Harry Potter and the Warring of the Prophets

HARRY POTTER AND THE WARRING OF THE PROPHETS
A Sixth-Year Adventure

By: Hayley

Chapter Two: At Fault

Dumbledore's clear eyes stopped looking kindly and took on an air or urgency. "Severus, what happened?"

As he spoke, he crossed into the drawing room, which -- ironically -- had been charmed to be "magic free," so a Muggle television and radio would work inside headquarters, allowing the Order access to information concerning any acts the Death Eaters may commit against Muggles.

"Mass murder," Snape reported grimly. "At King's Cross. It has to have been wizards, because it was a massive cloud of Garroting Gas, and Muggles don't have that, do they?"

Snape was pacing the front hall, speaking tersely as Dumbledore turned the dial on the ancient radio, trying to find a station amidst the static. "I think it was Pritchard, possibly Moon. But that is only my hypothesis."

A voice finally crackled through the dusty speakers of the radio. "It's a scene of carnage at London's King's Cross Station this evening. Rescue workers have been removing bodies for nearly an hour and it seems as if the victims of the mysterious asphyxiation are not confined to any one area of the station. At last count, seventy-one adult and thirteen child bodies had been recovered from the building. Officials are, as yet, unsure what caused the catastrophe, and the only clue found as to an outside source is a work of graffiti on the wall between platforms nine and ten -- " Everyone at Number 12, Grimmauld Place exchanged a look -- "Of a green skull with what appears to be a snake protruding from its mouth..."

Dumbledore switched the radio off, and Snape stopped pacing. For a minute, everything was frozen.

Dumbledore spoke quietly, his gaze never shifting from then radio dial. "Bill, please go inform the Daily Prophet contacts so they can begin an account. Kingsley, Tonks, head to the Auror office and begin an authorized search for any Death Eaters known to work in or around London -- especially Noam Pritchard and Lee Moon. Remus, please convene the Order. I will return in thirty minutes for a briefing."

Bill nodded curtly and shrugged into his bank coat over his jeans and sleeveless "Weird Sisters 1989" concert tee-shirt. As he buttoned it up, he walked into the front hall to Apparate, and, after a moment of whispered dialogue, Tonks and Kingsley followed. The crowd still gathered around the radio heard the three Order members in the hall talking quietly, but could not make out their words. As they Apparated as one with a loud pop!, Dumbledore finally stood. He met Harry's eyes once again.

"Harry, please take Ginny, Ron, and Hermione upstairs with the cake and continue your party."

Harry looked at him incredulously -- eighty-four innocent people were dead; who could possibly celebrate?

"It is what the Order needs you to do right now, Harry. Please. You will be kept informed."

Silent again, Harry nodded and returned to the kitchen, where he gathered up his gifts. Ginny levitated the carton of ice cream and floated it in front of her as she carried the cake, and Hermione had several forks and spoons clutched in her hands.

Ron, his face quite blank, but attuned to the somber mood around him, approached his sister and tentatively whispered, "Ginny - what's going on? I - I think I did know, but..." in her ear.

"We'll recap for you upstairs, Ron," Ginny said patiently. "Would you mind carrying the ice cream upstairs?"

Ron nodded, politely bewildered, and plucked the carton - over the sides of which trickles of pink were dripping - out of the air and followed along.

The four of them gathered in the girls' room, which was much less cluttered than the one Harry and Ron would soon also be sharing with Neville.

Harry sat down on the edge of one of the beds and put his head in his hands.

Seventy-one adult and thirteen child bodies have been recovered...

"It's all my fault," he muttered. "It's my fault He's back at all, it's my fault any of this is happening..."

"It isn't," Hermione argued, sitting down beside him. She winced and reached around to rub her back.

"It's my fault, Hermione. It's my fault that eighty-four people are dead, it's my fault that your back hurts and you can never breathe, it's my fault Ron can't remember anything - "

"How is that your fault?" Ron asked, bemused.

Harry merely continued as though Ron hadn't spoken. " - It's my fault Cho Chang is always crying, it's my fault someone tried to blow up the Longbottoms' house last week, it's my fault Cedric's parents don't have a son, it's my fault you all had to move out of the Burrow, it's my -- it's my fault Sirius is dead... it's..."

Ginny sat down on Harry's other side. Her small hands began to massage his back and worked their way up to his head, where she began to smooth his hair consolingly. "Harry, none of those things are your fault. They're Tom Riddle's fault. Not yours."

Harry looked up at her. He had never heard her say her possessor's name. "But I could have - "

"Could you have prevented Tom Riddle Senior from leaving his wife before... Voldemort," Ginny spat, then shuddered, "was born?"

Harry said nothing.

"No," she said firmly. "So you could never have stopped any of this. He's just evil, Harry. And unless you made him evil - and you didn't - none of this is your fault."

Ginny's pretty face was set in sharp, determinate lines, and her soft brown eyes were filled with light.

Harry nodded.

"Did you ever eat? I know you gave your sandwich to Moody..." Ginny continued, running her fingertips over Harry's scalp, making his hair stand on end.

Harry shook his head.

"Well, have something now. You're wasting away."

Harry wanted to protest, but couldn't. He knew it was true, he was skinnier than he had ever been. "I don't - I mean, it's excellent, but I'm not - in the mood for - "

"So have a sandwich," Hermione suggested, and before Harry could stop her, she had opened the door, pointed her wand down the stairs, and said, "Accio Sandwich!"

"Hermione!"

"Hang on, it's fighting its way out of the Chillbox," she reported. "It's coming."

"Hermione - " Harry began again, but she interrupted him as the sandwich flew into her waiting hand.

"Got it. It's your favorite, Harry... roast beef and ham... on Italian bread... yum, yum..."

Harry couldn't help cracking a smile. "Oh, fine, Hermione! I'll eat it!"

* * *

Harry didn't wake until noon the following morning, as he, Hermione, and Ginny had been explaining the King's Cross massacre to Ron until nearly midnight, and then Fred and George had appeared to tell them all about the Order meeting, followed by Dumbledore, who reiterated the facts: All Order members who were Aurors were to track down Pritchard, Moon, and any other London-based Death Eaters, and anyone with Muggle-relation skills was to help with the relief effort.

The death toll by the time Harry fell asleep was nearly four-hundred.

When he finally did awaken, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and saw Ron sitting on the windowseat, staring into the backyard with a smile on his face.

"Ron?"

"Shh!" Ron hissed, turning to face Harry indignantly. "They'll hear you!"

"Who will hear me?" Harry asked curiously, getting out of bed and pulling a tee-shirt over his head.

"Hermione and Ginny," Ron said, a dazed smile still playing on his lips as he stared out the open window. "They're outside sunning... er, sunning - er - "

"Themselves?" Harry finished for him.

Ron nodded. "That's it."

As Harry settled next to him on the windowseat, Ron stood and crossed to the dresser, where he opened the bottle of Professor Ichabod's Immortilization Inhibitor and swallowed two capfuls.

"Ron," Harry said tentatively, "Do you really need that much of that stuff?"

"Harry," Ron said stoutly, "You don't understand what I'm trying to forget. You don't know."

"Oh, really? I've never seen something I wanted to forget? Try me."

"Harry - you don't know. You haven't seen this. I know for a fact."

"Ron - "

"Just forget it."

Harry turned his attention back to the backyard, where Hermione and Ginny were indeed sunning themselves. Hermione, in a black two-piece bathing suit, was lying on her back on a chaise longue, her head turned to face Ginny. Ginny, however, was quite the opposite of Hermione: She was also languishing on a chaise longue, but hers was under the shadow of an umbrella, and Ginny was wearing loose, knee-length linen pants and a very loose, translucent, white linen top and sunglasses. She also appeared to be reading aloud from a magazine called "teenWitch Weekly."

"Isn't she great?" Ron asked gushingly, watching Hermione laugh.

"Yeah," Harry said quietly as he watched Ginny toss her long red hair back over her shoulder. The deep slit down the bodice of her tunic fluttered open when she moved her arm and Harry saw that she was wearing an emerald green bathing suit in the same style as Hermione's.

"Oh!" Ginny giggled, her voice carrying on the breeze through the open window, "Did I tell you what I heard from my friend Kamaria? Oh, you know," she said impatiently at Hermione's blank expression, "Kamaria Mosi, in my year? She transferred to Hogwarts from Azizi-Bakari last winter? Well, anyway. Her parents are really good friends with the Patils, and she told me," Ginny was overcome with giggles again, "Parvati got an Augmentius Charm!"

Hermione snorted derisively. "Not that she needed one!"

"Hermione's got that right," Harry whispered to a snickering Ron.

"Yeah, but imagine Dean- and Seamus' faces when they see her!" Ron pointed out, and Harry started sniggering too.

"Definitely not," Ginny agreed, "But I guess she and Padma both did. And now they have modeling contracts with Gladrags. But I guess that's all it takes..."

"Well," Hermione teased, "Then you should be getting your Gladrags modeling contract within the next five seconds!"

Ginny's face flushed and she hit Hermione over the head playfully with the magazine. "Hermione!"

"Wait," Harry whispered to Ron, something suddenly dawning on him, "I thought Dean was going with Ginny!"

"No," Ron said smugly, "Ginny dumped him about two weeks before you came. She said he just 'didn't get it.' Glad she's shot of him."

"You like Dean," Harry reminded Ron, trying to be gentle in case Ron really had forgotten this.

"Yeah," Ron admitted, "But he's still a nutter. Football. What a nutter..."

Both boys turned back to the window just in time to see Hermione roll over onto her stomach, her caramel-brown back turned up to the sun. Ginny, still red, began flipping pages in her magazine again as Hermione lazily pointed her wand over her shoulder, untying the back of her top. Ron let out a wolf whistle.

"Hi, Ron," Hermione said loudly and clearly, not looking up at them at all. Ginny did, however, and waved. "Hi, Harry!"

Harry and Ron, crowing, slid off the windowseat and sat on the floor beneath it, out of view of the girls, to continue eavesdropping. After a minute -

"Boys," both Ginny and Hermione muttered together.

"Hey," Ginny said suddenly, "There's a Hair Relaxing Charm in his issue. Do you want to try it tonight?"

"Well..." Hermione said thoughtfully, though clearly tempted, "Isn't that what we were just laughing at Parvati for? Using magic for beauty?"

"Mione, I think this is a little different. It's less invasive, for one," Ginny giggled, "And two, it's much less shallow."

Hermione laughed too. "Well, in that case, OK."

"Kids?" Lupin's voice called, magically magnified. "We need all four of you in the kitchen, please."

Ron and Harry stood up simultaneously, both still snickering over Parvati's cosmetic conjuring and went into the kitchen, where they met Lupin, Fred, George, and the girls (Hermione had put on a blue sun dress over her bathing suit).

"Kids, I don't know if you've heard, but the King's Cross death toll is now over seven-hundred, and they've only finished about a quarter of the building."

Misery, so recently uplifted, resettled in Harry's stomach.

"So, tomorrow, the four of you will join an Order task."

They all - even Harry - looked up in interest.

"We are going to London to help recover bodies."