In my dream, I am hiding in the coat closet of me and Mum's flat. I am fourteen. Mum and Aunt Mi-Mi are talking in the kitchen, and I am eavesdropping.
"It's not time yet," Mum says.
"It's getting to be time," Aunt Mi-Mi says. "She was in your year, do you remember?"
"Of COURSE I remember," Mum hisses. "I remember that whole awful time just as well or better than you."
There is silence for a moment, and then I hear my mum again. "I'm sorry. I know it's not called for. But I lost him; I can't lose her, too."
"You have to send her. That's the way it happens."
"Who cares how it happened for us?" my mum cries.
"I talked to Dumbledore about it once," Aunt Mi-Mi muses. She has that tone of voice she uses when she's talking about a particularly tricky Charm she's testing at work. "He said that time only happens once, really. The way that we remember things happening, that's what happened. She could no more go back and change what we remember than she could stay here for her sixth year. She has to go back, and things will happen the way we remember them."
My mum sounds close to tears. "I don't want her to go, Hermione."
"I know," Aunt Mi-Mi says, and this time her voice is very gentle. "I would never send my children back if I could help it. But you know the only way we survived that year was because of her."
"I don't even understand it. It all seems so circular," Mum says, and she sounds weary.
"Only because we're living inside time. From outside, it's all perfectly logical," my aunt assures her.
"Will it make sense to her?" Mum wonders.
"She's a smart girl," Aunt Mi-Mi says. "And we'll prepare her as best we can. But I'm telling you, Ginny, that that preparation had better start sooner rather than later. There's a lot she needs to know."
"Too much," Mum says. "Too much for a child."
"She's no more a child than you were the day you let Harry go. The war took our childhoods, Ginny, and I hate that Susan has to sacrifice hers as well, but you know as well as I do that she is vital to the war's end. If she's not sufficiently prepared --"
"All right. All right. Can you start Flooing over after work? There's a lot you know that I don't."
"Not THAT much, Ginny. But yes -- I'll ask Molly if she can start doing a little more babysitting. She'll understand when I explain it to her."
"Yes." I hear Mum tap her fingernails against her teacup. "I hate to do this to her."
"Do you know, I'm almost jealous of her?"
"Hermione!" Mum gasps.
"No, I mean it. I was terrified those last few years at Hogwarts, but at the same time . . . well, for one thing, Harry was there. And for another, it was exciting, Ginny! There'll never be another time like that."
"Thank heavens," Mum says acidly.
"I know, Ginny. But there is romance in the heroic life."
"Don't let Ron hear you say that," Mum laughs. "You'll end up with another Weasley."
My aunt scoffs, "Not bloody likely! Three is enough, thank you!"
They both laugh, and I am left to sit and wonder. They were obviously talking about me! What could they have possibly have meant?
There was a noise in Bill's bedroom, and I awoke with a start. I found myself looking at Harry, who was perched on the foot of my bed watching me.
I sat up. "Harry?"
He jumped off the bed. "Susan. Hi."
"What on earth are you doing in my room?"
"I'm so sorry." He turned to go.
"No, don't go." I pushed the covers off me and sat up. "Is something the matter? Is everyone all right?"
"Everyone's fine. I'm sorry I woke you up."
"Please, Harry. What is it?" He looked at his feet again and mumbled something. "I can't hear you."
He looked up at me at last, and his eyes were suspiciously wet. "I thought . . . maybe . . . well, you look a lot like my mum."
My heart thumped painfully. Poor, poor Dad. To never know his parents. I knew about halfway how he felt. "Is she dead?"
He nodded. "I thought maybe . . . it was stupid, really. I've seen a sort of ghost of her before, and I though maybe you'd -- she'd -- come to help me."
"Help you do what?"
At this, his face closed over. "Nothing."
Now was my chance. I stood up and approached him. "Harry, did Ginny tell you I'm a Seer?"
Harry looked at me through narrowed eyes. "No."
"You haven't had a good relationship with Divination, I know," I said. "Trelawney will do that to a person." His eyes merely narrowed further. "I don't claim to know everything. I certainly can't read your mind or anything. But I know what you're looking for."
"Get off it," he snarled. "You can't possibly."
"But I do," I said. "And I know where the locket is."
Harry looked like he wanted to slap me across the face. "Don't you dare! How did you hear about that? No one knows!!"
"If I can tell you anything to make you believe me, I will." Harry was silent. "Fine. Well, let me tell you one thing I See about you." I closed my eyes for effect and searched the back of my mind for a story about Dad. "All right.
"I See you at age four or thereabouts. I See your cousin Dudley. You've just found a caterpillar on the hosta that grows alongside the greenhouse at Four Privet Drive. It's black with red spots. You can't see it very well, because your uncle and aunt haven't figured out yet that you need glasses. But you seem to like the caterpillar. You're cradling in your little toddler hands."
Harry was holding his breath. I went on: "After a couple minutes, Dudley figures out that you've found something that you like. He comes over and says, 'Oi! Give it here, stupid!' But you just keep quiet and hold it against your chest.
"Dudley screams at you again to give it to him. You hold it tighter. Then Dudley wrenches your arms away from your chest and forces open your fingers. But . . . ." I looked into his face. I'd never seen that expression on anyone's face before -- it was a sort of profound grief mixed with fierce pride. "The caterpillar's gone. Instead there's a black butterfly with red spots. And before Dudley can grab it, it takes flight and flutters off to the greenhouse."
"How did you do that?" he rasped.
I shrugged. "It's an odd sort of gift, I have to be honest. I get some things and not others." For a moment, I almost believed myself. How much would he have hated me had I told him that Ron had whisked Dudley off to St. Mungo's one day to collect a batch of memories of Harry for Hermione's Pensieve? Harry couldn't abide liars, I knew that much.
"And you know where the locket is?" he asked urgently.
"I do," I said gently. "But I think you should come to Hogwarts with us."
"What??"
"I'll tell you where the locket is. I know it's vitally important, and I would never dream of withholding that information. But I also know when the best time would be to go retrieve it, and it's not for a couple months." He shook his head, but I pressed on. "Come back to Hogwarts, Harry. In your absence, rumors will spread. The students will be frightened. What will you and Ron and Hermione do after graduation if you don't revise for at least part of your seventh year?" I paused. "And you're hurting Ginny."
He glared at me. "It's for HER sake. It's hurting me, too."
"So be with her, but do it quietly. You've kept secrets before."
He studied me for a moment. "Why did you come here?"
Mentally, I gave him points for shrewdness. "To help you."
"Why?"
"Because you're family, dammit," I said. "You know perfectly well Molly loves you dearly. And Ginny will love you until the end of the world." In my mind, an image flashed of my mother, sobbing silently over a cup of tea when she thought I wasn't watching. "Ron and Hermione love you like a brother. I Saw how much you have to accomplish, and I knew I could help."
This answer, surprisingly, seemed to satisfy him. "Go on, then. Where's the locket?"
"Sirius Black's brother took it and couldn't destroy it. So he put it in a place where he thought He Who Must Not Be Named would never dare go."
"Where??"
"There's a forest in the north of Wales, on the Isle of Anglesey, called the Wood of Lost Souls," I said quietly. "There was a horrible Wizarding battle there many years ago, and all the dead became ghosts. Regulus Black knew that He Who Must Not Be Named abhors the thought of death, so he thought the Wood would be the best hiding place."
Harry seemed almost to vibrate with excitement. "And why shouldn't I go right now?"
I tried to quell him with a look. "Because the Wood is full of ghosts, Harry. Not just any ghosts, either. They're angry -- they never chose to be ghosts -- and they're trapped with their enemies as well as their comrades for all eternity. They've been there for ages, and they've managed to kill many a wizard who's wandered in."
"How could a ghost kill anyone?" asked Harry in annoyed disbelief.
"They've been there so long, the creatures who live there more or less answer to them now. And that's plants as well as animals. The ghosts hate living people, so they'll sic the forest on anyone who enters. People who've been missing for a week -- their bodies are found completely grown over by moss, or devoured by legions of rats."
Harry shuddered. "Then when can I go?"
I smiled. "Hallowe'en."
He stared at me. "Hallowe'en?"
"You went to Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party in your second year, right?" I asked. He looked startled. "Look, Harry, just get used to my knowing things about you." I wanted to tell him about the nights when Ron and Hermione would babysit for me and go back and forth in their inimitable way, chronicling all their adventures with my father. "Anyway. You know that the Hogwarts ghosts don't leave the castle. Normally, ghosts don't leave the place they haunt. But on Hallowe'en, the boundary between the spirit world and the real world is blurry. Then the spirits can roam free. That's why we celebrate it in the Wizarding world. That's why all those ghosts could attend Nick's party."
"And the ghosts leave the Wood?"
"They hate the Wood, so yes, they leave. They generally go back to their home villages in Wales and England. That's when you and Ron and Hermione should go and find Slytherin's locket."
Harry pursed his lips. "But what about Hufflepuff's cup? And the other two Horcruxes? I can't just skive off the hunt for two months."
"I'm afraid that you'll come to harm if you rush off rashly," I said, trying to keep my tone hushed and urgent. "I think you and all your friends will be better served if you stay at Hogwarts until Hallowe'en."
He looked at me, suspicion dawning again. "How do I know I should trust you?"
I shrugged. "Aunt Molly does. As does Ginny. I can't give you any further proof that I'm on your side. Do as you wish."
He backed towards the door. "You haven't told anyone else about the locket?"
"Harry, I won't tell anyone anything about the Horcruxes except you. I See that this is your burden to carry."
He nodded curtly, and I knew he appreciated my discretion. Then he was gone. I fell back asleep soon after, and this time I didn't dream at all.