Getting Closer to Fine

Sixteen

*

"Mother of God!"

The flat was small and Dean's legs were long, so he made it to the scene in no time. There was Seamus, a spatula in one hand; there was a cheese toastie, cheese-side-down on the kitchen floor; and there was the small, big-eyed, big-eared, frettingly apologetic creature that Dean had last seen a few hours before and hadn't expected to see again for several days at least.

He had to give it to Dobby. The elf worked fast.

"Hello, Dobby," said Dean, grinning. "Got something for me?"

"Yes, sir! Dobby is reporting, sir!"

"Seamus, would you mind?" Dean nodded towards the back of the flat.

"Oh, no, of course not. Be glad to go starve in my room. You'll give me a nice funeral, won't you?"

"Yeah, I'll hire the mourners and all," Dean called after Seamus. After adjusting the heat on the stove so as not to end up burning the flat down around them, he gestured towards the tiny little table.

When they were both seated, Dean quietly asked, "What have you found out?"

"The elf is working for the Nott family, sir."

"Nott?" Dean turned the name over in his head. There had been a Nott in their year, a Slytherin. Dean could picture him hazily, but very little about him jumped to mind. . . had Nott's father been arrested as a Death Eater while they were in school? Maybe. Or maybe Dean was making that leap because he'd worn green and silver. Hard to say.

"There is the Mistress Nott and the young Master Nott, sir," Dobby said.

"Ah," Dean said. "So the old Master is dead?"

"Dobby is thinking Master Nott is dying in Azkaban," the elf said, "but he is not knowing for certain."

"That's all right, I can find out if I need to," Dean said. Shouldn't be too hard at all, he thought. "Thank you very much, Dobby," he added with feeling. "And Harry thanks you too."

Dobby's cheeks darkened proudly. "Sir and Harry Potter is being most welcome." And with a loud crack, he was gone.

Dean put some fresh bread in the pan, adding a slice for himself this time, reached for the cheese, and yelled for Seamus.

*

The gate was hung with massive chains and secured with a padlock, but it was also rusting off the hinges, and squeezing through was no trouble at all. As soon as Harry did, he was hit again by that insistent, pounding desire - no, need - to rush away from this place, but he was learning to anticipate these efforts by the Ministry, and his footsteps barely faltered.

But there was a voice in the back of his head that was harder to shake. It whispered leave, leave now, leave while you still can, and Harry didn't know whether it belonged to him or the Ministry or someone else.

The drive that led to the Riddle House was hemmed in by bushes. Some were green and some were bare, but Harry imagined that in summer they were all thick and wild and overgrown. Underneath his feet, the path was littered with branches left strewn and scattered from summers of wind and winters of ice. No car would be able to pass along here, not anymore. Not that it mattered. It had been a very long time since this had been a place where automobiles might be welcome.

Harry stepped carefully. Between his Invisibility Cloak and the debris, it would be very easy to trip and fall on his face. Very easy, and very bad for stealth. It would be nice if he could light his wand, but Harry didn't dare, out here where anyone might be watching. His eyes would just have to adjust to the fast-falling dark.

He had seen the house that afternoon, from further down the hill, through the bare winter trees. Harry was glad of that. He could fill in the shadows and the dark spaces of the building that rose ahead of him, map onto it from his memory; it helped.

Harry had never been to the house itself before, never been any closer than the graveyard, even though he had glimpsed inside once, in a dream. He knew that it hadn't been a real base of operations for Voldemort and his Death Eaters, but a place that he used to when he wished to carry out more. . . personal operations. The sort of place Voldemort would come to when he'd nowhere else to go.

And a place where he'd rebuilt himself once before. Harry would never have any trouble remembering that.

There was no point in trying the door. It and all the other entrances would be spell-locked tight, and Harry didn't fancy the possible consequences of attempting the wrong counter-charm. He had a feeling Alohomora wouldn't cut it. So when he drew close enough, Harry scrabbled along the ground for a rock, then threw it at a window.

It vanished, mid-arc.

Harry walked around and tossed a few more rocks. None aimed at windows or doors reached their mark, but all those aimed at blank wall did.

Something along the lines of an Imperturable Charm mixed with a Portkey, he decided; unwelcome visitors - all visitors - were promptly sent away, wherever 'away' might be. Harry was fairly certain he could lift the spell if he had to, but doing that kind of magic might raise an alarm, and not necessarily one monitored by Ministry officials.

But there was one entrance to the house that might possibly have been overlooked. . . . shame he didn't have his broom handy, but there were other ways of getting there.

The Invisibility Cloak would only trip him up, so Harry replaced it with a Disillusionment Charm, shivering as the tell-tale prickles made their way through him. He followed that with a few spells on his boots and gloves. Then, feeling rather like Spider-Man, and enjoying it, Harry made his way up an ivy-covered wall to the roof.

It was deep dark, now. Harry stood looking out at a view that would make most people's legs shake, even when wearing Spider-Man shoes. The little church was lit warmly against the night, probably for evening services, which made Harry more inclined to think it really had been a vicar that he'd spoken with, earlier. Away down the hill, the lights of the village winked, and above, there were the tiny cold lights of stars. He looked up at those the longest.

Then he crossed the roof, climbed a little bit higher, and looked down into much blacker, more threatening darkness. He'd pocketed a rock earlier and now he threw it down the hole, straining to hear a clunk.

He heard. . . something. Maybe it was the rock hitting brick, and maybe it was the snap of a spell as it was transported away. He thought it was the first one, hoped it was the first one, but he really couldn't be certain.

Harry took one last deep breath. This would either work, or it wouldn't.

If it didn't, he hoped he didn't end up in too many pieces.

*

Even in the dark, Dean could see that the house had seen better days. He tended to judge other people's homes by the flat he'd grown up in; this was four of them, stacked up two by two, and let go in a way his mother would never allow.

He'd come alone. Dean hadn't heard a thing from Harry, had no idea where he was, what he was up to, or how in the world to get in touch with him. Dean had thought through his options over toasties: (a), go in and give Moody a full report, and, after the yelling stopped, be assigned someone new to work with on this case (and probably many, many future cases, because who knew when Harry would be allowed active duty again). That was assuming Moody didn't yank him off the job as well, for conspicuously neglecting to mention Harry's absence earlier. Or (b), just go on and do what Moody would expect he and Harry to do, and hope to God that he didn't bollocks it up. And that Harry turned up by morning.

So here Dean was, across the street from the Nott's house, settled on a branch of a large, evergreen tree, waiting to see if anything would happen. Not the most comfortable place he'd ever lurked, but he didn't want to cross the property line yet - depending what kind of defensive spells the Notts had up, that could easily be enough to give the game away. His Omnioculars were special Auror issue, with a built-in heat-sensing spell that made them excellent night-vision goggles. He could count three yellow-orange blobs in the house, two people sized, one house-elf-sized. None of which were moving around a whole lot.

Without the Omnioculars, Dean could see the soft yellow of lamp-light. At first, it flickered downstairs; then, as the night wore slowly and uncomfortably on, upstairs; finally, it flickered out altogether.

Looked like they'd gone to bed. Sensible of them. And good for his purposes, because it would mean that he'd got through the job without incident and learned at least one useful bit of information - that the suspects were still living at their last known address.

But Aurors were used to looks being deceiving, and Dean knew that someone in that house might be very much awake.

Dean sighed, letting his head thump back against the tree-trunk. Only one way to find out, and it meant sitting in this tree for the rest of the night. For a brief, heartfelt moment, Dean wished that he was a Muggle D.C. A Muggle D.C. in a car with cushioned seats, and doors to keep out the cold, and a place to settle a cup of coffee. . . . And, oh yeah, surveillance cameras, those too. What kind of spells would it take to magic a regular old-fashioned wizard's camera up to take photographs at regular intervals? Be a hundred times easier just to use a video camera, but God, imagine trying to get somewhere with evidence on VHS tape in a wizarding legal proceeding. . . .

Resigned, Dean shifted about for a more comfortable position on his limb, put his Ominoculars to his eyes again - and sucked in a breath.

Four blobs. There were four blobs, instead of three.

One was upstairs, completely stationary - in bed, presumably. Another was in the kitchen - that was the small one, the house-elf. And in the front room, there was not one adult human-sized blob. . . but two.

Someone had a visitor.

Together, the two blobs moved through the house, and then - Dean squinted - yes, they went down. Below the house there must be a cellar, or a hidden room, or a secret passageway. . . .

And here he was, pressed right up into a corner. If he walked away from this now, it would have to be to go to Moody to ask for backup. And that might lead to the man himself coming out here. . . a frightening, frightening thought, perhaps even more frightening than the inevitable effects upon his and Harry's careers.

But it would be utterly insane for him to go in alone. Even if Harry had said that he'd be better off doing things that way. Even if, looking at him that night, Dean had known in his gut that his partner was right.

Quietly, Dean slid down from his tree, stumbling a bit, his legs cramped and unhelpful. At the road, he ended the Disillusionment charm on himself, and walked straight up the Notts' garden path. A family's protective spells were likely to be weakest at the spots where legitimate visitors might enter, such as the chimney, or the front door.

It was well past the hour when such legitimate guests might normally drop by, but Dean wasn't fussed. It was almost certain that this door would be answered by the house-elf - everyone else was otherwise engaged, and besides, that was something house-elves did. A house-elf on the other side of this door would suit his needs perfectly.

And if, for some reason, someone else answered his knock, well, Dean just might get a step closer to figuring out another useful bit of information: Who was asleep in bed, and who was up and awake and busily meeting with visitors? Mother, or son? And he could get away with it, because there was one thing Dean Thomas could do that Harry Potter couldn't, at least not without a very good disguise: stand on someone's doorstep and pretend to be someone he wasn't.

Dean's knock on the door was carefully judged, not too loud, but a little rough, a little unsteady. Depending on who opened the door, he would be Dean Thomas, Auror. . . or he'd flip up his hood and be some drunk in search of his mates who'd just happened to stumble to the wrong house.

The door swung open, and there was Tarky, alone on the other side.

"Hi," Dean said, very quiet and very firm. "Remember me? My friend and I had a few words with you, a few days ago."

The elf's eyes were wide and afraid, and he looked round Dean, ask if expecting to find Harry back there somewhere. Dean was getting used to elves doing this. Not wanting this one to get too comfortable when it became clear he was alone, Dean took his voice from firm to coffin-nail hard. "You remember making a promise to Harry Potter?"

It was obvious that the answer was yes: the elf began to shake.

Dean waited until Tarky had managed a nod, and said, "Good. I'm here to collect on it. I need to come inside, right now, without anyone knowing." Already towering over the elf, Dean stepped closer, pressing his advantage. "Harry wants me to, very much. He'll be awfully upset if that doesn't happen."

"Not wishing to displease Harry Potter, no, not wishing to displease Harry Potter, Tarky is not wish -" The elf's voice was spiralling higher and higher in his fright, and Dean fought the urge to clamp a hand over his mouth.

He interrupted instead. "Good," Dean said. "Now, what have your master and mistress ordered you to do with uninvited guests?"

"Tarky is to be telling Master and Mistress right away. He is not to be wasting any time." The elf looked back into the house, then back at Dean, his eyes even larger now, as if he had forgotten to fear his masters in the midst of his other terror.

"Then," Dean smiled, showing teeth, "you'd better invite me in."

*

It was a proper cellar, not a trap-door-hole-in-the-ground sort of arrangement, which was good, as far as Dean was concerned. He sat in the shadows, as far down the staircase as he dared descend, cloaked by another Disillusionment charm. There wasn't much he could see from here, just a sliver of junky basement, but he could hear.

And smell. This place reeked with the salty-sweet-sick smell of animals. Animals, and Dark magic.

"This one's made it a week now," a voice said, after a while. It was male, deepish and youngish.

"Yeah?" Another young male, this one a baritone. The son, Dean thought, the son, and a friend. "Is it exhibiting behaviours appropriate to its species?"

"You mean, is it twitching its whiskers and that? Yeah. Hasn't eaten any cheese, though."

"One thing at a time," the baritone said. "Self-motivated ingestion doesn't have to happen right away. A full life can be lived without it, so long as there's this."

There was a clang of metal - a cage being opened? and a quiet little scuffle. Intensely curious, Dean slid down the steps just a bit further and eased himself forward. He was almost able to see around the corner -

And, upstairs, the noise started. There were crashes. Bangs. Things falling, things breaking. The sort of racket unfussy burglars might make, or a gang of unhappy toddlers.

It was, Dean realised, something he should have seen coming. It was the sound of a house-elf beating himself up.

Dean went for the top of the stairs as fast as he could, not worrying about the sound of his feet - Tarky was masking that quite effectively. He had to go out this way - he didn't dare Apparate from inside this house. There could be all kinds of anti-Apparition spells in effect, and he certainly didn't want to find out the hard way.

Of course, the people in the basement headed for the stairs as well. And Disillusionment charms were all very well and good until you got knocked over like a bowling pin.

Dean's first thought was, Shite.

The second was, When the Dark magic starts flying, I'm going to wish Harry were here.

The third was, Good thing I'm not a D.C. after all. I'd be done for breaking and entering and no mistake.

D.C. or not, though, this was still pretty worst-case scenario stuff.

It took both of them, but they managed to strong-arm Dean and march him down into the cellar. Pulling free, throwing some punches, and getting the hell out of the house were incredibly appealing ideas. It'd be all right, if it stayed a physical fight: he was bigger than either of these blokes, and they wouldn't be able to see the blows coming. But the last thing he wanted to do was encourage a couple of Dark Arts practitioners to get spell-happy.

And if he were to leave this place, these two would do the very same thing: neither they nor their operation would be here when the Aurors came calling. And it would be his fault, and his alone. He'd made all his own choices since Harry had left that night, and he could get sent down for any one of them.

Dean's wand arm was twisted up behind his back, but he was able to move it enough. He lifted the charm and made himself perfectly visible, then stood, tall and confident, as two wands were immediately trained on his chest. He would get as much information as he could, and if he couldn't get himself out, he could probably get a message out. He had an ally in this house, after all - an unwilling, fairly unhinged ally, but an ally all the same.

"Dean Thomas," he said, "Auror. We're," and that was a small lie, but who could blame him? Never a great idea to admit you were alone - "here to have a look around."

The introduction was, he suspected, completely unnecessary. Dean knew both of the people on the other ends of those wands; they'd gone to school together. Different houses, different friends, but the wizarding world was a bloody small place, when it came down to it.

There was a pause. A long one.

"So formal, Thomas," the skinny one - that was Nott - said finally, letting his wand drop. Dean was careful not to breathe a visible sigh of relief. "Now, you want a look at what, exactly?"

"Everything," Dean said, trying to make it sound as if he actually knew what the hell he was talking about.

"After you," the other one - Carmichael, Eddie Carmichael, Ravenclaw - replied, all smiles and politeness.

The room was like the office of a veterinarian - a back-alley, evil veterinarian. Against the far wall were cages filled with mice and rats. Some animals were held singly, some in pairs, and one cage was teeming with squirming bodies. There were cauldrons. Books. On the table, there were bottles of dark red liquid which had to be dragon's blood, and a steaming cauldron behind them. When Dean peeked in one of the boxes stacked in a corner, he saw many, many more bottles.

"Anything else?" Carmichael asked.

Friendly, welcoming, so-bloody-sure of themselves suspects had always got right under his skin. Dean turned away from the boxes and stared these two down. "Yeah. Couple questions for you. What are you doing to these animals?"

"You were Gryffindor, weren't you, Thomas?" That was Nott. Less polite than his mate, but Dean didn't care for his casual insolence either. It felt like the real thing, not like bravado, which worried him. And it kind of made him regret not getting a punch in earlier.

"Yeah. Now -"

"You know what you can always count on with Gryffindors?" Nott went on. "You can count on them to think the worst."

"True," Carmichael said. "But be fair, Theo, sometimes they're right."

"So what's this then?" Dean asked, moving quickly over to the cauldron on the table, hoping to unsettle them, make them nervous with his proximity to their little experiment. "If it's not the worst?"

"This," Carmichael said proudly, "is innovation in action. Take one of the most potent, powerful substances in nature; do some very clever magic with it; and let blood does what it does best." He smiled. "Bring life."

"Necromancy." Dean's insides went cold. Harry had been right, oh fucking hell, had he been right. . . . "You're doing necromancy."

"Listen at how he says it," said Nott, and this time, that cocky voice made Dean shiver. "As if it's a bad thing. Life from death."

"Muggles do it all the time, don't they?" Carmichael said. Still so friendly, trying to pull Dean in with his logic and his smile. "With their machines and their medicines. Why should we be any different?"

"You can say what you like about the Dark Lord," said Nott. "Merlin knows I won't stop you. But you have to admit he got one thing right - why should we have to accept death as the end?" He spread his arms wide, taking in the room and everything in it. "What else is magic for?"

Dean watched Nott carefully, watched his eyes. A father dead in Azkaban. Maybe these two really weren't trying to work their way from mice to a risen Lord. Maybe. But that didn't matter. There were plenty of people who would be glad to jump right in and do it instead, once they had the means.

Under Dean's gaze, Nott crossed the room, reached into the cage full of mice, and pulled one out by its tail. Dean knew what was coming next, and he swallowed, but didn't look away. Nott didn't wring its neck, as Dean had expected; instead he clamped his hand around the mouse's mouth and nose, and held it until it didn't move any more.

"This is from our most recent batch," Carmichael said, stirring the cauldron twice with a silver spoon. "We start with a base of pure dragon's blood, then temper it with our own special spells."

"We won't be telling you what those are," Nott said.

"They're still in a state of flux, we're making changes with every experiment," Carmichael said smoothly. He slid on a pair of thick dragonhide gloves, took the dead mouse from Nott, and gently, so as not to splash, slid it into the cauldron.

"Skin is so greedy," he said. "Takes on moisture for days after death. We're just putting nature to good use." He moved his wand sharply. "Anima!"

Inside the cauldron, ripples appeared in the liquid, becoming large and frantic. With his hands still protected by gloves, Carmichael reached in and pulled a twitching, squeaking, living mouse out.

"My God," Dean said. This was all wrong, horribly, unbelievably wrong, but he couldn't look away - it wasn't a trick, that mouse had been dead, dead and gone -

Nott grinned widely. "Sure you still need Him?"

- but was it even really a mouse, did it think like a mouse, would it live like a mouse, or was it some horror-movie pits-of-hell zombie now? What would it do? What would a person like this do?

"So what are you going to do now?" Carmichael asked. "There's no law against resurrecting mice. There's not even one against killing them."

"No swag in this house, either," Nott said. He spread his hands wide. "Search it if you want. Knock yourself out."

Dean forced his mind back to the details. "Suppose that's because you sold it all already," he said. "Had to raise funds for this little venture, and all."

Nott shrugged. "I don't remember doing anything like that. Do you, Eddie?"

"Using fear and manipulation, you engineered the sales of numerous-"

"Let's get real here, Thomas," Nott said. "You'll never prove that we possessed or sold anything illegal. You can put a circumstantial case together, if you want, but it won't stick and you know it. I'll tell you what will happen, though." He grinned unpleasantly. "It'll be in the papers, what we're doing, and people'll be all over us like you wouldn't believe. They'll offer us money. They'll want to give their poor dead the treatment - they'll be signing up to be our first human test cases! They'll get on waiting lists for after their own deaths. So go on. It'll be brilliant."

Dean looked away, realised he was looking to trade glances with Harry, to see what his partner thought, and wrenched his eyes back to the pair. Carmichael was smiling, an apologetic he's-right-old-chap smile that was more annoying than Nott's grin, and every bit as threatening.

"Not sure what to do?" Nott asked. "That's all right. We understand. Go on, think about it." He gestured toward the stairs. "We'll be right here if you decide it's worth coming back."

*

It worked.

Down the chimney Harry went, like a skinny, bespectacled Father Christmas. He emptied out into a large kitchen that time had long since forgot. The Aga was rusting, its door falling off. Two of the table legs had rotted and collapsed, leaving it partially held up by the other two. Great huge spiderwebs hung all around. Everything smelled of damp and decay, and Harry was careful with every step where he placed his feet - he didn't trust the floorboards.

Harry left the kitchen for the front hall, trying to get a feel for the layout of the house. It was a wide, open room, with four doors on each side and a sweeping staircase at the back. Kitchen, dining room, library, plus three more rooms that probably had very specific names, but Harry could only guess as to which might be what. Drawing room, morning room, parlour. . . . just how many rooms had the Riddles needed for sitting around in, anyway?

Lighting his wand but keeping it dim, Harry began going through the rooms properly, looking for footprints in the dust, signs of life, any indications of use at all. The house had definitely been turned over, that became obvious, but it looked to have been some time ago. Probably, Harry thought, by the Ministry, at the time when they'd taken possession. Or just before, by Voldemort's followers, scavenging everything they could, taking artefacts for the power in them, or the Galleons they would fetch. . . Harry wished he could believe that was all that little snake statue was, a money-making venture for someone. If it hadn't led to so many other things, one after another after another, and eventually to this. To him being right here, right now. . . .

If he was lucky, if fate or fortune or one of those things he didn't care to believe in smiled on him, he'd find an artefact in this place himself. Something very precious to Voldemort; something that couldn't have turned to ash in Fawkes's flames. Something that could grant Voldemort Nagini's centuries, all over again. . . . If he could find that, find her stone, then it almost wouldn't matter what Dean found out, or where all that dragons' blood was, because he would be holding the most valuable half of the unanswered equation in his hands.

And Voldemort, or whoever was organising all this on Voldemort's behalf, would have to come through him to get it.

It felt cold in the dining room, even colder than outside, or maybe that was just him. Harry was still shivering from the chill of the Disillusionment Charm, occasionally violently. He wished he could stop. But that was nothing, really, compared to the other things he'd like to stop; and so he pushed the shivering aside, with the headache, and the dizzy spells, and the tiredness that had come in waves since the graveyard, pulling at him slowly, threatening to drag him down. Far, far down.

He heard something, something very soft, behind a door just to his left. For the first time inside this house, Harry heard a sound that he himself had not made.

Carefully, so, so, so carefully, Harry reached out and cracked open the door.

He heard a rustle. He didn't see anything at all.

Harry made a slow pass with his wand, trying to see into the corners of the little room. It was a butler's pantry, with dusty dishes, rusty tins, and blackened pieces of silver jumbled on the shelves and floor.

It could have been a mouse, Harry thought, a mouse dragging something back to its hole. Could have very easily been a mouse.

He wished he had seen it, and not just to ease his mind. It would simply have been nice to have seen something living and breathing and normal and alive in this house.

Harry left the dining room and finished his inspection of the ground floor. He didn't hear anything else, and what he saw was the same in every room. There was dirt, there was dust, and underneath it all there were nice things gone to ruin. But nothing else; no footprints on the floorboards, no sign of books being read in the library, or chairs sat on in any of the sitting-around rooms, or fires kindled in the hearths. Nothing to see, not even the squiggle-slide of snake tracks.

But if feelings counted for anything. . . the longer Harry spent in this house, the longer he moved through the silent rooms, the more he felt like he wasn't alone.

The front hall was more than any other a room of shadows, thanks to the high ceiling, and here Harry held up his wand, trying to catch a glimpse of what was above. He could see dark panelling, and carved moulding, intricate and elaborate. They seemed to be very ordinary carvings, though, just pretty designs, nothing fantastical, nothing magical, nothing dangerous.

But that was the thing about this house. There was a feeling of wrongness about it, to be sure, but it wasn't because of anything that could be seen; it just hung in the air, waiting.

He crept up the steps, placing his feet carefully. The staircase was stone, marble probably, and his footsteps sounded far too loud. Harry felt exposed, and not just because of the complete openness of the curving staircase, or the fact that anything might be waiting in the darkness of the landing above. It was more the feeling that something was right there, behind him, just over his shoulder. Something that didn't want to be seen.

Or someone?

Harry's heart thudded faster as he reached the upstairs hallway, and not as a result of the climb. Maybe it was because these were the bedrooms - private rooms - rooms of secrets and hidden things - that did it, that made his body feel it was on the verge of discovering something. Or maybe it was because of the shadow he had gained, which should perhaps make him afraid, but it didn't really, it just made him feel he was getting somewhere, finally getting somewhere. . . .

He reached for the first doorknob, and for the first time in this house found himself holding his breath. He knew why: one of these doors would open onto a room he'd seen before, a long time ago. And on the one hand it was silly to think history might repeat itself, and Voldemort might be sitting in front of a fire somewhere on this floor, waiting; on the other, didn't he himself tend to sit in the same chair every night, and sleep on the same side of the bed? Weren't people creatures of habit, even people who weren't really people anymore?

The room was a bedroom; and yes, it had a fireplace, and yes, there was a large, high-backed chair in front of it. But the chair was empty, he could see that from here, even by wand-light. And he couldn't have said if it were the same room or not; it was so many years now, and only the memory of a dream then.

The next room was empty, too. And the next. And the next.

Except for his shadow, which lurked cold and close, not quite solid, but definitely there and taking up space behind him. He spun on his heel, once, but saw nothing, not even out of the corner of his eye; he stuck out a hand and felt the chill. Whatever it was, it wasn't exactly hiding, but it wasn't interested in being seen either.

Harry reached for the last doorknob and paused, his hand shaking on the worn metal. He heard his heart in his ears, and his head felt unsteady. Spinning out of control of himself, that's what he was doing; he knew it, and he couldn't stop.

In the very last room there was furniture; there was himself; and there, closer than ever, just right there, was his shadow.

And Harry spun, and spun, and finally let go.

"Is that you? Show yourself. Tell me you're there. I know you can do that, even if you don't have a body to show. Do it."

"I'm going to find it, you know that, don't you? I'm going to destroy everything you need. I'm going to find your rock and throw it into the sea. I'm going to dig up your father's bones and blast them into a million pieces and dissolve them in acid. I'm going to finish you."

When Harry stopped he was shivering, and panting; his blood was boiling and he was freezing all over. The dark room and his shadow answered him with silence. He was tired of silence.

The closest solid thing to him was a chest of drawers; he reached out, grabbed a drawer, and threw it hard against the wall. Old wood splintered and moth-eaten clothes scattered across the floor. He kicked through them, his feet meeting nothing but fabric. The lamp on top of the dresser was next; it smashed easily into pieces, pieces that hid nothing.

He kept going. Harry threw and smashed and swore and broke and destroyed a room long dead, his shadow watching, watching. It was on the mantel that his hand caught something sharp; the fresh, biting pain was what stopped him, finally. He held his cut left hand in his right and stood still, looking at the blood springing up and listening to it sing in his ears.

He was so tired.

There was a sensible way to do this.

He might only get one chance before his shadow adapted, or attacked. It would count. Squaring his shoulders, Harry whipped round shouted and with every bit of magic in him, yelled, "Revelio!"

He saw nothing but darkness; and the darkness took him.

*

Hermione was frustrated and unsettled, and she didn't like it. With Percy out of the picture, the group needed a new partner at the Ministry, and they weren't able to decide on who to approach. No-one said that perhaps the time wasn't right yet, that maybe they should wait a little while before contacting anyone else. . . but Hermione knew what some people were thinking, and it didn't help when Sally-Ann, still looking embarrassed, reported that Harry Potter had declined to give her an interview. She spoke of time-consuming Ministry regulations, but everyone heard something more like the truth: Harry Potter didn't want to do this right now.

Hermione could feel the room grow colder at that moment; she could feel the energy slip out of it.

The other thing no-one said was that they blamed Hermione for anything. . . but she was the one that had done the most work with Percy, and she was the one that knew Harry Potter, and oh, she knew what they were thinking.

Frustrated, unsettled, and angry too; by the time Hermione went home, everything she'd felt as she'd walked away from Harry had been rekindled, and was burning high.

Her flat was cold and quiet, and Hermione poured herself a glass of water, and drank it with her eyes closed. Harry Potter could do anything, she thought. He could tear everything down around her because he thought it was right, and because he thought there was safety in the destruction. He could take the explanation, the why, the knowledge away from her, and lock it away, just out of sight, just behind his eyes.

Where she still couldn't reach.

Hermione placed her glass on the counter. No message on the answerphone. No owl waiting. Harry hadn't been home yet, or Ron would have let her know.

So a grown man who'd had a falling out with his friends has been away for a couple of days, she thought, being reasonable, trying not to care. How unusual is that? Silly to worry. Just silly.

She gathered up Crookshanks and went to bed, put her head on the pillow, and turned out the light. And there in the dark, something waited: the knowledge that Harry had been gone from them too many times, for too many terrible reasons, for any worry for him to ever be silly.

And it wasn't just her own worry that waited. The worry he'd shown for her, that was there as well; whatever the cause, his fear was a virus and she was catching it, the strain thriving in the gaps in her understanding, growing, threatening to consume her if she didn't find out where he was and why he was gone as soon as possible.

Hermione closed her eyes, because her mother had once told her that lying still and resting was just as good as sleeping. She believed it now just as much as she'd done then, eight years old and panicky with insomnia.

Not at all, in other words, but it was a fiction that wore well in the night.

Hermione left her bed at five; she left her flat at six. She could do this by phone, and should do, really, but it was too early still and she needed to feel busy. She walked, then took the Underground, then stopped off at a little bakery and bought a bag of pastries, both to using up more time and giving her an offering. Not so much for Ron (for one thing, his early-morning fireplace inspection was still fresh in her mind), but for Sarah, because Ron's nights didn't just belong to him any more, and neither did his mornings.

Ron answered her knock with bleary eyes and morning hair. He didn't ask what she was doing there, or make a fuss about the earliness of the hour. He just said, "Haven't heard anything," and threw himself onto the sweet buns.

"I was thinking you could send Pig -"

"Yeah, he's on his way to Dean and Seamus's right now," Ron said, chewing enthusiastically.

Hermione closed her eyes briefly against his manners. "Good," she said. "I'll feel better if we know Dean hasn't been home either."

"Today's the last day of work for me before the holidays. What about you? Could you stick around for Pig? Or so we'll know if Harry gets in?"

No, I couldn't, I really, really couldn't, Hermione thought. She wanted to see that Harry was okay, but she wasn't ready to see him yet, especially not on her own.

"Oh, hey - you done with the shower?"

Hermione blinked at this, realised Ron obviously wasn't talking to her, and turned round. Sarah had come into the room, looking ready for the day in jeans and a jumper.

"Yeah, your turn." Sarah walked over to Ron, stretched up on tiptoe as if to kiss his cheek, then seemed to rethink things at the sight of Ron's furious jaw-work. She dropped down off her toes, and patted him on the arm.

So they are all right. Hermione suddenly felt absurdly proud of Ron, and smiled.

Ron grabbed one last bun, waved it at Hermione and Sarah, and disappeared into the back of the flat.

"Sorry about this," Hermione said, uncomfortable, partly because she was as in the way as she'd feared she'd be, and partly because Ron and Sarah's easy domesticity pricked at her. A reminder of what she had lost, not when Harry took off, but before, when they'd argued. Or more accurately, of something she'd never truly had. . . . "I'm intruding on your morning."

"Oh, not at all," Sarah said, moving to the refrigerator and opening the door. "I'm glad you came. Ron hated for no-one to be here, that's why we came over last night, but he can't get out of work today and neither can I. Not that I would be much good, really. Ew, that milk's awful. Wonder how old the juice is?"

"Sarah -" Hermione broke off, uncertain how much she could say - how much Sarah really knew - or what she even wanted to say.

Sarah closed the refrigerator. "Sorry, I'm babbling," she said, turning to Hermione. "But. . . I didn't realise it was possible to feel worse about this than I did, 'til I saw you."

"Don't," said Hermione. "It's not your fault."

Sarah shrugged. "He's my brother."

There was a noise at the door, someone knocking, sharp and loud. And even though her mind was very logically aware that Harry wouldn't knock on the door of his own flat, Hermione's heart jumped.

She swallowed against all her nerves, against the God-I-hope-it's-him's and the God-I-hope-it-isn't's, and went to the peephole. The person outside the door was Dean, and he was alone.

Hermione wrenched the door open. "Do you know where Harry is? What's going on? Is he all right?"

"Hell," Dean said, moving past her into the flat, "I was planning to ask you all those questions. Every single one."

"I'll go get Ron," Sarah said, already halfway out of the room.

Hermione pinned her attention on Dean. Facts, time to gather facts. "When did you last see Harry?"

"Two nights ago. Well, guess you'd say mornings ago, it was well after midnight. We were finishing up an operation, and instead of coming back to Headquarters with me, he said he had to go take care of some things." Dean shrugged. "Then he left."

"What was he like when you last saw him?"

Dean paused. "Not good. If Moody had seen him, he'd be on leave again."

"What's going on?" That was Ron, half-shaven and mostly-dressed.

Hermione spoke before Dean could. "Short version, Harry ran out on him as well. Dean, where do you think he went?"

Dean hesitated, his eyes flickering around the room.

"I'm going to go," Sarah said, into that silence. "Ron -" she went over and kissed his cheek - "be careful for me. Hermione -" she reached out, squeezed Hermione's hand, and dropped it, "try not to worry too much. From what Ron's told me, Harry can take care of himself."

"Then Ron's not telling it right," Hermione said, shaking her head. And he shouldn't have to.

Hermione blinked once, hard, as the door closed behind Sarah. She and Ron and Dean instinctively drew closer together in the grey morning light, getting down to business. Dean spoke first. "I've no idea where he went," he said. "I hoped you'd know. Reckon you two can guess better than me, at least. You know the inside of his head a lot better than I do."

"Yeah, maybe," Ron said. "But I have the feeling you know a lot more about whatever it is that's bothering him these days than we do."

"He thinks Voldemort's back," Hermione said.

She wasn't looking at any one or anything particular when she said the words, just the cut-stone certainty in the back of her mind. Because Dean was right: he might know all the ins and outs, mysteries and clues and players, but she and Ron knew Harry.

She looked at her friends now. Dean was nodding, agreeing; Ron's face was blotched red and white. She couldn't help taking that as a little victory. Harry had told him more than he'd told her, but Ron was still the one to be surprised.

"Now he hasn't said that -" Dean began.

"Oh, he wouldn't say," Hermione murmured.

Dean visibly took a breath. "But if you're right - then he's wrong," he said. "Had a breakthrough in a case last night, and learned some stuff, and yeah. I think he's wrong."

"You're certain?" Ron asked sharply.

"Well." Dean shrugged. "I'm almost positive. But Harry's the expert, isn't he?"

Ron was nodding, still looking shell-shocked. "If Harry Potter thinks he's back," he said quietly, almost to himself, "how can the rest of the world not?"

"He's right about one thing," Dean said. "This thing that's going on, it has the potential to be bad. Very, very bad. I need to go tell Moody what I've learned, but I don't fancy going without Harry." He shuddered. "Really don't."

"Do you think he went looking for him?" Ron asked.

Couldn't turn to you, couldn't turn to me, couldn't turn to work. "Yes," Hermione said.

"Okay," Ron said, swallowing, "okay, where would he look?"

Dean looked at the two of them, hope and desperation in his eyes. "Please tell me you have some ideas."

"I have a few," said Hermione.

*