The Heiress

When I got to St. Mungo's, Gurda Gincrack, Hermione's old Mediwitch, just pointed down the hall. I hadn't taken more than a dozen steps in that direction before I saw the line of Aurors stretched out halfway down the corridor. I had to show them the parchment Harry sent me in order to get past them. None of them looked very happy, and a few of them gave me a bit of the hairy eyeball as I rushed down to Hermione's room.

The door was open, and the first thing I saw was Ginny, red-faced, her head resting on Harry's shoulder. There wasn't anyone or anything else in the room, and that caught me so off-guard that it took me a minute to remember what I'd come down for.

"Where's Hermione?"

"Giving Brock her statement," said Harry quietly, drawing Ginny closer. "The Healers say she'll be fine, though it was a bit touch and go for awhile."

"What happened?"

Ginny lifted her head slowly. It was only then that I could see that her eyes were as red as her face. That scared me for a second, but I reckoned that if Hermione had been in that bad a state, she wouldn't have been up and about, talking.

"Hermione was to come up to Hogwarts for tea with the Headmistress and me," Ginny said. "McGonagall and I waited and waited, but Hermione never showed and didn't send an owl saying that she wasn't coming. I went back to the flat to see what was going on, but I didn't see anything - except that in her room, a set of dress robes were laid out as if Hermione had been getting ready to get dressed and come to Hogwarts. I started to ring Harry and ask if he'd seen her, but something caught my eye out the window, and ..."

Ginny snuffled again. "I saw someone out near the riverbank just lying there. I recognised Hermione's hair, and I Apparated out there - I didn't give a toss if there were Muggles about. She was lying on her side. Her face ... it was blue and there was foam running out of her mouth, and there was a great bloody gash on her arm ..."

She pressed her face into Harry's shoulder then and he soothed her for a moment before looking up at me. "Whatever cut her had Hemsbreed on the blade. It worked through her system pretty quickly."

That didn't make much sense. Hemsbreed was a pretty common washing soap; my mum had loads of it out in the shed. The only thing it had ever done was dry out my hands when I used it to wash the dishes. Then again, if it could get the muck off a cauldron in two seconds flat, it probably wasn't a good thing to have inside your body.

"She was going into shock. If Ginny hadn't found Hermione when she had ..." Harry gave Ginny another gentle squeeze. "Well, anyway, she's fine now, except for the cut on her arm, and that'll heal up without a problem."

Just as Harry said that, the door flew open, and Hermione came in, supported by Urdsmore. Ginny and Harry sprang up to help her back to bed. Hermione smiled, or tried to, when she passed me, but all I could see was her bandaged arm. I just stood there like a sot, which was probably a pretty true representation of how much help I'd been to Hermione over the past few days.

~*~

Hermione was kept in St. Mungo's overnight for observation, and Harry, Ginny and I stayed overnight in her room doing about as much observing as the Healers did. Weatherbea, the same Healer that had treated Hermione the last time, said that there was nothing to worry about - the cut was almost healed and the Hemsbreed was completely out of her system.

The only thing left was figuring out the 'how' and 'why' part. We were all having tea in Hermione's room while she told us what happened - or as much as she could remember, anyway.

She'd been in Harry and Ginny's little guest room, getting ready for tea at Hogwarts, when she heard a sound from the outside. Looking out the window, she saw a Muggle child fall in the river and start splashing about, calling for help. Because of the wards on the flat, though, she couldn't just Apparate out the way Harry and Ginny could, so she rushed out as fast as she was able. When she got out in the open, she didn't see anyone around, but there was splashing going on that made her think that the kid had gone under.

"I went to jump into the river, and just before I stepped in, I heard a strange noise directly behind me. I didn't have time to place it then, but now I know exactly what it was - it was the pop of a focused Apparation. I started to turn around, but something grabbed my arm, and then ..."

Harry thought that whoever had cut Hermione had been lurking outside, and when he got a clear shot at her through the window, cast some sort of mirage hex on her first so that she'd only think she saw a Muggle drowning. But Ginny rubbished that idea when she pointed out that their wards would prevent something like that from happening.

"Well ... maybe it was Polyjuice," said Harry, glaring into his tea cup as if it were telling him dirty jokes. "Whoever it was might've Polyjuiced himself to look like a Muggle, hung about until it wore off, popped out of sight for a second and then back in when Hermione came out."

That theory was as good as any in answering the "how," but we were all a bit fuzzy on the "why." While Hermione dozed and Ginny went to owl McGonagall to explain what happened, Harry had a whispered conversation with one of the blokes stationed outside Hermione's door. Whatever Harry said put the bloke in a right strop, but he just shrugged and he and a few others popped out of sight.

Harry gave Urdsmore some instructions I couldn't hear, then he and I had a walk outside. It was bitter cold and we walked in a sort of widening circle around the hospital, turning our faces toward each other every so often to keep the wind from freezing our lips together.

"You realise none of this makes any sense."

"Well-spotted, mate. Did you figure that out before or after Hermione nearly died the first time?"

Harry's eyes narrowed until they were just slashes of green in his face. "Right. I understand why you're hacked off, but you're not the only one, all right? And the rest of us who are all tied up in this shite are at least honest about why we're hacked off, so either help or piss off, Ron."

I felt like closing my eyes right then, but I settled for turning away and walking a while with my head down. I hadn't meant to sound like such a prat, but I wasn't exactly thrilled by the thought that some arsehole had been skulking around, spying on her, maybe even peeking in on her undressing or something, waiting for just the right moment to get her to come out, unprotected, unaware.

Harry grabbed my shoulder suddenly and we ducked into the entrance of an Underground station. We stood off to the side of Muggles running to catch trains and tried not to look like vagrants.

"All I meant was that considering Whetwistle's situation, it doesn't make sense," Harry said in a calmer voice. "Hermione is the key to all this - if she's ... out of the picture, then Whetwistle's finished, and so is the person threatening him. Nothing happens to the Galleons if Hermione isn't around anymore. It just sits there in her vault forever. So whoever's after Whetwistle would have to be mad to go after Hermione."

"Well, maybe. But this whole thing could be Whetwistle's doing," I said. "Think of it: In order for the curse to be lifted before its time, Hermione has to marry him. She's not keen on it. So he stages a bit of something to make her feel like her life's in immediate danger if she doesn't go along with what he wants."

"That's an idea. Only one problem - Whetwistle's a Squib," said Harry. "Whoever planned all this is definitely a wizard or witch and pretty clever. Polyjuice and pinpoint-perfect Apparition isn't for amateurs. Besides, I really don't think Whetwistle's going to go outside the law after the Portkey nonsense. I had the sense in our 'little meeting' that his solicitor is keeping him on a tight leash, as far as that goes."

"Then where does that leave us?"

"Nowhere good. Plus, there's another problem. Whoever it was has been watching Hermione pretty closely. Hermione's not safe alone. I think that she should be looked after closely to make sure nothing like this can happen again."

I grunted, but I couldn't fault his logic. "She won't like it. You know how she feels about Aurors. Word's already gotten out about who she is. Even the younger blokes know."

"You're right. There's not an Auror I'd trust, except maybe Brock, and I need him with me."

"So who then?"

When Harry looked up at me, I knew. It was a funny thing, too, because I always thought Hermione and Harry were the ones with that sort of bond, the "one glance and everything's sorted" type of thing. I used to be jealous of it until I realised how scary being that in-tune with someone could be. But it had never been like that with me and Harry, not even on the battlefield. It was now.

"No."

"Ron, she trusts you. And your flat isn't really, uh, accessible. I mean, it took me three tries to Apparate there the first time."

"Bloody. Hell. No. Harry."

"Ron ..." Harry paused for a minute, seeming to stop to choose his words carefully. "We were lucky these past two times, mate. That luck might not hold out."

Those words went through me like a thunderbolt, and my mind flashed on Hermione's bloated body from the Galleon hex and the gash on her arm from the latest attack. Harry must've seen what was going on in my face, because he moved in closer, lowering his voice.

"She needs to stay out of sight until we figure some things out. Just about everyone knows Hermione's story if they've read her book. Your place is likely the last they'll figure she'd be."

That damned book again. So it hadn't had a completely happy ending, which was to be expected and was perfectly true, but hearing it put that way made me feel a bit ... off.

"I can't! What am I supposed to do when I go to work? Bring her in and have her hold my quill?"

Harry's eyebrow quirked, and I went red. That didn't come out exactly the way I'd intended.

"Hold on a minute. Why not ... someplace that's actually fortified? Why not Hogwarts?"

Harry quietly pointed out besides the problems with warding that had come ever since the siege in 1997, this same prat had already damaged a little girl, and there was a chance that he might slip into Hogwarts and start poisoning students just to get to Hermione.

"I can't force you to do anything, Ron, but I have to take precautions. It's either you or surround Hermione with a bunch of blokes that don't really give a toss what happens to her."

"I reckon they care a little about keeping their jobs, don't they?"

Harry gave me a glance that made me shudder and then looked out at the street and pretended to be interested in something going on at the corner newsagent's booth. I studied the wall, thought seriously about trying to put my whole body through it without the help of magic. And then I thought about what those Aurors had said to Whetwistle's wife, and the sour looks of the blokes that had been standing around outside of Hermione's room.

I gave the wall another long look and then turned back to Harry.

"The goblins thought that after the vault thing, I should take some time off," I said, dragging each word out the way you'd take splinters out of your toe. "Maybe I could talk to them and see if I can't start my leave, uh, now. But the rest is up to her. If she doesn't want to, then you'll have to think of something else."

Harry started to smile, tried to smother it, and then gave it up and let a full grin spread over his face.

"I knew I could count on you," he said, thumping me on the back as we headed back to St. Mungo's. "A knight, Ron. Some things never change."

~*~

I didn't know how well Hermione took to the idea, because I'd gone back to my flat to tidy up a bit before she got there. As the day dipped into the evening and there was no sign of her, I started wondering if Hermione had persuaded Harry to let her stay at his and Ginny's. I turned the Wireless on as a distraction, while not paying much attention to it, and when Hedwig finally came round with a scroll, I nearly took her feathers off trying to remove the parchment. Hermione was coming. She'd be in my flat in about -

"Ron?"

Blimey. I hated when that happened. I turned as two more pops followed Hermione's. Harry and Urdsmore said their hellos and then went to looking around my flat, checking to see how secure it was.

Neither of them were really pleased at the state of my wards. Apparently Daph had been giving me a compliment when she'd said a Second-Year could get round them. It would take days - or longer - to get permission from the Ministry to put up the type of protective spells that would keep just about anyone out. Harry was worried; he was all for going to "Plan B," which, apparently, he was trying to pull out somewhere from the vicinity of his arse.

We all were trying to figure out what to do, but Hermione was wandering around, looking here and there. I didn't think there was very much to see except dust and Butterbeer caps, but she seemed to find my flat interesting enough.

At one point, while Harry and Urdsmore were talking about something and I heard a soft gasp that made me turn my head. Hermione was at the Floo, looking at the pictures over the mantle there, her hand over her mouth. I didn't understand at first what she could have seen there that would cause that sort of reaction, but then I realised what she picture she must have been looking at.

When we split up, I pretty much 'tucked away' - as in chucked into the nearest trunk and shoved it in my parents' attic - all the pictures of me and Hermione, but there was one that I'd kept around. It had driven Daph mad, but I'd gotten away with it by telling her that it was the only picture I had that showed Perce, and not only that - he was smiling and looking generally happy about life. It had been taken at Bill and Fleur's wedding. Hermione and I were dancing and you could just make out Perce behind us, laughing about something. It was a pretty nice picture, as far as that went. You could even hear the music that had been playing if you put your ear to the frame.

"... Right, Ron?"

"Mm?" I looked round in time to see Harry pretending that he didn't want to burst into laughter there and then. "I mean, uh, right ..."

"Right," I'd discovered over the years, was almost always a good answer. I almost never went wrong with a "right," no matter how stupid the look on my face was.

"I was just saying that we need someplace secure ..."

"Uh ... right."

"Some place rather off the beaten path ..."

"Exactly."

"But not so remote that it'll take you yonks to Apparate somewhere to get help."

"Yeah, but -"

"Harry, I think I'll be fine -" Hermione cut in, turning away from the mantelpiece. "Quite honestly, if this person was able to fool me as badly as he did while I was in one of the most heavily warded homes in Britain, it's quite obvious that my safety shouldn't solely depend on high amounts of magical protection. I'm probably as safe here as anywhere."

She looked straight at me as she said it, but there wasn't anything in her face that gave me a hint as to what she meant by that - if she was being realistic or fatalistic or sarcastic or something else. I thought she looked - and sounded - a little tired, and I wondered if there might be some sort of aftereffects of the Hemsbreed poisoning.

After a hurried consultation with Urdsmore, Harry looked around again, sighed and shrugged.

"All right. Just be careful. Have your wand handy at all times, both of you. Ron, I'd feel better if you went without using the Floo for awhile and just send Pig if you need anything. Either I or Brock will check on you four times a day. If we don't get a response within five minutes, we'll be over here before you can blink. So no lingering in the loo. And any sort of parchment or Firecall you get, be careful. It could be a trap."

The two of them set up perimeter trapping spells that would trip up anyone who tried to Apparate in unawares. I hoped Mum and Dad didn't plan on an unannounced visit anytime soon or they'd get a rather nasty surprise. Finally, figuring that they'd done as much as they could, they left, but not before Harry reminding Hermione to keep away from windows in the near future.

They left about as suddenly as they'd come, with Harry sort of nodding and saying, "All right then" before he and Urdsmore popped away.

I stood studying the carpet for awhile, trying to figure out just what to do next.

"I have this picture, you know."

I looked up. She was facing the mantle again.

"I keep it tucked away. I have too many Muggle visitors to risk displaying it prominently. Even Muggle technology couldn't quite explain this sort of moving picture. I'm surprised you still have it."

"I ..." I started to mention that I had it because Perce was in it, but something about her voice poked at me. She didn't sound shirty or tart - that same tired quality was in her voice, like she was facing a tough job and just wanted to be done with it all.

"D'you want to lie down? I reckoned you could have the bedroom and I'd kip out here on the couch."

"I think I would like a nap, yes. But there is something I think I should say first -"

She reached out and sort of ran her finger down the side of the frame, and then looked at me. There was a lot in her eyes that didn't sit well with me - a hardness there that made me a little nervous. I supposed that under the circumstances, she wasn't expected to be cheery, but at that moment, Hermione seemed like one of those stone statues on top of old buildings. All she needed was the water spouting out of her mouth.

"Ron, I know you don't want me here -"

Right. Here we go, then. Part of me was somewhat happy that she was feeling well enough to try to start a row, but the other part of me was aware that any sort of 'fighting' spirit wasn't in her voice or quite reaching her eyes.

"Fucking hell, Hermione, can we go a bloody day without doing this? I -"

"Yes, Ron," she said, quickly, surprising the hell out of me. "We can. That's what I'd like to propose, actually. I know you hate this sort of thing. Even when you were ... an Auror, I remember how you'd complain about having to watch over dignitaries and the like. Piss-work, you called it."

That had been true enough - and literal, too, almost, since sometimes I had to follow those boring prats into the loo and all. Personal surveillance used to be the kiss of death as far as Auror assignments, since it meant that you weren't going to be doing anything interesting, like going out into the field.

"This is different. Until Harry figures out what's going on, you need to be kept ..." I took a deep breath. "... safe. It was either me or a cadre of Aurors looking after you."

"I know. And to be quite honest, I would rather have had them. I told Harry so, but he talked me out of it."

I gawked at her. "You ... what?"

"Ron, every Auror might despise me forever, and it hurts, because they know nothing of me except what they've read, but in the end, that's the point - they don't know me at all. Their coldness is meaningless."

She crossed her arms, wincing a little, I supposed, over some lingering pain in the one that was slashed.

"You, on the other hand, are different. What you think matters to me - still. I'd be lying to say otherwise. And to see you look at me with such anger and contempt breaks my heart. So, yes, I'd rather be surrounded by men and women who loathe me, but whom, in the end, I couldn't care less about, than to be with the one man whose opinion has meant everything to me since I was 11 years old and know that he had to be coerced into having me in his home."

"Blimey, woman, what are you on about? If I didn't want to ..."

"Ron, both of us know that you didn't really have a choice. It's possible that if Harry had known about our row in the vault, he wouldn't have put you in this position, but I think that maybe even that wouldn't have made any difference."

There was absolutely nothing there in her voice - just the same matter-of-fact tone that a person would use to recite the ingredients for Wolfsbane for the Potions N.E.W.T.

"Don't you think that if Harry thought that I wasn't up to keeping someone from hurting you again that he wouldn't have bothered?"

"Ron, I have no doubt that you'd gladly give your life to protect me, even now. But that's simply who you are. And if I know that, surely Harry does, too."

She moved past me and stopped at the door to my bedroom. "I owe you my life, Ron. And I think that I can begin repaying you by making this situation as uncomplicated as possible for both of us. So let's not row. Let's not get into useless discussions. Let's not talk. Let's not do anything. I'll try my best to make you forget that I'm here. It's the least I can do."

Before I could say a word, she was through the door, and it shut practically in my face. I almost reached for the knob, but I decided that under the circumstances, whatever I had in the refrigerator that was cold, bitter and strong would be a better way to spend the time.

On the way to the kitchen, I stopped to look at the picture again. I hadn't noticed before how the sun had glinted off Perce's glasses, or how, during the dance, Hermione had sneaked a look up at me before tucking her head underneath my chin and pulling me closer.

It was strange how some details could be hidden in plain sight for years like that. Or maybe I hadn't really paid as close attention as I'd figured. And I wasn't sure what to think when I put my ear to the frame and couldn't hear any music playing.