Chapter Sixty-Five: The Cult of Omega
A light drizzle fell heedlessly, softening the harsh and broken lines of the ancient arch before them, the tall and ruinous surviving end wall of some ancient cathedral. Behind and through the arch, the nave stood open to the sky, the stunted and chewed off ends of mighty columns and buttresses rising out of the grassy earth. To either side, the crumbling ancient stones of half-unbuilt outbuildings, sacristies, infirmary, the great square outline of a ruined cloister, marked out in memory the footprint of the old priory.
To their right, dilapidated yet still whole, one building remained, roofed and still glassed, in its one great dormer window upon the upper storey, the rich luxury that might only be found, in its day, in the leader and exemplar of an order devoted to poverty and the rejection of earthly luxuries- yet even that abandoned by the centuries, the ground floor doorways but hollow mouths gaping into an interior of dank stonework and a damp sandy floor.
It was a place of worship which had been and gone, and in such places did the older wizarding families of custom bury their dead.
Unconsciously, Harry took Ginny by the hand, as they felt themselves joining the small, silent group, robed and cowled in black, who trod the grass and broken stone through that archway, eyes downcast, following the three coffins, one of oak and two of mountain ash - oak for a wizard, rowan for a witch, as it has ever been so, in the ancient words Harry remembered from Percy Weasley's funeral, in the great abandoned Victorian Necropolis south of London, some three months past, and earlier, from when Sirius Black had been remembered, but not buried, in the herbarium of some forgotten abbey on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.
Though the rain passed through them, an insubstantial shade of memory, still they felt the damp chill of its touch. Close by them, bearing one corner of the last coffin, a short, squat young man who seemed barely older now than Harry himself walked along as if caught in an endless dream of the walking dead. His ugly face was white, his eyes downcast and somehow empty in a manner which Harry, glancing between the young Milner and Ginny at his side, was all too familiar. She looked up at him as the memory in which they rode gave a peculiar lurch forward, bringing them to the side of three fresh-dug graves, the mourners gathered about them now in silence. He felt her squeeze his hand, though whether to offer reassurance or to seek it, or both, he could not say.
A peculiar, and strangely unsettling phenomenon occurred as the two young people, like ghosts themselves in this world of ghosts of the past, watched the three coffins slowly, and with great solemnity, being levitated over the graves and allowed to sink silently therein. A tall, grave wizard in dark grey robes with a lilting, singing Welsh voice spoke, addressing the gathered mourners in the ruined priory, and yet, but for a few scattered words hither and thither, neither Harry nor Ginny could understand his speech. It was as if- and with a strange lurch Harry realised indeed it was exactly as if- Milner's own thoughts had been so lost and scattered that the words had been lost to him, never known or understood in his memory. With that thought he looked sharply again at the youth. Aloysius Milner, the bracing hand of some elder relative resting unheeded on his shoulder, was staring numbly into the grave as one of the rowan coffins descended into it. He shook his head, pressing his fingertips to his temples, then, as if caught by something which almost physically pulled him, rather than any conscious volition, his head whipped round to gaze at the other rowan coffin- then from that to the oak, then back again.
Harry saw Ginny half reach out to the shade of the past- and then let her arm fall back, turning and burying her face in his shoulder. He pulled her close to him, holding her, forcing himself to watch as the funerals continued. Milner drew several heavy, deep breaths, and seemed to draw himself to some form of focus, as the wizard officiating's speech grew understandable to Harry's ears, speaking gravely of the love which had existed in this sundered family.
"Yet now, as we lay to rest Ifan Morgan Milner, and his beloved wife, Nia Catrin Milner; their daughter, Luna Nerys Milner; most untimely of all taken from this sphere to our mortal eyes…"
Harry's gaze, which had drifted to the speaker, turned back with a cold thrill of shock at the last name uttered. He felt Ginny too lift her head, and he exchanged a startled look with her tearstained face.
"Why-" Ginny caught at his arm. "Why would a Death Eater name her daughter after-"
"Why the hell would he be friends with-"
"If he ever was," Ginny added, glancing back at Milner. "Maybe we were right after all- Reaver killed her- maybe everything he said about caring about her was a lie?"
"Hey-" Harry's voice was a breathless whisper. As if their very speculation had summoned a darker presence, now in Milner's memory the very angles of perception seemed to skew, leaning vertiginously as the grieving youth cast his gaze about himself and- as if by chance, his eyes settled upon a crumbling pinnacle, frayed outcrop of what had once been a buttress or tower of the structure. Inside its hollow weathered stone, glimpsed through cracks and gulfs in the rock, a spiral stair of stone had once climbed to some forgotten upper storey- long since coated in centuries of the grime and excrement of nesting birds, and, as Aloysius Milner's eyes, seemingly drawn by some influence beyond himself, travelled the height of that pinnacle from base to tip, like some calcified accusatory finger pointed at the sky, all three, the watcher in the past and the watchers from the present, saw in the shadows inside the top of that ruined tower a shape hidden from the other mourners. A shape robed and hooded in a black richer, and darker, than their mourning rainment, and beneath that hood, a graven and glittering mask which gleamed of brass and steel. A shape which bowed that ghastly masked head in an attitude of grief, and of shame.
Harry felt a surge of anger at that sickening mockery, that almost theatrical mime of grief from the shadowed, hidden figure, felt his pulse race and his fingers, almost unrealising, grope for his wand- but of course, he knew, his wand was no more there than he was- and Ginny's hand grasped his suddenly as the sky turned dark around them.
The rain was heavy, drumming on the ancient stone and beating on the green fields about them in the overcast night. He took half a step, catching at the jagged flint rubble of the ruined wall to save himself, his foot scuffing on the worn edges of ancient tiles. They stood on high now, leaning vertiginously over the fresh-filled graves, faint outlines of earth in the grass below. Huddled against the rain, drenched to the skin already, he could see the young Milner cowering against the stonework, looking at his wristwatch by the light of his wand.
The watch chimed midnight- and the dark grew blacker still. He felt Ginny's grip on his hand tighten, felt a chill of horror and more- an instinct, and anticipation of battle, as the darkness turned, a hooded shape stooping, the engraved mask of a stylised, hideously leering face gleaming metal, shining with raindrops. The dread spectre turned.
"Merlin's knickers, Al, how long have you been up here, you must be soaked to the skin-"
The voice resounded hollow behind the mask, and the figure swept back its hood to remove the ghastly mask of Walpurgis.
"Do you think I care about that-" Aloysius Milner's head came up, his face white and thin lipped.
"Look- I'm glad you came- I'm glad you realised it was even me-" the Death Eater crouched down beside him, holding her mask in one hand. She did not reach for him with the other.
"I thought it probably was," Milner responded in a flat voice, grating with mounting anger. "- I didn't really care to tell you the truth- so if you're here for one of that lot, to finish the job-" he thrust an accusing hand down toward the fresh graves far below, "Be my guest, Death Eater."
"Al- I know-"
Harry had not seen the face beneath the mask before. Ginny had, but only in one photograph, glimpsed earlier amid the hectic events of the evening. She had thought that the Florence she had seen immortalised on paper and ink that night had looked like a lost soul- now, seeing Florence the Death Eater, as Ron had called her half in jest, some hours before, she realised that the older woman in the photograph had seemed almost radiant and calm in comparison. Her thin, scarred face was like marble against the dark of her robes, and her features were like Luna's, but tortured, set in lines of some intricate internal agony.
"Yes, I know you know- I bet your friends told you, did they?" Milner spat.
"Malfoy's not my friend-"
"Funny, that's not how it looks- and you come here- dressed like that- why the-"
"Because it's what I am." She lowered herself into a half crouch next to him in the darkness. "Because yes- I'm a Death Eater- and Death Eaters killed -"
"My mam, my dad- little Luna- you knew her at Hogwarts, Flossie, you were at school with her, and-" his voice cracked, and his head dropped. "I don't even know how I've got tears left…"
"I came here dressed like that because I'm not going to insult you or any of them by trying to pretend I'm not," Florence said then, fiercely and sharply.
"I don't care how you insult- you killed them- you, and Volde-"
"Don't say his name- he hears it-" there was sudden, real terror in her voice.
"Well, I'd like to meet your boss actually," Milner was on his feet. "I wouldn't mind saying a few things to him-"
"He'll kill us both-"
"Have you even been paying attention?" Aloysius made another sharp motion down toward the graves. "I don't care. I don't know if I came up here to meet you, or to kill you, or myself, or what- what else am I going to do?"
"I want out, Al-"
"You what?" Milner stared at her, his wide eyes incredulous. "You seriously-" he struck her, hard enough across the face for the sound of the impact to carry through the driving rain.
Florence twisted her head away at the impact, but made no other move. Milner stepped back, his face twisted.
"Ugh, no, that- I'm not saying I'm sorry-" he grated- "But no, I don't want to- just… all right, I'm sorry."
"You shouldn't be. If it helps- do it again."
"If it helps- gods, you really don't get anyone alive, do you, Allerton?"
A flash of lightning lit up the pinnacle for a moment, blue-white light etched over the four of them- Florence, seeming tallest of them in her black robes, her brass and steel mask clutched in one gloved hand while the other half-reached for Milner, the stout young man already half-turning away, whilst Harry and Ginny, standing motionless against the stonework, watched them.
"No, I don't- doesn't mean I want to hurt them-"
"It was a bit late from that when you took up with Vol-"
"He didn't have anything to do with this-"
"Oh what?" Milner rounded on her again, "Your precious archsupermegawizard Führer didn't personally order my family burnt alive, so that makes it all right does it- not his fault? Just a couple of minions got out of control, is that it?"
"Al- he's worse." Florence took another step toward him. "He's a thousand times worse- he's not even human- what he wants, what he does." She stopped, looking down and closing her jaw tight for a moment. "He can read your thoughts. Unless you're very careful- and that's how he makes us into monsters, I think."
"You were already monsters."
"No we weren't- but we are-" she made to turn away, but Milner seized her arm roughly, pulling her back to face him.
"Don't you dare not look me in the eye when you're lying to me," he almost growled.
"I'm not lying- we're not good people- we wouldn't have joined him if we were- but- what he does…" she shook her head. "We're so afraid, you see- and he can see- can see in our heads. And if you hate... If you think the right things- the sort of things he'd think- he's pleased with you- but if you think the wrong things and he hears it… and so you go on thinking the right things for him… and it's a sort of lie you tell yourself at first- but the more you do it, the truer it gets- and before you know it that is who you are."
"Oh look," Aloysius Milner's lips pulled back in an ugly sneer, "Now I have run out of tears. There we go then. What do you want, Flossie, help?" he turned away, his face hidden from the Death Eater but turned close to Harry's own. As he watched, the rage on Milner's face seemed to soften, to sink into the grief and sadness. "I can't help you… why the hell should I?" he seemed to amend his own remark angrily.
"I… I want to make things better."
"It's too late for that, isn't it?"
"I don't know- maybe it is- but- Al, I can get out, I've got a way-" she stopped, and it was Ginny who saw the peculiar look which crossed her face then. A flicker of hope- and something more than that which seemed both familiar and alien to her. "But what can I do on my own? I'm going to need someone I can trust- to hurt him, to try to stop this-"
"You want to help?" Milner's face had drawn together into hard, bitter lines. Harry saw in that visage something of the look of the older Milner he had known at Hogwarts, his strange, mysterious Dark Arts teacher. "Fine. Take your wand, pointy end goes against your head, 'Avada Kedavra', one less Death Eater. Thank ye kindly, lassie, that'll be sure to help about as much as you can, you know." He moved to the crumbling stairs, steadfastly refusing to meet her eye.
"Al-"
"You asked, I answered. Goodbye, Allerton."
"Well- here-" she reached into her robes and pulled out an old tin whistle on a chain. "Remember that?" Florence pulled it out and held it out to him. "If you ever change your mind- if you ever need help-"
"I'd say go to hell, but I think you've about built your own."
"Take it. Please."
"No."
"Then just take it as a memory." She let the whistle fall, clinking, to the broken tiles at their feet. It bounced, rolling off the crumbling edge and falling into the wet grass below. As before, Harry and Ginny had no choice but to follow it with their eyes- as Aloysius Milner had once done, the whole fabric of the memory billowing about it. When they looked up again, Milner was alone on the pinnacle save for themselves, empty ghosts of a future where he too was but a memory departed.
Once again, the world seemed to lurch about them, and Ginny took him by the hand. For some time they seemed to stand in darkness- then- abruptly, with a suddenness of light that made him stumble, curtains were drawn back with a heavy rasping, ringing sound of old fabric and grandiose brass rings on metal curtain rods.
The tall, leonine man who had opened the curtains strode across to the embrasure of the other window and did the same, looking out across the quadrangle below.
Aloysius Milner, dry, warmer, and with the raw grief in his eyes still there, yet blunted, a hurt bitterness that Harry realised had always been there when he had known him, sat in one of a pair of faded fabric sofas, either side of a coffee table set perpendicular to the fireplace on the other side of the room. There was a rich smell of coffee from the pot, mixing with the musty aroma of the old books stuffed higgledy piggledy into the bookshelves which lined the old, oak panelled room. He and Ginny glanced at one another. They were seated- or perhaps, rather, they were not, in the sofa opposite to Milner, and another man, a tall, thin young man with flowing blonde hair and a lime green shirt with lapels which seemed to go somewhere beyond bizarre to the point of almost touching upon eldritch, in their absurdity.
"If we're meeting with a Death Eater-" the blonde man began to say, fidgeting nervously with a silver medallion dangling round his neck.
"An ex-Death Eater," the leonine man corrected in a deep, confident tone. "Al will vouch for her."
Milner looked trapped, glancing from one side to the other.
"Well, you talked me into this-" he said, grimly, and the first man laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I know. But you have to think of the friend she was. Not what all this- this corrupted her into. She's here. She wants to make a difference." He smiled down at Aloysius with a curious gentleness. "You know it wasn't her fault. Not really."
"That doesn't mean I can forget-" he leaned forward, dropping an old tin whistle from his clenched fist onto the tea tray, as there came a diffident knock on the study door.
"Come!" the older, standing man gave a roar that was worthy of the lion he resembled in mane and features, and the door opened. Two figures entered, Harry and Ginny having to crane their necks around to see them.
"Professor Reaver?" The first was a young man, perhaps the age of Aloysius and his blonde haired compatriot as they appeared in the memory. He was dressed in a dark suit and a tan overcoat, and had a freshly polished and varnished air as if he had just stepped off the production line of a factory for keen young policemen.
"Sergeant Dawlish, sir, I've brought the… er.."
"The Er, Sergeant," Reaver noted, taking the offered clipboard as the second figure sidled hesitantly into the room after Dawlish. "Very well then, I'll take custody of the Er, from the Ministry of Magic, for an hour or two."
"Yes sir, thank you sir."
Reaver smiled, propping the clipboard on one arm whilst he signed it with the other hand, giving another reassuring smile to the young woman who had followed Dawlish into the room as he did so. "You'd better cut along to the porters' lodge, Sergeant. I'm sure Mr Wilkin will keep you fed and watered till we're done here. Mrs Wilkin makes a wonderful spaghetti bolognese, and I'm sure I caught a delightful aroma coming up from their kitchens earlier." Harry glanced back at the two students- Milner and his friend. Both regarded the newcomers intently- Milner's face a study of contradictions, anger and bitterness seeming to strive against a certain whisper of nostalgia and affection- and a sympathy and concern which appeared to repulse him though he could not dispel it, as he looked at the girl, hovering uncomfortably and unhappily by the door. His friend also looked at her- but in his case, the arrogant and smug lines of his features seemed somehow transformed and softened by the- for him- uncomplicated and easy sympathy which he made no effort to hide.
As Dawlish marched keenly away, Reaver allowed his smile to broaden, and held out a hand. "Come in, Miss Er," he said gravely.
"Er, it's- well, it's Florence Smith, actually," the girl managed a weak smile, putting her gloved hands behind her back.
"Yes, Miss Smith, even the Ministry of Magic can manage to make out transport papers for a probationary prisoner- of sorts- without forgetting to put a name at the top," Reaver murmured. "Come, take a seat- and shut the door would you? Just so you don't escape," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes that irresistibly reminded Harry for a moment of Professor Dumbledore.
Miss Smith swallowed awkwardly, following him over to the table.
"Hello- Al-" she managed, after a pause long enough to be unsettling. "And- oh-"
The blonde young man had risen to his feet and given a florid bow.
"This is Xeno-" Milner began, with automatic, stiff formality, before Xeno himself took up the thread.
"Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood," he declared grandly. "Alumnus of Beauxbatons Academy of the Magical Arts, now student of St. Cedd's College, Cambridge- and your humble servant." He maintained the bow and squinted up at her. "Friends call me Xeno," he added."Hope you will too."
Miss Smith, for a moment, did something rather unexpected- she giggled. It was a laugh so like that of Luna Lovegood that Harry felt a sickness of dismay, remembering her broken expression when he had last seen her, and he glanced quickly to Ginny- who seized his hand, her own eyes as troubled as his.
The girl's quiet laugh lasted only a moment however. Even as it began, Aloysius Milner looked sharply at her, incredulous and angry, and it was as if an iron casket of grief and regret clasped down over her features again.
"I'm- I'm sorry-"
"You've said that." Milner reminded her, flatly.
It was strange to Harry, how different she looked. Perhaps a few weeks- perhaps a few months- no more- could have separated this from the earlier memory- and, except when she had laughed at Xeno's foolish, foppish performance, the same hopeless, bitter air of despair and self-loathing was etched upon Miss Smith as had been written plain to see on the Death Eater- but now the dark robes and terrible mask were gone, and, in a simple dark green fuzzy sweater and straightforward knee-length skirt, she might have passed for any Muggle of her age- Florence looked entirely and resolutely ordinary. Ill, perhaps, and unhappy, but ordinarily so. Yet there was something else. When he had seen her before, in the crumbling tower, she had been frightened, tormented, but there had still been a… poise about her, a confidence in who and what she was, even though it had been clear that she had come to hate it. That last vestige of pride seemed now to have been ripped away, and Florence - Allerton? Smith? Lovegood? - merely looked adrift, lost. What had Voldemort done to her, since he had seen her last, He wondered - or the Ministry? Milner's words and rejection? Something else? He was still pondering this when Reaver invited her to take a seat, and so, forgetting for a moment that neither he nor Ginny were in and sense truly there, but were in memory occupying a space which they had never done in reality, he was in fact slightly surprised when Florence the Death Eater decorously sat on his lap.
Harry's mouth opened, and he looked rather wildly at Ginny. Miss Smith, of course, entirely ignored him- although his vision of Milner's memories adapted, to perceive her seated atop his knees, rather than through them, sitting on the sofa where he sat, as he supposed she must have done in reality- in fact, he had not been there, and so Milner had had no memory of him being there. He struggled to move- but could not- of course, Milner had no memory of Flossie Smith being pitched forward off her seat by the invisible man, either. His face red with embarrassment, he met his girlfriend's eyes, even as she hurriedly and adroitly hopped up to sit on the chair arm just before Dr Reaver settled into the place Ginny herself had just vacated.
"I-" Harry swallowed, lost for words, gesticulating apologetically at Ginny. She leaned over to him, her face a picture of feline mischief.
"Believe me, I can get jealous, Mr Potter," Ginny murmured. "But get back to me in a few hundred years when I've stopped laughing, first," she added, and smirked at him. "Only you could get sat on by a Death Eater."
Dr. Reaver was speaking.
"Well, now, we're all introduced. And I think we all have a good idea of why we're here. To put an end to this." He looked gravely round at the other three. "The Aurors have tried. Nothing- and I don't believe for a moment that'll change. How do you fight a shadow? The Death Eaters come in the night- and even if from time to time they catch them, they kill Death Eaters or throw them in Azkaban- there are always more."
"Old Dumbledore up at Hogwarts has tried. Well- He Who Must Not Be Named won't attack Hogwarts while Dumbledore's there, that's clear enough, but while I know we're grateful for that, more and more children are being kept at home with their parents-" he looked sadly at Al. "Your sister-"
"She'd have been safer at Hogwarts, I know," Milner said wretchedly.
"So, what do we do? Only science. All You-Know-Who peddles is based on ignorance- fear and ignorance- I'm not saying He's a fool- anything but-" he held up a hand, forestalling Miss Smith's half-formed response, "But the creed they peddle, the nonsense about half-bloods and muggle-borns- they strangle science and knowledge and enquiry. For them, magic is something to be kept some almost sacred mystery, isn't that so, Miss Smith? To do magic, to work it- yes, but to understand it- for him and his inner circle alone?"
Grudgingly, she nodded.
"That's why I asked Al to invite you here today," Reaver looked around the table.
"Magia Delenda Est."
"Biscuit?" Dr Reaver offered the tin around the table.
"No thanks, I feel a bit- well, it's nerves, I suppose," Miss Smith shook her head, putting an apologetic hand to her stomach for a moment. Xeno and Milner accepted the offer, and Ginny half extended a hand in acceptance before drawing it back awkwardly, recollecting that the offer would not include her. Harry caught her eye and gave a slight chiding grin.
"The… Cult of Omega, isn't it?" Xeno asked. "Magia Delenda Est, I mean. The Wonderful Wendelin the Weird," he made a grand gesture.
"Wendelin was actually a remarkable witch - if you read the more detailed histories of her-" Miss Smith stammered.
"Oh lord, don't get Flossie started on Wendelin," Aloysius Milner rolled his eyes and shook his head with an affectionate smile, "We'll be here for hours…" he murmured- and then, Harry saw quite clearly, that same smile froze on his face as if cracked through, and he dropped the biscuit sharply onto the table, as recent memories cut through fonder, older ones and the habit of years.
Miss Smith watched him- and abruptly wrenched her head away.
"I'm glad you're familiar," Dr Reaver said gravely. "You can tell me then, what that slogan truly meant."
Florence looked up at him sharply. Reaver's choice of topic seemed to have given her confidence, the challenge, or the familiarity, perhaps, and Harry found himself wondering how much of Florence' past Reaver knew- or had learned from Aloysius Milner. Enough to know the name of an old heroine, perhaps? To know what might rekindle that broken heart a little, and set it to fire in a strong enough cause?
"That while we still have magic, we will always misuse it. That we always have to be on our guard against-" she quailed a moment, then looked directly at Aloysius Milner. "Against evil."
"Then you know why I have brought you here, Florence Allerton," Dr Reaver told her. Florence shrank back, twisting in her seat, much to Harry's discomfort.
"But that's monstrous-" she protested. "You can't seriously be suggesting-"
"Is it any more monstrous than what he's doing?" Milner cut in grimly. "Really, Flossie? You talk about evil-"
"What you're talking about is–" she sank her head into her hands suddenly, then lifted it. "You're not telling me the Ministry would-"
"We are talking about a deterrent," Reaver said calmly. "About a weapon of absolute and unthinkable destruction- but with no loss of life."
And Florence Smith clasped her hands together for a moment, then looked him steadily in the eye.
"You're talking about the destruction of magic itself."
"Nobody's planning on using it," Xeno leaned forward in his seat, beaming in an effort of reassurance. "You see- um, Flossie-"
"Florence, please- only Aloysius there really-"
"Oh, of course," Xeno smiled warmly. "You see, Florence- the point is that we would all have a terrible amount to lose, if such a spell was ever successfully cast- but- as much as we would lose, You-Know-Who would lose far, far more."
Florence shook her head abruptly, and, as if belatedly, pulled herself back from Xeno. Florence did not like to be touched. Harry remembered Luna saying as much. If was really a concept he found slightly counterfactual at this precise time, with a Death Eater's posterior which- no matter what he might claim to feel or to have moved on from feeling, Aloysius Milner clearly remembered as being decidedly shapely- sat firmly on his lap as she was, but he supposed that Florence himself could hardly be blamed for that slightly absurd misfortune.
"I don't know if it's even possible- I've heard the legends-"
"Albert Ranbrot sought out a Muggle physicist to try to understand the field equations which would have let him cast it," Reaver observed.
"It'd be… incredibly complex. I mean," Florence looked at Milner, "Think about it- no, just think about it for a moment. The magical field of the entire planet- that's hundreds of thousands of individual thaumofluxes- remember what we used to talk about? Back in fifth year? How if you set up a sort of … barrage of multiple wands, separated the cores and manipulated them relative to each other, you could extrapolate the magical resonance field of a place and create a visual display- well, just imagine what that would look like for the whole planet-"
"Then you'd have to create some kind of antiphase signal- but how could you possibly do a dynamic adjustment to the individual maxima and minima?" Aloysius shook his head. "You couldn't just do a general average smear of it- that'd defeat the whole object-"
"What about if you ran a para-sentient algorithm inside the framework of the spell flux itself?" Florence took a biscuit from the tin and ate it without thinking. "I mean, something like a reverse-phase Messien effect? You know- like those flying lanterns we set on the Slytherin Quidditch team?"
"That'd be bloody risky there cariad," Milner rubbed the back of his neck intently, and checked himself, "- and- we're talking about a deterrent here, besides- you set something like that running inside the spell and it'd run away with itself, no? Och, t''would be a right grand big boom you'd be after makin' of everything if that went and ran away with itself, do ye no reckon, lassie?"
"Well, yes- but I'm sure we could build in a thaumo-filter- I mean- what's that shield charm inversion you were working on- the-"
"Captivia Incanus- that's an idea- you could encapsulate the spell, release it by stages- with a final failsafe release if you really did want to- well- I mean-" Florence's eyes were bright, and the voice had a life in it that Harry had only briefly heard, in the moment when she had been greeted by Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood. Aloysius Milner too, was alert, intent- and as Harry looked at them both- a strange thought came to him, and he glanced at Ginny.
"Fred and George- aren't they? I mean-"
"Well, more than a bit- yes, it's that kind of bonkers-"
"Can you make any sense of what they're talking about?" Harry caught himself whispering, and wondered why.
"You're the one studying Theory, not me yet," she retorted, in the same almost automatic hushed tone.
Harry shook his head, uncertain.
"Well, I think they mean disrupting the world's magical field somehow, but- all that other arcane mechanics stuff-" he shrugged expressively, and glanced at Milner and Florence. Despite his anger toward the thaumaturgist in the present day, Harry remained a kindly soul, and it was hard for him not to feel some sympathy and relief, to see the hopeless despair and the hateful shadow of Voldemort lifted from the two friends, as they were sucked into their shared enthusiasm together. He remembered a day in Helena's Nest last autumn, when he had walked to see Ginny- a day when he had believed that she hated him, that grief had entirely torn away the bond between them. He remembered the joy of learning that to be wrong.
He looked across- and saw a smile flickering at Dr Reaver's lips. For a moment, Harry felt a warmth in his heart toward the man, seeing the… kindness, the compassion in Reaver's features, as he watched his grieving student and that student's old friend coming to life again, bouncing ideas at each other across the table as if hurt and corruption and sorrow and Voldemort had never come between the two friends- but then something seemed to change, almost something that Harry could not register on the surface. Reaver's smile… was just perhaps an inch too great- no more than that. The kind glint in his eyes just a fraction too cool, somehow, and the compassion was… a sense of an inexorable need.
Then he remembered other words. He remember Ginny, in the still of the Cone of Silence, in London, how she had found herself yearning, straining against the Oath in her need to touch and understand a mystery of magic, and he looked again at the back of Florence's head, remembering other words, Milner's last plea to him before he and Ginny had entered the memories in the pensieve.
"Harry- Ginny- you've a right to see this, and I'll not try to stand in your way, but… let me ask you one thing. Please."
Harry had looked at him, wordless, for a long moment, then nodded.
"You're not… going to see Florence at her best in there. She was no misunderstood saint, I admit that, and… I don't ask you to forgive, but I do ask you to understand. I… tried to tell you about illnesses of the mind?"
"Go on," he'd urged the teacher in a gentler tone than he had addressed Milner for some time.
"You'll think that love makes people blind," Milner had said somberly. "But blood purity never meant a damn thing to Florence. What mattered to her- what always mattered- was being let to do things. To study magic- because magic made sense to her- nothing else did!" He shook his large head slowly.
"People can be clever, you see- absolute genius in what they know about, what makes sense to them in their own unique way, enough to change the world, transform lives - but to them- people don't make sense. Wizards never bother properly studying that sort of thing- but I've worked with Muggle doctors from time to time- and what they've been damn sure off the record that I was- Florence was a long way further down that spectrum than I am. She was also the most creative spellweaver I've ever known," Milner had reflected, then sighed and went on, "- but- work out what someone's expression meant, understand someone's feelings-" he's shaken his head. "It's not that she didn't try-" he added. "She tried so hard, the poor lass- and I made that stupid mistake- I kissed her. I thought she was asking me to- like I said, not too good at this business myself either - but she panicked. She couldn't make sense of it- and nobody could understand why something like that would upset her that much- so they all thought that there was a hell of a lot more to it than that." The Professor had sat down then, brooding, reflective. "It looked pretty bad for me for a while here- until Dumbledore there took the time to actually sit down and talk to Florence, ask her what had happened instead of telling her what they thought had gone on."
Milner had looked around the group. "She never thought about me that way. I could live with that- and we- we were still friends, we forgave each other- but-" he'd sighed heavily. "After that- she started to… well, I hadn't been the right person, and we'd both moved on from that-" he had looked suddenly intent at Harry's sceptical face.
"Aye, Mr Potter, we had indeed," he'd told the young man, with a spark of his old manner. "Ye ask yerself how great big a fib that is, when yon Milner's always after cryin' into his haggis over the fair young filly- sure, but when those we care about are taken from us- all we have are those memories," the accent faded slowly as he spoke. "If Florence were still alive today- then no. Nothing more than a brief infatuation. First love and special for that- but- outside of that-" again,he had shaken his head. "Well, who's to say. The point is- she didn't- not for this ugly face- but I reckon that it started her thinking. Thinking maybe she'd like to explore this strange new feeling with someone she did … admire in that way." He looked up, across the table, his eyes settling briefly but unmistakably upon the watching figure of Snape, then away again, to settle on Harry, a shrewd look in them for a moment, as if assessing whether Harry had caught the glance. "And those feelings led her into bad company. People who were interested in the things she could do. The gifts she had. People who could make certain things- the freedom to experiment without restriction, without law- very seductive indeed."
"And that's what you think I'm going to do, is it?" Ginny'd interjected then, in a somewhat hard and unfriendly tone. Milner had raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Well," he'd looked across the table at her. "You chafe at any restraint- even those you've set yourself. You held yourself back from the Unforgivable Curses- blessed if I know how, but I could see surely enough what it cost you, to say no to casting them- and in the few months I've known you, there's not been a fight you've not thrown yourself into, after trying to prove yourself, amongst other things. So, no, not at all, of course," the Professor had told her drily.
Harry shook himself free of introspection, confused to find that the memory world had somehow paused around himself and Ginny as he had become abstracted, and it now resumed, as Milner and Florence chattered animatedly to one another.
Then without anything seeming to change at all, the spell broke- Aloysius Milner faltered in his words, and drew back, breaking eye contact with Miss Smith- but with more grief, than anger, now in his face. She stuttered on a moment, uncertain, quailing, then stopped, letting her gaze drop to the table top. Harry could feel the tension, the fear, in her, her body quivering like a deer preparing for flight.
"No," she murmured wretchedly, not daring to raise her head. "No, I can't-"
"From Al's account of your talents, my dear young lady, you are one of the few who can-"
"I'm a monster," she snapped, her face white as a sheet, drawing herself into a kind of right immobile ball on Harry's lap. "Aloysius should have said- I'm foul- I mean, you know how… this is right on the edge of the knife- if I touch it all that will happen will be it'll turn into something- something rancid and terrible."
"Florence, you said you wanted to help- to try to put things right-" Milner looked up at her. "I know this is- drastic- wild- frightening- but it's something only you-"
"I can't help anyone, Al," she snapped. "Just… send me back. Send me to the Dementors." Her head dropped low. "Let them eat it," she whispered.
Milner half spoke, a dozen answers shifting in his face, before his hand fell back, uncertain, defeated.
Ginny watched him. It had been an instinct she had not even quite understood, that had made her accompany Harry into the Professor's memories. Did it make any sense, she wondered, when someone tried to kill you - again- to be, above everything else, embarrassed and angry about all the fuss over it all? She knew from their faces that she was far readier to accept Milner's insistence that the whole thing had been a terrible mistake, than Harry, her brother, or even Hermione had been. She did not want to be the subject of some convoluted plot. She wanted to understand what this talent was, and how- she glared at the oblivious image of the younger Milner- how she could use it to help.
Just like Florence.
Well, I'm not exactly a Death Eater, am I?
She had been young, scared, lost, and sort-of-crossed-in-love. She'd sought solace and understanding in something different, something exciting, something with a darkness she hadn't realised until she was in too deep-
- No, that's not the same at all -
Angrily, she told herself, and grasped Harry's hand tightly, holding on to his words to her in the courtroom.
I was Voldemort's victim, not his servant,
She forced herself to think it.
All of that- "My family owes him a human life" - that's just him being sick and cruel- I don't owe him anything and it really wasn't my fault- he used me - and…
She drew a deep, ragged breath.
And he used her- and how many others? Florence got in too deep.
She wanted to somehow reach out to that memory of Aloysius Milner as he sat there, torn between his grief and bitterness, his anger and love of his friend, and try to make him understand that- to ask him to forgive her- to help her- and yet… and yet… for him to do that would begin a chain of events. Her heart went out to the wretched, broken shape of the young woman, barely a couple of years older than herself- she's younger than Tonks- Ginny realised sharply- she wanted there to be someone to comfort her- but that comfort, that solace. That offer of forgiveness and atonement - would lead inexorably down a path of history already trodden - to Florence's death.
In a sudden, convulsive horror, she looked to Harry, and followed the direction of his gaze- and she, too, saw something in Dr Reaver's face which Milner himself must have registered- but perhaps not seen for what it was, for years to come.
You're using them. She felt a rush of anger- and again, her eyes snapped back to the image of Milner. She seemed to see him- not through the pensieve, but through the eye of imagination as she remembered Ron's words.
Milner, sitting in his office, considering- her - remembering. Milner, bitterly condemning himself with his guilt at Florence's death-
It wasn't the memory of supposed academic negligence that hung over the man like a cloud, Ginny realised with a chill that spread slowly down her spine- it was - this moment.
Watch my back.
"Someone's got to do something. I suppose that's what I'm thinking, more than anything. Maybe- that we can cope with that, that we can be those people- maybe that's a good thing?"
Milner - the younger Milner- bowed his head. She could see Xeno- the pompous, bumptious Xeno, also dithering next to him- so much less complicated for him, Ginny realised. An arrogant dickhead would have been her first assessment- but he had barely taken his eyes from Florence since she'd entered the room, and there was more sympathy, than there was desire, in them. He clearly wanted to say something- but just as clearly had the sense, beneath it all, to know that he simply did not know her well enough yet. So he hovered, and she could almost feel the pressure of his mind screaming at Milner to do something.
How often did I want to reach out to Harry- up until the prat went and said something so stupid I couldn't stop myself, after dad was attacked by that snake at the Ministry- but felt like I just didn't - really - know him well enough to be so rude as to stick my nose in - when he was hurting?
The seconds seemed to stretch into ice ages- and as her gaze strayed to the clock on the mantelpiece, she saw that it was indeed so. Time was subjective- and to Aloysius Milner, this moment had lasted an eternity- both now and in later, endless reflection.
Say something- please- but I know what that leads to - but even so - even if it was me- even if I knew that I was still down there in the dark- even if I knew that coming back would be the end of me?
It wasn't you…
She wanted to reach out to the present day Milner, suddenly, to offer him comfort, despite all that had happened. Milner had said he was protecting her or trying to protect her- from Harry, but - and now again, she saw fragmented glimpses of imagination, from what she'd learned.
Milner, in his office. The picture of Reaver, after his arrest. Milner, looking through her- Ginny's - work, studying her magic - the sheer venom in his thoughts as he'd inscribed that motto of the cult, the byword of the spell for which they'd used Florence- written it against Ginny's name, again, and again, and again, burning it into his thoughts.
Never again.
As she watched, Aloysius Milner, pity and compassion and love finally overcoming hate, as he looked at the broken, wretched girl huddled in Harry's lap, glanced up, unsure, and met the twinkling eyes, the calm, reassuring, supportive gaze of his mentor. Ginny saw the resolve strengthen, in the younger man's eyes, and he moved, reaching out gently to Florence.
"Oh, Flossie-" and with a terrible shuddering haste, as if Milner could not bear to dwell on what came next, even to finish the recollection, the vision wrenched itself into blackness.
The first thing, this time, was the sound. A hollow, frantic echoing report, and a voice, shouting.
Harry felt as if he was waking up- in the gloom, he reached out, Ginny's arms caught his, as a new room slowly swam into focus around them, and the noise, a beating, hammering sound, went on, growing in familiarity.
"Will you wake up!" Those were the first clear words.
The room was lived in- not to the point of squalor, but much like his dormitory at Hogwarts, the sort of room that he knew Molly Weasley, or Aunt Petunia, or Dobby, would form a decidedly unlikely alliance in looking round it with a disdainful sniff and a definite impression that it should, in fact, be tidier. The wood panelled walls and brass curtain rods were similar to those in Reaver's study- but it was a smaller, meaner little room for someone of rather less status. Milner was stumbling into it from an adjoining room, hair- a little thinner, perhaps, and already receding a little now, but otherwise much the same as the young man they had just seen, except currently that hair stuck wildly in all directions at once, and his eyes were bleary, screwed up against the light as he grimaced at each loud pounding blow on the outer door. He was dressed- barely- in underpants and a distinctly tired looking dressing gown, occasioning a stifled giggle from Ginny at his somewhat sleepy and inefficient efforts to tie it closed.
"Sure an' its two in the bloody mornin," he grumbled to himself in a slightly more successful accent than usual, as he picked his way past several books and the remnants of a chinese takeaway to the door. "I'm a-comin!" he bawled, in response to a fresh hammering on the door- before something made him stop for a moment, and he snatched up his wand from the remnants of a dish of prawn crackers.
"If you don't open this bloody door in a minute…"
"Fine- I'm here!" Milner shouted back, drawing back the bolt and taking off the chain. "What the pink, green, purple, and lilac-shaded heliotrope blazes do ye want-" he barely had time to open the door before Florence sailed into the room, followed by a rather more hesitant Xeno.
Florence had thrown what looked very much like a Ravenclaw Quidditch cloak over her nightdress, and Xeno, looking somewhat bewildered, was wrapped in a psychedelic dressing gown covered in bizarre occult symbols that Harry- somewhat uncharitably- rather suspected him of having made up. She was also- happy- happier than he had yet seen her, with only a queer, desperate, manic edge to that joy to remind him of the shaking, broken woman he had seen in Reaver's office, or the terrified servant of darkness he had witnessed at the graves of Milner's family. She was also - unless it was she that had consumed all of Milner's takeaway and perhaps fifty others besides it- quite spectacularly and unmistakable great with child.
"I'm sorry-" Milner glanced down at the wand in his hand as Xeno and Florence both took it in- "I thought- well, might be- you know- a raid- a Death Eater- "
"Oh, ha ha," Florence actually pulled a face at him.
"Look- what-" Milner's eyes widened suddenly- "Oh- do you need to get to the hospital?" he glanced down at Florence's swollen belly with a mix of considerable fear and excited glee, and then across to Xeno, visibly shaking off the vestiges of sleep. "Carpet's a bit of a mess, I know- but there's still a good charm on it- I know they're illegal, but- I mean, it's an emergency, isn't it, I could have you both at Addenbrookes in ten minutes if we're lucky and there's not too much traffic-"
"It's not that- not yet-" she put a hand to her abdomen and blushed, her somewhat bulging eyes softening until Harry found he was very much reminded of her daughter- her daughter-! - he looked at the large bump in her nightdress in a new light, finding the whole idea incredible in a way he could not entirely describe- "Al-" Florence continued- pushing back her cloak, holding out her left forearm. "Well- look at it-"
Milner seemed to feel a strong compulsion to twist his eyes away from the offered forearm, and as Harry looked, he felt a curious, new and different sensation in his own forehead- a slithering, retreating, dwindling sort of feeling. The burn of the Dark Mark was still faintly visible on Florence's arm, but fading, the last touch of Voldemort's mind some time ago- but it was unlike the feelings he had sensed before, when those Marks were kindled.
"We think- Florence thinks- is sure-" Xeno began-
"He's… he's gone," she stammered. "He was- he was trying to kill someone- I don't know who, the spells I put around it to keep him out… blurred things, but- something happened- I don't know what- but it was as if everything just…" she shook her head.
Milner was staring at her in incredulous amazement and a sudden, almost terrified dawn of hope.
"You're sure- it couldn't be some sort of trick-"
"No- he was- he was terrified- I've never felt that before- then something rose up against him and- it was like he fell apart. Like there were lots of voices crying his name, spreading out- and just-" she shook her head. "Nothing."
"Who on Earth would have the power to do that?"
"I don't know-"
"We will know, though," Xeno put in, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her in close to him, the sapphire jewel in his wedding ring glinting in the light as he clasped it comfortingly, reassuringly around her. "Whoever finally managed to do this is going to be famous, that's for sure." He looked up then at Milner. "And- we don't have to do this."
Florence raised her head in question- and then Harry saw the same doubts, the same fears, the same guilts and horrors still clawing at her beneath her happiness. "Then- how do I-"
"We put it behind us, love," Xeno held her, as Aloysius Milner watched them with tears of gladness in his eyes. "Xeno sees many things," Xeno said softly to his wife, "But he doesn't see monsters that aren't there. You don't need to do this to yourself any more. You Know Who is gone at last- and we can stop."
As he said this last, his eyes raised to Milner, and there was both a question and a challenge in them.
"Stop?"
This time the flicker of darkness was so brief, a mere flash and a jolting disconnect as the scene about them violently changed, heaved into a new form.
"Stop- now?"
They were in Reaver's study- the three young people and Harry and Ginny alongside them lined up against the windows, facing Zachary Reaver as he stood, shadowed, by the unlit fireplace.
"Well- yes-" Milner was speaking, making quick, staccato gestures with his hands as if organising his thoughts. "Now that Volde- that He's gone," he added, with a quick glance at Florence, and then down to the coffee table.
Ginny followed that gaze. There was a newspaper on it. It was folded, and strewn about with considerable academic detritus, but there was no mistaking the front page, even if it was confusingly brand new and freshly printed. She had seen many of them, preserved, some even framed, in homes, in shops, in offices, up and down the Wizarding World, all her life. She owned one. Yellowed, torn in places, and Colin Creevey had said a couple of years ago that he thought it was probably not a genuine original anyway- but still, it was somewhere in her trunk, packed away with some few precious possessions and a dress she'd bought in Diagon Alley last December, rather like something of a good luck charm.
"HARRY POTTER - THE BOY WHO LIVED!"
She looked from it slowly around the room, and it struck her, irrelevantly as it might seem, how the same space had changed in - however long- at least nine months, she supposed, even assuming Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood's courtship to be as swift as it was melodramatic. Academic untidyness seemed, in that time, to have ossified into a faint air of general neglect- thicker cobwebs hung in the corners. Books which had before been shelved carelessly were now left scattered across tables and chairs, and Reaver himself was… lessened in some way. Though still the same handsome middle aged figure he had been, his great mane of hair seemed tangled, in more than one place, and his twinkling eyes darted, suspiciously, as he looked doubtfully at his young students.
"There's just no need for it any more- I know it was a great project- pushing back the boundaries of magical theory-" Xeno held up his hands, placatingly, "But the toll it's taking on Florence, and especially-"
"Yes- yes, of course," Reaver's voice calmed instantly, and he smiled kindly, stepping gravely over toward them. "We shouldn't have pushed you so hard, especially not -" he looked understandingly at her swollen belly. "Mr Lovegood is quite right about that-"
"N-no, it's all right- I wanted- I want- her to grow up safe," Florence laid a hand on her stomach. "I was pushing myself-" she looked to both Milner and Reaver in turn.
"But it's all different now. I mean, nobody wants to actually cast that spell-" Xenophilius explained, smiling. "I don't want - our child- " he checked himself seemingly, with an odd, conspiratorial sort of glance at Florence, as he said it- "To grow up in a world without magic any more than I wanted her to grow up in a world with … well, with him in it-"
Florence said nothing. As Ginny looked at her, wondering, she was again shocked by the change wrought- this time in what could only have been a few hours, as she seemed to sink into herself, gazing at the newspaper on the table.
Harry Potter, growing up an orphan because of the actions of Death Eaters- she looked quickly to her boyfriend. His face was a study of emotions, as he too regarded that terrible headline. There was grief- the pain of what he had so long ago learned had happened that night- but also a great discomfort at being caught in the centre of it- that the legend of Harry Potter here, and now, was driving these four people in their actions. Ginny slid her arm around his waist and laid her head quietly against his shoulder, even as Xenophilius cradled Florence Lovegood. She could see the pregnant woman's lips move, silently arguing with herself. What was it Luna had said?
A life, dedicated to atonement.
Xenophilius might see this as a burden withdrawn, as a chance for freedom, a chance to raise their daughter without the terrible spectre upon their backs- but for Florence, it was a chance withdrawn, the hope that she might somehow set right the shadows of her past taken away from her- and Ginny saw that in the hours of Florence's life since she had seen her last, happy and radiant when she had burst into Milner's rooms- perhaps when she had read that cursed newspaper and understood the terrible price that others had paid, undeserving, to stop Voldemort's reign of terror- that horrible realisation had found its way into her heart and taken root. Had Florence known the Potters? Remus had said Milner had been just a couple of years younger than the four makers of the Marauders' Map, and Florence, she thought she recalled to be perhaps a year or two younger than Milner. She might very well have been at school with them- in any case, whether she had known them or not- they had taken that sacrifice from her.
Reaver was speaking.
"My dear- of course- you must do nothing until the child is born, I wouldn't dream of it- but- after-" he looked at all of them. "We should not forget- Lord Voldemort himself was only a symptom- One Dark Lord out of so many."
"That be the truth, that be," Milner essayed from somewhere in the West Country, and had the grace to look embarrassed at the wry but subtly chiding look his teacher gave him in response.
Reaver, having caught his pupil's gaze, drew it with his eyes to settle on Florence, to see the uncertainly, the misery in her attitude.
"We have here a chance- a hope of building a lasting peace," he went on, his voice soothing, calming as ever, for all the vague seediness that had begun to gather in his noble appearance. "Voldemort - I will not apologise for using his name, for he has already taken everything from me- just as from you, Al, remember that-" he noted, "Voldemort was a terror beyond imagining- but I am old enough to remember German planes and bombs in the sky, and the malign will of Grindelwald behind them all - Xeno, my dear boy- you came to us as a student of history, after all. You know the truth of it- and of what becomes of those who are foolish enough not to remember the lessons of the past."
"Then you think we should - go on with this?" Florence looked up at him sharply- and there was hope in her voice, a tiny sliver of the joy she had felt, in the first relief of Voldemort's ending, before the doubts and the griefs and the fears had flooded back.
"Florence-" Xenophilius looked at her, more saddened than surprised, as she spoke, and she returned that look, her face etched with uncertainty and indecision.
"I just want to-" she stopped, her hand pressed to her body, feeling the new life that moved there. "Sid, I want her to grow up safe from-"
From monsters.
Ginny could read the unspoken words in Florence's tormented eyes- and more words besides.
From becoming a monster.
Florence wrenched her head away. "I need to think- about her, about L-" she stopped, looked up at Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood, and then at Milner, who had sunk into brooding thought over the choice Reaver had posed to them. "Al… we think… that is, we want- both of us, well- we'd like to call her Luna. If you'll allow us-" she broke off, fear in her eyes, almost flinching back, but Lovegood held on to her tightly.
"Luna Xenophilidae," he amended grandly, in all. "I think it's a lovely name for a girl, don't you?"
Milner looked conflicted as bitterness and sadness and love coursed across his coarse features. He moistened his lips and swallowed hard.
Then he drew himself up. "Aye," he drawled, regarding his friend's grand and colourful regalia "Happen that's always how it struck me, most suitable-like," as a smile began on his face-to-face perhaps, at first, a forced and sad smile, but it seemed to grow with something beyond itself and, crinkle up his eyes in a way Ginny had but seldom seen in the older man out in the real world, as he clasped first Florence's hand, then Xeno's, in turn, a wide, infectious, jubilant grin on his features. "I'd be proud- and so would she-"
"Then I beg you, for her sake," Reaver looked at them with earnest pleasure in his burning eyes, and held out his open arms. "Let us make a world safe, for her, for all of them to grow up in?" He looked searchingly at the trio.
"In the end, to master the Omega Incantation- the Last Word, would be to hold in our hands a power not of evil- because it would slay no one, it would not hurt, nor wound, nor kill- but a power - a deterrent, which would answer the responsibility our power brings- the power to hold a lasting peace." Reaver stepped closer, his hands shaking with deep, close-bound emotion, and he held Florence' eyes. "I believe- that for little Luna's sake- for Harry Potter's sake," he glanced at the newspaper, then back to the young woman before him, gently, paternally resting his hand lightly on her shoulders, seeking not to notice the way she squirmed in discomfort, trying to hold herself immobile and not show her distaste at the contact, "For the sake of every child yet to come, that they grow up safe - live lives without fear, without being corrupted and twisted- we have a duty to continue."
Perhaps it was that… unravelling of Reaver's control that made Florence tear her eyes away, and caught between Xeno, hoping for an end and a new chapter, and Reaver, so eloquently and persuasively arguing to press on, that she looked hopefully to Aloysius for some thought, some view to break the deadlock.
Milner looked at her as he stepped closer.
"I think…" he looked at the haunted air in Florence's eyes, weighing her feelings as best he, could. "I think, when L… Luna's born, and when and if you still want to go on with this, then we're here for you. Let's make a safer world for Luna Lovegood- together."
"I know that hillside-" Ginny was pointing excitedly out through the line of small, rough glazed windows in the long, narrow workshop, almost before the next vision had fully manifested. "Look, up there on the side, just behind the cherry trees- that's got to be the Old Manse, before Charlie and Bill pulled the tower down- they got in so much trouble for that you wouldn't believe-"she was indicating an overgrown, half gone ivy-strewn and rootless ruin of old stone on the lower slopes of the hills beyond. "The other side, down there it's Ottery St. Catchpole, and just round the other side, you'd see the top of the Burrow if it weren't for the hills and valley-" she checked herself. "We must be in the old mill, Harry, Luna's home-" the recollection made her face fall, and her arm drop to her side.
It was a long, low room, with dusty concrete floors and whitewashed walls beneath a tiled roof with no ceiling which slopes down on one side and several gaps through which sunlight peeled brightly down at them. Various unidentified bits of ancient farming machinery, largely transfigured by time into that and cobweb, hung from the higher sided wall, whilst on the lower, the tiles brushed the frame of a line of windows which stretched the length of the shed, but for a break of a heavy latched door in roughly the centre, leading out into a cobbled hard and a low garden wall below the hillside which had so captured Ginny's attention.
"And that's where-" she could not finish it. Harry crossed the narrow space to her, as, almost In unison, the two other doors at either end of the workshop were opened. To his right, stepping down over a heavy flagstone step from what looked like a better furnished internal room behind, Aloysius Milner, a heavy overcoat over a Muggle suit, and older now, sparked still of hair and with much of the manner of the man he knew, entered the passage, carefully closing the door behind him, like a guest. At almost the same moment, the opposing door, new and built of official looking white board with an inset of frosted, reinforced glass, like an office, was flung back, and a small girl, perhaps five or six, came dashing through it with a joyful screech.
"Oof- you're getting heavy, cariad," Milner laughed, lifting her up and twirling her round as she. ran to him. "And what's this? Oh, that toy broomstick?" He watched as a small enchanted stick danced around them in the air, "Didya get her flyin' all by your lonesome, kiddo?"
"Well…" the little girl made a face, "Mummy did help with some of the really fiddly bits, when she could, uncle, but most of it's all mine - and, and Daddy says thank you for the story you wrote about the three-headed cockatrice that are Birmingham only we're not allowed to say, and-"
"So, where is your dad then?" Milner asked, wiggling his nose at her.
"He's away in London- buying a new printing press, so I'm in charge," Luna said importantly, In just such a way as to remind Harry very irresistibly of an eleven or twelve year old Hermione, trying vainly to keep two scruffy looking naughty schoolboys in order.
"Ohhh, not your mother then? " Milner asked teasingly, gently setting the little girl down on the floor.
"She forgets to eat, when she's working," Luna told him scathingly, looking back through the doorway from whence she had come, where a faint blue light was accompanied by a steadily rising deep humming sound of sussurating magics. "I've told her again and again that it's silly- she'd gain far more efficiency from a regular nourishing caloric intake than she would lose from taking a long break, but-"
"Aye, well," Milner crouched down and grinned at her. "You run along to the kitchen and finish off those sandwiches I started making under the cooling charm - and mind-" he added seemingly as Luna started to dash off, "No cutting spells. You use those sharp Muggle knives to keep it all safe, you hear me, Miss Lovegood? I'll convince your mam to down tools long enough for a bite to eat, won't I?"
Milner shook his head ruefully as Luna ran off toward the kitchen, and as if squaring himself up, drew a deep breath, and grasped the handle of the door to the room beyond.
"Aloysius"? the woman in the room beyond raised her head, but did not immediately turn, continuing to assemble a complicated trapezoidal mechanism on her workbench. The room was large, modern and clinically white, a study in contrasts with the ramshackle passage from the mill behind.
"I thought it was you," she went on, when he acknowledged her, nodding to another, completed device further up the bench, one which Harry sighted with a faint shock of recognition.
"You've finished the Core-" Milner exclaimed in pleased surprise, hurrying across and making as if to lift it. He stopped- "Oh, may I…?"
"Of course," Florence turned now and smiled, almost shyly, as Milner hefted the instrument gently and watched enthralled, as its patterns shifted within at each movement through the air.
The years since Harry had seen her last seemed to have been less kind, somehow, to Florence Lovegood than to Aloysius Milner. Though still young, and healthy, she huddled in some manner, on her laboratory stool, her shoulders hunched forward, and there was an odd, twitchy quality to her movements as she anxiously watch him test her creation.
"This is brilliant," Milner breathed softly, still moving the Core softly, as if entranced by the, patterns of light within. He gave her a sidelong grin. "That'll show old McDhobe and Appropriations that we're no waste of time and money," Milner chuckled, and Florence shot back a smile at him, unfolding herself to point out certain features of the vortex with a pencil.
"Look- that's us, those two auras-"
"You can even sort make out your-" Milner stopped dead, in the act of pointing at one flaring point of light, which seemed somehow blurred by a greasy halo of darker shadow, a shadow which yet could not eclipse its flickering, dancing light. "Sorry, Flossie, I wasn't -"
"Scientific accuracy before woolly mush," Florence scolded firmly- not unkindly, but firmly enough for Harry to recognise that Milner was not the only one of the two she was directing to be clinically calm about the matter. "Yes, it can register the Dark Mark on my magical field vergence - that might help with that revelation charm you and Golightly were putting together for the Aurors, might'n't it?"
Milner nodded in eager agreement, then pointed,
"Look, there's Luna- and is that that toy broomstick?" he asked, a touch of incredulity in his voice.
"Why do you think I made those binding spells so strong on it in the first place?" the woman asked, absently gesturing to one, untidy corner of the lab where a thick rug had been set down on the tiled floor and an assortment of toys and brightly coloured books scattered around. "Helps me to keep an eye on her, while I'm working," she explained.
"Frankly, my darling," Milner's voice lurched considerably south-by-west in space and more than a few decades back in time, "I do give a damn that it'd help you a good deal more to spend more time just being with Luna- and Xeno, and rather less in the lab altogether."
"Oh, not you as well," Florence frowned discomfitedly. "If it's not you, trying to tell me to put my feet up, it's Professor Reaver his good self, being terribly charming about it but nevertheless making it painfully obvious that he grudges me having to eat and sleep and visit the little Death Eaters' room when I could be working on Project Omega."
"What's he been saying?" Aloysius seemed, to stiffen, looking somewhat anxious.
"Oh, you know him, he won't say anything you don't want to hear," Florence retorted irritably, "But he'll look, and sound so terribly grave and noble, and he'll keep trying to help," she added angrily. "I told him to stay away after last time. He was scaring Luna, and besides," she glanced at the playroom area, "Yes, I know the algorithm he was meddling with was inhibiting the flux dispersal potential- but it was also one of the prime safety back ups."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise he was being so much of a pain-"
"I can take care of myself, Al- Dark Witch, remember," she said it in a tone so very much like Ginny might have said something so similar to him, that Harry met his girlfriend's eyes with a teasing smirk- which faded slowly, uncomfortably from his lips as he dwelled upon the matter.
"Besides," Florence went on, "What are you going to say, he's your boss too, remember-"
Milner drew in a deep breath and stepped away.
"That's… what I came down here to tell you, Flossie."
"You're not leaving-" she looked dismayed.
"No, not at all," Milner shook his head. "Flossie… well, um…" he looked at her. "Zach's been arrested."
"Arrested?" Florence stared at him. "What on Earth for? If you tell me it's for beguiling nubile young undergraduates with his honeyed voice and those horrible twinkling eyes then I'm sorry, but I shall very much have to laugh in spite of-"
"No- at least, not that I know of," Milner replied, looking somewhat surprised at her words. "I didn't know you-"
"Sorry. He really annoyed me, that last time," Florence admitted awkwardly. "What he was trying to mess about with could have really put Luna and Sidney in danger, if I'd run a test and hadn't been able to vent the thermal buffer properly."
" I just… don't know what's gone wrong with him," Milner sighed, sitting down heavily. "I mean- I respected him - quite a lot, actually, lassie," he added, confessionally, "And he was so kind to me after my parents and my sister died - and to you," he added, reflectively. "Zach was willing to give you a chance when I wasn't - and he'd lost as much to the Death Eaters as I did," the stout thaumaturgist sighed, and lowered his head.
"I'd feel happier if I could see his eyes," Florence mused - "His real eyes, I mean." She looked at the confusion on his face. "Sometimes I forget how crap at actual practical magic you are," she noted.
"Thank you kindly, Mrs Florence Lovegood," Milner gave a mocking little bow.
"His eyes- all that kindly twinkling," Florence explained, "It's all totally fake- he wears some sort of glamour over it, has as long as I've known him. No idea why, I can't see through it-" Harry could see Milner looked a little perturbed, though not especially surprised, that Florence had even tried- "But it's there- and I find it hard enough to work out someone's face at the best of times, even more when I can't see half of it and they're trying to pretend I can."
"Well, anyway," Milner said after a while, to dispel an uncomfortable silence, " You'll no be havin' to, at work, anyroad. Even if they don't charge him, seems getting caught poking round the Hall of Prophecy was a bridge too far for McDhobe. Zach's been dismissed." He looked at her lopsidedly, as if unsure whether he was boasting or apologising and apparently attempting to hide each one as the other at once, "And your new Head of Department- unless you resign and run a mile, and, frankly, I wouldn't blame you, is sitting here waiting for your daughter to bring us sandwiches."
Head of my own little Department by the time I was twenty-six.
Milner's older voice seemed to echo in Harry's thoughts as Florence applauded him, in a way he would have thought mocking had it not been for the open joy on both their faces, and the way she, hesitantly but certainly, took off her glove before awkwardly patting his face. When Luna returned, bearing sandwiches but also inexplicably dripping wet, Milner hoist her into his arms and clumsily danced her around the laboratory, whilst Florence sat on her stool and giggled helplessly.
They watched, Harry and Ginny both, as the memory wore on, a memory Milner seemed reluctant to leave, as Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood returned home by Floo powder, listened, then gave a great cry of glee and embraced his old friend heartily, pumping his hand with congratulations.
"Xeno thinks that's about four years too late, in my not even remotely humble opinion," the editor of the Quibbler declared grandly - for now he was, he had brought back a hat from London which talked and loudly proclaimed him so, until Luna seized it and ran about the lab wearing it like a talking hat with legs, at which point it instead began to frantically and squeaking call out directions to her instead, for it came down not so much over her eyes as over her chin. As the hat was desperately wailing at Luna to sidestep to her right and to use an eye shield, and Florence conjured a small flock of guitars to furnish them with music, Lovegood called, "Luna, bring wine, we must celebrate this night!"
"Our daughter is not a House Elf," Florence protested with unconvincing outrage.
Mr Lovegood nodded gravely.
"Luna," he exhorted her, "Bring wine and steal me a House Elf!"
Quietly and sombrely, Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley watched the party, as others from the Department- people they had not met in prior visions- arrived. It is an awkward an uncomfortable thing to be accidental guests at a party where nobody will talk to you because you do not exist, and where you cannot eat or drink. They danced with one another, when Florence' guitars called for it, and the others danced- not precisely with them, but at the same time. They watched, as Xenophilius leaped up upon the table and juggled balls of fire, and Stephen Golightly turned cake into Wellington Boots (this was probably a mistake). They cheered with the others, when Florence somersaulted up on to the work bench and, after performing an exuberant dance which made both Xeno and Milner's faces rather red despite her still dancing in baggy denim overalls and a distinctly tatty lab coat, she breathed illusory green fire over them all.
Then, as the Department cheered, and Florence spun, sending great gouts of flame across the ceiling, without warning, the memory lurched momentarily into darkness.
Ginny staggered at the suddenness of it, and clutched at Harry for support. They soon saw that they had not moved far. They stood in the yard, on the cobblestones, and the Old Mill reared up behind them. Aloysius Milner sat alone, looking thoughtfully up at the stars, as the door half-way along the workshop passage opened, and Florence Lovegood, in nightdress and crimson silk dressing gown, walked quietly out to him.
She watched silently, considering. It was painfully clear from both of their faces that, no matter what Milner had claimed in the present day, even by this date, Florence was still far more than just a friend to him, in his heart- and, as she saw the way Luna's mother looked at him, her pale hair colourless in the moonlight, Ginny realised sorrowfully that- though Milner had likely never realised it- the feeling was not entirely unrequited. Florence cared deeply for her old friend, and there was in that caring something of what Milner both mournfully craved from her and believed he would never receive in return- but also something else, for however much her regard for him might be, Florence loved her strange husband and her daughter all the more, and in watching those emotions play across the woman's face as she walked toward Milner, seated on the half-collapsed ruins of an old cart, Ginny realised that Florence would never, how ever long she might have lived, have dreamed of setting aside or betraying Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood, for all that Aloysius Milner was a part of her life with bonds equally as profound.
"I've made up the bed in the spare room for you," Mrs Lovegood said quietly, propping herself against the great shafts of the old cart.
"Mm-hm," Milner nodded, distracted. "I'm a muckle grateful to ye, lass, tis me thought I've had a mite too much to drink to apparate straight, tonight."
"Your own fault," Florence retorted. "But it's been a while since we've had something to celebrate," she sighed.
They sat silently for a while. Then, as if he feared the silence somehow, Milner spoke. "Young Luna's coming on fast. Seems like madness- sure you've not been feeding the lassie growth magic while me back's been turned?"
"No I haven't," Florence protested, half-laughing, half serious. "But you're right- I'll be waving her off to Hogwarts before I've turned round twice- and it hardly seems like yesterday that-" she laughed then, tilting her head back.
"Giving birth on a magic carpet- on an illegal magic carpet," Milner remarked.
"Stuck upside down under a bridge over the Cam," Florence continued wryly, "With Sid and you telling me to push all the time because you'd seen it on Muggle television but not an idea between you about what I was actually supposed to be doing. Yes- funnily enough, I remember it quite well."
"Aye, well, I suppose you would," the new Head of Department chuckled wryly, shaking his large and heavy head.
"And then the University Magic Police came by in a punt at exactly the worst moment," Florence remarked-
"They'd had complaints about the screamin'," Milner reminded her. "Some folks as how were sure and certain them Biochemistry fellows were after unleashin' an eldritch abomination from the deeps of time again."
"- shone a torch right up- and believe me, I really didn't appreciate that at that precise moment," Florence went on, very pointedly ignoring the remark, "And because some people just have to try to be funny, what did we get?"
"'Ello, ello, ello, what's all this then?" Milner's vocal range adapted hastily, as Florence dissolved into laughter, Ginny along with her.
Without warning though, Florence' laugh stopped, with a sudden, racking sob, and she cast her head forward. Milner turned, and reached out- but did not touch her.
"What's wrong, Flossie, darling? I think Luna turned out pretty well, though I admit if her dad there hadn't been quick off the mark with the levitation charm and that policeman hadn't been a good catch-"
Florence shook her head, trying to look up at the stars again, through eyes full of tears, and grimaced.
"I'll never be able to deserve them, Al. No matter what I do."
"That's rubbish," he retorted stubbornly. "You're devoted to them. Yes, you could stand to work a bit less- but that's- no one's perfect, Flossie- and look," he drew in a deep breath, "I mean, what about giving up this whole Omega Incantation thing anyway- our side projects- all the stuff that we've developed along the way- they're a lot more important now anyway, and to be honest, you're the only one with any idea with where you're going with it any more. I'm lost in it, and the rest of the team-"
"You know perfectly well what I mean-"
"Florence, the world's crawling with old Death Eaters these days. I've had to see men in the street who-" he grit his teeth, his voice trembling. "Lucius Malfoy- he's a governor at Hogwarts. What do they say? Oh, he was under the Imperius Curse- apparently- and I know what you said about how Voldemort got under people's skin- but- but- or what about Severus sodding Snape- or even Ludo Bagman-"
"I think he actually was under the–"
"What I'm trying to say is- you made a really stupid mistake- a long time ago. You've been making up for it ever since- but that's all-"
"I can't ever make up for it, Al. That's why- no- I'm not giving up the project. Not even if you ordered me, or threw me off it."
"I'm not going to do that- but I just don't think it's necessary. I wouldnae trust the Ministry with an ultimate deterrent anyway, and–"
"I… need to see this through. I need to do my best," she said, bitterly, "But even then it still won't be enough- I've done things, Al," she shook her head, not looking at him.
"I don't believe you've done what Lucius Malfoy did. Or Evan Rosier. Or Bellatrix Lestrange- or-"
"Stop it!" she jerked a hand sharply through the air, miming silence, and buried her face in her other hand. "I've… done things that can't be forgiven. That shouldn't be forgiven."
"I forgave you long ago-"
"It's not up to you though, is it," Florence closed her eyes. "Al-?"
"Florence- I don't need to know," he said quietly, his voice level and undisguised. "If you need to tell me, then I'll listen- always- but that's the only reason- I do not need to know. You've done wrong, I know that- and paid a price for it. No, not decades in Azkaban, but I've never heard a single charge against you over and above 'worked for him', so-"
"I want you to take this." She took something from her dressing gown pocket, and as Ginny craned her neck to see, she saw it was a small glass bottle, stoppered and filled with flowing threads of silver. "If you- if you choose, I won't ask you to look or not to look. But I can give you this. I can't give you some things you want, we know that- and this- this I can't give to Sidney- but I do ask one thing, Al-" she laid a hand on his chest.
"Not Luna," he nodded. "To keep this from her, no matter what?"
"Thank you." Florence rubbed her eyes with one hand, blew her nose, and stood up, walking back into the Mill without another word.
This time, the drift through darkness was almost gentle, a slow, regretful fading from one world to another, and Harry and Ginny had time to look about themselves and gather themselves close, as the world changed.
They were in a small office of five sides, tiled with enamel so that to their eyes it resembled rather a glorified toilet as much as an official establishment, into which an exceedingly untidy desk rather awkwardly failed to make a good fit. Bookshelves teetered around two of the walls, laden with books and assorted detritus- a considerable amount of which both young people recognised from Aloysius Milner's office at Hogwarts on their various trips there. One wall was taken up with a large fireplace, in which Florence' head was currently speaking, whilst Milner perched rather awkwardly on the corner of the desk listening to her.
"And you were telling me to give it up," she was telling him, a touch scathingly. "Again."
"To be sure, I was after tellin' ye four year ago, that twas beyond me, cariad," Milner made a resigned gesture with both hands. "And wi' all you've been doing to it since then-"
"We had a stable no-magic zone last night, Al- complete void, the size of the playroom. It was… weird- I suppose it must have felt like being a Muggle," the face said, as green flame licked all round it and cascaded up from the crown of her head. "Lasted about twenty minutes before the osmotic effect brought things back up to a nominal field intensity."
"I'm not doubtin' you, lass," the Professor assured her. "I'm just hoping you're keeping yourself safe, that's all-" he gave her a sudden, half-mocking grin. "We can't afford the budget to rebuild your lab again, apart from anything else."
"Oh, ha-ha," Florence's spectre stuck out a fiery tongue at him. "Yes, of course I'm being safe about it- but just think what we could do with that alone. A perfect ley-field control- that's just the start. Absolute thaum-zero containment- if we could get it stable- not to mention- well- what it all started with-"
"Omega. Don't remind me." Milner scowled. "I've no' forgotten those threats Za– Reaver was hurlin' round the place, last Michaelmas. As if he thinks I've the slightest intention of turning over all your hard work-"
"All our hard work-"
"All yours in the most important respects and I'll not be forgetting it- at any rate, whoever did it, he's not getting it," the Professor snapped. "Look- Flossie-" he went on, in an altogether different tone, leaning forward. "If you seriously think you can make Omega work as a practical deterrent, then- I know it's important to you, and I know why. Even though You Know Who's been gone for so long now- I know. But the thaumic force level you'd be dealing with if that kind of thing got out of control- even with your safety buffers-" he stopped, and shook his head fondly. "I don't know why I'm worrying. Not sure if anyone would even notice another explosion in your lab anyway."
"Then you'll give me the go-ahead?" Florence' face looked eagerly at him out of the firelight.
"Aye, aye-" Milner nodded, and added, his eyes glinting with mischief, "And if you go ahead and knock your bally house down, lassie, we'll call it quits for the time you went and turned everyone here purple for nearly a month, won't we?"
A rude comment came out of the fire.
"I'm sorry, what was that Flossie?" Milner lilted, teasingly. "You must be breaking up over there," he added. "Look, in all seriousness- I'm already a bit late, and I've got to see a man about a frog first- well, more a man about a man who was a frog- believe me, long story- I'll call you up on the Floo from home in about an hour, ok? Hear how the next test went and then we can plan a whole set of experiments for next week, how's that?"
"Got you- and Al- thanks for backing me up on this. I know I'm pushing safety margins a bit- and I know you didn't really want to even go on with this, but- it means a lot. You know it does. I need to do this. I need to see it through."
"I know you know what you're doing, and what old Director McDhobe doesn't know doesn't hurt him, does it," Milner chuckled. "See you this evening- love to Luna, love you too Flossie," he smiled, and flicked his wand, as the green fire flared up, and the Floo Fire went out.
Harry Potter felt the tears flow down his cheeks, and he bowed his head, holding Ginny desperately close, feeling a dark and terrible hopelessness rise within him, even as his vision once more dipped into blackness.
There, he wished it had ended. There, at that moment, he had begun to gather his will, to pull himself and Ginny out of the well of memories within the pensieve- but even as the counterspell had formed itself on his lips, light had begun to dance across his retina, and a thick, vile smell of smoke and burning- woodsmoke and something else, thick with a primal horror, a smell he recalled too vividly from Diagon Alley, intruded on his senses. He felt Ginny, as if driven, step with her mind into the vision, and, as once before, compelled, he followed her.
The Old Mill still stood. About it was a confusion of Muggle fire engines, their crews seated, glassy eyed and slack of jaw in suspended trance, whilst Obliviators hurried this way and that, modifying memories.
The Old Mill still stood, though one of its sails was missing, another blackened and burned half-through. The long, low old workshop that had made a passage to the lab was blistered with fire, roofless, the end nearer to the house almost intact whilst the further end dwindled into charred and scorched rubble indistinguishable from the ruins of the laboratory.
Numbly, with leaden feet, an Auror at either side of him in an attitude which was not precisely one of arrest but which perhaps hinted at a desire to be prepared in all ways should arrest be decided on at a later time, Professor Aloysius Milner stepped over blasted stone and blackened cobbles. In the Mill, Luna was screaming. He could hear her. She was screaming again, and again, and again, a thin, reedy sort of scream. She did not know how to stop. On the steps outside, Sidney Xenophilius Lovegood, his robes in tatters, his face and the bald top of his head piebald with soot and cinders, the long hair on the back and sides of his head hanging lang and reeking of smoke, sat with his head hanging, unmoving, his bandaged, burned and blistered hands flung across his knees.
The shield charms had kept them safe, Milner knew, and had in the past- in the future? - explained as much to Harry. Lovegood's wounds had come as he had clawed through the wreckage, and as he had grasped and clung to–
Milner walked through the doorway of the lab. There was really no need. The rubble and ruin of the walls was scarcely any less at the doorstep than anywhere else around the wall. He walked past the old playroom corner, where incongruously unburned one spire of brickwork still rose up- to a little over the height of a child, and undamaged toys and brightly coloured books littered an unburned carpet.
"I'm sorry, sir," Kingsley Shacklebolt, incongruous to Harry's eyes in uniform, said gently. "I realise this isn't going to be- pleasant, and I know that you may not be able to- but- If we can spare the husband this-" he knelt on the ground. There was a rough sacking blanket laid out there, rumpled and thrust up here and there by shapes beneath it. "The law is that someone must officially identify-"
Once before, as in the very first memory, Kingsley's words seemed to blur, to fade, in the incomprehension of a memory not recorded, as he drew back the blanket.
What lay beneath was so very little. It was mostly bone- burned brown or yellow or stained sooty black- with softer matter clinging to it. There was no shred of fabric. There was no skin. Blackened, crumbling outlines of puckered, papery hollow flesh clung in places, and in others, a vile brownish sticky glue, as if caramelised, lingered on the bone. Her right arm - ended- just below the shoulder, the bone of the upper arm trailing off into a mere outline in greyish powder on the floor beneath. Her left arm was flung up, across the skull that had been her face. The hand was gone- and on the blasted bones of the forearm there seemed the deeper, darker black mark of some much older, ancient burn which death and destruction itself had not wholly wiped away.
Yet that arm had offered some protection- for a meaningless fraction. Though one socket gaped open and empty, the remains of flesh still clung about the other orbit, and cradled within them, glassy and sagging, as if boiled and left to dry, one lifeless grey-blue eye.
Aloysius Milner drew a slow breath. He turned, without a word, and went to the playroom corner once more, lifting from it a slender redwood case which was not a toy. He opened it, and, raising the Thaumometer Core, passed it once, then twice, across the shattered remains. He looked for a long while at the magical fields therein. Then, still silent, he returned the Core to its case and closed it, gently setting it down.
"Yes," he said sadly. "That's her."
Some time later- some years later- the heavy door of the Owlery opened slowly, with a ponderous creak of hinges.
Blaise Zabini looked up at once, her face accusing as she stretched limbs stiffened by too long sitting still, in an uncomfortable position, in the cold. The girl she had been trying to comfort whimpered vaguely, in wordless dismay, as the four of them entered, and turned her face to the wall.
"Hedwig found me," Blaise told them quietly, holding up one hand to show a vivid triangular red mark, part pressed, part bitten, into her wrist. "Didn't give me much choice either," she added, as the great white owl silently flew back up to the rafters, and Blaise regarded Harry with a criticism in her eyes that was not about annoyance over being roughly treated by his owl.
"Sorry…" Luna murmured, in a dead-sounding voice, still crying silently out of what seemed now almost habit, as if she had forgotten how to stop. "I'll go. I was a terrible friend. I should have told you it all from the very beginning. I'm so sorry."
Harry said nothing, but he knelt, and, weeping openly, pulled the younger girl into his arms as if she were a crying child of perhaps nine years old, or perhaps five, and held her tightly, until her fresh, almost disbelieving sobs finally abated. Ginny lowered herself beside him, her face streaked with tears, and held Harry gently, extending one arm around Luna so that the two of them cradled her like parents to a lost child.