Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 13

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. - Robert Louis Stevenson

By the time Connor finished having breakfast with Professor Lupin, the sun had well and truly risen, and there were more than a few students out in the corridors and in the Great Hall. He spotted his friends at the far end of the Gryffindor table and went to sit with them, nursing a glass of pumpkin juice while they ate. He told them that he had spoken with Andrew and that the other boy had volunteered the information that they had already learned from his letter. Ivy and Rachel both showed signs of concern when they learned that the other boy's father was ill, and resolved to be nicer to him. Connor decided to wait to tell them about Andrew's grandmother until he could be sure that they would not be overheard. He knew that he could trust his friends not to say anything about it to anyone else, but he didn't want to risk anyone finding out from him by accident. Quentin was still given a hard time by many of the students in other houses because his grandfather had been a Death Eater; Andrew didn't need that kind of treatment if his father was really ill.

After breakfast, Connor heard Andrew and one of the other second year boys saying that they were going to an empty classroom for an informal study group. Connor waited until they were out of earshot, and then said to his friends, "Let go up to my room. I have something to tell you, and I don't want to be overheard."

They all nodded, and began to rise from the table when the post owls arrived. All eyes were cast upward and Connor was surprised to he his father's owl Hedwig among those making deliveries; Hedwig was rarely used for long distance deliveries anymore, as she was beginning to show signs of old age. Regular Snowy owls only tended to live about twenty-five years, and Hedwig was at least thirty; her magical powers seemed to be prolonging her life span. She circled once and then landed gracefully onto Connor's shoulder with a soft hoot of pride, then extended her leg to show that she had a tiny piece of parchment tied to it.

"I'll get it," Rachel offered, reaching over to untie the note, while Connor fed her a bit of sausage from his plate.

"Thanks Hedwig," Connor said softly, stroking her a few times. "If you need a rest, you can go to the Owlery for a while before going home."

Hedwig gave a small hoot of indignation, and dug her talons a little deeper than necessary as she took flight again, making Connor laugh a bit before turning his attention to the note. It turned out that there were two pages, and so he set them side by side on the table in front of him and tapped each, muttering, "engorgio" to expand them to their original size. His father must have reduced the pages to make the burden easier on his beloved owl.

"Hey Zack!" Connor said, "One of these is for you." He handed one of the pages to his friend and picked up his own letter and read it quickly with a broad smile. His parents had done it! They had convinced Mr. and Mrs. Ellis to allow Zack to spend the holidays with them!

"Wow!" Zack said excitedly. "I can't believe your parents talked them into letting me come!"

The others were excited for Zack, and they talked about their upcoming holidays as they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. When they got to the second year boy's dormitory, they all sat down on and around Connor's bed, and he told them about his dream, and about what he had learned from Professor Lupin.

"Andrew's father was a Death Eater?" Ivy asked in astonishment.

"No, he didn't say that," Connor corrected. "He said that they thought that she helped them get into the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't say that she was a Death Eater herself."

"She might have been a sympathizer," Quentin said quietly. "Like my own Grandmother. My dad's mum wasn't a Death Eater, but she supported them; I guess that there were a lot of people out there like that. My Dad told me that Voldemort didn't usually accept women into his circle of Death Eaters, and that their wives were expected to be held in check by their Death Eater husbands."

Everyone was quiet at this announcement. Quentin didn't usually talk much about his family history, and so when he did, they were careful to be respectful of his feelings.

"This is all so confusing," Zack said. "There are his supporters, and they were called Death Eaters, and then there were supporters of the supporters?"

"Something like that," Quentin said with a small smile. "Voldemort used fear as his biggest motivator and weapon, and it was pretty much a 'follow or be eliminated' type of situation then."

"But Connor's dad beat him, right?" Zack asked, the only one in their group not to have been raised knowing some version of the story of Voldemort's defeat.

"Right," Rachel said. "So the question is, why would Andrew think that it was Uncle Harry's fault that he has to stay home for the holidays, and what does that have to do with Andrew's grandmother being a supporter of the dark side?"

"It might not have anything to do with it," Connor said. "It might be as simple as it sounds. His father is too ill for Andrew to go home."

"Connor," Rachel said suddenly. "You told Professor Lupin about the woman in your dream, right?"

"That's what I just finished telling you," Connor said, irritated more by the fact that yet another mystery seemed to be unfolding for him than the fact that his cousin wasn't listening properly. "That's how I found out that Andrew's grandmother...."

"Yes, yes," Rachel interrupted. "It's just that, if the woman you saw wasn't Bellatrix Lastrange, but Samantha Tillman instead, what does that say about your dream? If your parents never ran into Andrew's grandmother while they were there, then how could you be dreaming about it?"

"I understand what you're saying," Quentin said. "If your Dad doesn't have any memories of Samantha Tillman, then he couldn't be projecting them to you."

"They'd have to be coming from somewhere else," Ivy finished, catching on to their line of thinking.

"And if Professor Lupin comes to the same conclusion," Connor said.

"Which is likely," Rachel added.

"Then I'm right back at square one," Connor finished. "My parents will have Madam MacTaggart back up here faster than lightning."

"Well we don't really know the whole story of what your father remembers from that night," Quentin said comfortingly. "Maybe he did run into Mrs. Tillman, and you just don't know it... Professor Lupin already knew about her, didn't he?"

"Yes," Connor said. "But he also said that he didn't arrive at the Ministry until the end of that night. If Mrs. Tillman was the one who got them inside the Department of Mysteries, wouldn't she have disappeared before he got there?"

"This is giving me a headache," Zack said. "If she disappeared, where did she go?"

"Professor Lupin just said that no one ever saw her alive again," Connor said thoughtfully. "I reckon she must be dead."

"That's a strange way of wording it, though, isn't it?" Rachel said. "Why not just say that she was dead?"

None of them had an answer to that question, and the meeting came to a speedy close when they heard footsteps on the stairs approaching the boy's dormitory. They were slightly surprised to see Professor Lupin turn into the room, and all looked up at him slightly guiltily.

"What are you all up to?" he asked suspiciously.

"We were just playing...."Connor couldn't come up with anything to finish that thought, though, and groaned inwardly when Ivy and Rachel spoke at the same time.

"Truth or Dare," Rachel said.

"Spin the bottle," Ivy answered.

Professor Lupin raised his eyebrows in amusement and waited to see how they would explain themselves now.

"We were playing truth or dare," Rachel said calmly, " And I had just dared Ivy to play spin the bottle with Aiden."

Ivy blushed to the roots of her hair, and Zack and Connor laughed outright.

"You're not playing it with Magically binding rules, are you?" Lupin asked warningly, though it was hard to tell if he really believed them. "That's been against the rules since Sirius forced James to... never mind. That story is hardly appropriate and will only give you ideas." He waggled his eyebrows at them with a grin, chuckling at their collective groan of disappointment. "I was actually looking for Andrew."

"I heard him telling Michael Hughes that they were going to be having a study group in the empty Charms classroom," Connor supplied.

"Thank you," Lupin said, then stopped on his way out. "And stay out of trouble."