Harry Potter and the Time of Good Intentions

"Aberforth?"

The older man smiled broadly at Harry, his blue eyes crinkling at the edges. "Yes, Harry. I kept waiting for you to notice something when I was teaching you..."

"But--but it never occurred to me...I thought Dick--you, I mean--was--I mean were--a Muggle." Harry felt as though he'd forgotten how to speak English. He glanced over at Nigel and Sam, on hands and knees in the front garden. They didn't seem to be listening. Trevor had gone to his car; he would be driving to the other job in New Stokington now. Harry knew he'd see him later, when he'd have to come back to give his brother a ride home.

Malfoy looked very smug. "You didn't figure it out the first time you had Charms with him, Potter?"

Harry glared at Malfoy. He'd never figured out that Mrs. Figg was a witch, either. I'm very observant, Harry thought wryly. He wasn't feeling especially brilliant. I'll just tell Hermione she should find a boyfriend who's not slightly less intelligent than, say, this rubber plant...

"Moody said you lived in the Muggle world because you had a, er, 'philosophical problem,'" Harry said softly. Aberforth--no, Dick--no, Aberforth smiled at him again. Harry's head was whirling.

"Actually, what happened was I fell in love."

Malfoy's mouth was working; he had a mischievous glint in his eye. "Was it a goat by any chance?" he asked, clearly unable to resist.

Aberforth laughed loudly, making Sam and Nigel look in their direction. "No, a very human, very Muggle woman...who is now, sadly, my late wife these past fifteen years..." Malfoy had the good grace to flush and utter a soft apology. "That's all right. You didn't know. She wasn't comfortable with the idea of living in the wizarding world, so we didn't. I reserved magic for emergencies, and in part to honor her memory and in part because I've just become accustomed to living this way, I still live in the Muggle world mostly and seldom use magic. I don't really miss it. I have a good life, I get to relax for months at a time when the weather is poor, and when it's not, I'm privileged to work in the great outdoors making things grow. Even things that shouldn't, in England. I confess that I do use magic to get a slight leg up on some other landscapers. I'm the only bloke in the British Isles who can get all types of tropical plants to thrive here, for instance, even in the winter." His blue eyes twinkled at them.

Harry felt like he had a million questions for him, but Aberforth cut him off. "Well, now you know, Harry. We should get to work, don't you think? I'll take you, Draco. You can help me near the drive, putting in the new edging. By the way, to Nigel and Trevor, I'm Dick Abernathy, owner of Abernathy Landscaping. Call me Dick, not Aberforth."

Now Harry felt his powers of observation coming back to him. "You said 'to Nigel and Trevor.' What about Sam?"

His eyes were twinkling again. "Do you think I would have let you work over here with no magical protection, Harry? Sam's a wizard. He knows all about who the pair of you are, of course."

"Sam's a what?" Harry started to be somewhat loud, then muted himself.

"Yes. He's had some trouble holding down a job since he got out of Azkaban five years ago, so Albus sent him to me four years ago and he's been working for me ever since."

"Azkaban!"

"It's a long story. Yes, he was sent to Azkaban for ten years because he did actually break wizarding law. No, he's not a dark wizard. And, of course, it wasn't an Unforgivable Curse, else he'd have had a life sentence. He's still a bit tetchy about the whole thing. If he wants to tell you, he will. Until he does, keep your noses out of it." Suddenly he sounded as stern as his brother could be, at times. "Time as we got to work," he said then, sounding more like Dick again. Harry realized suddenly that Aberforth had a different accent than Dick. He felt so confused...

The boys both nodded. Then Aberforth led Malfoy to the drive, while Harry got back to work on the rubber plants. Every so often Harry glanced at Sam. Once, Sam lifted his head and met his eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly before going back to his work.

They ate lunch in the Galbraiths' kitchen without Aberforth ("Dick," Harry tried to remind himself), who had to drive to New Stokington to settle a problem with a lorry driver delivering fertilizer. When they were sunning themselves in the rear garden afterwards, as usual, Malfoy gamely stretched out shirtless like the others, and Harry had to try not to laugh at the teasing he received from Nigel for his pallor, remembering the previous summer when the same thing had happened to him. But then Sam noticed the bruises, and the Dark Mark.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the Mark. Harry watched his face; he genuinely didn't know. Harry remembered Sirius being mystified as to why Karkaroff had been trying to show Snape something on his arm, when Harry was in fourth year. Clearly the fact that Death Eaters carried the Dark Mark wasn't common knowledge, even among those in the wizarding world who had been in Azkaban (perhaps even among those who'd seen that terrifying Mark in the sky). Azkaban, Harry thought again. He shuddered to think of Sam having to live day in and day out, reliving the worst moments in his life, thanks to the dementors.

Harry heard a car and looked up; Aberforth was returning from New Stokington. He exited the car and slammed the door carefully; Harry thought it was possible that the car might shudder to pieces if this were done wrong. He strode over to them as Malfoy and Sam continued their conversation.

Malfoy looked down at his arm and mumbled, "Oh, it's nothing. It was kind of a dare..." Sam nodded, but looked unconvinced. He had to know that it was the Dark Mark, Harry thought, even if he didn't know that Voldemort could use it to summon the Death Eaters. For some reason it had never occurred to him before that this meant Malfoy had a connection to Voldemort too. Harry wondered what would happen if the Death Eaters were summoned. He'd probably start clutching his scar, and Malfoy would start clutching his arm, and Nigel would think the pair of them were barking mad.

Malfoy then started asking Sam about his various tattoos. Intricately detailed work on his lower legs made it appear that he was wearing chain mail leggings. Celtic braids adorned his upper arms, and a rampant lion that looked remarkably like the Gryffindor lion was across his stomach and chest. The name Vera was written in ornate script on his left forearm. A large eagle with its head turned and wings spread adorned his back. Malfoy admired this the most.

"I've been thinking of getting a dragon," he said to Sam. "Or I had been. I'm broke."

"Well, save up your money and in a few weeks if you like I can take you to my bloke. He does beautiful work. Could hide those bruises, for instance..." Malfoy looked at his arms, frowning; Harry could tell that the magical bruises were a great source of annoyance to him. He remembered Malfoy showing them to the jury at his father's trial...

"Sam," Aberforth cautioned, sitting on an upturned pail and sipping some coffee from a paper cup, "Draco just turned sixteen, and you are proposing taking him to get tattoos..."

"Well, are his parents likely to complain?" Aberforth was silent, his mouth drawn into a line. "As I thought. I say if he wants to get a tattoo, he should get a tattoo. He's got one already, so he knows the needles don't hardly hurt." Malfoy's eyes opened wide.

"Erm, I hadn't really decided yet..."

Nigel laughed, and so did Sam. "I'm just messing with you, Draco." Malfoy smiled feebly and went back to sunning himself, still looking a little nervous about the prospect of getting tattooed. Harry remembered Christmas night on the cliffs at Dover...

That was the last day they worked with Nigel; Aberforth transferred him to the New Stokington job, so now, unbeknownst to the Galbraiths, there were four wizards working on their landscaping. Harry usually toiled alongside Sam, while Aberforth was taking Malfoy in hand. He was surprisingly docile about learning his new trade, nodding at everything "Dick" told him and gamely trying to move plants and stones that were far too heavy for him. Once when Aberforth had gone to his car for some paperwork, Malfoy had been struggling to move a large, heavy sack of soil, and Sam was busy putting a tree in place in the front garden. Harry rose from where he was digging holes for flower bulbs and hoisted the bag on his shoulder for the thin, blond boy.

"Where were you trying to take this, Malfoy?" He pointed silently to a spot about ten feet away from where they stood. Harry walked to the spot and said, "Here?" Malfoy nodded and Harry set it down, then returned to his bulbs. Malfoy gave a perplexed look to the sack, then Harry.

"How come you can do that, Potter, and I can't?"

"Because I've been running just about every day for the last year. That's why I started, in fact. You're supposed to lift with your legs. That's why I wanted to make my legs stronger."

Malfoy looked thoughtful. "What time do you go running, in the morning?"

"At--wait a minute, Malfoy. You are not going to come running with me."

"Why not? It'd be safer. You wouldn't be alone."

"Yeah, you're going to watch my back. Sure, Malfoy."

"Listen, you--"

"I don't want to go running with you, and that's that."

Malfoy made a face, then started ripping open the sack of soil, using a scoop to distribute it into a series of metal pails in order to add nutrients in precise amounts that would create soils of differing pH levels for various plants. Harry could see how this might appeal to Malfoy; it was not unlike Potions.

"Fine," he spat. "So much for being mates when we were kids..."

Harry felt a pang of guilt, then shook himself. I am not going to let myself be manipulated by Malfoy, he said to himself. He thought again about running with Malfoy, and recoiled from the idea. He just couldn't stomach it. But why precisely? He'd gone running with Dudley, the previous summer, and it had been something that had helped them to become friends. He tried to picture running with the other boy, heading toward the village, stopping at the graveyard--

There. That was it. "Malfoy," he said levelly. "It's just that--when I go running in the morning, I stop by Dudley's grave and my parents' graves. I doubt you want to do that."

Malfoy shrugged. "I could rest and wait, couldn't I?"

Harry swallowed. "I suppose so..."

So Malfoy started running with him in the mornings, leaning against the stone gateposts at the graveyard entrance while he waited for Harry. They ran silently, both focused on the path ahead. After a few weeks of sun and running, Malfoy was starting to look fit and strong and Harry found himself frowning when he saw the changes in him. Ginny will likely drop her jaw when she sees him, he thought. The idea didn't thrill him.

On the Saturday before his birthday, Harry and Sam were toiling side by side in the rear garden, neither one saying a word. When they had finished digging their hole to the specified size, they put their spades away and Sam sat down on a large rock. Malfoy and Aberforth were in the front garden. Sam pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Harry sat on the ground watching him. Sam didn't look at Harry, but at some point in the distance. He blew smoke, and Harry tried to cough as discreetly as possible when some crept in his nose, not to seem to be criticizing. Not that Sam took any notice of him. Or so he thought.

"I should probably quit. I started when I was fourteen," Sam explained, and Harry realized he was talking about the cigarettes. "I was Muggle-born. My best mates at home had all started by then, so I did too, to fit it. Being a wizard and away at school much of the year, I wanted to fit in anyway I could. I never told one of them that I was a wizard."

Harry was silent, watching the smoke wafting up from Sam's cigarette, wondering what he would do if he'd actually made friends with any of the other children in Little Whinging when he was younger, if he'd still been friends with them after his eleventh birthday. Would he have told them he was a wizard? Would he even be permitted to? He didn't know. Silence hung between him and Sam again.

"You want to know what I did, don't you?" Sam said suddenly, standing and grinding the cigarette stub under his heel. He bent down and picked up the expired fragment of paper and tobacco leaves, then flicked it into his cold coffee, sitting on an upturned pail ever since the morning. Harry watched silently, his voice caught in his throat. He nodded dumbly, wondering what he would hear. Sam sat again and looked at Harry as though judging whether he thought he could handle it.

"Aberforth said--"

"Dick," Sam said quickly, interrupting him. "Call him Dick. Don't forget again."

"Um. Dick said you'd been in Azkab---I mean, in prison for ten years."

Sam looked at that distant point again. "Yep."

"And you got out five years ago."

Again, "Yep."

"So--" Harry thought quickly, "you went into prison fifteen years ago."

"Right."

Harry swallowed. His parents had died fifteen years earlier. Sirius had gone to prison fifteen years earlier. "Did you know Sirius Black, in prison?"

Sam shook his head. "Black was a lifer. I didn't do an Unforgivable Curse. I was with the others, the ones who had finite sentences. The lifers were all in solitary. We were four blokes to a cell ten feet square. Not exactly spacious. At times I considered killing one of my cell mates so I could get a life sentence. At least then I'd've had enough room to breathe. But I never did it, of course. I'd already been responsible for one person dying...and the dementors take it out of you, besides. You get to the point where you can feel all of your cell mates' anguish and despair inside your head, too..."

"What--what happened?" Harry could barely speak.

"You mean what did I do to get sent to prison?" Harry nodded. Sam drew his lips into a line. "Because of me, someone died. It was accidental. I wasn't trying to kill, but it was still my fault..."

"Accidental? And you still had to go to prison?"

"Accidental or not, a person was still dead. The spell I cast was to blame. It wasn't the killing curse, but it still killed. That was all that mattered."

"What was it?"

Sam sighed. "The Disarming Charm. I put too much into it, I suppose. I was all worked up. If you're not careful, you can really send someone flying with that. They can really get hurt. Or die."

"But--but if you were disarming someone, wasn't it self-defense?"

Sam shrugged. "I suppose I could have claimed self-defense. Didn't feel like it."

"What? You didn't feel like it? Didn't you have a trial?"

"Nah. No need."

"No need?" Harry echoed him again. "Why?"

"Because I confessed. If the Ministry has a signed confession, they don't need to have a trial."

"But why--"

"Harry." Harry stopped sputtering and stared at Sam, who looked sadder than anyone he'd ever seen. "Harry," he said again. "It was my wife. I killed my wife. I loved her very much. I still do. Please--let's get back to work."

Harry decided that Sam must be older than he had originally thought, if he'd had a wife fifteen years earlier. Harry had thought he was in his early thirties, but it was probably closer to late thirties or early forties. He noticed now the small curling grey hairs mixed in with the auburn hair around his temples. I killed my wife. But if he'd had to disarm her--was she a Death Eater? Harry wondered. Aberforth had said Sam wasn't a dark wizard (and he'd trusted him to look out for Harry), but what if his wife had been involved in the Dark Arts? Harry couldn't begin to imagine how awful that would be, to find that someone so close to you had gone over to the other side...

Harry thought of the "Vera" tattoo on Sam's arm. Was that his wife's name? he wondered. He dared not ask now. They returned to their work, all business now, and it was as though they'd never had the conversation about Azkaban and his killing his wife.

Then, the day before his birthday, Harry was sunning himself in the rear garden after lunch when his scar started hurting again; behind his eyelids, he saw Voldemort and his heir, side by side; he could only see their backs, but somehow, he knew it was them. Their wands were trained on a lion. It was in a cage, and they were in a wood. Then Harry saw Wormtail nearby; the bands of light that connected their wands with the lion leapt and crackled, and the animal writhed in agony and roared its pain. When it finally stopped, the great beast sagged to the bottom of the cage, looking dejected and like death would be welcome.

"How like Harry Potter to become a lion Animagus," Wormtail's voice cut through Harry's brain. "The symbol of Gryffindor."

"If I recall correctly, Wormtail," he now heard Voldemort's cold voice, "you went running through the forest to get away from him...it was not altogether an ill-considered choice. An Animagus...this makes things very interesting...very interesting indeed..."

The images were fading; Harry thought about the poor lion they'd captured to torture for sport. He convulsively clutched the basilisk amulet that Ginny had given him, trying to calm down. He winced; his scar throbbed slightly, so that he was aware of it, but he didn't feel agonized any more. It reminded him of when he sometimes put his fingers to the side of his throat after running, checking his pulse, being very aware of the rhythm of his own heart, the blood pumping through his body. It was like the scar had become another organ with its own pulsing rhythm, like his heart and lungs. He relaxed his hand so that it was merely covering the amulet, instead of clutching it. Why do I have a scar? he wondered. Why didn't Dumbledore heal it when I was a baby? What is it for?

This train of thought was derailed by voices nearby; he easily identified them as Sam and Malfoy. He could smell Sam's cigarette and he heard Malfoy grunting as he did some sort of exercise. Sit-ups, by the sound of it, he decided. Malfoy had become compulsive about this and was gradually defining his upper body.

"How much is it, anyway?"

They must have been talking already while Harry was suffering from the scar-pain.

"Decided you want to after all?"

"Maybe."

"Well--seeing as how you just had a birthday and didn't get a damn thing, I could call it a birthday present. It's on me."

"Um, will Dick get hacked off at you? Remember when he first heard about it? I wouldn't want to get you in trouble."

Sam laughed. "Are you sure you're Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"If I could deny it, believe me, I would. I've been called a bastard plenty in my life, but now I wish it were literally true."

Sam exhaled noisily, and Harry had a hard time continuing to pretend to be asleep when some smoke wafted right up into his nose. "Well, I for one would never have expected to be sitting here with that monster's son. But then, I never would have expected his son to do what you did, either. I would have enjoyed seeing that, believe me. But Dick said I shouldn't go to the trial. I'd just want to get revenge, cause a ruckus, and wind up making him look like the victim and everyone'd get all sympathetic toward him. And I wasn't thrilled about the idea of seeing dementors again, anyway. So I stayed away..."

"Revenge? Revenge for what?"

Harry heard Sam pause and take a very audible drag on his cigarette. "Sure you want to know?"

Malfoy paused; Harry could hear him tapping his foot, a nervous habit of his. "Yeah," he said finally. Sam sighed.

"Fifteen years ago, your dad tried to recruit me to be a Death Eater. I worked with Harry's mum. We were both Aurors, frequently worked the same cases, although no Auror ever has a permanent partner. It's not like the Muggle police. For security they group and regroup all the time. You can get to the point where you don't notice someone you see all the time going bad; you don't want to believe it, you will yourself to be blind to it. This way, we all got used to working with each other, but not too used to it, and there was less risk of fraternizing. The only married Aurors I ever knew of were the Longbottoms..."

"Longbottom! I go to school with a Longbottom! His parents were Aurors?" Harry was surprised; after Moody had revealed this in class, evidently the other Gryffindors had not spread the story around the school. They'd kept their council (even Lavender Brown, whom Harry probably held in the least regard of all his classmates).

"Neville. I know. Poor little bloke..."

"What--"

"That's for another time. We're getting sidetracked. At any rate, he really was after Lily Potter, your dad was, so he came after a few of us who worked with her. Three of my fellow Aurors were dead by the time he got around to me. But I didn't know that yet. We didn't know what had happened to any of them; one at a time, each just disappeared, and then their families were killed. One after another, whole families wiped out, day after day, seeing the Dark Mark in the sky..."

Draco Malfoy drew in his breath noisily. "And you?"

"He didn't come after me directly. I knew your dad from school; we were in the same year. During our seventh year, he was Quidditch captain for the Slytherin house team, and I was captain of the Gryffindor team. There was no love lost between the two of us. He put my wife under Imperius. She wasn't being recruited; she was a means to an end. I met Trina when she was a barmaid in a wizarding pub in Birmingham, where we lived. She wasn't ambitious; she just liked making people feel comfortable and at home. When this all happened, she hadn't even worked for a couple of years, since our daughter was born. Trina just adored her and didn't want to leave her side, so she quit her job. That's why I just didn't believe she was going to hurt our little girl..."

"What?" Malfoy's voice had an edge of alarm. Harry wondered whether either of them really wanted to hear this.

"See, that's what your dad told her to do. She was supposed to get me to agree, or she'd put Cruciatus on our daughter. Katie was only two years old! And I just stood there, while Trina talked to me in this strange voice. She didn't sound like herself at all. And even while she was saying the curse, somehow I still didn't believe she was serious. But the split second that I saw that Katie was in pain, I disarmed Trina. Trouble was, I didn't try to temper the spell; it was very strong. And I didn't pay attention to what was behind her..."

"What was behind her?"

Sam sighed. "Not much. That was the problem. Behind her were these French doors that opened onto a small balcony with some potted geraniums attached to the railing. We were living in a flat on the fourth floor of an old terrace house. And the basement flat had a walk-out brick-paved garden. Well, more brick than garden, really. There were potted plants round the edges. So it was as though we were on the fifth floor.

"When she went backwards, she smashed right through the French doors, they just went flying open. She tumbled over the balcony rail, taking a couple of the flowerpots with her. Landed in a heap on the bricks, five flights down. Broke her neck; died on impact." His voice had gotten very soft. Harry heard him grunt before standing. "And that," he said, still speaking very softly while audibly crushing out his cigarette, "is why Sam Bell went to prison for ten years."

Harry's eyes flew open and he quickly sat up. He gave up all pretense of being asleep. "Your name is Bell?" he exclaimed.

Sam and Malfoy whirled around, surprised. "Yeah," Sam confirmed.

"Are you--are you Katie Bell's dad?"

He looked very sad. "Yep. That's me."

"So--so when you go home every night, Katie's there."

"Well, not right now. She's in America, visiting cousins."

"But--but--"

Sam laughed. "Sometimes, Harry you still remind of that little bloke going out onto the Quidditch pitch at the age of eleven, looking just terrified at the idea of playing in your first match..."

"You were there?" Suddenly it occurred to Harry why Sam looked a bit familiar. Harry tried to picture him in the stands around the pitch, wearing wizarding robes. Sam nodded. "I've been to all of Katie's matches, ever since I got out when she was twelve. She became a Chaser, just like her old dad." His voice became very soft at the end of the sentence.

"You--you do know that one of the charges against Lucius Malfoy was putting Imperius on Katie, right?"

Even more quietly, "I know."

Of course, Harry thought, he'd claimed that Avery and Nott had done it, but still; they'd done it on his orders. So he'd been responsible for both Katie and her mum being under Imperius, and her mum had died because her dad was trying to disarm her.

Malfoy looked at Sam, then back at Harry. "That's enough for now, Harry," he said. "Lunch is over. Let's get back to work. Leave Sam alone."

Harry nodded and drew his lips into a line, picking up his shirt and pulling it on over his head, hiding the basilisk amulet as he pulled it down all the way. Malfoy pulled his own shirt on. Then, as he was turning to pick up his work gloves, he whirled on Malfoy. Frowning, he said, "What did you call me?"

Malfoy gave him a lopsided smile. "I know. But they're Sam and Dick. Sounds bloody stupid for us to be Malfoy and Potter. I'm not saying it's going to happen on a regular basis. I'm just trying it out."

Harry looked at him suspiciously. "I'm not sure I'll be calling you Draco anytime soon."

Malfoy shrugged. "You probably don't want me calling you what I think most of the time..."

"Why not?"

"Okay. Shithead, please hand me that trowel...aaah!" he screamed in mock-alarm as Harry, heaved Sam's newspaper at his head. In a minute, all three of them were laughing as they went back to work. But although Sam had laughed at the pair of them, Harry noticed, there was still an echo of sadness behind his eyes. He hadn't been with his daughter from the age of two to the age of twelve...

After work, Harry walked back to Mrs. Figg's alone; Malfoy was having dinner with Sam. Aberforth had approved with a slight look of doubt around his eyes. When Harry closed the front door of Mrs. Figg's house, the orange-striped cat ("Grimalkin," it turned out) started rubbing against his legs. He moved slowly, so he wouldn't tread on the cat, and went to the hall table where the mail was placed. There were two parchments; one had "Harry" written on it in what looked like Hermione's hand, the other bore the legend "Draco" in what Harry assumed was Ginny's handwriting. With a grin, Harry grabbed the parchment with his name and sprinted up the stairs to the sewing room. He threw himself down on the sofa which doubled as his bed and unrolled the letter, scanning it quickly for the naughty bits (he could read the other parts later, he thought; he'd had a long day).

Not only weren't there any naughty bits, she was writing to tell him that she wouldn't be able to contact him for several days as Sirius was worried that someone might be watching the owls leaving from the Grangers' house; the phone was also out of the question in case Muggle phone-taps were being used. Sirius didn't want Death Eaters tracking Harry down by following the owls or by using Muggle technology. Harry put the parchment down, frowning; she hadn't even mentioned his birthday. It wasn't every day he turned sixteen...

He tried to stop himself thinking this way; security was more important than his birthday. She'd written that Ron and Ginny weren't to send owls to Mrs. Figg's house during the next few days either. That was probably why Ginny sent Malfoy a letter today, he thought. He itched to go back down to the front hall and read what she'd written to him. Finally, he forced himself to stay put and closed his eyes for a brief nap before dinner...

But in no time, he was awake again; he'd dreamt of the heir's initiation once more. He went into the bathroom and took the after-work shower he'd neglected when he'd come back. Afterward he dressed and went down to eat dinner with Mrs. Figg. He didn't speak much; he felt more drained than rested when he dreamt of Voldemort. In the bathroom mirror he noted that he had dark circles under his eyes, noticeable despite his summer tan.

He chose to go to bed early instead of continuing to watch television with Mrs. Figg. Malfoy still wasn't back. Just over an hour after retiring, he woke up in a sweat; he'd had the dream again wherein Hermione turned into Ginny and he saw Snape telling his mother to say whatever was necessary to save herself and Harry, ending with the vision of Hogwarts in ruins and Ginny changing into a skeleton....He'd had this dream twice the night before, along with the dream about being on the roof with Dudley, and Dudley jumping....

Harry went to the bathroom to throw water on his face, then went back to bed. It was only ten o'clock. He tried reading his anthology, but he found himself reading the same line of text over and over, unable to concentrate. At ten-thirty he turned out the light to try again.

Right before midnight he was awake again. He checked the time, groaning. More bad dreams. He didn't get up or turn on the light; he tried to blank his mind, count sheep...

He watched the clock change from 11.59 to 12.00. It's my birthday, he thought. Whoopee. Happy birthday to me. Now if I could only get some sodding sleep...

Two o'clock. He'd actually been lying awake for two hours, trying desperately not to be awake. He tried counting backwards from one-thousand. The last number he remembered thinking was five-hundred fourteen...

Three o'clock. He'd woken from another nightmare, his scar throbbing again. Roll over; count backwards, softly sing the Hogwarts school song to the tune of Octopus' Garden...picture Hermione emerging, dripping wet, from the tub in the prefects' bathroom...No, too stimulating...Moaning Myrtle, floating over her toilet...No, too likely to bring on more nightmares...

Four-o'clock. He'd dozed off again, only to awake with nightmares once more. Try to remember the ingredient list for Euphemos Potion, imagine Hermione reciting Hogwarts, A History from memory...

Five-o'clock. He'd been staring at the ceiling for an hour, and was finally feeling his eyelids drooping. I'm liable to have to sleep all through my birthday to make up for this night, he thought.

He awoke again just before dawn, trying not to remember the image he'd seen right before waking, an image it seemed he'd seen a hundred times now: the heir being initiated. He tried to feel happy in spite of his exhaustion. For the first time since his parents had died, he wasn't going to be spending his birthday with the Dursleys. It's my birthday, dammit, he thought. I've a right to be happy. He wasn't sure how much sleep he'd gotten during the night, but it couldn't have been more than three hours, if that.

He looked expectantly toward the window, wondering when the barrage of owls would begin, but then he remembered the moratorium on all communications. Great, he thought. No birthday presents. And I'll have to drop great, huge hints to Mrs. Figg, who still probably won't get it...

He stared at the ceiling, his hand wrapped around the basilisk amulet Ginny had given him for his fifteenth birthday. What would this year bring? he wondered. He felt like a completely different person from a year earlier. He couldn't help a smile creeping over his face as he thought of Hermione. Now I can picture her in the prefects' bathroom...

"Are you going to get up or just lie there with that stupid expression on your face?"

Malfoy stood in the doorway, dressed for running. He leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. "Or should I leave so you can go on thinking of Granger and wank off..."

"How did you know I was thinking of Hermione?"

He snorted. "If you could see your face, you wouldn't ask that."

Harry hadn't realized he was so transparent. He threw back the sheet and pulled on the shorts and T-shirt he'd laid out on the chair that was pulled up to the sewing machine. (Did Mrs. Figg really sew with it? he wondered.) He noticed that Malfoy was wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt with his shorts.

"Bit hot for that, isn't it?" In spite of the early hour, Harry could tell it was going to be a scorcher of a day. He was glad he wouldn't be working at the Galbraiths' in this heat. A whole day to do as I like, he thought, suddenly feeling bored. Sleep, he thought...if only I could sleep...

Malfoy merely shrugged. Harry tied his running shoes and rose, saying, "Let's go," to Malfoy as if he hadn't spent the entire night trying to exorcise Voldemort from his brain. When they returned, Mrs. Figg didn't mention his birthday. Before Malfoy went to work, he didn't mention Harry's birthday. Harry was starting to get more than a little depressed.

He was restless all day. He read a little, watched some chat shows, pulled weeds in Mrs. Figg's garden, irritated the grey cat ("Pyewacket") by playing with it with a string for too long; Mrs. Figg used a binding charm on his scratches.

He tried to sleep several times, each time waking from a bad dream. Near four in the afternoon he was lying on the sewing room sofa, staring at the ceiling again, thinking that compared to this, the birthdays he'd spent with the Dursley were a combination New Year's celebration and Royal Wedding. Some birthday, he thought...

He heard the front door slam. "I'm back!" came Malfoy's voice from the front hall. Who bloody cares, Harry thought.

"Harry!" Mrs. Figg's voice was raised. "Come downstairs! I need you in the kitchen."

Harry groaned, swinging his legs down and willing himself to stand. Bloody hell, what now? He trudged down the hall, down the stairs, down the entrance hall, which led to the back of the house, where the kitchen was...

"Surprise!"

He staggered backward in shock. Crunched into Mrs. Figg's kitchen was Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Sirius, Lupin, Aberforth, Sam, Moody and Malfoy. Harry knew his mouth was hanging open stupidly, but he couldn't seem to work the muscles that would pull it up where it belonged again. Then Sirius started singing, "For he's a jolly good fellow..." and the others joined in, terrifically off-key, laughing through it all.

"...And so say all of us! And so say all of us..." they continued trying to sing before it finally deteriorated completely. Harry found himself in a mass of hands patting him on the back and mussing his hair; Hermione kissed him on the cheek, as did Ginny, and even Malfoy clapped a hand on his shoulder, laughing as he said, "Happy Birthday, Potter."

Harry laughed and kissed Hermione and Ginny on the cheeks, clasped hands with Sirius and Ron, pretended good-naturedly that he was going to hit Malfoy, and smiled at the others until his face hurt. As he passed him, Ron leaned in and said in Harry's ear, "We need to talk," but he was hustled away by Sam and Aberforth and could only give Ron a perplexed look over his shoulder. Then Mrs. Figg said it was also to be a belated birthday party for Malfoy, as well, and the terrible singing started up again, but even worse than before, since the hysterical laughter had now gotten completely out of hand.

Hermione's mother had taught Sirius how to drive their car, and he and Hermione had driven down from the Grangers' in the middle of the afternoon. Mrs. Figg had been keeping Harry out of the kitchen (he'd had no idea) while Hermione made the food for dinner (Good, he thought, remembering the meal she'd made at the Dursleys.) Mrs. Weasley had taken Ron and Ginny to the Fawcetts' house, near Ottery St. Catchpole; the Fawcetts had let them use their fireplace to Floo to Diagon Alley (since the Burrow had been taken off the Floo network). Lupin had Flooed to Diagon Alley and Aberforth met them all there, then drove the three of them back to Mrs. Figg's house. Ginny brought the birthday cake, from her mother.

They all helped move the table to the garden (Sirius discreetly lengthened it) and with everyone working together and laughingly tripping over each other, it was soon set and laden with food. The talk whirled around Harry's head; he was feeling happy and giddy, as though he were a little drunk; the effect of not having had enough sleep, he supposed. Ginny was recounting having gone to Ruth Pelta's bat mitzvah the week before.

"It was so amazing! Her temple is very Moorish-looking, beautiful ornamentation, looks like ivory filigree with gold-leaf. And I thought she was going to read in Hebrew, but it's more like she's singing. Did you know Ruth has a beautiful voice? What she sang--I mean read--sounded so exotic and mysterious...It was amazing," she said again. "And the party afterward!" She nudged Ron. "You should have seen Ron..."

Harry nodded at him, his mouth full of Hermione's delicious lemon chicken. "You went?"

"Mum didn't want her going alone, so Ginny asked Ruth whether I could come too."

"And I'll bet you're glad you did..." Ginny said in a sing-song voice, looking mischievous.

"What?" Hermione wanted to know, looking far too interested for Harry's taste.

"Well," Ginny said, drawing it out. "Annika was there. And she looked smashing! Very blond, very tan, very Swedish-Amazon on her summer hols..."

"I thought she was Icelandic?" Hermione said.

"She is. Oh, you know what I mean. And she was very glad to see Ron..."

The tips of Ron's ears were extremely red. Harry tried to picture Ron with Annika, but couldn't. "She wouldn't bloody leave me alone," Ron complained. "And Amazon is right. When we were dancing, she was basically leading. Wouldn't let me."

Ginny looked very merry. "You didn't look all that upset at the time. I thought you liked blondes?" Harry assumed she was referring to Fleur Delacour.

Harry looked at Hermione; she was staring at her plate as if studiously ignoring the conversation. Harry swallowed. Was she bothered by the idea of Ron being with Annika? Not that he sounded particularly taken with her. Still--

"What are the twins up to?" Harry asked Ginny, changing the subject.

"Oh, didn't Ron tell you?" Just then, Harry realized that Ron hadn't written to him once since the end of term. "Percy has quit his job with the ministry, now that he's basically independently wealthy." Harry looked sideways at Malfoy; he looked fine about the fact that she was talking about the Malfoy family fortune going to Percy, so Harry turned back to listen to Ginny. "He bought a house in Hogsmeade, that big old pile at the end of the High Street that's been for sale for ages. The twins have moved in with him and they've made it the world-wide headquarters for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Limited. Percy's the president and chief investor, Fred and George are the creative department, of course, Angelina is overseeing production and delivery, and Lee Jordan is the sales department. With his gift of gab, they've already got enough advanced orders for things that they'll be working the rest of the summer to fulfill. WWW Ltd. is going to be huge."

Harry shook his head in wonder. "Percy is heading up Fred's and George's company?"

"Correction," Ron said. "Percy's company. You know how he is; takes everything too seriously. He really rides herd on them. Everything goes like clockwork over there. He's up at six every day, sending owls and checking the ledgers, and rousing everyone else out of bed whether they're ready to get up or not..."

"Everyone else? Isn't it just the twins?"

"No; Angelina and Lee are living there too. Mum's very edgy about the Angelina thing. She has her own room and everything, but--let's just say I don't think she's ever slept in it..."

Harry smiled. "It sounds like they're having a great time, all of them. I never would have thought Percy would be able to work with the twins."

Ron shook his head, his mouth full. "Me neither," he said thickly, before swallowing. "But he's just what they needed; they'd still be floundering about if it weren't for him. They have no idea how to actually run a company, get distributors, handle sales, coordinate things. They'd be hopeless at all that. This way, they can just do what they do best and let Percy handle the business end of things, Angelina handle the day-to-day details, and Lee handle the blarney. It's a great partnership."

"We just went to visit them yesterday. The house is fabulous! It must be about four hundred years old. There are something like eight bedrooms, and a wonderful garden out back. The twins said they're throwing a party on the first Hogsmeade weekend of the term, for the returning students. The ones they know, of course. I can't wait!" She smiled at Malfoy, who looked like he was thinking of those eight bedrooms...

"Oh!" Ginny said suddenly, tearing her eyes away from her boyfriend. "I just remembered! We ran into Alicia in Hogsmeade. She's going to be teaching at the village school. Even though she's so young they gave her the sixth-years. She's really looking forward to it, but not working at the same school as Fleur Delacour. She's still teaching the first years. I'm not sure that's a fair thing to do to four-year-olds...The head teacher takes the seventh-years."

Harry furrowed his brow. "Isn't Fleur's sister going to be in seventh year?"

"I think so. And then after that she'll come to Hogwarts."

"And be a first year all over again..." Ron said with a sigh. "I'm kind of glad that we didn't go to the village school, Gin, but why didn't we?"

Ginny froze, her dark eyes very large. Then she swallowed the food she'd been chewing. "Oh, there was no need. You know. Since Mum used to be a teacher." Her voice shook a little and she didn't look Ron in the eye as she spoke. Harry looked at Malfoy, who was frowning; he didn't look like he believed her, or perhaps he looked like he knew the real reason...Harry had never really thought about Ron and Ginny going to school before Hogwarts. He knew there was a school in Hogsmeade, but he assumed it was only used by families who actually lived in the wizarding village.

After the meal, Harry and Malfoy opened presents, and there was much laughter and silliness. At one point, Harry was looking around the room, feeling like someone was missing. He grimaced, irked with himself; why should he be there? It was stupid to expect that he would be...

Harry found Sirius talking to Lupin and Mrs. Figg and asked with more off-handed casualness than he felt, "Oh, by the way, how's Snape?"

It was as though he had suddenly suggested that they all strip and sing the national anthem in Portuguese. The tension was thick as molasses. "Er," Sirius said first, his eyes moving to Lupin as if for help.

"Harry," Lupin said smoothly, moving him into a chair, "sit down."

Once in the chair, Harry frowned up at them. "Why? What's happened?"

The three of them looked back and forth at each other again; they all were quite grim. "Harry," Lupin said again, "Snape's missing."

"Missing? For how long?" He couldn't hide how upsetting this information was to him.

"Five days."

"Five--" he began, then couldn't continue. He examined their faces; not a glimmer of hope there. Snape was missing for five days. "What was he doing?"

Sirius moved closer to him, speaking without moving his mouth very much. "He was on reconnaissance, information-gathering..."

"Why couldn't Rita do that? She's the bloody beetle."

Another exchange of grim looks. "She's missing too. For the last two weeks. That's what he was trying to find out about."

No, thought Harry. No no no no no. This is not happening. All of the operatives are not disappearing...

"And no one--"

"Harry. We're doing our best. We didn't want to worry you. We're going to find them. Please leave it to us and don't lose sleep over it."

As if I don't have enough things to lose sleep over, he thought. He swallowed as they drifted away from him. He noticed the three of them throwing him concerned looks every now and then, and quickly grew tired of it. Ron accosted him near the television, saying, "Harry, I want to talk to you..." but Harry turned from him and pulled Hermione into the kitchen and with no preamble, started kissing her.

After a half-minute, she pulled away. "Harry? This is rather--abrupt. You seem odd. Is something wrong?"

They stood with their arms around each other, their faces still very close together. He nodded, trying not to let tears steal into his eyes. I am not bloody going to cry over Snape, he told himself sternly. "Snape's been missing for five days," he told her quickly.

"Oh--" she breathed, putting her hand over her mouth. She leaned forward and pillowed her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around his middle. He gathered her to him, his cheek on her hair. How often, he wondered, will we be doing this in the coming days? Hearing about yet another person working on the side of good going missing, or turning up dead? Holding onto each other for dear life, wondering who will be next?

He's not dead, he reminded himself. We don't know that. Yes, we don't know, another voice in his head confirmed. That's the problem...

She lifted her face to his and he kissed her gently. "We need to think good thoughts," she said to him. "Can't afford to be defeatist." He nodded at her, but later that night, when he was simultaneously craving and dreading sleep, he wondered what the difference was between being defeatist and being realistic...

That night he had the dreams again. And the night after that, and the night after that. Harry figured he was perhaps getting about two hours of sleep a night. He was feeling edgy and snapping at people; he'd rung up Hermione in the middle of the night and gotten an earful from her about using common sense and not waking people up at three in the morning. She didn't normally snap at him, but he figured it was because he'd woken her from a sound sleep. A sound sleep...it sounded wonderful, but he'd forgotten what it was like.

He started to write to Ron one night, to pass the time, and he thought of asking him what he'd wanted to talk about at his birthday party. But there had been no owls from Ron; not once had Pigwidgeon shown up at his window with a parchment tied to his scrawny little leg. Harry tore up the letter he'd started. If Ron had something so important to say, let him say it, he thought. I'll wait.

He felt a bit crazed at work, too. For a few days, Malfoy didn't sun himself after lunch, like Harry and Sam. On Saturday, he finally did again, and Harry was shocked by what he saw when Malfoy took his shirt off. He'd been wearing sweatshirts to go running in the mornings, and now Harry knew why.

He'd gotten a spectacular tattoo on his back that resembled the scaly back of a dragon, then on his arms, it looked like unfurled dragon's wings. The bluish-green colors that had been used made it impossible to see the bruises his father had inflicted on him. He must have gotten it the night before my birthday, Harry thought, when he was supposed to be having dinner with Sam. He had to admit it was a masterpiece, and he wondered what Ginny would say when she saw it. This further depressed Harry...

Before he knew it, the summer was almost over, and Dumbledore had arranged with the Weasleys for Harry and Malfoy to visit the Burrow for a couple of days. They would do their shopping with Mrs. Figg first, in Diagon Alley, then take all their gear to the Weasleys'. Sirius was going to drive down to get them, after taking Hermione and her trunk. Harry was sorry to be saying goodbye to Aberforth and Sam, and even Mrs. Figg. But he was not sorry at the prospect of sleeping in a real bed again; he'd started blaming the sofa in the sewing room for his insomnia. At the Burrow, Mrs. Weasley had given the twins' old room to Ron, and Harry would be sleeping there too. Malfoy would be in Ron's old room, and Hermione would be in Ginny's room again, as Bill was using Percy's old room. Charlie had returned to his dragons in Romania, but he was able to come at a moment's notice if needed.

Before they went to Diagon Alley, Percy had owled Malfoy to inform him that he was the first recipient of the Penelope Clearwater Memorial Scholarship. The money he would need for school supplies and fees had been deposited in an account at Gringott's in his name. Malfoy drew his lips into a line. He looked like he resented being on the receiving end of charity and also like it was rightly his money to begin with. A strange combination, Harry thought. Malfoy exchanged the pounds he'd made working for Aberforth while they were at the bank, and he grumbled about Goblin exchange rates and fees the rest of the day. Then, when they were removing the money they needed from their respective vaults, Harry could tell by Malfoy's face, when he got back into the car, that Malfoy had seen the piles of silver and gold in Harry's vault. He tried not to look at him during the rest of the shopping trip.

Finally, the day came for them to go to the Burrow. To his surprise, Mrs. Figg hugged and kissed them both before allowing them to get in the Grangers' car, where Sirius was waiting at the wheel. They had already said goodbye to Aberforth and Sam the day before. Malfoy had claimed the front seat without an argument from Harry, who looked listlessly at the passing scenery; he'd never gone to the Burrow this way, an almost-normal way, in a car with all four of its wheels on the ground (he still smiled when thinking of the twins and Ron coming to fetch him after his first year, in their father's old flying Ford Anglia). The Knight Bus certainly didn't count as normal; he'd done that twice, and Floo powder was probably the furthest thing from normal, in Harry's book. It was odd to just pull up to the Burrow, honking the horn, seeing Hermione and the Weasleys come pouring out the door...Harry felt like he was moving in slow-motion, or underwater as they greeted him and there were hugs and kisses and back-slapping all round. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a good night's sleep. A real bed, he thought. He couldn't wait...

The next morning, Ron wanted to play Quidditch, so Harry went downstairs with his Firebolt, while Malfoy shouldered his new Cleansweep, the only thing he'd been able to afford at Quality Quidditch Supplies. He eyed Ron's and Ginny's Nimbus 2001s enviously. It was a Saturday, so Percy had generously allowed the twins the day off, and they showed up at breakfast with Angelina and Lee, inducing a boisterousness in everyone that helped jolt Harry awake a bit. He hadn't slept any better in a bed than he had at Mrs. Figg's.

Since there were enough of them to play four players on a side, Hermione didn't have to join in to even things out, to Bill's obvious relief. (He was playing but Lee was not; he volunteered to do commentary). Ron had chosen Ginny as his Keeper, to give her more practice, and Harry as his Seeker and Fred as his Beater. He was playing Chaser. George was Beater and Malfoy Seeker on the other team, along with Angelina playing Chaser and Bill as Keeper.

"What should I call the teams?" Lee wanted to know. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Hermione hovered nearby on brooms, to watch, since there weren't any stands to sit in and they wouldn't be able to see much from the ground.

"Well," Hermione suggested, "How about the Dragons for the side Malfoy's on, and the Griffins for Harry's and Ron's." She smiled at Harry; she hadn't exactly given away the fact that he was a golden griffin Animagus, but sometimes she made him nervous. It was as though because she was proud of him she wanted to whole world to know. He hadn't told her about transfiguring in front of Dunkirk to scare him. Then she'd be spouting off about breaking the law...

"All right then!" Lee Jordan started, after magically amplifying his voice. "And the Griffins are in possession, Weasley takes the Quaffle and speeds up the field, Dragons Chaser Angelina Johnson in hot pursuit. Keeper Weasley is in position, ready to stop Chaser Weasley--Angelina, if you marry that bloke of yours do not change your name--and Chaser Weasley scores on Keeper Weasley! The Griffins are in the lead, ten to zero!"

When Lee had made his comment about Angelina marrying George, her head had whipped around. She been moving to intercept Ron, but her being distracted meant that the Quaffle sailed into the middle hoop easily, as Bill was also distracted by the suggestion of marriage. Harry looked at Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who were glaring at Lee in a distinctly unfriendly fashion. They had always seemed to like Angelina before, Harry thought. On the other hand, she and George were basically living together now, and Mrs. Weasley in particular didn't seem like the sort to approve of that...

"Harry!"

He was confused by the fact that it was Malfoy's voice crying out his first name; then he saw the reason. While watching the Weasleys, he'd flown right into the path of a Bludger hit by Fred. Before he could think, it struck the twigs on his broom, jarring him severely enough to be knocked off. He clung by his left hand, hanging straight down from the broom, feeling like his fingers were slipping off the wood one by one.

Ron and Ginny flew to him quickly, guiding his broom to an altitude low enough that his feet were able to touch down, and he was standing on solid earth again; then, after a moment, he collapsed to the ground, and the others all landed, concerned, while Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Hermione flew to a spot nearby. Hermione dropped her broom and came running to him as soon as she was back on the ground.

"Harry? Harry! Are you all right? The Bludger didn't hit you, did it?"

He opened his eyes; his glasses were askew on his face and her visage was swimming blurrily before his eyes. "No," he said, the word catching in his throat. "I think--I think I'm just a bit too tired to play right now. I didn't get much sleep last night...Can't concentrate."

Mrs. Weasley nodded and pulled him to his feet, put her arm around him. "Come back to the house and have a lie-down. They'll just have to make do without you." He nodded back and leaned on her; she didn't even come up to his shoulder now. Hermione walked on his other side, carrying their three brooms. He heard Mr. Weasley telling the others that he was sure Harry would be fine, and it had been years since he'd last played Quidditch...

Harry tried not to smile at the mental image of Mr. Weasley playing Quidditch. When they reached the Burrow, Mrs. Weasley gave him a sleeping draught and then he climbed the stairs to the room he and Ron were sharing, this time leaning on Hermione. His bones felt made of weariness; it was a miracle the Bludger hadn't sent him hurtling down forty feet to the hard earth. He was usually pretty good at paying attention to the Bludgers. Sleep; he just needed some sleep...

"Come on, Harry," Hermione said to him softly, steering him to Ginny's room instead of the room where he'd slept the night before.

"Wha--"

"Don't argue. I'll curl up with you, that should help you sleep. It always has before. You've been having nightmares, haven't you? That's why you called me that time, wasn't it?"

He nodded, his throat tight; he should have known she would figure it out.

"I wrote to Sirius about something I saw before I even went to Mrs. Figg's, but it's been much worse since then..."

"Sssh! Don't talk."

He lay down on the bedclothes, and she cuddled up next to him, her head on his chest, her arm thrown across him. He put his arms around her and closed his eyes, feeling the sleeping draught seeping into his brain, into his tired, tired, brain...

His eyes flew open. He felt unnaturally alert suddenly, and not a little disoriented. It took him a moment to figure out why he was in Ginny's room. Hermione was no longer on the bed with him; she was sitting cross-legged on the other bed, a perplexed look on her face as she turned the heavy pages of the book on her lap.

"Hermione?" he whispered; he didn't feel as though he had his full voice.

"Mmmm?" she said, looking up distractedly, then she seemed very glad that he was awake. "Oh, Harry, look what I've found!" She scrambled to her feet and lugged the large book--which Harry could see now was a photo album--to the bed where he was. "Look!" she said again, starting at the beginning. On the front page of the album were two wizard photos; one was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley with a small very red-haired baby, two little boys about four and six years of age standing with them in front of a Christmas tree. The boys had an uncertain look about them. The younger boy kept trying to put a finger in his nose and Mrs. Weasley kept moving his hand away from his face. The hand-written caption read, "Christmas 1970, Molly, Arthur, Bill, Charlie and Annie." The other photo showed Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Bill and Charlie again, looking a little older now. There was also a little girl with bright red hair and blue eyes, her curly pigtails flopping as she bounced up and down on her father's knee, while her mother held a baby that looked a little younger than the baby in the first picture. This caption read, "Molly, Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Annie and Peggy, Christmas 1972." Twenty-four years earlier. The girls in the photo in Mr. Weasley's office...

"They were sisters!" Hermione said breathlessly, as though she had read his mind. He nodded.

"I can see that..."

They turned the pages of the album, watching the little girls growing taller, thinning out at about the age of seven. The photos were mostly of the two girls, but there were more family portraits as well: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sitting while Bill and Charlie, about twelve and ten, stood on either side of them, the little girls, about four and six, knelt in front, while Mrs. Weasley held an irritated-looking baby with violently red hair (even more so than the rest of them). It was waving its arms agitatedly, the caption identifying all of them, including the fact that the baby was Percy. Christmas 1976.

"Where the hell did you get that?"

Harry and Hermione jumped. When he saw who had spoken, he was even more surprised; he had never heard Mrs. Weasley swear. After a moment, she realized that she wasn't behaving as she normally did, and looked as though she were trying to calm herself. She smoothed down her robes, which did not need smoothing, and said in a higher-than-usual voice, "Oh, I'm sorry, Harry and Hermione. I was coming up to see how you were doing, Harry. What--what are you doing with Ginny's photo album?"

Hermione looked Mrs. Weasley in the eye sympathetically. "Mrs. Weasley--when did Annie and Peggy die?" she said softly. Instantly, Harry could tell that she wished she hadn't asked, for Mrs. Weasley started crying and sat down heavily next to him on the bed.

"That's just it--they didn't."

"But--"

"I know, I know. You find that, and you assume that they must have died. Well, it's just a bit more complicated than that..."

They waited while she blew her nose and wiped her eyes. "Oh, my," she said finally, sounding as though she'd just woken up. "I haven't thought about them for so long now. Then, every time I remember, it's like it's happened all over again..."

"You don't have to talk about it--" Hermione began.

"Oh," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, louder than she had spoken before. "But I want to. Don't worry about me; I'll be fine. Let's go down to the kitchen; I'll make us a pot of tea and I can explain everything to you...as much as there is an explanation..."

Harry and Hermione gave each other puzzled looks behind Mrs. Weasley's back as they went down to the kitchen. She'd been so distracted by seeing the photo album (which Hermione had carefully replaced on the shelves above Ginny's desk, where she'd found it) that she hadn't even mentioned the fact that he had been on Hermione's bed in Ginny's room, not on his bed in Ron's new room.

"Where is everyone?" Harry asked as they went down.

"The twins went back to Hogsmeade with Angelina and Lee. Bill's upstairs, reading; Arthur had to go into the office for a bit, and Draco is helping Ron and Ginny de-gnome the garden. We'll have some privacy."

He nodded, wondering why having privacy was important; after all, the photo album had been in Ginny's room. Surely she knew what was in it.

After she'd made the tea, Mrs. Weasley sighed and walked over to the window, holding her cup and saucer. She stood with her back to them, looking out at her messy, prolific garden. "Do you know when Arthur and I were born?" she asked them, then didn't wait for an answer. "Arthur was born in 1938; I was born in 1940. I was five and he was seven when Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald and the Muggle war ended. Even though we were still so young, we remember the celebrations...between wizarding and Muggle England, I think the parties and general giddiness must have lasted for a month. It was strange, as well; we'd lived our whole short lives up to that point immersed in fear and uncertainty. Arthur and I met originally when we were quite young; like many Muggle children, our parents sent us up North for safety, away from both the Blitz and the Ministry, which was the focus of some of Grindelwald's attacks. You should have seen Diagon Alley, laid waste...Not that I saw it either, mind you. I was told by older children. The way it is now...much of it looks old, but it was rebuilt after the fall of Grindelwald. It was his people, not the Blitz, that did it.

"I started at Hogwarts in 1951; Arthur was a third year. We weren't even friends until he was almost done his seventh year; suddenly, he seemed to notice me, and we started to meet up in Hogsmeade sometimes...

"Most of our courtship was conducted by owlpost, if you can believe it. I know that sounds so innocent to young people today. But I still had two years of school to finish and he had started working at the Ministry...Then, when I was eighteen, I went to work as a teacher at the village school in Hogsmeade. Many wizarding families simply educate their children at home, but there are a few schools around the country for those who can't tutor their own children, because of work or just because they prefer to send them to school, get them used to being around other children, especially if they don't have siblings."

She turned back to them, a shy smile on her face. "When I was twenty-one, Arthur came to the school and proposed to me in front of my class. You should have seen it: sixteen pairs of little eyes, round as saucers, as Arthur went down on one knee and begged me to marry him. As though I wouldn't say yes..." She colored, looking down. "We had quite a cheering section when I said I would, believe me. No one knows quite how to be excited like a seven-year-old. I had started off with the littlest ones; by then I'd moved up a bit.

"We were engaged for almost a year. My mother wanted a proper amount of time to plan out the wedding. I'm the oldest of three girls, and I was to have a marvelous outlay...except we didn't really have any money to speak of for a wedding. It was just me, my sisters Emily and Meg, and our mum. Our da was killed in the Muggle war...he had thought that to be the greater threat, not Grindelwald, and he wasn't very well-thought of for it. Called a traitor by some. But Colm O'Connor was a good man, and a good wizard. Mum still has a commendation and medal he received from the Muggle War Office for his bravery, dying to save the men who served under him...I suppose we really do qualify for the name 'Muggle-lover' in this family. But I personally wear it as a badge of honor. I remember the sacrifice my da made. He didn't have to enlist in a Muggle army, put himself in front of horrible bullets and grenades and risk being censured by the Ministry if he did anything to help the Muggle war effort by magic. When I think of what could have happened here if Britain hadn't been on the winning side in the war...defeating Grindelwald would have been beside the point."

Harry and Hermione looked at her; Harry swallowed, remembering watching films about the Battle of Britain in school when he was younger. He wondered about his mother's family...His mum was born in 1960, Aunt Petunia in 1954. Their parents could have been born in 1934 or so, or perhaps earlier. His grandparents probably hadn't been much older than Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. They might have been teenagers during the war, or if they waited until they were older than twenty to marry and have their daughters, they might have been in the war. After all, they were Muggles. Harry looked at Molly Weasley, seeing her in a whole new light. He still hadn't heard about the other little girls, though.

"By the time we had scraped together enough money for a wedding, I was twenty-two and Arthur was twenty-four. We had been together for six years. Neither one of us had ever had another girlfriend or boyfriend. That didn't seem so strange in those days. I continued to teach after we married, but I quit a year later when we were expecting Bill...After that, I just wanted to focus on being a mother. Old fashioned, yes, but--I suppose that's just who I am.

"Many people, when they see large families, they assume that they just grew haphazardly. They don't think any planning went into them. Arthur and I planned everything quite carefully. Two years after we married, Bill was born. That was the plan. And we wanted him to have a little playmate who wasn't too far off from his age, so two years after that, we had Charlie.

"Now, I wasn't ready to be having another baby after that. I had two little ones in nappies who needed me to do everything for them, and Bill was already doing a great deal of accidental magic, even at the age of two. Actually, he was a little younger than two when Charlie was born. There was never any question of Bill being a Squib. I still have never heard of a wizard child manifesting the kind of magic he did at such a young age...the others were much easier on me.

"Arthur and I thought that when Charlie was four and old enough for school, it would be a good time to have another baby. When the boys went off to the school where I used to teach, on the first day of school for Charlie, mind you, I promptly went into labor! By the time the bus brought them home that afternoon, they had a little sister, Annie..."

"Bus?" Hermione puzzled. Harry wanted her to get back to the sister.

"Oh, yes. There's a bus that pops about the country, picking up the various children who attend the Hogsmeade school. Operates on the same principle as the Knight Bus." Molly Weasley sighed. "I confess, I adored having a little girl to fuss over even more than the boys. They'd also become so--I don't know, like little men. Didn't want their mum hovering over them. Even Charlie. And Arthur and I decided to try to do the same thing we'd done with them, have another baby about two years younger, so they'd be close to each other in age. And when Annie was just a couple of months past her second birthday, Margaret was born. Named after my sister Meg. We called her Peggy.

"Annie and Peggy adored each other from the start. The first time she was allowed to see Peggy, Annie tried to pick her up and hold her, like one of her dolls. We wondered a bit what we were about, blithely going on having children as though You-Know-Who hadn't been terrorizing the wizarding world for the previous two years. Perhaps we just didn't want to let him run our lives, decide how we spaced our children. It hadn't been that long; we just didn't reckon on him when deciding what to do.

"Then, when Peggy was three and Annie five, Bill went off to Hogwarts. Annie and Charlie were at the Hogsmeade school. In a year, Peggy would be old enough for school as well, so we did what we'd done before, planned to have another baby. Percy was born just before Peggy was to start school, and she was heartbroken; thought I'd gotten a replacement for her. I'll never forget her face when she got on the school bus. She looked so small and lost, and I had no choice but to stand there, holding the baby, waving goodbye to her, when what I really wanted was to bring her back in the house, get my little girl back.

"Once more, we decided to have a baby who would be a companion to the last one. We wanted the new baby to be born the year that Percy would turn two. But things didn't go as planned; the twins happened. Instead of having a baby who would be a playmate to Percy, the twins were sufficient unto themselves. You know how twins are, especially those two. Poor Percy never really had someone to be his mate, because of that. And then, even at a very, very young age, Fred and George turned out to have mischievous senses of humor, and their favorite victim was Percy."

She turned back to them, walked to the table and sat down. She put down her tea and laid her hands on the table before her, very carefully. "We were done having children. We had seven children, five boys and two girls. I had quite enough work on my hands with a toddler and a pair of infants, all in nappies. We had no intention of having more children. We had our family."

She swallowed and looked at Harry and Hermione. "That was 1978, the year the twins were born. Then, a year later, during the children's Easter holidays..." she trailed off. "I know they blame themselves. Bill and Charlie. Especially Bill. I know that's why he dropped everything to come here from Egypt, why he's been putting his own life on hold, to make sure You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters don't...I heard him telling Charlie about having nightmares about getting here from Egypt and finding the Dark Mark over the house." Harry swallowed. He knew nightmares...

"I try not to badger him any more about settling down, about getting married and having children. The last time was years ago, he was seeing a nice girl, he was about twenty-six. A good age to marry, I told him, so he could start having children before he was thirty. 'Why,' he said to me, 'would I want to have children? I'd be a terrible father...'

"I argued with him about it for a while before I realized he was talking about Annie and Peggy, about how he blamed himself. I tried to reassure him, remind him he was only fifteen and Charlie thirteen...but I think it's something he'll never quite get over. After Bill's reaction, of course, I've refrained from talking to Charlie about the marriage-and-children issue. He wasn't the eldest, but he seems to be blaming himself as much as Bill..."

"What happened?" Hermione whispered. Molly looked up, meeting her eyes.

"You know, we used to just let the children go walking down the road to the village whenever they wanted? Arthur used to take the children to work. Once when Bill was twelve, Charlie was ten, Annie was six and little Peggy was only four, he took all four of them. It was when Percy was born, and I just needed them out of the house. I was completely overwhelmed, so he took them to work for the day. They Flooed to Diagon Alley and took the tube to Westminster. If Percy hadn't been born early, I wouldn't have needed Arthur to take them, they'd have been in school. But it was the end of the summer, and they wouldn't be in school for another week. So he took them off my hands for me.

"At any rate...when Bill was fifteen and Charlie thirteen, they were home from Hogwarts for Easter. Annie was nine and Peggy was seven. Percy was three and the twins were only a year old, but driving me to distraction. Bill was such a sweet boy...he volunteered himself and Charlie to take the girls into the village to play in the park. There were swings, and a duckpond for boat racing, and other children to play with...I was so grateful. All I could think was there are too many children in the house! After that day, I never thought that again...

"Bill and Charlie say they had no idea how it happened. They said that one moment, the girls were swinging side-by-side while Bill and Charlie were kicking a ball around with some village lads who'd asked them to play with them, and the next--there were the empty swings, just swaying back and forth, back and forth. They didn't think anything of it at first; just assumed they'd met up with some other little girls to play dollies. So Bill sent Charlie to walk around on the paths in the park to find where they were, just so they'd know, like. I understand it's still a lovely park, but I haven't been there in years. I haven't been able to contemplate it...I think I would just spend the whole time wandering about, hoping to still find them, as though I could discover the one place the boys hadn't thought to look. Well, the boys and every wizard at the Ministry Arthur could pull into it...

"Charlie couldn't find them, so he went to get Bill. Bill still wasn't especially concerned; they could have taken it into their heads to walk back home on their own, he supposed, or to go to the home of a new little friend to play tea party or some such. After a few hours passed and Bill knew they'd be expected home soon, he started to be concerned. He and Charlie were afraid to come home without them, they told me later. They didn't feel they could go to the Muggle authorities; what if the police wanted to come to the house, or asked what Arthur did for a living? Then they thought, the little scamps must have gone home already and they were panicking for nought.

"So they finally decided to come home themselves, coming in the door and saying, 'All right, you little terrors! Where are you?' I asked them where the girls were, and they looked shocked that they weren't back here. Arthur was home from work by then, and he went back to Ottery St. Catchpole with the boys, combing over every inch of the park, knocking on doors...He called in all of his favors at the Ministry, and suddenly there were twenty wizards running about the village using various charms to peer into people's houses to try to find Annie and Peggy."

She sighed and rested her cheek on her hand. "They never found a thing. Not a hair-ribbon, nor even the little bear Peggy still carried everywhere. We never figured out what happened to them. It was two years before the fall of Voldemort, so it could very well have been Dark Wizards...but we don't know it wasn't just Muggles, someone who...who fancied little girls..." She shuddered and put her face in her hands, crying quietly, while Harry swallowed and tried not to be ill. He hated to contemplate the sort of person who would do such a thing, and why. You heard about it in the news, but never in lurid detail. It just didn't bear thinking about.

She dried her eyes. "Oh, the tears I've shed over them. I had such a hole in my heart, where they'd been. Charlie and Bill were back at Hogwarts, both feeling dreadful, and I had the twins and Percy to take care of, but all I could think of was missing my sweet little girls. When the boys were back from school in late June, I talked Arthur into trying to have another baby. The girls had been gone more than two months, and it was looking very bleak and hopeless. I told him, 'Yes, I know we said we were done, and yes, I'll be forty next year, but that's why it has to be now! I don't have much more time...'"

She sighed heavily. "I don't know whether I thought having another baby would serve as some kind of charm or what, so that the girls would walk in the house suddenly after it was born and say, 'Try to replace us, will you? Well, here we are!' Except that that didn't happen, of course. And then...Oh, I feel just awful about this, but I just couldn't help feeling at the time...when Ron was born, I was so disappointed. I'd hoped for another girl. I already had five boys. A mere two months later, I--" she blushed now, surprising Harry. "I managed to conceive again. I knew I shouldn't be too much older to have more children. Some witches dare to have children when they're fifty and older. But it's so much harder, not to mention the idea of running after a toddler at that age...So the following spring, Ginny was born, and I finally had a little girl again. I was happy, but...of course, nothing could bring back Annie and Peggy..."

Hermione's voice shook as she said to Mrs. Weasley, "Ron doesn't know, does he? He seems to think the girls were his cousins, and he just doesn't see them now that they're grown up."

She shook her head. "No, he doesn't know. Do you think I want to tell him I was disappointed he wasn't a girl when he was born? He's certainly no disappointment to me now, you know that, don't you? He's a wonderful boy...I wouldn't want him to think I'd ever thought otherwise. Percy and the twins were rather old when they found out, and Percy in particular didn't take it well, because he was old enough to have some fuzzy memories of them, and had asked me about them once or twice. I also gave him the cousin story until he was out of school. After I told him, he didn't spend much time at home, starting lauding Barty Crouch to the heavens and staying late at his office. He was a bit snippy with me for a while. So I decided to tell the twins before they went into their seventh year. They actually took it rather well..."

"When did you tell Ginny?" Harry choked out, hating to think of poor Ginny hearing about her missing sisters, and having been born to replace them...

She sighed. "That was unavoidable. After we came to Hogwarts in her first year--when we thought she'd died in the Chamber of Secrets--I was holding her tightly in Professor McGonagall's office, crying like an insane woman. I was so glad that she was all right! And I couldn't stop myself from saying, 'It was like Annie and Peggy all over again...'

"Of course, she didn't know what I was on about. I explained it to her, crying the whole time, and then the little thing was holding me and comforting me, telling me everything was all right, of course I was bound to react this way..." She smiled and shook her head. "Ginny has always surprised me, from the day she was born. I should have known she'd be fine with it. I showed her pictures of her sisters when we returned home for the summer. She has all of them now; that was what you were looking at. I let her bring the album to school with her. After Ron was born, I had taken all of the pictures with the girls in them and put them in a separate album, instead of mixed with the pictures of the boys. Arthur has just that one hanging in his office; he didn't want to give that up, he said. He wanted to see them, remember them every day. After I told Ginny, I gave the album to her. I didn't really need the pictures. I could see the girls any time I wanted, by just closing my eyes."

Hermione sniffed and Mrs. Weasley handed her a handkerchief; she blew her nose noisily and dabbed at her eyes. "That's just dreadful, Mrs. Weasley. I mean, my mum and dad...I'm not sure I should say this, but they had three miscarriages before I was born. Mum was afraid to get out of bed the whole time she was carrying me. And she had two miscarriages when I was young, trying to give me siblings. Mum and Dad--they actually named all of the other babies. The ones that were never born. It's a very strange feeling, having all of these almost-family members. But it's not the same thing as Annie and Peggy. They were born. You knew them...I suppose that's why Mum almost never let me out of her sight when I was younger...Thankfully, she got over that, or I wouldn't have been allowed to go to Hogwarts."

Harry had never known that Hermione's parents had had such trouble creating a family. Molly put her hand over Hermione's now, nodding. "I did the same thing. After Annie and Peggy disappeared, we stopped sending the children to the Hogsmeade school when they were old enough. I taught them here at home. I had been a teacher, after all, for almost six years. But I also had Arthur grow that large privet around the garden, and I forbade the children to go into the village unless they were with me or their father. None of them went out into Muggle London again, to go to the Ministry. Just to Diagon Alley, for school supplies. The idea of their going out into London proper made me too nervous; I thought it would be too difficult to keep track of them on the Underground. I kept them all as close to me as possible. I was such a wreck when Ginny went off to Hogwarts, and then hearing about what was going on at the school, and the headmaster contacting us and telling us that Ginny was down in the Chamber..."

She covered her mouth with her hand. Hermione looked down at the table, swallowing. Harry nodded, understanding. He'd thought Ginny was dead too, and had felt awful...he couldn't imagine how Mrs. Weasley must have felt, already having lost her other two daughters.

They all jumped when the kitchen door suddenly flew open and Ron and Ginny came in, sweating and laughing.

"Did you see the last one?" Ron asked his sister breathlessly.

"The one making the rude gestures as you hurled him over the hedge? Yes. And I'll thank you to stop making that same gesture to Draco..."

Just then, Malfoy came in, looking happily tired. "That's the stuff!" he said with a satisfied air, throwing himself into a chair at the table. "Helluva lot--" he caught Mrs. Weasley's eye. "I mean, a heck of a lot more fun than that Muggle gardening we've been doing, Potter. Very satisfying, once you get the little buggers really flying through the air..."

Ron was laughing. "You should have seen the last one Malfoy had, Harry. Great big head, like a pumpkin that had been sat on..."

Harry listened with only half an ear to the stories about the de-gnoming. He watched Mrs. Weasley, and thought of Sam and Katie. So many families, torn apart. Had Annie and Peggy Weasley been taken by wizards or Muggles? He wished he knew. He looked at Ron as he talked; having seen what Ron was like on his sixteenth birthday, when he learned about Harry's and Hermione's relationship, Harry didn't hold out much hope that he'd take it well when he eventually found out about his sisters. On the other hand, the way Ron responded to just about anything hardly made people want to tell him things that were sure to set him off.

Harry actually felt well-rested after the sleeping-draught-induced nap, and laughed with the others at dinner and afterwards, wishing they'd had more time to spend at the Burrow instead of having to go to King's Cross the next morning to get the Hogwarts Express. Sunday night dinner would be the Welcoming Feast, then on Monday morning, bright and early, he would start his sixth year of school. School. Snape. Was Snape all right? Would he turn up by the first day of the term? If not, who would teach Potions?

After dinner, they lounged about the living room while Ron and Malfoy helped his mother clean up the dinner things. Mr. Weasley had already gone up to bed; it seemed that playing Quidditch earlier in the day had done him in. Ginny chattered on to Harry and Hermione, speculating on what the coming term would be like while they looked at her sympathetically; this was starting the grate on her, Harry could tell. She frowned, as if wondering why they were treating her like a child. Hermione was about to explain when Ron came striding into the room, great long legs crossing it quickly, large feet thudding on the wooden floor, making the framed photos on the mantle shake. Hermione's mouth was still open; she shut it suddenly, then whispered to Harry, "Keep him busy. I'll tell Ginny we know." She rose to go, grabbing Ginny by the arm and pulling her toward the stairs. Ginny looked even more annoyed, but she raised her eyebrows to Ron and shrugged as she left.

Ron threw himself into a large worn leather armchair, and Argent leapt onto his lap and mewed loudly at him, demanding petting. Harry stayed where he was on the couch; for all that Hermione had told him to keep Ron busy, he was suddenly tongue-tied and had absolutely no idea how to accomplish this. It was as though he'd just met Ron and didn't know what topics of conversation might interest him.

"Want to play chess?" Ron asked casually, breaking the silence. He continued to pet the small silvery-striped cat.

"Sure." Harry rose to fetch the chess set from the bookcase next to the fireplace, pulling a small table over between the couch and Ron's armchair. They were silent as they set their pieces up, then started playing in silence. Ron let Harry be white.

Ron had a pile of Harry's captured pieces and Harry had a couple of Ron's. It had been quiet (except for Harry's pieces criticizing his decisions) for so long that Harry jumped when Ron spoke, he was so startled.

"Harry," he said suddenly. Harry looked up at him. "You know you've got to do it, don't you? Because she won't. Well--she can't. I mean, you remember the whole Viktor Krum thing. And the Time Turner."

Harry remembered that Ron had tried to talk to him a couple of times at Mrs. Figg's, on his birthday. Was this what he wanted to say? He could tell that Ron was talking about Hermione, but that was all. "What are you talking about?" he wanted to know.

"Breaking up with Hermione."

Harry shook his head; he thought he was hearing things. "What? Why would I break up with Hermione?"

"Because you're not in love with her." Harry started again; this he was not expecting.

"What?" he said again. "I--I love Hermione," he sputtered in a shaking voice, even as he realized that he'd never said this before.

"I didn't say you don't love her. Of course you do. And I love the two of you and she loves the two of us. We're friends, we love each other. That's different. I said that you're not in love with her."

"I'm--I'm--" Harry kept starting sentences, with absolutely no idea what to say beyond the first word. He took a deep breath and tried a different approach. "Are you telling me that you convinced me to stop pushing her away after Dudley died so that I can break up with her now, all because you're of the opinion that I'm no longer in love with her?"

"That implies that I ever thought you were in love with her. Well, that's not true--at one point, I thought you might be, and I looked for things to support it. I wanted to believe it, really I did. But the evidence just wasn't there."

Harry took great pleasure in taking one of Ron's pawns, getting a vicarious thrill out of the clouting his knight was giving it. "So you were trying to keep us together why?"

Ron calmly took the same knight with his rook. "At the time, it was because you needed her. Whatever the basis of the whole thing, you needed her, and she needed to know that you didn't blame her for Dudley. It would have been the worst possible time to break up."

"And in your humble opinion, what is the basis of the whole thing?"

"Well,--I'll tell you in a minute. Let me start small, so you get it." Ron leaned back, forgetting about the chess game for the moment, petting Argent, curled in a comfortable circle on his lap. "Remember third year, when she was going to all of those classes simultaneously, using the Time Turner?"

"What's that got to do with anything? And she's said that if we ever again throw in her face that she kept that from us, she'll hex us into the middle of our twenties."

"It's not that she didn't tell us. She wasn't supposed to. The point is that she started in on something that seemed logical to her, and when she found out she was wrong, she couldn't admit she was wrong. She hit Malfoy--not that I didn't fully support that, but it's not a Hermione thing to do--and she screamed at a teacher. Of course, it was Trelawney, but she's still a teacher. She practically had to have a bleeding house fall on her before she figured out that she wasn't a sodding immortal, that she needed sleep and downtime and all of the normal stuff that keeps us all sane." Harry winced, wondering when the last time was that Ron had had a proper night's sleep... "At the end of the year, she was definitely not sane. And it all happened because she did something she thought was logical and she couldn't admit she was wrong."

"All right," he said grudgingly, still feeling touchy about the sleep issue. "Fine. You've made your point about the Time Turner. But what has that got to do with Viktor, or me, for that matter?" Harry viciously moved his queen forward, placing Ron's bishop in jeopardy.

"I'm not trying to make a point about the Time Turner, Harry." Now Ron's queen took Harry's. "It's a pattern. Okay, next--Viktor Krum. She's hanging out in the library, he notices her and thinks, Good. There's someone with a real brain in her head. Not hovering about and giggling insufferably. I mean, she has miles more sense than most girls about how to behave around guys. And she hasn't gotten starstruck since Lockhart. I suppose that git being a fraud cured her of it."

"Anyway--" Harry prompted him, scanning the chess board for a move that wouldn't doom him. He didn't see anything promising.

"Anyway, he starts trying to get to know her better and she thinks, Thank you, someone who's finally noticed I'm a girl. We, of course, were being prats about that, so she was perfectly right. I see that now. And it seemed logical to her, again. Just like she probably thought she deserved the Time Turner, she probably thought she deserved Viktor Krum. You know, just for being her. She didn't think about the fact that he had feelings for her that she didn't return. That was just a messy detail. She couldn't admit she was wrong about being with Viktor Krum until she'd actually been abducted and returned, and it looked like he might have had something to do with it."

"He was under Imperius."

"Yes, but still. Second house that needed to fall on her head. She couldn't even break up with him properly. Then you came up with The Viktor Krum Plan, and even when that worked, she still couldn't get over herself and how it would look. That was in the spring. And she'd been snogging you since--when was it?"

"October," Harry grumbled, only pretending to stare at the board looking for moves now.

"Since October." Ron paused. "Time Turner--logical to her. Viktor Krum--logical to her. But she was wrong both times. And if there's one thing in the world Hermione's terrible at other than Quidditch, it's admitting she's wrong."

"So you're saying that Hermione is with me because she thinks it's logical? But she's wrong and needs a third house to fall on her?"

"Exactly."

"You lost me somewhere. What's the logic part? Because starting from the first moment I saw the picture she sent with my birthday card, logic hasn't played a very big role in this for me."

"You're the bloke. You saw that picture and since then you've been thinking with your--"

"Ron--" Harry warned.

"--hormones. The logic part is on a lot of different levels. One, you're Famous Harry Potter. Who else is she going to be with after Famous Viktor Krum? Second, you're her friend. I think that was something she wanted to do that was different from Krum. Plus you don't mangle her name. But my point is--she's Hermione Granger, smartest witch--Muggle-born or not--to come through Hogwarts in quite a while. She's got a bit of an entitlement problem, has Hermione. She feels entitled to be with you, and the fact that the two of you aren't in love just didn't figure. Then on top of that, she was kidnapped and given that potion. So after that, she was magically compelled to go after you, too."

"But we didn't--you know--until after the potion had worn off."

"But you two probably wouldn't have gone as far as you did before that if it weren't for that potion. Then, after the potion wore off, and after she found out about the potion from Lucius Malfoy, she had to stay on the same path because she just couldn't admit that the potion had an effect on her. She didn't want to believe it. She had to stay with you at that point, for her own sanity."

Harry smirked. "I think that's the only time anyone's accused me of being good for anyone's sanity."

"She didn't like feeling manipulated, Harry. She likes to feel like she's in charge of herself at all times. I could see how shaken she was, when we were in the forest and Malfoy explained about the potion. Once again, she thought she was doing something logical, but she couldn't admit she was wrong. You've got to be the strong one, Harry. You've got to do the breaking up. She can't, and she won't."

Harry frowned at him. "I can tell you've thought this out, but that still doesn't mean you're right. And it's not as though you're a disinterested observer, are you? Nothing to gain from us breaking up?" He glowered accusingly at Ron, who maintained a mask of complete and utter innocence.

"Listen, Harry, I made a mistake with Parvati. I thought at first that I didn't want to be with a girl I didn't love completely. But it was kind of difficult to stay so high-minded when someone like Parvati was coming after me. So I thought, okay, where's the harm? Who says every person you ever date has to be someone who you think you're going to be with for the rest of your life? Why can't you just date someone to get to know them better? And then it turned out she was going kind of hormone crazy, and wanted to do more than date. That scared me. I mean--that's different. That's not just dating. That could make her think I had feelings for her I didn't. As tempting as it was, I resisted for a while. Which was starting to make her think she was repulsive or something. I couldn't win. And then those Ravenclaws..."

"You should have seen your face..."

Ron nodded. "I just wish--I wish I could have had the feelings for her that she wanted me to. She's all right, is Parvati. And any guy who winds up with her is going to be damn lucky."

So you're changing your mind about the logic-and-Hermione-can't admit-she's-wrong explanation for why we're together?"

"That's why she's with you. The hormone thing is why you're with her."

Harry frowned. "Well, I managed to resist her for some time, didn't I, for someone as hormone-crazed as you're saying I am."

"I resisted Parvati at first, too. I'm saying you finally gave in because of hormones."

Harry stared at the chess board again. What if Ron was right? What if--

"Of course, there's another thing about you that doesn't figure in the Viktor Krum thing or the Time Turner."

"What's that?" Harry couldn't keep the grumpiness out of his voice.

"Well, it's possible that Hermione first started coming after you when she did because You-Know-Who had just gotten his body back."

"Come again?"

"She kissed you on the train platform, then sent you that photo. All before Bulgaria. Think about it. I mean, how many times do you reckon Trelawney has predicted your death?"

"What has Trelawney got to do with it? It's probably over a hundred times by now. I've predicted my own death repeatedly, when I've done star charts. She thought I was wonderfully unflinching, remember? What a laugh..."

"My point is that she probably felt pretty safe predicting your death because she very likely thinks she'll be spot on at some point, and then she can point to prediction two-thousand thirty-seven out of four thousand and say, 'Aha! I knew it!' I mean, if somebody had to pick the one person at Hogwarts with the highest life-expectancy, it sure as hell wouldn't be you."

"That's just great coming from my best friend!" Harry drew his lips into a line and tried to calm his breathing.

"Oh, come on, Harry! I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen. In fact, as time goes on, it certainly seems less likely. You're an Animagus now, you don't feel pain even from the Cruciatus Curse, and your dueling is amazing--as long as you're extremely suspicious of the person you're dueling. I think that's why Neville beat you, too. Although being on those potions probably helped the most. But you can't tell me that a year ago, even you didn't wonder how much longer you might have. I mean, you saw Cedric die. One minute alive, the next minute--not."

Harry felt his heart beating faster and faster. "Are you trying to tell me," he said, through his teeth, "that you think Hermione is with me because I might die sometime soon? Because I have a huge target on me?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that--"

"Oh?" Harry said more loudly, getting angrier and angrier. "How would you put it? I have a life expectancy of zero, so she thought she'd shag me before she could be accused of necrophilia?"

"Harry shut up!" Ron hissed at him. "Before someone hears--"

"This conversation is over!" Harry informed him. He stormed out of the room, trying to get as far as possible from his best friend. Correction, he thought. Former best friend. Then he thought of something and turned his on his heel, returning to the living room.

"And another thing--"

"I thought this conversation was over."

"Another thing," Harry repeated, ignoring him. "I think that from now on, my best friend will be--will be Draco Malfoy. There! How do you like that, former friend?"

"Harry--"

"Did you hear yourself?" Harry demanded. "Did you listen to what you were saying? How can you claim to be my friend and say those things?"

Ron looked sadly at him. "Harry, it's because I'm your friend I can say it; that I have to say it. You have to break up with Hermione because she won't do it. It's simple."

"Oh, yes, it's simple. I have to break up with her to make everything easy for you, Weasley. Not effing likely."

Harry had never spoken this way to Ron before. He'd never spoken this way to anyone before, not even Dudley, or his aunt or uncle (although he'd thought similar things at them). He'd never even spoken this way to Draco Malfoy. He didn't even do anything like this the only time he was ever almost as angry at Ron, when Ron refused to believe Harry hadn't put his own name in the Goblet of Fire.

He stormed out of the room and straight into Draco Malfoy. Malfoy looked alarmed but immediately recovered by replacing this expression with a smug look. "So," he drawled. "I'm to be your best friend, now, am I?"

Harry pushed past him and went up the stairs. "Sod off, Malfoy." He went up the steps two at a time, holding tightly to the railing, walking blindly, his eyes filled. How could Ron say those things about him, and about Hermione?

He undressed down to his drawers and crawled into bed, his mind racing; he didn't hold out much hope that this night would be much more restful than any of his other nights during the previous month. When he heard Ron enter the room a little while later, he feigned sleep, turned away from Ron with his eyes closed. Ron did not try to speak to him; he heard rustling, implying that Ron was preparing for bed; then he heard the springs squeak as Ron got into the other bed.

Ron's words rang through his brain as he finally started to drift off...You've got to be the strong one, Harry. You've got to do the breaking up. She can't, and she won't.

Well, I'm damned if I'm bloody well going to do it, Harry thought.

Sod off, Ron Weasley.

Harry woke before anyone else the following morning. Actually, it was the sixth time he'd awoken, but he tried not to dwell on that, because then he'd have to think of all of the dreams that had caused the waking...Today he would be getting the Hogwarts Express to school for the sixth time; no, wait--for the fifth time. Technically, he didn't take the Express in his second year. He and Ron had flown the car...

He looked at Ron's sleeping form wistfully. Those were the days. Flying to school together in a car. He couldn't help grinning at the memory. Perhaps he should just try to forget about what Ron had said while they were playing chess. Act as if it hadn't happened. It might be the only possible way for them to go on.

There was a flurry of activity in the house as it slowly came to life. Miraculously, they were all ready with their trunks, owl cages and cat-carriers when the Ministry cars came to take them to the train station. It was strange not to be going with the twins. Ron no longer had older brothers at Hogwarts; he would be the senior Weasley in Gryffindor Tower now. Harry thought of all of the older students who no longer were students; it will be even stranger next year, he thought, when we're in seventh year. But this was strange enough.

Harry, Hermione, Bill and Mr. Weasley were in one car; Malfoy, Ginny, Ron and Mrs. Weasley in the other. As usual, Harry marveled at the way the cars squished themselves into the most unlikely spaces and seemed to cause dustbins and fire-plugs to jump out of the way, similar to the Knight Bus. It was never dull going to the station in a Ministry car.

They made good time; it was only ten-twenty when they arrived at the station. The first person Harry saw upon getting out of the car was Will Flitwick. He smiled; Will had shot up over the summer, but was as thin as ever. He looked like he'd been put on the rack, and his face still had a round childishness to it that made him seem like an elongated greeting-card angel. Harry strode over to him and shook his hand.

"Will! Had a good summer? Ready for second year?"

"Ripping good, Harry. You have no idea--and look!" He held up a new Firebolt. "I can have a broom now. I'm going to try out for the Quidditch team!"

Harry felt a pang of sympathy; it wasn't many people who qualified for teams in their second year. He and Malfoy were unusual, starting in their first and second years respectively. "Well, I'm not the captain now, you know; Ron is. Don't be too disappointed if you don't make it. Since Ron and I are in sixth year and Katie's in seventh, there'll be at least three openings in the next couple of years. You have plenty of time."

He nodded sagely. "I know. But it can't hurt to try, can it?"

Harry was about to affirm this optimistic adage when he saw that Will was momentarily distracted, and he turned to see what had caused his mind to wander. Dean Thomas had arrived, with his sister Jamaica, who was also starting her second year. Harry remembered thinking during the previous year that Will might have a bit of a crush on Jamaica, and he saw that the evidence was still there. To be fair, he thought Will was displaying excellent taste; Jamaica had blossomed over the summer, and she could easily be mistaken for fifteen or sixteen. She no longer appeared to be a child, but was both stunning and poised, with a singularly intelligent look behind her eyes, and Harry wondered whether Dean would spend the better part of his time in school this year beating off boys who were trying to get to his sister. Dean looked very annoyed about the looks Jamaica was getting from some fifth and sixth year boys from Ravenclaw.

Then Harry saw Justin Finch-Fletchley; he waved to him, and Justin waved back, looking as distracted as Will. Then Harry saw what had caught his attention; the Quirkes had arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Quirke exclaiming over their only son, who was wearing his Head Boy badge on his knit waistcoat, carrying his robes over his arm like a raincoat he couldn't be bothered to put on. Then Harry saw that Liam had caught Justin's eye, and there was this spark that seemed to pass between them. He wondered whether there were more couples at school now than there used to be, or whether he was simply oblivious when he was younger and had not been interested in being part of a couple himself. He remembered Ginny's news about catching Percy and Penelope kissing...

Then he remembered what happened to Penelope, and tried to stop that train of thought. Perhaps Percy was throwing himself into running the twins' enterprise to distract himself from that, to stop thinking about Penelope. Harry knew that it had been helpful for him to work for Aberforth during the summer; the daily grind helped distract him and make it less likely that he would suddenly start thinking about Dudley...

Will went over to talk to Dean and Jamaica, and Harry noticed that Ron and Hermione were standing very close together; Ron seemed to be whispering something in her ear. She colored and laughed, hitting him on the arm (not hard), then grasping his arm and continuing to hold on as her laughter continued. Harry frowned, watching them. He didn't move from where he was standing as the other students and their parents discreetly slipped through the barrier to access Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Finally, there weren't any others in their party waiting to go through except for him and Bill. He picked up Hedwig's cage and Bill walked ahead of him, pulling his trunk for him on a station trolley.

Bill had gone through and Harry was about to do the same, when he felt compelled to stop. A cold wind had suddenly whipped through the station, and the sky grew very dark. Harry looked up; there were no clouds overhead, but the sky was definitely darker. He turned, looking for the location of the sun, and inexplicably, not finding it.

He swallowed, looking around. Then he noticed that the Muggles who had come to get trains from Platforms Nine or Ten were not moving. He stared, just in case it was some trick of the light (which had a strange greenish quality to it). He remembered reading once that some people who got caught in a tornado in North America had described the strange green-tinged light that had directly preceded the storm's arrival. A tornado? In London?

But now he looked to the car park, and the people there were motionless too; the entire world seemed to be in a freeze-frame moment. Harry's heart was beating very fast; he reached down to withdraw his wand from the long pocket in his jeans. He didn't like this. Something was happening. He just wished he knew what.

"Hello, Harry."

He whirled around at the familiar voice. Amidst the frozen people, only he and one other person in the world seemed to still be moving in a normal fashion. Harry looked up at him, his heart beating painfully fast. It was as though in all the world, only two people existed. It was just him and--

Voldemort.