Harry Potter and the Heart of Regenesis

Chapter Fifteen

Love is a Very Splendid Thing

"Accio wand!"

Nothing.

"Accio wand!!"

Still nothing.

"Accio wand!!!"

Chris Creevey shook his head in desperation.

"How does he bloody do that?" he asked no-one in particular as he picked up his wand from his bed. He had just spent a full ten minutes fruitlessly shouting at his wand and clicking his fingers.

On the bed next to him Bally had just finished 'silently blowing' his trombone and was putting the instrument back into its case. The twins were coming back to the dormitory later after watching Quidditch practice. He picked up his wand now, flicked it and said,

"Accio parchment!" and his parchment flew across the bed towards him. He hadn't really expected it to but he was rather pleased when it did. He shrugged, smiled, tucked his wand into his belt and left for the library where he had arranged to meet Verity.

***************

In the library Verity was sitting with Sheba. Verity was one of the youngest girls at Hogwarts, her birthday falling just a fortnight before the 'deadline' for this year's intake. Two weeks later and she wouldn't have even been at Hogwarts yet but would have still been at home, being picked up every day by the bus that took pupils to the village school at Hogsmeade. She was also one of the shortest pupils at the school. The shortest of all was Katrina Slade, the Slytherin girl who loved Charms - but just to show that nothing means anything in particular Katrina was the oldest girl in the year - just over a fortnight less than a year older than Verity!

Katrina and Verity, feeling a bit of an affinity between them due to their both being 'vertically challenged', had become quite good friends despite one being in Gryffindor and the other in Slytherin. Both also had long, brown hair with very little natural wave. Katrina wore hers pulled back into a pony tail and Verity plaited hers, which made her look even younger - she was frequently mistaken for being about eight years old which she found irritating - but that was how her dad liked it - and Verity adored her father and so would do anything to please him, even put up with a bit of ribbing. Tonight, though, Verity had let her hair out of its plaits and it curled about her shoulders as if she'd had an electric shock. It made her look a lot older, which is just what she wanted today - for all the girls talking quietly in the corner - well away from Madam Pince and Grendel Chambers, her library prefect - were there to chat about or meet boys!

Verity was rather pretty but not strikingly so, as Darla Flint was. Her eyes were hazel and 'sat in her face' rather than shone out of it, she'd always thought. Katrina was even plainer - nowhere near ugly but she had a rather pronounced overbite and her face was bespeckled with small, dark brown moles on her cheeks, forehead and chin. She hated them and sometimes wore make-up to try to hide them a bit. It was never particularly successful, though. Everyone still knew they were there underneath and the make-up made her look as if she was trying to be tarty.

The five girls had parchments still scrolled up and books still, mainly, inside their schoolbags. Just two things lay open on the table. One was a Transfiguration textbook and the other was a magazine for teenage girls. The five of them were discussing their responses to a series of questions in a feature called 'Who's The Perfect Boyfriend For You?' There were pictures of five boys: one fattish and with awkward, crooked teeth, one thin and weedy but with a nice smile, one bigger, rougher and wild haired, one who would fulfil most of the criteria for a 'dreamboat' and the other just looked fairly normal but with a coffee-brown skin tone and short, curly black hair.

The girls were being hypercritical with each of the 'candidates', pointing and laughing at all the features that the writer of the article had deliberately ensured were there:

"Oooh! Look at those teeth!"

"I don't fancy him - too weedy!"

"Nothing special."

"I like his smile, though."

"He looks like he could turn nasty!"

"Now, he's just gorgeous!"

"He's a bit fat..."

Sheba didn't like this last comment and said so. Of all the five she was the largest - only slightly overweight but very sensitive about it nonetheless.

"I quite like number five," chimed in Sharmin Dhillon, Darla's best friend from Hufflepuff.

Darla Flint then said,

"I bet Harr- ...I mean Professor Potter," she corrected herself, "was always good-looking. I wonder what he was like in 1^st year?"

Most of the girls had a bit of a crush on their new DADA professor and posters of him in his late-teens were still sold in shops in Diagon Alley. There was one very famous one of him standing in a sleeveless black vest, his arms (one of which sported a curled up snake) were folded and his head was slightly bent forward but his green eyes were staring up directly at the camera lens. In the Wizarding World that poster was as famous as the muggle one with the 'knickerless tennis girl' and, of course, it was one of the posters that graced the walls of Jem Stone's dormitory back in Cresheim. Unbeknownst to them, Professor Potter, browsing some nearby shelves, had overheard most of their last few minute's chatter and he couldn't resist making himself known.

"Hi girls," he smiled, bending over the table and making all five blush furiously. "Let's have a look then?"

As Harry quickly scanned the pages in question he was surprised to notice that, although he knew none of the faces on view, the stereotype 'models' he could place immediately. It was almost like looking at his old Gryffindor bedroom! Boy one might have been Neville, right down to the 'gormless owl' expression - Harry himself was, undoubtedly, number two, Ron was three and Dean Thomas five. Boy four was not Seamus, however - he had never been blessed with such good looks - but the demeanour, attitude and self-satisfied smugness belonged, unmistakeably, to Draco Malfoy. Harry smiled - he knew straightaway what point the article would be trying to make: Looks aren't everything!

"So," he asked the girls. "Which one's me, then?"

They all looked embarrassed.

"Come on," he said. "We were all young once! Which one of these do you think is nearest to how I was when I was a 1^st Year?"

"I bet you were always...quite...good looking," ventured Verity, losing her embarrassment before the others and joining in Harry's sense of fun. She still blushed deep crimson, though.

"I think you would be nearest to number four, of course." She looked at the other girls to see if they agreed, egging them to do so with her eyes. They did and nodded amongst 'yeahs' and affirmative 'mmms'.

Harry sat in a spare chair and held the magazine up in front of him.

"These could easily be me and four of my friends from school," he told the girls.

"This," he began, pointing at 'Number One', "could be my old friend Neville. He was awkward, very forgetful and even worse at Potions than I was!" he laughed. "He was shy because he was a bit, well, 'rounder' than the rest of us - and because of his teeth, of course. But, do you think he stayed like that? 'Number Three' reminds me of one of my very best friends in the world. A bit scruffy, but with a heart of gold. His parents didn't have enough money to buy him brand new robes every year and perhaps he didn't comb his hair as much as maybe he could have. 'Number Four' reminds me of the boy who at school was my deadliest enemy. Never had a problem getting girlfriends but..." Harry left it there...

"So," he asked again. "That leaves two and five. Which was me?"

"Sir!" exclaimed Darla Flint. "Were you just...ordinary? Were you like number five?"

Harry shook his head.

"When I was eleven I was the thinnest, weediest, most boring little kid you can imagine." He tried to tell them. He could see they weren't sure whether to believe him.

"I didn't even know I was a wizard 'til my eleventh birthday!" They all looked surprised. "This stuff," he gestured at the article again, "is great fun. But don't let it influence your real life decisions. You never know how people will turn out but - whoever they are - if they are around you then you will help shape them and they will help shape you. The five boys I was talking about, remember?" He pointed at the five in the pictures again.

They nodded.

"All of them turned out well enough to become real heroes in the war against Voldemort! And, since then: 'Number one' is now a famous Herbologist. He's lecturing in wizarding schools in America right now. He's got a wife and two lovely little daughters. The girls all 'aahed'.

'Number three' works at the Ministry of Magic and he's married to one of the most beautiful women I've ever known! One or two girls looked at each other, genuinely surprised. 'Number five' is one of the most famous artists in the world. I've no idea if he's married but he was never short of girls wanting to go on Hogsmeade weekends with him. The girls giggled.

'Number four' Harry hesitated - "I think he's married now but he found it hardest of all of us to get girls to really fall in love with him - all they saw were the 'looks' and the 'exterior' things - his heart was all locked up behind the 'mask'. And, finally..." he looked up at the girls again, "I didn't turn out too bad for scrawny, weedy little 'number two' did I?"

Five shocked little faces shook at him. Harry saw a small, familiar group of boys heading in their direction so he quickly and surreptitiously handed the magazine back, winked at the girls and went back to browsing the bookshelves.

"Hi, Verity," said the cheerful voice of Chris Creevey and she looked up at him, smiled back and said 'hi'.

"Hi, Sheba," said Geraint Llewellyn - but his salutation went largely unheeded.

Darla pulled out the chair she had been saving next to her and offered it to Bally who sat in it at once and within an instant they were holding hands.

Before anyone could say anything else, however, the imposing presence of Madam Pince was upon the little group.

"I hope," she intoned in a voice, which held just the right amount of menace, "that we are not to be subjected to more of last week's shenanigans!

"There's already been a bit too much noise and chatter coming from this part of the library - though I hold Professor Potter largely to blame for that!" she added with more than a hint of irritation. Behind her back Professor Potter re-appeared from behind a row of shelves, looked at the party, pulled a face and poked out his tongue.

"Study and Decorum. That's what we need in the library," Madam Pince reminded them with a wave of her pointed finger as the pupils in front of her tried very hard - and largely successfully - to stifle fits of laughter. Only when she turned her back to leave them did they dare giggle silently.

After working quite happily for about an hour (even Ieuan managed to knuckle down and finish about a foot and a half of his Transfiguration homework) they got up to leave. The twins and Katrina left first leaving Darla and Bally, Chris and Verity and the two girls' best friends packing away the last of their equipment.

"I don't suppose you two fancy the twins do you?" Chris asked Sharmin and Sheba. It was going to make life a bit tricky if the pair were going to be 'gooseberries' all the time.

"About as much as being splinched," replied Sheba, pulling a face and turning her nose up.

"I think Geraint likes you," Darla said to her. Chris nodded.

"Well," said Sharmin, sounding twelve going on forty, "those two have a lot of growing up to do before either of them will be having girlfriends. Don't think, just 'cos you want to be 'alone' together, that we'll just...well...you know," she trailed off.

"Come on, Sharmin," Sheba said, rising to her feet. "Let's go get some supper or something," she said - then cursed herself for talking about food. "Not that I'm hungry," she added for no apparent reason at all.

******************

After Sheba and Sharmin had left the other four felt a little awkward. They walked together up to the library door then, when they reached the stairs Chris and Verity went straight down towards Gryffindor Tower while Bally and Darla aimed for the Hufflepuff Common Room hand in hand again.

"Verity?" asked Chris when the others were far enough away to be out of earshot.

"What?" she replied.

"I think Bally and Darla look really nice and...happy. Don't you?"

"I suppose so, why?" She was not going to make it easy for him.

"Well...holding hands and all that. You know?"

Verity stopped on a step and turned to look at Chris.

"What are you trying to say, Chris Creevey?" There was just a hint of amusement in her eyes, he thought - as though she might be teasing him - but also an undercurrent of impatience or even irritation...

"Oh...I'm really crap at this. Gimme a break, Verity." Suddenly he noticed her slight amusement had turned to outright laughter - and he noticed that when she laughed her eyes did shine - her whole face came to life - and his heart leapt even higher into his throat.

Then she leant forward and upwards, pulled his head down (because he was already about four inches taller than her) and lightly kissed the end of his nose.

"Of course you can hold my hand, silly!" she laughed. "I think you're lovely!"

He didn't have to walk the rest of the way back to the Common Room - he glided six inches off the ground as he caressed her fingers gently with his own. They barely spoke but both wanted to shout at the tops of their voices about how wonderful it was to be in love.

They sat and held hands on the big settee near the fireplace and talked about nothing at all of any consequence - except they both felt that the conversation was the most important and exciting of their lives. They were there for another hour or so, managing to completely ignore the procession of other Gryffindors who passed them by making 'aah, isn't it sweet' type noises.

And when they finally said goodnight to each other and prised their hands apart Chris went up the stairs to bed, climbed into his four-poster, drew the curtains and vowed never to wash his nose again.

******************

Chapter Sixteen

Faces in the Fire

"I really don't know what Hermione's got against her," Remus almost spat at Ron. "If any of us had grounds for suspicion it would be you and me, I'd have thought. We're the ones she wants to - experiment on!" he finished.

Ron shrugged. He'd had enough of this over the last week: Remus going on about how nice she was, how she was the best thing to happen to him in ages... He knew that what Remus meant was that she was 'a bloody good shag!' And if anyone knew how to judge a 'bloody good shag' then it was a werewolf. So, OK, he thought, she's a good shag! But that didn't make her a good apothecary - or even a good person for that matter! He remembered back to when he had 'shagged' Parvati and Padma Patil. To both of the sisters he had been a good shag but he had not felt anything like a good person afterwards - one of them he'd, rather cruelly, 'used' and made feel 'cheap' and the other he'd almost killed!

The thought that both of them were now long dead brought him back out of his reveries and Remus was still extolling the virtues of Sherilyn Salt. (Whether 'virtue' was a particularly appropriate word to use in describing Ms Salt was an entirely different matter and one that even Remus would be hard pressed to believe in!)

"Oh, shut up, already!" Ron interrupted. "Why don't you just take her and her potions and move to the moon or somewhere?" he snapped. "If Hermione doesn't trust her that's enough for me! When have I ever had cause to doubt her judgement? 'Ey?"

Remus shrugged now.

"Never, that's when!" Ron confirmed, sounding only a little angrier than 'friendly banter'. "Whether it's intuition...or good guesswork - or even something she's learned through her work that she can't tell us about - Hermione can't stand the thought of the woman. And just 'cos you think she's the best thing since pumpkin pasties and you've spent the last fortnight buried up to your nuts in her forbidden forest won't change the way I feel about her! So - give it a bloody rest, Lupin, will you?"

Remus smiled.

"OK - Weasley!" he responded. He and Ron had learned long ago to discuss things like this calmly and rationally. This particular 'discussion' was much calmer and way more polite than many they had had over the years. The older man put his arm around Ron and said,

"Come on, lets go get a butterbeer!" and they walked together down to the Ministry of Magic canteen/bar talking about Quidditch instead.

When they arrived at the refreshment area Hermione was there already waiting for them sipping what looked like muggle Coca-Cola from a high glass with a straw. Ron loved these muggle things his wife still did. She had taken him to her parent's home for the weekend before and he was becoming almost as intrigued by muggle gadgets and machines as his father was. He had actually tried an electric toothbrush - having held it buzzing and vibrating away in his hand it had taken an inordinate amount of persuasion before putting it anywhere near his teeth! Even then he'd lost control over it and the toothpaste had splattered out of his mouth onto his nose and all over the gleaming bathroom mirror. Another thing he had discovered were drinking straws and, having found them both amusing and fun to use (he had spent ages blowing bubbles into fizzy drinks like a four-year-old) he had insisted Hermione put a packet in her bag before they left.

As well as Ron and Hermione there had been other 'guests' for the weekend too. Sally Granger, Hermione's mum, had a younger stepsister - called Sue - and staying with their aunt and uncle for the weekend were Robbie and Kylie, Sue's children. They were nine and six and were showing absolutely no signs of being magical like their grown-up cousin. In fact, Hermione had always thought them to be 'extremely muggle - like their names!' It was the only time Ron had ever heard Hermione say that anything was 'muggle' at all, in fact - which is probably why it stuck in his mind. Of course, their visit meant Ron, in particular, had to be on his 'best behaviour' and not do anything that might need the children to suffer subsequent memory modification!

While Ron gave Hermione a big hug and kiss Remus went to the bar and ordered the two foaming butterbeers and carried them over to the side table where Ron had suggested they sit. Hermione was just launching into a psychological spiel about how you could 'tell a lot about someone's personality by watching where they chose to sit in an empty restaurant or bar. Over by a side wall means...'

Fortunately for Ron Remus sat down and immediately gave out a huge sigh, drowning out her lecture. He leaned over and kissed Hermione on the cheek, asking how her day had gone. As soon as he'd done so, however, he realised he needn't have wasted his breath. He knew perfectly well that, even if she'd had a day full of excitement and wonder she couldn't (and, of course, wouldn't) say. She seemed very happy and relaxed though and Ron knew her moods well enough to know that that meant her day had been a pretty good one.

They chatted about the weekend they'd had with the Grangers. They'd gone to the cinema on the Saturday evening - something Ron had only done a handful of times in his life - and seen an animated movie with the children about a family of 'super-heroes' who took on a 'baddie' and won. Five of the party had laughed throughout - Ron had merely been baffled most of the time and he was glad when it was over. Hermione told Remus how she had been worried when Ron left his wand on the coffee table on Sunday afternoon and Kylie had found it...

"What's this, Mynee?"

"Oh -" she replied, a little nervously and cursing her hubby under her breath for leaving it lying around. "I think it's Ron's - do you want me to give it back to him."

"No. I will. Where is he?"

"I think he's having a lie down upstairs..."

Before she could move little Kylie had dashed past her and was already clambering up the stairs. 'Mynee' dashed after her but not before the child's voice had shouted,

"Ron! Ron!" and his voice came out of the bedroom,

"Hello Kylie!"

Hermione stopped trying to catch her and followed her into the bedroom.

Ron rolled over, sat up and lifted the little girl into his arms and threw her above his head in one movement. Kylie squealed with excitement as he caught her, rolled over again and tickled her on the bed. After a while she struggled out from under the duvet he had covered her with and she said,

"Ron...look what I found!"

"Oh shi..." he panicked, his eyes wide. In a split second he stopped himself, glanced at Hermione who had a look on her face which shouted 'You idiot!' at him then he faced Kylie again and, with a bewildered grin (the typical 'Ron' kind where only half his mouth goes up, accompanied by an eyebrow) and tried to finish his exclamation,

"Shi...she's lovely, isn't she, Hermione?" Phew - he might have got away with it! "Thanks, Kylie - where was it?"

"You left it on the table, silly Billy!" she giggled.

"Well, thank you very much for finding it. Can I have it back now?"

"What is it, Ron?"

"Ah..." He wished she hadn't asked him that one.

Hermione thought quickest.

"It's his magic wand!" she said, sitting down next to the little girl on the edge of the bed.

"Don't be silly, Mynee," chided Kylie. "It can't be a magic wand - it's the wrong colour!" she explained. "Magic wands are black with a bit of white on the end - this one's brown, see?"

Hermione's bluff had worked - Ron's faced continued to run through dozens of different emotions every few seconds!

"Look!" Kylie instructed her elders. The little girl was about to try and prove her point. She waved the wand in the air and shouted "ABRACADABRA!"

Ron screamed in utter terror and jumped off the bed onto the floor, fully expecting to be hit by a fatal burst of green light. Kylie and Hermione were both doubled up with uncontrollable laughter. Ron's face was white - even the freckles seemed to have bleached - and he sat on the floor virtually motionless for what seemed like an age while the two girls rocked with glee. Eventually, Hermione took pity on her husband and offered him her hand to pull him back up to his feet. Kylie also stopped laughing and said,

"Silly Billy!" It was obviously her latest pet phrase. "I was trying to turn you into a rabbit - not knock you off the bed! See? I told you it wasn't a magic wand!" She handed the stick back to its owner - whose heart rate had now dropped back below 200 beats a minute again - at last!

Ron still couldn't speak, however. So many things were pushing each other out of the way trying to jostle for position in his poor, confused head; why did he leave it there? What was Hermione playing at telling her what it was? How did a bloody six-year-old muggle girl know what he could have sworn for a horrifying second was the Killing Curse?

But he couldn't have coped with questions like: 'what's your name?' right at that moment. His amazingly expressive face continued to find new repertoire as Hermione finally took pity on him, gave him a tight hug and kissed him on the lips - just to keep his face still!

Hermione explained to Remus, as she had a few minutes after the incident to Ron, what 'abracadabra' was. But being older and having spent far more time in the Muggle World he already knew. Even Ron could see the funny side now although he still wondered what might have happened if little Kylie had inherited a few more of the magical genes which lay dormant somewhere in her family's DNA!

Ron became the 'star' guest for the rest of the visit, though. He masqueraded as a muggle magician for little Kylie and Robbie and the children found themselves with a limitless supply of chocolate and jelly beans. Sally ran out of vases for the flowers he conjured and what happened to the white rabbits no-one knows!

******************

Later that evening Harry was in his bedroom/study working at his desk marking DADA homework when he heard a flickering sound coming from the empty fireplace. Turning his head he smiled as he saw Hermione's head appear in a halo of flames.

"Hi, Hermione," he said, immediately turning his heavy, oak-framed chair to face her - he sometimes wished he had one of those modern 'swivel' ones; not as aesthetically pleasing as the carved antique he was seated in with its dark red leather seat and metal studded fixings but easier to zoom across the polished floor in!

"Hi Harry!" she replied. "How's it going at Hogwarts?"

"Fantastic!" Harry replied honestly. He was 'loving every minute', he told her. Then he corrected that and explained that if he were being entirely honest with himself he would have to say that 'every minute' was a small exaggeration. He missed talking to friends, he said - it was not Harry's intention but that did make Hermione feel a bit guilty for not having 'flooed' him before - and he was still worried that, despite having been at the castle almost two months now he still hadn't had 'those chats' with Snape and Charlie he felt were desperately needed.

It was a symptom of his having not talked to friends much that he now went on and on, hardly giving Hermione a chance to get a word in edgeways! It was like her Cresheim visit again, she thought. Eventually, Hermione gave up - glad that Harry had had a chance to unload a bit, at least, and she disappeared from the flames to be replaced by Ron. Harry was delighted to see his old friend and another expression of sheer delight spread across his face.

Ron asked Harry about work at Hogwarts and Harry caught up on all sorts of gossip from the man who'd been his 'best friend' for the last fourteen years - although they hadn't spoken a word to each other for well over six months. Ron chatted about Quidditch, about Remus and his new 'woman' and Harry shared some of the stories about his time as a Hogwarts Professor so far - including how the pupils were convinced he was an expert with wandless magic, which had spread right around the school in no time, of course!

Talking of wands Ron even told Harry about Kylie's scaring him and Harry, to Ron's 'disgust', found it every bit as funny as Hermione had!

"Anyway," Ron changed the subject. "What are your plans for the summer holidays?"

Harry was floored. He hadn't even thought about the summer holidays - but now realised there were only a couple of weeks before the end of term!

"Oh," he replied. "I haven't made any plans yet!" That was all he could think of to say. It was all he had to say!

"Er...good," Ron replied. "We'd like you to come and stay with us for a while...if you wanted to, of course!" he added. He added that, although their new extension still hadn't been built onto the house in Stratford it was already plenty big enough for guests and, apart from Gerald and Sally they hadn't had anyone to stay for more than one night since they moved in.

Ron also explained that they were planning a surprise birthday party at Hog's End for Arthur the day after the term ended. George and Angelina were organising most of it although Percy and Katie were helping when they had time (Harry already knew, of course, that they now spent most of their time at their London flat rather than in the large old Hogsmeade house).

Ron said that Arthur was going to be seventy the week after the party and, although that was only really the start of middle-age for a wizard, they had needed a good excuse for a knees-up and his dad was as good an excuse as any other!

"Great!" said Harry. "It'll be fun to catch up with everyone again!" He even thought it might give him the chance to finally 'break the ice' with Charlie and Snape should he not have the chance before the end of term.

Ron went on to explain that he was sure that Maggie would be prepared to drive Harry down to Stratford the day after the party. After a bit more chat about Quidditch - Ron was impressed that Harry now taught the daughter of one of his favourite Cannons players - they said goodnight and Harry, feeling rather refreshed, turned the chair round again to go back to his marking.

He decided he'd have a drink before working, however and walked through the open door back into his 'living area'. The hay-cart chose just that moment to splash its way through the puddle in the landscape and Harry stopped to watch it for a moment and saw a small thrush that had been drinking from the water fly into the air, startled by the cart's sudden disturbance. Harry smiled - he'd looked at the picture for quite some time over the weeks he'd been at Hogwarts and had never seen that particular scenario. He wondered about the genius of the wizard artists who could put such detail into their work and also what other delights the painting held for him to discover in the months ahead. Then he remembered that his old friend Dean Thomas was such an artist now although he had read in the Daily Prophet that Dean worked mainly in portraits. Knowing Dean, Harry thought, he probably still built in a few hidden secrets - and he was right. Early in his career Dean had almost been sacked after a very expensive portrait he had painted of a very rude and bossy lady suddenly developed warts on her nose the week after it had been fully paid for!

Harry made himself a mug of coffee and returned to his desk but no sooner had he sat and picked up his quill he heard another crackle - and this time, when he turned around, Ginny was in the fireplace.

****************

Harry was not sure what surprised him most - the fact that he'd been 'flooed' twice in a night after not having been visited in that way since he arrived at Hogwarts or the fact that it was Ginny who sat looking at him from the fireplace.

"Ginny!" he exclaimed. "Er...nice to see you!" What was he supposed to say, he thought to himself. "Where are you?" he added.

"I'm in England," his wife replied looking as if this was just as difficult for her as it was for him. "In fact, I'm with mum and dad down in The Burrow. How are you?"

Harry was finding it so hard not to react adversely to every word she said. He had to bite his tongue to stop him responding to her question with 'how d'you think?' or 'what do you care?' but he managed to draw on his reserves of maturity and overcome these perfectly natural ripostes.

"I'm fine." At least he was telling the truth. He was fine - and five minutes ago he'd been very happy and contented. "How are you?"

"I'm tired," she replied. "It's been a long tour and it'll be all over soon but we've made a diversion. There's trouble out in Australia with their Quidditch Federation. Apparently they are engulfed in a major row between the players and the Federation about whether or not they should drop the boomerang logo for a koala wearing a wizard's hat - or something - and the team's gone on strike. There was no point in us going out there if the games weren't guaranteed to be on so the USQF gave us all a few days off before we have to go to China. I was missing David so I decided to pick him up from Ruth and take him back to China with me."

"Ruth?" asked Harry.

"He's been at Ruth Pelta's - oh, you didn't know, did you? She's in rehearsals at the moment for a season of operas at the New York Met so she's spent the last three months back at home in Philly, where they've been rehearsing. When I knew you couldn't have him during the tour I asked her instead." Ginny sounded just a little bitter as she said this.

Harry remembered Ginny asking him to look after Dai, of course, but he had realised it would be impossible for him to do that the instant his life had changed with the move back to Britain. He would have loved the opportunity, though, and that had been the one thing that had made him even consider not going back to Hogwarts. That Ginny seemed to be inferring by her 'tone of voice' that he was being selfish by not agreeing to take him was, in Harry's opinion not just unfair but rather cruel of her.

"Anyway," Ginny said, much more brightly now - as though felt the subject needed changing as well - "While I'm here I'm linking up with the USQF Under-15 team who are over here on tour. I've managed to arrange a special match for them - at Hogwarts - to raise money for Fred's Foundation. I wanted to tell you before Dumbledore announced it. I thought you ought to know I'm coming up there with the team on Friday and the match is on Saturday. Don't worry, I'll keep well out of your way," she added as if it was him that didn't want to see her - not the other way round - as he suspected was very much more the case.

"I'll be bringing David with me, so he can spend the rest of the weekend with you, if you like, before we go back to China on Monday. Is that OK?"

It was quite a lot for Harry to 'take in' in a short space of time. Ginny was in England now, she was coming to Hogwarts tomorrow - with Dai -he was going to see his 'little man' again!

"I'd love to have him," Harry smiled, his heart leaping for a few moments. Then her voice changed again:

"I also thought you ought to know that David and I will still be in China at the time of dad's party - George told me about it - so you needn't worry about bumping into me there as well."

Harry hadn't even had chance to think about the impending Quidditch match let alone whether the whole Weasley dynasty would manage to be at the party but, now he thought about it he realised they probably would be. He also began to wonder if his invite to that party had been, at least partly, with ulterior motives...to bring he and Ginny together for a while...well, if it was, that wouldn't work now, would it?

By the end of the stilted, uncomfortable conversation that followed Harry felt as though he and Ginny were light years apart. They struggled even to be nice to each other most of the way through it; he couldn't help feeling all sorts of resentments because it had 'gone wrong' between them and this was made even worse by the fact he knew in his heart that nothing he could have said or done would have made any difference at all. She had admitted as much to him last time they had spoken, of course, acknowledging that it had been her weaknesses and decisions that had led to so many of their problems.

To add to all this bad feeling, talking about Dai had, firstly, brought tears to his eyes, then they had welled up so far they spilt over onto his cheeks and now he was sat at his desk again crying rivers over his missing out on watching his little boy grow up. He wondered if 'his little man' would even know his dad when they got to meet again at the weekend or if his dad would be just 'another stranger' to little Dai.

To his further surprise, just as he was getting himself back together again the fireplace crackled a third time and Ginny was back. It was clear to him that she had been crying as well in the time between 'visits'. She looked at Harry and tried to speak as clearly as her breaking voice would allow.

"I'm sorry, Harry...I'm sorry for all of this." It was hard for him not to cry again just listening to her - it was too much for her - that was clear - she was going through quite some distress - but Harry knew as well as anyone that she was strong willed and, if she was determined enough to have come back a second time then he realised she would want to go through with whatever it was she wanted to say.

"I didn't mean for any of it to happen," she tried again. "But it has. And I want you to know that..." She was struggling to get this out, he could tell. "...That none of it is your fault!"

She'd said it, quite firmly considering how upset she was.

What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to react? In the end all he could say was,

"Then why, Ginny? Why did you have to throw it all away? I didn't love PE teaching that much that I wouldn't have dropped it in an instant and followed you to the ends of the earth! You knew that!"

Ginny was crying openly now. She shook her head and wiped her eyes but had no answer for him. Life, she was still too young to know, has no answers to questions like that.

Harry had never felt so helpless in his life. He could neither think of anything to say nor could he reach out and hold her. He didn't know when or if he'd get the chance to talk to Ginny again however, seeing as she'd said she was going to 'avoid' him when she came to Hogwarts, and he eventually spluttered out,

"I've been invited to Hermione and Ron's for the summer. Can I...can I have Dai...David...for a few weeks when you get back from China as well? Maybe he won't forget me again if we get the chance to be reacquainted this weekend." He tried a weak smile.

Ginny nodded straight away. They then spent a few more minutes talking about their son - which was so much easier than talking about themselves, they discovered. Harry managed to find out that Ginny was still with Jerry Malkovich and they were considering buying a house together but Harry found that just mentioning 'him' almost started them arguing again so he let it be.

When Ginny left for a second time Harry knew what he wanted to do. He walked the full width of the castle from the staff quarters all the way over to Poppy Pomfrey's hospital and asked her if he could borrow a small child's bed for the weekend. She was delighted to oblige and she also gave him blankets and sheets. As he carried them back to his rooms and then set them up under the window in his bedroom, however, his melancholy returned once more and he began to dwell on all the 'nastiness' which had seethed just underneath the surface of the two conversations he'd had with his estranged wife earlier. He began to wonder how he really felt about Ginny now - was he hanging on to the past and the great times they'd had for no reason? Was he just hurting himself by trying to keep on loving someone who seemed not just to have gotten over him but had set up home - or as good as - with someone new. His mood kept swinging from angry to teary and back again, all the time with resentment feeding the emotional turmoil.

Suddenly, Harry dropped the bed sheets he was about to dress the small mattress with and strode out purposely into the staff quarters corridor, knocked firmly on Maggie's door and was invited in a moment later. He poured out his heart to his sister-in-law and her half-listening/half dozing husband. He was offered - and took for once - a full measure of Ogden's Best Firewhiskey - and then another...and another.

By the time he went back to his rooms a couple of hours later Harry felt a lot better, concentrating on the positives. He was going to see Dai again, he was going to spend the summer with 'little man' and his two best friends and - as Maggie had constantly reassured him - he had the rest of his life to plan out and enjoy.

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As he crawled into bed feeling 'comfortably numb' he reached over for the small silver box that he kept in the drawer of his bedside cabinet. From it he took a small silver chain, which had attached to it the figure of a basilisk with green eyes. Using all his self-will and the 'Dutch courage' he'd received from the strong drink he dropped the amulet into his right hand, closed his eyes and clasped it tightly.

But Harry Potter saw nothing...and he cried again.

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