Something About Harry: The Lilia Watt Files

Chapter Eleven: The Choices We Make

Ginny and Ariana did not know, and I was not going to tell them. I didn't need the whole of Hogwarts to know I was You-Know-Who's daughter...oh to even bear the thought! The idea tormented me, perhaps made worse by my feelings for Harry. On the other hand, Ginny and I seemed to have reached a kind of unspoken agreement: I tried not to be with Harry when I was around her, and she'd be nice.

It hardly mattered anyway. I felt drained and empty. Even the teachers were being nicer; McGonagall's voice became a bit croaky whenever she spoke to me, and Snape didn't yell as much as usual.

The days and weeks slipped by, and I tried so hard to forget...but even my health was slowly deteriorating.

"You know, Lilia, you've been getting awfully pale lately. Are you ill?"

"No, Ariana, I'm fine, really, I am."

But I wasn't. And Harry was ill as well; he looked worse than I felt. Funny that it was only the two of us...

"Lilia?" asked Harry one evening, leaning over his Divination homework on the table.

"Hm?" I answered from the floor in front of the fireplace.

"Have you been feeling a bit...off-colour?"

"How d'you mean?"

He put down his quill and leaned back in the chair. "You know, weak, tired. Just sick."

I looked sharply at him. "Have you?"

The firelight illuminated the shadows under his eyes. "Yeah."

"Me too," I said, raising my eyebrows. "I've been thinking about that. Isn't it rather odd that it's only you and I? I mean, it can't be the flu."

He looked thoughtful. "D'you..." He paused. "D'you reckon this has anything to do with the...erm, the glowing?"

It was as though a light had been turned on in my head. "That seems to make sense, a bit like the electric shock phenomenon."

"Perhaps there is a way to purify you, you know, eliminate it completely."

"Harry, you don't think they tried it all already? I'm a hopeless case."

He sat down on the floor next to me, and put his arm around me. "That was fifteen years ago. I'm sure they must know more by now. And now they can tell you, since you already know about Vol...yeah." He stumbled over his words. "It's endangering both of us."

I looked up at him, unconvinced.

"Please, just ask Dumbledore at least," he wheedled. "Tomorrow, before lunch."

I sighed. "Well...okay. But only if you come with me."

And so, the next day, there we stood by the gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office.

"Too bad we don't know the password," I shrugged, turning to go.

He grabbed my shoulder with a thin, unusually pale hand. "Wait a moment." He walked around the gargoyle, looking thoughtful. Then he suddenly shouted, "Licorice Wand!"

The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside to reveal a sort of escalator.

"Wow, first try!" Harry said smugly, pulling me onto the stairs.

When we reached the door, I knocked hard. Silence issued from within, and then the door creaked open.

"Lilia, Harry. Come in." Dumbledore smiled mysteriously and returned to his desk. We sat down in two old chairs.

"I expect this is to do with your father?" he said, nodding at me.

"Well, yes and no. This...glowing...what is it?"

He stared at us for a moment. "It seems that because of the connection each of you shares with Voldemort, the aura around you reacts."

Harry looked confused. "Which means?"

Dumbledore smiled and simply said, "Destiny."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted. "Then why does it make us ill?"

He shrugged. "Not sure really."

"Well...," I continued, glancing at Harry, "how do we get rid of it?"

Dumbledore's eye twitched, and he looked rather reluctant to answer. "Er, well, there are two ways...neither of them is very plausible...I suggest you forget about them, but here goes...

The first way is to destroy Voldemort completely..."

"And the second way?" prompted Harry. "We're up for anything to keep Voldemort from tracking us down."

Dumbledore took a deep breath. (I had never seen him look so embarrassed.) "Erm...well, Mr. Potter, unfortunately it involves you as well...ahem, yes, well..."

He leaned over and whispered something in Harry's ear. Harry's eyes grew the widest I had ever seen them, and he flushed a brilliant shade of scarlet. "You've got to be kidding," he managed to say in a strangled sort of voice. (A/N: You decide what it is.)

"It's not certain, but I speculate that something like that would work."

I sat confused, and Dumbledore coughed to restore order. Harry seemed to have found his voice again, because he said (squeakily, might I add), "There must be another way."

Dumbledore shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Harry looked horrified. "Guess that's not an option, then."

I was completely bewildered.

"Sorry...sorry to bother you, Professor," stuttered Harry, dragging me from the circular room.

He looked edgily at me on the way to lunch, his fingers twitching and his face still rather red.

"Well, Harry? What did he say?"

He laughed nervously. "Nothing we can do."

"Oh, come on, I know he told you something."

We reached the doors of the Great Hall. "Oh, I'm starving, Lilia, aren't you?" he said loudly, making people stare.

I raised my eyebrows. "You don't have to shout, Harry. And what did he tell you?"

"Look, Lilia," Harry said, looking at me pleadingly. "Just don't ask me, please. If you trust me, you'll believe that it's a not a reasonable choice."

"Well...alright."