Disclaimer: Anything recognisable isn't mine!

A/N: Great thanks to Indiscreet Midnight, Woodcrazy, Tragic Comedian and firsttimewriter...your nice comments made my weekend!

Part Fifteen

Ames Farm - Part One

We rose early the next morning, taking advantage that few teachers and even fewer of the remaining students would have risen this early on a Saturday. We left the school boundaries, following the same route as we had the time we had been to London, only this time, the spring skies were a pale lazy blue, with no trace of the winter snow, and the hedgerows were teeming with invisible, yet very audible life, as birds tended nests and families.

Laura stood alongside me and gripped my hand with the same ferocity as ever, though she claimed not to be afraid. I knew she lied, and I let her, without question.

She had learnt to apparate fast, from me, of course, as we were both still underage, but that bothered her only slightly more than it had me, and I liked that.

I wondered if it was Aster Ames silent disapproval that had made her care so little. Or if it was me?

Presumably, she had made her excuses to Professor Flitwick, as I had made mine, inventing an overnight visit to a 'friend' in London.

The lie was laughable, though I told it as smoothly and sincerely as I had all the others.I had no friends there, but I had forgotten it completely by the time we apparated, and found ourselves away from the outskirts of Hogsmeade, and school…in fact, in another country entirely.

O O O O O

The wind flattened the grass on the hillside where we suddenly stood. The sky was brighter here, inflamed with the rising sun of early April, but this was not London. This was a sight that I had never seen.

We were standing on a small chalk track, surrounded by fields on all sides. Down the path, behind us, lay a stile and a small, dilapidated gate, and beyond this, I could see a copse of tall dark trees, punctuated by the spire of a Muggle church and suggesting that a village lay just beyond view.

Laura set off in the other direction, uphill, and I followed her. This way there was nothing to see but sky, like we were walking over a cliff, to topple into the sea at any moment.

And there was magic in the air. Somewhere, I could feel it's pull, inexplicably, but as we came to a wide, wooden gate, and Laura withdrew her wand, I realised what it was.

Wards.

"Tom," Laura was saying, wand still held aloft. "Tom, it would help if you could draw your wand too."

"Why?" I questioned. "I assume these are your father's wards, for your family only?"

"They'll let you pass, provided your wand is registered for the first passing, with one of us. I know the spell my father used. Not very complex, but there again he doesn't expect anyone to ever come here." She looked about her briefly "I mean, it's not as if it's very busy here is it? And the house isn't exactly a burglars' dream. Far as I know, at least." she made a face and rolled her eyes, ostensibly thinking about Aster Ames.

"I suppose I'll have to take your word for that." I told her.

She laughed and grinned at me. "That's why we came in the first place! So you can see for yourself!"

I drew my wand slowly, and in silence, an expression of deep concentration on her features, she brought the tip of her wand up to make contact with mine. There was a small flash of red, and then together, just as slowly, just as carefully, she motioned for me to move with her hand, touching our wands together upon the old oak of the gate, and with a creak, it began to open, letting us through.

Laura was glancing over the landscape carefully, as if she was checking for something, or someone.

"Tanbeth's gone home," she said eventually, with faint relief in her voice.

I frowned a little.

"Who's Tanbeth?" I asked, though as I said it, I realised that Aster Ames was unlikely to run this place alone.

Laura looked up and raised an eyebrow. "He's a drunken idiot? No, well..he looks after the animals. But he's always gone by ten, mainly because that's how long it takes him to finish the Firewhisky in his hip flask. Not entirely sure why Father still engages him, that is, assuming he's noticed how little work he actually does. But he's old, and quite mad…just like Father, so by rights, I suppose, they should be the best of friends."

I smiled a little, in spite of myself, and allowed her to lead me along the winding gravel path, and into the grounds of the first, and quite the strangest, wizard's house I would ever see.

It was tall, narrow, and looked very, very dark. Funny how sometimes, houses have a habit of reminding you of their owners, and this one really did, for it's mean exterior, narrow arched windows and even the dull shine of it's high, black roof reminded me of the mean, tight-lipped Frenchman with his oily hair and disapproving face. Around the house, though, by contrast, were beautiful gardens populated with an abundance of roses, herbs and flowers, and for some reason, I had an odd feeling that this was the work of Laura's mother, when she had been alive.

As if she had read my thoughts, Laura said:

"The flowers were planted by my mother, or so I was told. She loved the gardens, and when she died-Dad could never understand it, because she never told him she'd charmed them-but they just kept on coming up, without anyone seeing to them, always just as they used to be. Funny, because she died when we lived in Wales with Dad's work. She'd always loved this house, though. My youngest brother, Sion, was born here, and she always said Wales was too cold, and she wanted to come home. She never did, though."

"I'm sorry," I said, less from sympathy, and more from politeness, but she abandoned the subject as quickly as she had taken it up.

"It's fine, really. I'm just delving into the pits of Ames family history. I'm not getting maudlin on you, don't worry!"

She grinned to show me she really wasn't, and took out a large brass key.

I had no idea what I was really expecting when she took my hand and led me in to the house. But then there we were, standing in a long low kitchen that had the air of not having been lived in for a long time. Dusty herbs hung low on a rack suspended from the ceiling and underneath it, a scrubbed wooden table looking as if it had been well-used, once upon a time, most likely by the three brothers who had grown up and given their lives away.

One of walls was taken up with a white enamel range cooker that looked as neglected as the rest of the room, and there was an ancient black grate, the fire looking long since stamped out. The whole place had the air of sorry neglect, like there was still someone there but it's days of use by a happy, noisy family had long passed. I tried to picture Laura living in the too-large, silent house with only the sardonic, disapproving Aster Ames for company, but couldn't, no matter how I tried.

"Sorry," Laura said, for no apparent reason.

"Pardon?" I looked at her, and she shrugged, indicating the room.

"This place. Not exactly Grand Hotel."

I smiled. "How come you know a Muggle film?" I questioned, aware of how little she knew about Muggles in general. She laughed.

"When we lived in Cardiff," she said, "Reuben and I sneaked out to the Muggle cinema. Once only, of course…..I was really little at the time, only about six. Father went mad when he found out. He hates Muggles, and he thinks their stuff is dangerous. But I think it's funny."

Privately, I agreed with Ames, possibly for the first and only time, but I kept this opinion to myself. She led me on throught the house, putting on a false English tone like a toady London estate Agent giving a guided tour… with heavy sarcasm, and on we went, though the narrow hallways, through what looked like a downstairs living room where photographs in tarnished frames had been turned to face the wall, the door to a dusty wine cellar,which she poked her head around and I followed, quickly withdrawing when something dark with a tail scurried past into a corner, and finally, we came out on the other side of the house, looking up a flight of very steep wooden stairs lined with a frayed and faded rose-coloured runner.

Laura made to climb the stairs when I noticed the small door underneath them. It was low and painted dark green, with a tatty brass handle. And on a small, mahogany table outside it, were two books.

I bent down and picked them up, turning them over in my hands.

Laura paused and came back down the staircase to see what I was looking at.

She went a little pale when she saw me looking at the books.

"Better not. Father goes berserk with anyone touching his precious books. He probably got called away and forgot to lock them up."

That seemed very likely, for the two volumes were not ones likely to be found in Hogwarts Library. They were ancient, rare tomes only likely to be found by the most ardent, and yes……well-connected collector.

I considered this for a moment as I replaced the two volumes back where I had found them.

"Does your father have any more of these?" I asked.

Laura furrowed her brows briefly. " Yes, but -" she gestured vaguely, as if unwilling to answer the question.

"He has all his stuff in his office. And before you ask, I'm not allowed. He'd murder me if I so much as placed my hand on the doorknob."

She obviously saw my eyes flicker back towards the door because she looked me in the eye and said:

"Promise me you wouldn't, Tom."

"Promise I wouldn't do what?" I asked, though we both knew what she meant, and she knew that too by the look she was giving me.

"Go in there. Promise." She reached out and took both my hands.

I pulled her to me and kissed the top of her head, noting a particularly severe portrait staring back at me from the wall behind her.

"I promise I won't do anything you don't want me to."

My mouth felt sour, though, as I said the words, because I suspected that I was lying to her...

TBC...

Do you think Tom is lying? Tell me what you reckon in a review! ; )

The second half of this chapter will be up very shortly.