Harry Potter and the Warring of the Prophets

HARRY POTTER AND THE WARRING OF THE PROPHETS

A Sixth-Year Adventure

Chapter Four: The Shame

The next week was an awkward one. The walls of Number 12, Grimmauld Place seemed to echo with silence and shake with tension. Harry spent most of his time sitting in the Magic-Free Room with Ginny; they both were looking to escape the horrors the magical world had caused for them and so many innocents. The baby had shocked the massacre into unbearably stark reality for the pair of them; the fact that it was not the first infant killed in the Dark rise to power deepened the emotion from shock into depressed apathy. Indeed, each of the duos from the recovery seemed detached from all of the others - Hermione even seemed closer to Neville, her partner, than to Ron, who had been paired with Amos Diggory.

However, gradually, the housemates began to reunite. The adults - especially those who had served in the original Order and had seen such carnage before - recovered before the children, however.

Finally, the teenage house members sympathized with each other by, on Dumbledore's orders, spending a night out camping in the yard: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and the twins, laden with squashy purple sleeping bags, wands, and a large wicker picnic basket full with Mrs. Weasley's delicious cooking.

The sun was already setting as they exited the house, splashing violet and pink across the heavens around the skyline of London and the leafy trees behind Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. By the time the plush sleeping bags were set out on the dewy grass and a magical fire had been conjured, the sky had darkened to a velvety blue-black and the crescent moon had risen.

Harry sat crouched on top of his sleeping bag, watching the glittering flames dance. He couldn't speak to those around him, but watched them, feeling almost frustrated, with his peripheral vision. Hermione sat across from him, also staring blankly into the fire, flanked by Neville and Ron to either side.

Ron looked very pale, twitchy, and sullen. He and Mrs. Weasley had an enormous row the day after the recovery at King's Cross, as Ron had taken so much of Professor Ichabod's Immortilization Inhibitor when he woke up that he had forgotten who Mrs. Weasley was when she served him breakfast, and had mistakenly called her "Professor." As a result, she had confiscated his bottle and poured it down the drain. Now Ron was nervous, fidgety, and prone to painful headaches and hot flashes or chills.

He still forgot things quite a lot.

But then again, he always had.

Sitting out in the yard that night, for a long time, no one spoke. The night air was pleasantly cool and the Fidelius Charm prevented not only their noise from being heard outside the charm's confines, but also outside noise from being audible within. The fire hummed gently with power, and crickets in the grass chirped in harmony. The silence between the sullen campers was, however, as impenetrable as the Charm itself.

"I saw one of my old schoolmates," Hermione said suddenly, her voice hoarse from lack of use. "A friend from early primary school."

Ron reached over and placed his hand over hers. Harry noticed that tear-streaks crossed Hermione's face, reflecting wetly in the firelight. Her hair was still smooth from the charm, but was messy and looked as though she had stopped caring for it. Her hand, beneath Ron's, revealed nails bitten to the quick.

"Her name was Elysia, and she would come over to my house for play tea parties - milk-tea, and jam and biscuits - all the time. We would dress up in faux pearls and high heels and big floppy hats, and pretend that we were fancy ladies. Or sometimes princesses. Um..." She trailed off, thinking - how does one articulate the death of a long-lost friend? Hermione cleared her throat. "She - she'd gotten very pretty."

The fire crackled powerfully and sent pink sparks into the surrounding area.

The twins exchanged a quick, nervous look and then began to speak, their words jumbled.

"We were cleaning - "

"And recovering - "

"A train that crashed..." Fred trailed off.

"The... conducator...?"

"Conductor," Hermione said quietly, turning her hand over in Ron's to squeeze it gently.

"Conductor... died while the train was still running," George explained.

"Terrible wreckage," Fred said quietly, shuddering. "I've never seen - I've never even imagined - people mangled like that."

"You couldn't tell on some people if it was a man or a woman," George admitted, unusually quietly and sincerely.

"I keep having nightmares about it," Fred whispered. "And I don't get nightmares."

"After Hermione left I found - I mean, I saw... a boy our age in a wheelchair," Neville blurted quickly. "There was a paper stuck to the tray that said, 'I can say: Hi, Bye, Me!'" Neville rubbed his eyes. "It was dated a week before the attack. I felt so... I mean, imagine what he could have said maybe a week from now?"

Ginny and Hermione were both crying silently, and Fred's head was in his hands.

There was a long silence.

"I - uh - " Ron coughed, shuddering, his lanky frame shifting visibly beneath his baggy sweatshirt. "I, uh... we - Amos and I - we found a school trip, it looked like. Or maybe a camp. Loads of teenagers... one kind of looked like... Ce-Cedric. Amos was crying..."

Hermione reached over and wrapped her arm around Ron's shoulders, still bawling. He reciprocated, his arm shaking slightly as it curled around her waist.

Ginny raised her head to speak, tears still streaming from her eyes, opened her mouth tremulously. "We found a baby."

In the ensuing horrified silence, Ginny turned and continued crying into Harry's shoulder. Harry, not looking at her, or anyone else, rubbed her back gently, feeling her racking sobs shake his own body as well. No one uttered a word, and after an hour had passed, most everyone had fallen asleep.

* * *

After what could only have been a few hours of dreamless sleep, however, Harry was awoken by the sound of soft laughter and the smell of food.

Harry opened his eyes and saw Fred and George sitting on top of their sleeping bags by the fire, open picnic basket between them, sausages levitated over the flames, sizzling and browning. A covered bowl of creamy, yellow potato salad had been opened and sat at Fred's heels, and George had unwrapped packages of Honeydukes Best Melting Chocolate, Fortescue's Wizarding Marshmallows, and Mrs. Weasley's large, square, homemade graham biscuits at his side.

"Did we wake you, Harry?" George whispered, transferring his slightly burnt sausage from the fire onto a split roll, slathered with brown mustard and rings of red onion.

"Sorry if we did," Fred added, turning his own roasting sausage in the flames to brown the other side. "But we got a bit peckish."

"That's alright," Harry yawned, sitting up. He stretched, and - for the first time since his birthday - felt his stomach rumble. "Can you toss me a sausage?"

"No problem," said Fred, his usual jovial tone in his voice once more, taking one out of the basket and tossing it underhand to Harry.

Unfortunately, his aim was slightly off, and instead of landing in Harry's outstretched hand, the sausage flew too far left and bounced off Neville's head.

Fred, George, and Harry tried in vain to stifle their laughter as Neville jerked awake in a panicked fashion.

"Hey!" he cried indignantly, sitting up and rubbing his head. "Why are you throwing - sausages?" He paused, bemused, considering the sausage. Then, indignantly, he finished: "Why are you throwing sausages at me?!"

"Sorry, Neville! I meant for it to get Harry," Fred snorted, turning his sausage in the flames again as it curled began to sweat beads of oil, which dripped into the magical fire and sent up indigo sparks.

"Oh," Neville said, stretching and yawning like Harry, no longer caring at all about having been hit in the head by a flying meat byproduct. "Can I have a marshmallow?"

After being handed the slightly beaten up and squashed sausage by Neville, Harry brushed it off on his jeans and levitated it into the fire as well. The magical flames around it immediately began to burn green and white, and gold sparks floated in the air all around its mass. Beside him, Neville placed the large, square marshmallow George handed him in the palm of his hand, whispered "golden brown" to it, and levitated it, too, into the fire.

Slowly, the sounds and smells of food woke Ron and the girls, all of whom likewise partook in the camping fare. The picnic basket kept refilling itself, often with entirely new goodies - Self-Chilling Butterbeer, Ever-Heating Cocoa, peanut butter, bread and cheese in iron salamanders, taffy apples, fruit cobblers, meat pies, lemonade...

Ron twitched more and more violently as the night progressed, but consumed his food more heartily than he had in all the time he had blissfully taken the memory syrup.

"Food tastes good," Ron said suddenly, his mouth full of grilled cheese. "I had forgotten that. I haven't really tasted it in a while."

There was quiet chewing for a minute, then Ron started twitching and coughed. Some gooey orange cheese dribbled out of his mouth and clung to his chin, where he embarrassedly clapped his hand.

Everyone stared at him.

He looked mortified. "Forget that I said that."

Ginny shook her head where she sat next to Harry. Her face still had the fresh look of a person who had just finished crying, with her eyes wet and bright, and her cheeks and nose rosy. She was curled up with her legs under her, her toes just peeking out from her navy blue plaid flannel pants. She held a half-eaten cherry tartlette in one hand, and in the other, a bottle of butterbeer.

"Ron," she said suddenly, her voice shaking slightly, conveying her anger, "why do you take that stuff?"

Ron looked taken aback. "What?"

"The Professor Ichabod's. What would possess you to take it when you don't need it anymore?"

"I do still need it!" Ron looked pouty, almost like a toddler insisting that he needed a lollipop or a stuffed dinosaur.

Ginny's eyes burned. "No, you don't. And you never needed so much of it."

"Ginny - " Ron cut himself off, shaking his head. "Just... don't ever take it, OK?"

Ginny narrowed her caramel brown eyes. Harry had never heard her speak so insolently to one of her brothers. "I wouldn't. So why do you?"

Ron was quiet, then jerked painfully and put a hand to his head, his eyes closed. When he spoke, his voice was soft, ashamed, and hoarse. "I like how it makes me feel. I can't remember the things I don't want to remember... it's very peaceful. My mind is just - blank. And if I take enough, everything glows."

Ginny's mouth was agape. "You've taken to the point you start hallucinating?" she asked furiously.

"No! No - not - hallucinating, just... seeing things the way I want to see them. I can't - I'm sorry."

Hermione too looked furious. "Ron, you're a Prefect! You can't do things like that!"

"It's not as if I did it in school!"

"Oh, yes," Fred said lightly, clearly trying to change the mood. "Ickle Ronniekins and Ginnipoo are both Prefects now."

"The shame!" George wailed. "Fred, all four of our brothers and our only sister, Prefects! We'll never be able to show our faces again."

Ginny's face burned scarlet as she finished her tart. "D'you know, I thought the same thing when I got my letter?"

* * *

The ensuing week was a flurry of activity - finishing last-minute homework, packing, buying new books. Harry had, amazingly, received eight OWLs and qualified to take all of his necessary NEWT classes.

Therefore, even the titles of his schoolbooks inspired within him a feeling of dread:

• A Studye of the Darke Arts

By: Gustavus Cromwell

• Dark Wizards of History

By: Maleficius Briton

• Countercurses, Protection Spells, and Forms of Protego

By: Paz Viva

• Magical Concealment and Disguise

By: Linda Penvellyn

• An Encyclopedia of Potions, vols. Aa - Mi

• Theory of Transfiguration

By: Paracelsus, ed. Merlin

• Practice of Transfiguration

By: Paracelsus, ed. Merlin

• A Standard Book of Spells, NEWT Grade

By: Miranda Goshawk

It was a longer book list than he had ever had, with the exception of second year and all of the Lockhart books.

Mrs. Weasley picked up everyone's books together in Diagon Alley, as all of the resident Hogwarts students had realized that they still had homework to tend to.

Harry, in a panic halfway through his tranfiguration essay on the malleability and ductivity of gems, metals, and eggshells, stuck his head into Mr. Weasley's home office.

"Mr. Weasley - do you know if we have any books on gems? I can't find Lapis Lazuli anywhere..."

Mr. Weasley appeared to be deep in thought, studying a series of maps and charts. He looked up briefly. "In the study."

"Thanks," Harry said gratefully, and tore off to the study. Upon reaching the now-cavernous third floor room, Harry discovered that he was not the only person having trouble with his homework.

"Harry!" Ginny exclaimed, toppling a little on her ladder perch in front of the shelf of books concerning foreign magical herbs.

"Whoa!" Harry rushed to help Ginny steady herself on the ladder. Once she had regained her balance, Harry smiled. "Hi, Ginny."

Ginny smiled as well and straightened her short denim skirt. "Hey... do you happen to know anything about Pakistani sea saffron?"

"No. Do you happen to know what the degree of ductivity of Lapis Lazuli is?"

Ginny blinked. "No idea."

"Do you know where the books on gems are up here?"

Ginny shook her head. "Haven't seen them."

After ten full minutes of searching - lying on the ground to look at volumes on the lowest shelves, borrowing Ginny's stepladder to look at the highest books - nothing on gems or aquatic herbs had yet been found.

"This is impossible!" Harry and Ginny cried simultaneously.

"Wait," Harry said suddenly, pulling an unlabeled, brown leather book off the shelf. "What's this?"

Ginny hopped off her stool and trotted to harry to peer over his shoulder.

Harry opened the dusty cover. "It's a photo album."

Ginny and Harry, almost as one, sank to the floor and turned the first page.

"It's Mum," Ginny breathed. "And... oh, my gosh! That must be Bill and Charlie!"

"Who is that girl? She looks like you," Harry asked, pointing to a smiling, redheaded girl just smaller than Bill who was giggling madly as she made 'bunny ears' behind Charlie's head.

"I don't know," Ginny murmured. "A cousin, maybe? This must have been taken right before Percy was born; look how pregnant Mum is!"

Harry smiled and continued flipping pages. They were full of moving pictures of the Weasley children and the mysterious redheaded girl. Around the time that Percy was a toddler, however, the girl disappeared.

"It's Ron!" Harry crowed, pointing to a picture towards the end of the album. "What's he dressed like that for?"

"Halloween," Ginny explained. "Ottery St. Catchpole is a Muggle town, so Mum always let us dress up and get in on the fun. Every year, Ron was Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle."

Harry laughed. "That comic book character?"

Ginny grinned. "His hero."

Harry flipped to the last page of the album.

A smiling little Ginny, waving frantically up at them, dressed in black wizard robes and a pointed hat.

She had a thin red lightning bolt drawn down the middle of her forehead.

Harry, stunned, met Ginny's eyes. Her face was red as a tomato.

"My hero."