Chapter 37 - I knew already about Victoire

An hour later he was sitting with his back against the bedroom's door, keeping some ice wrapped in a rag on his cheek where five red fingers were starting to show clearly.
'Come on Ginny, open the door'
Ted and Victoire were already gone. When she remerged from the shed, her clothes were back in order and only red eyes testified what had just happened. But the mere presence of her had the effect of creating emptiness.
James and Albus had scuttled out quickly without even saying goodbye, one scared to fall in the spiderweb of the Veela effect once again and the other terrified out of his wits by puberty approaching.
Ron had backed as far away as possible, retreating to a corner of the room and staring intensely at his gilly water.
Harry had retreated likewise to the opposite corner, fixing his attention with an unnatural interest to the bookshelves wondering when he would have found the courage to look at her again.
Victoire said goodbye in a small voice keeping close tightly to Ted's side who was still reassuring her with caresses.
Ron and Harry mumbled an unsteady parting and the only one approaching was Rose who, with a childish wish to sympathize, kissed her on the cheek. She had always admired her beauty as Lily had done, but now, for the first time, she had started to understand that an imperfect beauty surrounded by friends as they were, it was much better than her solitary striking perfection.
Harry had spent the next half an hour entreating Ginny to open the door without result, no sound coming from the other side.
She had thrusted a pillow and a duvet out of the door though, as a clear massage of where he wasn't going to sleep that night.
Ron appeared in front of him; he was still there. Harry, all taken by his task of trying to speak with Ginny, had completely forgot about his presence.
The storm had burned out however, there was only a calm sea of resentment.
Ron knocked on the door 'Ginny, give him a break, would you? It's not the poor guy fault and you know it'
Harry stood up torn between the urge of kicking him and thankfulness for helping in his cause. These colliding feelings showed themselves in a sullen expression that was a bit of a compromise between the two.
'Let me talk to her' Ron said to him.
'Thks' he muttered through clenched teeth unwillingly, politeness having the better on his instinct.
'No problem, mate'
'I'm not your mate'
'Ok, just no problem then. Without mate'
He got back in the living room still in his surliness. Rose was alone, sitting on the sofa, her nose plunged in a big forbidding book by the title "History of House elves slavery through the centuries". Hermione's daughter through and through.
He sat beside her determined not to let her leave the house without having regained her confidence. But the task wasn't going to be easy; she flickered a nervous glance on him and returned to her book.
To break the ice, he asked her what she was reading at which she showed him the cover without uttering a word and retrieved her occupation.
He slumped his back against the sofa and casually let a sentence flutter in mid-air 'I had a house elf once…'
Her eyes, formerly moving back and forth on the pages, stopped suddenly and she glanced at him quickly.
'His name was Kreacher'
Another furtive glance.
'And I was friend with a house elf too'
The book seemed less and less interesting all of sudden.
'His name was Dobby'
'I know about Dobby!' she exclaimed finally forgetful of her book 'I've seen the grave at Shell Cottage! Mum told me about him! He was a free elf! You tricked his owner in freeing him' she continued all excited.
Harry smiled and nodded. He wondered fleetingly if Hermione had ever told her daughter about being tortured in Malfoy's mansion and what Dobby's role had been in the rescue.
'She told me you dig that grave… with your hands, without using magic'
Harry smile faltered remembering that moment; a death after another tracing his path until Voldemort defeat.
'What about Kreacher? Did you free him?'
'I didn't'
'Did you keep him as a slave?' She spat the question in disgust, her expression so severe that, despite Ron likeness, he could clearly see Hermione in her demeanour and sniggered. At which she flashed angrily.
Before she would start patronizing him in a Hermione-like manner, he explained about Kreacher.
After the battle, when it didn't really matter anymore about Kreacher keeping the Order of the Phoenix's secrets, Harry had hinted him about the possibility of being freed, but only that hint caused almost a stroke in that already elderly elf, therefore, Harry hadn't dared to approach the subject again. Kreacher had been happy to stay at Hogwarts under his request and had lived still some years. When too old to keep working any longer, he and Ginny had brought him home with them, caring for him until death took him away only a few days later (house elves didn't survive long when uncapable to work). Kreacher had expressed the wish of being beheaded, his head stuffed and affixed on the wall in 12 Grimmauld place together with his ancestors but Harry, despite feeling guilty in not granting this last wish, couldn't bring himself to do it. It seemed too ghastly and comported, as well, having to perform some dark magic which utterly repulsed him. In the end, to placate his guilt and trying to do something that could make amend, he hired a wizard painter and asked him to create a Kreacher's portrait just beside Sirius mother's one.
It had been a very happy thought of him. Kreacher was overjoyed and Sirius' mother had started to be less obnoxious whenever some house noise would reach her ears, too occupied in ordering Kreacher about.
All of this was explained to Rose that simmered down under the influx of the tale. She slumped against the sofa too, her skinny legs swinging lazily while she listened.
'You have been nice to him'
'I tried my best'
She was silent flicking pensively the pages of her heavy book. Harry decided to speak about what had just happened to understand if Ron had indeed cleared him in her eyes.
'Rose, did your dad explain to you about before in the garden?'
She nodded 'Dad told me that men are beasts and to mistrust them all, except him.' And after a moment, as a second thought 'And Albus'.
What the heck? Is this how Ron educates his daughter?
He was about to speak in an attempt to be included in the list when she spoke again.
'But I knew already about Victoire'
'How?'
'I've seen how you and all my other uncles avoid her. And at school I've seen some boys acting very stupidly when she was present. I asked her and she told me about the Veela thing.' She said slowing her talk as she was proceeding 'And I made some researches in the library'
Ron's face and Hermione's mind.
She threw a fearful glance to him and faltering she added 'in the restricted section too'
Ron's face, Hermione's mind and Ron's mischievousness. Such a combo.
'How did you manage?'
'I asked James to lend me the cloak'
For god's sake! James! What have you got in that head of your?
Although, after consideration he realised that, receiving the cloak from Dumbledore, the first thing he had done had been sneaking in the restricted section. So, he shut himself up.
He gulped, afraid of the turn the conversation was taking 'What did you find out?'
She didn't answer straight away, her eyes lowering on her book, her legs had completely stopped swinging.
'Veela are not completely human. They use this power to allure men and make them their slaves, they can transform in very powerful creatures though, so they don't run the risk to be overcome. But half Veela are rare; they have the power to attract men but not the strength. They cannot transform. And in some cases, happened what is happened today.' And she stopped closing her book and crouching slightly on it with her gaze lost in front of her 'Like, worse' she added, and after a second in a whisper 'That's why the book was in the restricted section'.
Harry was aghast. This was the danger of letting kids run amuck, free of messing around. And he found himself tempted to write to McGonagall straight away to enforce the spells around that section.
My god, there is even the recipe for the dangerous Polyjuice Potion there, ready to be taken and used by any groupie!
They just needed to find a way to get around during the night without being caught, find all the ingredients, find a place to brew the potion, make the potion by scrap… being a bit like Hermione in short… Or Rose… or, anyway, smart enough to do all of that…. Nah... Fat chance. I'm as safe as in a Gringotts vault.
Wait though, didn't I break in one once?
I'll speak to McGonagall tomorrow.
'Did you talk with your mum about this?'
She shook her head biting her lips.
And now it was his turn to say something reassuring to this girl that at twelve had read disturbing stories and see them almost fulfilled under her very eyes not two hours before. And he thought that maybe Ron wasn't completely wrong in the advice he had given her. Wouldn't he have wanted to give the same to Lily if she would have had the chance to grow older? And moreover, what could he, that had done the unthinkable toward Ginny (and almost the same toward his niece), say to defend men in general and him in particular?
'Rose, what you have read is ugly. But you ought to understand the nature of that attraction. We all keep away from her because we don't want to hurt her. Men are not themselves when they act under it. I wasn't myself when I've done it' (Am I trying to justify my present or past behaviour?) 'And with that I don't want to defend the offence. Unfortunately, there are also some men that do nasty things but it's not the general rule. You have got many examples under your eyes of the opposite. See Ted how is caring in regards of Victoire. And your uncle Bill with aunt Fleur.'
'And you with Aunt Ginny' she added pensively 'you are always very nice to her'
'I try…' he said cautiously. He wasn't the best of example probably, bur for sure he tried.
'But sometimes I screw up' he added with a sly smile removing the ice revealing the imprint of five fingers.
She simpered sheepishly and taking hold of her book again, restarted swinging her legs against the sofa.