A Little Dust

Chapter 2

Ginny awoke to the slight pain of a leg cramp. It happened every time she slept at home now, because of the size of the bed. It was too small. She had managed to grow about as tall as the twins during the two years after she left Hogwarts, and she refused to enlarge her bed at home. It was part nostalgia, part refusal to do magic.

Times such as these, when she was home and still sleepy, she'd try to think about a hypothetical Christmas morning, with Hermione still alive, her arms around Harry, watching their children get kissed within an inch of theirives by Molly Weasley. She imagined the oldest boy playing with Crookshanks. She imagined Ron bouncing the youngest child on his knee, smiling.

She imagined Ron smiling.

But this was nothing, it was a mirage, something that could never be. Hermione was dead, Ron didn't smile anymore. Crookshanks had long ago run away to die, far from The Burrow.

And those precious bespectacled children were no more real than fairy tales.

It took her twenty minutes to forget the imagined setting and will herself out of bed.

By the time she was downstairs for breakfast, Percy had arrived, freshly showered, and he and the twins were already having breakfast. Ron sat outside, watching the garden gnomes run around, a coffee cup in his hand.

The single, solitary Chocolate Frog on Ginny's plate almost made her cry.

--------

Owl post had been particularly speedy the previous night, and by the time Luna Lovegood entered her office at The Quibbler, a letter was waiting on top of her desk, under a large white owl that Luna recognized immediately.

It was Hedwig. It had to be.

Luna quickly rifled through her bag, looking for a treat. She finally unearthed a small bag of candied chestnuts and offered one to Hedwig.

This was a tired, old owl, but it was Hedwig all right. The same snowy feathers, the same wise countenance, the same appreciative peck.

Luna's heart skipped a beat, but then it settled back. Harry couldn't send post from Azkaban... even if he was sane.

Still, it was odd. Hedwig allowed Luna to untie the letter from her leg. The envelope was beige, and Luna ran her fingers over the heavy paper before ripping the side open.

She pulled out a note and a newspaper clipping. From the quality of the paper, she could tell it was a Muggle newspaper, or a good magical duplication of it.

She read the note carefully, focusing on every detail.

"Miss Lovegood:

It has come to my attention that you may be interested in this clipping. A certain H.G. appears to be very alive, contrary to popular belief. Things contrary to popular belief are your specialty, if I remember correctly.

I'll be looking forward to the next issue of The Quibbler."

She dropped the note and scrambled to unfold the clipping. There it was, circled by a ring of dried water.

Hermione Granger's eyes. They were open. They were sadder. They were different.

But they were, and she was, indeed alive.

Luna had to sit down. She reread the note twice. It was unsigned, but Luna had picked up quite a few PI tricks from her father's journalistic days. This source knew her from before, remembered her. A Hogwarts alum? An old lover?

She traced the letter with her fingers carefully, then traced the envelope. If the person was going for anonymity, he or she had screwed up.

Luna removed her trademark pencil from behind her ear and used it to colour over the slight rise on the bottom, right-hand corner of the notepaper. It wasn't parchment, and it was monogrammed.

DLDTM.

She only knew one person in the wizarding world rich enough and odd enough to own that kind of paper and to have written that note, who shared those initials.

She inspected the picture from Pamplona, the letter from Malfoy Mansion. It was either getting to Malfoy or trying to find Hermione. There really wasn't much time to decide. The paper was dated July 8th. It was now the tenth of July. The San Fermin fiesta would only last four more days.

She scribbled a quick note back to Malfoy, and then tied it to Hedwig's leg. "Find him again, will you?" Luna said, stroking the snowy owl's beak. She was almost certain Hedwig nodded.

After Hedwig flew out her window, Luna Lovegood grabbed her coat and her purse and, without a word of warning to her staff, she Disapparated, the note and the clipping in her hand.

---

The thing Ron had last expected on the morning of Bill's birthday was Luna Lovegood Apparating in front of him, stepping on the head of a garden gnome.

A few seconds later, he scratched that thought.

The last thing he'd expected was for Luna to walk up to him, kiss him full on the mouth and then, whisper, "Hermione's alive."

There was nothing he could do to stop his hand from slapping her hard across the face.

Ginny had seen the exchange through the kitchen window and was beside them a minute later, watching Luna back away from Ron, tears welling in her eyes.

Luna spit out blood on the ground. She held a hand up to her face and shrugged awkwardly.

"There will come a time when we'll be judged for what we've done, and all I've done is believe," she said, looking at Ginny. "You either believe me or you don't. You either believe that the eyes in this newspaper clipping are Hermione's or you think I'm insane. You either come to Spain with me now or you stay here. I'm Dispparating in five minutes. Choose what you'll be judged for."

Ginny took the clipping from Luna's hand.

A ring of discoloured text and photograph surrounded a few heads. A pair of eyes so familiar looked back, in despair.

The twins stood transfixed, looking over Ginny's shoulder. Percy Weasley just shook his head. "Miss Lovegood, surely you can't expect us to..."

"Shut up, Perce," Ginny said crossly. "It's her. Can't you tell?"

"Ginny, we can't tell," Fred said, motioning for George to have a look too.

George agreed. "It's been so long..."

Tears were rolling down Ginny's cheeks. "Ron... you look, Ron... You'll see..."

But Ron had already disappeared to his room, he was gone, he was dead, he was no one, he didn't want to see. The coffee cup rested on the bench, quietly.

"Ginny..." Percy started.

She shook her head. "I'm going with you, Luna."

"This is ridiculous," Percy added. His eyes darted from one twin to the other, waiting for them to speak out.

Fred shook his head. "Maybe we should wait for a confirmation..."

Luna shook her head. "The bull-run last four more days. Maybe this is the only chance we get... We have to go now...."

"I'm going with you," Ginny repeated. "Just give me a few minutes."

Luna assented. Ginny, with a tiny pop, disappeared from the porch.

---------

She found Ron sitting against the wall of his room, on the floor, with his knees drawn up to his chest. She didn't have time to dwell on the fact that this was her first time Apparating in seven years.

Things were a bit smashed up inside Ron's room, and Ginny felt astounded that he hadn't done more damage in the time he'd been there.

Ginny sank to her knees in front of him. "Oh, Ron..."

"Don't come any closer, Gin. Please."

This had been the most Ron had said to her in ages. He'd used her pet name, a shortened nickname, a family name. He was scared. He held his hand tightly around his wand.

"I have to go Ron. I have to."

Ron looked at her with as much fear as love as hatred as pain. Contrary to what Hermione had once said, he did not appear to have the emotional range of a teaspoon. But he did seem about to burst. "She was dead. I touched her skin, I watched her lying there. She is dead, and he killed her."

Ginny stood up slowly. "If you'd just look..." she said, extending her hand, the folded paper clipping in it.

"Don't come any closer, Ginny," Ron said, his immediate reaction to draw his wand.

Ginny smiled at him, her eyes softening. Was that pity she felt? Or just sadness?

She placed the small, folded clipping on his desk. On top of it, so it wouldn't fly off, Ginny placed a snowglobe.

The Hogsmeade snowglobe Hermione had given Ron.

"When you're ready to see..." she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

And then, with no sound but a pop, she disappeared.

-------

Fred had summoned a cigarette from somewhere in Ottery St. Catchpole and was halfway through smoking it when Ginny reappeared.

Luna was stepping on a different garden gnome, looking at the ground absentmindedly. Percy had entered the house again, and he could be heard yelling words like "preposterous" and "codswallop" at odd intervals.

Molly Weasley grabbed hold of Ginny as soon as she appeared, almost crushing her. "My Ginny... The twins said... and Luna..."

"I have to go Mum... Dad. I have to."

Arthur Weasley nodded. He was trying not to let on that he, too, feared for his daughter.

"If you need help..." George said, taking a step forward. "Tools, anything... we'll send you anything you need. And if you find her..."

Ginny nodded. "I'll keep in touch." She walked up to Luna, pulling on a light coat and making sure her moneybag was in place. "I can't believe I'm doing this," Ginny whispered, closing her eyes slowly.

"It's not really that far," Luna said, grabbing hold of Ginny's hand.

With two soft popping sounds, they were both gone.

---------

It had always been quite difficult for Draco Malfoy to make a subtle entrance.

Much more so when his hair contrasted against the dark, grey walls of Azkaban, allowing for no stealth.

He couldn't afford using the newly harnessed power for a transfiguration, and he didn't have time for a Polyjuice Potion.

Where stealth and subtlety failed, it paid to be brass and loud.

It also paid to have really nifty powers derived from stones.

He Apparated past the front gates of Azkaban with a deafening crash. He then walked past the Spiked doors with the same ease as the Minister of Magic, with confidence, with his wand held high and little else.

He climbed up the nearest set of steps, knowing them to lead to the high towers.

Harry Potter had been imprisoned in the same cell as Lucius Malfoy had used years before. It was irony, some had thought. Poetic justice, a few had added.

Draco Malfoy just thought it convenient, because he knew the way to his own father's cell. He'd been there with his mother once, to claim his body.

But even his confidence couldn't keep the dementors at bay for long, and soon they were swarming around him, cold, snivelling. They were smelling Draco, trying to figure out exactly what he was. Human? Flesh? Alive? Dead? Draco was feeling something, and they could smell it, even if Draco himself could not.

He hadn't counted on the persistence of the dementors, or the fact that they seemed to multiply the closer he got to Harry's cell.

It occurred to him now, a bit too late, that if the dementors became too frustrated with him, they would move on to the nearest victim, who just happened to be Harry Potter.

When Draco found himself in front of Harry's cell, no less than eighty dementors surrounded him.

Draco Malfoy knew neither he nor Potter would last much longer with this much Dementor activity in the area.

With a wide swish of his wand, he pronounced an incantation dementors had not heard for thousands of years.

"Roca Espiritum."

One by one the dementors fell to the floor, their black cloaks piling one on top of the other, the sound of fabric and metal hitting the stone floor.

It was then, and only then, that Draco Malfoy got to look into Harry Potter's eyes for the first time in over eight years.

"What the hell are you playing at, Malfoy?" Harry asked, standing without the robotic stance of his previous human interactions inside this prison.

He couldn't see, but he knew Malfoy's voice. Some things hadn't changed in eight years.

-------

They'd miscalculated and ended up on the outskirts of town, a ways off. It had taken quite a bit of energy to Apparate from England to Spain, so Apparating the distance to town was out of the question. As they walked, night started to fall, and the lights guided them.

Luna didn't mind the walk much, or the heat. The dust rising from the ground she did mind a bit, as it was flying into her eyes.

"How did you get the clipping?" Ginny finally asked, as Luna worked on her direction charm.

Luna thought about this for a second. Was it a good idea to tell Ginny?

She might as well tell her the truth. There was no one else to tell it to.

"Draco Malfoy sent it," she said, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

Ginny stopped dead in her tracks. "D-Draco Malfoy?"

"U-huh," Luna replied, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Her coat had long been tied around her waist.

"How did he find it? Why did he send it to you? Can we trust him?" Ginny went through the questions at a neck-breaking speed.

"I don't know," Luna answered honestly. "But you saw the picture, just like I did. It was Hermione."

Ginny sighed. Now that she'd had time to think about it, to walk through the thoughts in her mind, it seemed to her that there were other options. "Yes it was. But it could have been someone transfigured into her. It could have been Polyjuice Potion. It could be a trick our eyes are playing on us."

Luna shrugged. "We won't know until we find her."

"What if we can't find her?" Ginny looked onto the town before them. It wasn't exactly large, but it wasn't tiny either.

"We'll find her."

"What if we find her, but we can't tell if it's her or not? A lot has changed in the last eight years. And if she's alive, there must be something seriously wrong keeping her away from Harry. What if we can't fix it?"

Luna placed a hand on Ginny's shoulder. She didn't have a plan, and that much was clear. But there had to be a master plan in the works, and they were part of it, weren't they?

"If we're lucky, Draco and Harry will be here by then. If we're not, we'll wrestle that troll when we run into it, how about that?" Luna answered, thinking of her note to Draco.

Ginny nodded for a few seconds, replaying Luna's words in her mind. "Did you just say Draco and Harry?" she asked, her eyes wide with bewilderment.

But Luna didn't answer. They were still a ways from town, and she had started walking toward it again.

------

Draco Malfoy smiled, finally letting his shoulders relax. "So I was right. You're not a raving lunatic. Good. I'm here to break you out of prison."

Harry approached the bars of his cell, tilting his head to one side. "Why?"

"Because life on the outside just isn't as fun without you," Draco deadpanned, analysing the magical activity that surrounded the cell with his wand.

Harry backed away from Draco, searching for a place to sit. "I've finally lost it. The dementors must have gotten to me," he murmured, his hands moving to his shaved head, his fingers unconsciously inching up his scalp, as if there was hair there.

"Not bloody likely."

"Why else would YOU be HERE?" Harry asked, as he sat, his eyes fixed on Draco Malfoy's face.

Draco waved his wand at the bars, which opened far enough for him to walk in comfortably. They opened without complaint. "Because Granger's alive, Potter, and frankly, I'm turning into a bore now that I have no one to insult."

Harry's expression turned from blankness to bewilderment to complete, utter disbelief. "You... you're lying..."

For the first time in over eight years, Harry Potter was about to start crying.

Behind Draco, the Dementors were stirring, sensing the emotions. This was not good. They weren't supposed to wake for at least another four hours.

"Now's no time to break down, Potter. Get the bloody hell up and let's get the bloody hell out. You start feeling again and the Dementors will do away with the both of us," Draco warned, grabbing Harry's arm.

If Harry had been expecting Draco to pull him up, to make him run, he was mistaken.

He felt the surge of magic flickering in the pit of his stomach and, half a second later, he found himself inside a car, sitting on the passenger's side.

They had Apparated, and now Draco Malfoy was driving them down a road Harry had never seen before. Apparating was something Harry hadn't done for years, and it felt especially strange now that Draco had done it for him. It felt more like using a Portkey, Harry thought, chalking it up to another courtesy of his hallucination.

"They won, didn't they? I'm really off my rocker now," Harry muttered, reaching out to touch the windshield. It felt real enough.

Draco shrugged. "Open the glove compartment, take out the newspaper clipping, and shut up."

The car was an elegant black model, and Draco was driving faster than he ought to. Harry did as he was told, figuring that at least this hallucination had some advantages to Azkaban. Maybe it wasn't so bad, going insane.

He unfolded the clipping that had been inside the glove compartment.

"I can't see," he said, tracing the page with his fingers. He still needed glasses, definitely, even in this hallucination.

Draco stopped the car, pulling over to the side of the road. "You're just no use, are you?" he said, pointing his wand at Harry and performing a temporary eyesight-improvement charm. "There."

Harry looked down at the paper again.

There she was. Her eyes were panic stricken, pained, but alive.

Alive.

A wave of dizziness hit Harry with such force that he felt like he was going to burst. Before Draco could start the motor again, Harry had kicked the car door open and had run into the forest beside the road.

Alive.

Draco shook his head, swearing under his breath as he opened the car door and ran after him.

By the time Draco found him, Harry Potter had thrown up every last bit of his final prison meal and was fighting dry heaves between sobs.

"Fuck you, Malfoy," he said, deliberately, tears streaming from his eyes.

Draco was certain the eyesight charm had worn off by now, but it was no use to try and guide Potter out of the forest yet.

Harry leaned against a tree and sank down, burying his face in his hands. And he cried.

Eight years worth of tears, of mourning, of death, of love lost, of disbelief.

It was four hours before Malfoy pulled him up by an arm and led him back to the black car, aware by Harry's silence that his tears had stopped.

----

George and Fred couldn't look away from Ron's bedroom door. Percy was still pacing downstairs, their mother was still crying her eyes out, and their father was still consoling her.

But what about Ron?

"Should we knock?" George asked.

Fred shrugged. "We never used to."

"Things are different now."

"We're different now."

Silence.

The door was horrible. It was the only thing separating them from their broken brother. The image of Ron that they held tight in their minds was still of the dirty-nosed child on his first day on the Hogwarts Express. His wide-eyed innocence was long gone.

They hoped Ron was not as far gone as his innocence.

"Bill would have known what to do," Fred whispered.

George looked at Fred, then back at the door. "Maybe not. But maybe Bill would have believed Harry was innocent."

"Harry never said he was, at least not loud enough."

"Maybe he didn't think he needed to."

"Hey, this isn't helping the situation," Fred pointed out.

George nodded with determination. "On the count of three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

With a couple of crackling noises, they Apparated into Ron's room.

They hadn't been inside the room in ages, and were surprised to find it a museum version of the one they knew, dusty, aged.

Ron was standing beside his desk, holding a snowglobe in one hand and the clipping in another. The clipping was folded, unopened; yet he was looking into the snowglobe instead.

"Hermione gave me this," he said, shaking the snowglobe. He didn't need to look at them to know the twins were there. When it came to his brothers, Ron could still sense their presence.

The enchanted snowflakes fell over the tiny village in the globe, the glass fogging up as the snow cooled it. Ron shook it again.

"It was an end-of-school present. She said that Hogsmeade would always remind her of me, because we discovered it together, the first time we went. She said that she wanted me to know that no matter what she and Harry had, she and I also had something special. We were best friends."

"We know, Ron," George said, inching closer to Ron.

Ron turned to the twins, seemingly pained by having to look away from the snowglobe. "You don't know. When she died I lost two best friends. I lost a way of life. I lost everything I knew about Light Magic, about evil."

"Then why don't you look at the clipping?" Fred asked, sitting on the edge of Ron's bed. A bit of dust floated off it as his weight made the mattress sag.

Ron looked at the folded piece of paper in his hand, then at his brothers. "Because if she's alive, then I didn't lose two friends... I failed them. I left one to rot in prison, and the other somewhere trapped, waiting for help that has never come."

"If she's alive, then we all failed them, and we have to make up for it. No time like the present, Ron. You're the only one who can recognize her. You have to look at the clipping," Fred replied.

Ron turned over the folded paper, not daring to look at it. "It could be a trick."

"Or it could not be," George countered. "You have to look at it to find out."

Ron took a shaky breath. He unfolded the paper and forced himself to look at it for a full minute.

Strange things started happening then. The light in the rooms flickered, the house seemed to shake, the room moving, dust falling from every piece of furniture.

The snowglobe fell from Ron's hand, rolling down the floor and stopping against the wall. The enchanted glass did not break, but the thud was almost a shriek of pain.

Fred and George looked at each other meaningfully.

It had been Hermione's eyes. There was no doubt now.

Just then Ron let out a strangled sob, proving this completely. The snowglobe shattered spontaneously.

And The Burrow shook the entire night.