Replay

Replay

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Chapter Fourteen

Fathers

As the car moved down the motorway to Brighton, Harry studied Tilda. She seemed very different this morning but he couldn't put his finger on the precise difference. She seemed flushed and yet she hadn't had any sun yet. She also glanced behind the car quite a lot. Since she couldn't see him under his Cloak he looked behind, too, but after a black car with dark windows that seemed to be staying with them mile after mile veered off and seemed utterly uninterested in them, he gave up and decided that she was just being careful. Harry couldn't help thinking that Moody would have heartily approved.

The silence in the car was starting to get to him, though. "Worried that we're being followed?" he finally said, making her jump.

"Harry! I forgot you were here," she said shakily, gripping the wheel with white knuckles.

"Sorry to startle you," he said, genuinely contrite. Sweat had broken out on her brow and she looked more nervous than ever. He wished he could just hold her and assure her that everything was going to be all right, although he knew no such thing. He remembered kissing her and having her kiss him back.... But then he remembered again waking up in the hall, no memory of how he'd got there, nor of climbing the stairs...

"Tilda," he said softly. She didn't look startled this time.

"Yes?" she answered absentmindedly, passing a large lorry with a load of bleating sheep.

"This morning...when I was out. How long was it?"

"Out? Oh, um, I don't know..." Her voice was shaking again; she wiped her brow with annoyance when the perspiration started to slip into her eyes.

"I was wondering--did I do anything, or say anything, before I--"

"I don't understand, Harry." She continued to look straight ahead.

He swallowed. He thought again of the things Tom Riddle had said to him about the way he'd manipulated Ginny. "Did I--did I touch you?" he whispered.

She turned and looked in his direction abruptly before quickly looking at the road again. "What do you mean?" She was barely audible.

"I mean--if--if I was possessed by--by Voldemort, you might not have realised it. He--he could have made me say things, do things, and you wouldn't have known it wasn't me..." He was growing more fearful of this by the second, based purely on her strange reactions.

"Can--can he do that?"

"When--when Ginny was possessed by him she was missing a lot of time. She woke up covered in blood and feathers. And then she found out someone had killed the roosters and she just knew it was her..."

Tilda looked more like her old self as she turned to him for a moment, frowning. "Roosters?"

"Because of the Basilisk. You know, the crow of the rooster is fatal to a Basilisk. If you're planning to free one, it had better be in a place with no roosters..."

She laughed for a moment, looking straight ahead at the road, then sobered when he didn't laugh. "Oh. You're not kidding."

"No, I'm not. When--when Voldemort possesses a person...he can make them do anything. When he possessed me at the Ministry, I said things, and it sounded sort of like my voice, and it was my mouth moving, but I couldn't control it, I couldn't stop it. There I was, telling Dumbledore to kill me and I couldn't stop saying it...."

Tilda frowned again. "I thought you just said that when he possesses someone they lose time, they don't remember it afterward. You remember that."

Harry stopped to think about this. "Yeah. Right. I do." He didn't know what to do with this information. Perhaps if Voldemort had possessed him that morning he'd somehow Obliviated him? Or was it a different kind of possession, like Ginny and Tom Riddle?

"Did I use my wand?" he asked her suddenly. "This morning. In the hall."

"You were lying on the floor, Harry. I didn't see your wand. What are you getting at?" Tilda looked behind them again, then turned forward once more.

"I don't think anyone's following us," he said quietly. "I've been watching in the mirror."

She looked in his direction again before returning her eyes to the road. "Oh. Good. Right. I thought it would be good to check..."

He swallowed; he'd wanted to go to Brighton, he'd wanted this day, but there were still too many unanswered questions from the morning. Even if Voldemort hadn't really done anything that morning, it could have been a reconnaissance trip into his brain. He might be saving more for later. "I've been thinking. Maybe it isn't the best idea to go to Brighton. Now that we're out of Little Whinging and no one seems to be following us, we could just turn around and go up to London, to the Order headquarters. London streets are complicated, but perhaps you could find number twelve, Grimmauld Place?"

She was silent for a moment, raising one eyebrow. "You're going to have to do better than that, Harry. If you expect me to take you to someplace in London, you're going to have to give me a landmark, something to go by. Babbling nonsense at me won't help."

"Babbling nonsense? I said number twelve, Grimmauld Place."

Tilda snorted. "You say that as though it actually means something. I mean--honestly Harry. How am I supposed to cope with that?"

Harry's head was swimming and for a moment he wondered whether he was about to be possessed again. "I don't understand the problem."

"You don't understand that you're spouting gobbledygook? Well, I suppose it sounds perfectly normal to you, of course, but you've had five years to get used to--"

Suddenly, the reason dawned on him. "Of course! I can't tell you where the house is! I'm not the Secret Keeper!"

Two vertical lines appeared between her brows as she changed lanes and passed a strange man in a green waistcoat riding a motorcycle; a beige dog was in the sidecar and both master and pet wore helmets. "Um, what?" was all she could muster, looking distracted.

"The Secret Keeper! Dumbledore. He had to tell me--it was in a note. So it really sounds like nonsense? Not like I'm saying a house number and then the street name?"

"House number and street name? Are you daft? It sounds more like you're bringing up your breakfast," she snorted.

He laughed, feeling the tension between them start to dissipate. "No, I'm not daft. I can't tell. It's not possible." He laughed again. "I'll bet that's why that bloke at the pub said his uncle the taxi-driver might know where to find it... He was having me on..."

"Oh, because of the Knowledge," she said, nodding. "I don't know. I don't think even the Knowledge will help a driver find a place with a gibberish name, Harry."

He laughed again. "And when Gary said Grimmauld Place back to me he was probably just repeating whatever he heard me say. To me it sounded like he was saying Grimmauld Place, but he thought he was repeating nonsense syllables..."

She shook her head. "Well, I don't see how I could possibly take you there, Harry. If you can't tell me the name of the place or where it is."

He sighed and leaned back. "No, I reckon I can't. But I have made a decision. I'm going to turn myself in tonight. Next door, at Mrs Figg's. It's better than turning myself in at the Ministry. I might be able to find the entrance to that, but I'd rather not. There they'd probably let me into the entrance hall--which is ruined, because of me--and then break my wand as soon as look at me," he said miserably. "At least I stand a chance of there being some members of the Order at Mrs Figg's."

Tilda looked in his direction for a long moment, then back at the road. "You think--"

"I think," he interrupted her, "it would be a very bad idea for me to spend another night in your house," he said quietly, looking away, clenching his fists against his thighs.

She nodded. "You're probably right," she said, sounding like she was having trouble choking out the words. "You're probably right," she whispered again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They were silent during the rest of the drive. Once they were in Brighton, Harry looked around appreciatively. He'd be cooped up in the Order headquarters soon enough and wouldn't really be free again until returning to Hogwarts. When they passed Brighton Pavilion he pressed his Invisibility Cloak-covered nose to the window, drinking it all in.

"Harry, I think you don't need to be under the Cloak now," she said as they passed a pleasure pier. He hesitated, unsure about the rest of the world seeing his altered state.

"Right. But wouldn't it look strange if a person suddenly appeared next to you?"

"I'm going to park behind Marvin and Brian's cafe. They'd skin me if they knew I was here without seeing them. They'll love you. No one will see us by the rubbish tips."

He hoped she was right, but sure enough, no one seemed to be about when she pulled up behind a string of small painted brick buildings with overflowing tips backed up against them. He furtively took off the Cloak, checking his appearance in the mirror. It was almost as strange as taking Polyjuice Potion to enter the Slytherin common room.

He stashed the Cloak under his seat and followed her around to the front of the cafe. They were still doing a brisk lunch business and Tilda had to try three times to get a waiter to stand still long enough to talk to her. "Yeah, Brian's in the kitchen and Marv's on the phone with some bloke about cocktail umbrellas or something like that," the distracted young man said over his shoulder before carrying a large tray of food to a raucous table in the corner. Harry's nose twitched, followed by his stomach growling, and he realised that breakfast had been a very long time ago. He'd never had Mexican food, which seemed to be the cafe's specialty, but he felt willing to try just about anything at the moment.

Suddenly Tilda ran up to a burly man with sandy hair and threw her arms around his neck. He laughed and hugged her tightly, swinging her around. This was very dangerous as a waitress was trying to carry a precarious tray of drinks past them.

"Mattie!" he cried, kissing her full on the mouth. Harry scowled, wanting to peel the great git's hands off her, wanting to hug her to him, let the world know they were together. Even though they technically weren't and couldn't be.

"Brian, you great queen!" she cried, laughing, her feet still not touching the floor. A very small man with a deep tan and short, dark curling hair and a huge moustache that completely hid his mouth came bounding out of a swinging door. His dark eyes sparkled with fun; when Brian released Tilda he hugged her firmly around the waist, his eyes level with her chest, making Harry scowl again. She kissed him on the forehead.

"Hello, Marv. How are you both?" she said, standing back and holding Marvin's hand in her left and Brian's in her right, swinging them and laughing.

"Never better now that our favourite girl is here," Brian said, winking at her cheekily, steering her to a table. Marvin, however, noticed Harry standing awkwardly with his hands thrust into his jeans pockets.

"And 'oo 'ave we 'ere?" Marvin said in an exaggerated Cockney, sauntering up to Harry and waggling his eyebrows. "Someone forgot to tell you that school's out, Mattie? Decided to give yourself a little fringe-benefit of the job without telling the headmistress?"

Bloody hell, Harry thought. Do I look that young?

"Marvin!" Tilda said nervously. "He's--I'm not his teacher anymore--" She turned bright red and Harry felt his own face grow hot, wishing she'd simply denied it.

"Oohoo!" Brian crowed. "So he was one of your pupils. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Mattie. What did you do, look him up as soon as he became legal?"

Harry drew himself up, putting his arm around Tilda and looking Brian in the eye. "Actually, if you must know, I contacted her." It was true in its way.

Marvin slapped his knee, laughing. "Oh, my. He's adorable. And you obviously made a lasting impression, didn't you, darling?" He nudged her with his elbow.

Tilda was still bright red, trying to simultaneously sit and extricate herself from Harry's arm. He sat down next to her while Brian and Marvin sat on the opposite side of the table; Brian's subtle wave to a waiter resulted in the young man running off to get drinks.

"So! Tell us everything," Marvin gushed, grinning at Tilda, who hadn't stopped blushing.

"Does he have a name?" Brian wanted to know. "Or doesn't he mind people talking about him in the third person, as though he isn't even here?"

"Um..." Tilda said, looking sideways at Harry.

"James," Harry said quickly. When both men seemed to be waiting for more, he noticed a reflection of himself in a mirror hanging on the opposite wall of the cafe; he still couldn't get used to seeing himself as a blond.

"Malfoy. James Malfoy," he said suddenly.

"Malfoy?" Brian said. "As in Mal-fwah? Isn't that French?"

"Yeah, for Sodding Bastard," he said automatically, momentarily forgetting that this was supposed to be his name.

This sent Brian and Marvin into uproarious laughter again, however. "Don't get on well with your dad, yeah?" Marvin asked.

Harry looked at him sheepishly. "Is it that obvious?" He wondered momentarily how he would have got on with James Potter as a father. Remembering the immature boy pulling pranks on Snape at fifteen didn't help, though.

Brian snorted. "He can't be any worse than my dad. When I came out--"

"Brian," Tilda said pointedly, gesturing to Harry with her head.

"What?" Brian protested. "He's obviously not--" He stared at her for a few moments and then reached out to frame her face in his hands. "Oh! I know what it is about you, Mattie-girl! I should have seen it before. You've been properly shagged, you have!"

"NO!" Harry and Tilda cried together, her voice much louder than his.

"No shagging!" Tilda said more quietly, in a desperate whisper, glancing at Harry out of the corner of her eye.

Brian and Marvin looked at each other knowingly. "Come on, loves," Marvin said confidentially, leaning over the table. "You can tell us. We won't breathe a word."

Harry looked at Tilda's nervous red face, then back at her friends. "Honestly. It's nothing like that," he said, wishing he could truthfully say just the opposite.

"As I said!" Marvin crowed, reaching out to pinch Harry's cheek quite painfully. "Adorable! I can't blame you, Mattie, I really can't."

"Ow!" Harry cried, holding his cheek after it was finally released. "I told you--"

"--we can't stay for very long. Just wanted to pop in and say hello," Tilda said with a shaking voice, standing up quickly.

"But our drinks have just arrived!" Brian said. A waiter was setting down tall glasses of pink liquid that smelled distinctly alcoholic and sported small rainbow-striped umbrellas.

Marvin was apologetic. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mattie. I didn't mean to put the pair of you on the spot. But what are we to think when you show up with him and you both look like--well, like you do? Forgive me, Mattie-love? Pleasepleaseplease?" He batted his eyes at her, making her laugh.

"You've got it all wrong!" she said through her laughter. "Honestly. Har--er, James and I are just friends. He's never been to the seaside before and his unc--er, parents entrusted me to bring him on a little trip while they deal with a family emergency. Funeral plans. Distant relative, nothing too close to home, but there are messy details to be seen to. Tiresome meetings with solicitors. This way James can have a little holiday on his own and they don't have to worry about him while they're halfway across the country."

"So you're babysitting?" Brian said with a smirk.

"NO!" Harry and Tilda cried again, Harry's voice much louder than hers this time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Actually, this may be all my fault," Ginny blurted out.

Hermione looked at her in shock. "You?"

Ginny looked sheepishly at them both. "It never occurred to me that--well, I mean, after St Mungo's, I mentioned to the twins that it might be a bit quieter around here because the pair of you might not be having so many rows. They wanted to know why and--"

Hermione waited, frowning. "Yes?" she finally prompted her.

"Well, you know. I told them what had happened at St Mungo's."

Hermione looked very indignant. "And just how do you know?"

Hermione glared malevolently at Ron; Ginny cleared her throat and mumbled, "Moody. Magic eye. He saw through the door of Ron's room."

Hermione went white. "I--I didn't know that." Then she looked panicked. "Oh my. Your mum was out there, wasn't she?"

"Don't worry about that," Ginny said quickly. "She'd gone off to talk to Dad. No, it was Moody and me, and, let me see--Remus! That's it. I think. Yes. No Mum."

"But--but you told Fred and George," Hermione said softly; Ginny wasn't sure whether this was because she was angry with her.

"Well, just that the pair of you had sort of--well, that you were more than friends now..."

Hermione noticed Ron looking guilty as well; she turned to him. "And what did you do the first time the twins brought this up?"

Ron looked shocked and hurt, but Ginny had years of practice when it came to seeing through him. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice squeaking a bit, betraying him.

"I mean, the first time you had a bragging opportunity, what did you do?" Hermione asked, tapping her foot impatiently. Ron moved his mouth soundlessly; this was evidently enough for Hermione, who threw up her hands. "I see. That's how it is. You pretend to--to--but it's all just so that you can look like a big man in front of your brothers..."

Ginny felt distinctly uncomfortable; a tear glimmered in the corner of Hermione's eye. "There's another reason why it's my fault," Ginny said quickly. Hermione turned from Ron and gave her a look that made her feel even more uncomfortable. "You see, I just assumed. What you were doing. You know, because of what Michael and I did..."

"What? Corner? What did you do, sneak off to broom cupboards for snogging? Or worse?" Ron was bright red. Ginny gawped at him before remembering herself.

"Get a grip, Ron! Of course there was nothing worse! What do you take me for? And I didn't--well, I just wasn't that interested in it. Or him, either." She shrugged, committed to telling the truth about this now. "I sort of looked at it all as--well, as what boyfriends and girlfriends do. I should've known you'd be different, Hermione. I didn't think. Of course you haven't been snogging when you haven't been rowing...."

Ron snorted. "Too right," he said in a low, disgruntled voice, kicking the carpet and frowning. This, however, caused Hermione to look more upset than ever.

"We have! A little," she added feebly, looking at her feet.

"Very little," Ron said, throwing himself into the armchair again. "Why do you think I didn't correct the twins?" he grumbled. "Couldn't have lived it down, could I, if I finally had a girlfriend and they found out that all we did was revision..." Ginny was trying to shake her head at Ron to warn him to shut up, but he wasn't paying any attention to her.

Hermione looked stricken. "Are you--are you saying that I'm cold and unfeeling? Me? Wasn't I the one who worked so hard to get you and Harry talking again after you had the temerity to suggest that he'd put his own name in the Goblet of Fire?"

"I think I'll just be leaving now," Ginny whispered, edging toward the door, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut. Although she didn't really care for the thought, she wished her assumptions about Ron and Hermione had actually been correct; Ron might stand a chance at getting some snogging when this new row had passed. If it passed.

"Hermione," she said softly before closing the door. Hermione turned to her in surprise, as thought she'd forgotten Ginny was there. She had simply been gazing in distress at Ron, who refused to look at her. This didn't seem like a simple row. "Don't blame him, really. It's my fault. Please. Be angry with me if you must, but--"

"We need to talk. Ron and I. We need to sort out a few things," Hermione said in a shaking voice. This didn't reassure Ginny, but she nodded and tried to smile.

"Right. Which is why I'm going. I just--I just needed to tell you."

She closed the door very gently, leaning on it in relief. The front hall was empty; all of the members of the Order had gone and she thought again of Harry. Please protect them all, please protect them all, she thought desperately. At least Ron and Hermione had a distraction from what was going on. She envied them their row. Heaving a great sigh, she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, feeling annoyed. Ron and Hermione had served to distract her for a little while, too, but now it all came rushing back.

Harry. She'd convinced herself she was over him for some very good reasons. After her second year, when she was constantly worrying about Sirius killing him or Dementors making him black out, she'd told herself quite sternly that Harry didn't think about her that way. That's all there was to it. (It helped that she'd gone to the hospital wing while he slept and saw that he'd weighed down her singing get-well card to keep it quiet. That hurt a great deal, but she knew it was for her own good; it gave her resolve.)

And then she'd managed to behave somewhat like a human toward Harry when they'd gone to the World Cup. She was actually approaching normalcy when she was around him. But in her third year she thought she'd chew her fingernails down to the quick and pull out her hair strand by strand while he flew around the Hungarian Horntail. After that she decided that she just couldn't take worrying about him anymore. It was too much. She didn't want to think Harry couldn't handle himself, but there were no guarantees, were there? It was a miracle that he hadn't been incinerated. And then Michael started paying attention to her at the Yule Ball and she told herself, This is good. I can do this. I can focus on another boy. Someone whose life isn't constantly at risk. Someone I can talk to without blithering because I'm too nervous not to act like an idiot....

And it had worked. Michael had distracted her and reminded her that a world existed outside of Harry. She discovered that she could talk to Harry and behave like a normal person, even be his friend. But now, now Death Eaters and Aurors and members of the Order were converging on his hiding place and who knew what might happen? The prophecy said that Harry was going to kill You-Know-Who or vice versa.... But she couldn't think about that, nor about the people who might get hurt along the way. She pulled a letter out of her pocket. I need to distract myself again, she thought desperately. Otherwise she'd pace a hole in the floor big enough to make the kitchen stairs obsolete. Sniffing back more tears, she flattened the letter against the wall and read:

Dear Ginny,

Hope you're having a good holiday. I miss talking to you, too. Mum had a brilliant surprise for me when I got home. She enrolled me in the summer program at the Royal Academy! She showed them some of my drawings, including one of you I did last Christmas hol....

Ginny wiped her eyes so that she could read the letter more clearly. It's going to be all right, she thought fiercely. They're going to be all right and bring Harry back to London, and we can be friends and I can tell him about Dean, and Ron and Hermione can have rows, and everything will be as it was last year...except for Sirius.... She folded the letter again and put it back in her pocket. At the thought of Sirius, she suddenly felt very, very weary of being strong, of pretending things weren't affecting her, of making out that she wasn't worried about half of her family being killed or arrested, that she wasn't worried about Harry, and that she didn't miss Sirius dreadfully.

She was tired. Just tired.

Wiping her face again, she started climbing the stairs, deciding to seek out Buckbeak. Buckbeak would let her have a good cry on his soft feathers and no one need ever know. Afterward she could be as flippant and careless as ever and go back to pretending.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry stared up at the summer sky; clouds frequently shifting before the sun, sending the beach into a grey half-light that made him think of waiting for rain in the north of Scotland while being cooped up in the library, listening to Hermione drone on about Goblin rebellions. A lot of good that did me, he thought grumpily. I didn't even get to take the ruddy exam for History of Magic, thanks to Voldemort.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Tilda said suddenly, very quietly. She was sitting in a deck chair, holding a novel. He wondered whether she'd actually been watching him.

"You said they'd love me. You didn't guarantee that I'd love them, so you don't have to apologise," he said, unable to keep an edge out of his voice.

She laughed and then cleared her throat when she saw that he wasn't laughing. "They're dears, really. We met years ago, at an antique shop in Petworth we all go to frequently. That's how I met most of my friends who also come here to Brighton. I'm just glad that you didn't, well, have an immature reaction to their being a, well--"

"Couple?"

"Yes. A couple."

He shrugged. "I didn't react to your sister and Nick, did I?"

"I know, but they're men, not women--"

"I did notice that, you know."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. I should have given you some credit."

Harry sighed and looked out to sea. "It isn't like I haven't heard of it. And I have no reason to treat someone shabbily just for that. After all, just about anything my uncle doesn't like is something I can usually get behind." He looked at her quickly. "Erm, that's just an expression." She laughed loudly and after a nervous moment, he joined in. "I just meant--he's pretty homophobic. Dudley's turning out just like him. Last summer when I had nightmares about Cedric, about seeing him killed...." He swallowed, unable not to see the images in his mind again, the staring, empty eyes after the curse had ripped the life from Diggory's body.... "Dudley wanted to know if Cedric was my boyfriend. And when Smeltings sent home a note about Dudley's poor marks Uncle Vernon said that he didn't want Dudley to be a nancy boy anyway."

Tilda sat up indignantly, whipping off her sunglasses. "Why, that great berk! To equate getting good marks with--with--and to treat both as bad things," she sputtered.

Harry laughed ruefully. "Yeah. That's Uncle Vernon. His sister is worse, believe it or not. I've managed to live with him for years without performing accidental magic--well, much--but the moment Marge walks in the door..."

She sighed. "I didn't see your uncle often while you and Dudley were at the school, luckily. In a way I wish I had seen him more. I don't know...if I'd known how bad he was maybe I could have helped Dudley break away from him a bit, urge him to think for himself..." She sighed again. "Fathers. Hard to love them and hard not to. Even--" She stopped, putting on her sunglasses again. Hiding her emotions, Harry knew.

He thought of his own father, turning Snape upside down and calling him names. How would my last five years of school have been different if James Potter hadn't been such a prat? If Snape didn't hate him, and hate me because of him? He plunged his hand into the sand next to the blanket on which he was reclining, digging a hole, angrily pushing the sand aside, relishing the pain when his knuckle scraped on a broken shell.

"Hard not to love a father even when he's a prat? I don't know; my dad's managed to ruin the last five years of school for me from the grave. He was quite talented at the father thing, if you ask me. Uncle Vernon managed to turn Dudley into a not-so-small version of himself, but he's had it easy since he's actually alive. My dad did what he did without even being around for me to hate him directly," he said in a rough, low voice, still digging.

"Harry," she said softly, in a conciliatory voice. But he didn't want to be talked out of his rage. Suddenly he thought of something that made him even angrier.

"And Sirius! Godfathers aren't much better, if you ask me. If he'd--if he'd only said something the first time I contacted him at Grimmauld Place," he cried, trying not to weep, having just thought of this; "if he'd just shouted at me, Use the Christmas gift! and rung off, or whatever they call it when you're actually using a fireplace to talk to someone, then--then he wouldn't be--it's all his bloody fault!" He wiped his face on his arm angrily. Even with her sunglasses hiding her eyes Tilda looked stricken.

"Harry--" she started to say, putting her hand on his arm. He stood impatiently.

"No! I'm tired of it all. Someone dies and that makes him a saint? You can't just mistreat someone for seven years and not expect there to be consequences! And how stupid was it for Sirius to sit there and listen to me go on and on and not say a bloody word about the mirror and how I should have used that instead? Would it have killed him to--" Harry froze, hearing his own words echoing in his head.

"Harry, I know you're angry with them both. With your dad and godfather. And maybe that's good; maybe that will help you as you grieve. I know that I'm still working through some of the things my dad did that--"

"Oh," Harry said abruptly, "you don't know the half of it when it comes to your dad."

She looked up at him, frowning. "What do you mean?"

A surge of energy pulsed through him and he wondered for a moment whether he was possessed, whether some other entity inside him was prompting him to say it. "I mean that he wasn't framed. He bloody well did exactly what he was accused of." Somehow he felt that if he no longer had a perfect dead father, no one should have one. But it wasn't just that; he knew that a part of him wanted to punish her for having done the right thing the night before, for giving him the worst night of his entire life. He was surprised at himself; he never suspected that loving someone also made it easier to hurt them. He watched her reaction, relishing the anguished look on her face.

"How--how can you say that, Harry?"

"I found the silver, Tilda. It was under the bloody bed." He described it and she covered her mouth in horror, looking like she wished he'd stop. But he didn't. "He wasn't convicted because someone cleverly framed him. He actually did it. I reckon he forgot what he did with the silver after he was released, which is why you still have it. Unless you've known all along and were going to sell it off with some other stuff eventually..."

"Harry! I would never do that! I--I had no idea--" She took off her sunglasses again and Harry started to feel a pang of remorse move through him; he'd just utterly destroyed her image of her dad. Tears were rolling down her face and she abruptly snatched up her handbag, striding purposefully away from him. Harry scrambled to keep up with her.

"Hang on!" he said, catching her up. "I have to stay with you to be safe, remember?"

She whirled on him. "Then keep up! I don't have a mobile. I need to find a phone box."

As he followed her, he asked, "A phone box? Why?"

Without stopping, she said tearfully, "So I can call my mum in Australia. So I can beg her forgiveness.... My dad is gone but my mum isn't, not yet..."

Harry nodded, not saying anything else. The urge to make her suffer, to hurt her, had passed. He didn't know what to do now beyond trudge through the sand after her, trying to avoid other people lying in their path, colourful towels and blankets strewn across the beach. When they finally reached the pleasure pier they quickly located a bright red phone box. Harry sank down onto his haunches outside it while Tilda shut herself up inside it.

She talked to her mum for quite a long time, it seemed to Harry. At one point he looked up to see her and found that she had sunk down like him and was crying freely. He put his hand on the glass, aching for her, feeling terribly guilty about what he'd done, but she didn't seem to be blaming him; she put her own hand on the glass, pressed against the other side of the pane, smiling feebly at him. When she finally emerged from the phone box she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He didn't want to let her go but finally did, brushing the hair out of her tear-streaked face.

"What happened?"

Tilda kissed him on the cheek and took his hand in hers. She looked peaceful, and as they walked back to the beach she whispered in a wondrous voice, "I got my mum back."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Remus paced Mrs Figg's kitchen floor again. Moody stood peacefully nearby, peering through brick and mortar into the house next door for any signs of life.

"Hmph!" he said. "Fridge full of takeaway food. Can't she be bothered to cook?"

Remus frowned at him. He'd seen the woman next door once or twice and thought she looked nice enough but not like someone who bothered cooking for just herself. He didn't usually cook for himself either; if he was working for Dumbledore he ate on the run and otherwise he depended upon Molly's invitations to Grimmauld Place.

"So--was he hiding in her house under his Invisibility Cloak?" Remus asked Moody.

"Yes, he has his Cloak with him," a familiar voice said suddenly. As Dumbledore calmly ambled into the room Remus whirled and then breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness. That he has his Cloak and that you're here," Remus said, when Dumbledore put his hand on Remus's shoulder in reassurance.

"Alastor," he said, smiling and nodding to the old Auror.

"What else can you tell us about Potter?" Moody said gruffly.

"I have used some instruments that I have at my disposal and I have seen Harry in his present location. He is perfectly safe."

"Well, can't you go to him and keep him from coming back here? This is one place where he definitely won't be safe," Remus said quietly.

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "Unfortunately, that would draw attention to him. He is in a very public place. Any communication I could send would make him stand out, and right now he is doing an exemplary job of not standing out. We are going to need to prepare ourselves to fight for his safety when he returns. I have received authorisation to use a Portkey of my own making to return Harry to London. It wasn't easy, especially as I didn't ask for permission when I gave one to Harry to return him to Hogwarts from the Ministry, but I have a few friends in the Department of Transportation and Cornelius is being kept quite busy overseeing Azkaban without benefit of the Dementors."

"He's safe. Good. That's good," Remus said in a shaking voice, staring out the window once more. Dumbledore still had his hand on his shoulder.

"Have faith, Remus. I know that you are--"

"--lonely? Why ever would that be? I only just lost my last friend in the world, after thinking he was a traitor and a murderer for twelve years," he said bitterly.

"Sirius was not your last friend. Another friend will be coming to that house a little later," Dumbledore said, nodding at the Harrison house, "and you are here to help him."

Remus gave Dumbledore a contrite nod and smile. "Sorry. It's just--"

"I know. Harry feels the same way about what happened to Sirius. After he vented his feelings my office was quite the sight," he added with a small smile.

Remus wanted to laugh but couldn't quite get his mouth to turn up at the corners. "I don't have the luxury of youthful fury. I'm supposed to engage in constructive activities."

Dumbledore waved his hand at the empty windows of the house next to Mrs Figg's. "Your opportunity to do just that should, unfortunately, be arriving all too soon."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The beach was nearly deserted as the sun sank lower in the sky. Harry and Tilda had packed most of their things into the car again and carried only their shoes as they walked hand in hand along the water's edge, fully clothed again instead of in their bathing outfits.

"So when are you going to Australia?"

She stopped and gazed at the blazing clouds to the southwest. "I'll try to get a ticket tomorrow, I reckon."

He nodded. "It's just as well that I'm going, then."

She smiled at him. "You're not an imposition, Harry. If not for you I wouldn't have called her. I wouldn't know."

"You'd have found the silver eventually."

"Perhaps. But it's already sat there for years and years. Years that I lost." She turned away, pretending to admire the sky.

Harry squeezed her hand. "And you're not upset with her now that you know the truth?"

She started walking again, very slowly. "It may sound strange, but knowing that she's the one who stole the silver and that Dad went to prison to protect her makes a huge difference. She didn't leave him because she was ashamed of him. She was ashamed of herself. She couldn't look him in the eye after he did that for her."

Harry shook his head as they walked. "That was the last thing I was expecting."

Tilda laughed and he loved how carefree she sounded, as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Do you remember that I said that I wished my dad had really had done it? So he wouldn't have gone to prison for no reason? Well, this is nearly as good as that. He was a good person, not someone too daft to know that he shouldn't mention aliens when he was on trial! He did that to destroy his credibility." Her laugh rang out across the water. "He wasn't stupid! And he didn't want to leave us without a mum when we were wee little ones. And Mum only did it to help, she said, because Dad was working himself ragged and we still never seemed to have any money. Jack was a bit of a surprise when he came and she blamed herself for that...."

She sat cross-legged on the sand and Harry sat beside her, still holding her hand. "She'd grown up going to Reese Hall when she was a girl. For a while she even dated the eldest son. He showed her where things like the good silver were kept. But when she met Dad she stopped seeing other boys. Northrop-Reese was very put out by this. After she was married and I came along he found out that we--" She ducked her head.

"What?"

"Well, that we lived in a grotty little council flat. He never really stopped fancying my mum and he invited us to live in the lodge on his estate. Dad was hired to work on the old house, which was practically falling down. But the old man still had nineteen-thirties ideas about how much manual labourers should make; he didn't pay Dad fair wages at all. He and Mum were actually supposed to go to university, but they started seeing each other just after they took their A-levels and found out that I was on the way soon after that, so they got married very quickly." She turned deep pink under her tan and Harry smiled.

"It happens," he said softly. She laughed.

"Yes, but it meant that neither one of them was really prepared to support a family. Dad's family couldn't help and Mum's family didn't want to. They didn't approve of Dad. They liked Northrop-Reese, thought Mum should have stuck to that lot. Mum's family had a bit of money. Not that it matters, since they disowned her for marrying Dad."

"Hmm. So this not-talking-to-family-members sort of runs in the family?"

"You could say that." She shook her head. "Stupid, I know. The problem was--well, Mum really wanted us to get out from under the shadow of Reese Hall. She told me something she probably never would have if Dad were still alive..."

Harry put his other hand over their joined fingers. "What?" he whispered.

"She went to him. To Northrop-Reese. With a full accounting of the work Dad had done for them and the wages he should have received. She knew Dad would never do it; he'd think that was the next best thing to begging. But--but Northrop-Reese wanted something from Mum..." Her voice faded to nothing and she gazed grimly at the waves beating relentlessly on the dark, wet sand.

"Bastard," Harry grumbled sympathetically, squeezing her hand. She nodded.

"After that she decided to steal the silver. He'd had a gambling problem for years and she assumed that he'd be suspected. She made sure he was out drinking with his friends, so he wouldn't have a good alibi, just other people who were three sheets to the wind, like him. But it was raining, so Mum used Dad's wellies. She led the cops right to our door."

Harry grimaced. "Why didn't they find the silver?"

To his surprise, she laughed loudly, throwing her head back. "That's where she really outsmarted them. She walked right past them with the silver and they never knew."

"How?"

She looked at him wickedly and whispered, "It was in Jack's pram."

He couldn't help laughing too. "Where was Jack, then?"

"Also in the pram. She put the silver in first, inside a large burlap bag, all flattened out. Then she put blankets on top of that and finally Jack rode on top, fast asleep. She told the police she would, of course, co-operate completely. They could search the flat while she took us to the park. She wouldn't interfere. She didn't even mind a policewoman escorting us to the park. She thought it would be all right, even though Dad was arrested, because he could say he'd been at home with us the night before. It was true, as Mum had gone out. She didn't count on Dad figuring out what she'd done and deciding to take the fall for her. That upset her for years after. She wanted them to try to beat it. Instead Dad was stopping just short of saying, 'It's a fair cop.' He was afraid if he rolled over without any fight at all they'd suss out that he was covering up for her. That's why there was a trial. The trial that my dad purposefully sabotaged to save my mum."

She rose again, brushing sand from her bottom. Harry put his hand on her arm. "Are you sure you're not angry with her still? Because she let you think she was dreadful for years?"

Tilda shook her head, her eyes moist. "No. She's punished herself long enough. She didn't think she deserved our love, me and Jack. Audrey wouldn't be parted from her, that's the reason she went to live with Mum, but I couldn't look at her after she said she was leaving Dad. I couldn't believe she was doing that to him. And Mum thought Jack should be with Dad because, she said, a son needs his dad."

She said the last words very quietly, looking away from him, but her hand sought his again. Without saying anything more, she pulled him to her and put her arms around his waist, putting her head on his shoulder. He tentatively reciprocated, his hands pressed flat against her back, his breath catching as he wondered what she wanted. Their position was very similar to when they'd been dancing in her living room and he'd kissed her for the first time. He didn't dare move his head toward hers this time, though; he didn't fancy suffering more rejection just as they were having their last few precious hours together.

She surprised him by being the one to move her mouth toward his, gently pressing, asking her silent question. When she had slowly pulled away from him again she took both of his hands in hers, searching his face. He knew that that was a good-bye kiss; it had been nothing like the hungry, frantic kisses of the night before. The only word for it that he could think of was sweet. It was a sweet, gentle kiss, and he knew it was their last.

"I know you had some mad idea last night that I was supposed to teach you to be a man," she said softly. "But I think that's backwards, Harry. I think you're supposed to teach me how to be a kid again." She smiled lovingly at him and squeezed his hands.

His lips still tingled from that final kiss. "Well, isn't someone going to have to teach me how to be a kid first?" he said ruefully. Then he wished he hadn't been so self-pitying when he saw the stricken look on her face.

"Oh, you poor thing! I'll bet you never--"

"Aaah!" he cried out in surprise as she suddenly poked him in the ribs, tickling him. As soon as she did this she turned and ran from him, her sandals swinging from her hand.

"You're It!" she cried, laughing, her hair coming down as she fled.

"Not for long!" he answered, belatedly stumbling after her, floundering in the sand and trying not to drop his trainers.

By the time he had caught up to her, panting, she had reached the spot where the light from the pleasure pier bathed the sand in a golden glow.

"You're It," he wheezed, clapping his hand on her shoulder. She grinned at him.

"Get your trainers on. We have work to do."

He stared at her, still trying to catch his breath. "Work?"

She nodded at the lights, the music and noise and laughing people on the pier. "Lesson Number One in How to be a Kid: What to Do at a Pier. Are you ready?"

He grinned at her as he pulled on his trainers.

"Ready!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Working late, are we, Mr. Weasley?"

Percy looked up at the squat figure standing in the doorway of the anteroom to the Minister's office. He stood behind his desk, his hand with his wand below the surface, so she couldn't see him use it. "Yes, Madam Umbridge. And how are you feeling? I don't believe I've seen you since you've returned to London."

She walked slowly to his desk, not answering his question. "And just what sort of work would be keeping you here so very late, Mr. Weasley?"

An alarm went off in his head. She knows, she knows, she knows...

He cleared his throat, the better to use the most pompous voice at his disposal. "Well, as you know, on the last day of the month the department heads send their monthly reports and I need to read and summarise them for the Minister. He can't be expected to read every one of them." He waved his left hand at the pile of parchments on his desk.

Her mouth twisted unpleasantly. "And that is all you were doing? You weren't--contacting someone you shouldn't be using the Minister's fire?"

Percy swallowed; he hadn't been, not this evening, but on other occasions he had had occasion to use the Minister's fire, as it was more secure than the one in his flat.

"No, Madam Umbridge," he said truthfully. She looked sceptical.

"Hmph! You haven't been--contacting your true Master?" she snarled, placing both hands on his desk, thrusting her grotesque visage at him. He fought the urge to recoil.

"My what?" He tried to sound outraged. "I'm loyal to the Minister. It is my job to--"

"HE KNOWS, DOESN'T HE?" she shrieked, turning red in the face.

"He? He who?" Percy sputtered, genuinely wondering to whom she was referring.

"Won't talk, eh? Perhaps this will loosen your tongue!" she bellowed, and before he knew what was happening she was pointing her wand at him.

"CRUCIO!"

---