Aftermath

Ghosts

The snowy white owl was seated at her perch in the study when Harry finally came in. It was late in the evening, the as yet to be lifted curfew was still up and about to set in and he had had a long day. But despite the fact that he had not seen his familiar in a while, her appearance did not startle him. Without looking her way he knew where she had come from, and he was not ready to deal with that just yet.

Casting a smile instead, he greeted warmly, "Good evening Hedwig, back from a visit?"

The indignant hoot he received in response told that she was not amused, but he simply walked on past her into his bedroom of the house.

He did not fail to notice though, that the magnificent creature, his first real birthday present and "pet", looked a bit weary. Her feathers were slightly ruffled, her large amber eyes drooped, and the weight of the package tied to her legs was no doubt beginning to get to her. She was clearly not that young anymore.

Of course, flying all the way from France had the tendency to do that to you too.

He could not be too cruel; he pitied her, as she was sometimes his only companion, but not too much. He had not sent her to France. She was a traitor and she would be treated as such.

He emerged from the bedroom some moments after, on his way to the bathroom now, and made a show of passing before her. She hooted at him twice and nudged at her feet and the package. He stubbornly pretended not to notice.

Halfway through his shower he heard her hooting again and near shouted into the living room, "I'm coming!"

She hooted twice again as before and this time he heard her flap her wings.

If he was not quick about his "coming" she would go to him and though she loved him dearly, in her current condition he was not above being pecked.

It took him less than five minutes then, to finish his shower, throw on a bathrobe, walk into study again and free her of her burden with an owl treat. She offered him a look of greatest disdain in return before flying off into the dusk, bathed in the soft rose and lavender colours of sunset.

Left alone to the package now, Harry walked into the kitchen and set it down there before returning to the bedroom to finish his dressing.

Going through those packages always took a substantial amount of time. He guessed it was no real fault of the sender, for them it was surely a family trait. The subject of them all was well known for her inability to limit her quill; she had to have gotten that from somewhere. And no explanation for the actions of one Hermione Jane Granger could be expected to be brief.

Three weeks, two days, fourteen hours and twelve minutes.

That was how long it had been since Hermione abandoned him in panicked flight. It was a wonder no one in the media had discovered this yet.

Add a month and a give or take a few hours and you would have the length of time since Ron Weasley breathed his last breath.

But Ron's mother was not there with him to send bi-weekly packages detailing concerns over the strange behaviour of her son. Ron's mother was not there to ask anxious questions about what happened so she could try to help. Ron's mother, and father, by default, was not there to plead with him to tell her something, anything that would explain why her child had come home late one night, smelling slightly of alcohol and impatient for the family to set off to France. No, she wasn't, but then Ron's mother was no Dr Alice Granger.

Mrs Weasley would have come over to demand the truth.

When Harry received the first package, somehow gotten to him just three days after Hermione left, he was understandably surprised.

He had never had any real form of communication with the Drs Granger before. As a matter of fact, he had often wondered if Hermione had any real communication with them herself. Since their days at Hogwarts she invariably spent more time with him and the Weasleys than her own parents.

But those times were often during the war and he hated to think of the fact that because of him she was away from them.

Well, here she was with them again, and for some reason, they were more worried than when she had not been.

To be perfectly honest, he could not say that it was "for some reason".

Ron was dead, which a traumatic event for them both. He had been their friend since First Year; he had hurt them both and then bound them together. He was actually the most optimistic one of them throughout, always talking about what they would do after even when it annoyed them. He was just, Ron, and he was dead.

They had to live with this grief, this pain, and then the Death Eaters attacked. It must have been hell for her, in those moments as they fought, to think that this nightmare would never end. She had been planning to leave before this, and according to the wear of that wrinkled note she had been writing in the bedroom, was both unsure of how she would tell him and if she wanted to do it at all. The note was actually unfinished to, cut off undoubtedly by his return, and never finished because of what happened after. And then finally, somehow Hermione had been hurt or scared enough of something after this to flee.

He often found that this was not the normal behaviour of the Hermione Granger he knew.

The one he did was stronger than that, never too scared of a challenge, never afraid to do anything, never really one to run from her feelings. Her emotional range was capable of taking anything.

Or so he thought. So they all thought.

Her mother writing to him now was proof that they were all wrong.

Dr Granger's first package contained a series of letters that had no doubt been written over a period of time. They were actually dated as such and referenced a number of things long past. But there were a few that were clearly recent, and rapidly penned at that.

She must have been recording her daughter's behaviour since the end of the war and when Hermione came home and demanded to go off to France at once, she quickly scripted the rest. Whatever made her send them to him though, or even send them at all, he would never know, but they were always clear on their purpose.

After quickly getting through the formalities- apologies for the surprise and expressed regret over never really speaking to him before- she got down to the details. Something was wrong with Hermione.

For weeks before she came home, she always wrote a letter to them detailing her condition and they were generally, well, light. They were almost the journal entries of a carefree individual who had never seen or heard of the war they had been through.

Her mother was suspicious about this, as was her father too. She had earlier mentioned that "a friend" had died, and since Hermione had not really spoken of many friends, they hoped that it was no one close. Her tone in the letters though, was rather light, even about her being in a Wizard hospital too, and so they did not press for details.

Then somehow, something changed.

That last week, Hermione's letters were filled with what seemed to be constant ramblings about her trouble sleeping, and the "red-haired" man who haunted her dreams and her pain at the thought that she may have to break a promise. She wrote pages upon pages about them too, sometimes in frighteningly vivid detail, and even left in the scratches as she corrected them.

It was a cry for help, and they had to do something.

They tried to reassure her, comfort her, get her to come home even, but as they lacked certain details they were not of much assistance.

And then Hermione came home.

She smelt slightly of alcohol and her clothes were a mess, but she was more than ready for them to head to France despite what looked like terror in her eyes. All inquiries about her sudden appearance were dismissed with rushed answers that were somehow incomplete. She was impatient like they had never seen before, but after not seeing her in so long how could they refuse?

It was then, that with no real protest or answers to appease the questions they were bursting to ask, they made ready and they left.

Once in France though, Hermione's behaviour became, and no doubt still was, even more erratic.

Sometimes she was very excited and smiled and laughed and moved without a care in the world. At other times she would sit at the window looking out into the darkened night and they were sure she was crying. And at other times still, she just lay in bed and slept for hours. She did not read, she did not write, she did not even attempt to go out unless she had to. As a matter of fact, she had so far spoken to only one other person than her immediate family, a neighbour, but still was a hermit of sorts.

With all this in mind, Dr Granger believed that something was wrong and she wanted answers.

Harry had so far steadfastly given her none. If Hermione did not see the need to tell them more than necessary then neither would he.

The packages did not stop coming though, Dr Granger seemed determined to write until she got what she wanted.

If for nothing else, he would have to give her credit for her persistence.

He walked into the kitchen now, as the rising full moon cast an almost eerie light blue glow through the dimly lit house, fully dressed to find something to eat. He tried not to look at the package on the table; he was still not ready to open it yet.

But if he was perfectly honest, he was always anticipating them now. They were a strange sort of comfort.

Without seeing her he could still know where Hermione was and how she was and evaluate his opinion of her actions as the details were supplied. They kept him sane, reminded him that she too had a life and had been suffering in her grief and gave him hope that she would one day come back. He was almost as grateful them as for a meal by Mrs Weasley.

He had then, on more than one occasion, contemplated sending a reply to ensure that Dr Granger constantly sent her packages.

But of course, that was all shot whenever, in bouts of what he took to be insanity, his mind would be flooded with the image of Hermione's breath on his neck, her anxious, greedy kisses, her heartbeat against his chest and her hands in his hair.

At those moments neither Hermione nor her parents knew how close he would come to kidnapping her.

He had even gone so far, on one occasion, as to plot the entire thing out.

In order, he would go to Gringotts and collect as many galleons as he could carry, then set up an illegal portkey, rush off to France, burst down the door of the Granger home there and vanish with Hermione to someplace remote.

But that was nonsense.

And if that were not enough, there were the dreams too.

It was always the same; he would awaken to find her lying beside him, with olive tanned skin kissed by sunlight and a smile on her lips. She would only be dressed in the sheets and the light, her hair and eyes streaked with it too, and always staring at him as if waiting for him to wake. He would always smile back then and ask "Why did you go?"

But that was a fatal question, for then her face would sadden, the light on her would dull and she would vanish.

Left with only the light on the sheets, he would turn away to find Ron standing beside the bed asking, "What took you so long mate?"

That question, though spoken in the dream without malice, always haunted him long after those ghost dreams had ended. If only he had been sooner. If only he had rushed off to them instead of lying around in the grass. If only he had figured out that something was wrong with Hermione before. He could go on asking those questions forever, finding new ways to add to his guilt until it drove him to something drastic.

But there were also other, more important concerns at hand.

Ginny was now lying in a coma at St Mungo's.

The wounds were deep, she had lost a lot of blood and though she was fighting she just was not strong enough yet to win. There was talk of even more therapy to be done after for there were some things even magic could not fix.

Mrs Weasley was down there every day to the point that she almost had her own room. But she alternated between her daughter and Harry too, and especially since his decision to leave the Burrow had been carried out, she had a tendency to show up unannounced at the house.

Fleur was unhurt, and back at home with Bill going through the last weeks of her pregnancy. From all reports, the only things wounded in the attack were her pride and the belief that no human being would actually really attack a heavily pregnant woman. He and the other Weasleys now knew by heart her statement about her attacker, "'E was not a man who attacked me! I am weet child, 'ow can you attack a woman weet child?"

As for him, when he thought about it, he had not really been physically hurt in the whole thing so he would be fine too. When he moved out of the Burrow and found himself a place, of all places, in Godric's Hollow, he was even better. The large three bedroom house in the now very quiet village suited him perfectly. Especially since, and ironically at that, a Potter once again had found it a good place to hide.

But Ginny, everyone was worried about Ginny. And the person he held personally responsible for all this, one Draco Malfoy, was yet to confess his sins in that area.

As a matter of fact, it was the same Malfoy who was responsible for his late and fatigued arrival home. Malfoy had stated that he only wanted to speak to him, which clearly proved he was insane, and Harry had been thoroughly interrogated by both Mad Eye Moody and Lupin as to why this was the case.

Well, Moody had more or less really run him over with innumerable revealing charms and his magical eye, the twirling of which still had Harry a bit queasy even now. But with no answer to offer them though, they had finally released him in time to get back before curfew.

Tomorrow he would see Malfoy in person though, and he knew he would get answers, even if he had to pound them out of him.

He had nothing to lose, one friend was dead, the other had abandoned him and he was still forced to live in exile nearly two months since the war's end for his own sanity and safety. Going to Azkaban might actually provide some excitement.

His thoughts cleared like mist at sunrise when he looked down at the package at the table.

Going to Azkaban might bring Hermione back in a hurry.

He scoffed at that thought.

No, she was "happy", "safe" in France; she probably would not come back until well after his funeral.

He was being cruel and he did not care.

Taking a long swig from the butterbeer he had gotten in the refrigerator (he was a wizard but he still needed some Muggle comforts) and drew the package to him. He might as well get this over with.

*****

A "red-haired" man, that was all the description Dr Granger could provide. A tall, red-haired man in dark robes who had come out of Hermione's nightmares to haunt her while she was awake. As a matter of fact, he scared her so badly that she had had to be sedated, much to her father's displeasure.

All of this was in the package Dr Granger had sent.

Well, there was more to the story of course, but that was the main detail.

The entire story was written, that Hermione had come home that afternoon, after taking a second, rare walk through the small village they were staying in and went to her place at the window. She sat there for hours as she always did, lazily perusing a book, pretending the world around her did not exist, until something caught her eye.

Somewhere in the shadows of the bushes, a "red-haired" man was staring at her.

She knew him at once; she would know him anywhere in fact too, for he was the man who stalked her dreams.

Her father nearly fell over the couch rushing to her whilst her mother shut the windows. Ten minutes would pass before her mother finally realised that they needed to end her hysteria and she forced her to drink two sleeping pills. Her father then led her up to her room and for the rest of the night they took turns watching over her. Never before had they seen her like this.

The whole time this happened though, and even with the curtains drawn, they felt as though watched.

She could not know how reading that letter had disturbed him. It was the only one in the package, so there was nothing to assuage his rising fears that Death Eaters were after Hermione. Nothing to relax his nerves for hours before he finally fell into an agonised rest. Nothing to prevent the increasing rage he felt towards Malfoy or stop the violence he was surely going to inflict.

The coming of dawn did nothing to change this, but at least there was one distraction, today he would get his chance to vent some.

For the first time in two years he would be in the same room with the man who had facilitated their headmaster's death. For the first time in two years he would be staring into the face of that pointy-faced bastard for whom the Killing Curse was too good. And, to put it in its simplest terms, seeing that Hermione had run away and he had nothing to lose, he was going to use it on him anyway.

Well, maybe not, but at least cause enough grievous bodily harm so that he would wish he was dead. And if Remus and Moody were fool enough to let him alone with Malfoy for as long as he wanted and looked the other way to boot, he was not going to be responsible for his actions. As a matter of fact, the cover-up explanation could be that he hanged himself in shame for all the pain he had caused.

At that thought Harry stopped thinking. He was beginning to scare himself.

If Hermione were here she would probably narrow her eyes at him or ask in a worried voice "Have you lost your mind?" or even still just plainly ignore it.

After a while she had actually stopped questioning his morality on certain affairs. In light of Sixth Year, where Malfoy was concerned, whenever he or Ron detailed their "elaborate" plans for his murder (by elaborate really meaning hit him with the Killing Curse at the next opportunity) she simply tuned them out or held whatever protests in.

Somewhere along the way she had really stopped fighting him, and maybe that should have been his first clue. It was probably why she had been so easily able to leave him before.

He stopped that bitter thought right there, he needed to be focused on one thing and one thing only right now. Discovering exactly why the last human being he wanted to see alive only wished to speak to him. What Ron would have said was so much more inviting now too, "It's time we got back at that slimy git!"

He had just Apparated into the front yard of number twelve, the only place considered safe enough to interrogate Malfoy in, and then suddenly found that he was reluctant to go in. For some reason now, after all his musings, and he knew Hermione would roll her eyes at this, he could "see" that he would not like this.

Well maybe not really "see". It was simply that he and Malfoy were not friends. The only reason he would want to see him was to relay something that would no doubt hurt.

And whatever it was he hoped he would get it out fast; he had a murder to commit and wanted to be quick about it. With all the Death Eaters already on trial, he really didn't want to further set the Ministry back with his own. If all went well, he might even run away to France and save them the trouble. He and Mrs Dr Granger were friends now; they might even take him in as a second son.

He mentally apologised to Mrs Weasley.

It was early in the morning, not yet sunrise as Harry walked up the steps to Headquarters and entered as casually as if he did it all the time. This time there was no need to rush; he was not carrying around a fainted young woman.

As the door closed behind him and the darkness within consumed him, he became once more aware of a never-ending gloom. Grimmauld Place seemed to have more ghosts than ever today or maybe it was just him, walking around trapped in painful memories.

Why couldn't he be haunted by ghosts like the ones at Hogwarts like everybody else?

"We'll be right here waiting for you when you get back!"

"You won't wake him... he won't wake... he's gone... he won't wake..."

"Harry, Harry I want to leave here... let's get out of here now... please, I want to get out of here now!"

"You should have seen her face... the look on her face... Hermione was screaming so much, I had to sedate her... I had to give my daughter drugs to calm her down. What happened last year? Which of your friends died? Who is the "red-haired" man, and tell me, above all Harry Potter, why is he haunting my daughter?"

The sound of Lupin's voice at the end of the corridor drew him out of them though.

"Harry, you've come... good, Moody is bringing Malfoy soon, but I wanted to talk to you a bit," he said and Harry peered into the deeper darkness to find him.

He nearly fell over when the lights came on and he found that Lupin was actually a few feet away. Recovering quickly though, he asked, "About?"

Lupin stood a few minutes carefully surveying Harry's appearance before replying. Harry did not too much appreciate the attention; he had just grabbed the first things he found in his wardrobe to wear. He was no doubt still sleepy, as per that letter the night before, and he was yet to have breakfast, which at times made him miss the Burrow even more, but he was sure he was mostly presentable.

Lupin ended his examination quickly though, and asked, "Harry... is there anything you want to tell me about the day Malfoy and company attacked the Burrow?"

Harry suddenly felt rather nervous, like a child caught in the act of something terrible by his mother. He managed to conceal what could only be described as a gulp and asked in turn, "Why, is something wrong?"

Now Lupin just stared at him. Harry now knew that he knew that he and Hermione had been in the shed drinking. He did not know anything else; he could not know anything else. Harry tried to remain casual.

"Listen, about what you saw... I mean, I was just bored and tired of you treating me like some child, and then I felt like a prisoner. It was a stupid thing to do but..."

Okay, so much for being calm.

Lupin cut him off. "Listen Harry, I don't care why you did it, sometimes I feel like doing something like this myself, but you can't afford to be so careless. If they had found you drunk they could have killed you both, don't give me that look, I know they didn't warn you about their attack but you should be more careful."

He stopped and sighed while Harry found himself staring him straight in the eyes, and at the same time, marvelling at the fact that he was doing so.

"I know," Harry replied. It was all that he had left to say and then asked, "When is Moody bringing Malfoy?"

"Shouldn't be too long... but Harry, have you heard from Hermione, I know that you may not want to speak to her now, but, I only ask because Mrs Weasley is worried. These times, the war is over but it's not safe, especially..." and he allowed his voice to trail off.

Harry knew that he was probably going to add "for the friends of Harry Potter" or something like that but he was not bitter for it. Yet, Harry was also not in the mood to discuss Hermione, who, he now realised, really had not written to him after all this time. The one who had done any writing so far was her mother, and he was not in the mood to share this either.

Instead he asked now, "So, where are we going to hold this interrogation?"

For someone who had just spent the last two years of his life on the run from Aurors, the Order and now Death Eaters too, and spent the last three weeks in a temporary holding cell, Draco Malfoy looked rather well. As a matter of fact, seated across the table from Harry and Lupin in the cavernous kitchen of number twelve, with Moody pacing the room behind them, the former Slytherin looked for the life of him as if he had been seated in Malfoy Manor all along, sipping chilled mead and casually perusing the business section of the Daily Prophet.

Grimmauld Place was still making its strange noises around them. The dank smell of the long vacant kitchen played havoc on their nostrils and Harry strangely found that he missed Kreacher. Mrs Black's painting was still upstairs just waiting on the opportunity to pounce at them from behind her moth eaten curtains. The sole, weak fire they had lit in the fireplace softly burned at the dust covered cobwebs of the chimney. The three men were uneasy and their prisoner was not. It barely seemed to matter to him that he had never been to this house before.

He seemed completely unfazed and unaware of the danger he was in too, for at the moment he was staring at the cover of the Prophet and laughing.

Today's headline ran, and three weeks late at that, "Fallen: Malfoy Heir under Arrest!" and beneath was a wonderful photograph of Draco being dragged to his temporary prison. His usually sleek white blonde hair was falling about his head wildly, his grey eyes were wide and looking suspiciously at his jailors, his robes were dirty and tattered, and Harry had to wonder what on earth was so funny. After all, there was nothing that amusing about being arrested.

Finally, Draco stopped laughing and said, "I reckon Auntie must be so upset, I can just see the look on her face now."

Lupin and Harry exchanged a look briefly before Harry, trying his best to be civil, for the time being at least, asked, "Why did you want to see me Malfoy? Hoping I would vouch for you not killing Professor Dumbledore?"

That wiped the smirk off of his face.

He became grave, grey eyes stormy, but said calmly, "Don't waste time do you Potter? But no, I don't want you to "vouch" for me, as you called it; I rather think I could help you."

Lupin leaned forward in his seat, Moody continued to pace and Harry asked, almost stupidly, "Help me? Last time I checked Malfoy, you were not in any position to help yourself, innit?"

Draco brought out his smile again, "Yes, well... minor problem, but as I said before, I can help you... don't you want to know what Auntie and her "friends" are up to... or who killed Weasel?"

Almost at once Harry rose sharply from his seat and made a move to attack Draco. Lupin was on his feet shortly after too, trying his best to restrain him while Moody abruptly halted his pacing to train his wand on Harry.

Draco, yet still, looked completely untroubled by this.

"Listen Potter, I didn't kill Weasel, as much as I would have liked to... when I got there he was just about to die, I did stun the Mudblood though... probably saved her life too... but I didn't kill Weasel."

He sounded as sincere as a Malfoy would ever be.

"I'd like to believe you Malfoy, but unfortunately I don't have a high tolerance for..."

"What Harry means to say, I'm sure," suddenly cut in Lupin, "is that we find your claim suspect, for weeks you have told us little, if anything at all and now you're more than willing to help? Does this have anything to do with that article on the fifth page about you "cooperating" with the Ministry? And for that matter, you claim that you saved Hermione from, I'm to assume, apparent murder, what did you see?"

Draco was smiling again, and it was widening by the second as he stared at Harry now glowering down at him and trying to break free of Lupin's grasp.

"No, I'm not afraid of Auntie or those idiots she orders around like her dogs, she can't hurt me. I am cooperating now anyway, at a price of course, I can tell you exactly what they were planning right up until you caught me, and not only that, I could help you find the person who killed Weasel, as I said before."

He gave them a moment to muse over this before continuing, "I do know that you probably don't want to help me since the attack on the rabbit hutch," Lupin made a show of relaxing his grip on Harry before finally forcing him to sit, Draco barely registered it, "but it was the only way I could escape. I'm not too fond of running around and hiding all over the place when I could have some peace and quiet. I should thank you for stunning me Potter, it was the best sleep I had in days."

Harry was not amused, "Do you know that because of you Ginny is in St Mungo's, that because of you she could die?"

"Yes, I heard about that, pity, but what, pray tell, if she's your "companion" as these rags claim, were you doing in the shed with Granger?"

Harry did not have to look to know that his cheeks had reddened. He could feel them burning and the fire was too weak and far away.

Draco ignored this though as he continued, "Anyway, as I was saying before, I needed to leave and this was my only opportunity, I'm tired of running for a cause that died when Scarhead here killed the "Dark Lord". I can help you find most of them, and in exchange I want your protection..."

"Ha! I thought you weren't afraid of them?" demanded Harry, obvious glee in his eyes.

"I'm not, but not every one of my Auntie's "friends" cares about family sentimentality," said Draco somewhat bitterly.

Lupin spoke now, as Harry was still revelling in the thought that Draco was running scared, asking, "We already know most of what they're doing... (Draco rolled his eyes) but what about you knowing who killed Mr Weasley?"

Draco looked confused for a moment before finally replying, "Oh yes, that. Well you see I was already on my way out of the graveyard when something caught my eye... Weasel was on the hill with Granger. Granger looked hurt, but Weasel was still walking around, then this man wearing robes like my Aunt's "friends" came up and they talked for a few minutes. Then Weasel went down and he went on to Granger, but I couldn't let him have all the fun, so I stunned her. And when I did it he got upset, but he didn't see me, and instead of killing her anyway he ran off."

"You would have let him kill her?" asked Lupin, looking a bit surprised, Harry was not.

"Let's not have any pretences, I've never liked her, but no, I wouldn't have, that's my job," said Draco casually, "but it was the strangest thing. When I first saw him I thought he must have been one of Weasel's family members."

"Oh, why is that?" Lupin asked, and never once did his eyes leave Draco's face.

"Well that's the thing you see, anyone would think that he was, he had a head of hair like the rest of them, bright red."