Endlong into Midnight

Chapter Eight
The Tree of the Lost

Over Neville's weak protests, Remus and Ginny went to Grimmauld Place with Hermione. Neville seemed to be protesting for form's sake, anyway; he pointed out that Harry had asked for Hermione specifically, but looked relieved when Ginny declared that she didn't give a toss about what Harry wanted, she was coming along.

The four of them landed in the courtyard of Grimmauld Place at more or less the same time. Neville went ahead to unlock the front door of Number 12, but Hermione hung back. Ginny came to stand beside her, rubbing her arms against the cold, watching Neville fuss with the complicated locking mechanism.

"I'm afraid," Hermione said quietly. "He's been my friend for half my life, and I'm afraid to talk to him."

"Afraid that he'll be angry at you?"

"Is that in doubt? This is Harry. Of course he's angry at me." She paused, swallowed, looked at the ground. "I'm afraid he hates me."

"He has a right to."

Sharply, Hermione said, "You weren't dropping by weekly yourself."

"No," said Ginny, "I wasn't." She elbowed Hermione slightly. "Come on. Neville has the door open."

Hermione sighed, nervously adjusted her jumper, and trailed Ginny to the front door of Number 12. Lupin followed them in, shutting and locking the door behind him. Stalling for time, Hermione looked around the entrance hall; it looked better than it had even last week. Nothing could change the gloomy atmosphere of the old house, but Neville had cleaned out the discarded papers and other debris from Harry's long time alone and scrubbed away much of the general filth coating Grimmauld Place. The damage to the paneling, all the words messily carved into or inked onto the wood, had been erased. The entrance hall was still dingy, true -- it would have put Molly Weasley into an apoplectic fit to see what had become of all her careful cleaning -- but it was back to livable condition.

"Do you think he knows we're here?" asked Ginny.

"It wouldn't hurt to let him know," Lupin said. "He probably heard us come in, but you know Harry as well as I do."

"He'll wait for us to confront him," Hermione said grimly. It was a tactical move: making her look for him meant that he controlled the ground for their confrontation. It was really the last thing she felt like doing right now, confronting Harry, but he'd asked to see her and staying away would do nothing to assuage her guilty conscience.

Still, she felt dread coalescing in the pit of her stomach. Harry tended to vent his emotions by screaming loudly enough to shake dust from the ceiling, and Hermione hated being shouted at. If his anger had been unjustified -- like the tantrum that resulted from his conviction that people were avoiding him because he was tainted by Voldemort -- she might have been able to deal with it, but in this case, his rage was completely justified. I'm afraid that he hates me, she had said to Ginny, and she admitted with a sick feeling in her gut that actually, she expected him to hate her.

Hermione agitatedly ran a hand through her tangled hair and called, "Harry? Harry, it's Hermione. I'm here." She heard the quaver in her own voice and winced. She meant to sound strong and confident, like the grown woman she was, but she sounded anxious and scared, like the teenage girl she used to be.

The house was silent around her. She swallowed, clearing her throat slightly, and tried again, raising her voice. "Harry? I came, like you asked me to. Here I am."

Far up in the house, a door slammed. So Harry was taking the initiative and coming to them, instead of making them search Grimmauld Place for him. Hermione bit her lip. It meant nothing good. Beside her, Ginny seemed ready for a fight, while Remus stood placidly, maintaining his calm. On Ginny's other side, Neville leaned against the wall, repeatedly crossing and uncrossing his arms.

In a rush of stomping feet, Harry appeared at the top of the stairs to the first floor. His eyes ticked back and forth between Hermione, Ginny and Remus and he scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Hermione."

"I'm here, Harry. Whatever you want to talk about, I'm here."

Harry moved down a few steps on the staircase, as if he wanted to stand closer to her but didn't want to surrender the psychological advantage of the high ground. He fell silent again, glowering at Hermione. The level of tension in the room, already high, notched higher.

"Excuse me," Neville muttered. "I have to --" He bolted for one of the ground floor drawing rooms. Hermione suppressed a grim smile, unable to blame him.

Harry continued to glare at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Remus move a step closer to her. Ginny stepped toward Harry, tossing her hair. "Harry . . ." she said.

He ignored Ginny, continuing to focus on Hermione. She felt herself wincing and forced herself to stand up straight. Finally, Harry thumped down a few more steps and said, "Neville says it's 2004."

"It is."

"What have I missed? What did I miss while you had me locked in here?"

"Harry . . ." Hermione said feebly, echoing Ginny.

"Don't." He clomped down the stairs until he was standing on the last step. "I lost four years because of you, Hermione. Four years of my life, gone."

"I'm sorry," she said, her throat constricting. "I'm so, so sorry."

"I could have been out there fighting, doing what I'm supposed to do -- but no. You walled me in here and then you threw away the key."

"It was for your own safety. And it worked. You're here, and you're alive --"

"Safe?" Harry jumped from the stairs, landing five feet from her. He flung his arms wide, and even though his skin was unnaturally pale, she could see the scars running up his arms, paler on white. "Oh, I've been safe. And mad. And alone. I don't remember much of the past four years, but I certainly don't remember you visiting."

"There were --"

"'Oh, Harry, it'll be all right, I'll be by all the time,'" he said, putting on a squeaky girlish voice. It actually sounded remarkably like Dolores Umbridge. "'It's just temporary, Harry, just for a little bit, just until Voldemort calls off the dogs.' Rubbish!" He shoved his hands into the pockets of his denims and started to pace. "Lies. You didn't come. Too busy with the Order? More important things to do?"

His eyes slid from her to Lupin then. Hermione didn't think she was imagining the maliciously knowing look on Harry's face. She wound one hand in the fabric of her skirt and tried to keep her breathing steady. "No," she said, voice trembling, "it wasn't that --"

"What was it then? Tell me! Why did you leave me? What were you doing that you couldn't come visit?"

"I was researching -- I was looking for a way to stop Voldemort, a way to find the Horcruxes --"

"In the library again, then." Harry snorted. "I should have guessed. Whenever there's trouble, Hermione runs for the library."

"I'm sorry, Harry!" Hermione said desperately. "I'm really sorry! It's just -- things were so bad, and you weren't well -- I didn't know what else to do! It wasn't doing any good to fight, we weren't making any headway, and too many people were getting killed -- so I went looking for help --"

"And that was more important than me?"

Hermione, close to tears, sputtered, "No!"

Beside her, Ginny had clearly had enough. Bristling, she took a step toward Harry and snapped, "Don't be daft. Of course finding a way to end all this was more important than you were."

Harry rounded on Ginny. "I don't remember you coming to visit much, either. You have no right to defend her --"

"I couldn't come," Ginny said, voice throbbing with anger. "I did, for the first couple years, but you stopped recognizing me. You threw things at me, told me to get out --"

"You should have come anyway."

"It hurt seeing you like that. I couldn't stand it."

"So you just left me."

Breathing heavily, Ginny said, "Yes, Harry, I just left you! You threatened to kill me the next time you saw me, so I left you. You may not remember it, but I certainly do."

Harry turned away. "So much for all that stuff you said after Lepping."

"Don't you dare," said Ginny, voice low. "Don't you even dare. I love you. I will always love you. You should know better --"

"How? How was I supposed to know?"

"Harry, I --" Hermione stammered.

"What?"

"I never -- I never meant for any of this to happen!" she cried, and annoyed herself by bursting into tears.

Harry gave her an incredulous and disgusted look. "You never meant for any of this to happen? YOU LEFT ME!" he howled. "YOU LOCKED ME IN, YOU TOLD ME IT WAS FOR MY OWN GOOD, AND THEN YOU ABANDONED ME! WHAT DID YOU EXPECT TO HAPPEN?"

"Not this," she whispered.

"OH, OF COURSE NOT THIS. BECAUSE PERFECT HERMIONE GRANGER NEVER PLANS FOR ANYTHING BAD TO HAPPEN. ALL HER PLANS ALWAYS GO PERFECTLY BECAUSE SHE'S SO MUCH SMARTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE --"

"I don't think that!"

"-- AND ALL HER PLANS ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE'S. LET'S LOCK HARRY IN A MUSTY OLD PILE TO KEEP HIM SAFE. NEVER MIND THAT HE'S GOING MAD, AS LONG AS HE'S SAFE, THAT'S WHAT MATTERS. ALL HARRY DOES IS GET US INTO TROUBLE, MIGHT AS WELL GET HIM OUT OF THE WAY --"

"Harry, stop!"

He carried on, pacing back and forth, either ignoring her or past hearing her. "-- CAN'T HAVE HIM AROUND MUCKING UP THINGS AND FIGHTING VOLDEMORT, NO, TOO BUSY MOURNING MY DEAD BOYFRIEND BY MAKING GOO-GOO EYES AT --"

Hermione fumbled for her wand, pointed it at Harry. "Aequitas!"

A streak of lilac light zipped out of her wand and hit him in the chest. He stopped pacing momentarily, tirade breaking off mid-word, a woozy expression spreading across his face. Then he frowned, growled, "No," and shook himself, throwing off the Calming Charm by an act of will. "Don't you ever do that to me ever again."

"We can't talk to you when you're angry like this, Harry!" Hermione wailed.

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU, I WANT YOU TO LISTEN TO ME!" Harry shouted, face contorting. "There you go again, thinking you know what's best for everyone around you. You don't! You don't know anything, Hermione!"

She recoiled as if she'd been slapped. Harry ran one hand through his hair, which was already standing wildly in all directions, and shoved at his glasses. "Do you even realize what you did to me?" he demanded.

"I've said I'm sorry, Harry!"

"That's not enough!"

"What do you want me to do, then? What is enough?"

"I don't know! I want you to -- I DON'T KNOW! Dammit!" Harry kicked the bottom step of the staircase to the first floor, paused, seemed to be thinking, and then kicked it again. The hall was quiet for a few moments as Harry paced back and forth, eyeing Hermione from underneath his shaggy hair. He's planning another line of attack, she thought, and wiped tears away, trying to regain her control.

Very calmly and reasonably, Remus said, "Why don't we all go to the kitchen, have some tea, and discuss this like adults?"

Harry whirled around, eyes flashing. "I don't want to talk to you about anything. You let her do this to me."

"Hermione was not the only person who made that decision, Harry, nor was I."

"Rot," Harry said savagely. "It was her idea. You wouldn't hardly come out of your flat for months after Tonks was murdered. Everyone knows Hermione made all your decisions for you."

"It wasn't Hermione's idea."

Harry made a rather rude gesture.

A hard expression settled over Lupin's face. "That's enough, Harry. There are things you need to know. If you want out of this 'musty old pile', you will come down to the kitchen with us and listen to what we have to say so you won't be a liability to us when you do leave. Elsewise, you are more than welcome to stay in here until you feel up to talking to us. Which will it be?"

From the sulky expression on Harry's face, Hermione guessed he was giving it some serious consideration.

"This way, Hermione, Ginny," said Lupin, heading for the stairs to the basement kitchen. Hermione bit her lip and followed after him. She was at the first landing when she heard Ginny say, "Well?"

Hermione paused and half-turned, looking back up the stairs behind her. Ginny had stopped at the top of the stairs, giving Harry an imperious look. Hermione couldn't see Harry, but he must have made a face in reply, because Ginny snorted. "Don't be thick. Come on."

"All right," Harry said loudly, moving toward the stairs. Hermione smothered a smile and continued down the stairs into the kitchen. People accuse me of being bossy. Ginny's as bossy as her mother and no one ever notices.

Remus had his head in one of the kitchen cabinets when Hermione entered the kitchen. "I can't find the teapot," he said, sounding slightly muffled.

"You'll have to conjure one," Harry said, thumping into the kitchen and scowling. "I smashed it years ago."

"Mmm." Lupin slipped his wand out of his sleeve. A series of small twirls later, he had conjured a simple white bone china tea set; with another wave of his wand, he started handing round cups. Hermione accepted hers gratefully and took a seat at the scrubbed wooden table.

"Sugar?" she asked.

Sullen, Harry said, "Smashed that too."

Hermione pursed her lips briefly and took a sip from her teacup.

All bad attitude, Harry dropped into a chair and pulled his teacup over in front of him. Lupin brought the teapot and his own cup over and regarded Harry gravely for a moment. "I do owe you an apology," he said. "We failed you badly. Hermione meant what she said when she told you we never intended for any of this to happen."

Harry muttered something that sounded to Hermione suspiciously like "fat lot of good that does me."

"We intended," Lupin continued, "for you to be in here no more than a few months. We thought we might be able to gain the upper hand on Voldemort by the end of the year, and we made quite a bit of progress over the summer -- but then there was the Azkaban breakout . . . Malfoy came to power at the Ministry and we lost the assistance of the Aurors. We had moles who reported that you were a primary target -- 'kill him by any means necessary' was the exact phrase Voldemort used, if I'm remembering correctly."

Harry shifted in his seat. "I remember all this -- sort of. You told me this before."

"I want to make it clear to you what we were dealing with. It doesn't make what happened right, but I want you to understand. After Scrimgeour was assassinated, all our priorities changed. We had to start playing the long game. You were --" Lupin looked uncomfortable. "-- slipping. I asked people to drop by and check on you. I don't know why or when they stopped coming by. I suppose after a while everyone simply assumed someone else was responsible for visiting. I regret it, Harry. You needed us, and we weren't there for you. This could all have been avoided if I'd been more careful."

"Dumbledore would never have just left me. He'd have come by every week to check on me."

Remus had evidently been expecting Harry to say something along these lines. He managed to keep his face and voice calm as he said, "I have never claimed to be the wizard Albus Dumbledore was." Hermione remembered the last time she had heard him say that, after her thoughtless remark during the fighting at Stockbridge Main, and grimaced. It was still a sensitive spot for Lupin, being compared to his predecessor as head of the Order of the Phoenix. She had spoken without thinking out of anger, but judging from the expression on Harry's face, he had made the comparison deliberately.

"You asked what had happened since you were locked in here," said Lupin. "How much do you know?"

"Not bloody enough. Neville's told me some things. The Order's been mostly useless for years now. You haven't managed to do anything significant against Voldemort and people keep getting killed. Good job."

"That's changing," Hermione said.

Harry frowned. "Neville said something about that. There's some Muggles working with you to find the Horcruxes."

"We've managed to find two already." Lupin took a drink of his tea and grimaced slightly. "We've destroyed one of them."

Hermione could see Harry becoming interested against his will. "Which ones?"

"An heirloom brooch that belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw. That's the one we destroyed. We've also managed to retrieve Salazar Slytherin's locket."

Harry gave Remus a piercing look. "Silver? Fancy? Bit snaky?"

"That's the one," Ginny said.

"It looks like the one from sixth year, the one you and Dumbledore found," added Hermione. "I recognized it when I saw it. It was here in Grimmauld Place, remember, fifth year?"

"Didn't Sirius throw it out?" Harry asked, frowning.

"Kreacher must have salvaged it," answered Lupin. "Neither Sirius nor I could keep watch over him all the time."

"And then Fletcher stole it after Sirius died." Harry made a fist, slammed his hand on the table. "Why didn't I think of it? If it was here -- R.A.B. This is the Black house. There's only one recent Black whose name starts with R on that tapestry upstairs -- Regulus, Sirius's brother. He told me about him once. He was a Death Eater."

Hermione frowned. It certainly explained why she'd never been able to find the right sort of R.A.B. in the Hogwarts library. "What's the A stand for, then?"

Remus rubbed his forehead. "Regulus's middle name was Alphard. After their uncle. Sirius's mother regretted it later." Hermione looked at him questioningly and he waved one hand slightly. "I knew Regulus a bit at Hogwarts. I met him first when I came to visit Sirius over the summer holiday one year. He was a few years younger than Sirius. A Slytherin, of course -- Sirius was the only Black who wasn't one -- but not a bad sort, really, aside from his blind spot about blood purity, same as the rest of the Blacks. Sirius never thought much of him. He always referred to Regulus as his 'daft little brother'." He looked reflective. "I never could figure how he'd ended up a Death Eater. He had the views, but he didn't have the nerve. I suppose, in the end, he did."

Harry scowled. "What else has been going on?"

Hermione glanced at Remus, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged fractionally. After all these years, they could read each other's expressions like the pages of a book. What hasn't been going on? his expression said, and also He should know. She tilted her head to one side. Of course. Will you tell him or shall I?

"Voldemort's noticed what we've been doing," said Lupin. "He has both the Death Eaters and the Aurors --"

"Aren't those the same thing?"

"-- yes, well, he has both of them out looking for us. A number of Death Eaters staged a cleansing on Stockbridge Main last week. We tried to defend the village. There were some casualties."

"Who?" demanded Harry.

Lupin's face was drawn as he said, "Laura Madley. William Summers."

Harry frowned, obviously trying to put faces to the names.

"Hannah Abbott. Ernie Macmillan. . . . Luna Lovegood."

Harry's face went stricken and then angry. Hermione sympathized; she had always thought of Luna as a bit of a joke -- which was, in retrospect, totally unfair to Luna, who had been sharp and perceptive under the dotty exterior -- but had still been deeply upset over her death. Harry had been much closer to Luna than she had, not as close as Neville, but . . .

Neville. Neville, who had dated Luna for two years after leaving Hogwarts. Neville, who had remained close to his ex-girlfriend. Neville, who had been locked inside Grimmauld Place during the fight at Stockbridge Main. "Remus," she said, terrible suspicion forming a weight in her stomach.

He gave her an inquisitive look. "Hermione?"

"When you were doing your . . . notifications, did you tell Neville?"

Lupin closed his eyes. "No."

Harry's gaze ticked back and forth between the two of them. "Haven't you two made a dog's breakfast of things. Of course, I wouldn't expect anything else," he said, eyes flicking to Lupin. "This is why we don't let Hermione make the plans. Things never go like they're supposed to -- do they, Hermione?"

Hermione frowned as she found herself blinking back tears again. It wasn't right to hear Harry like this. His sense of humor veered toward the sarcastic, certainly, and he had a worrying mean streak that flared up at times of stress. Harry carried his anger like a spear and always had. But the outright cruelty -- he had never been vicious like this, not even at his worst. It was as if Harry had received a personality transplant from Severus Snape.

"That will be enough," Lupin said, voice steely. "I was the one who forgot to notify Neville, not Hermione. I understand your anger with her, Harry, but you cannot hold her accountable for the actions of everyone around her. If you want to rage at someone, rage at me."

"Or me," said Ginny. She gave Hermione a sheepish look. "I can take it."

You can't, at least not right now went unsaid. Hermione couldn't decide if she was grateful or annoyed.

"I understand that you need to deal with your anger, to process it and let it out," Lupin continued. "But there is a time and a place for that and right now is neither of those. Right now you need to focus on managing your anger, and you'll start by keeping a civil tongue in your head when speaking to either Hermione or myself. If you can't control yourself and work effectively with the rest of the team, you won't leave this house. I need to know that you won't jeopardize us all in the field by giving in to your emotions."

Harry looked as if he'd rather rip out his tongue than keep it civil. Hermione swallowed. He had never been this angry with her -- never at Hogwarts, never even in the early days of his confinement in Grimmauld Place, when he was furious with everyone who had played a part in locking him in. When he was angry with her, he usually showed it by completely ignoring her, not lashing out like this.

"Or have you forgotten how the wards on Grimmauld Place work, Harry? They're designed to prevent you even opening the front door without the permission of someone who set the wards. That means that right now there are only two people in London who can let you out: myself and Hermione. I hope you'll keep that in mind when speaking to us."

It was a rank threat. Hermione frowned and twirled a lock of hair around one finger, nerves making her fidget -- and she wasn't the fidgety type.

Harry shoved his chair back from the table, scowled at Lupin, stared furiously at the floor. Lupin watched Harry calmly. Hermione tugged slightly on the lock of hair wound around her finger, while Ginny gazed at Remus with a flinty expression.

". . . All right," Harry grunted.

Lupin nodded approvingly.

"Is there anything else you wanted to ask, Harry?" Hermione asked, slightly tremulously.

He looked at her and shook his head.

Frowning, Lupin stood. "Hermione, Ginny, tell him about anything else that needs covered. I'm going to go talk to Neville."

As he left, Ginny shot Hermione a dubious look, as if to say what else needs covered? Hermione reached for her teacup, took a drink and then launched into a description of everything that had happened in the past month: her trip to Los Angeles, the underground scramble for the first Horcrux at Monkton Farleigh, their flight north, the tumultuous fight at Stockbridge Main. Her phrasing became carefully constricted during discussion of the second Horcrux -- Ginny had divulged Percy's location to her, but she couldn't tell Harry -- and she wrapped up with their recent activities at Wolfram & Hart. Harry listened to it all, a carefully neutral expression on his face, staring at the flagstone floor of the kitchen. If it weren't for the fact that his eyes flickered every now and then, she would have sworn he wasn't listening to her.

". . . and then we came here," she said, finishing her recitative. "That's it." She clasped her hands and rested them on the table.

Harry grunted, reaching up to shove his glasses up his nose, still not looking at Hermione or Ginny. A tense silence fell over the room and Hermione bit her lip. A noise at the door made her look over; Remus stood in the doorway, looking sober. "Is there anything else that needs done?" he asked.

"We're done here," Ginny said, shooting a glance at Harry, who had looked up and quickly back down again when Lupin spoke. "Let's go."

Lupin nodded. "Harry?"

"What."

"Are you coming with us?"

Hermione watched the emotions dance across Harry's face. He was clearly torn between his desperate desire to leave Grimmauld Place and his equally desperate desire not to have anything further to do with Hermione, Lupin or Ginny. She figured Harry had deduced that if he left Grimmauld Place, he would be tethered to them; she didn't intend to let Harry out of her sight until Voldemort was defeated and she suspected Ginny didn't either.

After a few moments' intense inner debate, Harry stood up. "There's no way I'm staying in this hole."

Lupin nodded, looking approving.

They filed back up the stairs to the entrance hall. Neville, clearly upset but working to control it, stood by the door, waiting for them. Hermione hurried over to him, taking his hand in both of hers. "Neville, I'm so sorry," she said, apologizing both for Luna's death and the delay in informing him. "I'm so, so sorry."

He smiled wanly at her. "So am I."

"If there's anything --"

"I know."

Behind her, Remus was tapping the doorframe with his wand and muttering spells, taking down the wards that had prevented Harry from leaving Grimmauld Place. Ginny shifted in anticipation, reaching out to grab Harry's hand. He startled and she said, "As soon as you clear the door, I'm Apparating us to Wolfram & Hart. I want to be ready."

Harry frowned. "Where's that?"

"The Muggles," said Ginny.

"Ah!" Lupin stepped away from the door. "The wards are down and I've undone the locks. Ginny, Harry, go. We'll follow you to Wolfram & Hart." He held the door open for them. Ginny and Harry blinked a few times, their eyes used to the gloom inside Grimmauld Place, and sprinted for the door. Their momentum carried them halfway down the steps of the front stoop before Ginny Disapparated them.

"Neville?" Lupin said, gesturing out the open door.

Neville shook his head. "I'll lock up after you. You go on ahead."

Hermione squeezed his hand before dropping it. "Thank you. You've done so much --"

"I just talked to him is all."

"You've done so much. Oh, Neville, I can't thank you enough. Anything. I mean it." She turned to Remus. "Let's go."

"After you."

Hermione jogged out the door, waiting until she was at the bottom of the stoop to Apparate back to Wolfram & Hart. She landed in the middle of the lobby, followed a second later by the crack! of Lupin's Apparition.

Angel's office door was wrenched violently open. "Do you mind," Angel said, leaning out, "I'm trying to make a call -- oh." He glanced at Harry and nodded slightly. "I'll call Wesley."

***

Fifteen minutes later, the seven of them -- all except Illyria, who had vanished, worrying Wesley -- sat around the table in the small conference room attached to Angel's office, Angel at the head of the table and Lupin at the foot. Harry had been formally introduced to the members of the Wolfram & Hart team and sat next to Ginny, idly swiveling his chair back and forth.

"I suppose," said Lupin, "the question is again what we do next."

"The third Horcrux," Ginny said firmly.

"We still don't know how to destroy that locket," Hermione pointed out.

"There's no harm in going and getting the third Horcrux, though, is there? I mean, if we have it and Voldemort doesn't we're still one up on him. We can just hang onto it until we know what to do with it."

"Where is it?" Harry asked. "The third Horcrux, I mean."

"Nottinghamshire."

Remus extracted the Horcrux map from his pocket and spread it on the table. Harry pulled it over to himself and frowned at it. "How'd you get this?"

Hermione pointed down the table. "Wesley made it."

He raised his eyebrows. "I performed a seeking spell, that's all."

"It's Muggle magic," Hermione said, seeing Harry's nonplussed expression. "It uses rituals and sacred objects to channel the magic, instead of wands and invocations -- oh, never mind. It's different and it works."

Harry grunted and continued staring at the map. Hermione glanced at Ginny just in time to see her roll her eyes; realizing she'd been seen, Ginny smiled briefly, looking rather covertly amused.

"I believe I'm on the track of something interesting," Wesley said into the silence.

"Really?" asked Hermione. "What have you found?"

Wesley leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together. "I've been working through the library's collection of scrolls, as you know. Most of them are medieval in origin and somewhat mundane, but earlier this afternoon I found one that purports to be Salazar Slytherin's diaries."

Hermione blinked. "Really." Curiouser and curiouser, she thought, parroting Alice and wondering what Salazar Slytherin's diaries were doing in the Wolfram & Hart library.

"Indeed. It appears that Slytherin was rather a prolific diarist. These aren't the originals, of course. They appear to be a fourteenth-century copy."

"Anything useful?" Remus asked with keen interest.

"So far, not as such, no. He spends most of his time complaining about how pigheaded 'Godric' is, keeping a growth chart for 'Baby', and making lewd remarks about 'Rowena'. I will, however, let you know when I find anything."

Spike leaned back in his chair, resting his head on his hands. "So are we doing this or not? Because I don't mind telling you, I'm a bit bored myself."

"Yes," said Ginny.

"She's got a point," Angel said. "No, look, Hermione. I understand what you're thinking. But the fact is, we picked up that first Horcrux a week ago. Voldemort knows what we're doing now. There's no way to surprise him like we did that time. The longer we wait, the longer we give him to get defenses up or even move the Horcrux. We need to go now."

Hermione looked to Lupin, who made a he has a point, Hermione face at her. "Oh, all right," she said. "Honestly. But we don't even know where it is."

"Nottinghamshire," Ginny said promptly.

"Is an entire county."

"Where might he have hidden it, then?" Wesley asked.

"He was hiding them in places that meant something to him," Harry said, somewhat unexpectedly. Hermione blinked at him. He pushed his glasses up his nose and said, "That cave was someplace he used to go as a kid. And the ring that Dumbledore destroyed was in the Gaunt house."

"He's moved them, though." Remus leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms reflectively. "We knew that after Lepping. And while it's true I don't know much about the history of Lord Voldemort, I doubt he had much connection with Monkton Farleigh."

"Underground," said Hermione. "The cave was underground, Monkton Farleigh was underground . . ." She looked at Ginny. "What's underground in Nottinghamshire?"

Ginny shrugged, but from down the table Wesley said, "Mines. Nottinghamshire has been mined for 100 years. There's also some caves in the western part of the county."

"Might he have hidden the Horcrux in a coal mine?" Hermione wrinkled her nose.

"We could always Apparate up there and find out," suggested Ginny.

Angel grumbled, "Or we could just walk right into a trap."

"More fun than what we're doing now, mate," Spike said. "I for one am all for it."

Scratching at his temple, Lupin said carefully, "Little Hangleton is in the southernmost part of Yorkshire. It borders on Nottinghamshire."

Harry stared at the table.

"Remus," said Hermione, "you cannot be suggesting that the third Horcrux is in the Riddle House."

"Why not? It's in the right area. It has meaning to Voldemort. He's not using it as his headquarters anymore -- he moved those about eighteen months ago. It's certainly logical."

"Are you mad?" demanded Ginny. "It's too obvious! You just finished saying Voldemort moved the Horcruxes after Lepping, and clearly he moved them to clever places because we did sod-all about finding them until Wesley came along. The Riddle House is the opposite of clever. It is the New Zealand of clever. Voldemort might as well hang a great flashing sign over the Riddle House saying 'I've got a Horcrux here, come and get it.'"

Wesley shifted in his chair. "What is the Riddle House?"

"It's Voldemort's old base. It's where his father and grandparents lived before he killed them," Hermione said.

"It's where he came back," said Harry, sounding a little hollow.

Wesley raised his eyebrows.

"I agree with Ginny," Hermione continued, "it doesn't make any sense as a location for a Horcrux. It's almost guaranteed he had a Horcrux there before, but why would he have one there now?"

"He has a strong connection to the place," said Lupin, nodding to Harry. "And it's ground that he can control completely. It makes sense to me."

Ginny crossed her arms and tossed her hair. "You're mad."

The debate continued for several minutes. Angel sided with Lupin -- "Remember The Purloined Letter. Sometimes the most obvious hiding place is the best one" -- while Wesley argued both sides, apparently still considering the options. Ginny insisted that Remus was a raving lunatic for thinking the Horcrux might be in the Riddle House, but Hermione was starting to agree with him. Spike tossed in random locations -- "It's on the bloody moon, it is" -- apparently to amuse himself. Harry spent the entire discussion staring at the table, occasionally running a hand through his hair and making it stand out in all directions.

Surprisingly, Illyria settled the issue by appearing out of nowhere and loudly announcing, "I have found the Horcrux."

Expressions of surprise and confusion went up from around the table. Wesley said, "You can't have!" while Spike muttered, "Takes all the fun out of that, doesn't she?" and Hermione found herself rather ungracefully demanding, "What?"

"I have," Illyria repeated, "found the Horcrux." It walked around the table to stand in the empty space beside Wesley. Hermione, who was on the other side of the empty spot, tried not to let it spook her.

Wesley looked up at Illyria with a mixture of disbelief and gratitude. "Why?"

"Because I tired of this inaction. Burying yourself in old books and uncertainty. A waste."

"I don't suppose you brought the Horcrux back with you?" Remus looked faintly amused by the situation.

"No." Illyria raised its head, giving Lupin a supercilious look. "I could not penetrate the protections around the Horcrux."

"Doesn't bode well for us, then," said Spike.

"Where is it?" Ginny asked. "Is it underground?"

Illyria turned, staring at Ginny, blue eyes piercing. "No."

"So much for coal mines," Harry said. "Wrong again."

Ginny's eyes darkened, but she held her tongue.

"Where is it, Illyria?" Angel asked, rather curtly.

"A house."

Hermione frowned. It seemed to be enjoying the process, dribbling these drops of information out for them.

Rubbing his nose, Lupin said, "The Riddle House. It must be."

"It sounds likely," said Wesley.

"Right then," said Spike. "Who's going?" He bounced to his feet.

Wesley shot Spike an arch look. "I believe we'll all be going. Except . . ." His gaze slid over to Harry, who gave him a rather surly look in return.

"I'm going," Harry said mulishly. Lupin looked at him, expression hard and challenging, and Harry scowled even more deeply. "I meant what I said."

"You can't go," Hermione protested. "You haven't your wand."

"Where is it?"

"My flat. Only there's Death Eaters and everyone watching my flat, I can't go back . . ."

Harry's stare boring into her was flat and merciless. "Get it."

***

In the end, it was much easier breaking into her own flat than Hermione expected. That evening, Remus, Spike and Angel Apparated in up one end of the street as a distraction while Hermione and Ginny Apparated in down the other end. Ginny placed Hermione under a Disillusionment Charm, and Hermione started walking the 200 feet to her flat.

As she drew near to her flat, she had to admit the plan was working well: Voldemort obviously had not set his best and brightest on the mundane task of guarding her flat. The head of the Order of the Phoenix suddenly appearing in the middle of the street, accompanied by two unknown but dangerous strangers, had been enough to draw the Death Eaters out. Spike started hurling invective at their mothers and sisters, and that let her make it into the building without any of them noticing the faint outline of a human body slipping past them. Hermione hunched over the locks on her door, both magical and Muggle, and tried to undo them as quickly as possible.

Once she was safely inside her flat, she breathed a quick, quiet sigh of relief. Her flat looked strange and unfamiliar, although she supposed that was just because she hadn't been inside it for the better part of two weeks. A faint layer of dust had settled over everything. She brushed the dust off a small figurine of a ginger tabby cat and frowned.

Harry's things were stashed in a box under her bed. Hermione started packing things into her pockets, shrinking various items to fit. Thinking, she swirled the Invisibility Cloak over herself, feeling relieved once she had faded into total invisibility, the lines left by the Disillusionment Charm disappearing.

She tiptoed through her flat, opening the front door and peeking out. Colored lights lit the sky as Remus dueled with the Death Eaters, but none were the sickly green of Avada Kedavra. Hermione smiled somewhat grimly. Voldemort's mandate to bring them in alive occasionally came in useful.

Down in the street, Spike was shouting, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Carefully, Hermione locked the door behind herself before pelting down the stairs and up the street toward Ginny. As soon as she was free of the anti-Apparition wards, she sent up a shower of green sparks, the signal that she was clear. There was an uproar from the other end of the street, and the last thing she saw as she Apparated away was a streak of red light zooming toward her . . .

***

When Hermione reappeared in the Wolfram & Hart lobby, Harry was waiting for her. He looked around, not seeing her, and said impatiently, "Well?"

"Wait, Harry," said Hermione. She pulled off the Invisibility Cloak. "I have your wand and things, but we have to wait for Ginny to come back so she can Disillusion me." She balled the Cloak up and flung it at him; Harry caught it, somewhat awkwardly. In his hands, the Cloak reverted to its usual silvery-grey appearance.

With a crack!, Ginny Apparated into the lobby, followed shortly by Lupin, who was clutching Angel and Spike by the arms and looked slightly winded. "Is Hermione back yet?" Ginny said.

"I'm here," said Hermione.

"Wave." Ginny looked around briefly, finally zeroing in on Hermione, who was waving both hands in the air. "There you are. Hang on." She tapped Hermione on the head, muttering the Reillusionment Charm. Hermione sighed in relief as the clammy feeling of the Disillusionment Charm fell away.

Harry crossed his arms. "Well?"

She carefully dug in her pockets, trying not to break any of the fragile, tiny items stored inside. "Here," she said, pulling out Harry's wand, the size of a toothpick. A quick Enlarging Charm, and it was back to normal, a bit dusty from its long stay underneath Hermione's bed but otherwise undamaged.

Harry took back his wand, a hungry look on his face. A shower of red sparks shot out of his wand as soon as he touched it; Hermione hissed as some landed on her arm and burned. "I have more," she said, reaching back into her pockets and pulling out items: his Firebolt, the size of a twig; Hedwig's cage, the size of a pack of gum; his family photo album, the size of a matchbook. Harry began to look like the front window of a charity shop as she handed things to him.

His eyes on Hedwig's clean, empty cage, he asked, "What have you done with Hedwig?"

"She's been living in the Hogwarts owlery," Remus said. "Carrying mail when she feels like it. She had a nest of owlets a few years ago."

"She remembers you, Harry," said Ginny. "Don't worry. You should see the looks she gives me."

"All right." Harry looked up, determination on his face. "Let's go."

"Oh, no. No way," Angel said. "It's suicide going in there tonight. None of us are rested, we haven't prepared -- Tomorrow night," he said, forestalling Harry's protest. "We'll go tomorrow night."

Harry looked mutinous, but nodded.

***

Tomorrow night came faster than Hermione was expecting. Per Angel's instructions, she spent the afternoon napping. Precisely at eight, she went down to the Wolfram & Hart lobby, wearing black and with her hair twisted into a rough braid.

Angel and Spike were there already, Angel looking grim and Spike bouncing on his toes from excitement. Shortly afterward, the rest of the group trickled in: Ginny, her hair swept back into a ponytail; Harry, looking angry and eager; Remus, wearing black robes for the occasion; Wesley, trailed by Illyria. The eight of them assembled into a rough circle in the Wolfram & Hart lobby, shuffling nervously. Remus said, "Illyria, you're the one who knows where this is. Care to do the honors?"

It regarded him imperiously, lifting its head and staring at him down his nose -- and then it drew its hand down the air, tearing a hole in space that rippled and wavered. Through the rip, Hermione could see darkness, a lawn, and a house, looming up out of the night.

"I'm going," Harry said decisively, and he charged through the portal. Ginny followed, and one by one they all stepped through into the night.

***

"You're late."

Hermione jumped as an unfamiliar voice spoke out of the dark.

"Lumos!" said Harry, raising his wand and holding it high, lighting nearly the entire front garden of the Riddle House. Hermione blinked in surprise. There, leaning against a tree, was a dark-haired girl -- the same girl who had come to Cresswell's house to warn them that the Death Eaters were after them.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. Who was this girl? Girl was perhaps something of a misnomer -- she looked to be around Hermione's age, if not older, with long ash-brown hair and sleepy eyes. At the same time, Hermione was sure she'd never seen her before -- at least, not before she showed up at Cresswell's house.

"It couldn't be helped," Lupin said mildly.

"I was expecting you last night."

"There were complications." Remus nodded his head at Harry, who gave him a brief what's this got to do with me? sort of look.

"Ah, Potter," the girl said, grinning, although it wasn't a pleasant sort of grin. "Did Granger finally let you out of your cage?"

"Who are you?" Ginny said sharply. "Where do you get off saying things like that --"

"Oh, like I'd really tell you, Weasley. I'm a secret agent. Emphasis on the secret."

Ginny snorted. "That's bullshit."

The girl rolled her eyes and turned away. "You know he's not there, right?" she said to Lupin.

"We had figured that, yes. What is in there?"

"A trap."

"Thank you," Wesley said, slightly acerbically, "that's quite a help."

"He doesn't tell me everything," the girl said, looking exasperated. "I'm doing what I can here. He moved to Castle Yfelwulf last year. I asked him what he was planning to use the house for. He said, 'A trap.' I'm not his favorite, I never have been. He doesn't tell me any more than he thinks I need to know."

"If you know so much about the situation, then, you're coming with us," Ginny said, marching over and decisively grabbing the girl by her arm, dragging her away from the tree.

"What? No way!" the girl protested, digging in her heels. "I didn't agree to this."

"Move," said Ginny. She looked back over her shoulder. "Are you all coming?"

Shaking her head, Hermione trotted forward, the rest of the group trailing along behind her. Remus walked up alongside her. "What are you thinking?" she said to him.

"Be on your guard," he said. "Who knows what Voldemort has thought up. But if anyone can get us through this, it's you."

"Is that meant to be encouraging?" she asked, and then they were all standing on the front porch of the Riddle House. Ginny, keeping a firm grip on the girl's wrist, flung open the front doors of the mansion, peered inside, and then said dramatically, "Here we go." She stepped into the mansion, dragging the girl with her -- and disappeared.

"A trap," Hermione muttered sourly. She followed Ginny into the Riddle House and was immediately swallowed by blackness. "Hello?" she called --

-- and then everything was bright and red-orange and hot, most of all hot. Hermione broke into an immediate sweat and regretted her choice of a black jumper and denims. It had to be at least forty degrees in the room, probably closer to fifty . . . understandable, though, because the entire room was on fire.

Hermione looked around. Beside her, Ginny, Remus and the girl shared a look of bemusement, while Angel, on her other side, looked discomfited -- but Harry, Illyria, Wesley and Spike were nowhere to be seen. "Where are the others?" she asked. "Have you seen them?"

"They were right behind me," said Angel. "Wesley was right behind me when I came in."

"It's part of the trap," Remus said. "He's separating us to make it harder."

"Harder?" Ginny muttered. "This is hard enough."

Hermione had to agree. The five of them stood back to back in a small circle, the only space in the room free of billowing flames. The floor was carpeted by fire, the ceiling was consumed in fire, and random jets of flame gushed through the room at odd intervals, making the air warp and twist. It wasn't as if the room was burning down, though, more like it was simply filled with flames. The room was roughly square, thirty feet by thirty feet, and there was a door on the far wall -- but thirty feet might as well be thirty miles.

Angel shifted anxiously, watching the flames with unease. "What?" Hermione asked, rolling up the sleeves of her jumper.

"I'm a little flammable," he said. "It makes me uncomfortable."

"This is just wonderful," the brown-haired girl muttered. "I'm going to burn to death. This is all your fault, Weasley."

"Shut up," snapped Ginny.

"Any ideas, Hermione?" Lupin asked. "I hear you have a knack for getting through these sorts of puzzles."

"Maybe . . ." Hermione lifted her wand. "Gelatio Flamma!" A jet of cool blue light shot out of the end of her wand, but passed through the flames with no appreciable effect. Frowning, she bit her lip.

"Aguamenti!" called Lupin. A jet of water gushed out of the end of his wand, hissing and steaming as it doused the flames five feet in front of them. Hermione watched, nervously clenching her fists, as the fire died down to nothing. Lupin stepped forward -- and then the flames roared back, higher than ever, nearly singeing his eyebrows off.

Ginny said, "I have an idea." Flicking her wand with short, sharp movements, she cried, "Glacius!" A gust of freezing wind swirled out of the end of her wand, chilling Hermione's left arm. The wall of flames in front of them sputtered and flickered as the sub-zero air hit it, but didn't go out. Lowering her wand, Ginny said emphatically, "Damn it."

"Now what?" said Angel. "There's no way back, so we've got to find a way forward, or we're stuck here."

"Well, Granger?" said the brown-haired girl. "You're supposed to be the clever one. Fat lot of good you're doing us now."

"Why don't you suggest something, then?" snapped Ginny.

The girl looked affronted. "Me? I'm an innocent bystander. You're the one that dragged me into this. You get me out."

Ginny muttered something in reply. To Hermione, it sounded extremely profane.

Hermione grabbed a lock of hair and started twirling it around her finger as she thought. "There has to be a way to put the fire out," she said. "Something simple, something obvious, something right in front of us, if we just think about it. He's fond of that. Monkton Farleigh. The only way out is through."

She tried to put her hand down, realized she'd completely tied her hair into a knot, and frowned as she tugged her hand free. She continued brainstorming, muttering, "Flame-freezing didn't work, wet didn't work, cold didn't work . . . I learned about this in primary school. Can't remove the oxygen, can't remove the fuel, we tried removing the heat . . ."

"Do you ever shut up?" asked the girl.

"Try asking yourself that," Ginny said.

Hermione blinked as the solution to the puzzle dawned on her. She raised her wand and flicked it as if she were cracking a whip. "I've got it! Fiammo!"

A fireball bloomed from the end of her wand. The flames it touched went out -- and stayed out.

Ginny whooped with glee. "How'd you figure that out, Hermione?" she asked.

"I just . . . I thought that since we tried removing the heat from the fire and that didn't work, maybe we should try adding heat to the fire."

"And it worked," said Remus.

Hermione nodded and shrugged. "Simple, obvious, and right in front of us."

"Fiammo!" said Ginny, watching delightedly as her fireball impacted and extinguished another jet of fire. "Let's go."

After some careful rearranging, the four wizards lined up with Angel shielded behind them, muttering about the ridiculousness of the situation. They worked their way across the room, cracking off fireballs at Lupin's count and gradually clearing a path to the door. Hermione, who was standing nearest to Angel, could hear what he was saying most clearly. "Fire. It had to be fire," he was mumbling. "It couldn't be cold or wet or dark. No. Fire. I'm used to wet. I can handle wet. Dark would be great. But instead, we get fire."

It was hot, sweaty work, flames licking at them from each side, making Hermione nervous. As a vampire, Angel might be especially susceptible to flame, but humans burned too, and they did so rather unpleasantly.

Several minutes later, all of them -- save Angel -- dripping with sweat, they stood in front of the exit door, a plain brown wooden door with a simple brass knob. Ginny reached out and tried the handle. "Locked," she said, shaking her head.

"Stand back," said Hermione. "Alohomora!"

With a small tchk, the lock retracted and then the door flew open, revealing the same darkness as had been behind the front door of the Riddle house. Dubious, Hermione sighed. "Come on," she said, and stepped into the darkness.

The sound hit her before the light did -- alarm clocks, lawnmowers, chainsaws, jackhammers, a terribly out of tune death metal band, all at a volume that could be created only by being played through the world's largest loudspeaker hooked up to an amplifier turned up to 11. The cacophonous din threatened to drown out thought and consciousness. Hermione squinched her eyes shut and covered her ears, reciting times tables in her head until she could think again.

Whe she opened her eyes, she saw that the brown-haired girl and Remus had made it into the room with her, but Ginny and Angel were nowhere to be seen. Lupin looked slightly wall-eyed, as if his brains were rattled by the noise, and the girl was shouting something soundlessly, her face contorted in a sneer. Probably something along the lines of how she was going to suffer permanent hearing loss after this and it was all Hermione's fault. She certainly wasn't going out of her way to endear herself to the group.

How in the world are we going to solve this one? Hermione thought. She certainly knew several ways to make one's voice louder, from the Sonorus Charm on down, but would the same trick work twice?

Remus came to stand beside her, clearly yelling at the top of his voice, but totally inaudible. She shook her head and he gestured at the room, waving one arm in a sort of well, let's have a look round gesture. This room was much like the last one: squarish, thirty feet by thirty feet, with iron-gray walls and ceiling and a black and white checkerboard tile floor. That was definitely different, Hermione noted; the floor in the last room had been wooden underneath the fire.

Lupin caught her attention again. Spread out, he mouthed. He turned and had a short conversation via gestures with the other girl, pointing at her and indicating that she should investigate the room. The girl shook her head several times before finally offering Lupin a two-fingered salute, but she did rather sullenly start walking around the room.

The constant clamor was giving Hermione a massive headache. She could feel the sound reverbrating inside her chest, making her feel as if her insides were vibrating. It was beyond obnoxious and made concentrating a trial. I know that's the point, she thought, gritting her teeth. It doesn't make it any less awful.

Hermione was running one hand along the wall, tapping it at intervals, when a movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She turned and saw it was the brown-haired girl, standing in the center of the room and waving her arms frantically, looking rather displeased about it.

Both she and Remus walked over to join the girl. "What?" mouthed Lupin.

The girl simply pointed down, stepping on one of the black tiles and pushing it back and forth with her foot. Remus frowned, kneeling beside the tile. It took him a moment to wedge his fingers and pull it out of its spot.

Hermione knelt beside him, frowning quizzically at the empty spot where the black tile had lain. There was certainly nothing remarkable about it. In a room like this, though, a loose tile means something, thought Hermione. This room, every bit of it, was constructed by Voldemort. He wouldn't leave a tile loose unless there was a reason for it.

The brown-haired girl scowled down at the both of them. Hermione put a hand down to steady herself, biting her lip slightly as she thought -- and then she recoiled, shaking her hand. The tile had felt oily, as if it had been spread with a thin coat of petroleum jelly.

"What?" Remus mouthed again.

"Sticky," Hermione said, gesturing for him to touch the tile. Testing, she ran a finger over the tile above the empty hole. It, too, was sticky, but not uniformly so -- there were parts that felt dry and cool, like a normal tile. She frowned, tracing the parts that felt oily . . . and then she groaned as abruptly she realized what sort of puzzle this was. As a test, she pushed the tile down into the place of the removed tile. It slid neatly into place.

Hermione cast the Sonorus Charm on herself, leaned close enough to Lupin that her mouth was practically in his ear, and shouted at top volume, "It's one of those slider puzzles. I had a few as a child. We have to move the tiles into the right order."

She could just faintly hear herself inside her own head, as if she was shouting over a canyon and hearing herself from the other side. From the concentrating expression on Lupin's face, he heard her at about the same volume. After she was done speaking, he cast Sonorus on himself and yelled into her ear, "How do we know what the right order is?"

"The oily patches make a picture, I'm sure of it. We have to figure out what the design is supposed to be." Hermione tapped the nearest tile with her wand. "Specialis Revelio!"

The tile lit up bright pink, the sticky patches turning a vivid green in contrast. Hermione moved from tile to tile, methodically casting Scarpin's Revealaspell on each of them. In all, 15 tiles were splashed with the lurid green and pink. She sighed, regarding the tiles with dismay.

"I was never any good at these puzzles," Hermione said into Remus's ear. "Usually I just pulled all the pieces out of the frame and put them back in order."

"It will perhaps not surprise you to learn that as a child, I developed something of a talent for solving them," Lupin said. "I'll work on this one." He moved so that he was kneeling beside the puzzle, frowned and started pushing pieces around.

Later, Hermione wasn't sure how long it took for Remus to solve the puzzle. She wasn't wearing a watch, and there was no way to measure the passage of time in the room, which was a windowless box. She thought it might have been only a few minutes, but it could have been much longer. Most of the time she spent watching Lupin shift the pieces, but from time to time she glanced up at the brown-haired girl, who was staring at the puzzle with a disgusted and bored expression.

Hermione could sympathize on some level with both the disgust and the boredom, but her boredom was tempered with nervousness. It had become clear, once Lupin had placed a few pieces in order, that the design on the puzzle was a Dark Mark. Typical Voldemort, she thought. Making whoever solves this puzzle assemble a Death Eater symbol.

At one point, she glanced up, catching the other girl taking a swig from a hip flask and making a repulsed face. Hermione frowned, the gesture reminding her of Mad-Eye Moody, fourth year, who hadn't actually been Moody, but a Death Eater.

Not long after that -- at least, Hermione didn't think it was very long after that -- Remus slid the last few pieces into place. Her ears rang in the sudden silence that descended over the room, so that she almost missed the small tchk of the door to the next room unlocking. All three of them were still for a moment, blinking as they adjusted to the quiet. Then Hermione quickly canceled the Sonorus Charm and said to the brown-haired girl, "You're using Polyjuice Potion."

The girl curled her lip at Hermione. "And here I was thinking your cleverness was just a rumor. Of course I'm using Polyjuice Potion, Granger. I'm a traitor. That doesn't make me stupid."

"Who are you?" Hermione demanded, although she suspected she knew already.

The girl simply rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Hermione," said Lupin. "The door's open. Let's go."

The brown-haired girl turned and headed for the door at top speed. Remus and Hermione followed her shortly.

Hermione was expecting the darkness between the rooms. What she wasn't expecting was the bitter cold as soon as she and Lupin stepped into the next room. Fire, sound, cold -- what else had Voldemort thought of to throw at them? She started fumbling to roll down the sleeves of her jumper, watching her breath immediately crystallize in front of her. "How cold do you think it is in here?" she asked, shivering.

"Twenty below, I don't know. Cold enough." Lupin nudged her. "Keep moving."

"What are we supposed to do here?" Hermione looked around. This was another plain, gray, boxy room, the only thing remarkable about it being its temperature. A strong wind blew through the room, changing direction and speed unpredictably, carrying snow and ice with it. Cold, wet and wind -- not a good combination.

"I'm not completely sure."

Teeth chattering, Hermione drew her wand and tried to conjure herself a coat. The spell failed, as she was half-expecting it to do -- that would have been easy, and Voldemort wasn't interested in making this easy. She grimaced, pulled the elastic band off the end of her braid, and Transfigured it into a Mason jar. Hermione muttered the spell for her bluebell flames, filling the jar with the cool blue fire and then wrapping her arms around it as if clinging to a life preserver. They wouldn't be enough to keep her from succumbing to the cold eventually, but any source of heat was better than none. "If you've anything small and Transfigurable on you, I'll do some flames for you," she said to Lupin.

"Oh --" Absently, Remus reached into the pockets of his robes. His left pocket was empty, but his right pocket yielded two Knuts, a Sickle, half of a broken quill and an extremely tea-stained handkerchief.

"That'll do," said Hermione, taking the broken quill from him. A few clumsy taps of her wand -- she was losing feeling in her fingers -- and Remus soon had his own jar of fire. He smiled rather crookedly at it.

"I remember seeing you with these a few times in the courtyard at Hogwarts."

"I've always been good at fire spells. You know that." Hermione shifted her grip on her jar. It was perhaps more accurate to say she had made herself good at fire spells. Even at eleven, she had been able to see that having the ability to command fire would be useful, and it was something to pass the time during those first, awful, friendless months at Hogwarts.

"Mmm." Remus shivered. "Let's look around the room. There has to be something we can do to go on to the next room."

He took the left half of the room and Hermione the right. She hadn't inspected more than a quarter of the room, though, before she became convinced there was nothing in the room but the two of them -- no puzzles, no tricks, no traps, just them and the cold. She walked back and forth over every one of the black and white tiles, scuffing at them experimentally to see if any of them moved. She tapped the walls, seeing if she could find a spot that sounded different, but they all made the same uniform thonk sound. She even tried the door, wondering if perhaps it was unlocked and that was the trick, but it didn't even have a knob. All the while, she felt the cold getting to her, making her sluggish . . .

"Did you find anything?" she called to Remus.

"No. You?"

"Nothing." Hermione scowled. She was stumped, and if there was one thing Hermione Granger hated, it was being stumped. This room was a question, and there was always an answer to every question. She just had to think hard enough, look long enough until she found it. If only she weren't so bloody cold.

The look on Remus's face was grimly amused. "I think we're stuck."

"But why? Why would he do this? The other rooms had a way through. Monkton Farleigh, that cave -- Voldemort isn't the type to just lead someone into a cage and leave them there. He's really not a very good evil overlord," she muttered. If she hadn't been holding her jar of fire, she would have put her hands on her hips.

"He may have wised up. Remember, you were the one complaining about how this had been too easy and we hadn't met enough resistance. It may be that he has decided that leading someone into a cage and leaving them there is a very good idea."

"There has to be something."

"I don't know, Hermione. I found no switches, no levers, no puzzles. There's nothing."

"We just have to keep thinking. If we keep thinking, I'm sure we'll think of something."

Remus sighed.

"Oh, honestly. We can't just give up," snapped Hermione. "Even the wizarding world has heard of hypothermia."

An odd look crossed Remus's face.

"What are you thinking?" Hermione said, not quite able to keep from sounding suspicious.

He opened his mouth to say something, frowned, and abstractedly rubbed the fingers of his right hand. "Perhaps that's what we're supposed to do. Give up."

"You're hypothermic."

"Think about it, Hermione. We're trapped in a room where there is literally nothing to do -- no puzzles to solve, no switches to pull. You said the solutions were going to be simple, right in front of us. Maybe that's it: if there's nothing to do, we should do nothing."

It was insane, it was illogical, it was irrational -- and yet so were most of the plans she had taken part in over the years, and it wasn't as if she could think of a better one. "Oh, all right," she said, and set about doing nothing.

That was surprisingly easy. Hermione extinguished the bluebell flames in both their Mason jars before turning the jars themselves back into her elastic band and his broken quill. Remus tucked the quill back into his pocket while she wrestled her hair back into a plait. Both of them shoved their wands back into their pockets and then sat down next to each other, leaning against a wall. Hermione was colder than ever without her jar of fire. Clumsily tucking her hands in under her arms, she closed her eyes and let herself drift . . .

She woke up in another room, completely disoriented, confused, and incredibly cold. "Yeaugh," she said, and then her brain woke up the rest of the way. So Remus had been right about the trick, then. "Good," she mumbled. "I would have been mad if he'd been wrong."

Hermione sighed and slumped against the wall, waiting for the feeling to return to her feet and hands. After the bitter chill of the last room, this one felt like a sauna, making her pricklingly uncomfortable as she thawed out and her nerves complained about the experience. So Voldemort, she thought. Making whoever comes through here totally disarm themselves before moving on to the next stage -- making them completely useless to defend themselves.

While she waited, she looked around the room. She was alone, which meant that this room was either the last one or next to the last: whatever sort of ending Voldemort had in mind, it was coming up soon. This room was far smaller than the others, maybe six feet by ten feet, longer than it was wide, with Hermione at one end and a small pedestal at the other. That has to be where the Horcrux is, she thought. Voldemort can't resist a pedestal.

It was several minutes, many of them filled with painful pins and needles, before Hermione felt warm enough to stand up. She nearly fell over on her first try, steadying herself against the wall with one hand. This room, aside from its dimensions, was much like the others -- gray walls, wooden floor -- but Hermione frowned at the floor mistrustfully. It had an unusual matte finish, completely unlike the wooden floors in the house she'd grown up in. She rifled through her pockets, finding them empty, and again pulled the elastic from her hair. As a test, she bent down and touched it to the floor, then tried to lift it up again.

It wouldn't lift. Her hair elastic had stuck fast to the floor and wasn't going anywhere for a while. "Sticky," Hermione said. "Brilliant."

One thing was clear: her shoes were not making it out of the room. It was ten feet from where she stood to the pedestal. A flea might have been able to make the jump to the pedestal in one shot, but not Hermione. Gritting her teeth, she pushed off and jumped.

Her first landing got her a third of the way there and cost her her right shoe; her second landing got her three-quarters of the way there and cost her her left; but her third landing left her clutching the edge of the pedestal, standing on tiptoe in a small circle of non-sticky floor. There it was, sitting on the pedestal: Hufflepuff's cup, the third Horcrux. Hermione grabbed it, felt the hook in her stomach, and had just enough time to say "Port --" before the pedestal room disappeared in a rush of color.

"-- key," she finished, making a rather rough landing in the dark. She felt grass beneath her and assumed she was probably somewhere in the garden surrounding the Riddle House.

"Hermione!" Ginny shouted. Several members of the team surrounded her, all talking at her at once. Angel pulled her to her feet, steadying her as she wobbled slightly.

"We were getting worried!" said Ginny. "Everyone else has been out for ages, we thought you got lost --"

"Everyone else?" said Hermione. She looked over the group, counting faces. "Where's Remus, then?"

"Not out yet," said Wesley.

"Looks like you left your shoes behind," Spike said.

"I had to. I wouldn't have made it out otherwise. But at least I have the Horcrux." Hermione held up the Hufflepuff cup.

Somehow, Harry, Ginny, Angel, Spike and Wesley all managed to look at each other at the same time. "We know," Wesley said.

"We've all got the Hufflepuff cup," Harry said, looking rather grim. He held up a small golden cup. So did Ginny. After some rustling in their pockets, both Angel and Spike produced identical cups.

Hermione groaned. Of course it wouldn't be so easy as that. Of course there were decoy Horcruxes. It'd certainly worked well enough before. "And there's no way to tell which one is the real one?"

"No," said Harry.

"At least, not given the means of analysis we have at present," Wesley said. "Perhaps once we return to Wolfram and --"

He was interrupted by the thud of Lupin landing on the lawn in a messy sprawl. Remus carried with him both a golden cup and the stench of rotting corpses, causing everyone but Angel, Spike, and Illyria to take a discreet step backwards.

"Everyone's here now," said Ginny. "Can we leave?"

Lupin pushed himself to his feet. "One moment."

He looked at the brown-haired girl, who raised her eyebrows and drawled, "What?"

"You know what," Lupin said. "Give me yours. It might be the real one."

"How do you know I have one?"

"Because I do, and I see that almost everyone else standing here does also. Give it to me."

"You only had to ask nicely," the girl muttered, but she handed her own golden cup over. "I'm never helping you out again."

"You will, soon. I'm going to want to speak to you."

"Then I'll be sure to make time for it in my busy schedule killing Muggles and kissing the Dark Lord's robes." In a whirl of rotten temper, the dark-haired girl Apparated away.

A disgusted look on her face, Ginny said, "What a bitch."

Lupin sighed. "We're going back. Everyone grab an Apparition buddy and let's go."

***

Around midnight, the seven of them -- Illyria had come back from Little Hangleton looking strangely satisfied and promptly disappeared -- sat assembled around Angel's conference room table. They had Apparated back about an hour ago, but there had been an immediate run for the showers -- while none of the others stank of corpses like Remus, apparently they had all been through some rather nasty stuff and wanted a chance to freshen up.

Nine golden cups, all identically gleaming, were lined up down the center of the conference table. Hermione frowned at them, worrying at her bottom lip. At present everyone was still in the comparing rooms stage, but at some point they were going to have to figure out what to do about the cups.

"Bees," Ginny was saying. "Angel and I got bees."

"Oh now, that's nothing compared to what Deep Blue and I went through," said Spike. "Walls. Covered in spikes. I very nearly came out the other side a pincushion."

"Water," Harry said. "Our room was filled with water. But it was actually sort of easy, I just cast a Bubble-Head Charm on each of us . . ."

"What was your last room?" Hermione asked Remus.

"Corpses," he said grimly. "Hence the smell. What was yours?"

"Sticky."

Remus nodded. "But," he said, raising his voice slightly to catch everyone's attention, "getting to the point. We have nine cups, and only one of these is the Horcrux."

"But one of them is the Horcrux," said Ginny.

"Still. Which one is it? How do we tell?"

"We still don't know what to do with Slytherin's locket," Hermione said.

"I may be able to help with that," Wesley said. "One moment . . ." He strode out of the room, returning a few minutes later with a stack of books and scrolls. "I spent the morning reading the Slytherin scrolls," he said, spreading them out on the table. "Salazar Slytherin appears to have been a polyglot. Most of the scrolls are in Middle English -- I'm guessing whoever copied the scrolls also translated them out of Old English -- but there are portions in Latin, plus sections in languages I can't even begin to recognize. I suspect they're magical languages. Slytherin spends quite a bit of time talking about a necklace he's having designed . . . here." Wesley tapped one particular scroll. "He writes, 'Thise neck-lace bereth a curse of min ogen' in English, then switches to Latin: 'Caedo is quam vos caedo a vir. Scindo res in duos partis.'" Wesley frowned at the paper. "It may have been improperly transcribed, but essentially it says that to kill it -- 'it' would be the necklace -- one must kill it as if it were a man. He says specifically, 'Cleave the object into two parts.'"

"So in order to destroy that locket there, we have to take an axe to it?" Spike considered. "Sounds like a good time."

"I want to do it," said Harry.

"You can't," Hermione said, aghast.

"Stop telling me what I can and can't do, Hermione. I'm not eleven anymore. I don't need you bossing me around like a little boy. Or haven't you realized by now?" Harry stared at her coldly. "Every time you try to run my life, you completely screw it up."

She should be used to it by now, this Harry that didn't like her anymore. His words were still like a kick in the gut. Hermione pressed her lips together and focused on not crying.

Lupin gave Harry a level, evaluatory look. "When Slytherin says 'kill it as if it were a man,' he means that you have to cast Avada Kedavra. Nothing else completely destroys the Horcrux."

"I can do that."

"Can you really, Harry?" Remus's voice was slightly skeptical.

"If anyone should be able to destroy that locket, it's me. You weren't there -- you don't know what Professor Dumbledore went through, what I went through -- you don't know. It's mine. I should do it." Harry was breathing heavily. Ginny put a hand on his arm and he wrenched away. "Don't touch me."

Looking pained, Lupin rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We'll talk about it in the morning. It's late and I think after the Riddle house, we could all use a night's rest."

Harry stood up, violently pushing his chair away from the table, and stormed out of the conference room.

"Are you honestly going to let him try to destroy that Horcrux?" Hermione demanded.

"I don't know, Hermione."

"I just wish he'd --" She sighed. "It's all so wrong."

"He's angry right now," said Angel, "because being angry is easiest. Not that he doesn't have a reason --" Hermione flinched -- "but also when you're angry, you don't have to feel anything else. Don't have to think about the other person and why they did what they did. You don't have to think that there might be some other side to what happened, a reason for why it happened, even if it was the most terrible thing that ever happened to you --" He broke off. "Never mind. The point is, right now he's angry, but he won't always be angry. I'm not saying things will go back to like they were, because they won't, but he'll -- You'll work through it. Eventually, Hermione."

At some point, Hermione mused, that had stopped being about her and Harry. She wondered exactly from what experience Angel was speaking.

"We'll work it out tomorrow, Hermione," Lupin said.

"And then?" said Ginny. "We destroy the Horcruxes, and?"

"We go after Voldemort," said Angel. "It's what we're here for."

Lupin nodded.

***

In the dark of the room she shared with Ginny, Hermione lay in bed, solidly wide-awake, despite the fact that it was gone two in the morning. Nervous thoughts chased themselves around and around in her head. This is what you wanted, she told herself. You were ready to give up, so you went to Los Angeles, and now you're about to win this war, so why are you so worried?

She sighed. Because I nearly died last time we went after Voldemort. Because someone always dies. Because I broke Harry, and I'm not sure he can do what he needs to do.

Because I'm not ready for it to be over.

Hermione scoffed at herself. Across the room, Ginny snorted and rolled over in her sleep. I'm not ready for it to be over? Of course I am. It's all I've wanted, for years now.

. . . But I'm not.

There was no lying to oneself at two-thirty in the morning. Hermione knew that on one level, she was indeed ready for an end to things -- ready for her parents to come home from Canada, and ready for people to stop dying, and ready for an end to Voldemort. At the same time, though, the wizarding world had been at war since she was fourteen years old. It was, strangely, what she was used to. There was no doubt that the new world coming, the one she was going to help rebuild, would be better, but at the moment it was still an uncertainty. What's going to happen to me? To us? Are we going to be all right? Oh, I hope so -- I hope Harry --

This was ridiculous. There was simply no point in lying here and torturing herself all night. Hermione sat up, throwing off her covers and putting on a dressing gown. She'd brought her copy of Hogwarts, A History; she could sit in the lounge and read it until her nerves calmed and she could sleep.

She opened the bedroom door and immediately paused, surprised. One light was on, very low, and someone was sitting on the sofa, reading a book. She blinked a few times, trying to adjust her eyes to even that minimal amount of light, and the figure looked up. "Hermione," Lupin said.

"I couldn't sleep," she said, closing the door behind her and walking over to the sofa.

He sighed, setting his book on the coffee table. "Neither could I. Too many plans."

"I keep thinking," she said. "We're going to change the world. It's going to be wonderful. But all I can think is -- I'm used to this one."

"It is going to be different." Remus shifted on the sofa. "What are you planning to do once all this is over?"

"Move. Or -- I don't know. What will you do?"

"I think the traditional answer of 'I'm going to Disneyland' is probably best."

"I want us all to be all right," Hermione said. "I think that's all I've ever really wanted, and I'm so scared that we won't be, that Harry is going to do something idiotic and get himself and possibly all of us killed, or worse, that I'm going to do something idiotic and get us all killed, and --"

"Hermione."

She looked at Remus. He took her hand.

"It's going to be all right."

Hermione nodded, comforted if not soothed, and waited for the dawn.