Harry Potter and the Crystal Fire

Chapter 11: Warnings and Wonderings

Harry, mud-covered and mentally exhausted, followed the others into the Entrance Hall after practice. He thought that practice had gone well--no one had been sent to the Hospital Wing, and the Chasers and Beaters seemed to be coordinating things much better. Still, he couldn't remember ever being so tired after an hour-long practice. The strain of keeping his mind clear, as Alhena had taught him, and appearing normal when his every instinct was to rush into the Castle and try to contact Alhena, had him feeling as though he'd just been involved in a marathon rather than a light Quidditch practice.

He was concentrating so deeply on keeping his mind clear so that he could get through dinner and tutoring that he very nearly tripped over Dobby on his way to the marble staircase.

"Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby exclaimed excitedly, his huge green eyes managing to look both ecstatic at seeing Harry and very, very worried at the same time. "Dobby is finding Harry Potter, for giving him a message, sir." Dobby beamed up at Harry. Despite his mental preoccupation, Harry could help but grin down at Dobby. "Harry Potter must come with Dobby, sir." Dobby caught hold of Harry's hand and began dragging him down the hallway. "Very important message for Harry Potter, sir."

Ron and Ginny grinned at Harry, who was even now being pulled down the corridor. Strange as it was that Dobby would have grabbed him in the Entrance Hall and begun pulling him anywhere, Harry wasn't so surprised that he didn't notice that Dobby was heading toward the empty tutoring classroom. "We'll see you at dinner, then, Harry," Ginny said with a laugh. Harry thought fast.

"Only if I can get that Defence essay done," Harry said. Ginny's bright brown eyes narrowed on Harry. Ron's contentedly weary expression sharpened. They nodded at him, and headed up to the Common Room. Harry knew that they would be on their way down to the tutoring classroom, with Luna, Hermione, and Neville, as soon as they could.

As soon as they were inside the empty classroom, Dobby looked up at Harry again and grinned. "Dobby is hearing from Harry Potter's tutor," he said after a look around the classroom to ensure that it was empty. "Dobby is being told to bring Harry Potter here, sir. Dobby is knowing that Harry Potter needs the empty classroom."

"Did Harry Pot--Did Alhena tell you that, Dobby?" Harry asked. It wasn't that he doubted Dobby's motives, but that he had no idea how Alhena might have known that he needed to contact her, and had no idea how Alhena might have gotten hold of Dobby so quickly.

Dobby nodded so hard his head nearly smacked the professor's desk. "Harry Potter's Alhena told Dobby so, sir," he said with a smile. "And Dobby is to make sure no one but Harry Potter's friends come into the room, and to let Harry Potter know if anyone is coming." He looked so earnest and so worried that Harry put a hand on Dobby's shoulder to calm him down.

"Thanks, Dobby," Harry said with a smile. He hadn't intended to take care of this so early, but he would have been lying if he'd said it was anything but a relief to get the horrible knowledge that Alhena and Morrigan were in danger off of his chest.

"And then Harry Potter is to go with Dobby to the Headmaster's office," Dobby added, making Harry start. "Harry Potter's Alhena told Dobby that Harry Potter would need to speak with Professor Dumbledore when he was done. And Professor Dumbledore is waiting for Harry Potter when he is done, sir," Dobby added, and beamed for getting the message right.

Harry grinned and nodded, then looked over as the door to the classroom opened and Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna spilled in. Dobby greeted them excitedly, and disappeared with a loud crack, presumably to keep a lookout in the corridor. Hermione Imperturbed the door and windows, and looked at Harry expectantly.

"What's up, Harry? Is it your scar again? You looked funny in the changing room," Ron said in a rush. He was still speckled with mud from practice, and looked even more freckled than usual.

At his words, Hermione and Ginny stared at Harry. Neville and Luna sat down at desks and waited for news. They knew about Harry's scar, of course, but neither of them had the experience with it that the other three did.

Harry nodded. "It's not like last year," he said in a hurry, going through his pockets to find his Chocolate Frog card. "It doesn't hurt as much. That's the Occlumency working, I suppose. But it did hurt, a little, and I heard..." he hesitated, panicked a little when he didn't immediately find the card in the inside pocket of his robes, and forced himself to calm down. The second time he looked, he found the card, buttoned securely into the pocket, where he put it every morning. He took it out. "I heard Voldemort," he said, and Ron and Ginny paled, the mud splashes standing out dramatically against their white faces.

"Something's seriously wrong, then," Hermione said, and Harry nodded, grateful for the help. He hadn't known where to start.

"Alhena and Morrigan are in trouble. He knows about them. And he wants them dead," Harry said. The silence in the room was heavy and suddenly tense.

"You'd better get hold of them, then," Hermione said finally, her voice calm.

Because she had sounded so calm, Hermione's words jarred Harry out of his frozen reverie. He picked up the card, and tapped it with his wand. After the red glow, then the golden glow, then his password, he saw Tristan's face pop into the frame. He had to sit down on the professor's desk in his relief. If Alhena had been the one to show up, he didn't know if he could have told her. Somehow, the fact that it was Tristan, who he didn't know very well, made it easier.

"We've got a huge problem, Tristan. Voldemort knows. About Alhena and Morrigan. He wants them dead." Harry waited for some kind of reaction.

Tristan simply nodded, considering for a moment. "Did you hear him say that?" he asked.

"No. Probably I would have last year. But with the Occlumency, it's not as clear. I mean, I heard him say their names, and I...well, I knew what he was thinking. I knew that he wanted them to die. Soon." Harry stopped, at a loss.

Tristan nodded again, and thought some more. "All right. Does Professor Dumbledore know?" he asked.

"I'm supposed to go see him as soon as we're done here. Dobby's keeping watch for us in the hallway, and he's apparently supposed to take me to talk to Professor Dumbledore after this."

"Good. Then why don't you head over to his office, then try and get some dinner. I'll make sure the right people know what's going on, and Alhena will see you at the tutoring session. We'll make sure she gets there safely, and she can take it from there."

Harry wanted to protest that she shouldn't even come to the castle, not if Voldemort was after her, but then he realised that there probably wasn't a safer place she could be. He nodded, then said good-bye to Tristan and put his card away.

"You know, Harry," Luna said in her sing-song voice, "it's a good thing, your Occlumency."

Harry sighed harshly. "If I wasn't doing so well at it, I would have known exactly what Voldemort was planning," he said, frustrated.

"If you weren't doing so well at it," Luna said, looking for all the world as though she was barely paying any attention to anything at all, "Voldemort would know that you know about the fact that he's planning anything at all."

The silence this time was thunderstruck. Harry knew he wasn't the only one trying hard not to stare at Luna as though noticing her for the first time. Any questions he might have had about Luna being sorted into Ravenclaw had just disappeared entirely.

"You're right," he said, and smiled for the first time in hours.

She smiled back at him vaguely, then began humming to herself as she wandered over to the windows.

"We've got to talk about this," Hermione said, still watching Luna like a zoologist who had suddenly discovered a new species of animal she wanted to study. "But where are we going to manage that, and how?"

"Well, there's always the Room of Requirements, isn't there?" Neville asked.

They all stared at him.

Harry grinned.

*

Professor McGonagall was waiting at the base of the curving staircase leading to Dumbledore's office. She thanked Dobby, who beamed up at her and disappeared with a noisy crack. With a sigh, Professor McGonagall spoke the password--"Bertie Bott's Every-Flavoured Beans"--and the door to the staircase opened. Professor McGonagall led Harry onto the staircase and turned to face him as the stairs began to move. "It's all right, Potter," she said kindly. "You've handled this well."

She turned around, and neither of them spoke until they entered Dumbledore's office, but Harry felt his tension subside. This was all so much different than this past June, when he'd seen Sirius being tortured, that he could barely contain his sudden relief. As if she sensed this, Professor McGonagall turned to him as they were walking through the heavy wooden door leading to the Headmaster's office, and smiled again. "It will be all right, Harry. We're already acting on everything you told Tristan, and Alhena and Morrigan won't be alone until a plan is in place." Seeming suddenly to think that she had perhaps said more than she should have, Professor McGonagall closed her mouth and let Harry walk past her into the office.

Professor Dumbledore, looking uncharacteristically solemn, looked at Harry closely as Harry sat down in one of the two chairs before the big wooden desk. The silver instruments on the desktop winked and glittered, reflecting white light like a dozen miniature moons. Harry glanced at them, then looked up at Professor Dumbledore.

Dumbledore had lost his serious expression and was smiling at Harry. "This is one time I don't have to ask you if there's anything you'd like to tell me," Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling almost merrily. Harry was startled into a little laugh. Even Professor McGonagall smiled.

"I guess you already know what's going on," Harry said with a sort of shrug. "My scar started hurting when we were in the changing room, right before practice. And I heard Voldemort's voice in my head, saying Morrigan's name, and Alhena's. That was all I heard, but it was distant. And I'm not sure how I knew, but I knew he wanted them dead."

"Did your scar hurt like it did last year?" Dumbledore asked, with what sounded like no more than polite curiosity.

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "It was minor. And it didn't last long, even though I knew he was really, really angry."

"Your Occlumency lessons are coming along well then," Dumbledore concluded with an approving nod.

"Good thing, too," Harry said dismally, without realising he was speaking out loud. "Since they're ending now." From his perch beside Dumbledore's desk, Fawkes gave a soft, sympathetic squawk. Harry looked up and smiled at Fawkes.

"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure of that," Dumbledore said with a little laugh. "You see, Harry, when one knows that one has powerful enemies, it benefits one to do a bit of advance planning. There are no plans to cancel any tutoring or any lessons for the foreseeable future." He smiled at Harry's astonishment, then went on. "Well, it may seem a surprise to you, Harry--you and your friends. However, we have the dubious benefit of having lived through the previous War. We know the risks we are running, and we know that even the best-laid plans may be forced to change."

"Will Alhena be staying inside the Castle, then?" Harry asked, brightening.

"We had considered it," Dumbledore said with a nod. "However, she feels, and I happen to agree, that if Voldemort is truly after her, it is far too risky for her to remain here at Hogwarts. She would be a target, Harry, and while that doesn't seem to bother her for her own sake, it bothers her greatly that she would be endangering you, your friends, and all the students here. So she'll be leaving, but someone equally well-qualified will be replacing her."

Harry sighed. "And Morrigan?" he asked. Fawkes made another soft noise. Harry didn't notice.

Dumbledore's eyes gleamed again, with something Harry thought might be amusement. On second thought, he decided he must have been wrong; it simply wasn't an amusing situation at all.

"Morrigan will be leaving as well. Neither of them will be near the school, because they share the same ideas about endangering any of you. But it won't be difficult to get in touch with them--you'll have the same means of communicating with them that you have now."

Harry nodded. It was good to know that even though things were going to change, they wouldn't change as much as he had feared. He drummed his fingers on his thighs nervously; he had no idea what to say next.

"Well, I don't want to keep you from having any dinner," Dumbledore said, smiling. "I just thought, in view of last year, that we should all know what we're doing. I know it isn't easy for any of you, getting the smallest amount of information of all of us." It was, Harry thought, the first time anyone had referred to himself and his friends as part of the group fighting Voldemort. Coming now, Dumbledore's use of the word 'us' was strangely comforting. Dumbledore stood up, and Harry and Professor McGonagall did the same. They walked with him to the door, then turned back as the stairs began moving downward.

Harry heard their voices, low and businesslike, as he was taken down the stairs, and felt reassured. He and his friends weren't alone in dealing with this.

*

A quick dinner, a shower, and a tutoring session later, Harry and the others sat at their desks in the tutoring classroom. Alhena sat cross-legged on the professor's desk, and watched them solemnly. She had already Imperturbed the doors and windows against eavesdroppers. They all seemed to be waiting for someone to speak. It wasn't long before Hermione started things off.

"You have to leave, then?" she asked, impatiently brushing her long brown hair out of her face.

"I do," Alhena said with a nod. "Though thanks to you lot it's going to be far easier and far safer than it might have been otherwise."

They all grinned at her, and Ron spoke up. "So where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, really," she replied with a shrug. Something about that shrug struck a chord in Harry's mind. He'd seen it before. He'd seen someone shrug just like that before. "I suppose that we'll figure out something tonight," Alhena continued. "But in any event, you'll still be able to reach me in the usual way. No snowy white owls, no matter how beautiful," she added. Harry grinned, but his mind was still stuck on that shrug.

"Someone will be keeping up the tutoring, then?" Ginny asked. It was clear from her glum expression that she didn't care much either way but felt she needed to keep the conversation going.

Alhena nodded. "Starting Monday, I believe. I think that was the next scheduled session, right?" They nodded.

"So if we need to get hold of someone," Neville began.

"You should think locally," Alhena said with a smile. "Unless it's an emergency, you should try for Tris, or Fred and George, first. At least for the moment. We'll let you know when it's safe to do anything else."

"You know," Ginny said conversationally, her brown eyes flaring, "let's just cut to the chase here. How could anyone have found out about you or Morrigan, what with all the Secrecy Charms and Fidelius Charms and whatnot floating around here?"

Alhena's eyes sparked with the first real amusement she had shown since the classroom door had closed on the other students. "Right. Well, we're working on that, aren't we?" she asked wryly.

"Since we're cutting to the chase, hasn't this masquerade gone on long enough?" Hermione said. Her tone was vaguely challenging. Harry had barely processed what Hermione had said when Alhena began to laugh.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's not funny, I know that. But I really must be slipping. Almost everyone figured it out."

Neville shrugged. "You showed up the same day Morrigan left, didn't you?" he asked.

"And you know all the same things she did," Hermione added.

"And you went to her same school, and you know all the same people," Ginny put in.

Ron looked astounded. "You're Morrigan?" he asked.

Harry, shocked, stared at her. "You're Morrigan?" he repeated, and then it clicked. "You're Morrigan," he said. "The Occlumency lessons. It felt the same as when Morrigan was teaching me."

She nodded. "I know it was a crappy thing to do," Alhena-Morrigan said with a sigh. "But we wanted to help, Professor Dumbledore needed us, and we didn't want to leave you alone here."

Harry looked at her, warring impulses stilling his tongue for a moment. He was angry; he couldn't help being angry at being deceived once again. Still, he was relieved that Morrigan had gotten the message, and absurdly touched that she had cared enough about him to go through this elaborate charade. He gave her a lopsided grin that grew as relief won out over anger. When it came down to life and death, his sense of being deceived in such a minor way wasn't particularly important.

"Well, it'll make getting the message to Morrigan a lot easier, won't it?" he asked, and she smiled. In a moment, she had changed from brown-haired, brown-eyed, mousy little Alhena Farrell to tall, copper-haired, green-eyed Morrigan Carrick.

"Oh, that's nice," Ron said, after an admiring whistle. Neville and Ginny grinned. Luna laughed.

"It was your name," Luna told Morrigan dreamily, and got an interested grin in return. "Alhena. One of the stars of the Gemini. The Twins," Luna sing-songed, then laughed again. Morrigan joined her.

"And you were way too interested in Quidditch to be a mousy little tutor," Ron said with a snort of laughter that had Morrigan grinning.

A soft chiming noise interrupted their laughter, and had Morrigan looking down at her pendant. "That's Tris. I've got to go," Morrigan said softly, her smile disappearing. "We've got a lot to work out tonight. But before I go," she said, and they looked at her expectantly. "I'm not sure if you're all aware of it, but there's a Slytherin Potions tutoring session as well. The next tutor isn't going to have time to have two different sessions. So it would be good if you'd make sure they didn't feel unwelcome," she said.

At everyone's expressions, she sighed. "I know it won't be easy for you, given how you all feel about Slytherins. But do you realise that you're all in this together? It's not just tutoring sessions and Quidditch matches, you know. It's larger than anything that happens at this school. If you don't understand the importance of allies in strange places, perhaps it's time you started considering it."

"Right. I'll just walk right over to them and invite them in," Harry said sarcastically. "That would work."

"That would be the worst possible thing, Harry. I think they'd need to work up to you," Morrigan said with a grin. "Ron's just about as likely, now he's stopped being their King and all," she added, making Ron snort with laughter yet again.

"Well, Hermione's too smart for them, and Ginny's too good a Seeker and Chaser."

"And they don't like me at all," Luna said mistily, as though it couldn't have been less important to her. None of them had any doubt on that score.

"So how would it ever work?" Hermione asked.

"Well, I think it's high time Mr. Longbottom stepped up to bat," Morrigan said, and they all turned to stare at Neville.

He turned bright red. "Me? I'm nobody," he protested, staring at Morrigan, half-panicked.

"Neville," Morrigan said with a sigh, "it's high time you began to give yourself some kind of credit for what you've done." He looked uncertain, and Morrigan laughed softly. "Did anyone take your O.W.L.s for you?" she asked.

"No, that was me," Neville replied.

"Did anyone stand in for you at the Ministry, or was that you back in June?"

"It was me," Neville responded.

"Really?" she asked as though she didn't believe it.

"Yes," Neville said, a little more emphatically than he had before.

"Then start believing it, Neville. And start believing in yourself." She raised an eyebrow at him, and he turned beet-red.

Harry heard Neville mumble, "But starting with the Slytherins," under his breath, and had to bite his lip against a grin.

"Of course, you'll all be backing Neville up. No one is unwelcome at any of the sessions, right?" Morrigan asked, and each of them nodded. "Good. That's a start."

They still looked uncertain. "Well, it's hard to figure out where to begin with the Slytherins," Ginny said reflectively.

"Well, it all depends on your point of view," Morrigan replied. "You had Care of Magical Creatures with them last year, didn't you?" she asked.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville nodded.

"Who saw the Thestrals?" she asked, and Neville's eyes took on a thoughtful sparkle.

"Right, well, that should be a start," she said again. "I've got to run, or I'll mess up all these neatly laid plans."

They all stood up, and she gave each one of them a hug--first Luna, then Neville, and Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. When she got to Harry, she hesitated for a moment, and Harry realised that she was afraid he would turn away. He smiled and took a step toward her.

It was one of the best hugs of his entire life. Harry thought hard at her, and he thought he heard her respond inside his head. When it was over, Harry watched in surprise as she gave them all a wink and disappeared from the room.

"Hey, Hermione," Ron said after a moment of shocked silence, "I thought you couldn't Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts."

*

Morrigan appeared inside Tristan's living room and found Tristan sitting in the corner, talking with Fred and George, who were sitting on the sofa. Remus Lupin, sitting in an armchair beside the fire, turned around and smiled at her when she appeared just inside the doorway.

"Remus, I thought you'd be working," Morrigan said with a smile, and Remus laughed.

"My boss gave me the night off," Lupin said with a grin. Fred and George shared a look, and decided that Remus' boss was probably the same as their own silent partner in Hogsmeade. A barely perceptible lift of Tristan's eyebrow when they looked at him confirmed it. The Carricks, it seemed, had their fingers in any number of pies at any given time.

"So things are set at the Castle?" Tristan asked, and Morrigan nodded. She walked over to the hearth and took a cigarette out of Tristan's pack, then lit it by pointing a finger at it, gunslinger style. Lupin laughed again.

"Right. Enough of the funny stuff," Remus said after a moment. He cast a Silencing Charm and the serious discussion began. "First of all, Albus wants us to meet him at Grimmauld Place this evening, at half-past ten. So we have a bit of time to do some talking.

"Grimmauld Place?" Morrigan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Right. Mum and Dad and the rest of them are all out tonight. So it'll be just us," Fred said. "Dumbledore didn't want anyone to overhear."

George snorted. "He didn't want anyone to cause a fuss, is more like it," he countered. Morrigan hated to admit it, but George was probably more correct.

Tristan, leaning against the wall in the corner, sighed. "Any word on where you're going?" he asked.

"I doubt it'll be public knowledge, at any rate," Morrigan said with a shrug. "I'm sure that Dumbledore has a plan. I'm also sure that I'll be the only one hearing about it, and only right before I leave."

Lupin nodded. "That sounds right," he said after a moment's silent consideration. He looked at her closely. "So. How do you think they found out? And how much do you think they found out?"

Morrigan sighed and tapped ash into the purple spider that served as Tristan's ashtray, wondering momentarily at Tris' sense of humor. Then she looked at Lupin squarely and said simply, "I've no idea." She thought for a moment, and added, "at least, I don't know yet." Lupin remained silent, seeming to sense that she was merely choosing her words before going on.

"There's one thing we know for certain," Tristan said, and his black eyes gleamed dangerously for a moment, then he grinned almost reluctantly. "No one could have told. We tried a little experiment, Nicholas and I both, with Lee. We started talking, but other words came out."

Morrigan couldn't contain her snort of laughter. "Lee probably thinks you're both mad," she said.

Lupin looked questioningly at them both.

Tristan grinned. "Right. Well, you've got to picture it, really," he said, picking up a decidedly disreputable-looking picture frame off of a shelf. His long fingers turned it around and he examined it as though seeing it for the first time before setting it back down and looking up at Lupin. "We go into the shop and pull Lee aside--separately, mind you, so it happens twice in about twenty minutes--and start talking to him, all seriously. And what comes out of our mouths is 'The Jabberwocky's Tale'."

Fred and George howled with laughter. Lupin grinned. Morrigan did her best to keep a straight face, but couldn't quite manage it.

"So there's no telling anyone flat-out, not even someone in the Order," Lupin concluded, and Morrigan and Tristan nodded.

"And anyone who overhears anything we talk about forgets it within minutes," Morrigan said. "We've tested that as well. The Silencing Charms and Imperturbable Charms are strictly window-dressing. The Secrecy Charm works to take care of eavesdroppers."

They all thought for a moment, then George spoke up. "Well, if no one could tell, and no one could overhear, then someone's doing some mind-reading, aren't they?" he asked, but it was clear that he wasn't entirely joking.

Morrigan considered that, and nodded slowly. "That might be it, George. Not mind-reading, exactly, of course. There's no such thing. But if one of us is around someone who can pick up emotions and images..." She broke off, considering. "I'm tempted to think that it's Whiting..."

"Not likely," Lupin countered. "He wouldn't have gone to Voldemort. He would have killed you himself, as soon as he got an idea that you were still working for the Order."

"But he's a Legilimens," Morrigan pointed out.

"And you can pick up his thoughts as easily as he can pick up what he thinks are your thoughts," Lupin argued. "Honestly, Morrigan. He doesn't know that you get more information from him than he's ever dreamed he could get from you. He doesn't know that you can even read him at all, so he doesn't hide his emotions from you. You'd have known long ago if he had discovered anything about the junior Order."

She sighed. "You're right. I'd almost have preferred it that way, though. Easier to trace."

"Well, nothing's easy today, then," Fred said with finality. "So, we've got to figure out where the leak is. It's easier, thinking it's not someone blabbing on purpose, anyway."

Morrigan nodded. "Easier to accept, anyway. A bit trickier to figure out how the information is getting out."

"Charlie was the only one who didn't know you were Alhena," George said reluctantly.

"That makes the timing awfully coincidental, don't you think?" Morrigan asked. "At the moment, we can't really rule much out. But we'll have a stronger idea tomorrow."

Tristan looked at her. "The plan's on, then?"

Morrigan shrugged. "We're no good to Harry or anyone else unless we find the leak and plug it," she said simply.

"What's the plan?" Fred asked, leaning forward.

Lupin said, with dawning realization, "You're going to plant a few seeds and see where they sprout."

Tristan nodded. "We'll spread a little disinformation, and see what pans out. We'll go one by one, and see what pops up."

"And once we find out what's been going on, I'll tighten the Charm to make sure it doesn't happen again," Morrigan said, with a disgusted sigh. "This never occurred to me. I should have thought about it."

"We all should have," Lupin said, and the others nodded. "This is a team effort, isn't it?"

"Looks like it's about time to head out to Grimmauld Place," Tristan said, after a quick look at his watch. A loud pop announced someone Apparating into the entry. They all looked toward the doorway, and a moment later, Bill showed up, looking extremely harried.

"Morrigan. Do you have a moment?" he asked, and she nodded.

"I'll meet up with you later," she told the others, and they nodded, then Disapparated.

*

Bill sat down on the sofa in Tristan's living room, and Morrigan sat beside him.

"I suppose you've heard," he told her, and she nodded. "Do you have any idea who...?"

She shook her head. She suddenly looked absolutely devastated. Defeated. Before he even thought, he had pulled her into his arms, and simply held her while she cried. She didn't cry loudly, or messily, but with silent, steady sobs that were somehow worse than wails would have been. He stroked her hair, sighing. It seemed like every time that things began going well, they fell apart again.

Later, he couldn't have said what had possessed him to kiss her. Later, he was too distracted to care. All he knew was that one second he was holding her while she cried, and the next he was kissing her as though he would die if he ever stopped. She was light in his arms, and suddenly kissing him back as though her life depended on it. The feel of her against him was driving him mad. Even that short taste of her was enough for him to know that he was ruined for other women.

She finally dragged her lips away from his and rested her head on his shoulder. Her laugh was shaky, but certain. He smiled and rested his chin on top of her head for a moment. He could feel her relaxing against him, and he gave her a little squeeze before loosened his arms around her.

He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to remember what he'd come to discuss with her. It had completely fled his mind. He could barely remember his name, let alone whatever it was he had thought important enough to leave Charlie's place and hurry here as though he was being pursued. Slowly, it came back to him, and as it did, he laughed softly.

She looked at him questioningly. He grinned at her, and pulled her close again so that she was curled up against his chest.

"I forgot all about the reason I came over to talk to you. How did they find out, where are you going, and what can I do?"

She smiled up at him. "We don't know how they find out, but we have a good idea."

"You don't think someone told them?" he asked, horrified.

"Not intentionally," she said softly. "The Charm would prevent that, in any case. It was tested, just after we found out. It still holds. The best theory we could come up with on the information we have is that someone's been--well, I suppose the best way to describe it is that someone's skimming information off the top of one of our minds."

It was an uncomfortable subject at best. Still, Morrigan was completely unprepared for his reaction. He was up off the sofa in less time that it took her to realise it, staring down at her furiously.

"Are you mad?" he asked, his blue eyes going hard and strange. This, she had time to think, was not the same man she'd just been kissing on the sofa. There was no gentleness in the Wizard standing before her. "If you don't trust us, you could just call the whole thing off."

"I trust all of you with my life," she protested, truthfully. "I already have." And she would again, in an instant.

"You think you're so smart," he sneered, his eyes flaring bright with some emotion between contempt and hatred. "In charge of it all, always have the solutions. But you don't trust us worth a damn. You sit there and all but accuse us of spilling everyone's secrets, when it was probably you. You and your Death Eater friends." He looked at her, completely furious, and his eyes raked across her so hard that for a moment she imagined welts rising.

Cursing under his breath at her, he Disapparated.

She sat there on the sofa, shocked and utterly unable to process what had just happened. His reaction had been horrible, but she could have dealt with it, from almost anyone else. The fact that it had been Bill somehow destroyed whatever small bit of composure she'd had left. The contempt on his face...

She shivered. She couldn't seem to get warm. She'd never felt so terribly cold in her life. So terribly alone.

When the tears started, she was powerless to stop them. She simply sat on the sofa in Tristan's darkened living room, rocking back and forth as she cried.

She lost all track of time. She lost track of everything. If Tristan hadn't come back to find out what was keeping her, she thought that she might have sat there all night. When Tristan's arm slid around her shoulders and pulled her close, she lost control entirely, and very nearly got hysterical. She heard him, as though through a long, dark tunnel, speaking a spell, and felt herself calming.

Eventually, completely embarrassed, she looked up at him. "Bill. I think it was Bill," she managed, and even Tristan's Calming Charm barely kept her from breaking down again. "I think someone's reading him. Reading him, and working a Memory Charm. He...he asked about what we all thought, and when I told him, he got furious." She took a deep breath, still shaking, and closed her eyes. She didn't want to remember the expression on Bill's face when he'd looked at her, but she couldn't seem to get it out of her head.

"What did he say, Mor?" Tristan asked gently. He hated to ask her. She'd been through enough today without this, but it had to be done. If they didn't discuss it now, he wasn't sure when they would manage it safely. But he regretted the necessity deeply. He knew damned well how panicked she'd been when the news had come that she was being hunted.

She hadn't shown it. He had known her too long to believe that she would ever show fear. Her father had taught her too well, too early, that showing fear was the same as handing someone a weapon to use against you. Still, Tristan knew her far too well not to recognise the signs--the constant moving around, the fingers drumming on countertops or tables or her thighs, the way she'd kept twisting her hair around her fingers.

"He said that I thought I was so smart, that I was in charge of things, that I had all the solutions," she said. Tristan winced; her voice was toneless and devoid of emotion. If he'd had any doubts about how much Bill Weasley's opinion meant to her, they disappeared as soon as Tristan heard her speak. "And he said I didn't trust anyone, that I was all but accusing everyone of spilling all sorts of secrets when it was probably me and my Death Eater friends." She took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

She looked up at Tristan, and even in the half-light he could see that her eyes were dry, a flat, dead green. His heart broke for her. He hugged her again, and wished he could pound Bill Weasley into the ground. Even knowing it wouldn't have done any good, even knowing it hadn't been Bill's fault, Tristan would have loved to go a few rounds with Bill. Even if it wouldn't help matters, it would make Tristan feel one hell of a lot better.

He was still wishing for the opportunity when he and Morrigan Apparated to Grimmauld Place.

*

Harry stopped by the Portrait Hole and pulled out the Maurauder's Map. The seventh-floor corridors were empty of Filch, Mrs. Norris, and faculty members. That was good enough for him, he decided, and gave the back of the Fat Lady's portrait a push. It swung open, revealing the corridor, dimly lit by torchlight. He hurried out the door, followed by Ron and Neville. Ginny and Hermione, both small enough to fit under the Invisibility Cloak together, followed after them. In no time at all, they were walking past the spot in the corridor that marked the as-yet invisible door to the Room of Requirement.

On their third pass, the door appeared in the wall, as it always had, and Harry grabbed the handle and opened it. Luna was already sitting inside, on a cushion on the gleaming wooden floor. A dim blue fire burned in a jar in front of her.

"I used your spell," she told Hermione dreamily, "and it worked perfectly."

Hermione looked flattered, and smiled as Harry shut the door behind them. Hermione Imperturbed the door and cast a Silencing Charm. They all sat around the dim blue fire, and looked at each other, waiting for someone to start.

"How could they have found out?" Ginny finally burst out. "And do they know that Alhena and Morrigan are the same person?"

"I don't think so," Harry said after a moments' hard thought. "It felt like he was thinking about two different people." He thought a moment longer, and nodded. "But how they found out, I don't know."

"Well, do we really think that this Secrecy Charm can do what it's supposed to do?" Neville asked. "I mean, is it good enough to keep anyone from telling what they know?"

"I think it is," Hermione said, and they all looked at her, surprised. It wasn't exactly common for Hermione to believe in anything she couldn't find in a book. And she'd searched through quite a few books to find a Secrecy Charm, but hadn't found a single mention of it. "Well, I know I couldn't find it in any of the books I looked in," she said, a touch defensively. "But Professor Dumbledore believes it's good enough."

Ginny nodded. "And if it's the same kind of Charm that kept anyone from finding out about your family, Harry, it must be awfully powerful."

Harry considered that, and nodded. "So if the Charm works, how did anyone find out?"

"Legilimency, or something like it," Luna said dreamily. She'd obviously given the matter quite a bit of thought. "It's really the only way anyone could find out, if the Charm really works."

Ron considered that, and shrugged. "Well, here's hoping they'll fix that up, right?"

"Who could it be, though?" Ginny asked reflectively.

"I don't know that there's any way to tell, from our side of the fence," Harry said after a moment's thought. "I mean, we don't even know how many people any of them see in any given day, much less who those people are."

"You're right," Hermione said decisively. "You're absolutely right, Harry, and we shouldn't even be worrying about that. What we need to worry about is whether the leak came from inside the Castle. From one of us."

They all stared at her, appalled. Even Luna came out of her dreamy reflections to gape at Hermione, in a most un-Luna-like fashion.

"Well," Ron asked, recovering a bit, "how do we figure that out? I mean, how do we know who's giving information to people outside the school?"

"Who said they have to be outside the school?" Neville said with dark humor. "I mean, it could be anyone, couldn't it?"

"That's exactly right, Neville," Hermione agreed.

"Then how are we supposed to find out?" Ron asked, frowning.

"Well, I thought that Harry could help us out with that," Hermione said. "He could tell us what it's like to have someone looking inside your head, couldn't he?"

They all looked at Harry expectantly.

With a sigh, he began to tell them.

*

The kitchen at Grimmauld Place hadn't changed at all in the month or so since Morrigan had been there. She took a seat at the table between Fred and George, and across from Tristan and Lupin. Malcolm arrived next, and sat beside Tristan. After five minutes, Morrigan stood up and headed over the window for a cigarette. Fred, George, and Malcolm joined her. Fred lit her cigarette, frowning; her fingers were trembling finely, and she couldn't seem to hold them steady.

When Morrigan turned to look out the window, the twins looked at Malcolm, who shrugged. The three of them looked at Tristan, whose face suggested that he knew the reason behind her nerves. They were still working out the equation that began with Bill's appearance at Tristan's house and ended in Morrigan shaking like a leaf when they heard the front door locks turning upstairs. Everyone turned to face the kitchen door. Albus Dumbledore walked into the kitchen, beaming at them all. They all smiled back, unable to resist.

"Well, I must say, it's certainly good to see you all here despite the circumstances," Dumbledore said with a smile, and took a seat at the table. "I take it Harry is now aware of the...er, masquerade?" Dumbledore asked Morrigan.

Morrigan grinned, but it took an obvious effort. "He is. I don't think he was particularly happy about it, not entirely anyway, but he's all right with it now."

Dumbledore's nod gave Morrigan the impression that he'd already known. He gave her a tiny, encouraging wink, his blue eyes sparkling with sympathy, then turned to the others. She used the time to get hold of herself.

"I suppose we're at a stage where there are more questions than answers," Dumbledore said with a heavy sigh.

"You're right," Morrigan agreed, "but we're already working on getting the answers we need. Tristan's already started things in motion," Morrigan said. It was as much as she could say, given the Secrecy Charm. Even without the Charm, the memory of Bill's sneer would have kept her from saying too much more. Nevertheless, what she had said was enough to satisfy Albus Dumbledore, and that was good enough for everyone else.

"We'll keep each other informed," Dumbledore said, and Morrigan nodded agreement.

"Well, I'm assuming we won't be told where Mor is going," Malcolm said, raising his eyebrows at Dumbledore, who smiled gently and nodded.

"Certainly not until our little security problem is fixed," Dumbledore replied. "It's too much of a risk. There are too many people looking for her. I've received information to the effect that Death Eaters are out in force as we speak. It's simply not safe for anyone but Morrigan to know where she is going to be for the moment."

Malcolm, Fred, George, and Lupin paled at the knowledge that the hunt for Morrigan was already on. Tristan and Morrigan, who had already known this, had no reaction--none except for the dangerous gleam that returned to Tristan's eyes.

"We'll still be able to contact you the same way, right?" George asked, smiling gamely at Morrigan.

She smiled back. "Right. Just you five, Harry and the others, and Professor Dumbledore, though."

"Well, that's something," George muttered, and Morrigan felt the corners of her mouth quirk up the tiniest bit. "Do--"

"Enough of the small talk," Fred broke in. "What the hell happened at Tristan's house after we left?"

She smiled weakly. She didn't know how to begin. Dumbledore saved her from having to try.

"The hour's getting late, Morrigan," he said kindly. "You'd better be going. You'll find that Malcolm left your things upstairs. You'll find instructions with them," he said. Nodding, she stubbed out her cigarette, half-smoked, and everyone who wasn't yet standing did so.

"Be careful, will you?" Tristan asked, and hugged her tight. He whispered something in her ear that had her nodding vehemently, then let her go.

"Let us know you've gotten where you're going safely," Lupin said. He smiled his warm, calm smile at her, but his eyes were worried. She smiled back, and hugged him. He hugged back hesitantly at first, as though it had been so long that he had forgotten how, then almost fiercely. As though he were losing his best friend. When he let her go, both their eyes were overbright.

Dumbledore, next in line, gave her a hearty hug and pinched her cheek. She gave a shaky little laugh, and hugged him again before moving on to the twins.

"Have a safe trip, Mor," Fred said miserably.

"Yeah. Have a safe trip," George echoed dismally.

"Come on, you guys, it's not like I'm going to disappear forever," she said with a laugh, stronger this time, and they did their best to grin at her, then hugged her, one from each side, hard enough to make her ribs creak. She ruffled their hair and they turned pink, half-embarrassed and half-pleased. "I'll be in touch," she said quickly, and left the kitchen with Malcolm before she lost her composure entirely.

*

They went up the staircase silently, and their silence was comfortable. Neither of them needed words to know what the other was feeling. They were worried, and they were sad, and they were relieved that there had been enough warning to prevent a disaster. They were confident that they would find a way through this, and they were determined that they would do their part to help protect Harry and win the fight, whatever the cost.

"It was Bill?" Malcolm asked softly at the top of the staircase.

"It was Bill," Morrigan said, just as softly, as they made their way to the parlour. "And I think they might have used some kind of Memory Charm on him. He went berserk."

"So I gathered," Malcolm said drily, and Morrigan felt the corners of her mouth quirking up again.

"Tristan knows. He can tell you in more detail," she added. "But do me a favor, Mal?"

"Sure, whatever," he said, picking up the backpack he'd brought from her flat. He'd charmed it to hold far more than it should have been able to, and to lighten it enough for her to carry it easily.

"Make sure they know I didn't think that they were--"

"They know, Mor," Malcolm said gently. "So does he," he added in a near-whisper.

She smiled up at him as she took the backpack. Her eyes were overbright again, and she was about to lose the battle with tears. He hugged her tight, because he had no words. She hugged him back, just as tight, because she couldn't have spoken even if she could have found any words.

She was just about to leave when Malcolm put a hand on her shoulder.

She looked back in the gloomy half-light of the parlour, and the dull glow of the streetlamp outside coloured her hair with flame. Her eyes questioned him, because she didn't trust her voice.

"How well do you know Remus Lupin?" he asked, managing to grin.

His reward was her laughter, soft but genuine, which floated on the still air even after she had gone.