Hex

ooo

Wizards, as everyone knew, had no logical ability. Instead of banding together and devising a plan to escape, they had simply decided to carry on the party. They'd come expecting a good party and were determined to have one. Several guests sheepishly produced bottles of wine and plates of canapés from under their robes, claiming to have 'rescued' them from the troll's rampage. Some of the musicians were in the room too, and soon a merry jig was playing and couples were skipping in circles around the tree.

"Look," murmured Penny as she and Percy moved to talk to one of her colleagues across the room, "someone's fainted."

A pair of polished shoes was sticking out from behind the strange seats. Percy drew himself up and peered over them.

"I say! Are you quite well?"

"It's Lester!" said a horrified Penny.

Lester Prentice was indeed slumped, feet up, in the space between the two rows. Percy immediately reached to grab the man and haul him up.

"Some dirty scoundrel has stunned him!" he said.

Percy was disgusted. He had seen some terrible things happen in his life, but to think of someone stunning a fleeing man, it made him furious. Once Lester was awake, there was going to be a serious enquiry into it!

Penny woke him up, and Lester gasped as though waking from a nightmare. He rubbed his head.

"What happened?"

"Someone stunned you, man!" said Percy.

Lester frowned and Percy patted his shoulder. He quite liked the man and felt terribly sorry for him. Although Percy really didn't have time for jokesters, he could recognise an upwardly mobile person when he saw one. Most of the upper sets knew Lester, even if no one really knew who he was. Lester always made time to talk to him and Penny whenever they met at parties and had once introduced him to a French wizard as 'Practically the only wizard in the Ministry with a clue'. Percy wouldn't be surprised to see the man take a high job in the Ministry himself one of these days.

Yes, a well-dressed, well-mannered, successful person like that was well worth knowing. Percy made a metal note to offer the man an invitation for a small supper gathering in the coming week.

In the meantime, though, he was all concern.

"Come on," he said. "We'll take you over to my brother, you were nearby him during the troll attack - he might have seen something."

He and Penny each took the rather dazed man's elbows and started to lead him towards Ron, whose head was dipped in deep conversation with his friends.

Upon seeing them, Lester seemed to come back to his senses, and he delicately removed his arms from their support.

"No," he said, "let's not bother them."

"Now really-" Percy began to protest, but Lester's winning smile had returned. He looked surprisingly happy.

"No," insisted Prentice. He steered Percy and Penny away towards a chattering group of older witches. "Let's not ruin the night further. I'll go and surprise them later."

ooo

"You have a problem with this, don't you? You're going to tell me I was meddling!"

"You are!" bellowed Ron.

A dancing couple giggled at the fight and twirled on.

"Imagine that there is a witch or wizard with the potential to become the next Voldemort," she snapped. "You'd be all for sucking the power out of them then! With a relatively harmless, quick, and simple procedure, you could remove all the things that would build up to create an evil witch or wizard, leaving a fairly normal person."

"You cannot guarantee me that every person you used this on was set to become an evil lunatic!" he snarled.

Hermione jutted her chin out. "I didn't just do it on a whim, you know, I do research on the person-"

"If you can accurately pinpoint every murderer ahead of time then, miss clever clogs, why do I spend my life hunting down murderers? Why did Prentice kill all those people, when, according to you, he should have been sat at home, knitting doilies..."

"I'm still working on the systems!" snapped Hermione. "Or, at least, I was-"

She suddenly looked very troubled.

"What?" he demanded.

He was closer to her than he'd realised before; he'd pressed right up to her face. She stepped back, breathing deeply.

"The cupboard we used..." she said in a trembling voice. "It was that one."

She glanced to the cupboard on the opposite side from the door. The door was wide open, and a drunken wizard was throwing up in it.

"I had a day off from work the day before yesterday," she said. "When I got back yesterday morning...the cupboard door was open. I locked the room up immediately, of course, but..."

"What will happen to all the evil magic?" asked Luna.

Hermione was pale. Even her hair looked limp and tired. "It'll try and absorb itself into anything living," she whispered.

Ron glanced over to the eerie tree as though expecting it to get up and attack. "Are we talking like that novel? The Whomping Willow Attacks! Where it sneaks into people's houses and-"

Hermione bit her lip as though fighting a snigger. "No. The tree can only really hold the magic that was in it originally. There was a good deal more than that in the cupboard. My theory is that all the time in the cupboard made it something like a hive of dark magic, and so it will be trying to grow. People are the best source of dark magic; I think it'll try and infect them."

"But we're in here too," said Luna. Her serene face looked merely concerned while Ron was sure his own expression hinted of him wanting to climb the walls in anger and fear. Hermione simply looked nauseous.

Ron did not appreciate this in the slightest.

"So you're saying this evil magic is floating around in here with us?" he looked around as though it were about to loom at him. There was nothing visible, but in his mind's eye, the shadows in the room suddenly seemed darker, and the air tasted tinny in his mouth. "What's stopping it from infecting us?"

"Nothing," said Hermione faintly.

ooo

"I don't understand it," said Hermione some time later. They three of them were sitting staring morosely at the dancing pairs.

Were Hermione and Luna, like him, imagining dark strands of evil pouring into their ears and up their noses as they spoke?

Luna was drawing again; it seemed to be a plan for a future edition of the Quibbler. 'PANIC AS EVIL VIRUS SPREADS' was splashed across in big letters.

Hermione had forbidden Luna to publish anything about the events happening tonight without her permission, and Luna had agreed (under the prevision that she could write a book about it in the future). But Luna insisted designing the covers was her favourite way of sorting out the problems in her life. Her biggest problem was used for the headline, and she would know from that what her actions should be.

"Understand what?" asked Luna.

"It's just," Hermione frowned, "this room is off limits to everyone except me. The only other person who knows about the-" she glanced nervously to Ron, "um, other projects in here is Sidney. And I don't let even him come in unless there's a-" she glanced to Ron again, "um, project."

"What does he do?" grumbled Ron. "Lick your shoes clean?"

Hermione's voice seemed very small. Ron hoped she had finally discovered what her holier-than-thou actions had done.

"He helps me, um, capture the projects and bring them here. Then he helps me take them back."

Ron's investigator instincts finally cranked back into life. He left a puzzled Luna and Hermione behind him as her marched through the crowd towards Sidney, who was polishing a whirring silver machine.

"You," he said, "you know these machines pretty well right?"

Without realising what he'd done, he snatched Sidney's robes and pinned him against the wall.

Sidney tried to call for help, but Ron's hands were on his throat.

"Y-yes," he wheezed.

"Well enough to work them, right?"

"Ron, what are you doing?" shrieked Hermione as she and Luna appeared behind him.

"Y-yes."

"I saw you before," hissed Ron, "it was all 'yes, Hermione', 'no, Hermione'; you wouldn't breathe if she didn't want you to. I've been in love myself. I know what it's like to want to show her how worthy you are. So I'm guessing you took her day off as an opportunity to try and impress her, right?"

Ron's expression was so dark he was sure that Sidney would have answered yes even if he hadn't.

"Y-yes."

"Sidney?" said Hermione questioningly.

"You opened the doors, and you took some readings from these machines, right? You found a candidate for your little...project."

Sidney nodded, wide-eyed.

"What was the name you got from the readings?"

Ron's face was so close to Sidney that he could smell the man's sour breath and watch his brown eyes cast around for relief.

"Harry Potter," croaked Sidney.

Ron released Sidney instantly, and the man slid down the wall a little. He stumbled forward, coughing. Ron swung his fist, and the man's head cracked against the wall with the force of the blow.

"Ron!" squealed Hermione in a horrified voice.

"What. Happened?" growled Ron.

Sidney was hissing with pain, but his eyes didn't leave Ron's. He stopped and stood up, drawing himself to his full height.

"I captured Potter and brought him here. I set the machine to work, and afterwards, he seemed fine. A little woozy, mebbe. The Earl called me to bring him lunch, and when I got back, Potter was gone and someone had opened the door. I was scared, so I locked up and left it."

He straightened his robes. "Now if you'll excuse me," he said in a dignified voice, "I have people to serve."

He pushed past Ron and marched away, his cheeks glowing.

Ron didn't turn around to face Hermione and Luna. He could feel himself sliding downwards. He'd never hurt a suspect, even if they'd been guilty. He was so angry he wanted to scream. He wanted to grab Hermione and shake her and try and make her pay for everything.

"Ron...I'm sorry."

She was crying, he could tell from her voice. He remained still, eyes fixed on the stone wall.

"I didn't know about Harry, really I didn't. M-my Press-Reader and Historical Precedent Analyser must have thrown his name out, and Sidney thought it meant..."

Ron, if possible, stood even more stiffly.

When Hermione spoke it was in a soothing tone.

"I'm sorry, Ron. I was wrong-" her voiced hitched as around her, the noise from the party grew, "I just- I couldn't bare the thought of someone like Voldemort ever having power. I didn't want someone else like Harry to have to fight..."

Ron felt Luna step up behind him and rest her hand on his arm. "Mistakes were made," she said. "At least we have a chance of fixing them."

Ron felt his own chest shake with blocked tears. He turned around to face the girls. Hermione threw herself into his arms before he even saw her properly.

"I'm sorry!" sobbed Hermione.

Ron stroked her hair. "I'll help you," he said. He glanced to Luna. "Both of you."

Luna gave a thankful smile.

ooo

Ron had something to do. Certainly within the last ten minutes, his responsibilities had piled up enormously, but he felt better doing something than nothing.

He actually felt strangely buoyant. The worst had happened. Now he could get on with planning, something which he was very good at.

His first task as official Harry-finder, Strategist, Magical-Virus-Destroyer, and (he fancied) All Around Good Guy, was to get rid of the troll and get the people out.

He, Hermione, and Luna stood by the door. The groaning of the metal indicated that the troll seemed to be winning. Hermione looked at the misshapen metal where the troll had pounded it.

"We're going to have to fight this troll, then?" she said nervously.

Ron nodded and began in his pre-attack, Hit-Wizard tone. "On the plus side, we've done it before; on the downside, we had Harry, and even then it could have been classed as a fluke."

"You know, you really shouldn't fight them-" began Luna, but she never got a chance to finish.

Percy had spotted Ron and marched up, looking highly peeved. "Ron, as a Ministry official, I feel it my duty to order you not to open that door," he said in his most officious manner.

"And as your brother, I feel it my duty to tell you to shut up," sneered Ron.

Percy drew himself up. "Just because you're a Hit-Wizard, it doesn't mean that you're in control. You didn't even realise your friend had been stunned!"

Ron frowned, alarm bells jangling. "What friend?" he asked.

"Lester!" burst out Percy. "I found him stunned in a corner!"

Hermione and Luna were looking nervously around, and Ron's face was frozen as he spoke dangerously, "You woke him up?"

"Of course!" said Percy.

"Hello!"

Ron didn't even have time to react. He felt the arm around his throat and the wand pressed into his neck. Prentice was so close Ron could smell the wine on his breath.

Hermione and Luna held out their wands warningly.

"Oh dear, and I was so hoping to surprise Ron later!" said Prentice as though he'd committed a terrible faux pas. "Now I for one am against unnecessary violence, but sometimes it does have its place. So Ron here is going to drop his -or rather my- wand."

The wand at his throat was pressing so hard Ron could barely breathe. The wand in his hand slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground. Prentice was the quicker hexer, and smart bastard that he was, he'd pressed himself up against the door so no one could get him from behind.

He jabbed his wand away for a second, and the musicians cut off. Ron saw them glance at their instruments in puzzlement from the corner of his eye. Their sudden silence got the room's attention, and within minutes, every owlish face was on Lester.

Prentice grinned around at the room until he spotted Luna.

"Luna!" he said. "The girl with the pretty name and the pretty face - come here."

She was being careful, noted Ron as she glanced to him questioningly. He had no choice but to nod.

"Could you do me a favour, my sweet?" asked Prentice.

Luna glanced to Ron again. "Are you going to hurt my friend?" she asked serenely.

"I'll think about that later. But first you have to do my favour. Can you close your eyes?"

Ron stiffened. Not that. Not that...

"Why?" asked Luna.

He felt Prentice stiffen with anger, and Ron's stomach rolled as he remembered what Prentice had last done to a girl who asked too many questions. "You'll find out," he said.

This man killed casually...

"Imperio!" said Prentice. The crowd gasped but there was no change to Luna outwardly. She remained still with her eyes closed.

Several people took out their wands. Finally some of them seemed to realise action was needed and that no hero was coming.

"That's my girl," continued Prentice. "Now what the lovely Luna is going to do, is she is going to go around the room, and you are going to give her all your money, wands, and jewellery, and she's is going to put it all in my pockets-" the crowd grumbled, "-otherwise I will tell Luna to, oh, -what do you think, Ron? Choke herself, perhaps?"

Percy, hard-eyed, was marching forward. Don't be stupid...Ron thought desperately. He was letting Luna live for the moment. Percy might not be so lucky...

"Lester Prentice, as the only able Ministry official in the room, I feel it my duty to-"

"Be quiet!" snapped Prentice. "Stupefy!"

Percy slumped to the ground. Penelope screamed, and Ron found himself struggling in Prentice's arms.

Prentice kept his tight grip, but his voice calmed. "Better. Now, when my pockets are so full of money that I'll need an extra pair of braces to keep my trousers up, Luna here is going to open the door, and she is going to run out into the corridor to distract the troll." He tilted his head indulgently. "I mean, what troll could resist?"

"It'll kill her!" shrieked Hermione.

Prentice shrugged. "Eventually. When we - or rather - I - have escaped, I shall inform one of those nice Ministry workers that several of you are trapped in this room and need rescuing."

"I won't let you do that to Luna," Ron hissed.

"There, there," said Prentice comfortingly. "I'm sure she'll get an Order of Merlin or something nice. Posthumously, anyway. Now where is our little hero?"

Luna trotted forward obediently. She still hadn't been ordered to open her eyes, but she managed to stuff the wands, diamonds, and gold into Prentice's many pockets.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Hermione with a slight hitch to her voice.

"The short answer is that I like money," said Prentice with a winning smile. "The long answer is too long, and you wouldn't understand anyway."

He smiled at Luna and moved away from the door to allow her to stand by it. "Are you done now, dearest?"

Luna nodded.

"Take me instead!" said Hermione suddenly. "Luna's dad really needs her - she's all he's got. No one cares about me."

Ron snapped his head around and shook it frantically. He felt Prentice chuckle.

"Ooh, Ron here doesn't like that. It's almost worth changing my mind to upset him so much. But no." He turned back to Luna. "Ron, say goodbye to your friend."

Ron remained silent. Prentice pressed the wand in deeper.

"Goodbye," Ron croaked, struggling for breath.

"Luna, open the door," Prentice ordered.

The crowd gasped. Luna turned the handle. The heavy door swung inwards, and the gigantic troll came into view. It had to crouch to see inside the door, but it didn't move over the threshold.

"When I say 'go', I want you to run," said Prentice to Luna.

Luna's eyes were still shut, but she nodded.

"Fight him, Luna! Listen to my voice," yelled Hermione.

"Silence!" hissed Prentice. He held his wand out to Hermione.

Hermione paid him no attention. "Who do you trust? Me or him?"

"Stupefy!" snapped Prentice. Hermione threw herself to the side, and the hex skimmed passed her elbow.

"Go!" snarled Prentice.

His cool demeanour is being tested, thought Ron. He'll snap any second now...

Luna trotted forward.

"Harry fought it - you can too-" insisted Hermione.

Luna stilled at the mention of Harry's name and stood with her head cocked.

"Run, Luna!" shouted Prentice. "I order you to run!"

Luna's body reacted automatically, and she inched forward, apparently still fighting.

Prentice's wand was flying from Luna to Hermione. Ron struggled against his arm and brought his punch up as he turned. Prentice staggered backwards, and Ron lunged for Prentice's old wand.

Three quick thinking wizards dived forwards to grab Luna and attempted to shut the door, but it seemed to damage any fighting she'd managed, and she began struggling to get out of their arms.

Prentice grabbed Ron's wrist and knocked the wand away. Ron pushed Prentice back and grabbed his throat.

"End the spell!" he demanded.

"Make me," Prentice gagged.

"No one else can undo the spell until she does when he's told her to," called Hermione fretfully.

Ron struggled for Prentice's new wand, which was still being tightly gripped. He prised it free and tossed it across the room. Several other witches and wizards were surrounding Prentice, grabbing any gold they could find and trying to find their taken wands.

Hermione raced across the room and slammed the heavy door shut on the growling troll.

"I've had an idea. You two, grab him," said Ron. Two burly wizards each seized Prentice's struggling arms.

"Keep fighting them, my pretty," called Prentice, unconcerned about his apparent capture. Luna struggled harder in the arms of the wizards.

"Right, show me how to work this machine of yours," said Ron as Hermione breathlessly returned.

She paused, stunned, as though she couldn't believe what she'd heard.

"I told you, it's hard the first time. He might not have enough power for it to work-" she began carefully.

She stiffened at Luna's angry screeches behind them.

"Maybe it won't, but at least the bastard will be in chains."

Hermione looked at him carefully, as though gauging whether he really meant it. Then she rooted in Prentice's pocket for her wand and tapped a part of the pew. It swung out in a quarter circle to face the cupboard door. Chains Ron hadn't noticed before jangled against the seat, and the two wizards dragged Prentice to it. The chains snapped around his wrists automatically.

"What are you doing to me?" demanded Prentice. One of the wizards jostled him for quiet. Ron was pleased to hear a note of worry in Prentice's voice for the first time ever.

"Keep still," Hermione ordered.

She carried a small, gramophone to a spot in between Prentice and the cupboard and pointed the shell towards Prentice.

"Everyone, keep back!" she ordered over the noise Luna was making. The group shuffled back nervously.

Scanning the room carefully, she reached down and tapped the box with her wand. It began to hum softly, and she moved away too.

"It might take some time..." she said worriedly.

A bolt like lightening shot out of the gramophone and hit Prentice's chest. He screamed. Luna stopped struggling and suddenly became very still.

Prentice was still screaming. Hermione checked her watch. "It usually finishes about...now..."

Another bolt shot out of the machine and hit the door.

"It's taking too much-" said Hermione, alarmed.

Prentice was suddenly quiet. He was shaking as though he was having a fit, and more and more of the light was pouring from him, through the machine, and into the door.

"What is it doing to him?" asked Ron urgently.

Hermione was all action. "I'm shutting it down!" she insisted. "Something's wrong."

Before she could reach the machine, the bolts disappeared. She moved over to Prentice, who was slumped in his seat.

Hermione lifted his chin up and said faintly; "H-He's dead."

ooo

"Hello, do I know you?"

"Trapped were we? I don't remember-"

A stream of party-goers were steered out of the chamber by rescue wizards. Everyone seemed baffled by the experience.

"Troll? Don't remember a troll..."

Ron winced. They'd overdone the Obliviate spell a bit. But at least no one remembered the attack or the death. He wished he was so lucky.

A burly man in brown robes held up a hand as Ron and Hermione practically tiptoed past him.

"I'm Vinnie Lochley," he said, waving a Ministry badge professionally. "I'm the leader of this team. What happened to your friend?"

Ron looked towards Luna, who had gone on ahead, pale but as normal as she ever was. It was only when he noticed Lochley's pointed look that he realised he was talking about Prentice, whose body they were carrying.

"Hello!" said Hermione in a bright, strained voice that she seemed to think made her sound like the other people coming out. "I'm- well I can't remember who I am actually..."

"Try," said a fed-up looking Lochley.

"Our friend got hit by a stunning spell, and he's still really woozy," Ron explained awkwardly. "People were panicking and using all sorts of stupid spells."

Lochley flicked his wand at a notebook and illegible writing scrawled across it.

"Mass hysteria?" he asked.

Hermione's frozen smile remained fixed. "Sounds about right!" she said brightly.

"Do you know what that room is?" pressed Lochley.

Ron looked back towards the room thoughtfully. He found himself wincing as Prentice's old wrist moved across his neck. There was no tight grip there now, just dead weight.

"I don't know!" said Hermione.

Ron tried not to scowl. That would only make them investigate further. "I think it's the Earl's research room, back when they were all obsessed with that tree. None of us knew what half the stuff was," he added quickly.

More illegible handwriting appeared, and Ron felt Lochley's suspicious look move across his and Hermione's faces.

"So good to hear about Fudge being the new Minister..." mumbled Sidney as he shuffled past. He was being steered by a Healer and Ron winced. They'd decided to take all of his memories regarding the research chamber. He hoped they hadn't overdone it.

Hermione's stupid smile looked as though she were forcing every muscle in her mouth, and if Prentice didn't move soon, Lochley might try and wake him up.

"I'm Ron Weasley," he said. "In case you want to note that down."

Lochley's eyes swung back to him. "Ron Weasley the Hit-Wizard?" he asked carefully.

Ron, who outranked him, smiled pleasantly.

"Yes, that's right. What's the situation? Have you caught the troll?"

Lochley looked annoyed, but he looked back to his notes before replying in his unemotional voice. "At seven, the ceiling in the entrance collapsed, causing mass hysteria and making people think a troll was after them. A small group got separated on the way out and ended up in this room. Our team found you at ten. We have swept the building and found no trace of a troll."

"But people saw it!" said Hermione, forgetting about her deranged act.

"No one in this room did," shrugged Lochley. He allowed himself a chuckle. "And the people in the ballroom each have their own weird stories. One witch said she saw a wand stuck up its nose."

"Really," said Ron hollowly. He was well aware of Hermione's eyes boring into him. "Well," he said with Hermione's false brightness. "Uh, good job. I'll leave you to it."

He clapped Lochley on the shoulder and staggered away as quickly as possible.

ooo

Ron didn't get a chance to really think about what had happened until much later on that night. It was three in the morning by the time he returned home.

He was lying on his sofa again. The house was still a disaster from the party, but he didn't care.

They had made the right decision. He had made the right decision. He told himself that. He still felt dirty, though.

That machine...

According to Hermione, it had never done that before. She said Prentice had died because the first time needed to be a slow process. The first time she'd used it, it had taken two years to transfer the power from the tree to the cupboard. They'd tried to make it work on Prentice in less than a minute.

They'd buried Prentice in the woods.

He'd always prided himself of never meddling. Never doing something for 'someone's own good'.

Ron's insides were rolling. He'd broken his rule once already. In punching Sidney, he'd allowed himself to let emotions get in the way. And Prentice had threatened his friends. Had there been a part of him that wanted Prentice to die for it?

He was going to resign tomorrow. He'd broken the rule, the only rule. He'd promised Hermione his help, but he didn't want to go back to Morton Towers.

ooo

The inside of the Lovegood residence was dark. Mr. Lovegood was asleep, and Luna didn't want to wake him.

She tiptoed across the tiles in the kitchen, her shoes in her left hand and a piece of parchment in her right. She left the parchment on the breakfast table and floated her trunk towards the door.

Tomorrow morning, Mr. Lovegood would find a piece of parchment with a fair rendition of The Quibbler logo and a personalised heading.

THE QUIBBLER

The Truth is in Here! : Personal Issue 382 : 02/12/06 : 1 Sickle

Luna Goes to Find the Truth

She dragged her trunk over the threshold and hoped her dad would understand.

ooo

A pale sunshine lit up the stark, bare branches of Morton Forest, and the windows of the house glinted.

Ron walked up the gravel path to the house, eyes down, still wondering about his decision. Behind him, his trunk bounced of the occasional stone.

"Good Morning, Ronald."

Ron jumped. Luna was sitting by the lake. She was back in her relatively normal clothes: grey robes and only one strange piece of jewellery (a sweet wrapper pinned to her shawl).

"What are you doing here?"

"The same thing as you," she answered. Her breath was white in the cold. "I came up to the house and asked to begin work as a second research assistant. I mentioned that you would be applying too. Most of the upstairs house is in ruin, apparently, but I can share Hermione's room and there's a Gamekeeper's cottage you are more than welcome to stay in."

"Great. It's a pity Malfoy's dead. He would have had a field day with that," said Ron sullenly. He sat on the trunk and tried to rub some warmth into his hands. "Where's Hermione?"

"In the research room. She didn't want company."

Luna picked up a stone and held it up to the light. Ron tried to think of something to say.

"Did your dad mind you leaving?"

Luna stared at the lake. "I don't know. I left an...explanation."

Ron frowned. He'd thought Luna and her dad were close. But Luna didn't need prompting.

"After the war, Dad and I spent months abroad looking for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, and Thighbiting Cricklers, and all sorts of other animals. We didn't find one."

"Really?" said Ron, trying to sound surprised.

"I came back to speak to the people who'd sent in letters and articles. I thought an interview with them might give us some more ideas of where to look." She turned to him, eyes swelling with tears. "It turned out they were just...pranksters. They laughed at me. They said they'd only done it to see if we'd believe it. They were some of our most valued contributors," she said desperately. "They had letters and articles in every issue. It was all made up."

Her pale eyes were hollow, as though her mind felt empty with all her funny creatures and conspiracies gone. Her eyes returned to the lake, and her blonde hair swished in the breeze.

"I didn't know what to believe," she said faintly. "And then I interviewed Harry again, and he started visiting me and talking to me. He told me that I should find my own things to believe in, to look for conspiracies and animals of my own. And he was right, I found this one. I'm going to write a book about it one day. And it's going to be true."

She turned to Ron, a look of such absolute faith on her face that he didn't know what to say.

Luna interrupted before he could think of anything.

"Did you want to come back here?"

Ron shook his head and fixed his eyes out on the lake. "I keep telling myself I should be here for Harry, and for Hermione, and all those people who are infected with this...thing. But all I can think is that I'm here for Prentice. Because bastard that he was, I don't want him to have died for nothing."

Luna reached and clasped his hand. "If we can save these people and Harry, he won't have."

It was poor comfort to Ron's turbulent mind, but it calmed him enough to sit and take in the place that would be his new home.

He twisted the wand that had once belonged to Lester Prentice in his hand. It looked like Prentice really would not get it back.

For a while, they rested in silence. He had not felt like this since the war, this total uncertainty of what tomorrow would be like. His life had been unfulfilled before, but he had always had a fair idea of what lay ahead. What did he know about the future now? There were only possibilities and 'might's'.

He might find Harry dead. He might find him alive. He might not find him at all. This virus might wipe out the magical world. Hell, he might even get on with Percy again.

He wanted, needed, one solid thing to hang on to. Something he could define the future by, something that would make him get up in the mornings.

He'd allowed a man to die.

He stomped the thought down. That was a certainty. But it wouldn't make him inclined to hop out of bed.

He turned to Luna. "Can you think of one thing that's certain?" he ventured.

Luna didn't hesitate.

"I'm going to kiss Harry again," she said.

Ron frowned. "How is that certain?"

She smiled and pulled her shawl more tightly around her. "I don't believe in things people tell me anymore," she said. "Just the things I see and hear. But I still believe in two people- my mum and Harry. I'll see my mum again, and I will kiss Harry once more."

He was no Luna. He couldn't find faith in faith itself. As wonderful as her belief was, he couldn't stir himself to think that way. He needed something to hang onto that had better odds than snogging Harry - or at least Luna doing so.

Hermione.

She was back in his life, and it was just, just possible that maybe the thing between them would stir again. He could hang onto that. Maybe when all of this was over, they could start a life together the way he'd dreamed of years before.

He closed his eyes and pictured their cosy future life. It was so real that he could smell the dinners and feel the warm bedclothes as they lay together in bed.

Perhaps though, that was a little high to aim for now. He needed something that, when he opened his eyes in the morning, would make him think 'maybe today'.

A kiss. A simple, stupid, everyday, mouth-to-mouth kiss. They hadn't managed to get that far yet. A kiss that jubilation, relief, excitement, or maybe even grief could bring about.

Yes, he decided. That was something to look forward to.

ooo

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, that's the end of the first episode. The next episode is going to deal with the virus's protection system, the Earl, a few little secrets of Hermione's, James and Lily, and a healthy dollop of paranoia all around.

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