The Winter Glass

Chapter Three: Magic Words

I rubbed my aching neck with one hand and looked up from my work. I still had pages and pages to copy, and despite the magnificent illuminations in the book I was to transcribe, the task was a dull one. Scattered words jumped off the page as letters formed words: lux, aeterna, clemens, supplicum. Not only could I hardly read despite nearly two months of study, I couldn't read Latin. Dumbledore had promised me that the next book I copied would be in my native tongue; I wasn't sure if that would help matters much. Until I had a mastery of the language I'd merely be duplicating books like a monk.

Monk

is a particularly apt word for describing how I felt that first winter with Harry. I had my cell. I had my offices. Up for Lauds, to Dumbledore's twixt Sext and None, home at Vespers, put Harry to bed by Compline. My clothing was homespun and rough, my meals plain fare. Sometimes I expected to hear a bell tolling to send me on my way to every appointment in my regimented day. The ascetic life was not agreeable, yet I refused wine, women, and song, for how would I explain these to Harry?

It was hard enough explaining why he should remain inside and out of sight all the time. Dumbledore knew about Harry, of course, and the Weasleys knew I cared for the boy. The landlady knew only that there was one. The children she hired to fetch and carry thought of nothing beyond the chore's end and their next poor meal. Still, the fewer people who saw him, or saw us, the better. I couldn't risk anyone putting two and two together. I couldn't risk becoming a known quantity.

One of the problems I made for myself. When I ordered clothes made for Harry, I hadn't taken him in for tailoring. The seamstress, swayed by coin, had made clothes for 'a strapping young lad' so I had to roll up Harry's sleeves and trousers myself. The clothes swallowed him up and made him stand out against the crowds of bedraggled children who roamed the streets; they tended to wear hand-me-downs until their wrists and ankles showed. One more reason to keep him hidden.

"How are things progressing?"

Dumbledore's entrance shook me out of my reverie and I bent my head back to my task. "Fine," I mumbled. Really, it was slow going, and dull, but I didn't want to sound ungrateful.

"You'd better hurry along. It appears that there is a storm coming."

The sky was flat and gray. "Are you certain?" I asked. I wasn't sure if I'd still be paid if I didn't complete my afternoon's assignment.

"It will blow and leave snowdrifts knee-high. You had better stay at home until it is over. Besides, it will be solstice."

"Shall I take this, then?" I stood and picked up the book. "I could have another two sections done by--"

"No." Dumbledore took the book out of my hands and replaced it with another. "I would like you to practice some reading instead."

It was a collection of stories. I paged through it, distracted by the illustrations. Tales for children.

"I thought you might read them to Harry."

Suddenly I realized what he was trying to do. "I'm sure he'll enjoy them." I gathered my courage and met his gaze. "As will I."

Dumbledore clapped me on the shoulder. "Home, now, and safely." He pressed two days' pay into my palm and let me out into the cold.

I turned up the collar of my cloak against the wind. Snow was swirling down to the streets already, covering the slush that trickled from roadside drifts, and there was a run on the shops for last minute supplies. By the time I fought my way through the crowds with a week's worth of rations it was full dark and the blowing snow was knee-deep.

The room at the top of the stairs was as cheerful and cozy as it could possibly be, considering. A fire crackled in the grate and candles were lit on the table and at the window. Harry and Ginny were sitting on the floor tossing a ball of yarn back and forth, and the puppy ran in circles between them, trying to catch it in his mouth. Looking back, the scene was as idyllic as the most serene landscape by the most masterful painter. However, I didn't stop to admire it at the time.

"Look!" Harry caught the ball deftly. "Pipsissewa can do tricks."

"Pipsissewa?"

"Ginny thought of it. It's his new name," he explained, smile wide. "We're going to call him Pip. He knows it." He got to his feet and held out his arms. "Here, Pip. Here boy."

The puppy scampered toward Harry and leapt into his arms, wriggling and licking him on the chin. Harry made a noise of happy disgust as he tried to avoid Pip's tongue.

"Well, Harry--"

"There's more." Ginny got to her feet. "Ball, Pip." She rolled the ball toward Harry, and Pip ran after it. Once the dog had it in his mouth, he returned it to Harry and dropped it again. "Oh, Pip," she said, exasperated but affectionate, and gave it a pat.

I clapped my hands appreciatively. "Well done."

"That's not all. Watch." Harry stood like a soldier. "Sit," he commanded. Pip complied immediately, but only was still for a moment before rising again. "Well," Harry said with a sheepish grin, "we'll have to do it over tomorrow."

"Do you want supper now?" I asked, storing our supplies on a shelf I had made to keep the mice from nibbling at our meals.

"Yes." Harry swung the kettle over the fire for tea. "Can Ginny stay?"

I was tempted to send her home, but something in me recognized her hunger. She was rail-thin and small and mostly eyes. When she pretended not to notice that Harry had asked but went about pulling on her ragged sweater as if to leave, and when Harry's face fell the slightest degree, I made my decision. "Ginny can stay."

Harry started. "Really?"

I brought him food, gave him shelter, found him a pet, and managed to miss what he wanted most all along. It was in that moment I knew I could never truly be the friend he needed.

Perhaps I could be something else. "Really."

His face lit up. "Will you tell us a story after?"

"No. Something better."

A half-hour later, with the plates cleaned and the crumbs wiped away, we climbed into the rocking chair as we had so many nights ago and I opened the book Dumbledore had provided. "On, ons, once...once upon a... ime..."

I stumbled through a few stories, reading what I could and making up the rest. Neither Harry nor Ginny seemed to mind, though. They giggled and hissed appropriately when the prince kissed the farmer's daughter or the goblin stole the gold. When we finished a tale about band of thieves and a hidden chamber, Harry put his hand on the page over a golden lamp.

"How can there be magic words?" he asked. "Words don't do anything."

Caught up in the mé lange of tales, I spoke as the character. "Certainly they are magic. What can't words do? They float out of our mouths and up to the heavens. They give us names and set us free. They open the path to the treasure." I waved my arms. "Abra Kedabra."

Ginny laughed. "Nothing happened. You're just being silly."

"How do you know? Perhaps, far away, someone has snapped their fingers and made the night morning again." I set the children on their feet. "It's time we were in bed."

Ginny crossed to the window and pulled at the latch. "It won't open."

"Of course it will." I picked up a stick from the firebox, intending to bank the fire for the night.

Harry placed a hand over Ginny's. "No, it won't. It's stuck."

I admit that I was feeling a little irritated. "Well, say Abra Kedabra. Work your magic."

Neither Harry nor Ginny said anything more. They looked at each other, then at me, with the blank look that only children of that age can achieve without being facetious. Assuming that they were stalling bedtime, I tried the window myself. To my chagrin, it was frozen shut. I poked at the frame with my stick, but nothing happened.

"Say the magic words," Ginny whispered. "We're locked in."

Harry rubbed a peephole on the pane. "There's nothing outside. Only snow."

I pushed at the glass one more time. If I wasn't careful, I'd break it. "We'll just have to go around to your rooms, then, Ginny. Wrap up, you two."

Harry put on all of his shirts and I wrapped Ginny in my cloak. At Harry's command, Pip stayed--asleep under the table--and we went into the hallway, Harry at the head of the procession with a candle, and me at the rear, carrying Ginny in a bundle. The night had slipped away and the stairs were devoid of residents.

When we finally reached the street level, Harry jogged ahead to open the door. A wall of white, almost as high as the top of the door frame, blocked our passage. "Now what?" Harry asked.

I sighed. Ginny's mother would have kittens, if my last experience with her was any indication of her personality. "There's nothing else to do. We're going to go upstairs and go to sleep and hope that everything melts before morning."

Once back in our room, the children were subdued. I'm sure Ginny would rather have been home at that point, as her lip trembled and she kept going to look out the window. She made no protest when I picked up her up and tucked her in, fully clothed, next to Harry. I blew out the candles and found my own bed.

When next I remember, the fire was burning low and ruby red. Long shadows crept up the walls, and I jumped when I caught sight of the apparition at the window. I froze, holding my breath. The dark form swayed slightly and reached a hand to the glass. Ginny.

"Come to bed. You'll turn into an icicle," I whispered. She did not respond. Bracing myself against the cold, I dragged myself from beneath the covers and walked over to where she stood.

Her eyes were half-open and glassy. "There is a man," she said, her gaze unfocused on the glass. "He's coming for me. Do you see him standing there?"

"No one is--"

"He has cold eyes and a cold heart." She shivered. "He will break us into serpiente suge se'senovoto kruťas slange dokuhebi snok..." Ginny's eyes rolled back in her head and her sibilant hiss created flecks of foam at the corners of her mouth. I managed to get an arm under her head just before she crumpled to the floor.

Harry came from his bed and shook her. "Wake up, Ginny. Wake up."

"She won't wake," I said, pushing his hands away. "She's not asleep."

"But--"

"She's not," I said firmly.

Harry frowned at me as if he didn't believe a word I said. He wouldn't let it go. "She's talking in her sleep. She doesn't know what she's saying."

"And you do, I suppose?" Ginny's muttering was starting to trail off, so I placed her back on the bed. As I did, a knock came at the window.

At the window.

Harry and I looked at each other in the near darkness, unable to move. Ginny had said someone was coming for her, a man...I turned around slowly and saw that a dark shape moved outside the glass. The tapping came again.

"Don't open it," Harry whispered.

"It's nothing. It's only the wind." But we couldn't ignore the crash that followed as the figure slammed against the panes, causing them to rattle in the glass. Harry grabbed my hand, but braced his legs apart in the dark as if he was to take the monster head-on.

"On three," came a voice from outside, then the window frame cracked and flew inward, slamming against the floor.

A man with red hair poking out from underneath a poorly knit hat stuck his head through the window. "Sorry about that," he said, "but is my Ginny here?"

"Er, yes?" I ventured. At the time I was wondering if all Weasleys came and went through windows. "Actually, I'm glad you're here. I think...Ginny...she's not well," I finished lamely.

"I'm fine." Ginny went to her father, bootlaces trailing. "Dad, did you come by yourself?"

Only seconds ago she had been incapacitated, and now she was without a care. I cleared my throat. "Are you certain? A minute ago, you were, perhaps"--I caught Harry's eye--"having a nightmare?"

"Hmm?" Ginny cocked her head in bewilderment.

"Don't you remember?" Harry asked her.

Ginny merely shook her head and turned to her father. "Have you come to take me home?"

"Yes, and we're going to take your friends as well. Can't leave them here to freeze." Mr. Weasley pushed the window frame to one side and stepped into the room. "You'll have to forgive us. We weren't certain that Ginny was here, and the boys don't know their own strength sometimes." Two men near my age, obviously Ginny's kin, grimaced at the shattered glass on the floor.

"We'll have it fixed, honest," one of them said.

"You'd best come stay with us. I've never seen snow like this." Mr. Weasley had his sons roll up our bedding and I put our few possessions in my bag. With the fire out, we climbed out onto the roof.

In the part of town where we lived, the houses were each three or four stories high. A few still had thatched roofs, a few slate, but most were of wood. The eaves stretched to touch one another, and the snow had fallen in between the peaks, so we had only minor mountains to cross before climbing down a slippery ladder and in the window to the rooms belonging to the Weasley family.

Molly was, of course, in hysterics when we arrived. "I thought you were out in that." She squeezed Ginny until she began to protest. To my surprise, she turned to me next. "Thank you. If you hadn't kept her with you... I'm sorry about before."

True, my looks and appearance had changed, but there was more than that in what she offered. "I'd forgotten it, really."

"He hasn't forgotten about the window, though, Mum." One of the boys explained how they had broken through the sheet of ice that covered our window and then broken the glass and frame. Molly clucked and fussed and made tea after wrapping Harry up and depositing him in the middle of a heap of red-headed children who snored before the fire.

A few minutes later, the Weasleys and I sat at their table clutching steaming mugs and watching the children and Pip sleep. "We do have other rooms," Mrs. Weasley said, blushing. "We could make you a bed. It's just been so cold, and more comfortable to be warm on the floor in here."

"I don't mind." I didn't. I'd made camp in mud and bogs. A floor and a fire was something to be grateful for. "I hope you don't mind us."

"Well, we always think there's room for one more." Mr. Weasley (whose name I discovered was Arthur) blew on his tea. "Especially for Longest Night. Makes the time go faster. And believe it or not, we remember what it was like to have only one child. Barely." He and Molly exchanged smiles. "I really must apologize again about the window. But you'll understand, since you have a boy of your own."

I merely nodded. I felt shamed by my lie, and in time I would tell Molly and Arthur the truth about Harry's parents, but the falsehood was to prove lucky for us all.

In the morning, Harry was a little overwhelmed, as was I. The freckled, flame-haired family never stopped moving, and it was well into midday before I deduced that there were exactly seven Weasley children. A pair of twins had managed to fool me into thinking they were three with the artful changing of scarves and knitted shirts, but at last Ginny whispered to me their names and how to tell them apart. After I called the one with three freckles on his chin Fred and the one with two George, they gave up and organized a game of 'What Will We Take,' acting out their contributions for what they would bring with them on the journey through the longest night of the year before relaying the list of what others had added.

One of the boys, Ron, was only a few months older than Harry, and they hit it off right away. Ginny watched their antics pensively, as if she couldn't decide whether to be pleased or not. Finally, she joined in with the games and started the singing as the sun went down. The old songs about beasts that carried time from one end of the earth to the other made me nostalgic for Longest Nights at home with James and Lily. The opulent celebrations at the castle had been the highlight of many winters.

When the last rays of light had faded from the sky, all eleven of us gathered around the table and joined hands. "We're thankful to have another family to share this day with," Arthur began. "May we all be blessed with peace and happiness, and may we be safe and together in the years to come."

A chorus of 'Agreed' later, we made short work of Molly's simple, hearty cooking. It was their tradition for the youngest member of the family to make a wish at midnight, and we lolled about, trying to keep awake until then. At least, the adults did; the children played chasing games. It was amusing to watch the alternately gangly and stocky crew clamber over the piles of pillows.

Finally, the clock chimed midnight and Molly lit a single candle in the window. We gathered in a half-circle, watching Ginny's pale face reflected in the glass. She stared into the flame, and for a moment I feared she would have another fit. But before Molly could prompt her, she spoke.

"I wish someone would tell me things." With a breath, the candle was out and the smoke twisted, serpentine, into the air.