This Dance We Do

Chapter 4: The Morning News

Ron awoke early the next morning to the smell of bacon. Swinging his legs out of bed and scratching his head, Ron looked over at his roommate to find him still asleep. He was glad to see that Harry was having seemingly peaceful dreams. Not wanting to wake him, Ron tip toed out of the room and carefully slid the door shut before padding down the stairs to investigate the breakfast smells.

When he reached the kitchen, Ron found Hermione at the stove cooking breakfast while sipping something from a mug. Every sip was followed by a disgusted noise that left Ron thinking that it might be one of the potions that she still had to take after their escapades in the Department of Mysteries. The sight of her cooking breakfast, presumably for him and Harry, caused Ron's stomach to flip-flop. He could easily picture the two of them doing this for many years to come.

Ron tried to shake that image from his mind as he took a seat at the near by table.

"Whatcha cooking?" Ron half yawned.

Hermione gave a startled little jump before she turned around and caught sight of him.

"I thought bacon, eggs and toast would be fine. I don't have any pumpkin juice, but I do have some orange juice and tea, is that all right?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Good, because I don't have anything else." She finished the last of the potion and pulled a face. "Yuck! This stuff is terrible. I can't wait until I'm done with it." Hermione placed her mug in the sink then turned back to Ron. "Speaking of which, do you want me to put the balm on your back again this morning, before Harry gets up?"

Ron almost spat into the glass of juice he had just poured himself.

"Wh--what?" He could feel himself blushing. "Yeah, if you want to, that'd be great." Ron tried to sound nonchalant.

"Right, well, go up and get it and then come down to the sitting room. It probably isn't hygienic to use that stuff in the kitchen."

Ron did not have to be told twice. He bound up the stairs, three at a time, and almost burst into his room before he remembered that he was not supposed to wake Harry. He slowly opened the door and slipped into the room to grab the unction. As Ron made for the door, Harry said something that caught Ron's attention. It took him a moment to realize that Harry was talking in his sleep.

"Sirius!" Harry half screamed. "No, Sirius! He's not dead, he can't be dead. Sirius!"

Ron quickly left the room, but paused before he went back downstairs. There was lump in his throat and he felt on the verge of tears. He missed Sirius, but he was sure that his grief was nothing compared to Harry's.

When he reached the sitting room, Hermione was reading the Daily Prophet front page. When she saw him, she set it on the table and stood up.

"I was starting to think you got lost," she joked. She held out her hand for the container. "Here, give it here and...Ron, what's wrong?"

"Huh?" Ron's voice was higher than he would have liked, so he cleared his throat and continued. "I'm fine, it's just Harry, he was having a dream or something, and I started thinking about stuff, and..." Ron trailed off. He did not want to talk about this, not here, not now. He cleared his throat again. "Anyway, I think if we're going to do this, we should do it soon, before he gets up and all, you know?"

Hermione nodded and took the top off the tub. "I think it will be all right if you, um," she started to blush scarlet, "just lift your shirt up in the back."

She was no longer looking at him, and Ron was sure that he was blushing as well.

"Um, right...sounds good...should work..."

Ron turned around so that his back was towards Hermione. He lifted his shirt up so that the welts on his back were exposed. When he felt her fingers on his bare skin again he closed his eyes. Maybe having welts all over his body was not such a bad thing after all.
When Hermione had finished, Ron dropped his shirt back into place, mumbled a hurried thanks at her knees, then ran upstairs to put the unction back in his trunk. He was thankful that Harry was no longer reliving Sirius' death but was once again sleeping soundly.

Ron returned to the kitchen to find Hermione sitting at the table, continuing her perusal of the Daily Prophet as she munched on a piece of bacon. He took a seat across from her and filled his plate. As Ron reached for the plate of toast Harry stumbled into the room; his hair looking, if possible, more dishevelled.

Harry sat next to Ron and looked around.

"Who cooked?"

Ron pointed a piece of toast at Hermione, as his mouth was full. Harry made a noncommittal noise and filled his plate as well. Without looking up, Hermione handed Ron another paper.

"Why don't you look through that, it will be educational. You can give Harry the sports section, I'm sure he'd understand it more than you would, and maybe he can explain it to you."

"I don't really follow Muggle sports, Hermione," Harry said as he poured himself a cup of juice.

"Well, do you understand how they're played?" she asked, still not looking up from her paper.

"Well, yeah, sort of."

"Wonderful! Ron, sports section please."

Ron could not for the life of him understand why Hermione was going on about forcing Harry to read the sports section, but he enjoyed having her apply his unction too much to risk not being on speaking terms with her. Flipping through the sections, he found the one headed "Sports" and handed it over to Harry. Ron soon understood why Hermione didn't want Harry reading the rest of the paper soon enough, however.

After seeing that the pictures did not move, Ron realized that Hermione had him reading a Muggle news paper. He rolled his eyes and decided to only read the headlines. He never read much more than that in the Prophet unless it had something to do with his family or friends directly, or unless Hermione made him read it. The first headline he came across, however, made him change his mind.

Suspected Serial Killer on the Loose
6 Dead, Others missing

Last night, Marie Hodgens, 42, and her ten year-old daughter, Stacy, were found dead in their home outside London. Marie's husband, Willard Hodgens, was no where to be found, although he is not a suspect at this time.

Marie and Stacy were killed in the same way as another four unsolved deaths that occurred this summer, leading officials to believe that this is all the work of the same person or group.

The first to turn up dead was Anthony Jameson, 25, of Sheffield, on June 9. After Mr. Jameson were Brittany Connaway, 78, of Reading, on June 14; Rupert Halthawell, 19, of Grimsby, June 20; and Tom Harper, 31, of Newport, June 23.

In all cases, the deceased either lived alone, or their spouses went missing.

"Given as they are spread all over Britian, we normally wouldn't suspect a serial killing," says Joseph Manwell of Scotland Yard, "but they all died in the same manner. Thing is, we don't know exactly what that manner is."

It has been revealed that every murder and every crime scene are exactly alike. There have been no signs of forced entry and there is nothing taken or moved. Police aren't saying exactly how victims have been killed, at this time, only that it is by a means that they have rarely seen before.

"We had two other cases like this before, but they were both in the same house," says Manwell. "First one was about fifty years back, in Little Hangleton. A couple and their son died, and it was the exact same M.O. At the time we suspected the gardener, but we had nothing on him. Then, a couple years back, he was found dead in the exact same house, in the exact same way. It's a little creepy."

Police are searching for suspects, but have no leads at this point.

Ron put the paper down and sighed heavily as he rubbed his eyes. It had started. Although the Muggles could not know, Ron was willing to bet everything he owned that each of those people died from the Avada Kedavra curse, the worst curse anyone could perform. It hit you in a flash of blinding green light that no one could block and that no one had ever survived. Well, no one except the person sitting next to Ron right now.

Voldermort had tried to kill Harry when he was just a baby using the killing curse, only to have it rebound onto himself. No one really knew why. Their only chance to possibly discover why Harry lived through the curse was nothing but hundreds of tiny pieces of glass on the floor in a room in the Department of Mysteries.

Ron remembered how sad Harry had seemed when Neville told them that the prophecy had shattered before anyone could hear it. Ron half wished that his friend could have had a chance to hear what it said. Maybe it could have explained why things had always been so hard for Harry; maybe it would tell him that he had a better time ahead of him. Deep down, though, Ron knew it was a good thing that no one heard the prophecy. The last thing any of them needed was to be taken by Death Eaters so they could torture its contents out of them.

Ron shuddered at the thought and looked up. Hermione was watching him over the top of her paper. He met her eyes and pushed the article he had just read at her. As she read, he could see her face grow darker and darker. When she finished, she set the paper on the table and shook her head.

"The people who went missing, they were wizards, all of them. Some of them were Muggle born, some of them worked for the Ministry, but most of them were married to Muggles."

Harry dropped his fork and looked from one of them to the other. Hermione had her eyes squeezed shut and was massaging her temples.

"What's been going on?" Harry asked, shooting looks at Ron and Hermione that were either accusing or worried, Ron couldn't decide.

"Well, Harry," Hermione ventured. "I've been keeping my eye on both the Muggle papers and the Daily Prophet, just to see what's been happening and what they have been telling people; if they've been preparing them for Voldermort's return. Oh, for the love of Merlin, Ronald, enough!"

Ron had jumped at the sound of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's name. He could not help it. He had grown up in a wizarding household, unlike Hermione or Harry. As far back as he could remember, fear had been attached to that name, and not a fear like that of spiders, but fear for one's life and for the lives of one's family. He would get to the point where he could say the name, eventually, but right now it was not important. Ron listened again to what Hermione was saying.

"They haven't even told the Muggles that there's some crazed killer going around with a gun, like they did with--" she stopped and went suddenly pale. She looked at Harry nervously and continued in a softer voice. "Like they did before. The only thing going around is about this unknown serial killer, whom the police know absolutely nothing about. The Daily Prophet, however, is another story." She picked up the Prophet and looked at the front page.

"They're doing all they can to warn people against Voldemort," she had the good graces to ignore Ron's jump, "and his Death Eaters. The names of all the captured Death Eaters have been printed, as well as a continuing list of ways to spot a potential Death Eater and what to do if you suspect you know a Death Eater. There are classes going on about how to resist the Imperius Curse and how to dispel Dementors."

Hermione scanned the rest of the paper as Ron turned to look at his best friend. Harry was ashen and looked about as depressed has he was right after Sirius died. Ron glared at Hermione. Why? Why did she have to do this? This was supposed to be a holiday, they were supposed to have fun, and on their first day she lays this on Harry. She was obviously awake long before he and Harry were, why couldn't she have done all this then?

Ron was about to tell Hermione off when she gasped and dropped the paper like it had burned her.

"What?" Harry said, looking concerned. Ron tried to echo what Harry had said, but found his mouth too full of eggs to do so.

Hermione's only response was to turn the paper towards them and point at an article. Ron read the by line and nearly fell off his chair.

Rita Skeeter.