But Thy Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade

Hermione followed Harry onto the back-lawn, where the cold wind whipped her face mercilessly. The sun shone high in the sky, but it didn't heat the icy air. Harry stopped in the middle of the garden, his wand raised in front of him, his breath slow and hushed, as if he tried to modulate it for making as little noise as possible. Hermione placed a hand on his upper arm and he turned towards her. She had her wand raised in front of her as well and she was looking at Harry with big brown eyes filled with fear. Harry instinctively placed his wand-free hand on her arm and smiled a little.

"Don't worry, Hermione," he whispered. "I won't let anything happen to you."

Hermione raised an eyebrow quizzically. Was he really thinking that she was afraid about what they were going to find in the cellar? Doesn't he remember that I was the one that helped him with Snape's task in our first year? The one that followed him back in time when we had to save Professor Lupin? The one that didn't hesitate to go with him at the Ministry of Magic, even if I knew that it was a reckless action? The one that sacrificed her life for our--. She closed her eyes and shook her head. That last thought that has almost formed in her mind was not hers. She hadn't sacrificed her life for anybody, yet. What was she thinking?

She felt Harry's hand squeezing her own, and she raised her eyelids to look back at him. "What?" she asked in a bare whisper.

"Are you alright?" asked Harry, looking at her intently. "You seem distracted. You need to concentrate."

Hermione slid her hand from under Harry's one, she turned and looked away from him. "I am concentrating. I'm just afraid."

"Hermione, I've already told you. I'm here and I won't let--"

She placed a hand on his lips, cutting off the sentence that she didn't want to hear again. Did he really think that she wasn't able to take care of herself? She should feel offended that he didn't think very highly about her, but she couldn't. All she was able to sense at that very moment was an intense and mutual feeling of love and adoration towards Harry, who was scared that something bad could have happened to her.

"I'm not afraid that we are going to meet something of dangerous down there," she murmured, her hand still gently pressed on Harry's lips. "I'm afraid because I know where the door that leads to the cellar is, and I don't know why."

Harry seized her wrist and moved away her hand from his mouth, casting her an odd glance. "I know where it is as well, but I'm not afraid for that."

"You should be," she murmured.

"Why?" asked Harry impatiently, looking towards the cottage. They were loosing precious time, and without any apparent reason. "Hermione, I can't understand what you are talking about. Can't we talk about it later?"

Hermione's eyes darkened. She gritted her teeth and hissed a 'fine' in a poisoned tone so similar to Draco's that Harry feared for the first time that they were passing too much time together. She passed him by, walking quickly towards the corner of the house. The trees and bushes in that place had grown so wild that the passage there would have been much more difficult if there wasn't already a path of broken branches and walked on leaves.

"Somebody has been here," noted Harry in a low tone of voice. "Recently."

Hermione nodded curtly. She would have answered him with something sarcastic, like 'I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't pointed that out, Harry,' or 'Oh my, so clever;' but she didn't feel like talking to Harry at all. She didn't know why, since less than thirty seconds before all she wanted to do was to confide him why she felt so scared, but now she just wanted to shut her mouth and glare sporadically to Harry. It's because he doesn't understand a thing. If he only understood how important it is that we keep remembering things that we shouldn't, he wouldn't ignore the matter with all this stubbornness, she thought bitterly.

A thorny branch cut her cheek as she took a step ahead. She let out a small cry of surprise and pain as the blood reached her lips with a sour and metallic taste.

"What?" asked Harry, alarmed. His wand stretched in front of him right next to Hermione's ear.

"Nothing," she answered, wiping away the blood with her fingers. "I cut myself."

She felt Harry's wand lowering slowly, and she took another step. Then, as if she had already done that thousands of times, she stopped abruptly and waited for Harry to almost bump into her. But he didn't. He halted as suddenly as she did, as if he knew that that was the right place to stop.

Hermione turned towards him and he nodded. In front of them there was a thick hawthorn bush, with sharp leaves and covered with white poisoned berries they had to jump to get past, since they had the trees at their left and the house at their right. Hermione cut her left ankle as she landed too close to it, while Harry jumped it quite agilely after years passed escaping Dudley.

"Do you want me to heal your cuts?" asked Harry gently.

"Later," answered Hermione. She nodded towards the wall of the cottage and Harry turned to look at it. A small wooden door with a rusty handle and a sign with the word cellar on it stood in front of them. Harry took a step forward and examined it, the first thing he noticed was that it wasn't closed. There was a chain and a lock, but the chain was broken and the lock was rusty. He took another step and saw that the door itself had been taken off the hinges. It was now only sitting against the opening. Not the work of an incredibly strong person as someone could have supposed though, because the wood was rotten and the door weightless.

Harry seized its edges and moved it away without much effort, freeing the small passage that led to the cellar. In front of them there was a stair, with wooden steps that disappeared into the darkness of the bowels of the house, from where a sharp smell of fetid decay reached their noses.

Harry raised his wand. "Lumos." The light showed a big empty room with the walls covered in wood panels. The top of the stairs, where they stood, was close to the roof of the room, while it developed its structure towards down below, and the floor was several feet below them. The ground was scattered with dead bodies of rats, evidently what was making the air so putrid and hard to breathe.

Hermione nodded towards the floor, Harry hadn't noticed her standing next to him until that very moment. She had a hand on her mouth as if attempting to block out that horrible smell. Harry looked where she was indicating, and saw a big square on the floor, as if it has been drawn with a black pencil. He half-closed his eyes and from behind the glasses he tried to concentrate on it. The square wasn't drawn, it was cut from the floor. It was a trapdoor, and with a more attentive look he also noticed a round handle. It looked almost like the trapdoor that had taken them to the chamber where Dumbledore kept the Philosopher's Stone, the only thing missed was an enormous three-headed dog to look over it. Stupid, thought Harry, every trapdoor must look like this one. What else could they look like?

"Shall we go downstairs?" asked Hermione. Her voice reached Harry's ears like a soft murmur, there wasn't any trace of fear, only a great determination and curiosity.

Harry nodded, he climbed down the first stairs with hesitation, and looked around when a rat passed by his right foot, letting out a squeak that gave a foreboding feeling of evil. He felt Hermione's hand on his shoulder as she climbed down behind him; felt her stagger on the slippery stairs, and her grip on his shoulder tighten for a moment. When they reached the floor, they walked quickly towards the trapdoor, nudging aside the carcasses of the rats with their feet. The trapdoor was lighter than what it seemed. This wood was rotten as well and Harry and Hermione thought that it must have been only a cover to a real floor in stone or bricks, because otherwise they would have sunk downstairs, into the place where the trapdoor led.

Harry kneeled on the edge of the hole and saw another stair. But if the one that they had just descended from was in wood, this one was in stone, and it looked like it was ancient. Hermione lowered her wand into the hole and muttered a 'Lumos' just as Harry did before. The staircase wasn't very long, after only a dozen of steps started a long and sombre passage that looked like a tunnel dug in the bare rock. They couldn't see the end, only a bottomless passageway that disappeared into the darkness, the walls were rocks covered with drops of water and the floor was dark humid ground.

Both Harry and Hermione had the strange sensation to have already been there. Harry felt like he knew that place, as if he had explored it several times in the past; while Hermione had a weak feeling of déjà-vu, as if she had already been there once or twice. They exchanged a look and, without talking, Harry stepped down the stairs with Hermione close behind him.

Harry stretched an arm towards her and she took his hand; his sweaty palm against her cold one.

"There must be a door," whispered Harry.

Hermione nodded, but Harry couldn't see her.

They looked around, with their wands high in the air, and saw that there were small lines that ran along the walls. They weren't as they first thought, flaws of the rocks, but little drawings and writings.

Hermione let Harry's hand go and stepped towards the wall at her right. She raised her wand near her eyes and looked intently at the lines, trying to understand what they could possibly mean.

"Hermione, what are you doing?" whispered Harry with urgency, stopping in his tracks. "We have to go. Remember the noises? We have to see what they were."

Hermione didn't turn to face him. She simply stood there, with a hand placed on the wall, in an attempt to find something legible, or at least something with that made sense. She traced the small lines and followed them with her gaze. There was something of obscure in them, something ancient, something of magic. She heard Harry sighing and knew that he was standing close to her, looking at the walls as well.

"What are these? Strokes on the rock?" Harry asked.

"They don't look like strokes on the rocks," observed Hermione. "It seems as if they were done with a purpose."

"Maybe when they dug the tunnel, they must have left those scratches," replied Harry. He didn't know why Hermione seemed so interested in those things, they were just lines. And those were just rocks, humid, cold rocks that somebody had decided they would have made wonderful walls for that passage. Yes, but who could have possibly decided to dig a tunnel right under this cottage? Harry half-closed his eyes in the effort of concentration. Stupid! The right question is, who built a house right above this tunnel? This place is ancient. And I don't believe that they didn't notice that there was this huge passage when they--. For a moment his thoughts stopped flowing in his head, and a soft buzz started to blow in his ears. His eyes blurred for a minute before focusing back on the piece of wall that he was looking at.

"This cannot be," he murmured so softly that Hermione didn't even notice he said something. He had to elbow her in her ribs to capture her attention.

"Harry, what--" She couldn't finish her sentence, because when her eyes caught what Harry was gazing at, she couldn't even remember what she was going to tell him.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed quietly. "Is it - does it--."

Harry nodded, his eyes still fixed on the wall. He stretched out an arm and brushed the cold stone with his fingertips, following the lines. He traced the odd shape and then the four forms of the animals. Starting from right to left, he zigzagged slowly for the mane of the lion, followed the smooth line of the snake's curved body, traced the big shape of the badge and went down from the beak to the claws of the crow. And then the words. Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus. As if it was a ritual or an incantation, as if, by saying that words, something would have happened.

"What on Earth is the Hogwarts' crest doing here?" said Harry without recognizing his own voice.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know."

"You don't have any theory at all? I mean, you are the one that read 'Hogwarts: A History' and--"

"Do you even listen to me when I talk?" asked Hermione unexpectedly heatedly. "I told you that there's no hint to the founders' private lives in that book."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Hermione, there's Hogwarts' crest on this wall, in which way this would concern their private lives?"

"We are not close to Hogwarts, nor to Scotland. And I've never heard of another school of magic built in this place, or better said, built in any other part of the United Kingdom rather than Hogsmeade. What did you think? That this was a school?" she asked, gesturing around herself.

Harry turned his back to her. "I was just trying to understand," he answered rudely. "We better get a move on. And--"

"But of course!" Hermione patted her forehead. "Harry! Your mother!"

Harry didn't turn to look at her, but his ears were listening carefully to her. "My mother what?" he asked without understanding.

Hermione seized his sleeve and made him turn. "She wrote on that piece of parchment 'Hufflepuff', which is something Hogwarts' related, or better, founders' related. Maybe they knew something. Maybe this place was the house of Helga Hufflepuff."

Harry looked around sceptically. "You said that this place doesn't look like a school, should it look like a house?"

Hermione snorted. Was he trying to annoy her? If it was like that, he was succeeding. "Harry, this place - Godric's Hollow - not--" She stopped the very problem of her reasoning.

"Well, that would explain--"

"No, no it doesn't work," she murmured, cutting him off. "Godric's Hollow had not yet been built at that time. Remember what the sign said? That the first houses appeared about seven hundreds years, and the founders have--"

"I know, Hermione you said the same for Gryffindor," sighed Harry.

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but Harry never got the chance to know what she was going to say, for their attention was captured by a harsh noise at their left. They both turned their heads so quickly towards that direction that for a moment the crack of their necks covered that sound. They stood extremely still, holding their breath and narrowing their eyes in the effort of making out any details in the places that weren't reached by the light of their wands.

What happened next was a quick and chaotic series of events. Hermione grabbed Harry's hand exactly the moment before their wands turned off, she felt Harry tightening his fingers on the back of her hand and then something passed quickly by them in the passage. Harry stretched out an arm for blocking the way to whatever was trying to escape, and at the very moment that he touched that thing, he wished he had never moved.

Cold and slimy fingers reached for his wrist, as if, even in the darkness, they knew perfectly well where to find it. He felt nails digging into his flesh and the pain spread from his arm to all his body at the same moment when the sour smell of blood filled the air. Harry had to let Hermione go when that thing pulled him towards itself, a wave of disgust raised from his stomach as he felt something hot and slippery on the cuts that the nails had left. A soft and creepy noise followed, as if that something was licking its wounds with its tongue. He felt a strong hand on his arm, and the moment when it closed around his flesh, he knew that that thing was trying to make the blood flow better.

He heard Hermione scream 'Lumos!', but it only got the effect to attract that thing towards her. Harry searched in the darkness for her, but his fingers didn't meet anything other than the stone of the walls.

"Run, Li--" But his warning died in his throat when a white blinding light filled the tunnel. Harry had just the time to see a pair of red eyes, and a snake-like face, before he heard someone scream 'James', and everything turned black.

***

Draco raised his eyelids when he heard the scream. He heard it as if the girl that was yelling was right next to him, and for a moment he thought that he had just dreamed it. But it was so real, so harsh and painful, that for a spare second his heart started to ache as if he was linked to the one that sent that cry.

He raised himself up onto his elbows, the wound on his stomach stinging painfully, and looked towards the window. It was closed, no real scream could have ever gone through the glass without being muffled, which was not at all like what he had heard. And it seemed to come from downstairs. What did his master say? That there was a cellar in that place. Some kind of long and ancient dungeons that spread under that cottage. And what did he tell him? He couldn't remember. His thoughts were starting to confound in his head, the pain was taking away his breath and his memories as well.

He wondered where Hermione, Harry and Ron were. Hermione hadn't said anything at all when she exited, apart from that she wanted her sheets back. He turned towards the potion that she had placed hours before on his bedside-table, and bit his bottom lip.

"I hate you, Hermione. I seriously do," he murmured, glaring at the potion as if it were Hermione herself. Then he closed his eyes and rested his head back on the pillow.

***

Hermione felt a hand on her upper arm. Someone was shaking her body, someone was calling her name. She opened her eyes slowly and looked around. For a moment she didn't know why she was lying on the cold floor of a tunnel, for a moment she had no memories at all. Then she remembered everything. She remembered her and Harry looking at the walls, their wands that turned off as if an invisible force wore them out, Harry screaming and something slimy and cold that embraced her.

"Hermione, how are you feeling?"

She raised her eyes to the boy who spoke, and for a moment she felt disoriented to see Ron's face. His blue eyes were looking at her with apprehension, his red hair was framing a scared and white face, where his freckles stood on it like measles.

"Ron," she murmured. "My head--"

"What happened?" asked Ron, cutting her off. "Where's Harry?"

Hermione stretched out an arm towards Ron and he took it, helping her to her feet. "Isn't he here?" she asked, regaining her forces more quickly than she had expected. "He was here."

"I don't know," he replied, looking around. He held his wand high in front of him, trying to light up the tunnel in the research of Harry. But, instead of his friend, he found two wooden sticks in front of his feet and knelt down to pick them up.

"I think one of these is yours," he said, turning to hand Hermione her wand.

She nodded. "And the other is Harry's."

Ron nodded back. "Let's go," he murmured.

"Go? Where?" asked Hermione, looking around.

"We have to find Harry, don't we?" Hermione nodded. "I come from that way, and I didn't see him there, nor did I meet him upstairs. So, since this tunnel only goes this way, he must be in that direction." He fingered in front of them.

Hermione frowned. How was even possible that Ron was so rational in a moment in which she couldn't even understand what she had to do? She stretched a hand in front of her and placed it on his back. She felt his muscles tense under her touch, the light in his hand shook slightly as he understood that Hermione was close to him.

For a moment Ron forgot why he was there, with his wand raised in front of his eyes, in a cold and humid tunnel under the cottage of Godric's Hollow. For a moment everything disappeared from his mind; Harry, the cup in his pocket, the taste of blood in his mouth. For a moment there was only Hermione for him. He took a deep breath, swallowing the nauseating air. "Hermione, I--"

Her hand slid from his back and she stopped. "Ron! Listen!" she cut him off.

Ron bit his bottom lip, he wanted to turn and seize her upper arms and scream at her to listen to him; but instead he stood still and listened. The tunnel seemed perfectly silent, just like the moment before when they had started walking. Then, slowly, something reached his ear, for a moment Ron thought it was one of those rats walking in the tunnel, but then the noise became something more distinct. It was a breath, a laboured breath, broken every now and then by a lament of pain, and a scratch on the floor as if someone was trying to drag himself towards them.

Ron felt Hermione's hair brushing his cheek as she stepped forward and passed past him. "Harry?" she called uncertainly, her voice shaking.

The breath and the scratch stopped, and a deadly silence filled that place. "Hermione?" Harry called back weakly.

"Harry! Where are you?" Hermione's voice was filled with excitement and fear. "Keep on talking, we are coming!"

Harry nodded in the darkness. He didn't know why he did that, because nobody could see him, but he was so tired that he didn't feel like talking at all. But he had to do that little effort for letting Hermione find him.

"I'm here. I cannot see anything, but I can feel something. There's a door, a big door. And I think-" He gasped in disgust. "-I think I just crushed the carcass of some animal. The air is sickening here and--" He stopped the flown of words that he had tried to say with such difficulty, now he didn't need to keep on talking anymore, because a light had appeared at the end of the tunnel and Hermione and Ron were walking quickly towards him. Their wands raised in front of them to light up that place and when Hermione saw him she started to run.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, kneeling next to him. "What happened? Are you alright? What was that thing?" She stopped and looked intently at every inch of his body. "Harry, you are bleeding!"

Harry half-closed his eyes. "And my head is hurting me badly, so could you please not yell?" he asked, bringing his hand to his forehead and grimacing in pain.

"Is it your scar?" questioned Hermione, lowering her voice.

Ron's arrival prevented Harry to answer to any of Hermione's questions. He looked at Harry and his face became a ghastly green colour, he seemed ready to throw up.

Harry looked back at him with a mixture of happiness and mistrust in his eyes, how could that be? For a moment he forgot about the pain that he was feeling and forgot that Hermione was there. "Ron, what are you doing here?" he asked slowly.

Ron tore away his eyes from Harry's wrist and raised them on his friend's face. "What?" he asked back without understanding.

"What are you doing here? How did you know that we were here?" Harry asked again, his voice gradually harsher. He didn't know why, but he didn't like Ron being there with them.

Ron gulped. "I heard you screaming," he answered slowly.

"Where were you?"

"When?"

"When you heard us screaming." Harry's eyes had become a couple of slits, and his hands had closed into fists. Hermione was looking from him to Ron without understanding what was going on. Without really knowing why Harry seemed so upset that Ron was there.

"In the cottage," answered Ron curtly, and Hermione couldn't help noticing that his voice was becoming harsher as well. She wondered if they could have started to fight over something so stupid like the fact that Ron was there.

"Hermione and I were in the cottage before coming here," replied Harry sharply.

"What's your problem, Harry? If it wasn't for me, Hermione would still be unconscious in that tunnel and you would have still be here all alone. Would the great Harry Potter find the way home all alone?" Something in Ron's voice made Hermione and Harry's hair raise at the base of their necks.

"You are my--"

"Okay, that's enough!" Hermione looked at them sternly. "Just shut your mouth, both of you." She looked from Harry to Ron. "And now, Harry, let me see your wounds and tell me what happened."

Harry shot a glare at Ron, then turned his attention towards Hermione. "You were with me, don't you remember what happened?" he asked more rudely than he had intended.

"I couldn't see anything," she rebated icily. "And while you are talking, give me your wrist."

Harry snorted, as he stretched out his right wrist towards Hermione, so that she could see the gravity of the wound. "Our wands turned off and something crashed against us. Then you screamed, I saw a light and I can't remember anything else, until I woke up in this place."

"Nice summary, Harry," commented Hermione sarcastically. "What's wrong with you? We came here to save you."

"Maybe he crashed his head against something," suggested Ron evilly.

Harry glared at him. "I think I saw Voldemort," he murmured through gritted teeth.

Ron stood still. Hermione stopped examining his wrist. "What are you talking about?" she asked while the colour drained from her face.

"Exactly what I said. I think I saw Voldemort."

"You just think you saw him, don't you?" asked Hermione, looking away from Harry.

"What is this supposed to mean?" asked Harry back without understanding.

"That Voldemort couldn't have been here," murmured Hermione. "Maybe it was a hallucination."

"Are you saying that I'm lying?" asked Harry heatedly.

"No!" Hermione bit her bottom lip. "Harry, if Voldemort would have been here, he would have killed you. But he let you go. Maybe it's just..."

"He tried to kill me," snapped Harry. "I think he hit me. I saw a light and I was sent against the wall."

"I saw a light too, Harry, and it wasn't an Unforgivable Course," said Hermione patiently. She sat on the floor next to Harry and circled her knees with her arms.

"How can you say that?"

"It was white," she explained. "The light, I mean. It was white, not green like the Unforgivable Courses. And the light didn't come from that thing that you claim was Voldemort."

Harry looked at her, half surprised and half disappointed. "How do you know?"

Hermione lowered her eyes. She felt Ron and Harry's eyes on her, they were holding their breath, waiting for her answer. "Because, it was touching me at that moment. It had its arms around my back when the light lighted up the tunnel, and it seemed as surprised as you and I."

"You saw its face?" asked Ron, his voice disgusted.

Hermione shook her head. Her hair seemed such a crimson colour at the light of their wand that it looked like a cascade of loosen bloody curls. "No, the light was blinding, I couldn't see anything. But it touched me." She shivered as if the memory of that touch on her skin was enough to make her feel sick. "It touched my back and my arms, with his long and slimy hands. It was cold, and--"

"Yes?" pressured Harry.

"And I think that it could have been just like Voldemort's touch, but how am I supposed to know this? He has never touched me," concluded Hermione with a sigh.

"Well, he touched me and I can tell you--" Hermione pressed a hand on Harry's mouth, cutting off the end of his sentence. She already knew, he had already told that. What did he think? That she was stupid?

"We understood, Harry. Now, I think we better carry on this conversation upstairs, in the sunlight and maybe in front of a hot cup of tea. I'm freezing, here," she said, standing up and offering a hand to Harry. "Can you walk?" she asked gently.

Harry took her hand and nodded curtly. "Yes, I can walk, and I'll follow you out of this place, but only after we've had a look at what's on the other side of that door," he snapped in a tone that didn't accept any reply.

"Which door?" asked Ron, raising his wand in front of him. And when the light lightened up the other side of the tunnel, he didn't need for Harry to answer anymore. Right behind Harry and Hermione stood one of the hugest door that he had ever seen. It was made with wood and had no knob or lock, one could have told that it was a door only because of the little shiny hinges at the left side of that panel.

Hermione turned for having a look at the door as well, and when she did she let out a desperate sigh. Not again, please, she thought. Not again with this stupid door. Lily and James were not able to open it, what would be different with us?

"I don't think we should waste our time after a stupid door," she snapped, rather more rudely that she had intended. "I think we'd better go upstairs as soon as possible, and try to cure your wounds Harry."

"What are you afraid of, Hermione? As you said, it's just a stupid door," murmured Ron, stepping towards the door as if he was enchanted by it. He placed a hand on the wood and made it slide down.

Hermione glared at him. "I'm not afraid," she hissed. "It's just common sense. Why do you want to open a door which clearly doesn't want to be open?"

Harry, unexpectedly, burst into laughter, causing Hermione and Ron to turn and look at him. When he regained some composure he looked at Hermione. "A door that doesn't want to be open? Hermione, I totally have to agree with Ron, you are just afraid to open it."

Hermione crossed her arms on her chest, her face deadly serious. "Really? Let's hear, why should I be afraid?" She stopped and looked from Harry to Ron. "No, wait a minute. You are saying that Ron's right? You were ready to jump on him just a few minutes ago, and now you are saying that he's right about something? What's wrong with you?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders, but Hermione was sure that his pale cheeks coloured with a shade of red. "You are afraid because you don't know what's going to be on the other side of the door," Harry walked towards her and whispered into her ear. "And you hate to not know something."

He reached Ron and placed a hand on the door as well. "Let's see how to open this thing, Ron."

Hermione took a deep breath and bit his bottom lip. She wasn't afraid. She was sure she wasn't afraid. How could he say something like that? She turned to face them. "Your parents didn't manage to open it, Harry. You think you'll be able to do it?"

"How do you know that his parents didn't open it?" asked Ron, looking at her with curiosity.

She opened her mouth for answering, but before she could make up any kind of lie, Harry turned and spoke before her. "I know," he said confidently. "But my parents couldn't use magic while they were here."

Hermione looked away. It was true, it was true and she hadn't thought about it. What was happening to her? She wasn't concentrated. She snorted. How can I concentre with all the things that are happening to us?

"Really?" asked Ron surprised. "Why?"

Harry didn't take his eyes away from Hermione, even if she was suddenly interested into the floor. "Because then Voldemort would have found them."

"Oh, I didn't think about that," commented Ron quietly. "Was he able to control magic just like the Ministry of Magic does?"

Harry nodded. "Or so I think." He turned towards the door and pointed his wand towards it. "Alohomora!"

The door creaked and trembled, some sand and little rocks fell from the roof, as if someone was trying to move that huge wood panel. But the door didn't open.

And now it was Hermione's time to laugh. She let out a soft snort of half laughter and half irritation, causing both Harry and Ron to turn and look at her. She was leaning against the wall, her wand in her hand, her face, covered with dirt from when she fell, and had something that looked very like a mocking smile on it.

"What's so funny?" asked Ron, cocking an eyebrow.

"You know what is the Alohomora spell is used for?" she asked.

"Open a door?" snapped Harry.

"Unlock a door, Harry."

"Well, what's the difference?"

"This door doesn't have a lock, how do you think you can unlock it?" Hermione asked, tapping her foot on the floor.

"What do you suggest then, miss Know-It-All?" replied Harry.

"Apart from go back into the cottage?"

"Yes, apart from that," answered Harry, half smiling.

Hermione sighed deeply. She pointed her wand towards the door and waited for Harry and Ron to move away. "Door Evanesco," she murmured. A yellowish light hit the door, and spread on every inch of the wood, from the floor to the roof and from right to left. The light seemed to swallow the material, and where it hit it first it created a hole, which enlarged and made the whole door disappear.

"Simple and effective," said Hermione, pocketing her wand and smiling at her friends, who were looking back at her with their mouth open. "Aren't you going to see what is there on the other side?" she asked nodded towards the new tunnel that now lay in front of them.

"You know what? The future pupils of Hogwarts are lucky that you won't be a teacher, because although they would feel terrible every time you pointed out that they were doing the wrong spell," said Ron matter-of-factly.

"Really?" asked Hermione, flushing. "I was just trying to explain something to you two."

"In fact. You have that Know-It-All aura around you, which is quite unnerving sometimes," commented Ron.

"Nothing new here, mate," murmured Harry. "Now better if we have a look a around and then come back upstairs. My wrist starts to hurt me, and it's really painful." He turned and started to walk through the arch left from the door.

He wasn't sure what he was going to find on the other side of that door, the only thing that he knew was that, when he stepped inside, he was deluded. Highly deluded by his expectations. He raised his wand in front of him, and heard the steps of Hermione and Ron close behind him. When he stopped, he heard the steps of his friends stop as well, but he couldn't hear their breaths, as if they were holding them for the surprise. And he couldn't understand why.

The room they were in was a quite big one. It was circular, with a tall roof and it was almost completely empty. The walls were irregular and rough, and there was no light at all, except for the one brought in by the trio's wands. The only thing that stood in the middle of that space was a rock, it had the shape of a cylinder and Harry noted that it reached his chest when he took a step towards it.

Harry felt a hand on his upper arm, someone was trying to restrain him from getting even closer. "What is it?" whispered Hermione. Harry saw the light from her wand lighting the top of the cylinder. It was plain and smooth and seemed made for having something placed on it. And, actually, there was something.

Harry stretched out an arm and picked up the small piece of parchment that lay there. "Dear finder of this letter," he read out loud. "It's a note," he said, turning towards Ron and Hermione and holding it out to them.

It was a small piece of yellowish parchment, with a short note on it. Hermione narrowed her eyes and got closer it, there was something wrong there. That place seemed ancient, she had expected whatever they were going to find in there to be antique as well, but instead that parchment looked only like it was ten or twenty years old, and the ink used looked very like the one they used at school. The one that they could buy in Hogsmeade.

She scrolled down the parchment with her eyes, and when she reached the end of it, she couldn't help gasping and seizing the parchment from Harry's hands.

"Pay attention, it's ancient," warned Harry, afraid that she could have destroyed it with the very touch of her hands.

"It's not that old," she pointed out. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."

"What?" asked Ron without understanding.

"It's signed by Dumbledore," explained Hermione, fingering at the end of the parchment, where the long signature of their dead Headmaster filled a couple of lines with all his names.

Harry took the parchment back from his friend, and stared at the signature. His head started to buzz and his vision blurred a little as he thought about what he had found. For a moment he wanted to rip the parchment in small pieces and set them on fire with his own wand. Why? Why? Why? Why do I always have to find notes? Why I never find the thing that there was before someone placed a note? First with R.A.B. and now with Dumbledore. Why do I always arrive too late?

"Harry?" Ron's voice had the power to snap him out of his thoughts.

"What?" he asked turning towards him.

Ron nodded towards the parchment. "Aren't you going to read it?"

"What? Oh, sure," answered Harry. He cleared his throat and started to read the content of the note with an oddly high pitched voice. "Dear finder of this letter," it said. "If you are reading this, then my calculations were wrong. Voldemort hadn't been the last menace that had walked on this Earth, but the ones that will come after him don't have the same quality that he had, but if you have found this note, then the Curse has begun and this means that he is not dead." Harry frowned, that wasn't the first time that he heard about a curse. "You won't find what there was here, Helga Hufflepuff's diary is too dangerous for being left here. I brought it away, where it cannot be found, except from the ones who really desire it. But don't worry, the diary didn't say anything that would have helped you understanding how the Curse works, it just confirmed my suspicions, and gave me an interesting reading. If you accept an advice from an old man, who claims to have seen enough of this world, you better not interfere with the Curse and with who is cursed. There's a more ancient and powerful magic working here than you would ever imagine, let happen what has to happen. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore." When Harry's voice faded away, the room was swallowed by an unnatural silence.

"A curse?" asked Ron after a while. "What did he mean?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other, they didn't know what it meant as much as Ron, but in someway they felt like there was something wrong in what Dumbledore wrote down, as if he knew about that curse, but didn't know how that curse worked.

"We don't know, Ron," murmured Hermione. "How can we?"

Ron shrugged. "I don't know. I was just trying to understand."

Harry pocketed the parchment. "Okay, we better get a move on and go back upstairs. I'm tired and this stupid note doesn't say anything at all." Except that we missed Hufflepuff's diary by only a few years, thought Harry bitterly. He walked away quickly, leaving Ron and Hermione behind. His throat burned with thousands of questions, and he didn't know anybody to whom to ask them. Hermione and her books were of no help at that moment. Ron knew, if possible, even less than he did. And Draco, Harry was sure, didn't know anything at all, and even if he did he would never tell him or anybody else in that house what he was knowledgeable about.

Think Harry, think. The curse, someone else talked about a curse. Who was that? He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes in the effort of remembering. Of course! That man in the cemetery! He knew something, he talked about a curse! Is that possible that this is just a coincidence? No, it's unlikely just a coincidence. These two things must be linked, and I want to know everything. I need to know everything.

Harry stopped abruptly, so abruptly that Hermione bumped into his back. He turned and looked at her with his green eyes wide. "The cemetery," he whispered.

"What?" asked Hermione, rubbing the shoulder that banged against Harry's back.

"The cemetery, we have to come back to the cemetery," he murmured. "We have to understand what this curse is about."

"And why do you think you'll understand this curse by going to the cemetery?" asked Ron, stepping towards them in the dark tunnel.

Harry turned and started to walk again briskly. "Because I have an idea," he said.

"What kind of idea?" Ron didn't seem ready to drop that conversation any time soon, while, on the contrary, Harry was trying to let out the least possible. He didn't know why, but he wanted to tell Hermione, and only her, about his idea, he wanted to go to the cemetery with her and meet that man again. And Ron, well, he could have just stayed home and play another game of chess with himself.

"I'll tell you later," snapped Harry without knowing if he was talking to Hermione or Ron or to both of them.

They reached the stony stairs, and Harry turned to help Hermione climbing. He stretched out an arm towards her, and waited for her to take it, but she just stared at him and flushed slightly.

"I can climb by myself," she murmured. "Go on."

Harry looked at her inquiringly, but didn't lose time asking her about that behaviour. He was sure that it was something that had to do with Ron, maybe she was afraid that he could understand something about their affair, or maybe--. Affair? Hermione and I have no affair! Of course we found ourselves on the couch without knowing why or what we did, but we have no affair, he thought forcefully.

"Harry, watch out!" Hermione's warning didn't prevent Harry from banging his head against the roof of the tunnel. He was too busy telling himself that Hermione was just a friend for to see that they had reached the top of the stairs.

"Thanks," he hissed, rubbing his head. He took another step and walked onto the wooden floor of the cellar, followed by Hermione and then Ron. They exited in the cold air of the garden, and Ron, who was the last one, placed the door back against the hole, in the same place where it was before Harry and Hermione had entered.

Harry quickly circled the cottage, and without waiting for his friends, he climbed up the stairs that led to the back door, two steps at once. He stepped into the living room, and practically ran towards the corner of the room where there was an old clothes hanger, and where his coat still hung from the day before.

"What are you doing?" asked Hermione, out of breath since she ran after him, stepping into the living room whilst Harry was wearing his coat. He didn't answer, but grabbed her coat as well and threw it to her. Hermione seized it and looked from it to Harry bemused.

"I'm going to the cemetery and I want you to come with me," Harry said, buttoning up his coat.

Hermione's eyes widened with surprise. She opened her mouth to reply, but when she heard Ron walking behind her, she just turned and smiled to her red-headed friend. "Ron, can you please go and have a look at Malfoy? I can't hear him lamenting, and that's not a good sign," she asked Ron as gently as she could.

Ron looked at her, then he shot an odd glance to Harry, who was busy smoothing the edges of his coat, and nodded curtly. "Okay, if you'll hear me singing 'Weasley's Our King' that means that the poison has been useful."

Hermione gulped and nodded, trying to smile for the joke. I hope that it was a joke, she thought.

When Ron's steps faded away on the stairs she turned towards Harry, who was now looking at her with a mixture of impatience and excitement on his face. "Well? Aren't you going to wear your coat? It's cold outside," he exclaimed, nodding towards the coat in her hands.

Hermione lowered her eyes to the coat as well and threw it on the couch without much grace. "No," she said forcefully.

"Well, do whatever you want," snapped Harry. "But it's really cold outside."

"No!" repeated Hermione. "Harry, we can't go to the cemetery. Not now, at least."

Harry darkened. "Why not?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. She would have loved to slap Harry hard across his face. She remembered the wonderful sensation when she did that to Draco back in their third year, and for a moment she had to close her fists and count to ten for calming down. "For a thousand reasons!" she exclaimed furiously. "First of all we have just been attacked by something in the cellar of the house where we are living; second, it's a whole day that I've not had a look at Malfoy, I better go and check him for a while; third, you're wounded and I've cuts on my cheek and my ankle, we should take care of them, and eventually, we have to eat something."

Harry crossed his arms on his chest. "Now you listen to me," he snapped. "First, that thing was Voldemort, I'm sure about this, and I don't know why, but he didn't manage to kill me, so I wouldn't mind too much about this. Secondly, you went to see how Malfoy was doing right before we went into the cellar, and he wasn't better or worse than usually. Thirdly, I don't give a damn if I'm wounded. Fourth, we'll eat something when we get back."

"Harry, look at your watch! It's not morning anymore! We have been in that cellar for the whole day, it's almost sunset and I'm not so keen to walk into a cemetery while it becomes dark. I'm not coming with you and you can't make me!" she screamed.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "What do you suggest then?" he asked calmly.

Hermione bit her bottom lip, while she took a deep breath. "We can go to the cemetery tomorrow," she proposed. "When we'll be calm and we'll have reflected on what have just happened to us. And especially when there'll be the sun, okay?"

Harry seemed to think about her words, as if he was trying to understand if his curiosity could have bared the waiting. He wanted to know what that curse was, since everybody else seemed to know about it, except for him. He wanted to understand, for once, what was happening around him. But Hermione was right, he hadn't noticed that the afternoon sky was already colouring with yellow and orange lights, and that the sun was already disappearing behind the mountains that circled the village of Godric's Hollow, he thought that he wouldn't have liked to find himself face to face with the old man right in the creepy cemetery of that place.

"Okay," he agreed after a while. "We'll go there tomorrow morning." He started to unbutton his coat again, but then he stopped and looked at her. "Damn Hermione, aren't you curious?"

Hermione nodded. "I'm very curious, Harry," she admitted. "And hopefully we'll learn something tomorrow."

Harry nodded, he finished unbuttoning his coat and then hung it back on the clothes hanger.

"Can you boil some water? I'll be right in the kitchen, I just want to wash myself a bit," said Hermione, trying to smile a little.

"Okay," answered Harry. "But tomorrow morning--"

"Yes!" Hermione cut him off with a much more rude voice than a the one she used for asking him to boil the water. "Yes, Harry. Believe me, we'll go to that damn cemetery."

Harry glared at her and walked into the kitchen. Hermione waited for the door to bang behind him, before turning to the couch and walking towards it. She looked towards the stairs, Ron didn't give any sign to come downstairs, then she glanced at the door of the kitchen and listened. Harry was opening the cupboard for the kettle, she knew it because it was creaking, and then Hermione heard the metallic noise, and she understood that he was placing it on the stove.

Hermione lowered her eyes to the floor, her heart beating furiously in her chest, she bent forward and placed a hand under the sofa, reaching for the small journal she was looking for. Harry was right, Dumbledore wasn't the first person from whom they heard about that curse, there was also that old man in the cemetery. But Harry didn't know what Hermione knew, she was sure that there was another place where she would have found some information about it. Lily, I need to know something about this thing that it's hunting us. Please just tell me that I'll find something in your diary, thought Hermione, tightening the journal to her chest.

With a guilty look over her face, she climbed up the stairs and held her breath until the lock caught behind her in the bathroom, then she sat down on the edge of the bath tube and opened the diary from where she had interrupted her reading.

Day twelve.

The door is still at its place. I told James to let it alone, but he wouldn't listen to me. He can be so stubborn sometimes. If Harry turns out to be like him when he's older, I'll have quite a lot of work to do for keeping them quiet. I've met one of the neighbours today, he seemed nice, and that was strange, since it's the first nice person I've met here. He is old, with snow white hair, that frames his face like a mane and a wrinkled face. I wonder how old he could be, very old indeed, but I couldn't tell his age. James doesn't like him, he said that he's strange. I'm not sure what he meant by that, I think he's strange too, but that doesn't mean that he's not nice. He lives here on the main street of Godric's Hollow, in a house that I've never seen before. I invited him over for tea one of these days. He accepted. He said that he knows a lot about this place, and he'll...