Harry Potter and the Carnelian Key

Over the next few weeks, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent every free moment they had poring over books and exchanging ideas. They really weren’t getting anywhere, but at least they didn’t feel like they were completely wasting their time - they were trying. They had actually found several interesting pieces of information on methods of resisting death, sort of like the longevity charms Harry had been reading about. But there was no information on how to prevent the steps from being taken, how to tell whether they had been, or how to counteract them. There weren’t even any historical accounts of witches and wizards who had successfully utilized any of the methods.

"It’s all so bloody theoretical," Harry complained, tossing the book he had been reading onto the table in front of him and pulling off his glasses. He rubbed his tired eyes with the heels of his hands, and leaned back in the hard library chair, stretching out his legs and letting his eyelids drop closed.

"Listen to this," Hermione said. "One of the most successful ways known to avoid death is the complicated life essence curse. When exercising the death curse on an individual, the words ‘Avada Kedavra’ must be preceded by the incantation ‘olamoni loko’. After the killing curse is performed, and the soul exits the body, the soul splices, sending the spirit on its way, but leaving the life essence behind. The spirit departs fully intact, with all of the aspects of the personality, but the life essence remains to be ingested by the immortality seeker. The life essence - the very part of the soul that allows a person to live - does not die, but is rather transported into another living being. The person from whom the life essence is stolen is fully dead because the life essence is no longer in the body. However, when ingested by another witch or wizard, it creates, in effect, an extra life. When that person experiences a trauma that should, for all intents and purposes, result in death, the stolen life essence dies in place of the individual’s own, thereby leaving him immune to the death."

Hermione stopped reading and the morbid words lingered in the air. Harry opened his eyes. "Is that it? It seems awfully easy. I mean, if all it takes is a simple charm, I’m surprised it hasn’t been utilized by dark wizards for thousands of years."

"Mmmm," she replied distractedly, scanning the page. "It’s not that simple. It goes on." She began quoting again. "The life essence curse has proven ineffective in providing absolute immortality because the ingestion process is highly complex and requires immense power. It consists of a complicated charm that creates a vacuum in the wizard’s soul, which sucks the life essence inside. The process is extremely draining on a witch or wizard’s energy, and the individual can usually only perform it successfully once in a lifetime, no matter how long that may be. Because of this limitation, the life essence curse has been easily overlooked as a method of achieving immortality."

"Hmmm," was Ron’s response as he turned the information over in his head, but Harry had noticed something strange.

"What are the words of the incantation again?" he asked.

"Olamoni loko," Hermione provided.

"That’s weird. It’s definitely not derived from Latin, like most wizarding words."

"No." Hermione shook her head thoughtfully as she studied the words on the page. "It sounds like some sort of pacific islander language. The root ‘ola’ is Hawaiian for ‘life,’ I think."

"How do you know that?" Ron asked with a mixture of awe and annoyance.

She shrugged, and he shook his head in disbelief.

"So an ordinary wizard can only perform it once," Harry said, sitting up and replacing his glasses on his nose. "But we all know that Voldemort is no ordinary wizard."

"Yes, but each time it’s performed it guzzles energy and only provides one extra life for the trouble. Not a very rational method for achieving permanent immortality," Hermione reasoned.

"Who ever said You-Know-Who was rational?" Ron quipped.

"Well," Harry said with a heavy sigh. "It’s worth remembering. Mark down the page."

Hermione scribbled something on a piece of parchment and Harry picked up another book, scanning the table of contents. Nothing...nothing that they hadn’t already come across and disregarded as useless. He shook his head in frustration. Extreme anxiety seemed to have taken up permanent residence in Harry’s brain. Each night he fell asleep grateful that another day had passed without tragedy, but also distressed by the nagging thought that Voldemort was falling asleep somewhere too, maybe a little more powerful than he had been the day before. A little more ready. With a few more supporters. And a plan. And here he was, flipping through some useless books and debating the philosophy of life with his teenage friends - and quickly running out of books at that. He shoved the thick volume hard across the table, and it would have slid right off if Ron hadn’t reached up a quick hand to catch it. He glanced at him with a rare indiscernible expression, but Harry looked away, raking his hands through his hair and feeling Hermione’s eyes on him too. She was looking at him sideways, with that glance she always used when she didn’t want him to know she was looking. Didn’t want to tip him off that she was worried. He wondered if she realized that he noticed. But then again, he wondered how many times she may have done it and he hadn’t noticed. God, if that were true she must have been worried all the time.

"It’s late," she said a little too lightly. "We’re all tired. Maybe we should call it a night."

"Damn it, Hermione! I’m not going to break!" Harry snapped harshly and she recoiled, quickly averting her gaze.

"Harry! -" Ron began firmly, but Harry cut him off, having heard the coldness of his own voice.

"I’m sorry," he said, sitting up and reaching out to place a hand over hers. "I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m sorry, Hermione."

She nodded, still too shocked at his sudden hostility to respond. He wondered himself where it had come from. "I don’t mean to take my anger out on you - on either of you," he added with a glance at Ron.

"We know that, Harry," she said.

He let out a ragged sigh. "What I meant for you to know is that I don’t need you to tiptoe around me all the time. Just be normal. I can take it. I need it. That voice was for Voldemort, not you. It all just got mixed up," he said with a small smile.

"It’s okay," Hermione said, sounding like she meant it. "I understand."

‘You always do,’ he thought as he withdrew his hand. He didn’t deserve friends like them...

"It is late, though," Ron said, gathering some nearby books. "I’m ready to turn in. Anyone else?"

"Yeah," they both agreed, and they set about organizing the books strewn across the table. Normally, they would have just left them for Madam Pince to reshelve - she hated when students put things away in the wrong place - but Harry really didn’t want her or anyone else knowing what they were researching. After returning all the books to their rightful places, they left the library and, rounding a corner, crashed right into Professor Snape. They all three were almost knocked down and were speechless in surprise. He had been almost running, and before Hermione had even finished her stammered apology, he had rushed past them without a word or even a backwards glance. Harry whirled around to watch him go, and saw that he was rubbing his arm distractedly as if it hurt...

"He’s being called," Harry said, breathless with surprise.

"What?" Hermione gasped.

"Are you sure, Harry?" Ron asked soberly.

"I have to go," Harry replied suddenly, taking off in a run down the corridor Snape had emerged from.

"Harry!" Ron yelled, jogging after him. "Where are you going?"

"Take Hermione back to the common room," he called over his shoulder. "Wait for me," and he disappeared up a narrow staircase, taking the steps two at a time.

* * * * *

Harry burst into the owlery and threw his bag to the floor, hastily pulling out a quill and some parchment. "Hedwig?" he called, and the snowy owl immediately swept from her perch and landed next to Harry where he knelt on the straw covered floor. Impatiently brushing aside some of the mess to lay the parchment flat, he scribbled,

Sirius,

Something’s going on. Fireplace, tonight if you can. I’ll wait for you.

H

Harry quickly attached the note to Hedwig’s leg, and she drew herself up proudly, as if sensing the urgency of her mission. "Hurry," he said, and she was gone in a flash of white. Sitting back to catch his breath, he watched as she faded into the black of night, soon indistinguishable from the many stars. His mind was reeling. What did this mean? He hadn’t been called, Sirius had said. Was this the first time? Or had it happened since he’d spoken to Sirius and Lupin about it? That had been weeks ago, almost two months, and they hadn’t said anything about it since then...either way, this was huge. He might find out where he is...what he’s doing. Harry clambered to his feet, snatching up his bag, and left the owlery. The moment he stepped through the portrait hole, Ron and Hermione descended on him.

"What’s going on, Harry?" Hermione demanded, and Harry quickly grabbed them both by the arms, pulling them to a cluster of chairs against the far wall. He grabbed one of the chairs by the wings and heaved it around, so that it faced away from the many students still milling about the room, and dropped himself into it, Ron and Hermione perching anxiously on chairs across from him.

"Snape’s been called," he said in a hushed voice.

"How do you know that for sure?" Hermione asked.

"He was rubbing his arm, and what else could have him in such a hurry?"

"He’s right," Ron nodded. "Ordinarily he would have given us all detentions for knocking into him like that, and taken a load of points from Gryffindor to boot. What I don’t understand is why is he going?" Ron’s face was suddenly laden with anger. "I mean, Dumbledore trusted him, and now -"

"No," Harry interjected, shaking his head impatiently. There was so much he hadn’t discussed with them... "Don’t you remember after the third task, in the hospital wing, when Dumbledore said, ‘You know what I must ask you to do, if you’re ready -’" They both nodded emphatically. "Well, didn’t you just assume Snape was going to try to go back? Try to convince him he’d never left his services?"

"I did," Hermione said, "but then why are you so surprised by his being called tonight? It’s only logical that he would be calling his Death Eaters to him, and that Snape would go. I’m sure he’s been going all along, feeding information to Dumbledore, and -"

Harry cut her off with a sort of frustrated growl. They didn’t understand at all. Of course they didn’t. He hadn’t told them anything, and here they were thinking that Dumbledore and his people were taking action, were onto Voldemort already, were working out a plan to defeat him. "No," he said desperately, "No, you don’t understand. He hasn’t been called. Not at all. Not since the first night, when he didn’t respond. Voldemort knew then that Snape had really left him, and all of his efforts since that night to convince him that it isn’t true have failed. No one will even talk to him, he hasn’t been learning anything at all. You guys," he said with anguish, fully realizing that they - that most people - had no idea of the weakness of the opposition facing Voldemort, "Nothing is being done. Things have been so quiet, so discreet, there’s been no information to go on, none at all. But now, if he’s calling Snape, if Snape can gain his trust, this could be the first step to finding out what he’s up to. We could beat him at his own game."

The words had tumbled out so quickly that Harry was again out of breath, and he sat gasping while he watched dozens of different emotions fighting to gain control of his friends’ faces.

"But..." Hermione started, her voice trailing off as though she had no idea what to ask first, "I don’t understand. The calling - Snape said that they all would be called whenever Voldemort touched the mark on any one of their arms -"

"I’ve wondered about that too," Harry said quickly, "but there must be a way to activate and deactivate it or something, because Snape hasn’t felt it at all since that first night, and I’m sure that he’s called them since then. Wormtail can’t be doing all his bidding. Anyways, what if he wants just one of them to come, or several? I’m sure that it’s all controlled through that dark mark, and Voldemort’s way too smart to not have a way to call exactly the people he wants. Think about it. The Death Eaters never knew who the others all were. Only Voldemort knew every name, knew all of them." He stopped. He was rambling aimlessly, just thinking out loud, and he was losing them, he could tell by their faces. "Listen, that’s not important. The important thing is that something is finally happening on our side. We’ve no idea what Voldemort has been up to in the last five months, and now maybe we will."

"Are you saying that absolutely nothing has been done?" Ron asked. "They’re not even preparing an army or anything? Not even getting ready for when something does happen?"

"The ministry isn’t as far as I know, at least not specifically for Voldemort. I’m sure they have a general force, though, but I really don’t know anything about it. I do know that your father is working from within, trying to get people to support Dumbledore, and they’ve been getting a group together, but it’s been slow. Sirius and Lupin said that there aren’t a lot of people willing to go against Fudge, so they’re pretty limited in number."

"What about reaching out?" Hermione asked. "To people who aren’t really under the control of the ministry, or at least don’t care? Like Dumbledore was saying about the dementors, and the giants?"

"I don’t know what happened with any of that. It sure hasn’t been publicized, just like nothing else has. I can’t believe how calm everyone is when they don’t even have any idea what is or isn’t being done to protect them," he said bitterly as he wondered that for the hundredth time.

"Well," Ron said, his mind working behind his grave blue eyes, "everything’s been so calm. And no one but you and the Death Eaters have even seen him -"

"That’s just what Sirius and Lupin said, and your dad."

"You talked to my dad about this?"

"Yeah, just once, over the summer. But he really didn’t tell me anything I haven’t told you just now."

They lapsed into silence as they all considered the enormity of what had just been said. Harry knew how overwhelmed Ron and Hermione must have been feeling. His mouth hadn’t been able to keep up with his mind, and everything had come out so jumbled and random. But at least now they knew what they should have known for months. Harry felt horrible when he realized that they, like everyone, hadn’t understood that the people in charge were no more prepared to hold Voldemort off than anyone else.

"So what do you think he wants with him?" Ron asked at last.

Harry shook his head. "I have no idea."

"Do you think..." Hermione began, and then paused, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Do you think he’s going to kill him?"

"He said he would," Harry replied sullenly. "But I don’t know...I think he’d want to be absolutely positive that Snape isn’t on his side before he kills him. He’s here at Hogwarts, after all. He would be the ideal servant."

Ron was nodding. "He’s going to test him, I bet. See if he’s really seen the ‘error of his ways’. Maybe give him an assignment."

"This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for," Harry said, tentative excitement building up in his chest. He knew it was best not to get his hopes up, it was such a small thing, really. But at least it was something. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly midnight. The room was clearing out now. "I sent Hedwig to Sirius," he told them. "I don’t know how long it will take her to get there. A few hours, probably, but I asked him to come. I’m going to wait up."

"We’ll wait with you," Ron said quickly.

"Thanks."

The room was nearly empty now, and they made their way over to the sofa nearest the fireplace, where they could wait out Sirius’ arrival. They settled in and sat silently for a long time, each undoubtedly lost in his and her own thoughts. At some point, Harry must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, his eyelids were fluttering open as a series of soft pops met his ears. He tried to sit up and realized that Ron had fallen over onto his shoulder, snoring softly. With some effort, he pushed him off, and he didn’t even stir, just fell to the other side, half onto Hermione’s lap. She too was asleep, draped over the arm of the sofa. The room was quite dark, as the fire had died down considerably, and Harry knew Sirius was trying to get in, but couldn’t for the lack of flames. He quickly pulled out his wand and moved in front of the fire.

"Incendio." The flames shot up with a whoosh, and Sirius appeared looking quite ruffled.

"Harry? What’s the matter? Hedwig just woke me with your note."

Harry heard his friends stirring behind him. "Let me up, Ron," was met with "Hmmm wha?"

"Professor Snape was called tonight," Harry said.

"What?" Sirius’ eyes grew wide, his groggy features sharpening in alarm. "How do you know? Are you sure?" He whipped his head backwards. "Remus!"

"We crashed into him in the hallway and it was like he didn’t even see us. He was running, and rubbing his arm."

"Remus!"

Harry knew instantly from Sirius’ reaction that this was in fact the first time Snape had been called. His godfather was just as shocked as he was, and Sirius would have been among the first to know if there had been any developments.

"I’m here," came a frantic and distant voice, "What is it?" Lupin suddenly appeared next to Sirius in the flames.

"Harry?" he asked in astonishment. "What’s the matter? Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, we’re fine," he said, indicating a groggy Ron and Hermione, who had joined him on the floor.

"Severus was called," Sirius told Lupin in a low voice.

"What?" he gasped, his mouth falling open as he looked from Sirius to Harry and back again. "Harry, we’ll be back." And in an instant they were gone.

A shocked silence followed, as the trio came fully awake, the knowledge settling in that Sirius and Lupin had just been and gone.

"I wonder where they’re going?" Hermione said.

"My galleons are on Dumbledore," Ron replied.

"Yeah. Yeah, probably." Harry let out a breath and laid back on the hearth rug.

They waited for a long time, and none of them dozed off again. Harry kept checking his watch, and when Sirius and Lupin had been gone for almost an hour, and it was after four, Harry wondered if they would be coming back that night at all. He was just about to tell Ron and Hermione to go on to bed, and curl up on the sofa himself, when the flames popped loudly and the two men appeared.

"Snape’s back," Sirius said immediately.

"We’ve just been in Dumbledore’s office," Lupin explained. "He was there when we arrived."

"And?" Harry asked anxiously.

They exchanged a pointed glance and Harry knew instantly that the four of them had decided not to tell him anything. At Professor Snape’s insistence, no doubt.

"Sirius, I need to know," he said fiercely.

"No, Harry," Sirius said flatly. "You don’t."

"You can’t shut me out!" he exclaimed. "I’m too involved!"

There was an unsteady pause, and Harry heard Ron shifting behind him.

"We can go," Ron offered uncertainly.

"No, no," Lupin said, as if just remembering that Ron and Hermione were there anyway. "It’s not that."

"We’re not shutting you out, Harry," Sirius said. "We’re always going to tell you what you need to know. But nothing happened tonight that you need to know about."

"Somehow I doubt that."

"Harry, do you really think Voldemort would allow Snape to discover anything meaningful on their first meeting?"

Sirius had a point. Harry sighed. "I guess not."

"Then there is no need to trouble you with the details, not this time."

Hermione spoke up then. "Can I just ask...is Professor Snape all right?"

Another pause.

"It wasn’t pleasant," Lupin finally replied.

Harry could only imagine what that meant, and for the first time ever in his life, he found himself feeling sorry for the Potions master. He had been on the receiving end of Voldemort’s wand himself, and unpleasant was definitely an understatement. "Just answer me one thing, Sirius. Is this good news for us?"

"We hope so." Harry and his godfather shared an intense stare for a moment, and then Harry rose to his feet.

"All right, then," he said. "Thanks for coming. Did you send Hedwig back?"

"No, she was exhausted," Lupin replied. "We thought we’d keep her here tonight."

"Okay, thanks."

"We’ll be in touch, Harry," Sirius reassured him.

He nodded. "Okay."

"Now go to bed, you three," Lupin said with mock severity. "You have lessons in the morning."

"Yes sir, professor," Harry said, smiling weakly.

They all exchanged their good nights and Sirius and Lupin vanished.

A hundred questions swam through Harry’s head as they made their way upstairs. Why had Voldemort decided to give Snape a chance, if that’s what he was doing? How had he punished him for his betrayal? Harry tried not to think about that one for too long, instead wondering how long it had taken Dumbledore to convince Snape to tell Sirius and Lupin what had happened. And he was also a little surprised that Sirius and Lupin had spoken to him so freely in front of his friends. Oh well, they had probably thought back to when they were their age and realized that Ron and Hermione would have known everything in the morning anyway. If it had been them and his father, they would have told each other everything without a second thought.

It was with utter exhaustion that Harry finally sank into bed, and as he gazed out the window between half open eyelids, he saw that the black sky was already fading into a deep blue. He grimaced mentally at the thought of waking up again in less than four hours, and within moments he was fast asleep.

* * * * *

The next morning, they trudged sleepily into the Great Hall for breakfast, all three feeling only fuzzily awake and looking somewhat disheveled.

"What happened to you three?" George asked as they sank into chairs at the Gryffindor table. "You look like you didn’t sleep a wink."

"Because we didn’t," Ron mumbled.

"We were up late," Harry said simply, by way of explanation.

"I could have gathered that," George replied. He looked around at all of them for a minute, a mixture of concern and suspicion on his face, but he didn’t inquire further. Fred joined them then, and Harry took advantage of the distraction, shooting a glance at the head table. Snape wasn’t in his chair. Dumbledore sat in the middle of the table as usual, and his face seemed as jovial as ever as he chatted with Professor Sprout across Snape’s empty chair. Harry scanned the room for a glimpse of the professor, but he was nowhere to be seen. As he ate his breakfast, Harry kept looking to the large oak doors, and finally, just as they were finishing up, Snape entered through them. He wore his usual stoic scowl, but there was a definite rigidity in his step that hadn’t been there before. He moved slowly, with effort, as if sore all over, and he held his left arm bent close to his body, as though favoring his ribs on that side. Harry nudged Hermione with an elbow, and kicked Ron gently under the table, nodding towards Snape as he made his way up the steps to the head table. They all three followed him with their eyes, Hermione grasping Harry’s wrist tightly. Having reached his seat, the professor sat down stiffly, eyes fixed on some indeterminate point on the floor beyond the table, and scooted his chair in. Dumbledore didn’t look at him, just turned his head very slightly in his direction and said a few words through barely moving lips. Snape muttered something back, not looking up.

Harry would have liked to sit there and watch for a while longer, but they were almost late for their first lesson. As Harry rose reluctantly from his seat, Snape lifted his eyes enough to meet his face, and the look in them almost made Harry’s heart stop. Behind the expected furious glare - Harry had, after all, confided in Snape’s two oldest enemies about his whereabouts the night before - and all the usual foreboding gloom, Harry saw something he had never seen in the Potions master’s face before. Something that looked like...vulnerability. In a split second, Snape had snapped his eyes away, and for some strange reason, Harry found himself picturing Snape as a boy, wondering what he had been like then.

"Harry, are you coming?"

"Yeah," he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder and tearing his eyes from Snape’s face.

"Let’s go."

* * * * *

"What’s that?" Ron asked as a school owl dropped a long envelope into Hermione’s lap.

The evening post had just arrived in the Great Hall via a hundred flapping wings, and Hermione turned her delivery over in her hands.

"It’s a letter from my parents," she said, tearing the envelope neatly along the crease.

Harry only half-heard their words as he tried to maintain his discreet stare. He had been watching Snape all through dinner, his mind somersaulting over all the questions he wished he could ask him. What had Voldemort done to him? What had he wanted? Did he really believe that Snape wanted to return to his old ways? Had he learned anything at all? They hadn’t had Potions that day, and had eaten a late lunch, so this was the first time Harry had seen Professor Snape since breakfast. He was still keeping quite silent, but seemed relatively back to normal, raising his eyes every now and then in his characteristic sweep of the room.

"Hmmm," Hermione said, and Harry drew his attention away from Snape and back to his friends. Hermione was frowning a little as her eyes flittered across the Muggle paper bearing her mother’s loopy handwriting.

"Something the matter?" Harry asked, taking a bite of shepherd’s pie.

"What?" She glanced up at him, and then at Ron, and looked back down. Avoiding their eyes, she said flatly, "My parents want me home for Christmas."

Harry’s throat hitched as he swallowed, and it protested with a ragged cough. As he recovered, he tried to resist the pang of disappointment that had struck him sharply in the chest. Hermione and Ron always stayed at Hogwarts with him over Christmas, as he wasn’t wanted at the Dursleys’ and they knew he’d be terribly bored at the castle without them. But of course the Grangers’ wanted Hermione home. It had been years since they’d spent Christmas together as a family, and it was selfish for him to assume that she wouldn’t rather be there.

"Well, of course they do," Ron said lightly, but his own disappointment was clearly apparent on what Harry could see of his face. He was staring down at his food.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, forcing a smile. "They miss you, and I’m sure you miss having Christmas at home."

She shrugged a little. "I guess," she mumbled as she read on. Harry looked across at Ron, but he didn’t look up. Oh well, it would be all right. He and Ron could enjoy having the run of the castle without Hermione constantly nagging them about what they should and shouldn’t be doing.

"Wait," Hermione said with a chuckle, and she looked up, smiling. "They say they’d love it if the two of you would join us for the holidays."

Ron lifted his head at that. "Really?"

A broad grin spread across Harry’s face as she nodded and quoted from the letter. "Dad and I really enjoyed getting to know Harry and Ron that day in Diagon Alley. We were just talking the other day about how we hardly know them at all, and it’s so obvious how terribly close you all are. It’s such a shame that we’ve hardly been able to spend any time together over the past few years. So Dad said he thought it would be nice if we could have them to visit, and Christmas seemed like the perfect opportunity. Not to mention that we owe the Weasleys’ for all that they’ve done for you, what with them letting you stay at their house, and seeing you to King’s Cross, and that World Cup event they took you to. We’ll understand, of course, if Harry and Ron would rather be with their families as well, but we’d love to have them if they’d like to come.

Harry snorted. "Your mum’s right. They obviously don’t know me at all. Imagine me wanting to spend Christmas with the Dursleys."

Hermione smiled. "They know about the Dursleys," she said. "She just doesn’t want to make any assumptions. That’s how my mum is."

"Well I think it would be smashing fun!" Ron said eagerly. "Harry?"

"Yes. Definitely." Harry’s own chest swelled with excitement at the thought of spending Christmas with Hermione’s family...a real family at the holidays. That was something he had never, ever experienced, and it rather appealed to him.

"Just think," Ron said in an awed sort of voice. "I’m going to spend Christmas with Muggles." He shook his head, chuckling. "I’ll have to be sure to keep a journal. Dad will want a full report."

Hermione’s smile shifted into an amused smirk. "It’s not that exciting," she assured him.

"Not for you! You grew up there. But I don’t think I’ve ever even been in a Muggle house. Well, except for the Dursleys’," he said, grinning mischievously. "But I wasn’t exactly invited there, was I?"

"No, not so much," Harry replied, grinning as he remembered being rescued from his room by Ron in a flying car in the dead of night, and the time that Ron, the twins, and Mr. Weasley had crashed through the boarded up fireplace into the living room of Four Privet Drive. No, the Dursleys would never have dreamed of inviting Ron into their home. The very thought would have probably given them nightmares.

"So shall I tell them you’ll come?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah," Harry replied quickly. "Tell them thank you for the invitation, and we very gratefully accept."

Ron nodded his agreement.

"Okay," she replied, then sudden excitement flooded her face as well. "Wow, this will be great! You’ll get to meet everyone - my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles, and cousins. And I can show you all around Wellsborough. It’s such a great town. There’ll be a huge Christmas tree in the main square, and ice skating at the lake. There’s a festival on Christmas Eve, with caroling and everything, and my parents’ practice is right on the main avenue...we always set up in the doorway and serve hot chocolate...oh it will be so much fun," she squealed.

Harry laughed at her sudden childlike giddiness, and felt a twinge of guilt for being the reason she’d missed it all for the last three years. As for himself, the thought of spending Christmas Eve at a festival made Harry feel very warm and cozy inside. It was just the sort of thing he used to see on television and had dreamed about every year as he had sat off to the side, watching Dudley open his presents. He tried to think back and couldn’t recall ever having been to a festival of any kind in his whole life. He suddenly found himself lamenting the fact that Christmas was still almost a month away. It would be great to get away from the castle and, along with it, the persistent thoughts of Voldemort and the musty books, and just the general umbrella of darkness that seemed to follow him around these days. He’d never been taken or invited anywhere except the Burrow, and the thought of leaving Hogwarts for somewhere new and unfamiliar seemed so refreshing that he suddenly wished the term were ending tomorrow.

"Well," Hermione said, folding up the letter and stuffing it back into the envelope. "I’ll owl them tomorrow. Are you both about finished? We should get to the library."

Their light mood quickly melted away, leaving a tense stillness in its place. "Yeah," Harry said, standing up and taking a final gulp of pumpkin juice.

"I reckon we’ll finish up tonight," Ron said haltingly as he rose across from Harry.

"I think so," Harry replied, trying to sound nonchalant but feeling quite despondent. They had systematically worked their way through the entire immortality collection in the restricted section, and while they had come across some things of interest, nothing had really jumped out at them like he’d hoped it would. Now there were less than a dozen books left to examine, and Harry somehow doubted that there could still be some miraculous information waiting to be discovered that hadn’t been in the first hundred or so volumes they had searched. Nevertheless, they headed off to the library as they had done nearly every night for the past three weeks, and gathered the last of the books from the shelf.

They sprawled themselves out in some vacant armchairs near a corner window and read in silence for a long time, the strained sense of hopelessness thickening in the air around them. At last Hermione let out a heavy sigh, dropping a thick leather-bound book onto the short stack next to her chair.

"That’s the last of mine," she said, standing up. "I’m going to...well, I’ll be back," and she disappeared into the maze of bookcases.

Harry only glanced casually at her, and then back down at his book. He felt strangely empty now that they had reached the end of the line without success. He had spent the better part of the last month focusing all of his energy and emotion on this crusade, and hadn’t taken the time to think about what he would do if they came up empty. He felt used up, devoid of any ability or desire to look ahead or reflect.

Hermione came back several minutes later, laden with books. She dropped them into her seat, settling herself on the floor and leaning back against the chair. She flipped one open and began to read.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked.

"Reading."

"What are you reading?" he corrected, with a hint of annoyance.

"These are books from the student section," she said. "I never finished looking through them."

"I did," Harry spoke up. "There’s nothing there."

"Well, it doesn’t hurt to check again," she said firmly.

"I guess," he muttered.

They lapsed into silence again, and after awhile, Harry sensed Ron tensing up in the chair next to him. He was shifting uncomfortably, and seemed about to speak several times, but thought better of it and kept reading. Finally Harry looked at him squarely, and was surprised to see that he had gone very pale and was wearing a very somber expression.

Ron looked up hesitantly and met Harry’s eyes.

"I think I found something," he said dully.

Harry straightened, his heart instantly reacting with mad thumps against the inside of his chest.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, jumping up to read over his shoulder. He lifted his hand limply towards her, and she took the book from it, anxiously scanning the page with her eyes. Her face fell as she read it, and Harry suddenly felt very uneasy.

"What?" he asked hoarsely.

She looked up at him with doleful eyes, and then looked away, clearing her throat nervously.

"What?" he demanded.

She perched herself on the edge of her chair and flipped one page back, then another. Harry glanced at Ron, who was sitting stiffly, staring at his hands in his lap.

"Very few wizards have ever attempted to proceed down the path towards immortality," she began reading in a shaky voice. She cleared her throat again, and continued more steadily. "Of those who have, virtually none have gotten very far. Most of the magic that exists to aid in the quest for eternal life has very limited results, often providing only certain protections against particular types of ailments or injuries. No spell, potion, herb, or any other sort of magic has ever been discovered which provides absolute immortality.

"As far as recorded history indicates, the only wizard ever to have gotten close to what could be called absolute immortality was the dark wizard Nesanthromur, in the late fourteenth century. Nesanthromur was a member of a very notorious ring of dark wizards, but had very little influence as an individual amongst his comrades. History states that he was quite power-hungry, and was not content to be just another member of a powerful group. When he was still quite young, and relatively unknown in the greater wizarding community, he began pursuing steps towards immortality, in a quest to be noticed and to gain power and respect. His life’s mission became to overcome his own mortal existence. He saw this as the road to dominance, for if he could not be killed, he could wreak havoc and despair as freely as he wished, with no fear of ever being conquered.

"Unfortunately for historians, Nesanthromur went into hiding for several years as he explored methods of achieving immortality, and therefore no one but his closest confidantes ever knew of the exact steps he took. However, once he emerged into public, he embarked on countless killing sprees, and, through his own confident carelessness, endured numerous injuries which should have, but did not, cause his death. He was embraced by the dark community, and began a steady climb to power. At the same time, though, a group of powerful wizards learned of his quest and vowed to defeat him before he could ever gain a substantial following. They sought him out and waged an intense battle, in which many lives were lost. When only a few wizards remained to fight him, Nesanthromur’s victory seemed certain. However, in a moment of overconfidence, Nesanthromur let his guard down and was disarmed by one of his opponents. Undaunted, he reached over his shoulder and pulled out a long sword, which he proceeded to use to slaughter several of the remaining wizards. In the end, the only wizard that remained to face him was Crosethus, who had come armed with a sword of his own. It seems that he was quite skilled as a fencer, and was able to hold Nesanthromur off for quite awhile. Both suffered numerous bloody wounds throughout the battle, and became drenched in their own and each other’s blood."

Hermione paused for a moment to take a deep breath, and Harry, though intrigued, wondered what on earth this story had to do with him and Voldemort.

"As the battle continued, Crosethus tired, but Nesanthromur remained strong. At long last, he got in a final, well-aimed blow, and Crosethus was impaled straight through the heart. Suddenly, just as the sword passed through Crosethus’ body, Nesanthromur let out a long shriek to the heavens, and collapsed to the ground. Before Crosethus had even drawn his final breath, Nesanthromur was dead. The wizarding community was stunned by Nesanthromur’s sudden and inexplicable death, and a group of mediwizards took it upon themselves to determine what had caused the death of someone who had proven time and time again to be an immortal wizard. After countless hours of study and research, they came to one unanimous conclusion, which was confirmed by many additional mediwizards who were brought in for their opinions. The only substance found in Nesanthromur’s body which failed the post-mortem immortality charm-tests was Crosethus’ blood, which they guessed must have entered Nesanthromur’s own bloodstream through one or more of his many wounds. After extensive discussions and countless theories, the only explanation that stood up to scrutiny was that the blood of the mortal Crosethus had created a connection between himself and Nesanthromur. When Crosethus was stabbed through the heart, the organ controlling the flow of blood, the connection was activated, and it became Nesanthromur’s downfall."

Hermione paused again, and glanced up at Harry cautiously. He thought he was beginning to see where this was going, and a thick knot of dread settled into the pit of his stomach.

"This theory was proven conclusively many years later. In the early seventeenth century, a witch known as Simona formed a tight circle of witches known as the Sisterhood of Diviners. The Sisterhood, as their name suggests, was a group of witches who had special talents in divination. They worked for neither good nor evil, simply at sharpening their skills. Simona became obsessed with the sisterhood, and formulated a theory that all of their talents would become stronger if they could share them with each other. Therefore, every time a new member was initiated into the group, all of the members took a blood oath of sisterhood with the new initiate, under the theory that the strength of their powers would transfer to one another through their blood.

"The group thrived for many years, and when Simona had reached an advanced age, a prophecy was made by numerous members of the group that the son of Simona’s husband would rise to become the most important and influential wizard of the century. Simona and her husband had only one child, a son, and Simona, prone to obsessive behavior, developed a fixation on this prophecy. She adored her son and lamented the fact that she was growing old and would probably not live to see his rise to fame and all of the great things that he would accomplish. Therefore, she began to experiment with methods of gaining immortality, or at least an extended life. She spent the better part of five years on this mission, utilizing longevity potions and charms, sacrificing parts of her own soul to gain years, and finally utilizing the complex livicacious charm, which drained bits of the life energy from living things around her, from the grass to her loved ones and everything in between, and transferred it to herself.

"After she had completed all of these steps, a rumor began circulating about the activities of Simona’s husband and a witch in the Sisterhood, Magdalena. One of the Sisters had divined that they had been having a love affair for years, and that Magdalena was pregnant with the son of Simona’s husband. Another Sister then divined that the original prophecy had applied to this unborn child, and not to Simona’s own son. Simona became enraged and vowed revenge. One night soon thereafter she woke up to find that her husband was not in their bed. She left their house in a fit of rage, and burst into Magdalena’s home, where she did in fact find her husband and the woman together in bed. Simona drew out a knife and proceeded to stab Magdalena repeatedly in the stomach, her madness escalating until she was no longer aiming, just bringing the knife down in furious arcs. Finally, the knife passed straight through Magdalena’s heart, and Simona collapsed to the floor, her own life extinguished.

"Although Nesanthromur had proceeded further along the path to immortality than Simona, both died when a mortal whose blood ran through their own veins was stabbed through the heart. To this day, this remains the only method known with certainty to kill a witch or wizard who has proceeded past basic mortality."

Hermione’s voice died off and the book slipped from her fingers to the floor. Ron was sitting doubled over with his head in his hands, but Harry sat staunchly in his chair, staring blankly into space. "So that’s it then," he said.

A long and shaky silence followed. Harry listened to the sound of his own steady breathing for what seemed like an eternal minute, vaguely aware of Ron’s ragged breaths next to him. Hermione didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

"No," Hermione said at last, finally raising her eyes to look at him, but he couldn’t seem to unfreeze his gaze from the empty spot of air he was staring at. "No. That is not it. There has to be another way," her voice suddenly sounded dangerously unsteady as she rose from her chair. Ron lifted his head to look at her and leapt to his feet. She was deathly pale and shaking all over.

"Hermione," he said warningly, rushing forward to grasp her by the arms.

"There is no other way - we would have found it," Harry said. "My blood runs through his veins..."

"No," Hermione said again.

"Hermione, sit down," Ron commanded. Her eyes swiveled around to meet his and suddenly she didn’t seem to be able to remain standing if she wanted to. Her legs simply gave out. Shocked, Ron eased her back into her chair before she could sink to the floor. "Harry!" he hissed.

Finally, Harry pulled his eyes back into focus, and he quickly slid out of his chair and onto the floor in front of Hermione. "Hermione?" She was still trembling and seemed a million miles away, her eyes staring unfocused as Ron held onto her upper arms. "Hermione! Look at me!" Her eyes settled on Harry’s but she seemed to be looking right through him.

"There is another way," she said desperately.

He nodded for her benefit. "I’m sure there is."

"I’ll find it."

"We’ll find it."

She nodded, and slowly seemed to regain her composure. She took several deep breaths. "I’m sorry," she said shakily, "I guess that just...freaked me out."

"It freaked us all out," Ron said severely.

She took another deep breath. "I’m okay," she told Ron with a small smile, and he released her, hesitantly. She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees and smoothed her hair away from her face with her hands. "I just...I just don’t think we should give up."

"Of course not," Ron said, shooting a look at Harry.

Harry nodded, and took a shaky breath of his own. "No, of course we’re not going to give up."

"Just because we didn’t find the answer in these books doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist," Ron pointed out. "Hogwarts doesn’t own every book ever written, you know. And who’s to say that the answer is even in a book? I bet Dumbledore is looking into this himself, and he would know all of the right people to ask."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I’m sure he is. We sort of talked about it..." his voice trailed off as he thought about Dumbledore and a distinct memory flooded into his consciousness. "Dumbledore knows about this," he said flatly.

"What?" Ron asked.

"Dumbledore knows about what we just read."

"Why do you say that?" asked Hermione.

"After the third task," he paused and swallowed, "I was in his office telling him what happened in the cemetery...and when I said that Voldemort used my blood...he got this look on his face...this look of...triumph...and I thought I’d imagined it because it was gone so quickly, and he looked as worried as ever. I bet he remembered something about how to defeat an immortal who has mortal blood...and then when he remembered what it meant..."

"Well, it doesn’t much matter," Ron said, getting to his feet. "Because we or Dumbledore or whoever is going to find another way to defeat him. The book didn’t even say it was the only way. It said it was the only way known with certainty. There’s a big difference."

"Yes, there is," Harry said, the lump of terror in his gut dissipating somewhat.

"Dumbledore has people preparing to fight him," Ron said confidently. "They have experience. They’ll know what to do. They won’t let him win."

"Right," Harry replied. Ron was right, he had been right all along. He could see that now. This wasn’t his battle alone. Sure, he was involved. Sure, he needed to do whatever he could. But he didn’t have to take it all on himself. He couldn’t. That was clear now. And there were people much more experienced than him, people who had fought Voldemort before. People that Dumbledore trusted. So there weren’t a lot of them. So what. They would work together and they would stop Voldemort, just like they had before. ‘But they didn’t,’ a nagging voice in his head reminded him. ‘You did. You and your mother.’ But he pushed the thought away. He’d done everything he could. He was out of ideas. Now they just had to wait and see what happened.