AN: Okay people, this is the author who is NOT JK.
In the previous chapter I went all out, gave you some action, some angst some fluff… all well and good eh? I even threw in a short preview of chapter 4! Can anyone clue me in as to WHY I only have ONE review!? Honestly I mean if you enjoy the fic REVIEW! If don't like it FLAME. After this chapter there will be NO MORE until I get at least six reviews. So anyway, id love some suggestions or guesses as to where Im going with this whole story…
Chapter 4: Continuing where we left off….
He had no idea, none whatsoever what to say to the fragile girl still holding on to him for dear life.
The truth? He couldn't do it. But he had to, anything less would be an insult to her… besides, she could always tell when he was lying.
Gritting his teeth he looked guiltily away. Feeling the familiar thought enter his mind.
None of this would have happened to her if it wasn't for me…'Harry?' her voice seemed thin and drawn, another reminder of the horrors that she had been forced to endure because of him.
'They're alive Mione, but…' his voice seemed to fail him, he simply couldn't tell her the truth.
'But? But what Harry?!' her grip on him tightened even more making him painfully aware that breathing would soon become a problem if she continued her vice-like ministrations to his slender frame.
'Moine, they're… cursed. The imperious… Moody is downstairs trying to help…'
Her grip went slack.
Harry quickly looked to her to find that she had fainted.
Sighing deeply he gently extracted himself from their prone position before lifting her easily and carrying her to her Gryffindor colored bed.
He wondered how he was supposed to make this right. Dumbledore would know, but he was gone. Sirius might know, but he was gone. Who was left?
The ministry?
That thought drew a dry chuckle from him even in these dark circumstances.
Old Rufus would welcome him with open arms, promising all the help the wizarding world could provide, before efficiently shifting the Grangers status from victims to collateral.
Hanging his head he silently left the room to find Moody.
The young Gryffindor found the grizzled ex-auror sitting with the grangers around their kitchen table vaguely waving his wand at them as they kept on offering him tea with that glassy look in their eyes and that vacant expression on their faces.
'VERITA ANIMUS EX EX EX'
Moody kept intoning the words reverently but futiley.
'What are you doing?' Harry asked nervously, fully expecting to be told off for his impertinence at questioning the Mad-eye Moody.
He was nearly bowled over when the simple reply came,
'Its ancient magick.'
'What?" the prononciation had sounded slightly strange.
'Magick boy, magick. The old stuff, what saved you from the Avada, what makes a phoenix rise from the ashes every time!'
The boy was dumbfounded. It seemed that answer was obvious but he decided to ask the stupid question anyway.
'Is it working?'
Moody's bark of a laugh nearly sent him flying from his chair in it abruptness.
'Working? HA! If only. Only the likes of Dumbledore could work that kind of spell and hope to get more than a spark. No. It was just something I remembered. Thought id give it a try.' Mad-Eye seemed to slump in his chair, in so far as this was possible with his wooden leg.
If Harry had been shocked before, he was speechless now!
Mad-Eye Moody admitting defeat?
The very words didn't seem to belong in the same sentence.
'There must be something!' he all but shouted in desperation.
'Fenite Incantatum, a potion a charm, something!' he needed there to be something.
Anything!
He realy NEEDED Mione's parents to be okay! Surprising as it sounded even to him, he couldn't face her and tell her he had failed.
He simply couldn't!
'There's nothing boy. For a wizard it's a simple thing, magic flows in us and is part of us, but for a muggle to have a curse cast at them, especially an unforgivable… well that's just the rub, their minds and bodies cling to any magic that comes their way, even if it is harmful. I really don't know whether there's anything that can be done for them. As far as simply dispelling the imperious goes, it wont work. Let it go.'
'Why!?' Harry was angry now. How could this man, who had fought the Darkness all his life be sitting here telling him to let go?
'Why won't it work! You're twice the wizard that bastard Malfoy is! Your spells must be stronger!'
'Perhaps,' Moody began, flattered despite the circumstances, he knew that Malfoy could duel circles around him these days, perhaps when he was younger and whole…
'But here we come to the true reason why so many would choose the Dark Arts Harry.
Simply put every wizard has a limit. A level if you will. With normal spells there is a finite amount to what anyone can do, as you pointed out, Malfoy is an average wizard in terms of power. However by using the dark arts, the power of hate and death, channeled into something like the imperious, he becomes a force neigh unto the Dark Lord himself. I doubt even Dumbledore could have lifted a curse like that, cast by such a twisted soul. So you see Harry in the end the secret lure of the Dark Arts is no secret at all. It is only power'
Blanching Harry remembered the words Voldemort had spoken to him in the graveyard so long ago…
'There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.' He whispered.
'Aye, that's how they think boy. That's why Voldemort has an army strong enough to challenge the ministry, even to threaten Hogwarts herself. People want power, and in the case of the death eaters, they're more than willing to kill for it.'
The auror was grim. His scarred mouth set in a thin line on his haggard face.
He was defeated.
Harry however was far from through. He was angry, beyond angry.
He was filled with a righteous fury so great it seemed to burn his very insides.
The air in the kitchen seemed to quiver with an unseen electricity as he looked upon the Grangers dreamy faces.
He would NOT let them suffer for him.
He would NOT let them lose their lives and free will just because a madman wanted him dead.
He would NOT let Voldemort ruin Herione's life.
He would NOT let him touch her ever again!
HE WOULD NOT!
Seeming to move of its own accord Harry's wand arm sprang forward, phoenix feather and holly glowing with elderich power as Moody looked on awestruck.
'FENITE INCANTATUM. FENITE IMPERIO MAXIMA!'
He screamed the words of the spell he'd never known as light burst from him and darkness rushed up to meet him.
His voice seemed to shake the very foundations of the Granger home, waking a very bewildered Hermione from her faint.
Scarred but none the less sure that she was safe, she silently made her way down the stairs, coming to the kitchen just in time to see Harry with his wand pointed at her cursed parents, screaming the words of a spell she'd never heard before.
The light was fantastic.
Even in its searing brightness it felt comforting to those it touched, much akin to the feeling created by phoenix song, but deeper somehow, less ethereal and more tangible.
In this light she knew.
For the first time she knew her own heart.
All pretenses fell away, it mattered not what anyone thought of her or did to her, she was at peace.
The moment seemed to stretch on for eternity, going on for ages beyond reckoning and yet she was content to simply… be.
Then, abruptly the light was gone, replaced once more the familiar sight of her childhood home, now cleansed of the death eaters' darkness.
There at the table sat Mad-Eye weeping softly into his hands, healed of the scars of a long life on the frontlines between light and darkness, there sat her parents dazed but smiling and whole, and there crumpled upon the floor, his glasses askew and his wand still smoking in his hand, was Harry.
It was then.
She knew.