The Silver Swan

THE STORY SO FAR : Padma Patil, a young and ingenuous witch, quite fancied her older and wiser friend Cho Chang when she first came to Hogwarts, but, although these feelings were returned, Padma soon had to resign herself to the fact that she would never be the exclusive object of Cho's affections. When, after the tragic death of Cedric Diggory, Cho Chang was swept off her feet by the exuberant Ginny Weasley, Padma had little choice but to approve. Indeed, Padma and Ginny soon became friends. Padma, Ginny and Cho, along with Padma's sister Parvati, spent a happy summer together in America following the twins' fifth year, a holiday that ended with a moment suspiciously akin to a mystic wedding between Ginny and Cho. It was soon after their return to England, however, that tragedy struck. A party of Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy attacked the Weasley family, killing Ginny's father and her brother Ron, and gravely injuring her mother. Determined to have their revenge, Ginny and her twin brothers joined with Harry Potter to plan an attack on Malfoy Manor. With the aid of numerous members of the erstwhile DA, including the Patil sisters, Hermione Granger, and Susan Bones, the attack was duly carried out, resulting in the death not only of Lucius Malfoy but also of his hitherto unsuspected infant daughter.

As this chapter opens, our heroes - but mostly our heroines - consider their future and debate their role in the war that, seemingly, can no longer be avoided. Hard choices lie before them.

Chapter 8

Hogwarts. I walked through the castle that first day back like a visitor from an alien world. Life, it seemed, was determined to go on whether we liked it or not. Classes began. Homework was assigned. I resumed my duties as prefect, joined by as before by Hermione - and by Neville Longbottom of all people, named by Dumbledore in Ron's stead. Cho was eldest of Astraï and Captain of Ravenclaw Quidditch. It all seemed absurdly anti-climactic.

Still some things had changed. Draco Malfoy did not return to school and, although no official explanation was offered, rumours were of course rife. None, to my relief, was altogether accurate, although some were too close for comfort. Not everyone shared my sentiments. Harry Potter went about with a look of eager aggression in his eyes, as if hoping someone would dare to challenge him. No one did. Hermione, by contrast, was sunk into a gloom from which I could not shake her.

Closer to home, Cho and Ginny no longer made any particular effort to conceal their attachment but, even so, they remained discreet which, in a way, surprised me. In the new order of things, they could almost certainly have got away with anything short of acts of nameless debauchery on the Headmaster's table in the middle of dinner - and I wouldn't have put it past the Ginny Weasley I had known to try it on - but although they were together whenever possible they spent most of their time, as far as I could tell, sitting and speaking in low urgent tones. What about, I had no idea.

Parvati's first visit to Ravenclaw provided a hint. After we had worked out a particularly tricky bit of transfiguration, she looked round the common room and sighed.

"You know, I used to think this place was gloomy, but compared to Gryffindor these days, it's positively festive."

"If Hermione is anything to go by, I can imagine."

"Actually it's Ginny mostly ... not that she doesn't have good reason. Have you heard about her mother?"

"No, what is it?"

"Since the attack, she's been in St. Mungo's. I gather she's recovered from her injuries, physically, but she just isn't quite right, somehow."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that. I just shook my head. Parvati nodded in silent concord, and then smiled in grim amusement.

"I'll say one thing, though, I never took Cho Chang for the nurturing type, but she's certainly doing her best. I hate to think where Ginny would be without her."

"She's better at it than you might think. She used to enjoy looking after me well enough. She was a good older..."

"Maybe ... I think there's more to it than that, though. They're up to something and Harry is in it with them."

She was right, of course. Parvati generally was. We soon found out just how right.

*

* *

The DA - once more under Cho's original name of Defence Association, how's that for irony? - was called back into existence two weeks after our return, this time as an official organisation supervised by the new Defence against the Dark Arts professor, a former Auror who seemed entirely competent even if bit dull. Many students attended the first meeting but, without the allure of forbidden resistance, it seemed more like just another class than anything else. I should have known, however, that what had begun at Malfoy Manor would not be allowed to end in yet another homework group meeting in an ordinary classroom. The morning after the inaugural meeting of the new DA, Cho warned me to be ready for a more intimate reunion that night back in our old haunt of the Room of Requirement.

Cho's message had been less an invitation than a summons. I duly obeyed. Waiting for the meeting to start, I looked around. It wasn't a big group. The veterans of Malfoy Manor were all there along with the Gryffindor DA stalwarts from the year before. Terry and Anthony, along with all of the Hufflepuffs except for Susan, had not been considered worthy it seemed. Somewhat to my surprise, I noted that Michael had found his place in the inner circle. He sat together with Neville and Dean Thomas, which struck me as ironically appropriate. Like the other two, he seemed excited and generally pleased to be included. The rest of us, I thought, looked positively grim by contrast. Grim and determined for Harry, Cho, and Ginny; grim and troubled for Hermione and my sister. Susan, as so often, was altogether unreadable. Even Luna was something more than her usual vague self.

I cast my mind back to that first afternoon at the Hog's Head, almost a year before. On that day, as I recalled, Hermione had done most of Harry's talking for him. Tonight it was clearly to be Ginny. They sat together at the head of the room, she and Harry and Cho. Ginny and Cho were together, of course, the turtledoves of summer now turned to birds of prey. The two of them sat to Harry's left. I wondered if he noticed or cared that this gave Ginny the central position, and not him - I had no doubt that she, at least, knew exactly what she was doing. As she began to speak quietly and clearly, I flashed back to the sound of that voice chanting the death of Lucius Malfoy. Now as then she was detached and precise. The other two were in the grip of cruder emotions, Harry's smouldering anger and Cho's single-minded devotion. Ginny soaked up passion from them, but never let it dominate her; they drew strength from her.

The public meeting of the night before, she explained, was just a front. This was the real association; we were the chosen. Chosen by whom? I wondered, by Harry? By you? The Ministry, she went on, had seen the error of their ways. Too many Death Eaters had been forgiven, had been left alive after the first fall of Voldemort. Now they were rallying to him again. The only answer was to strike first, to deprive the Dark Lord of his servants, to sow terror in his ranks as he so long had in ours.

As Ginny delivered her speech, we could see Harry's eyes darting about the audience, his gaze questioning and aggressive, as if daring us to disagree. More and more, I noticed it settling in one place, engaging a single person, Hermione. It was glaringly obvious that she had chosen to sit with us rather than with them, and her every gesture radiated discomfort. Finally Ginny stopped, and Harry gave voice to his challenge.

"Well, how about it? Does anyone have a problem with this? Hermione, do you have a problem with this?"

"I ... I do, actually. Why does it have to be us? If the Ministry have finally come round, why aren't the Aurors doing this?"

It was Ginny who answered, the new Ginny with hard eyes and a voice that became animated only when it spoke of death and retribution. But was she really all that different? This was the same girl whose ruthlessness I knew well, and had once admired.

"Don't be naïve, Hermione. You know they have limits and rules. We don't. We can do what really needs to be done. They'll help us, some of them at least. Moody is with us already, soon there will be others."

"What about Dumbledore? What does he think?"

It was the question I had been asking silently. Where was our headmaster in all of this? Did he know? Did he approve of this new fury, this blood lust that had gripped his students? Childlike, I clung to this last hope, that Dumbledore would somehow restore sanity, would show us the way. This time, Harry spoke for himself, and his voice was more bitter than I had ever heard it.

"Give it up, Hermione. Dumbledore is old. He couldn't save Sirius. He couldn't save Ron or his Dad. He can't save us. He doesn't know what to do anymore; he told me so himself."

Harry's words hit home. I saw them sink into all of us assembled there, bringing with them despair but in some, at least, a new determination as well. Not so in Hermione. She absorbed the blow and rallied.

"No, Harry! I won't believe that. I can't. This is not for us to do. I went after Malfoy with you, I did it for you ... for Ron ... but this, Harry... you want us to be assassins!"

"Soldiers, Hermione, it's a war and we are soldiers."

"No! We are not soldiers. We are ... we're children!"

I cringed at that last word, remembering Ginny's tirade before the attack. Had Hermione but known it was the worst thing she could possibly have said. Whether she knew or not, she did seem to realise the finality of what was happening. Tears streamed down her face as she spoke, as she measured the gulf that every word was opening between her and her oldest friends. But she was Hermione Granger, she had come to a principled conclusion, and no power on earth could make her back down now.

Having said her piece, she stood up and walked out.

Bedlam threatened to erupt. Even Harry looked after Hermione with a startled and suddenly lost expression; clearly he had never dreamed that she would go this far. Ginny quelled the growing storm with a silent gesture. Raising her right hand before her, she slowly lowered it, pushing down the rising tide of uncertainty. When silence was restored, she spoke, still in the same quiet voice, the terrible clear voice that brought death to her enemies.

"All of you. All of you go home and think. If you have doubts, any doubts at all, don't come back. If you're with us, be here Friday."

And with that, she gathered Harry and Cho, and the three of them turned and went out the door together, leaving us to do what we would, not deigning to debate the issue.

*

* *

I left with Susan and my sister. I gazed questioningly at Parvati, looking for some trace of the carefree playful sister I remembered from childhood, or the happy self-assured young woman I had discovered that summer, or even the warrior girl who had so startled me when she burst out of the Weasley twins' fire. None were there. In their place was someone at once older and much less certain. Before I could speak, she put me off.

"I don't know, Padma. I just don't know. I have to go back to Gryffindor. I want to cast omens."

She knew what I thought of this.

"Don't laugh. It will help me think."

I wasn't laughing. I had no more idea than she did of what to do, only a terrible dreading suspicion that, one way or another, I would soon be called on to betray much that I had once held dear.

Susan took me by the hand.

"We have to find Hermione."

Once again, I found myself following her lead, grateful that someone had a plan, however small. We caught up with Hermione in the far corner of the library where she sat staring ahead unseeingly. For a time, we sat together in silence. Finally, sensing that neither Hermione nor I could face going back to our respective Houses just yet, Susan surprised us by suggesting that we go home with her.

"You can do that? Just invite people from other Houses?"

Susan smiled.

"Taking in strays is a Hufflepuff tradition. Of course it's usually kittens and owl chicks and the like, but I dare say the two of you are looking lost enough to qualify just now."

At the door, she introduced us to a portrait of a plump and cheerful-looking monk. I suddenly realised that this was none other than the Fat Friar, presumably well before his death. She explained that now that he knew us as friends we could come in any time.

"You can do your work here; it's warmer than the library."

It was, too, and for reasons that had little to do with the fire in the hearth. The contrast with Ravenclaw couldn't have been greater. With us, the common room was above all a place to work and to think; it was the pride of the House that its bookshelves contained volumes not to be found in the school library. It was not a place of riotous fun. Even our diversions tended to the cerebral. We specialised in elaborate practical jokes, or insults so obscure that it sometimes took days to realise you had been had. Here all was chaos, and the youngest seemed to set the tone. Any number of games were under way, the participants sprawled out on the floor. In one corner, an impromptu musical society had established itself, with Ernie Macmillan leading in the singing of boisterous and, from the few words I could understand over the general din, quite rude songs. A kitten was asleep by the fire; another was pouncing at Hannah Abbott's hair.

Hermione was incredulous.

"How on earth do you work in here?"

"You can go upstairs if you want quiet. You get used to it, though. It's quite soothing actually, you know, just to play sometimes, to be silly even, to remember that we really are still children."

We all looked at each other after she said it. That word again. All three of us were sixteen, Hermione a few weeks away from her seventeenth birthday. To be allowed truly to be children once again seemed to us just then to be indescribably attractive - and ludicrously unattainable.

We tried. We spent the evening as good children should, dutifully doing our homework, and Susan was right. After a remarkably short time, the clatter receded to a comforting background noise, one that shut out our fears while allowing us to think and work undisturbed. After a while, Hermione looked up.

"This is how puppies must feel."

"What do you mean?"

"In their basket, all piled up together, warm and safe."

Susan gave us the slow smile we were beginning to know.

"Welcome to Hufflepuff."

The evening wore on. The singing stopped. The youngest went to bed. The time came when none of us could even pretend to have any work left to do. Susan went to get us tea from the bottomless urn in one corner of the room - a feature that Ravenclaw would have done well to imitate. She put milk in Hermione's cup and looked at me questioningly. My response was automatic.

"Black, please."

Hermione finally closed the book she had finished fifteen minutes earlier.

"What do we do now?"

I'd heard that one before, and I was no closer to finding an answer. Susan was back with the cups.

"You can stay here if you want."

"No ... if I do I'll never be able to go back. I have to go, I have to face Harry. And that's not even the worst."

Hermione gave a bitter laugh.

"I'm used to Harry being an idiot ... but Ginny... she always helped me talk sense into him before, and now ..."

"I know."

I knew all too well.

"Look, you sleep with just Parvati and Lavender, right? Maybe you won't even see her. Just go to bed. Deal with them tomorrow."

"Maybe ..."

"Talk to my sister, she'll help you. I know she didn't say anything tonight, but she'll understand, I know she will."

Hermione looked frankly dubious.

"I hope so ... Susan, can we come back here tomorrow? We have to talk. I just can't right now. I'm still too upset by all this."

"Of course. Drink your tea before you go."

She drank her tea and went. I didn't.

"Susan ..."

"Yes, Padma, you can stay. There's a room upstairs where you can sleep."

"You have to understand ... Ravenclaw ... it's not like Gryffindor ... all the line shares a dormitory ... she'll be there ... she's eldest now ... she'll ask me ... I don't know what to say ... God, I'm such a coward ..."

I was babbling. Gently she reached over and touched my hand.

"It's all right, Padma. You can stay."

So I stayed. No one took notice. In the morning, I drank more tea and then went to class.

*

* *

Lunch in the great hall. I had to do this. I couldn't avoid them forever. Avoid her. I looked for a place to sit at the Ravenclaw table, looked for someone safe to sit with, and realised to my considerable surprise that, just then, I really missed Marietta Edgecombe. And then Cho Chang looked up and smiled at me and, despite everything, my heart soared. Without further thought, I went to sit by her.

"Where were you?"

"Hufflepuff ... it got late."

"I thought it might be something like that. Get something to eat, Padma, you weren't at breakfast, you must be starving."

She was my older again, feeding me apple tart. I ate in silence, holding back tears.

*

* *

As we had agreed, I returned to Hufflepuff that night after dinner. A quick glance around the common room revealed neither Susan nor Hermione. Susan's friend Hannah looked up from her work and saw me. She indicated the stairway with a quick motion of her head.

"They're up there."

I went up to the room I had slept in the night before, and received a shock. "They" were there, all right, but there were three of them around the table, the third being none other than Millicent Bulstrode.

"Salazar on stilts! Padma, quit gaping and come in. Damn, I'm beginning to see how the ghosts must feel."

I went in and sat by Hermione, who seemed to find Millicent's presence a perfectly normal development. She nodded at me in greeting and then turned back to her.

"Can you start again? Padma needs to know."

Millicent gave an audible sigh, as if greatly put upon. After a brief but stern glance from Susan, she complied.

"News of Potter's little meeting is out; mood in Slytherin is for pre-emptive action. Now that Malfoy's gone, the stupids are in charge. I'd watch myself if I were you."

"What about you? I suppose they don't know you're here?"

"Granger, you don't know much about Slytherin, do you? I've been watching my back for five years now. Gets to be second nature. Good training for life, they tell us."

She crossed her arms, having said her piece. Hermione nodded, conflicting emotions painfully evident in her face.

"We have to warn Harry ..."

Millicent gave a violent shrug and an audible snort. Again, Susan urged her to words, but this time she quietly and deliberately took her hand. Again, Millicent allowed herself to accede to this silent persuasion.

"Look, Granger, there's more to this than your Precious Potter. What's happening here, this is what Alden has been worried about for years now. If the lid comes off, and all of the old feuds heat up again it's going to be the stupids in charge everywhere, not just in Slytherin, and how long until one of them opens the way for the Dark Lord? Alden always said that that's how he came so close last time; he had help from both sides."

Hermione nodded reluctantly, as if this were all making sense to her, as if it confirmed what she had worked out on her own.

"Millicent, can you do anything to calm them down in Slytherin? Would Professor Snape help?"

"I can try, but I doubt they'll listen to me. Malfoy's old crowd have never been all that fond of me for some reason, and Draco's out there somewhere, probably egging them on. Snape ... I don't know. He has to be careful too. There have always been rumours about him in the House, you know. No one is sure what side he's really on. They could turn on him."

Susan said nothing in response to this speech, but I saw her tighten her hold on Millicent's hand momentarily. The two exchanged a brief look, concern on the one part and an odd mix of defiance and reassurance on the other.

"I'll do what I can - I will be careful."

Susan sighed with the look of one who knows that she has to be satisfied with what she can get.

"I'll talk to Neville. We've known each other forever. He doesn't belong in all of this."

That left Hermione and me. Neither of us said anything, but in Hermione's case it was because we already knew what she thought, what she would do. My silence was more ambiguous, and their acceptance of it was an act of charity. I was uncertain and they knew it, but were willing to give me time, a gift for which I was deeply grateful.

Hermione and I walked out slowly together, acutely conscious that Susan and Millicent desperately needed time together. I looked at her, brave and self-assured, this girl who had been my friend for so long, who once already had helped me to reclaim my independence.

"Hermione, what should I do?"

She took a breath, and I could almost see the lecture, the indignant sermon poised to cross her lips. But then it didn't. She sighed and shook her head.

"I can't tell you, Padma. Truth is, I don't even know for me."

"But you seemed so sure."

"I've been here before, and every time I back down. Every time I end up going with them, even when I know it's wrong. I just don't know ..."

*

* *

I was back in Ravenclaw for the first time in two days. It was an act of courage of which I was grimly proud. I managed to occupy myself that evening with homework and a blissfully banal conversation with Anthony Goldstein about routine prefect business. Cho was off at Quidditch practice, which made it all a lot easier.

She came back, finally, looking tired but happy, as always soothed by the game she so loved. She gave me a long look and a faint smile.

"Welcome home."

It was the moment. I took a deep breath.

"Cho ..."

She cut me off with a gentle gesture.

"Padma, you look exhausted and I know I'm tired. Go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."

I accepted the reprieve, and followed her upstairs to resume my place in the line of Astraï and the protective aura of the love of Cho Chang.

*

* *

I awoke early the next morning, feeling surprisingly rested. Looking around the dorm, listening to the gentle breathing of the sleeping daughters of Astraï, I finally allowed myself to believe that I really was home. The sense of relief was overwhelming. It wasn't just Cho, I realised. It was all of it. To give this up was more than I could bear. To keep it meant making my peace with her, and that, in turn, required me first and foremost to understand. What were they really going to do? What was her part in it all? What did they expect of me?

But dare I ask her? Dare I risk upsetting the fragile equilibrium that was re-establishing itself around us?

Thinking back over the previous days, I realised that there was another way. I caught up with Ginny Weasley after lunch. I knew that we both had time before our next lesson and, better yet, that Cho did not.

"Walk with me?"

Together, we headed for the lake in the warm autumn afternoon. For a time we walked in silence.

"Ginny..."

She smiled.

"Padma, it's OK. I know who you are - and I can guess what you want."

I had to laugh. We quickly sobered, though. We weren't here to talk about romance and we both knew it. Ginny took the lead. As usual, she had seen through me.

"Padma, it really is all right. We don't all have to be heroes. Harry and I ... we don't have a choice anymore, and there are others who want to fight, but we won't force anyone. I won't think any less of you."

This was too easy.

"Ginny, it's not just me. What if this makes things worse? Is more killing really the answer?"

She took her time replying and, when she did, it was in a gentle tone. Looking at her, I saw no trace of hatred, or of the blood lust that had so frightened me in the heat of battle. Instead, I saw earnest intensity and a hint of sadness, but always the determination, the ruthlessness that had first won me over to her cause.

"Hermione thinks I've gone crazy with grief, that I just want revenge, that I'm using Harry. Is that what you think, Padma?"

"I don't know what to think ... but for what it's worth I'm sure you're not crazy."

"Thanks. Sometimes I wonder."

As she said it, a flash of the old Ginny rose to the surface, ironic humour and unguarded honesty, but just as quickly it was gone, replaced with a bitterness in which I suspected more than a measure of guilt and self-reproach.

"Do you know what Harry did this summer, while we were in America building sand castles?"

"What?"

"He had to go back to his Muggle family for a month. He always does. But he told me that this year he didn't mind it so much. It gave him time to think."

She paused to walk in silence. Her words, when they finally came, were without doubt and without a hint of remorse.

"He says that what he mostly thought about was the Death Eaters. When Voldemort came back, there they all were, ready to pick up where they had left off. He would have been helpless without them. They're his strength now, his army. They go places he can't and do his work for him. But they're also his weakness. They're not like him, they're just ordinary wizards and witches. They can be killed; we proved that. And there aren't that many of them, not yet at least. Every one we get rid of weakens them, weakens him. It's something we can do."

"Ginny, you make it sound ... I don't know, like counters in a game or something. I know they're evil, but still they're people. You're talking about killing people."

That, finally, seemed to make her angry.

"Look at me, Padma! I know what I'm doing, and, believe me, I'm not happy about it. I wish we could all go back to America and build sand castles. I really do. But we can't. My mother is still in St. Mungo's. We don't know if she'll ever come out. My father is dead, my brother too. They weren't the first and they won't be the last. So yes, to answer your question, sometimes more killing really is the answer. There's no other way."

There was no more to say. All of my doubts: Alden's hints about the ulterior motives of Cornelius Fudge, Millicent's warnings about the dangers of unchecked feuding, my growing feeling that Hermione had been right all along, all of them were left unsaid, swept away by Ginny's grim arithmetic of death. We turned around and headed back to school. As we were about to go in she stopped me with a hand on my arm and caught my eye again, and this time her gaze had softened and held, for the first time, a hint of regret.

"I never meant to involve her in this, you know. I really didn't."

In my heart, much as I wanted to deny it, I knew that this was the truth. The scene that followed Ginny's return from the attack on the Ministry was burned into my memory; Cho had left her no choice. It was either let her in all the way or risk losing her altogether - and who better than me to understand that losing Cho Chang was not something to be risked?

"I'll take care of her, Padma. I promise."

"You'd damn well better!"

The words were out before I had time to think, uttered with a ferocity that was altogether unlike me. From the look on Ginny's face I could see that for once I had made an impression on her. She nodded gravely and a wave of silent understanding washed over us. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, just then, for us to seal my surrender with a kiss.

Neither of us laughed.