Full Circle

Chapter Four

A clouded dream on an earthly night
Hangs upon the crescent moon
A voiceless song in an ageless light
Sings at the coming dawn.
Birds in flight are calling there
Where the heart moves the stones
It's there that my heart is longing
All for the love of you.

A painting hangs on an ivy wall
Nestled in the emerald moss
The eyes declare a truce of trust
And then it draws me far away.
Where deep in the desert twilight
Sand melts in pools of the sky
When darkness lays her crimson cloak
Your lamps will call me home.

--Loreena McKennitt, "The Mystic's Dream"

Ron sighed, resting his elbows on the scarred wooden table and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes to relieve the tension building there.

"Why don't you take a break?" said the woman across the table from him. Ron could hear her arranging her parchments - notes she'd been taking from the session, likely - around on the table and capping her inkbottle. "You've been at this all morning."

He looked up, annoyed by her calm demeanour. "I don't feel like taking a break, Olivia. I feel like there is something here, something really obvious, but I'm just too stupid to see it." He gestured to the colourful Tarot cards laid out in a careful pattern across the tabletop. "If I just think about it a little more, it'll show up."

"That wasn't your attitude when you first started coming here, if I remember correctly," she said.

"Yeah, well." He propped his chin on his hand, studying the cards. He didn't want to get into why his attitude had changed. He hadn't exactly been cooperative when he began coming here, and he'd stormed out more than once in frustration and irritation. The regular paycheque had made him feel productive, but it was the undeniable fact that he was actually good at this that enticed him to stay, even if a small part of him still thought it was rubbish.

And when Hermione left, he was glad to have something to throw his mind into. The constant delving into things he once thought were a waste of time helped keep him from thinking about how empty the Burrow seemed without her, or how Harry never seemed to be able to fully manage a smile anymore.

"He's shown up in every single one so far," Ron said, pushing the thought of Hermione out of his mind. He touched the edge of the Devil card thoughtfully. "Even the ones where Harry isn't represented - not that there are many of those, but still. Most of the time they're both there, in equal but opposite positions, but this spread doesn't show Harry at all."

"Maybe that means that for the moment he's regrouping and isn't actively concerned with Harry?" Olivia suggested. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned forward, elbows on the table, studying the cards. "Death Eater activity has been minimal since the Hogwarts incident, and sightings of Voldemort all but nonexistent."

"Probably. We know he isn't dead, so regrouping is the only other possibility. Even he isn't stupid enough to go after Harry again without being fully prepared. But what I don't get is this." Ron pointed to the card next to it, the Page of Wands. "I get the feeling this is a person rather than an event, but I can't figure out who that person would be. Putting everything together, it looks like Voldemort needs this person's help to come back to full strength."

"But what about this card?" she asked, looking at the nearby Justice card. "Are you sure that the Page of Wands isn't manifesting as Harry this time, and this is indicating some sort of fulfilment of the prophecy, that one will bring the other down in the end?"

Ron shook his head. He had come to like working with Olivia over the last few months, mostly because she was able to look at most of the more dire forecasts objectively - she'd been a seventh year Ravenclaw when they came to Hogwarts and therefore did not know Harry by more than name - but it was that objectivity that caused her to sometimes overlook things. Ron was more prone to reading too much into things, so he supposed that was why their bosses had set them working together.

"No, I don't think so," he said. "For one thing, any time Harry appears, for me anyway, he's always the Emperor." Then he grinned. "When we were in school he used to come up as the Fool. I used to tease him about it, but it was a good card for him. Until after fifth year - that's when he started showing up as the Emperor." He turned back to the cards. "The other thing is, I think this Justice card has more to do with the Page than the Devil. Something he's done is going to come back to haunt him in some way, and it's going to have an influence on whether or not Voldemort is able to build power again."

Olivia took out her quill and dipped it into her inkbottle, making more notes. "Then I think the next course of action is to determine the identity of the Page of Wands."

Ron nodded in agreement, carefully scooping the cards back into a pile and shuffling them to start again.

*****

Later that week, Ron came home to the Burrow to find Harry pacing back and forth in the crowded kitchen.

"Hi," Harry said when Ron came in. "Listen... er... I think we sort of need to talk."

An uncomfortable knot settled in Ron's stomach. "Talk?" He hoped that Harry wasn't going to ask him again about where he went each day; he'd successfully managed to avoid any discussion about his job, and wasn't quite ready to broach the subject. His employer hadn't exactly instructed him to remain secret, but considering where he was working, Ron wasn't so sure that Harry would accept it very well.

"Yeah." Harry looked torn, as if he didn't want to have this discussion at all. "But not here. Get your cloak - we're going to Hogsmeade."

Ron frowned - obviously Harry was so distracted that he didn't even realise that Ron was still wearing his cloak, not having had time to take it off after coming in the door. But he didn't argue, and without another word, Apparated to Hogsmeade with Harry.

It was cold - colder than usual for mid-November - and Ron pulled his cloak up higher around his neck as they headed up the street. He couldn't figure out where they were going until they passed the Three Broomsticks, and then it dawned on him.

"Harry, did you - ?" he asked as they stopped in front of a vaguely familiar brick house.

"Yeah, I did," said Harry, opening the gate. "I bought it. I talked to the owners before Hermione left, but I didn't get the paperwork done till after..."

"Oh," said Ron, feeling an emptiness in his chest that he wasn't sure how to interpret as he followed him up the path. "So when she gets back, you two are going to, you know, move in together?"

"I - " Harry began, and then stopped, as if he wasn't sure about something. "Just come inside for a minute. It's too cold to stand out here in the wind."

It wasn't quite as large as the Burrow, but it was roomy and welcoming. The floors were wood, and well cared-for if slightly worn, and the wheels of Ron's chair squeaked a bit as he moved through the house, looking around. There was a large fireplace in the sitting room, along with a window seat flanked by sturdy floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There was a small but well laid out kitchen and a dining room that might be able to accommodate all of the Weasleys if they sat very close together. A short hallway revealed a study with more bookshelves, three bedrooms, a bath, and a stairway to what Ron assumed was the attic. There was no furniture, but along one of the sitting room walls there were stacks of boxes, some clearly having been opened, others with intact Gringotts seals on the lids.

"I think Hermione'll like this house," said Ron. He wasn't exactly sure why Harry was showing him this house, and the uncomfortable knot in his stomach grew.

"Maybe," said Harry. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "The thing is... well... it's not quite that simple. See, before Hermione left, I was planning to ask the both of you to move in with me here."

"You were?" Ron mentally noted Harry's use of past tense.

"Yeah, I was."

"Oh." Ron wanted to ask why he changed his mind, but his mouth wouldn't form the words.

"I just didn't know if you - I mean, you're used to getting around at the Burrow and all and I didn't know if...." Harry trailed off, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't know if you'd be okay here, is all. And then I didn't know if you'd want to live here with me and Hermione, and it might get weird, and...." He ran a hair through his hair and pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

Ron wasn't sure how to reply to the second part of the statement, so he focused on the part he could answer. "I could get around here all right," he said slowly. "Some of the doors are almost too small; I'd probably bump them a lot. They'd need enlarging by a magical builder because you can't just enlarge and shrink building parts over and over without messing them up, but other than that... I think I'd be okay. I could actually get around better here than at the Burrow, I think - there's no stairs, which is good because levitating this is annoying, and the loo is bigger, and - " He stopped abruptly, feeling he was about to venture into the land of Too Much Information.

Harry walked over to the bookshelves by the window seat, dragging a fingertip through the thin layer of dust that coated the honey-coloured wood. "What about the living with me and Hermione part? Would that be weird?"

"Would it bother you?"

"If it bothered me, Ron, I wouldn't be making the offer in the first place."

"Oh." Ron felt an uncomfortable heat creeping up the back of his neck. "Then I reckon it would be okay with me. But er... don't you think you should ask Hermione?"

A strange look passed over Harry's face and then it was gone, so quickly that Ron wasn't sure he'd seen it at all. "Somehow, I think she'll be okay with it."

"You do?"

"Yeah. It isn't like we haven't been living together at the Burrow, you know."

"That's different," said Ron, scratching his head. "I mean, Mum and Dad and Ginny were there, and it wasn't like you two were... you know."

"It wasn't like we were what?"

"Er..." said Ron. The uncomfortable heat crept up from his neck into his face and he wished the floor would somehow just open up and swallow him whole. "You know. Sleeping together."

This time it was Harry's face and neck that flushed red. "Actually...."

"Oh," said Ron.

"It was just the one time," Harry said hastily. "Right before she left."

"You don't have to explain!" said Ron, holding up a hand. "You really, really don't. I don't - I don't want to know, okay? It's your business, not mine." He felt immensely stupid and at the same time profoundly irritated. How could Harry ask him to move in with them when they were really together? Ron closed his eyes for a brief second and tried not to imagine how they would sound if sometime they forgot to use a Silencing Charm, or what it would be like to see the two of them showing up late for breakfast, half-dressed and smiling that sort of almost-smile that can only be shared between two people. "I don't know if me living here would be a good idea," he said finally, opening his eyes to stare at a scuff mark on the floor. He couldn't bring himself to look at Harry.

"But you're my best friend," said Harry. "We've lived together for seven years."

"I know."

"It wouldn't be right if you weren't here."

Ron shook his head. "You don't see how selfish you're being here, do you?"

"Selfish!" Harry was indignant. "I'm not being selfish!"

"How is this not selfish? You want to have your best friend and your girlfriend under the same roof with you, but you don't stop to think about how either of them might feel about it. I know you know how I feel about her, Harry. I never really stopped - and that's okay, cause it's in the past, and she's moved on," - Harry made an odd sort of noise and turned to look out the window, his back to Ron, but Ron ignored it and kept talking - "and I tried to. And I'm not going to go all ballistic and sign up for a Dark Mark and stuff just because you two are together. I can deal. But living here and being reminded of it every day... no."

Harry didn't turn around. "Why?" he asked.

"Because I want to stay your friend, and Hermione's too, and I don't know if I can if I live here," Ron blurted.

It seemed a very long moment before Harry turned, sitting down on the edge of the window seat, and an even longer moment before he looked up to meet Ron's eyes. "Why?"

This conversation was making Ron more and more uncomfortable the longer it went on. "Because I don't know, that's why!"

"Why don't you know?"

"Am I supposed to?" Ron snapped. "I'm sorry, I didn't know there was some kind of rulebook to follow when the sidekick and the girl break up and the girl and the hero get together and they all try to stay friends and live happily ever after. If there is one, please get me a copy right away because I don't want to fuck this up."

"You aren't fucking it up," Harry replied automatically.

"Yeah, well, don't try to force me to live here with you two, because then I will definitely fuck it up."

"I want to move out of the Burrow, Ron. I want to have a place of my own. I can't ever remember living somewhere that was mine. Somewhere that's my home and not just a place to sleep."

Ron didn't reply, because there wasn't any argument he could make to that. Sometimes he felt the same way.

"I want to move out, but I don't want to move into an empty house," Harry insisted. "It feels stupid. I want you to come and stay here with me, because we've lived together for seven years. I know how you snore and leave your socks everywhere and you leave your glass on the counter after you've had a glass of milk in the middle of the night and you don't rinse out the glass even though you know it'll make it harder to wash in the morning, because that's just what you do. I know all that stuff and I don't care because it's you."

For a split second, Ron felt an unfamiliar sensation of - he wasn't sure exactly what it was - as Harry listed his quirks, and then the irritation swept back in again. "Fine. What if I do move in with you and then when Hermione gets back she's not so keen on me being here? What happens then? Do I move out?"

"No. I mean, I don't know."

"See? That's why this is a bad idea. If you want to move out, fine. Go ahead. I'll come by and visit all the time and I'll leave glasses on the counter for you to wash and stuff if you really want me to. But I can't move in here."

Harry frowned. "I don't want you to leave glasses on the counter."

"I thought you just now said you didn't care?"

"I don't."

"Then what did you bring it up for?"

"I don't know."

Ron sighed. "We seem to be using that phrase a lot lately."

"Yeah." Harry's frown slowly faded, to be replaced by a tentative grin. "You'll visit?"

"Of course I'll visit, git. You think I want to sit at home with Mum and knit jumpers?"

Harry fell out of the window seat laughing.

*****

Hermione pulled her cloak tighter around her body, gripping the rail of the ship as tightly as possible. The cold salt-spray stung her cheeks and whipped her hair in her face and eyes, but it was immensely preferable to the conditions below deck. While it was relatively warm and dry below deck, the smell of so many people who had obviously never heard of baths, much less cleaning charms, was overpowering. She reminded herself that she should be thankful that this was only a journey across the Channel and not a transatlantic one.

The ship gave an unexpected lurch and she held on tighter to the rail, willing her stomach not to rebel. This was far worse than motion sickness on an airplane, but she dared not try to find a place to perform an Anti-Motion Sickness Charm. And while it was worse than an airplane, it was mild compared to the violent upheaval of senses that had occurred when she stepped through the cleft in the stone at Craigh na Dun.

There was simply no way to describe it other than being in the middle of a scream - if a scream was something that could drive millions of tiny hooks into one's nerves and pull them apart and back together at the same time. That, along with the sensation of endless falling, as if she could keep going for ten years and never hit the bottom, caused her to throw up and then pass out the minute she fell out onto the damp grass on the other side of the stone.

Getting from Craigh na Dun to any sort of civilisation had been easy; the stone circle was just a day's walk from Hogsmeade. She'd originally planned to Apparate, but she felt so disoriented and out-of-joint that she was afraid she'd splinch herself. It was only a bit difficult to reconcile the Hogsmeade of this time with the Hogsmeade of her time. It was smaller, for one thing; there was no Three Broomsticks, no Zonko's joke shop, and no Madam Puddifoot's, and even though the wizarding world seemed to exist in a time of its own, a mixture of medieval, modern, and just plain odd, it was obvious that this was not her time. There was, however, a Hog's Head, and it was only half as grimy as it was in her time - apparently the eighteenth-century equivalent of the Three Broomsticks. Hermione rented a room there for the night, but it was a long time before she actually slept, despite being so tired she could hardly move.

Hermione couldn't get the image of them out of her mind. It wasn't the image of them coming up the hill to say goodbye that kept replaying behind her closed eyes. It was knowing what she had done the previous night that made her stomach tie up in knots. She'd done something so special, so important with Harry, and had wanted to do it, and not even a few hours later had kissed Ron in his sleep. She couldn't tell herself that she hadn't meant to kiss Ron, and she couldn't even tell herself that she would have stopped kissing him even if there had been no sound from the hallway.

And then she'd Obliviated whatever memory Ron might have had of the encounter.

They'd tried so hard to rebuild trust in each other - and what had she done with that trust? Not only with the kiss, but with the Memory Charm as well. She hadn't trusted any of them to be able to handle it, and her actions only perverted their friendship even more than it had been.

After a few hours of very restless sleep, Hermione got up early to travel to the coast, feeling no better about things than she had the night before.

Getting from Hogsmeade to the coast was relatively easy, once she decided to ignore part of Moody's advice and have a bit of faith in the Floo network, but once there she ran into difficulties she hadn't expected. Hermione was used to being able to do exactly what she wanted, exactly when she pleased, in both the magical and Muggle worlds, but she quickly discovered that while the wizarding world of 1743 was relatively accepting of women, the Muggle world definitely was not. The proprietor of the Hog's Head had barely given her a second glance when she'd paid for her room, but getting anything done in the Muggle world was next to impossible, as she immediately discovered upon attempting to book passage on a ship to France.

"And why is a lady such as yourself needin' passage to France?" asked the clerk, quill poised over a large bound ledger, in which he was writing the names of all persons booking a trip. He eyed the coins Hermione had stacked neatly on the counter with some suspicion.

"I don't think that's any of your business," sniffed Hermione, gritting her teeth in an effort to remain polite.

"You're travelin' without your husband!" the clerk said. His eyebrows had gone up so far on his face they seemed to have disappeared.

"I'm not married!"

"Then does your father know where you're goin'?" the clerk asked, eyeing her. "Ladies just don't travel alone!"

"I'm perfectly capable of travelling alone!"

There was a shocked silence in which the clerk, and the others waiting in the office, gave her the most scandalised of looks.

Hermione swept the coins off the counter and back into her bag irritably. "Oh honestly, you people are so infuriating!" she snapped, before turning on her heel and storming out the door, practically mowing down those behind her in line and nearly tripping over the hem of her dress in the process.

She had not thought she would attract any sort of attention, but she stood out more than she realised simply by the fact that her dress was clean, her teeth all present and accounted for, and her speech educated. And while she had always been shorter than Harry and Ron - and shorter than many of her female classmates as well - she seemed to be taller than most of the women she encountered here. All of those things put together seemed to give off the impression that she was well-to-do, and apparently young well-to-do ladies did nothing without the permission or company of a husband, father, or older brother.

This was simply unacceptable.

Hermione returned to London via Floo that evening with a plan. The next morning she dressed with extra care, a bit of help from certain Diagon Alley establishments, a little Transfiguration, and a few well-placed glamours. Her dress was now dark green, her hair grey and pulled back into a severe bun, and to top it all off - a very large hat decorated with a rather disreputable-looking stuffed vulture.

"There," she said, inspecting her reflection. "That should do it." She picked up her newly-transfigured red bag and marched downstairs.

The clerk had not wanted to argue with the slightly eccentric, completely businesslike widow who booked a ticket on the next ship to France.

*****

Harry landed facedown on the floor with a bone-jarring thunk that knocked the breath out of him for the fourth time that day. He closed his eyes, desperately sucking air into his winded lungs while waiting for his opponent to come and lift the hex that was currently pinning him to the floor.

"You've got a blind side," said Kingsley, lifting the hex with a swish of his wand.

"Yeah," said Harry, when he could finally pull enough air into his lungs to speak again.

"Either that, or you just aren't paying attention."

Harry didn't reply to that, but picked up his wand and got to his feet, pushing his glasses back onto his face. He could feel Moody's stare on him from the far corner of the room, and he wasn't in the mood to hear the lecture he was pretty sure was forthcoming. "Let's go again."

Before he could get the words out of his mouth, Kingsley had fired off another hex that Harry just barely managed to dodge. Harry shot an Adflictius curse at him before ducking again, but his aim was off and it sailed inches away from Kingsley's head.

"Concentrate, Potter!" growled Moody from his corner.

"I could if you'd just shut up!" snapped Harry, ducking and rolling to avoid a jet of orange light hurtling towards him.

"Have to block it out," said Kingsley lazily, easily sidestepping Harry's countercurse. "Verbal taunting is classic misdirection." Kingsley was surprisingly agile for such a tall man, and it infuriated Harry that he couldn't keep up with him. Every curse Harry cast, Kingsley ducked or blocked, returning fire in such a way that Harry was barely able to deflect or dodge it.

"You think I don't know that?" Harry yelled, remembering the countless times he'd faced down Voldemort, who loved to talk and talk until Harry felt his brain would leak right out his ears.

"Then act like you know it, Potter," barked Moody.

"Is this what you do to all your Auror trainees?" asked Harry, after Kingsley dodged yet another of his attacks.

Kingsley sent a jet of crackling yellow light so close to Harry's head that Harry could smell singed hair. "The other Auror trainees aren't prophesised to defeat the Dark Lord, now are they?" he replied.

"That's why you let me in!" Harry brought his wand down hard in a sharp, slashing movement, so angry he could barely see. "It had nothing to do with my abilities, it's all that damn prophecy!"

Kingsley crumpled to the floor, clutching his stomach, his dark skin tinged with green and covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

Moody leaped from his chair. His wooden leg clanked on the floor as he bolted over to where Kingsley was gasping for breath. "What the hell did you do, Potter?" he growled, his magical eye rolling madly around in his head.

"I... I don't know, sir," said Harry, staring at the now-convulsing Kingsley, the fingers of his wand hand numb. All he could recall was a fierce, blinding surge of rage and frustration just before he - but he hadn't intended to cast any spell, so what had he done?

Moody made a sharp stabbing gesture in the air with his wand, conjuring a neon orange paper airplane that zoomed out of the training room in a blur, then turned back to Kingsley. Harry saw with a sick lurch of his stomach that a thick ribbon of blood had bubbled up out of Kingsley's mouth, and his breathing was rapid and shallow.

"What's - is he - " Harry stammered.

"You filled his stomach with ground glass, Potter," said Moody brusquely, waving his wand over Kingsley's midsection and muttering a series of incantations.

Glass?

Harry opened his mouth to ask how such a thing was even possible, but before he could find the words four people in lime green St Mungo's robes with orange vests on top burst through the doors of the training room and converged around Moody and Kingsley, asking brisk, efficient questions. The emergency squad, thought Harry dimly, remembering the team who had arrived at Hogwarts last year when Ron had been knocked off his broom during their final Quidditch match. Seconds later, they had conjured a stretcher underneath Kingsley and were on their way out the door, leaving Harry alone with Moody.

Moody stared at Harry with both eyes, and Harry got the uncomfortable sensation that he was being scanned. "Where did you learn that hex, son?"

"What hex?"

"The one you just used on Kingsley!" Moody barked, making Harry jump back slightly.

"I - I didn't - I didn't do anything!" said Harry, thoroughly bewildered.

"Potter, Kingsley Shacklebolt nearly bled to death just now because you cast a very nasty Ground-Glass Curse on him, causing massive internal haemorrhaging. It's not taught at Hogwarts, nor is it anything we teach in Auror training. It's Dark magic, boy, so I'll ask you again - where did you learn it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Harry desperately. "I don't know any such curse, and this exercise was supposed to be non-lethal hexes only, so I wouldn't have used it even if I did know it!"

"You're suspended from training as of right now," said Moody, "until such time as we can determine how this curse was cast and why." With that, he gave Harry another searching look from his magical eye and left the training room.

Two days later, when Kingsley had received several doses of Blood-Replenishing Potion and had been discharged from St Mungo's, there was a hearing. Harry's stomach lurched when he stepped into the lift, because instead of going up, to go to the Auror Headquarters and training room as was his usual custom, it travelled downward to the very last floor.

He'd not been to this floor since Sirius died.

"Department of Mysteries," said the cool voice of the lift. Harry stepped into the dark hallway, deliberately not looking down to the plain black doorway at the end of the corridor.

The hearing wasn't in Courtroom Ten, where he'd had his first experience with disciplinary hearings, but in the smaller, less formal Courtroom Five. There were none of the formalities of that hearing, and the only people present were Moody, Kingsley, and a few other Aurors including Nymphadora Tonks.

Moody didn't seem to be quite as angry at him as he did earlier in the week; especially after Kingsley testified that he had not heard Harry utter any incantation before being hit with the spell.

"I had been duelling with Potter for forty-five minutes before it happened," said Kingsley. "He'd used no curses of that sort previously, and the gesture he made was nothing like any gesture he used when casting any of his previous spells. I do not feel it was intentional, and perhaps it was not even Harry's doing?"

Moody performed a Priori Incantatem on Harry's wand, which revealed he did indeed cast the Ground-Glass Curse. This relieved Harry for some odd reason; it assured him, at least, that no one had been lurking in the training room waiting to do him in. However, he still had no idea how he'd managed to cast a spell he had never even heard of.

"Potter, I want you to tell me exactly what was going through your mind before you cast that curse."

Harry took a deep breath. "I was angry. You were both trying to wind me up, it was part of the training, and then when you mentioned -" He hesitated here, as not all of the Aurors present were Order members, but Moody nodded for him to continue. "When Kingsley mentioned the prophecy, I just sort of snapped, and all I could think of was ..."

"Go on, Harry," said Tonks. "What were you thinking of?"

"I... " He closed his eyes, trying to remember. What had he been thinking of?

And then he remembered, and his mouth went dry.

"It was - it happened all very fast. I thought of Voldemort, and how he was... how he fought. At Hogwarts." Harry hadn't said anything about the battle other than a brief statement to the Aurors after it happened, and he didn't feel like he was actually talking about it. He felt as if someone else with his voice was standing across the room, peering inside his head and speaking his thoughts. "Dumbledore, and Voldemort, they were duelling, and... I don't know what the last spell was that Dumbledore cast, but when he did, the whole castle shook. And every window exploded. It was like there was this great bubble of magic that welled up from inside the castle and just burst and it took Voldemort with it. And by the time I could see again, Dumbledore... he was dead. He was on the floor and there was glass everywhere from the windows. And then Ron and Hermione showed up and Ron's wheelchair made this crunching noise on the broken glass. And that's... that's what I was thinking of." He slumped back in his chair, suddenly and inexplicably tired.

"You were thinking of glass." Moody's tone was sceptical. "That made you cast a Dark curse you claim you don't even know?"

"Harry has a history of spontaneous magic," said Tonks.

"Nothing like this," said Moody. "It's always been harmless sorts of magic like hair regrowth, spontaneous Apparation, inflating his aunt - "

"I'm telling you - I don't know that spell!" protested Harry. "Give me Veritaserum if you have to, but I'll tell you the same - I don't know it!"

"Keep your trousers on, Potter," said Moody. "I'm satisfied - for now - that you're telling the truth. But if anything of the sort happens again - any more Dark magic - and we'll be taking more drastic measures."

Harry didn't like the sound of that.

After the hearing, Harry didn't stick around to chat. He left the courtroom, waiting for the lift in the dim hallway, and mulled over events in his head. Where had that spell come from? Just because he was thinking of broken glass shouldn't have meant that he cast that curse on Kingsley. He felt sick just remembering the look on Kingsley's face, the green tinge to his dark skin, the pain and confusion.

It seemed like he waited for an eternity before he heard a dry sort of creak, jolting him out of his thoughts, and he turned towards the lift - but it hadn't arrived. He pulled his wand automatically and glanced around to find the source of the noise and realised in a heart-stopping instant that the creak he heard wasn't coming from the lift - it was coming from the plain black doorway at the end of the hall. Harry gripped his wand more tightly as the door swung open, then nearly dropped it in disbelief.

Ron was halfway out the door before he realised that Harry was there, watching him, and he froze. The black door began to swing shut, catching on the wheel of his chair, and Ron pushed himself out of the way enough to let the door close.

"Harry," he began, and then stopped.

"Ron - what are you... what are you doing down here?" Harry finally managed to ask.

"Er," said Ron. He cleared his throat. "Working."

"Working?" asked Harry incredulously. "Working? Here?"

"Yeah," said Ron.

"But that's the Department of Mysteries," said Harry, stepping back until he hit the wall of the corridor.

"Er, yeah." Ron looked uneasy.

"The only people who work in the Department of Mysteries are Unspeakables."

"Well... yeah."

Harry almost choked. "You're an Unspeakable?"

"Well, no, not technically, not yet anyway. Sort of an Unspeakable trainee."

"Why am I always the last person to know anything?" Harry snapped, filled with an irrational sort of anger, and at that moment the lift appeared, its golden grilles sliding open. "Just lovely," he growled, slamming the grilles shut and ascending, not waiting for Ron.

*****

The coach was dingy and crowded and rather rickety, but it was on the ground and not the ocean and Hermione felt that that was a major redeeming factor, even if the overlarge man next to her reeked of snuff and unwashed male and was currently so close to her that she was scrunched up against the window. Her wand had somehow half-escaped its concealed pocket in her bodice and was currently stabbing her in the ribs, but she didn't dare try to adjust it for fear of attracting any attention to herself. She had abandoned the severe widow glamour after purchasing her ticket across the Channel, and didn't dare try to reinstate it for fear it would wear off at a most inconvenient time, so she was back to looking young and fairly well-to-do, and she was trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

She couldn't make out any of the conversations currently buzzing about the coach; Bill's rudimentary French lessons had been adequate but no preparation for the blistering fast pace of native French, and she gave up trying to decipher any of it after the first few hours. Instead, she wadded up her bag, tucked it between her head and the window and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. Instead of sleeping, she mentally reviewed her plan of action upon reaching Paris.

The very first thing she would need to do would be to find Master Raymond. She had the name of his shop and the address written on a scrap of parchment tucked into her bag, and she'd thoroughly researched historical maps of Paris, so she had a pretty good idea where it was. And while she couldn't make out any of the conversations going on around her, she felt she could speak enough French to be able to ask directions, and hopefully she would be able to make out any replies.

She hoped.

If all went according to plan she would be able to find Master Raymond in a matter of days, and hopefully the training would be complete and she would be able to return to the stone circle in time to make the next safe travel date on February second. Two and a half months to go before she could get back to her own time and with everyone she knew - her parents, Mr and Mrs Weasley, Remus, Tonks, Ginny... and Harry and Ron.

Despite the cold outside, the coach was warm from the bodies crowded inside, and between the stale air and the babble of French all around her, Hermione found herself getting sleepy. She adjusted her bag into a more comfortable headrest between herself and the window and let herself drift off - after all, it would be quite some time before they arrived in Paris and it was either look out the window (really too grimy to see through), look at the man beside her (who seemed to be a little too eager to involve her in conversation) or try not to notice that the children seated across from her were picking their noses. It didn't take her long to go from pretending to sleep to an actual doze.

There was a loud crash of thunder, and Hermione awoke with a jerk - the children across from her were crying, their mother was trying to shush them, and the coach was rocking and swaying violently. Everyone in the coach was talking rapidly and even if she'd been fluent in French she very much doubted she would understand them.

A huge downpour of rain splashed against the window like a wave. Lightning flashed nearby, illuminating the coach with a nearly natural brightness, and there was a split second that felt almost peaceful before the coach shuddered, lurched alarmingly, and then started forward with a jerk so sudden that Hermione fell out of her seat. A large hand gripped her arm, pulling her back up, and she realised it was the snuff-smelling man beside her.

"Horses," he said in heavily accented English, his eyes round with terror. "Running away."

Before the words could register in her mind, there was a terrified, piercing scream from outside, a huge, splintering crash, and everything went black.

*****

Harry woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. His hand went immediately to his scar out of force of habit, and it was a full minute before he realised that his scar wasn't hurting him and wasn't the reason he was awake. He slid out of bed, reaching automatically under his pillow for his wand. He still wasn't used to the noises and creaks of his new house, much yet being used to sleeping in a room alone, and night noises had woken him more than once since he'd moved out of the Burrow.

Somehow, this was different.

He padded barefoot down the hall, looking around corners and peeking into the doorways of the other still-empty bedrooms. His heart was pounding like a hammer in his chest and he couldn't slow his breathing or fight off the increasing sense of panic. Still not satisfied that everything was all right, he headed for the front of the house, holding his wand shakily in front of him.

There was a loud crack, and before Harry could even think, a huge burst of green light burst from the end of his wand, sailed across the kitchen and into the sitting room to hit the glass of the window-seat and shatter it into a thousand pieces.

"Harry?" said a very unsteady voice.

"Ron?" said Harry, feeling sick. His wand arm was numb all the way to his shoulder, and his wand slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered on the floor. "What - I didn't know you were - "

"I came to see if you were okay," said Ron, looking nervously from Harry to the shattered window. "I felt - "

"I know," said Harry. "Like something is wrong."

"Yeah."

"I don't know what it is." The sense of panic was slowly subsiding, and a sick sense of dread was trickling through his body in its place.

"Me either." Ron paused, and Harry could almost hear him swallow. "Harry... what did you almost hit with me with just now?"

Harry didn't want to answer.

He didn't want to admit that somehow, without knowing how or even saying the words, he had cast the very same curse that had killed his parents.