Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Magic Never Dies
Chapter 18
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Harry woke to the sense of something moving close by. Hermione was curled warmly against him, ruling her at least right out… and it would have been her he most preferred; none of the alternatives that immediately broached his sleep-stunned brain were really all that appealing.
He reached behind his head for his wand and pointed, tracking the sound. His eyes at last made out an indeterminate form moving within the relentless dark, but as he prepared to hex whatever it was, he heard the sound of a boot connecting solidly with rock and a stifled "bloody, bloody bloody hell."
"Merlin, Ron," he whispered in relief. "Quit creeping around. I almost hexed your stones off."
He heard a grumbled lumos minima and the tip of Ron's wand glowed faintly, bobbing up and down as he hopped and cursed. Harry blinked into the light and met Ron's eyes; he saw Ron take in Hermione's satiated sprawl on his chest and drop his foot to raise the wand with quick strangled sound.
"Er, sorry, Harry, I hate to do this now and all, but there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Something that really, really can't wait until morning, right?" Harry asked tiredly.
"Well, yeah." Ron said. "Sorry. I really think you'll want to know."
"Before I move, it's not you forgot the words to a certain charm or anything, something I can tell you all warm and comfortable right here?"
"Right, look, just get your randy arse up will you? Whatever fire you and Hermione had to go put out is your own business; I'm not going to do… that on a first date or anything," Ron growled.
Harry sighed, squirmed free of the comfort of Hermione's entangling limbs and began scrambling about for his clothes. She made a soft murmur of protest and curled tighter into herself in reaction to losing his warmth and his heart seemed to physically contract within his chest. This had better be good.
"Ron, is it even possible to have a first date with Luna? She's probably two steps ahead of you already," he whispered.
"Probably not," admitted Ron, shielding the light from Hermione's eyes but lowering it so Harry could pull on his jeans and shove his feet into boots. As he pulled his sweatshirt over his head he heard, "Lavender was always two steps ahead of me. Luna's ten, at least. She's just far nicer about it."
Harry started to follow Ron out of the back cavern but paused; he hoped he'd be returning quickly, but didn't like the idea of leaving Hermione alone to wake in the pitch dark. He turned and swiftly made his way back to where she lay, drawing the cloak more closely around her and murmuring a warming charm. He found her wand and placed it closer, within easy reach. Last of all, he found a small fist-sized stone and closed his fingers around it, focusing hard on what he wanted; a combination of a simple charm to make the stone give off a comforting glow and another to make a corresponding pebble grow warm in his pocket if she woke and touched it. He opened his fingers to the pale, greenish glow of success and set it down within easy reach, brushing her forehead with his lips as he did. He rose from his crouch and turned to catch up with Ron only to find him waiting and watching.
"That was nice... er, nice thing to do, Harry," Ron mumbled as he turned and led the way. Harry said nothing, but grinned to himself in the darkness. Ron taking a fancy to Luna had the potential to take all kinds of heat off of him.
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Ron led him back through the fallen stones and leaning boulders toward the front of the cave, but rather than making for the fire as Harry had anticipated he headed instead in the opposite direction. Harry could just make out the shape of Luna's sleeping form, shrouded in cloaks beyond the glowing embers. Ron lowered his wand and Harry followed suit, picking his way behind him through the treacherous rubble of more scattered rocks and stones. The darkness had made the cave wall appear solid but as they approached Harry could see that it curved in significantly, forming a sort of rough depression; a hallway to nowhere that ended in solid stone.
"I needed to pee and I wasn't about to try messing with the wards you put up on the way we came in, so I went looking for an out of the way place," explained Ron. "I found this."
"Er, thanks for sharing, Ron," Harry said, sincerely hoping there was more to it than that.
"No, Harry, this," Ron said, indicated the wall above where he had presumably relieved himself.
Harry rolled his eyes and moved closer to the side of the cave lit by Ron's wand, causing the light from his own to join it. His eye caught what appeared to be a crudely drawn picture, done in some sort of black, charcoal-ish substance. It was an animal - or it had four legs, anyway - and what seemed to be two trees growing from its head. Harry moved his wand closer still, and made out some sort of writing beneath it. Humoring Ron, he crouched a bit and trailed his wand along the words…
`Prongs was here,'
"And look," Ron pointed out, once he'd seen Harry understood why he'd woken him. "Sirius as well."
The beam of Ron's wand illuminated another black drawing, clearly the gamboling form of Sirius as Snuffles raising his hind leg on the "P" in Prongs. The scratched `Padfoot' was almost unnecessary after that.
Harry carefully swept his wand around the wall, wondering what the Marauders might have been doing here, when they had been, and if Lupin or Pettigrew's names were there somewhere as well. A few feet lower and further along the wall there was a smudge of black that turned out to be nothing, but Harry followed it, clambering over more fallen stones in his search. Another meaningless smudge and then something larger. Ron came up behind him and added his light to Harry's.
The something larger was a hastily drawn heart with the initials J. P. and L. E. inside. Harry traced it with his fingers, his own heart suddenly full.
"My Mum and Dad and Sirius were all here… but where is here? And why?"
"Dunno, mate, but I thought you ought to know. I only saw the Padfoot and Prongs ones." Ron told him.
They searched the other walls carefully, but found nothing more and at last gave up and made their way back toward the front of the cave. It was still snowing heavily outside but the sun was starting to make an appearance, the sky stained a faint pinkish gold through the white along the horizon. Though the wind whipped and howled outside, in the cavern all was calm and still. They moved as close to the opening as they could get, a good way away from where Luna was sleeping so as not to disturb her, and slid down opposite walls to sit facing one another.
"Harry? Don't get me wrong or anything, but you never did say yesterday. What's going on with you, I mean." Ron reminded him. His attention was intent on sweeping pebbles from beneath his legs, his eyes carefully not on Harry.
Harry tossed a small, purple veined pebble from beneath his own knee over toward Ron's growing pile. "I don't know, exactly. It's not any one thing. It's more trying to connect the dots to see what it might be."
"Clear as mud, that." Ron told him, still not looking. Harry wondered suddenly if Ron was afraid of meeting his eyes, afraid of what Harry might now do if he did. He reached out and gave his friend a soft mental shove, no more than he might have done once with a shoulder standing on line for something at Hogwarts. A companionable greeting. Ron's head snapped up sharply, his eyes wide. "Harry…"
"Do you trust me, Ron? I mean, I haven't done anything to make you not, have I?"
"No. I mean yes, I trust you. I think."
"Clear as mud, that," Harry said, and laid his head back against the rough rock wall, letting his eyes close wearily.
"Okay, you're talking phoenix as well as parseltongue these days, not to mention thestral, doing magic with out a wand, wandering around in other people's minds and then you just skip this whole insanely complicated process and bang! you're a magical animal animagus. You've never exactly been normal, Harry, but even you've got to admit this is taking not normal to a whole other level."
"I do admit it. It's beyond strange. And just so you know, it's not like I'm enjoying it or anything, either, I'm scared shitless half the time wondering what's next."
"You don't have to explain that to me, Harry. I'm well over envying you any of it, honestly. Is it the horcruxes doing it? Hermione thinks it is, she doesn't want you anywhere near another one. You don't think he's actually letting you at them or anything? Trying to weaken you, or get, I don't know, control of you somehow?"
Harry could see Ron was genuinely concerned, and reflected for a moment how much more enjoyable it had been convincing Hermione to trust him. He sincerely hoped now that she did, although he wouldn't really have a problem reassuring her the same way. Twice daily, as a matter of fact.
"No, I don't think he's letting me at all. That's his shot at immortality. He's got plenty of better ways to kill me, and he can't replace them, can he? I mean, you can only shred your soul so far. Look at him."
Ron shuddered. "Rather not, thanks."
"They definitely do affect me right off," Harry said, "but then…"
He wondered how to explain all that he had been agonizing over to Ron, to whom the acceptance of magic was as natural and unconscious as breathing.
"You know how at school when one of us got sick Madam Pomfrey'd always give us a potion for the worst symptoms or a pepper-up potion, and then say we should just have bed rest and let our magic take care of it?"
Ron nodded, clearly confused at this seeming change of subject.
"Well, think about Muggles, then. They don't have magic to take care of it. When I went to Muggle school with Dudley they made you get something called inoculations before you could go. They injected the stuff that caused the illness in the first place into your blood in small amounts, and your body was supposed to get used to it and build up an immunity to it - after that, it couldn't make you sick any more."
"That's barbaric," Ron said, looking scandalized. "Are you sure it wasn't just you? That awful Aunt and Uncle you lived with weren't just having you on, were they?"
Harry laughed. "Positive, because Dudley had to have them as well, and d'you know, the great whale would spend the morning pinching me and kicking me under the table and trying to slam bits of me in the car doors, and then he'd get his and he'd be wailing before the needle even touched him. They'd never have done it to Dudders if they hadn't absolutely had to."
"Do you think they poisoned you, then?" Ron asked interestedly.
"No. No, what I meant was that I think something sort of like what they were trying to do then might be happening now with the Horcruxes. I'm starting to wonder if they aren't making me stronger instead of weaker, almost letting me have a look at what I have to fight so I can figure something to fight it with."
The logic of this struck Ron. "So as long as you've got a break between them to sort of recover, you think you can actually take on the others? The locket and the cup, or whatever this last one is?"
Harry shrugged uncomfortably. "Dunno. But I'm a bit worried now about the ring one that got destroyed. If it was really supposed to happen this way, then maybe I'll still be missing something when and if I finally get to go after him. I'm just hoping it doesn't matter that much in the end."
"But if Dumbledore destroyed it, he must not have thought you'd ever need it. He never said anything about you being able to use them or anything like that, did he?"
"No. But Dumbledore and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum magically. He was a really powerful wizard and he knew what he was doing because he had years of experience. He was in control. I think he wanted to believe in me, but he was getting nervous toward the end. I don't think I was shaping up quite the way he'd hoped."
Harry felt the familiar sense of failure, of not quite understanding and never getting it in time rise up within him. He closed his eyes again, squashing it down firmly. He remembered Dumbledore's words as they returned from that other cave, `I am not afraid Harry. I am with you.'
"He was running out of time, and still felt responsible," Harry continued more firmly. "But it wasn't ever his fight to begin with, that stupid prophecy made it mine. I can't do it the way he would have, even with the portrait to talk to. I have to find another way."
Ron nodded his understanding of that idea. No one would ever quite fill Dumbledore's shoes. Especially those weird little pointy-toed buckle jobs. The thought of Harry dressed Dumbledore-style was enough to make Ron smile despite the topic, and Harry mistook this as a sign he was ready for more.
"Whenever I've been able to resist Imperious before, it was only because of this stubborn little voice in my mind that says no, and reminds me that there's another way. I only just realized a little while ago that it's my mum's voice. Now it's working with the soul fragments too. It's hard at first, like the scar on a really bad day, just sort of aching and filling you with the darkest thoughts and sights and feelings, but then it's like I can sense the worst of it just… giving up. I know it's there, but I don't have to let it take control if I don't want to. I'm a little scared of adding to it, but if that's what it takes to get rid of them I'll do it."
"But then what?" Ron asked. "You've got five bits of Voldemort prowling around in you and you still can't kill him."
"What if all those principles we learned about in transfiguration work on a larger scale as well? If nature is always seeking balance, and for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, then maybe I'm just a reaction to Voldemort. He upset the balance of life and death. If I'm supposed to do something about that then that's what will happen, whether I know what to do or not. I can affect how it happens, but not the ultimate outcome. For awhile after I worked out about being a horcrux, I figured I had to die…"
Ron's head rose sharply and his eyes narrowed. "But you don't, right? Not anymore."
"I don't think I have to. I might if I screw up. Me, mind you, not Hermione, or you, or anyone else. It's up to me to…listen, I think, and trust that if I do it right it'll be alright in the end, whatever happens. "
"So, Voldemort threw all of magic out of whack when he didn't die, and magic itself is using you to get back at him? That's why stuff like turning into a thestral just happens to you?" Ron asked.
Harry sat up, thunderstruck. "Shite, Ron, I was dreading telling you any of this, thinking how was I going to make you not laugh and get a bit of it, and there you've gone and summed it up in two sentences. Yeah, that's what I think. Am I not insane, then?"
Ron grinned. "A bit, perhaps, but it makes loads more sense than it would have before I spent half the night talking to Luna, so who am I to say?"
Harry grinned back, relief burning through him like light.
"So it's down to you, then, because Voldemort chose you to kill to make his last horcrux." Ron said.
"Yeah. That, and because my mum tried to fight back. She gave up her own life to stop something so evil from taking mine, and that changed the balance again and set the whole backswing against him in motion. Now I've got to finish it somehow."
"The long and short of it, though, is you're telling me the thestral business is nature or magic or whatever's way of helping you survive long enough to get to the bad guy, not Voldemort's soul taking you over." Ron clarified.
"Right," Harry agreed. "So far as I can tell, anyway."
"Good enough for me, mate. So what do we do now?"
"That's the question, isn't it." Harry looked out over the snowy dawn. There was no sign of the dragons. For now, anyway. "According to Xavier, there are people not far, but the impression I got was that Voldemort had been here before us and they wouldn't welcome us, whatever that means. We also know now that my Mum and Dad and Sirius were here, and it was at least eighteen years ago, because whoever put the initials in the heart used Evans rather than Potter as Mum's surname. They weren't married yet. So it could have been a bit longer than that, but not much less."
"But we're still thinking that Voldemort intended the bottle as a portlkey for Snape, right? If he ever went back and tried to use or analyze the potion?"
"It's the only thing that approaches sense in all of this. Why else make it a portkey at all?"
"So the people Xavier was talking about might be expecting Snape, not us. They might be happy to see us, maybe even make us breakfast."
Harry laughed. "And Lucius Malfoy might tip his house elves at Christmas. Not bloody likely." There was a sudden warmth against his hip and he reached for the pebble. "Hermione's awake. Why don't you wake up Luna, and we'll meet back at the fire and decide what to do next."
Ron nodded his agreement and they shoved off the cave walls and to their feet. As they met in the middle, brushing crushed stone from the seats of their jeans Ron gave Harry a gentle shove, the physical equivalent of Harry's earlier mental one.
"You're alright, you know. Dumbledore was off his game. If anyone can do it, you can. I'm sorry it worked out this way, but honestly, I think we're all better off it's you."
Harry hung his head. If life gave you friends like that, how could you possibly fail? He had to finish it.
"Thanks, Ron," was the best he could manage in reply.
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Hermione was sitting up and blinking drowsily in the dimness of the back cavern when Harry arrived, the cloak clutched tightly around her.
"Hey," he said softly, dropping down beside her. "Sorry not to be here. Ron found something he thought he should show me, and you were too peaceful to wake up."
She burrowed drowsily against his shoulder and he drew her into his lap… and remembered too late she was still unclothed under the cloak. Wow. Those blood replenishing potions must have added a little something extra volume-wise, because with the speed the rest of it plummeted south he should have passed out with a completely bloodless brain…now. And look! Still conscious, still erm…
He felt Hermione's smile bloom against his neck and her cold nose nuzzle for warmth beneath his ear.
"Good morning to you, too, Mr. Potter."
Her `Mr. Potter' brought to mind his parent's initials in the front of the cave. Had they? Here? While Sirius slept, perhaps? Had it been winter, or summer? Had they sought shelter from rain, or dragons? First time, or lovers of some familiarity already? Could he perhaps even have been conceived here? There was something about the place.
He growled, a combination of frustration with understanding so few pieces of the puzzle that was his own life and the movement of Hermione's hands against his chest. He wondered if he lived through Voldemort's undoing whether he could possibly ever get used to waking up with her each new day.
"I told Ron we'd meet him and Luna by the fire from last night, to talk about how to get out of here," he admitted.
"Did you say when?" she asked. Her fingers, still toasty from cocooning in the cloak with his warming charm slipped under the hem of his sweatshirt and gently climbed the chilled ladder of his ribs. Harry imagined their eventual descent again and shivered.
"I don't see a clock anywhere," he said, and the crooked, hesitant smile she loved so much made it's appearance. "And I don't imagine for a minute Luna's a huge stickler about time."
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Luna and Ron watched in amusement as Harry and Hermione made their way back into the front of the cavern, tucking in their clothes and generally straightening up as they came. Harry lifted Hermione's long hair free of the back of her cloak for her while she rubbed at something on the side of his chin.
"It's left a bruise, I tell you," Harry was saying, wincing as he pushed the lining of his jeans pocket down over one hip.
"Oh for goodness sake, let me see. You insist you're alright when Voldemort tries to take your eye out and then it's the princess and the pea with one little book in the pocket of…"
"The mattress. Your average bed doesn't have pockets for a reason. You get the fur and I get the lumps, is that how it works, then?".
"I forgot it was there. You couldn't have just moved or something?" Hermione was pulling at the waistband of his jeans most successfully; Harry's had always hung off his hips to begin with, having usually started out as Dudley's at some point. He'd gotten better at spelling his clothes to fit but it had never been much of a priority for him and Ron had always sort of liked that. He'd certainly never felt bad wearing the twin's hand-me-downs around Harry.
"Not unless you did first, at that point," Harry said, mock-grumpily.
Luna chortled.
"Stop ripping the boy's clothes off already, Hermione," Ron told her. "We'll never get out of here unless you two lay off each other."
She had the grace to flush slightly as she turned toward them; Ron thought he'd never seen her look quite so beautiful. Not even the night of the yule ball in her gown and sleaked smooth hair. The familiar stab of un-nameable something rose up in him only to be effectively quelled by the evident happiness in her eyes as she grabbed Harry's hand and tugged him after her and Luna's shoulder gently bumping against his as she poked at a log in the fire. Quite unnecessarily, considering it was a magical one.
Hermione pulled out her wand as she settled on a rock near the fire, tapping a small object in her hand and enlarging it until Ron could see it was the book she'd been holding in the Room of Requirement when the portkey had activated.
"Turn out to be any use?" he asked.
"I, erm…. haven't had a chance to look at it until just now," she said. "Carry on with the plans and I'll just check through it while I listen."
Surprisingly enough it was Luna who took charge of things. "I think we need to imagine that we are Professor Snape."
"Twenty points from Ravenclaw for having the audacity to believe for a moment that you could manage to rearrange your pathetic little brain to achieve such a goal!" Ron mimicked in Snape's voice.
"If you aren't actually channeling Professor Snape that was a marvelous impression, Ronald," she said seriously.
"He's not an easy read when you take him out of the dungeon." Harry thought out slowly. "I think he'd be trying to outthink Voldemort and stay alive, but who knows what that would lead him to do. Here's a thought though. We have the potion. If Voldemort were going to send Snape somewhere with a potion that he didn't want copied or revealed…"
"Or used. Maybe Voldemort thought Snape would try and use it." Hermione interjected absently; she was perusing the table of contents of the re-enlarged book. "Maybe he even wanted him to try."
"What would Voldemort want a magic-draining potion to be used for at some point in the future that he couldn't actually predict?" Harry wondered.
"Maybe it wasn't a trap. Maybe he left it with Snape intending to get him to use it later, just the way he left the diary with Malfoy. Snape could well have known it was a set up and just sent us, hoping to get us out of the way or killed." Ron said.
"Pretty big risk when Voldemort finds out, don't you think? What if it led right to a horcrux or something?" Hermione pointed out.
"He doesn't need them back, you know. The horcruxes," Harry said. "They just have to be out there, hidden or not, to work. He never needs more than the scrap of soul he has; the horcruxes just make that bit unwilling to leave our world because it isn't whole. That's why seven was such a magic number for him, it left enough room to play twisted little games like he did with the diary, and like leaving the wand there in the open, right in front of the eyes of every witch and wizard in Diagon Alley. It's the thrill of it, the `I'm so much cleverer than you,' bit, the same thing that makes him so sure he's superior to every other wizard. The hard part is wrapping your mind around something that egotistical."
"Shame we left Malfoy home, then," Ron laughed. "Hope the twins remember to check in and feed him occasionally."
"Of course not just anywhere has dragons anymore…" Luna said dreamily.
Hermione's head snapped up this time. "Durmstrang!"
"The Seven Dragons," Luna agreed. "Even though we only saw three. Goodness! Did Xavier really eat one of the wings of the Seven Dragons of Durmstrang? That can't be good."
"Translation? Anyone?" Harry asked patiently.
Hermione sighed. "Once again, playing hangman in History of Magic has caught up with you."
"If they were going to teach us anything important, they shouldn't have left it up to Binns," Harry told her. "What are the Seven Dragons of Durmstrang and why is one being down a wing such a bad thing?"
"Well, first of all, we're only guessing that we're somewhere near Durmstrang, but it would make at least some sense. The snow, the anti-apparition wards, the dragons - Luna's right, there aren't just wild dragons anymore, they're regulated - even why your parents might have been around here, Harry. They might have been observing things for the Order. Durmstrang has always had a reputation for teaching dark arts and it doesn't admit Muggle-borns. It's quite likely the Voldemort spent time here in the past and knew it well. A good number of known Death Eaters have come from here…"
"Fraternizing with the enemy," Ron hacked into his hand.
"Of which Viktor Krum was not one. There have been plenty of Death Eaters from Hogwarts too, Ron, not to mention Voldemort himself…"
"Erm, back to the whole seven dragons thing?" Harry suggested.
"They're the guardians of Durmstrang," Luna said. "It would be as if someone just blew a wing off the winged boars at Hogwarts' front gate. Only about a hundred times worse, because they're the very image of the school; they're supposed to embody the seven things every Durmstrang student is meant to aspire to be. Warriors; adept, noble and keen. Enchanters; resourceful and skilled."
Having just been instrumental in the destruction of one of the Hogwarts boars' wings, Harry felt that it was only par for their course to take out one of Durmstrangs' mascots as well. Bloody hell but he was cursed. Unlucky just didn't cover it.
Ron goggled at her. "You learned that in Binns' class? And remembered it?"
Luna blushed, something Harry had never suspected she could do. "Actually, it was quite easy to remember. If you take the first letter of each of them when you write them out it makes them wankers."
There was a momentary silence until Harry and Ron gave in to the stress of the situation and fell over themselves laughing.
"I always knew Viktor was a…..wan…wank….wanker!" Ron gasped happily.
"Does this mean we have to actually get in to Durmstrang?" Hermione asked.
"Think we'd want to go the other way. Far enough and we should be able to apparate right out of here." Ron grinned. "Unless you feel like visiting head wanker Krum, of course." He was off in another gale of laughter. Luna looked like someone had handed her a thousand galleons, just watching him.
Hermione glanced over at Harry and found her answer there. His laughter had died and he appeared to be thinking.
"We could do this," she said. "Or we could go back to Hogwarts, plan, and do this right. Use the resources of everyone who will help you. Talk to Dumbledore's portrait. Confront Snape. Ask Lupin about why your Mum and Dad might have been here. Come back prepared. Please, Harry."
She could see in his face his desire to just go, to fling himself at the problem and hope for the best the way he always had. She knew that part of him was growing eager and restless to end all of this, finish it once and for all.
"If you are thinking the cup is there, Harry, it will still be there when we come back."
He nodded slowly. "Okay. How about this. I make like a thestral and fly around to make sure these are really Durmstrangs' grounds and find out exactly where the school is. Once I'm sure where we are, I'll come back here and we'll head beyond the grounds until we can apparate back to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts."
Hermione nodded her acquiescence.
"I just need you to promise me two things," he said seriously, and Ron and Luna fell silent as well at the gravity of his voice. "If I don't come back within two hours, you leave and make your way out of here as fast as you can. Find Xavier, see if he can help you with another thestral and then fly back to Hogwarts or at least somewhere you can apparate from."
"Alright," Hermione agreed cautiously. Ron and Luna nodded their agreement as well.
"And when we get back, assuming I'm with you, you'll give me the locket."
Hermione met his eyes levelly. "Alright."
"Right then. As soon as we can. You and I go get it."
She'd agreed so quickly because he hadn't specified when; she'd had an out. Obviously he knew… "Harry James…" she started, her eyes narrowing.
"I didn't. I wouldn't, ever, and you know it!" he cut her off. "I've known you long enough and well enough not to have to have a roll around in your mind to figure that one out. Promise me. We go get it as soon as we can."
"Or what?"
"Or nothing. Just promise me, Hermione. I'm trying, I'm listening, I'm not being stupid or impulsive even though I really, really want to be. I need to start tying up any loose ends, and that means the locket. We'll need to act fast once we've got the last one, I know it. I want the locket under my belt before that happens."
"It's safe, Harry, we know where it is. Why not let it be the last? Focus on finding the cup?"
"Because we have it, and we don't know what's going to happen next. Every time I leave a place now I wonder if I'll ever see it again. What if the cup is destroyed somehow and Voldemort is right there? It's snowballing, and I need to be in control. How about just because I need it, Hermione. You know I can handle it now. Please, promise me."
"Take Ron with you now," she bargained.
She saw the anger flare in his eyes. "A thestral alone isn't suspicious. Most people can't even see one. Someone riding thin air is."
"So you can't go as far. You can't take as many risks. You'd have to come back."
"I said I'd come back!" he answered her, stung.
"Take Ron, and when we're back at Hogwarts we'll get the locket," she maintained.
Their eyes met again. The next part of the conversation was too easy to predict; even Professor Trelawney could write those lines.
Why are you doing this?
Because I love you.
If you loved me you'd trust me… let me do what I have to do.
"Please," Hermione said, her voice breaking, unlike her even to her own ears. "You're afraid you may never get to go back for the locket now. But if that happens, I've lost you. I won't let that happen. Please trust me, too."
Harry changed without another word, morphing smoothly into the thestral form.
Hermione realized how appropriate it was; his sharp dragonish face had the same grave beauty his human one could hold at times. For all he was so easily identified by his mother's green eyes, the thestral white obscured him to her not at all; Hermione thought she would know that expression anywhere, on any form. Worried, wondering, but not yet weakened by despair. There was still hope despite the imminence of some end to his life's struggle, still a will to put one foot in front of the other and see if the next moment might bring relief from the last.
`If you could only bottle that,' she thought. `We'd all be stronger. Voldemort would never have risen in the first place.'
And she wouldn't have to live like each moment now might be her last with him in it.
He thrust his muzzle at her and she stroked his nose, lifted the thick forelock and kissed the white lightening scar beneath. He moved on to Ron and made the same extended leg bow to lower his back and make mounting easier that he had done for her. Ron scrambled on to his back, twining his fingers into the thick black mane and shifting forward to snug his knees behind Harry's wing joints.
"Okay," he said.
The thestral remained still; one white eye rolled back at him.
"Er, giddyup?"
Harry's ears pinned back; he snorted and stamped one powerful hind leg, tail twitching.
Hermione heard `tell him to bloody kiss her already, so we can be off.' It was Harry's voice, reverberating in her head. She knew he was still hurt by her insistence and that his efforts were as much an apology of sorts to her as a nudge to Ron. She watched as long slender black legs sidled and sidestepped toward Luna until Ron was right in front of her.
"His says to, um, kiss her already," Hermione translated.
Ron's ears and cheekbones burned, but before he could protest Luna reached up and grabbed the front of his robes.
"You'll be safe, Ronald," she said quite certainly, "but you'll need to be brave. Just remember that Morgausian Trulets will sacrifice both front limbs for their pod members, and twice as many grow back after."
"Er, Holy crap?" said Ron.
And then she kissed him.
Hermione reckoned that for someone so vague about the rest of life, Luna sure knew how to focus on a kiss. Wow. Why did Harry have to be a horse now?
"Holy er…hmm," said Ron, both stunned and appreciative until Harry's restless movements to be off finally maneuvered them apart.
"Bye!" said Luna brightly, waving.
Hermione heard, `close the wards after us.' And with a mighty leap and an unfurling of leathery wings, they were off.
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