Family

Family

Chapter Twelve
Saturday

Harry was getting edgier and edgier as Saturday approached. Of course, there was a possibility that Ginny was tougher than she looked—and she was, indeed—plus she was doing a good job of preventing the curse from overcoming her completely. But Harry did not want to take any chances.

From the other side of the study table in the common room on Friday evening, Harry saw Ginny close her books. She smiled at the four second-years who were sitting around her. “Well,” she said, yawning, “that’s it for tonight, I guess.”

Harry glanced at Ron’s wristwatch. It was only nine-thirty in the evening.

Ginny drank deeply from the goblet beside her. Harry had given her the bottle of that potion Snape had given him yesterday. It seemed to be working somehow. But that didn’t stop her from retiring so early at night.

“Do you think if we sleep more often, we’d have dreams more often too?” Ginny had asked him yesterday.

Harry had shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems as if the dreams only come when they want to.”

And it was true, much to Harry’s dismay. They had not been able to dream of his parents in the past two nights.

They’d better appear in our dreams tonight, he thought, unconsciously gripping his quill a little tighter than necessary. They’d better…

“Hermione, can I borrow that goblin list?” Ron asked, pointing to a piece of paper in the middle of the table.

Distracted, Hermione impatiently shoved it in front of Ron.

Ron took a glance at it, then looked back at Hermione irritably. “What is up with you these days?”

“Nothing!” Hermione declared, obviously feigning indignation.

“Nothing? Hermione, you’ve been moping around all week. You have to tell me what it is.”

Hermione looked at him exasperatedly. “Ron, nothing’s wrong. Okay?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then don’t,” she snapped, and buried her nose in one of her books.

Ron gaped at Harry. Harry shrugged, not understanding it either.

At that moment, Harry felt a light tap on his shoulder. Ginny stood behind him with an armload of books. “Just wanted to say goodnight,” she murmured sheepishly.

Harry smiled back in spite of himself. “Sweet dreams, Ginny.”

“Yeah…you too.”

Something fluttered inside Harry’s chest as he gazed at Ginny. He wanted to hug her tight and assure her everything would be fine, that they’d find out the counter-curse tonight—but he had to keep himself from doing so. He didn’t want to make Ginny think that he wasn’t confident... because in truth, he wasn’t. He believed with all his heart that his parents had invented the counter-curse, but something in him told him that they would not know what the counter-curse was tonight. He didn’t understand why.

He pushed those thoughts away and contented himself by squeezing Ginny’s arm. “We’ll find out,” he mouthed, although he could have been encouraging himself instead.

Ginny didn’t seem to sense his uneasiness. Instead, she flashed him a drowsy smile, and left the common room.

She seemed so confident that Harry felt embarrassed at himself. He watched her ascend the stairs slowly, staggering under the weight of her books, and disappear.

“Ginny left something,” said Hermione. Harry wrenched his eyes from the girls’ staircase and forced them to look at Hermione.

She was pointing to a small bottle perched on the spot where Ginny had been tutoring the second-years.

Harry stood up. “Oh yeah,” he muttered in the most nonchalant voice he could muster.

Hermione was faster than he was, though. She reached out and picked up the bottle, scrutinizing its contents with a wrinkled nose. “I wonder what this is.” She looked at Harry—not questioningly, but pointedly. “Do you know?”

At that very moment, Harry suddenly got the gut feeling that Hermione knew what was happening.

“No,” he asserted, forcing himself to look innocent. “Give me that, I’ll give it to her in the morning.”

“Why can’t I drop by her room and give it to her myself?” Hermione asked in an irritating knowing tone. “Unless it’s something really important.”

“Go ahead, then,” Harry retorted, sitting back down. “It’s not important.”

“How do you know?”

Harry glared at her. “Drop it, Hermione,” he said through gritted teeth.

Ron was looking back and forth at Harry and Hermione. “What is wrong with you two?”

“Nothing!” Harry and Hermione snapped at him in unison.

Ron slammed his book shut. “Bloody hell,” he spat bitterly. “Thanks a lot for letting me in on your private secrets.”

“Ron—” Hermione started to say.

Ron looked up at her, a pained expression clear in his eyes. “Drop it. Just like Harry said.”

Harry bit his lip.

Hermione was blinking back tears. “I planned on telling you. I really did. I just wanted to make sure first.” She looked up at Harry.

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. He snatched up the bottle of potion and gathered his books. “See you in the morning,” he said curtly.

“Hey!” Hermione started to protest, but Harry was already on the boys’ staircase, climbing it two steps at a time. When he reached their dormitory, he slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, taking deep, calming breaths.

How did she know? he asked himself. But then again, he should have known better. Hermione wasn’t the best student in their year for no reason.

He wiped the sweat that had settled on his brow and sat down on his bed. He was going to make Ron think that he was asleep. He’d deal with him and Hermione tomorrow. Meanwhile, he had other things to worry about.

* * *

Hogwarts has changed, James thought grimly as he looked around the entrance hall. A group of Ravenclaw students was hurrying into the corridor leading to what James remembered as the Transfiguration classroom. Their faces, he saw, didn’t look like the ones he grew to seeing during his Hogwarts days. There was a sad, almost haunted look in them.

They reminded him of why he was there in the first place.

James sighed as he went on to Dumbledore’s office. It had been a long night, and Dumbledore had asked him to come right after he, Sirius, Remus and Peter had dealt with...with....

James shook his head. He still couldn’t get the scene out of his mind. Thank goodness Lily, who had been taking care of Harry, did not come with him. All those Muggles dead, their mangled bodies strewn on the street....

The Death Eaters were as ruthless as ever.

Death Eaters. The very name made James sick to the stomach.

Jamming his hands into his robe pockets, James rounded a corner, thinking that Dumbledore would have wanted him to tell him what he thought of the Death Eaters’ attack strategy—or maybe who he thought the attackers were.

Oh, hell, he had an idea, all right—and it made him feel even sicker just by thinking about it.

James had reached the stone gargoyle that led to the Headmaster’s office when he heard heavy footsteps coming his way. It sounded suspicious enough, even inside Hogwarts. Almost automatically, James reached into his pocket and gripped his wand.

He turned around—and knew immediately why he felt guarded.

“Snape.”

James eyed his old school rival with the utmost loathing. As usual, Severus Snape had his long greasy hair down, and he was wearing all black. His face mirrored how James felt at that moment.

“Potter. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Fancy seeing you here, after what you and your pals did in Nottingham,” James retorted.

James could have sworn he saw a muscle twitch beside Snape’s right eye.

“Prove I was there, then,” Snape challenged.

James glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

“None of your damned business.”

“So I expect it’s Death Eater business.”

Snape’s face contorted even more in fury, if it was possible. He took a step closer to James, his eyes glittering in a sinister way James had never forgotten. “If you only knew what I’m doing here,” he said menacingly, “you’d go home to your family, thanking me, even wanting to kiss my feet. So get out of my way.”

“I’ll never kiss a Death Eater’s feet,” James spat.

Snape swore loudly. He tried to shove James away. “Get out of my way, Potter,” he said again, this time with more passion.

“You get the hell out—”

James broke off when Snape suddenly clutched his arm, his eyes bulging. All of a sudden, any trace of anger on his face was gone, and it was replaced by an alarmed, almost terrified expression. James felt his grip on his wand loosen as he looked at Snape, perplexed.

James and Snape stared at each other. Then, without any warning, Snape turned around ran off with such speed that James almost thought he would fly.

James felt the white-hot fury coming back to him. He gritted his teeth. Now he knew for sure. Snape had felt his master calling him.

Death Eater, he thought grimly.

* * *

Harry slowly opened his eyes. For a while, he wondered why he was feeling weak all over, as if he had spent a lot of energy on emotion during the course of the night.

Then he remembered the dream.

Snape was there. Now that Harry thought about it, and remembered what Snape might have done after the Triwizard Tournament last year, Snape might have been already a spy for Dumbledore at the time the dream actually took place.

Well, now that cleared things up. Harry was beginning to close his eyes, eager to fall back to sleep, when he heard someone stirring inside the room.

“Up early on a Saturday, aren’t we?”

“What time is it?”

“Seven-oh-five.”

It took a while for Harry to realize that is was morning.

Saturday morning.

Harry bolted upright—when suddenly, a surge of white-hot pain hit his chest. Harry clutched the front of his shirt, driving his fists into his chest as though it would ease the pain, gritting his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut—he had never felt pain like this since Voldemort used the Cruciatus curse on him a year ago. He curled up into a ball, whimpering, feeling that his chest was about to burst open—

And then it stopped, just as abruptly as it had come.

Harry opened his eyes, blinking, just as someone shoved the curtains of his four-poster aside. “Harry—you okay?” Seamus asked, his eyes wide.

“I...I guess so,” he gasped, sitting up and rubbing his chest. Tingles of the pain were left, and his heart was pounding against his ribs.

Ron had come up behind Seamus. “Why? What happened?”

Harry looked at Ron. Images of the night before began to swim in front of him. But instead of wanting to clear things up with him and Hermione, Ron’s bewildered expression reminded Harry instead of his best friend’s sister....

“Nothing—it’s not important.” Harry quickly got out of bed and grabbed his glasses. “I’ll be downstairs—be right back—”

Harry almost jumped the staircase to get to the common room in the least possible time. He didn’t know what to expect—he wanted to see Ginny there, make sure she was awake, but morbid images filled his head instead. He mentally cursed himself.

The common room was empty. Harry swallowed—until he saw a small figure in a floral bathrobe descending the girls’ staircase.

Harry let out a huge sigh of relief. “Ginny.”

“Harry.” Ginny took her steps slowly. From the bottom of the stairs, Harry saw her smile at him—not in the drowsy, confident way she had smiled the night before, but in a nervous manner that made his stomach churn. Her bottom lip trembled, and she was twisting his mother’s wedding band on her finger.

He had never seen her nervous, like this...not since her first year, when she came to him, wanting to tell him something that turned out to be the truth in Tom Riddle’s diary...and how it had possessed her to set that basilisk to the Muggle-born students of the school.... It had been the worst day of his life, he remembered.

“Are you okay?” asked Harry now.

Ginny nodded, a bit too quickly. “Yes. I’m okay.”

“You sure? There were no...nothing unusual?”

Ginny shook her head. “I know it’s weird, but...I feel perfectly normal.”

Harry didn’t know if he should be glad about the news or not. Over the years, he had learned that what seemed normal, or at least safe, could also be very deceiving.

Harry didn’t speak his mind, though. “All right. Um, good.”

“I got an urgent owl,” Ginny told him, “from Professor Dumbledore. He says he wants to see me immediately.”

“Oh.” Harry swallowed. If Professor Dumbledore had sent for Ginny, wanting to see her immediately, it only meant he was anticipating something. “I’ll go with you. Why don’t you go change?”

Ginny still managed to smile, to Harry’s surprise. “Speak for yourself, Harry—you’re still in your pajamas.”

“Oh. Right.” Harry grinned back, feeling his facial muscles trembling as he did so. “Uh, I’ll meet you down here.”

“Okay,” Ginny said. Harry took her right hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, which Ginny returned before she headed up the stairs again.

Harry turned around and started to go back to his dormitory, when he heard Ginny’s voice again—this time cheerful. “‘Morning, Hermione.”

Harry froze in his tracks and looked back at the girls’ staircase.

Hermione was peering into Ginny’s face. “Hi, Ginny. Are you feeling all right?”

Ginny gave her a quizzical look. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Why?”

Hermione stared at her for a while, then shrugged. “Nothing, really.” She looked around—and saw Harry looking up at both girls.

“Well,” said Ginny, looking in Harry’s direction as well, “see you at breakfast, then.”

Hermione nodded distractedly. Ginny shot Harry a questioning glance before she disappeared from his sight completely.

“Er—I’ll be seeing you at breakfast too,” he mumbled.

Hermione wasn’t one to be escaped from today, it seemed to Harry. “Wait—hang on,” she said, running downstairs. “Harry, we need to talk.”

Harry feigned nonchalance. “About what?”

“About Ginny, who else?”

“Why? What about her?”

Hermione narrowed her eyes into slits. “Don’t lie to me, Harry. I knew it last night. You and Ginny are hiding something from me and Ron.”

Harry searched his mind for an excuse—any excuse—to make. He wanted to tell Hermione. Maybe she could help Ginny somehow. Come to think of it, he wanted to tell Ron, too. Ron. Ron must know.

But Ginny didn’t want to tell anyone, and that was what mattered to Harry.

Harry had lingered too long. Hermione was still looking up at him, but Harry saw that tears were already forming in her eyes.

“So it’s true, isn’t it? It wasn’t a minor curse.”

“How did you know?” Harry asked before he could stop himself.

Hermione’s chin trembled as she spoke. “That day. When I saw you in the library, trying to look up the curse that Lucius Malfoy put on Ginny. You were so immersed in it. And knowing you, I thought it might be something serious, after all. So I looked it up, too.”

A tear had slipped on Hermione’s cheek. “It...it was difficult to look for, you know,” she went on, “‘cause I don’t even know what I was looking for. Then you gave that gift to Ginny on her birthday—and you said, ‘there are happy endings’ or something like that. And I got all the more suspicious. I looked and looked...then this curse just sprang from a page from some modern history book. The Cunctantis Curse. Harry—that’s it, isn’t it?”

Harry thought he shouldn’t have taken Hermione’s intelligence and inquisitiveness for granted, especially when somebody close to her was concerned. His throat was dry when he spoke. “Yes, Hermione.”

There wasn’t the slightest change in the expression on his friend’s face—save for the tears that began to flow down in torrents. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she whispered.

“Ginny doesn’t want anyone to know,” Harry said desperately. “Mr. and Mrs. Weasley both know, and so do Sirius and Dumbledore. I think even Snape knows, but Ginny doesn’t know he does. But she doesn’t want anyone else to know there’s something going on with her. Especially her brothers. Hermione, please,” Harry begged, grabbing her shoulders and looking at her in the eyes. “Don’t tell Ron.”

“Ron has the right to know, Harry,” Hermione whimpered.

“I know,” said Harry. “Look, don’t cry. It isn’t over yet, you know. It seems as if there’s a counter-curse—”

“There’s none, I checked—”

“No, you don’t understand.” He held up his right hand, showing her his father’s ring. “This is my dad’s wedding ring. Ginny has my mum’s. For some reason, we’re both having dreams about them—long before the attacks happened. Then Sirius told me that my parents were working on the counter-curse for the Cunctantis Curse.”

Hermione’s eyes began to widen. “So...so you’ve both dreamed of the counter-curse?”

“Not yet,” said Harry. “But we’re waiting.”

“But Harry, it’s already Saturday,” Hermione said, wiping her cheeks with her palms. “Two weeks have passed since the Hogsmeade attack.”

Harry sighed heavily. “Yeah, I know. But we’re not losing hope.”

“No, we can’t lose hope,” Hermione whispered. “We can’t lose Ginny—she’s my friend—and we can’t afford Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to lose—”

“I know, I know,” Harry interrupted heavily. It was Ginny’s family that worried him the most, and he had been trying to rid his mind of gloomy thoughts about them for days now. “Please, don’t start.”

Hermione bit her lip, as though preventing herself from crying again. “Sorry.”

Harry nodded. “Listen, we’ll be meeting Dumbledore in a while. I’d better go.”

“Okay,” whispered Hermione. Then, to Harry’s surprise, she threw her arms around him. “Good luck.”

Harry closed his eyes and let Hermione” pat him gently on the back. “Thanks. We need that,” he said softly.

And yet, despite her offering of comfort, Harry’s heart felt heavier than ever.

Jenna's Notes: Thanks, Lisa, for the beta, and to the readers for their extreme patience. :)