him, and it was all the dark man's fault!
She didn't want to go near him; she hated him. But it was the only way to save the boy, and beyond the dark man, she could see eternity stretching: her blood, his blood, a fate like a curse that stretched on forever and ever.
The dark man moved toward her…she could almost see his face…she strained…
"I did not make him. You cannot blame me."
"But you killed him!"
"It was not his choice or yours." He didn't seem to notice her anger. He didn't care. She wanted to hurt him.
"There was no escape," the dark man told her. "He was chosen, as were you. You can never escape."
"You abandoned him! You're to blame for what happened to him!"
She had no idea if she herself had spoken, and the sunlight was coming across his face to reveal it…
Hands grabbed her from behind, voices…she screamed. They could not stop her, she had to—
"Hermione! Hermione, what is wrong?" Arms were wrapped around her and someone was yelling in her ear as she bucked and screamed.
The next thing she knew, there was hard ground under her back, and she was staring, gasping, into a pair of dark eyes. They were familiar…she coughed; her throat was dry. "Viktor?" she rasped.
Voices were shouting. She could feel the ground vibrating under her head as footsteps thumped nearby. She turned and saw figures rushing toward them. "What the hell happened?"
"I dunno!"
"Is she all right?"
"What's wrong with Harry?"
"Did they both…"
"Shut up, shut up! Hermione, are you okay?"
Hermione blinked and let Viktor pull her into a sitting position. They were still on the hill at Hogwarts above the lake, and half the Order was surrounding them. Another crowd was gathering near the water's edge. "What happened?"
"You and Harry went nutters at the exact same time," said one of the twins.
Ron and Ginny were walking a dazed-looking Harry up the hill toward them. Viktor kept an arm around her. "Are you hurt?"
She shook her head, still confused, her heart still pounding from what she thought she remembered. "No, I…don't think so." She couldn't even be sure how much time had passed. It was as if she had disappeared into another world. "What did you…"
"You just started staring into space," said Fred.
"Harry too," Ginny said. Hermione looked at him, and her heart sped up again. Harry looked as disoriented as she felt, but at this moment she had a terrible sense that she had glimpsed some awful fate for him. "I wasn't close enough, but I saw you up here…you started screaming, and Harry—he reacted like something attacked him, sort of jerking around—then you both fainted."
Hermione's heart lurched, and she thought for a minute she was going to vomit. Then a lump rose in her throat, and she couldn't look at Harry anymore. Ron moved into her line of vision, watching her with solemn eyes. "What'd you see?" She just shook her head. "Hermione?"
It must have been showing on her face, because everyone had fallen very quiet. Headmistress McGonagall appeared, nudging Ron and Viktor gently out of the way, and took her by the shoulders. "Hermione, my dear, you must tell us what you saw."
She started to shake. "There's a dark man," she choked out. Sobs tightened her throat. "I dunno…who…he's at Avalon—or he was—and he goes away and takes him and I told him not to go but he went anyway, and I…"
"Who? What's she talking about?"
"Leave her alone." It was Harry, staring at the ground. Hermione's vision blurred with tears as he staggered to his feet and shook off supporting hands. "It doesn't change anything. We still need to go." He walked off.
"Uh, somebody fill us in?" said George. Hermione didn't. She scrambled up and went in the opposite direction.
Viktor followed her, but the rest of the Order let her go. The Headmistress must have held them back. Hermione threw herself onto a convenient cushion of dead leaves at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. She heard Viktor's steps come up behind her, but he stopped a few feet away. "Your vision is not of the future?"
"Mm-mm." She rested her forehead on her arm, breathing in the scent of the earth.
She heard the leaves crunch as he sat down nearby. "It was the past. You and Harry, you have been linked in some way. Some other life."
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do." She looked up and saw Harry coming through the trees toward her, flanked by Ron and Ginny. He looked calm now, almost…resigned. "I think I know what I saw—no way could you not know."
Tears spilled down her face as she looked at him. Looking in frustration from one of them to the other, Ron was practically jumping up and down. "But what DID you see?"
"The end, isn't it?" Ginny said. "You saw how the war's going to end."
Viktor got up. "That is not certain. They have seen the past, but fate will not be the same in every path. It may not end now as it did then."
Hermione sat up and rubbed her face. "Maybe not. I just know something's going to happen at Avalon; there's someone there waiting, and I don't know who he is, and I don't trust him."
"I know," Harry said, dropping to the ground next to her. "The dark man. I couldn't see his face either."
Sunlight filtered down through the forest canopy onto Ginny's face. She'd gone pale and quiet. "That sword. The one only you can touch," she said to Harry. "Where'd Gryffindor get it?"
Harry shrugged. "No idea. Why?"
Hermione looked him in the eyes. "All the Gryffindor symbols…etching his name on the blade and all…he went to a great deal of trouble to declare it his, didn't he?"
"You think he didn't make the sword," Ginny mused. "That he stole it?"
"Stole, or just wanted to make sure nobody knew what it really was," said Hermione. "It wouldn't be the first time someone got insanely possessive of Excalibur."
Ron finally caught up. "What, you think Harry's been…bloody reincarnated or something? From King Arthur?"
"He wasn't a king," Hermione muttered. "But it'd explain Avalon."
"It is not as simple a thing," Viktor told Ron. "It is not reincarnation, but fate. A fate that does not end—the chosen one, against evil." Ron looked dubious. "Arthur the Great fought to stop the dominion of Mordred over the world, did he not? For all our history, these wars are fought."
"Well…nobody can make up their bloody mind whether purebloods should be in charge or not," Ron protested, shooting Harry a frantic glance. Harry didn't meet his eyes.
Hermione looked at the sky. It was getting stronger now, in the back of her mind, the feeling of some memory that wasn't quite a memory, intruding into her consciousness. A personality that both was and wasn't her own. And a terrible, dreading sense of inevitability. "It always involves the same bloodline, Ron. Mordred's went back to the War of the Ring—that's what it was really about. The same bloodline always fighting the same war—it's not a coincidence."
"Okay, so Voldemort's the heir of Slytherin and Harry's the heir of Arthur," Ron said impatiently. "Why do you both look like the world's about to end?"
Hermione didn't answer, but Harry knew. "Because the woman who's in Hermione's visions is Morgan le Fey. Morgana, remember?"
"But I thought she was dark," said Ron. "That's what it says on her Chocolate Frog card, anyway. She was Merlin's enemy. She can't be your ancestor…can she? You're Muggleborn, Hermione."
"A lot of Muggleborns have a wizard or witch ancestor somewhere," said Ginny. "That doesn't rule it out."
Hermione nodded. "And nobody really knew why she hated Merlin. But from what I saw…" Her throat tightened. "It was Merlin who guided Arthur against Mordred. Morgana was a Healer, and she was mistress of Avalon; she brought Arthur back there after the battle." She couldn't look at Harry; a horrible, bleak despair was filling her. "She couldn't save him, Ron! Avalon is where Arthur died!"
To be continued…
Coming Soon: The war against Voldemort is but one in a long chain of struggles between dark and light. Now the voices from those past wars are reaching forward in time to the ones fighting now, and they could mean victory or destruction for our heroes in Chapter Six: Echoes!
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