Full Circle

Chapter Seven

Oh light the candle, John
The daylight has almost gone
The birds have sung their last
The bells call all to Mass

Sit here by my side
For the night is very long
There's something I must tell
Before I pass along

--Loreena McKennitt, "Skellig"

"How many times have you come up with that same reading?"

Ron frowned at the spread of cards on the table. "About five? You're the one taking notes, Olivia, you tell me."

Olivia glanced at her sheaf of parchment. "Six."

"Whoo. I'm being really useful today, aren't I?"

"You'd be a lot more useful if you could actually tell me something about what you just did here," she said. "But somehow I don't think you really have your mind on your work."

"Ha-ha. I see your Inner Eye is in fine form this afternoon," he said grumpily.

"Good thing someone's is." She scribbled something on her parchment and peered at her watch. "Here it is almost two and we've not eaten - are you hungry? I can go get us something while you work, if you want. Maybe if I shut up for a while you might be able to think for a bit."

Ron started to tell her that it didn't really matter whether she was sitting there reading the Quibbler out loud and upside down, dancing on the table in a hula skirt and coconut bra, or in another part of the building entirely, he wasn't going to get any work done today, but instead he just nodded. "Sure, whatever you want, that's fine."

When she was gone, he leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to organise his thoughts. Then he looked at the cards on the table, touching each one as he went. The same ones that kept turning up - the Devil and the Emperor, always in equal but opposite positions, so those could only be Voldemort and Harry. The Page of Wands, who occasionally showed up on Harry's side of the table but usually aligned with Voldemort's card. But most interesting of all were the two new cards that now appeared along with Harry's card almost every time: the Knight of Wands and the Queen of Swords.

Ron had a pretty good idea of who those could be, as what two people were always with Harry besides himself and Hermione? The Queen's card quite suited Hermione - Her darker side can be very dangerous, but she does inspire intense love and devotion from the most unexpected sources, said one of the department's many books on interpreting the Tarot. Dangerous didn't quite begin to cover it, he thought. He'd called her 'brilliant but scary' once, and that about summed it up as well as anything else. He didn't want to think what she might do when she came back to discover he'd been snogging her boyfriend. Big fat hypocrite that made him, considering how hacked off he'd been when he had thought Hermione was cheating on him with Harry. Nice way to repay her for what she was offering to do for him, wasn't it?

And the intense love and devotion part? That bit was spot on, he thought ruefully, moving on to the next card.

That left himself as the Knight of Wands, and while he didn't think he was particularly brave, he had to admit that the tendency for this card to stand for someone who expresses their opinions with great force described him almost too well. It bothered him just a bit, because it put him in the same suit as the Page of Wands, whoever he was, and cards in the same suit often stood for people who had similar personality qualities in common.

There was only one person he could think of that he might even remotely have any similar personality characteristics with that also had a connection to Voldemort, as much as he was loathe to admit it, and if that person did turn out to be the one they were looking for, it could be nothing good. It was only a hunch on his part, but he pulled Olivia's parchment from the other side of the table and scribbled it down, just in case. It would be the height of irony, thought Ron, scowling, if this was actually the person they had been looking for all this time.

The last crucial card in the spread, again, was the Justice card, and it was placed in such a way that it affected or involved all of the major cards around it - the Devil, the Emperor, the Knight, the Queen, and the Page. Muggles had their own associations with this card, but for wizards it also symbolised a life-debt - the magical bond that is created between wizards when one saves the other's life. There was only one life-debt involving any of this particular group of people that he was aware of, and that was the debt he owed Harry and Hermione for saving his life after his Quidditch accident. But he couldn't really see how his accident would impact the ultimate outcome of Harry versus Voldemort, so that couldn't be it.

Or could it?

He didn't remember all that much about that accident, really. There was that single, heart-stopping instant where he felt like his insides had just exploded - that must have been when both Bludgers hit him in the stomach at once, and after that there wasn't much he could recall except it was hard to breathe and people were yelling and he felt his whole body going numb before he blacked out.

The next thing he remembered was waking up briefly a few times and not being able to move, not even to turn his head or open his mouth. The Healers had told him later that he'd been doped up on pain potions, potions to keep his spinal cord from swelling, and he'd been under several immobilisation spells to keep him from moving accidentally and injuring himself any further.

When they were convinced he wasn't going to hurt himself any more than he already had, they'd reversed the immobilisation spells and taken him off the potions, and eventually he woke up for good. And that's when he realised that the reason he couldn't feel half his body had nothing to do with any sort of spells or potions, and he wished he hadn't woken up at all.

"Just be glad you aren't a Muggle," said the Healer who'd been in charge of his rehabilitation programme. "Tricky business when you've not got the sort of spells we've got to make things a bit easier." And Ron had to admit he didn't quite see how Muggles could get along like this. If there was something he couldn't reach, he could just Summon it. If there was a place with stairs, his wheelchair had a Levitation Charm on it - and while it took considerably more concentration than levitating a feather, it was still possible to get virtually anywhere he wanted to go. It had taken him longer to learn to Apparate than it had taken Harry, because he had to concentrate on making sure the parts of him he couldn't feel didn't get splinched, and learn not to leave his chair behind (though he didn't do what Harry did on his first try and leave his trousers two miles away), but he'd learned just the same. There were spells he could use to make it easier to get dressed and undressed, spells he could use to make sure he didn't have any nasty side effects from sitting in one place too long, and spells to take care of the sorts of things the Healers had classified under the heading 'personal hygiene'. And while it had taken him his whole stay in St Mungo's to sort it all out, he'd managed to make it all come together eventually.

What Ron couldn't understand was why they couldn't do anything about it, if wizards were really so much better off than Muggles. He thought back to second year, when that Lockhart git had taken all the bones out of Harry's arm with his wonky spell. He'd just had some Skele-Gro and a night in the hospital wing and he was good as new the next day. It had taken two Healers with a levitating, three dimensional model of a spine and spinal cord two and a half hours to explain to Ron that while re-growing bones was one thing, re-growing nerves was entirely another and simply wasn't possible. One of them had tapped his wand to a vertebrae labelled T12 on the model and explained to him that he had what was called a complete injury, and that there was virtually no chance of regaining any feeling or voluntary movement in his hips and legs. That meant that while he'd eventually have enough upper-body strength, balance, and muscle control to get around and in and out of in his wheelchair without much trouble, he'd likely never walk on his own and probably never fly again either. The Healer then went on to explain a whole bunch of other things Ron didn't quite catch because he was too hung up on the never fly again part.

At the time that had been the part of this whole ordeal Ron had focused on the most - the flying. Flying was something that wizards had always prided themselves on. It was one of the most obvious ways that wizards were different from Muggles. Even if a witch or wizard didn't like to fly, they still could if they needed or wanted to. And Ron was good at it. He hadn't started out that way - even now he could still remember how humiliating it was to hear 'Weasley Is Our King' ringing across the Quidditch pitch - but he'd worked hard at it, and steadily improved with every practice until he was one of the best Keepers Gryffindor had ever had. He loved flying. There was nothing better than kicking off the ground, feeling that rush as the wind picked up and the ground got farther and farther away, and knowing that it only took a nudge of the knees or a tip of the wrist to change direction almost instantly. He had a chance to do something he loved for a living; he wouldn't be stuck in an office in the Ministry behind stacks of forms and filing cabinets, and he wouldn't be working in a shop or at some drudge of a desk job. He had an offer from the Tornados, he was supposed to start as their new Keeper after leaving school, and all that had been taken away just because Draco Malfoy had been so hung up on winning the Quidditch Cup he'd been willing to do whatever was necessary to distract Harry from the Snitch.

After he'd got over that initial shock and bitterness, though, he realised that that wasn't the only thing that was going to change. He thought that he just might possibly die of mortification when the Healers had talked to him about how this was going to affect his sex life. By the time they'd explained how he'd be able to go about doing things he'd taken for granted since he was old enough to understand what parts went where and how they worked, he just closed off the idea completely, refusing to think about it at all.

But recent events had him thinking about it again and wishing he'd paid more attention.

He never expected anything like this to ever happen with Harry. He'd always felt something for Hermione that he was pretty sure was love, even though he'd never come out and actually said it. And while he'd been willing to die for Harry ever since - well, ever since he could remember, really - he hadn't ever felt anything like this for him before. The scary part was what he was now feeling for Harry was damn close to what he felt for Hermione. How was that possible? It couldn't be normal, and it certainly couldn't be right. How could it be right to feel that much for two people, especially when those two people obviously felt that for each other? It wasn't as though he was gay, and he suspected Harry wasn't either. He'd never even considered being attracted to another bloke, ever. And where were Harry's feelings coming from - did he feel this way about Ron because it was something he wanted to feel, or was it more of a case of being lonely and missing Hermione? If it was just a case if missing Hermione, then Ron could understand that, because Hermione wasn't even his girlfriend and missing her hurt him terribly.

But if it were a case of Harry actually being attracted to him, then ... why?

It wasn't like Harry couldn't do better, if he wanted. Find someone whole, someone who could… do the things that Ron couldn't.

It was all so fucking complicated.

*****

"Jesus H Roosevelt Christ!"

Hermione nearly dropped the large box of bandages she carried, completely startled at this outburst. Not only had she never heard an exclamation like that in the hospital, but after so many weeks of hearing nothing but rapid and often colloquial French, it was somewhat of a shock to suddenly hear plain English being spoken. Hermione stopped, retracing her steps to the doorway she'd just passed, thinking that she quite possibly had been imagining things, and peered around the doorframe to get a better look.

"I don't think anyone here has ever heard of washing their hands," said a tall, brown haired woman scrubbing her hands at a basin. "So simple, only takes a moment, and solves so many problems, but if I so much as suggest it, they - oh, bonjour," she said, as she looked up and realised she was being watched.

Hermione felt her mouth hanging open and closed it with a sudden snap. "You - you're English?" she managed to squeak.

"Yes, I am," she answered in English, drying her hands. "I'm Claire Fraser - Lady Broch Tuarach, for formality's sake, but Claire is enough to be going on with, I believe." She laid the towel aside. "And you are?"

"I'm Hermione," she answered.

"Hermione? Your mother's name wouldn't happen to be Helen, would it?" asked Claire, raising an eyebrow.

Hermione frowned, puzzled. "What?"

Claire sighed. "Never mind." She looked at Hermione a little more closely. "Well, you obviously aren't a nun or a novice, but you don't look like a patient either. Do you work here?"

"I suppose you could say that," said Hermione, remembering the box she still held. She set it on a nearby table and replaced some of the bandages that had nearly fallen out in her surprise. "A former patient, helping out in any way I can, until I figure out what to do next."

"Ah. Well, then, I don't suppose you'd mind showing me where a few things are? I just got the grand tour, though Sister Angelique didn't quite have time to show us everything, and I'm anxious to get started."

Hermione spent the next hour showing Claire where the different supplies were kept and was quietly amazed at how quickly Claire set to work. Over the last few weeks Hermione had seen various well-to-do ladies come through the hospital, presumably intending to volunteer their services in an effort to help the less fortunate, but they were often incredibly squeamish and rarely lasted more than a day before disappearing. Claire had no compunctions about anything that needed doing; she could look at the most grotesque of injuries with hardly a blink and seemed to know more about herbs and medicines than anyone else in the hospital besides Mother Hildegarde. And she had a brisk, efficient manner that made Hermione think that Claire had been at this for quite some time.

It wasn't long before Hermione learned just how much of a clinical detachment Claire could muster in her work. Claire had just joined her for their morning rounds when a ragged-looking girl was brought in on a stretcher, her grimy gown bloody and her face contorted in agony. The girl lay curled on her side, hands clutching her abdomen, and moaned when the stretcher was set on the floor, jarring her slightly.

Claire swore under her breath and laid a hand to the girl's forehead, talking softly enough to her that Hermione couldn't quite make out what she was saying. The girl tried to answer Claire's questions, but doubled up again as another spasm of pain wracked her, a soft gush of fresh blood seeped out from under her skirts.

"Hermione?" said Claire, not looking up from her patient. "My medicine box, the last bottle on the right, clear glass, dark brown liquid?"

Hermione poked around in Claire's meticulously organised medicine box until she found what Claire asked for, handing it to her without a word. Claire helped the girl to sit up long enough to drink about half the bottle, then eased her back onto the pallet.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Hermione, as Claire corked the bottle and set it aside.

"She meant to get rid of a baby, and it's gone wrong," said Claire. She got to her feet to rummage through a pile of linens, quickly folding a sheet into a thick pad. "When what she got from the angel-makers didn't work, she took more drastic measures." Kneeling beside the pallet, she lifted the girl's sodden skirts, parting her thighs enough for a gentle examination. "A knife, from what I can tell," she said briefly, pressing the thick pad of fabric between the girl's thighs. "I'm afraid all we can do is try to keep her from bleeding to death."

There wasn't much that they could do, short of repeating the dose from Claire's medicine box and trying to keep her still and quiet, and Hermione quickly realised that their efforts were going to waste. And it scared her to see how quickly someone could bleed to death; it only took a few minutes before the hand Hermione held grew cold and clammy, her face pale, and her body utterly still.

"Oh," said Hermione quietly, not letting go of the girl's hand. Somehow, the sight of someone dying before her eyes wasn't quite as shocking as she thought it would be. It was almost as if she'd seen it already, in whatever part of her life she couldn't remember, the part she now thought of as Before.

"This isn't new to you, is it?" asked Claire quietly.

Looking up, Hermione could tell by the expression on Claire's face that it wasn't new to her, either. "No - at least, I don't think so," she added.

Claire gave her a puzzled frown but didn't enquire further, turning to the basin to scrub the blood from her hands. It was only after she'd dried her hands and begun to tidy things that something clicked into place in Hermione's mind. Many times she'd seen Claire rest her hand briefly on her stomach, just below her waist, always seemingly without even thinking about it, and Hermione hadn't realised what that small gesture meant. She was doing it again now, and it was immediately clear to Hermione why Claire preferred to treat patients with broken bones and physical injuries, leaving those with fevers and poxes to the other nursing staff.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Is there - do you think there's anyone we should tell?" she asked, finally releasing the girl's hand and laying it neatly at her side.

"No," said Claire shortly, a touch of bitterness in her voice. "She was a prostitute, and from what I understand she was on her own. She had no one."

Hermione looked at the pale, slack face of the girl before her, and realised how lucky she was that she ended up here, at the hospital, instead of on the street. She shuddered, turning to the basin, and scrubbed the blood from under her fingernails until her skin was raw and red.

*****

As February second grew closer, things grew more and more tense between Harry and Ron. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge what had happened between the two of them, but as hard as they tried, they couldn't pretend nothing was different. Though it never went any farther than awkward silences and accidental touches that perhaps weren't quite so identical, there was a tension there, something they couldn't ignore. But February second was the day that Hermione would come back, and that left things in a strange position between them. Harry was still on leave from Auror training, and with nothing to keep him occupied besides the burning in his scar, he prowled the house like a caged animal, growing restless and cranky, snapping at the slightest provocation. Ron looked at the calendar every night before bed, counting down the days till Hermione returned and not knowing whether to look forward to it because he missed her so badly and wanted to be sure she was all right, or to dread it because it would complicate things even further between all of them.

The night before they expected her to return, that tension had become so thick Ron felt he might suffocate. There was an Order meeting at 12 Grimmauld, during which Remus did most of the talking, and Ron could hardly bring himself to look at Harry. Ron kept fidgeting with the parchment and quills on the table, picking them up and putting them down and dropping them so many times that Bill finally reached over and pushed them across the table out of his reach. Harry said very little and no one questioned it; Ron supposed everyone thought it was due to the now-constant ache in his scar. He was relieved in that no one asked Harry any questions that might embarrass or provoke him, but it also made him angry that they seemed to almost shy away from him, as if he had some kind of contagious disease. Harry deserves better than that, Ron thought, prodding at a scratch in the table with his finger.

Neither of them felt like lingering after the meeting. They Apparated back to Harry's house in Hogsmeade, and Harry went straight back to his room and closed the door without saying a word. Ron, not knowing what else to do, went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. He took a long time measuring out the tea leaves and the water, as if by concentrating totally on making the tea he wouldn't have to think about anything else. When the tea was ready, he fixed a cup and sat at the table, poking at the surface of his tea with his spoon.

A moment later he looked up to see Harry standing beside the table with a large stone basin in his hands. It was the Pensieve Hermione had given him for his birthday.

"Harry?" Ron asked, not sure what was going on.

Harry set the Pensieve down carefully in the centre of the table. "I think," he began, speaking quietly, "that there's something you need to see before Hermione comes back. I've been thinking about it the whole time she's been gone, and I've been trying to figure out whether or not I should do this, and maybe it's not really my place to tell it, but I think you ought to know."

"Know what?" said Ron. His mouth suddenly felt very dry.

Harry pushed the Pensieve closer to Ron, and Ron moved closer to the table to lean forward and peer inside. It looked as though the Pensieve was showing him his old room at the Burrow - but why?

He looked up at Harry. "Is this your memory?"

"Yeah," said Harry. He looked as though he might change his mind about this at any moment. "Just… hold on to your chair, okay? I think this'll work." And before Ron had a chance to wonder what, exactly, might work, Harry had grabbed him by the shoulder and dived into the Pensieve, taking Ron with him. Ron tumbled over and over with Harry until they landed with a thump in the hallway of the Burrow.

Harry let go of Ron's shoulder. "This is the night before Hermione went through the stones," he said. "I was going to just tell you, but I don't think you'll believe me unless you see it." He swallowed and looked away, and Ron followed his gaze to the door of his room. There was another Harry there, standing in the doorway, looking in.

"Go on, take a look," said Harry roughly.

Ron wheeled down the hall, pulling up beside the other Harry, who seemed to take no notice of him whatsoever, and peered between him and the doorframe. He could hear Harry's footsteps behind him, but if Harry said anything, he didn't hear it. He was too startled by what he saw to notice anything else.

He was looking at himself , asleep in his old bed in his old bedroom at the Burrow, but he wasn't alone. Hermione was sitting on the edge of the bed beside him, talking in a low voice. Ron couldn't quite make out what she said, so he pushed past the other Harry in the doorway (who still didn't notice him) to move closer, to hear what she said. But Hermione apparently wasn't going to say anything else, because she leaned down and brushed her lips across his cheek.

"Hermione…" said Ron's other self, in a sleep-rough voice.

Hermione froze, looking panicked. Clearly she had thought he was fast asleep.

Ron's mind was whirling, confused and disoriented. Had he really been asleep? He didn't remember any of this, so he must have been - and yet, as he watched his other self turn his head slightly towards her, brushing their lips together, it certainly didn't look like he was asleep at all. She was kissing him back, his hands sliding up her arms, moving up into her hair, and he could hear the soft wet noises their mouths made as they slid together in a sloppy, real kiss.

There was a creak from the doorway, and Hermione jumped to her feet, pulling away from Ron's other self with a gasp, looking wide eyed at the door. Ron turned to look - Harry's other self had jumped back out of the way, just peering around the doorframe, and while Ron could just barely see the edge of his confused face, he didn't think Hermione could see him at all. He glanced back at his other self - he looked fast asleep, eyes closed and hands lying carelessly on the blanket where they'd fallen when Hermione jumped away.

Hermione stood there for a long moment, wringing her hands together, whispering, "Oh God, what have I done?" Then she snatched Ron's wand from his bedside table, pointing it to his other self's temple. "Obliviate," she whispered, before letting the wand fall back onto the table. Ron's other self never even flinched, but looked as if he was still sound asleep. Hermione buried her face in her hands, whispering to herself.

She Obliviated me, Ron thought with a sick knot forming in his stomach. She altered my memory. She kissed me and then tried to pretend it didn't happen.

Ron was jerked from his thoughts by a sharp tug on his shoulder. It was the real Harry, pulling them both up out of the Pensieve as the memory faded to black. They landed back in the kitchen of Harry's house, Ron's chair wobbling alarmingly. Harry stumbled against the kitchen table, losing his balance, and landed in a heap on the floor. He didn't get up right away, instead staring at the floor as if he'd never seen it before, breathing heavily.

There were no words Ron could think of to describe how he felt at the moment. Hermione had kissed him, and he'd kissed her back - either knowingly, in which case why had he pretended to be asleep, or unknowingly, in which case why had she Obliviated him?

And why had Harry kept this to himself until now? Why?

"Say something, Ron," said Harry, looking up at him from the floor.

Ron stared at him. "What do you want me to say? You knew about this!"

"I didn't know if I should tell you," said Harry.

Anger flared up in Ron, and he clenched his fists. "You knew about this, the whole time you were - the whole time that this, whatever it was, was going on between us!" He rubbed his hands roughly over his face, and through his hair, trying to get a grip on himself and think about this rationally, but it wasn't going to happen.

"Ron, I just - I didn't know if I should tell you," Harry said again. "I didn't know!"

"Then what was all this, huh? What was all this going on between us? You knew she'd kissed me, you knew she'd Obliviated me. You knew it happened and then you still - "

"It wasn't my place to say!" Harry burst out, clambering to his feet. "It wasn't my secret to tell, I didn't ask to know it, I wish she'd Obliviated me instead! How many times do you think I saw that, over and over, my girlfriend and my best friend, kissing!"

"Then why did you kiss me!" Ron had never felt so trapped in his life. He wanted nothing more than to get up and stomp around, to feel the satisfying thud of floorboards under his feet, to slam doors and pace and just move to get rid of the frustration building up inside him, but all he could do was sit there and stew. "Why? I've been trying to figure out why this is happening - you're in love with Hermione, and you know it! She loves you too, and I don't know why - what - I don't know what you want from me!"

"I don't know what I want from you either!" Harry yelled, stepping so close to Ron that Ron had to lean his head all the way back to look up at him. "All I know is that this - " Harry leaned down suddenly, catching Ron's mouth in a deep kiss, his tongue hot and persistent and pushing away Ron's angry protests before pulling back abruptly, " - this is something I don't want to give up." Harry stared down at him for a moment, his only movement the quick rise and fall of his chest.

Ron seethed, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. "It's not right. You can't just… play around with people like that. With us."

"I'm not playing, Ron," said Harry.

"Okay, maybe you aren't playing," said Ron, hating the way his voice sounded so pathetic, and how the words just sort of tumbled out without him being able to stop them. "Maybe you really think you want this. But maybe it's just you missing Hermione, and that would be, you know, understandable, because she's Hermione and she's not here but she's coming back tomorrow, right? You can go back to how things were before."

Harry looked at him for a long moment. "I don't think I can go back to the way things were before."

"You have to. We have to," said Ron.

"Why, Ron? Why do we have to?"

Ron swallowed, feeling a huge lump in his throat. "Because this just isn't right. You can't feel all that for more than one person."

"Then look at me and tell me that this is just friendship."

That's all it is, Ron thought frantically. Hermione is my best friend. Harry is my best friend. That's all. He tried not to think about how Harry's mouth felt when it brushed against his, or how Hermione's hand was the perfect size to link his fingers with, or how the more he thought about either of them - together or separately - his heart would swell up so much he thought his chest was two sizes too small for it. And he didn't want to think about the fact that Hermione had kissed him, intentionally or not, and then wiped it from his memory, and he didn't want to think about the fact that Harry had known this for the last three months and not said a word.

He looked up at Harry and took a deep breath, feeling his eyes lock with Harry's.

"We're friends, Harry," he said slowly.

There was a brief flicker of what looked like hurt across Harry's face before his expression settled into neutrality. "Friends, then."

"Friends," said Ron.

The word 'friends' had never felt so hollow in his mouth before.

*****

Harry left in the early morning to head to the stone circle. He didn't wait for Ron, and he didn't invite anyone from the Order to go with him. No one had any idea of when to expect Hermione back, and he wanted to be there when she returned. Now that he was familiar with the location, it was a quick Apparition jump from his house to the circle, but he didn't Apparate directly. Instead, he Apparated to the bottom of the hill and went the rest of the way on foot, turning the collar of his cloak up against the wind.

He missed her so much it hurt, he thought, as he trudged his way up the hill. Maybe Ron was right, and the whole thing between the two of them had been nothing more than his feelings for Hermione getting tangled up and confused with Voldemort's intrusion into his mind and making him do things he wouldn't ordinarily have done. Hermione had always been the most sensible of the three of them. Maybe her return would bring some balance, and she could help them make sense out of everything.

Harry wandered around the stone circle for a bit, unsure of what to do. There wasn't exactly a protocol for this sort of thing; it wasn't like waiting for someone at the Muggle airport after a holiday abroad. There wasn't a timetable or waiting area or baggage reclaim. There was only this ring of enormous stones, looking as if they'd been chipped out of some faraway cliff and dropped onto the top of the hill. He walked carefully around the edge of the circle, lightly touching the surface of each stone with his gloved fingertips. Hermione had said that only those with the time travelling gene could 'hear' the stones, but he strained his ear anyway, listening for some sound, some indication that something was about to happen.

But there was nothing.

For no logical reason, he took off a glove, pressing the palm of his bare hand to the rough face of the largest rock, the enormous cleft stone he'd seen Hermione disappear through three months earlier. Harry expected the rock to be as cold as the air around him, but it wasn't cold. It wasn't warm, either - it was simply there, the small chips of mica and minerals in the rock glistening in the bit of cold dawn light that slipped through the clouds. He pulled his glove back on and tucked his hands into his cloak pockets, backing slowly out of the circle.

The sun crept higher in the sky, and finally Harry sat down to wait, leaning against a tree. The day grew slightly brighter but no warmer, and he re-applied Warming Charms to his cloak, gloves, and boots. He let his head fall back against the tree, pulling his knees up to his chest to conserve the warmth. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but Hermione would be arriving at any moment, and he wouldn't be there for much longer.

Perhaps he'd overdone the Warming Charms, he realised. Despite the cold of the ground underneath him and the cutting wind, he was pleasantly warm and almost drowsy. The drowsiness wasn't surprising considering he'd barely slept the night before out of nervousness and anticipation. He didn't want to miss Hermione, but if he closed his eyes for just a moment, it couldn't possibly hurt anything….

*****

Harry found himself in a long, narrow room, dimly lit by torches and lined with high-backed, carved chairs along the walls. There was a tall chair at the end of the room, around which a group of people were gathered, talking in low voices. The voices sounded familiar, and Harry walked toward them, expecting his boots to make noise against the stone floor and surprised when they did not.

"We have tried everything, my Lord," said a female voice, and Harry's heart gave an angry thud against his chest. That half-crazed voice could only belong to Bellatrix Lestrange, which meant that the rest of the people were….

"You have not succeeded," said Voldemort, turning slightly in his chair, and it was enough to allow Harry see him in all his hideous glory. If he hadn't spoken, Harry would not have recognised him - or in fact might not have seen him at all, for he was nearly transparent, almost ghostlike, except for his slitted red eyes. They still burned brightly in his nearly nonexistent face, giving the immediate impression of two glowing coals floating in midair. "Dumbledore may have been a fool, but he was smart enough to know that while he could not kill me, he could weaken me." He reached up with one skeletal hand, closing around Bellatrix's throat, and while he appeared to be nothing but vapour he was apparently quite solid, because Bellatrix shrieked and mewled under his fingers.

"Master…" she rasped, but did not attempt to break his grip.

"Be assured that this is only a temporary weakness," he said. "Potter is the only one who can kill me, but I shall kill him first. If your failure to find a solution has a basis in any idea you may have to the contrary…."

"No… Master," said Bellatrix, and Harry's stomach churned with revulsion at the adoring way in which she looked at Voldemort, almost as if she enjoyed the pressure of his fingers at her throat.

Voldemort's eyes narrowed, and Bellatrix whimpered and squirmed. Harry guessed that Voldemort must be using Legilimency to probe her mind, an idea which was confirmed when the corner of Voldemort's mouth turned up into a sneer-like smile. "Very well. I see that you, at least, are still loyal to me." He released her with a slight push that made her stumble over the hem of her robes, but her adoring expression never faltered. After watching her for a moment, he turned his attention to the rest of the group. "When one plan proves unacceptable, it is time to explore another. I believe you have another suggestion?"

It was only then that Harry noticed the blond figure to the side of the group, a figure he hadn't seen in months. The figure stepped forward, his head tilted slightly in such a way that it could be taken for proper respect, but Harry wasn't quite convinced of that.

"Yes, I do," said Draco Malfoy.

"You!" shouted Harry, unable to keep silent, as his scar burst into searing, skull-splitting pain and everything went black.

*****

Ron had wanted to go with Harry to the stone circle, but when he realised Harry was getting up and ready to go, Ron stayed in bed and pretended to be asleep. Part of him was looking forward to her return as much as Harry was, but another part of him was horrified that she had Obliviated him without his consent, and in the end he decided it was best if he didn't go at all. There was no point in starting off her homecoming with a confrontation; it would inevitably come later anyway. It was a childish way to act, Ron knew, but he couldn't see any other way to be.

So Ron rattled around the house alone, like the last pea in the bottom of the tin, not able to settle on any one thing long enough to finish it. Every small sound made him jump and startle. He finally gave up and went in to work even though he'd already taken the day off. While he knew he wouldn't get anything done, he figured that an attempt at work would keep him busy enough to stop looking out the door every three minutes.

He managed to keep his mind off things until he Apparated home into a steady snowstorm. It surprised him - it had been cold but clear in London, at the Ministry of Magic - but Hogsmeade was covered in a crisp white blanket of snow.

A blanket of snow that was untouched from the pavement along the street up to the front door.

Inside, the house was still and silent. Ron grabbed a handful of Floo powder and tossed it in, shouting, "Remus Lupin!" into the fireplace.

"Ron?" Remus asked, his face hovering in the green flames. "What is it?"

"Harry," Ron panted. "I don't know where he is - is he with you?"

Remus frowned. "No - he specifically said he didn't want anyone going with him today besides you - you aren't with him?"

"Does it look like I'm with him? He's not back from the circle, and it's snowing hard!"

"Move back," said Remus, and a moment later he tumbled out of the fireplace in a whoosh of ashes. "Let's go." Ron swore under his breath and they Apparated directly to the stone circle.

"Harry!"

There was no answer but the whistle of the wind through the stones.

The snow was falling harder at Craigh na Dun, coming down in thick, clumpy flakes, and it was difficult to see anything that wasn't right in front of him. And it was even more difficult for Ron to get around - his wheels stuck in the snow and the half-frozen mud, so his only choices were to Apparate every few feet or melt the snow in front of him as he went. He was glad he'd thought to call Remus, as there was no way he could do this alone.

Half an hour's work and Ron and Remus had cleared the middle of the circle, and just outside of it, but there was no sign of Harry or Hermione anywhere. They kept working, melting and Banishing the snow as fast as he could, but the snow was coming down harder than ever, sticking to their faces and cloaks and gloves in great white clumps. If they didn't find them - Ron pushed that thought out of his mind, refusing to think about it.

"Over here!" yelled Remus from the far side of the circle, near the edge of the woods, dropping to his hands and knees and digging frantically through the snow. "Over here, Ron, he's here!"

Ron shoved his way through the snow, cursing the fact that he couldn't just run over there like anyone else, and by the time he'd reached them Remus had managed to excavate Harry from the snowdrift. Harry was so blue, and still, and his glasses were crusted over with frozen snow.

"He's alive," said Remus, hauling Harry into his lap. "Barely - there's still Warming Charms on his cloak, but they're mostly worn off, we've got to get him back to the house - any sign of Hermione?"

"No," said Ron. "But I don't want to leave without knowing whether she's here or not!"

"We'll send people back to look for her. We have to get out of here before we all freeze." Remus yanked off a glove, then pulled out his wand. "Portus," he said, touching his wand to the glove, which glowed for a moment. Then he pressed the glove to Harry's hand. "I'm taking Harry back to the house with the Portkey - it'll go off in a moment - you go on and Apparate ahead. Get your parents, your brothers, Alastor, Kingsley - whoever you can call up."

"But Hermione could be out here!" said Ron.

"We'll send people back for her! We have to get Harry back now!"

Ron took one last look around the circle - not that he could see much more than the dim shapes of the stones through the swirling snow - and Apparated back to Harry's house. Remus followed seconds later, depositing Harry on the couch and quickly stripping off Harry's sodden clothes as Ron threw Floo powder into the fireplace and yelled for the Burrow. His father promised to round up as many people as he could find and go search for Hermione, but his mother immediately slid through the Floo into Harry's living room, taking charge before Ron even had time to blink.

"Remus, we've got to get him warm," said Molly, Summoning blankets and hot water bottles and other assorted items from various cupboards. "And you!" she said, flinging blankets to Ron as well. "Ronald Weasley, you get out of those wet clothes this instant, you know you shouldn't have gone out in the snow like this, you'd never know if your feet got frostbitten, would you, since you can't feel them? I swear, if there's one time in your life when you listen to what someone tells you, I'd love to be there to see it, I don't know how all of you children managed to make it this many years with all your limbs and digits, it's a wonder none of you've got your hand bit off by a dragon or your nose charmed off to somewhere in Africa, I'm telling you…"

Ron ducked as a hot water bottle went sailing past his head to land in his mother's hand. She continued ranting while she and Remus tucked Harry up in blankets and water bottles, stopping only to make disapproving noises or accio something else from the kitchen. By the time Ron peeled off his wet boots and socks his mother was satisfied Harry wasn't in danger of immediate death and had moved onto him, Banishing his wet clothes and tucking him up into an armchair with a pile of blankets and a steaming mug of tea.

Even Remus could not escape from her. "Last I checked, freezing cold and snow wasn't good for werewolves either, so you just strip right out of those wet clothes, Remus Lupin. It's not like I've never seen a man in his skivvies before, so don't go acting all bashful on my account. That's right, get rid of them or I'll Banish them, and take these blankets, there you go, and this tea, it'll warm you right up, and don't worry about Harry - he's coming around, see? No, you sit down and warm yourself, though if you insist on doing something you could give that fire a good wand poke and warm this place up a bit."

Harry was stirring under the blankets, though it seemed Molly had swaddled him in more blankets than a newborn baby and all that was visible was his face. She clucked and fussed over him, fixing his blankets and helping him sit a little more upright. Harry blinked, his eyes slightly unfocussed.

"Glasses," he said, poking one hand out from the mass of blankets. Molly fetched his glasses and polished them on the corner of her robes before handing them to him.

"Hermione?" he asked, turning to Ron. "Is she here?"

Ron's heart sank. "No, mate, she's not… did she show up?"

Harry frowned, looking as if he was struggling to remember. "I… I was waiting for her, by the circle… and then… I think I fell asleep… no!" He sat up suddenly, flailing in the blankets, trying to push them away.

Molly was on him in a heartbeat. "You stay right where you are, Harry! You need to get yourself warm and rested, so you just get yourself right back under those blankets where you belong, young man!"

"No, you don't understand," said Harry, still pushing blankets away. "Voldemort, I saw him, he's - he's not like he was, whatever Dumbledore did to him last June didn't kill him, just turned him into this ghost like thing. But not really a ghost, he's still him, and he's got Draco Malfoy there with him, and he's up to something."

"Whatever he's up to, Harry, you can't do anything about it right now, so sit down," said Remus. "Is your scar hurting?"

Harry pressed his fingertips to his forehead briefly and shook his head. "No, not now, but it was."

"You must have passed out," said Ron. "When we found you - Harry, you were covered in snow. Inches of it, even."

"Oh," said Harry. He didn't say anything else, and after a moment he allowed Molly to pile some of the blankets back on top of him and hand him a mug of tea.

Ron couldn't decide whether to ask more about this vision Harry'd had or to ask about Hermione, but finally he blurted out, "So you didn't see Hermione at all, then?"

Harry took a long swallow of tea, and shook his head.

"If she's there, Arthur and the others will find her," said Molly quietly, patting Harry's shoulder.

But what if she isn't? Ron wanted to ask, but didn't. Instead, he drank his tea and stared at the small wooden clock over the fireplace, willing it to move faster.

The minutes ticked on; no one said much, and the only thing breaking the quiet other than the soft tick of the clock was Molly getting up to pour them all more tea or fuss with their blankets. It was so quiet that when the door opened Ron nearly dropped his mug in the floor with surprise. Arthur, Tonks, Kingsley, and Bill came in, shaking the snow from their cloaks and hair, and Molly immediately jumped up to heat another pot of tea.

"Well?" asked Harry, looking up from the mug of tea cradled in his hands. "Did you find her?"

Ron knew, just from the way his father hesitated before speaking. "I'm sorry, Harry, we didn't. We looked and looked, but there was no sign of her anywhere. We'll look again in the morning, but… I'm sorry."

"What do you mean, you couldn't find her?" Ron said before he could stop himself. "Where did she go? She couldn't just… disappear!"

Remus spoke up gently. "I think we're going to have to consider the possibility that Hermione didn't return today as planned," he said.

"But… she said," said Harry, his voice catching slightly. "The second of February, that's when she said she'd return. She had it all worked out…."

"Sometimes things don't always go according to plan, Harry," said Remus. He got up from his chair with the blanket still draped around his shoulders, and sat down beside Harry on the sofa. "Any number of things could have happened, and she wouldn't have been able to tell you about any of them. It could have taken her longer to find Raymond than she anticipated, her training may not have been complete - it could be anything."

Ron stared down into his mug. Remus was making perfectly logical sense, but nothing felt at all logical to him. The one thought in his mind, the only thing he could focus on, was Hermione didn't come back.