Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 20

"One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do." -A. C. Benson

The morning started early, and was a flurry of activity as Connor and Zack packed their trunks and gathered all of the things they would take back to Hogwarts. After a short debate, Zack told Godric to go to the Owlery at Hogwarts, and let him out of the window before Mr. Potter shrunk the cage to be small enough to fit into his trunk. Mrs. Potter had washed and folded all of the boys' robes and other clothing and stacked them neatly on top of each trunk, ready for packing. The boys were both grateful that she hadn't decided to pack for them, or she might have found the pilfered letters and blank map hidden in Zack's trunk.

Mrs. Potter was in the kitchen, letting Dobby handle breakfast as she sat down to eat with the children. The younger kids would come back from their school break today as well, and so she would be needed in the schoolroom behind the house shortly. Rachel would be arriving shortly, and Mr. Potter would be seeing them through the Floo to the Leaky Cauldron, where he would have a cab take them all to Kings Cross station to catch the train.

Rachel arrived right on time, followed by her father, who set her trunk next to Connor and Zack's before he sat down to eat a bowl of porridge with them, even through Rachel claimed he'd already eaten an omelet before leaving the house. Connor thought that his Dad looked strange in Muggle clothes, though he was wearing a similar jumper and jeans. His Mum always claimed that if it weren't for the height difference and the fact that his dad wore glasses, they would be nearly indistinguishable from each other, to which his Uncle Ron would always mutter jokingly, "Poor kid" and his Dad always punched Uncle Ron in the shoulder.

The trip to the Leaky cauldron was uncomfortable with the trunk crammed into the Floo with him, and Connor was glad when he stepped out of the fire. Zack and Rachel were already dusting themselves off, and his Dad Apparated into the portal beside the Floo almost right away. Uncle Ron was obviously not going to Kings Cross with them, as he was wearing a set of nicer robes, and that thought was confirmed when he pulled Rachel aside to give her a bone-crushing hug.

"Be good," he admonished firmly. "Have a good term. I have to get going or I'm going to be late to my meeting."

They all waved goodbye to him, and then walked to the front of the pub while Harry looked outside and then announced that the cab had arrived. It took some doing to get all of the trunks situated, as only two would fit into the trunk, and one had to lay across their laps in the back seat while Harry rode up front with the driver.

"Why didn't your dad just shrink the trunks before we got outside?" Zack asked Connor quietly as they pulled into traffic.

"Mostly because of the brooms," Connor answered. "Dog Star brooms have so many anti-jinx and spell-repelling charms on them that they wouldn't have shrunk with everything else, and we'd attract too much Muggle attention carrying around broomsticks."

They made it to the train station with twenty minutes to spare, and wasted no time in passing through the barrier at Platform 9 ¾. Harry helped them get their trunks on board, and gave them some money for the witch with the food trolley. They quickly found that Ivy was already on board and had saved a compartment for them. Zack thanked Mr. Potter for the tenth time that day for letting him come for the holiday, and finally they were left on their own. It only took a few minutes for Quentin to join them, and they all waved out the window to their parents as the train pulled away from the platform and started the trip back to Hogwarts.

"Okay," Ivy said after closing the compartment door so that they wouldn't be overheard. "First things first; I have some news."

"Let's hear it," Rachel said, all of them leaning forward so that they could keep their voices low.

"Well I was rummaging through the library at home, and I came across a book that my Great Grandmother had kept about my Dad while he was growing up. He was raised by her, you know," Ivy said excitedly. "At first it was cute stuff; pictures of my dad as a baby and records of things like his first steps and words and stuff like that. I was about to put it away, but decided to see how long she'd kept it for, and found that it went right up until he left Hogwarts! I went to where his fifth year was recorded, and I found a letter to G.G. (that's what we called her before she died) that said my Dad had been at the Ministry of Magic with Harry Potter and 'some other students' and had been involved in a battle with Death Eaters during which his wand had been broken. It said that my Dad had been mildly injured and that the school nurse had healed him, but that he'd been really brave and had helped defend several others involved. I can't remember the entire exact wording. I would have brought it with me, but Mum caught me looking through it, so I pretended to be looking at pictures of him just before his first year at Hogwarts. She took the book to look through again herself, since she didn't go to Hogwarts, and she hadn't put it back by the time I have to leave for here."

"So your Dad and my parents were in that battle," Connor said.

"Yeah," Ivy said. "I still can't believe it! My Dad has got to be one of the gentlest people I know. I just can't picture him in a battle."

"I can," Rachel said. "My Mum talks to Dad about the war sometimes, and I know that they both have a lot of respect for your Dad. They talk about him like he's a real hero."

"Dad doesn't talk about the war much at all," Ivy said regretfully. "Maybe some of the stuff we find out about it will help me learn more about my own Dad."

"Or mine," Quentin said quietly. "If the battle that happened that night at the Ministry was the same battle where Sirius Black died, then I'm pretty sure that it's the same night my Grandfather, Lucius was arrested and sent to Azkaban."

They all fell silent and looked at Quentin for a sign of what they should say or feel about this. Connor was pretty sure that there had been no love lost between Lucius Malfoy and Quentin's father, but he was still family, and Connor's own father had played a part in his capture and arrest. "How do you know that?" Connor finally asked quietly.

Quentin smiled faintly in an effort to put his friends at ease. "There's a portrait up in the attic at home of my grandmother's sister, Bellatrix. I kept noticing that Vanessa was going up to the attic a lot this past holiday, and so one day when she came out, I went in there to find out what she found so fascinating. I found the portrait, and had a rather...unpleasant conversation with her."

"She's the one who killed Uncle Sirius," Connor said quietly, not sure how to feel about the fact that one of his best mates had a picture of his Uncle's murderer in his house.

"And the one who tortured my grandparents," Ivy added a bit shakily.

"I know," Quentin said in a whispered apologetic tone. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rachel said briskly, he voice seeming too loud after such a tense moment. "Quentin wasn't even born when those things happened, and none of us is stupid enough to think that he's in any way to blame for any of it."

"Of course not," Connor agreed, coming to his senses. "We're all sorry about those things, but no one blames you, Quint. You can't help what happened in the past any more than we can."

"But what was Vanessa doing up there, and what did the portrait say to you?" Zack asked. He had only a vague idea of everything that his friends were discussing, being relatively new to the Wizarding world, and wanted to get them back on track after hearing references to murder and torture from people he cared about.

"Well I'm pretty sure that Vanessa has been going up there to talk to Bellatrix, though I'm not really sure why she would want to; that woman must have been horrible in real life, if her portrait is anything to judge by," Quentin said, grateful to Rachel for breaking the tension. He had been dreading talking about this, knowing what feelings it might invoke in his friends. "Dad doesn't talk about her at all, but then, he doesn't talk about his own parents either. I didn't get a chance to search the attic, but I know that there are no pictures or portraits of them around the manor. Anyway, I went up there to see what Vanessa was up to and the portrait started talking to me. She seemed nice enough at first; told me I looked a lot like my mother, but then she changed when she asked me how I was finding Hogwarts. I told her I liked it well enough, and she asked if it was true that I had been sorted into Gryffindor and that I was friends with a Potter."

"I don't imagine she was thrilled with your answer," Connor observed dryly.

"No." Quentin winced, but with a small smile in place. "When I told her that you were one of my best friends, she got...ugly. I've never even heard of half of the names she called me, though I could tell they were bad. She went on and on about how the Potters had ruined everything, and how heartbroken Narcissa - my grandmother - had been when Lucius had been sent Azkaban after being caught in the Department of Mysteries the night she'd killed her cousin Sirius. I tried to goad her into telling be more, but as soon as she realized that I didn't know about a lot of it, she just laughed and refused to say anything else. I think she must have been mad, even when the portrait was done."

"So now we know that Connor's Dad and Mum, Ivy's Dad, and probably Rachel's parents as well, judging by how close they were, were all there that night at the Department of Mysteries," Zack said. "And Connor's dad said that he'd been lured there in his fifth year. That should give us a place to start looking for answers."

"I've already started writing down everything I can remember from my dreams," Connor said. "I had a new one while we were on holiday, too. I'm not sure what order they all go in, but I'm pretty sure that they're all related to each other."

"Well we can start with the letters that Zack and Connor have from Grandma Molly's, and I managed to get the clippings from under my Mum and Dad's bed last night while I was packing. They'll need to be enlarged, but we should be able sort them out according to date and get a good idea of how things unfolded, and see if anything from your dreams fits in." Rachel said confidently, pulling what looked like a small wooden jewelry box from her robes.

She opened it to reveal what looked to be scraps of parchment no bigger than an inch or so wide by two inches long. The writing upon them was so miniscule that Connor doubted that a magnifying glass would have helped to decipher what they said.

"Is that something we should be doing here?" Quentin asked nervously. "What if someone comes in and sees all of it?"

"Quint's probably right," Connor admitted reluctantly. "We'll need to find a place at Hogwarts where we can go over this stuff without being interrupted."

"What about that map?" Rachel asked logically.

"I almost for got about that!" Connor looked over at Zack who jumped to his feet and retrieved that blank parchment to show the others. Connor explained to Ivy and Quentin how he had come by it and how it was supposed to work, and they all agreed that if it still worked, it could prove to be a huge asset to them in the coming years at Hogwarts.

Zack hurriedly put the map away as the food trolley neared their compartment, and Connor used the money his Dad had given him to buy a huge stack of cauldron cakes and bottles of Butterbeer for everyone. Rachel bought a large assortment of sweets, explaining that her sisters had found her secret stash at home and had replaced it all with stuff from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, so none of it could be trusted.

"My dad sprayed pumpkin juice across the dining room when my Mum ate a Warthog Wafer the other day," Quentin said fondly as they ate their lunch. "I don't think I've ever seen him laugh that hard before. Mum wasn't very amused, though."

They all laughed, and Ivy said, "I'm saving mine for the Slytherin's table. I'm going to talk to one of the house elves and see if I can convince them to send them up on a plate during lunch some time."

"Brilliant!" Zack said appreciatively. The others agreed.

As the train traveled steadily northward, the sun began to set. They were visited a few times by other students who were restless from just sitting still all day, and mostly sat talking amongst themselves, whiling away the time until they arrived at Hogsmeade station. Soon it was time to change into their robes, and so the girls excused themselves to another compartment to change. When they finally arrived, they were among the first off of the train, but didn't immediately head for the carriages that waited to take them up to the school, as they pulled on gloves and scarves in the frigid air. Connor spotted Vanessa Malfoy practically sprinting to the front of the line of carriages, apparently eager to get up to the school first, and wondered if she was cold, anxious to be back, or if perhaps she was meeting someone. If she had finally found herself a boyfriend to occupy her time, perhaps she would leave him and his friends along this term. He could only hope.

Quentin has apparently spotted his sister as well, and muttered quietly to Connor, "You want to keep an eye on her; she was in an abnormally good mood this morning."

Connor laughed, and they all caught a carriage about halfway along the line. He was hungry after the long trip, and though there wasn't a feast waiting for them inside the castle, he was still looking forward to dinner. It was as he was walking toward the huge front doors that Connor saw it. Something was going to come flying at him as he entered the castle, and he knew in an instant, with a certainty that he knew better than to argue with, that Vanessa Malfoy was behind it. She was going to try to force him to react and show everyone that he had known about it beforehand... there was only one thing he could do.

"You guys go on ahead," he called to his friends. "My shoe's untied."

They nodded and kept walking, and Connor pretended to kneel down to tend to his laces. Taking a deep breath, and not looking forward to the next few minutes in the least, Connor stood and entered the castle. Every muscle in his body was tensed, but he forced himself to keep walking; if he dived out of the way at the last second, others could be hurt, and if he warned anyone, his secret could be compromised. Still, even though he had known that it was coming, he was surprised to feel something hard and heavy crash into the side of his head and shoulder before he hit the ground and blacked out.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

"I thought McGonagall's head was going to explode."

"Lupin was white as a sheet!"

"His head looks terrible!"

Connor came back to consciousness slowly, hearing the loud whispers of his friends around him. His head felt as if he had an axe embedded in it, and his whole body ached as though he'd fallen fifty feet from a broom. An involuntary groan from him had his friends quieting down, and he distinctly heard Ivy say that she was going to fetch Madam Cosgrove.

"Connor," came Rachel's soft voice in his ear. "Can you hear me?"

Connor simply groaned again, finally comprehending that he was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. He tried to recall what could have happened to send him here, but his head hurt too much for thinking right now. "Ow," he said, forcing himself to get at least one syllable out so that they would know he could. He felt extremely nauseous, and focused what was left of his attention on keeping down the meager contents of his stomach.

"Ow, indeed, Mr. Potter," came the brisk voice of Madam Cosgrove. "Can you open your eyes?"

Connor screwed up his eyes more tightly before working at forcing them open. He just knew that he wasn't up to having any sort of light shined into them yet, and dreaded what raising his eyelids might do to the already unbearable pain in his head.

"Come on, now Connor," Professor Lupin's voice was suddenly at his side. "Open your eyes and let Madam Cosgrove have a look."

With a bracing gulp of air that did nothing to settle his stomach, Connor allowed his eyes to flutter open, relieved when he noted that the lights in the room had been dimmed dramatically for him. Everything around him was blurry, and so he blinked a few times to bring everything back into sharper focus. I didn't help much.

"Everything's blurry," he said quietly.

"Let's see what we can do about that," Madam Cosgrove said gently. She used some sort of strange brass instrument to look into his eyes, and then withdrew her wand and muttered an incantation that caused his entire head to tingle, though it didn't improve his blurry vision. "I'll be right back, young man."

Connor waited patiently, listening to the sounds of glass tapping glass as Madam Cosgrove mixed up whatever potion she thought he needed. His stomach was churning at the thought of drinking anything; potions never tasted good in his experience. "Feel sick," he muttered through clenched teeth, sucking in air as pain shot through his entire head.

"I've got something for that, too," Came Madam Cosgrove said kindly, returning with several small beakers in her hands. "I'll give you that one first so that you can keep the others down."

"What are you giving him, Grace?" Lupin asked.

"Well the one I'm giving him now will help with the nausea," she said, using a sort of giant eyedropper to feed the potion into his mouth with the need to move him. "Then I'll be giving him something to dull the pain, and something to mend the fractures in his collarbone and jaw. I've got something to help with the bruising. The last will help him to sleep while the bones knit themselves back together. I've got a paste for the abrasions on his face."

'I've got a broken collar bone and jaw?' Connor thought to himself, feeling slightly panicky. 'Is Vanessa trying to trick me or kill me? And I'll never be able to prove it was her."

The first potion wasn't so bad as far as taste went; it was a bit chalky, but the flavor was slightly minty, and his stomach settled down almost as soon as the potion hit his tongue. The pain-relieving potion was okay as well; though not something he wanted to take on a regular basis, and he felt the throbbing in his head subside to a dull ache.

"What happened to me?" he asked. "What hit me?" Before anyone could answer him, though, the nurse was leaning over him again.

"These next two are going to be nasty, Mr. Potter," Madam Cosgrove warned him. "But it's important for you to completely drink them both."

Bracing himself for what was to come, Connor fisted his hands in the sheets of the bed and tried not to gag as the orange colored fluid was poured into his mouth; it tasted as horrid as he had expected. He swallowed it with an audible gulp, forcing the awful liquid down when his mind was telling him that nothing that foul belonged inside of him. 'The second potion couldn't possibly be worse than that one,' he thought to himself. That was before he saw that the beaker she was pouring out for him was frothing with blue smoke.

"I can see properly again!" he croaked with relief as he realized that the room had come back into focus. Quentin, Ivy, Rachel and Zack were all standing off to the side with Professor Lupin, all of them looking shaken and worried.

"Yes," Madam Cosgrove smiled at him gently. "That last potion was to reduce bruising and swelling. Once the swelling around your eyes subsided a bit, they went back to normal. One more, and then you'll be allowed to rest. This one will start your bones to mending and has the added benefit of helping you sleep. Your friends can come and see you in the morning before classes."

Connor looked ruefully over at his friends and said, "I'll be okay."

They all nodded uncertainly and said good-bye as Lupin herded them out of the Hospital wing. No sooner had they walked out, and before Madam Cosgrove has a chance to administer the last of the potions, Professor McGonagall rushed in, followed closely by the Potters, all of them looking very worried."

"How is he, Grace?" Professor McGonagall asked, eyeing the smoking beaker.

"He's going to be sore for a few days, no question," Madam Cosgrove answered. "I'm just about to give him the Skele-mend, then he'll be off to sleep at least until morning."

"Skele-mend?" Harry said sharply. "What's that for?"

"Forgive me, Mr. Potter," Madam Cosgrove said; looking to Connor's parents, "I suppose you know that Connor was hit rather forcefully with a marble bust of Godric Gryffindor?" At their nods, she continued, "I'm afraid the blow did a bit of damage, as you can see. He was unconscious for about twenty minutes, and severely concussed. His face, as you can see, has several large contusions, and his ribs are bruised along his right side. His collarbone is broken, and his jaw has a hairline fracture, hence the Skele-mend. They should be fully healed by morning. I've already given him something for the pain and bruising, though he'll need more in about five hours."

Ginny was already sitting down at his side, tenderly brushing back his hair, her eyes brimming with tears. Harry came to stand beside her and said gruffly, "You're not going to win any beauty contests today, champ, and if Skele-mend tastes anything like Skele-grow..." he broke off and shuddered.

"Great," Connor sulked, fisting a hand in the sheets again.

His Mum took his hand and held it tightly as Madam Cosgrove poured the last potion into his mouth, stopping when he spluttered and allowing his to catch his breath. The acidic foaming potion was hard to swallow, and burned as it went down. By the time he had swallowed all of it, he had tears in his eyes from the pain the coughing had caused, and his Mum had tears sliding down her cheeks as well. His eyelids began to droop at once, and the voices around him began to sound distant as sleep tried to overtake him. The last thing he remembered as he fought against the potion was seeing his father's livid expression as he asked in a steely voice, "Who did this to my son?" and then sleep took him.