Monster

Around the Table

As Harry tip-toed with Hermione down the stairs, watched by scores of red-headed Weasleys in dozens of pictures, he found himself thinking of another redhead--one with much darker hair than Ginny's family. One with almond-shaped green eyes. "Hermione," he whispered, watching a picture of Ginny at perhaps ten--her hair in pigtails and her nose splattered with mud--waving at him shyly. "Do I owe my mother a Life Debt, do you think?"

Hermione stopped on the stair above him, considering. "I suppose you do, Harry. I imagine it would be rather difficult for you to know, since you've been obligated since you were barely one, and since, like Professor Snape, you owe it to her heir."

Shaking his head, Harry touched a finger to the snapshot's frame. "I'm not sure how to live up to that one and do everything that needs to be done." His stomach made a noise, and the Ginny in the picture blushed and hid her face. This was the girl that he had first met. In the picture, Ron--also covered in mud--had appeared and seemed to be trying to tickle her.

Hermione's hand gripped his elbow. "We'll make sure you're safe, Harry. That's our job." His stomach growled again. "Now let's get you downstairs before your digestive tract wakes the entire household."

In relative quiet, they made their way toward Molly Weasley's domain: the kitchen. The plan was to cook breakfast and get her in a good enough mood that Harry could tell her about his plans after Bill and Fleur's wedding, as well as breaking the news that Hermione, Ron and Ginny would be following him. They would need to put Molly Weasley in a very good mood.

At the foot of the stairs, however, they stopped, struck by the smell of frying bacon and the scent of vanilla.

"Blast," Hermione whispered. "Oh, well. It was a good plan."

"We can still offer to lend a hand," said Harry. "Not that she'll let us."

When they entered the kitchen, however, it was not Molly Weasley they found hard at work there. Rather, it was the two people Harry would have least expected to find making breakfast in the Burrow that morning--among his friends, in any case.

Luna Lovegood was at a mixing bowl, vaguely prodding at some sort of batter with a wooden spoon. At the stove, Neville Longbottom was conducting simultaneous operations in three frying pans and a pot of chocolate with the authority and intensity of a master conductor. A teapot was nestled in a dragon-shaped cozy at his elbow.

"Good morning, Hermione. Good morning, Harry," Luna said. "Is sex as nice as everyone says it is?"

Hermione gave a sort of strangled cough in the middle of returning the greeting and Neville dropped an egg on the floor. "Luna?" Harry managed to splutter.

"Well, is it?" she asked, looking frankly curious. "Even over the scone mix I can tell that you two have the same sort of smell that Samantha Fawcett is always wafting into our dormitory with. And you both have that smile like you've just been stung by Boravian Joy Bees. It wasn't with each other, was it?"

"NO, Luna, it wasn't," Hermione exclaimed in a tone of pure mortification.

"Oh, good," Luna sighed, dumping the batter out onto a baking sheet. "How nice for Ginny and Ronald."

Harry glanced at Neville, who was bright purple. "I can't smell anything but bacon, Harry," said the other boy, cleaning away the egg mess with a flick of his wand.

"I didn't really think it was you, Hermione," Luna continued, using what looked like garden shears to slice the mound before her into wedges. "Those are Ginny's hands on Harry's chest."

Self-consciously, Harry buttoned up his shirt--missing a hole or two--and walked over to the stove. "Need a hand, Neville?"

"Sure. You take over the sausages and the potatoes, I'll finish the bacon and start the eggs. You know how to cook?"

"Not magically," Harry admitted, "but I cooked breakfast for the Dursleys every morning from the age of eight on. Where did you learn to cook?"

Neville shrugged. "My gran doesn't believe in house-elf enslavement."

"Good on her!" Hermione called from the table. She was helping Luna finish what were now clearly going to be scones. Her face was still blotchy, and she wasn't looking at her partner.

"Yeah," Neville smiled. "She thinks a lot of S.P.E.W., by the way. Anyway, she was worried I'd turn out a Squib, I think, so she put me to work in the garden and the kitchen when I was still at home. The Fosters--that's the couple that work for her--taught me more than anybody except Professor Sprout. And you, of course, Harry."

"Uh, thanks, Neville." Harry experimented with using a Levitation Charm to flip the sausages. It worked quite nicely. Non-verbal spells and Occlumency...

"So," Neville whispered, peeking over at Harry even as he scrambled a bowl full of eggs with what looked to be some sort of Slicing Spell, "you and Ginny. Was it nice?"

A combination of shame, joy and world-conquering pride roiled inside Harry. "Yeah, Neville. It really was. Kind of scary, though, you know?" It was funny: Seamus and Dean had always been full of tales of exploits, real and (mostly) imagined--they had only bothered to whisper during the period that Dean had been dating Ginny, and Harry had found the whispers worse than the bragging. Ron had regaled them all with stories of Lavender's talents, which all of them could have done without. But Harry and Neville had never talked about girls---never.

"Yeah," Neville said, eyes wide. "I mean, not really, but I think I would be terrified."

Nodding, Harry added, "Yeah, but also that I really care for her." Stopping himself, he looked up. "Neville, it's all right with you that I'm together with Ginny, right?"

His friend whitened briefly, but finely said, "Of course, Harry. You two are meant for each other. Anyone can see that." In a rush, he added, "And I never fancied Ginny."

"Really? Not even fourth year?"

Neville gazed at him for a second, mouth open. "What? Oh! You mean the Yule Ball? No, no." He poured the eggs into the skillet. "She and Hermione were just the nicest girls I knew. I had to ask someone, so I asked them."

Harry felt as if there must have been some question that he was supposed to ask just then, but he couldn't think what it was, so he went back to shepherding the potatoes around the skillet.

A whoosh of heat alerted Harry to the fact that Hermione had opened the oven door and placed the scones in to bake. "So, Neville, what are you and Luna doing here at six o'clock on a Thursday morning?" she asked, her embarrassment apparently forgotten.

Neville's discomposure wasn't, however. "Um, Luna..."

"It was Neville's idea, actually," Luna said from the table, where she had removed her necklace of butterbeer corks. "I firecalled him after the party--after you and Ginny disappeared, Harry--and I told him I thought that the three of you, or possibly the four of you, were going to be heading off to do something dangerous."

"I said we should go too," Neville said simply. He still looked disconcerted, but his voice was steady.

Luna was walking to the icebox. "So we are volunteering for duty."

His stomach falling, Harry stared down into the sausages. He had meant to do this alone. Suddenly he was going to be accompanied not only by Ron and Hermione, but by Ginny, whose loss would destroy him, and by two friends whom he liked and trusted, but whose deaths would weigh on his conscience forever. "Luna, Neville... This isn't like the Order of the Phoenix. We're not going to be going after the Death Eaters and fighting them. I... There's something that Dumbledore showed me that I've got to do before I... That prophecy, Neville, the one that broke, it's about me after all--well, maybe you and me--and Dumbledore was the one who witnessed it. He showed it to me. No one but me can defeat Voldemort. And there are things I've got to do before I can make that happen." He looked to Hermione, but she merely nodded. "These two idiots, I can't seem to get rid of them. And Ginny... I tried, but she won't go away either. But you two, Neville, Luna, you don't have to do this. It's crazy, it's dangerous, and we might all die in the dark somewhere, wiped out by some anonymous curse or some creature, and no one will even know. You don't have to do this. I won't let you."

Neville looked at him, turning down the heat on the stove so the eggs wouldn't burn. "So you are the Chosen One."

"YES!" Harry exploded. "Fine, yes, I'm the bloody Chosen One. I'm the one who's destined to destroy Voldemort or die trying. NOT you two, do you understand? I will not let you come along."

With a clunk, Luna dropped four bottles on the table. "Last night, you said I was your friend."

Again he looked to Hermione for assistance. Again she simply indicated that he should go on. "You are, Luna. Both of you. Two of the best friends I've ever had. That's why I can't let you risk your lives--"

"They're our lives, Harry," Neville said.

"Harry, we will do anything that will help destroy Voldemort, " Luna said. "Although I may need to put my Snorkack research on hold."

"Luna... You're not of age. Your father would never let you go."

"Oh, we had quite a row about it last night. Almost fifteen minutes. My father and I never row. He agreed that I could go with you as what he called 'an embedded journalist.'" Luna blushed slightly, which was quite disconcerting--Luna never blushed. "I was rather surprised at first. I thought he meant I should go to bed with you, which even then I suspected that Ginny would object to. But he just wants me to write reports for the Quibbler. The Voldemort stories sell quite well, you see. Would you like a butterbeer, Harry?" She had already opened one for herself. Lifting it to her lips, she took a long swig.

Harry nodded, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to--knowing he was agreeing to all of it. Luna brought the three other bottles over to the counter and opened them for Harry, Hermione and finally Neville.

Breaking their fast on butterbeer and bacon, the four teens talked at the counter while the potatoes and eggs cooked and the scones baked. Harry told Luna and Neville about the prophecy, about what Dumbledore had taught him about Tom Riddle, and finally--with some assistance from Hermione--about the Horcruxes.

Their reaction was not at all what Harry would have expected. Neville was quite sure that the One referred to in the prophecy was Harry, not him, and had no doubt that Harry was the one who would live in the end. Luna seemed to find it very amusing that Lord Voldemort was actually a half-blood--she resolved that that would be the subject of her first article for her father. And when Harry laid out Dumbledore's theory about the six Horcruxes, the two looked at each other and nodded.

"What?" Harry asked. He had been certain that the two of them would have been as horrified and daunted by the whole project as he was; instead, they seemed more confirmed in their resolve than ever.

Neville was transferring the eggs and sausages into magical warming trays alongside the bacon and potatoes. Luna flounced over to the table. "That sounds lovely, Harry," she said as calmly as if she were discussing picnic plans "Hermione, could you hand me a quill and ink?"

"Of course," Hermione said, peering at the other girl curiously, taking the writing supplies from a drawer beside her. "Do you need parchment?"

"What?" Luna asked, taking them from her. "Oh, no, thank you." She proceeded to write on her butterbeer cork, and then to string the cork onto her necklace.

"Luna," Harry began, sure he would be sorry to have asked the question, "what are you doing?"

"Don't you know what my necklace is?" she asked, peering at him as if he had grown an extra nose. "Each cork comes from a special day." She held the necklace up. "This one is from the time Daddy and I found a Unicorn while we were on a picnic in the woods on the far side of Stoatshead Hill. This is from the first meeting of the DA. This is the day Mummy died." She held up the last one, the one she had just added. "Today is special too. I want to remember it."

"Oh," Hermione said while Luna draped the portable scrapbook back around her neck. "I always supposed you wore it because you thought it looked pretty."

Luna peered at Hermione, her wide forehead creased. "Do you think it looks pretty?" She craned her neck and gazed down at the necklace. "Why would anyone care how something looks when they can't see it themselves?"

Rescuing Hermione, whose mouth had flopped open, Neville coughed, "That's a good point, Luna. I can't say that I've ever understood that myself."

Harry just looked at the blonde girl with the huge blue eyes. Talking to Luna was like looking at a jigsaw puzzle in its box. There was a beautiful picture in there somewhere, but sometimes you had to turn things around a bit to see what it might be. After a moment, he shook his head, and then asked, "Neville, Luna, you heard what I was talking about, right?"

"Of course," Luna sighed. "It's more or less what we expected when we came. Why else would you be trying to run away, unless you had something very important and dangerous to do?" She and Neville shared a glance and once again nodded together.

"We figure you're great at Defense, Harry," Neville said earnestly, "But I'm the best at Hogwarts in Herbology, and Luna is the same in History and Divination. And we've proved we can stand with you in a fight. We know it's not school, but it seems like we've got something to add."

Groaning, Harry muttered, "We really can't talk you out of this?"

Luna smiled, first at Harry, and then at Neville, who took a deep breath and said, "No, Harry. No, I don't think you can."

His heart thudding in his throat, Harry looked at them: Luna beaming dreamily, Neville biting his lip, and finally Hermione, who was giving him a grim smile. They were looking to him to lead them. If they died, it would be his responsibility. He had to make sure that all of them came home safely.

Sensing his distress, Hermione said, "Thank you, both. We could really use your assistance."

Harry nodded, and then walked over to help Neville with the last of the breakfast preparations. "So," he said once his voice had returned, as he flipped scones from a cooling rack into a basket. "You and Luna?"

Neville stared at him, owl-like.

From the table, Luna called, "Oh, no, Harry, Neville likes boys, not girls. Good morning, Mrs. Weasley. Good morning, Ronald, Ginny. We have breakfast ready."

In the doorway, looking quite astonished, stood Ginny, Ron and their mother. Ginny and her brother were white-faced. Mrs. Weasley's expression was unreadable, but it definitely did not promise sunshine and happy days.