Harry Potter and the Horcrux Quest

Chapter 9: Now I lay me Down to Sleep

Harry helped people settle in for the night. Fleur's mother was in Percy's old room, and her grandmother was put in Charlie's room for the night. Bill and Fleur, upon the insistence of all their siblings, parents, and grandmother Zelda, had portkeyed to Egypt for their scheduled honeymoon. Charlie and George went to George's room. Percy left to go to his apartment. Hermione, Luna, Gabrielle, and Ginny were in Ginny's expanded room. Molly went to her own room.

Harry lent Hedwig to Neville and helped him write a letter to his uncle Algie informing him what happened. He also borrowed Pig to write a letter to Mr. Lovegood. After sending off the letters, the boys retired for the night.

Meanwhile, in the girls' room, sleep wasn't coming. Both Ginny and Gabrielle had lost their fathers and weren't in the mood for sleeping. Luna felt abandoned, although she didn't share her feelings with the others. Hermione was upset by the fight she had with her father before her parents left, escorted by a pair of Aurors. It was the same argument they had hashed out numerous times over the last two weeks -- why she wasn't going with them when it was so dangerous. Her mother, at least, understood that she couldn't change her daughter's mind, but her father just kept going over the same points. The Aurors had returned to the Burrow after her parents were safely in a hotel room. Hermione felt better that they weren't at home. And would feel better still tomorrow after their flight left.

Remembering their experience on the train, Luna encouraged the girls to tell stories about their fathers. It didn't seem to help, though. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe I can change the subject, she thought as Gabrielle finished a story about her father's unsuccessful attempt to teach her to swim.

"I loved my Papa," she sniffed.

"What is love?" Luna asked, grabbing something she was interested in as a new subject.

"What?" Gabrielle asked. Hermione seemed a little taken aback by the sudden change of subject.

"I just thought that maybe if we talked about something else, we could relax and fall asleep. It was the first thing that entered my mind. What is love?"

Ginny spoke with authority, "It's what you feel for that person you're going to marry."

"But Gabrielle loves her father, and you do too. So that can't be all of it," Luna pointed out.

"That's different," Ginny answered with a huff.

"Yes, it's different, but it's still love. So your definition, while true, is incomplete. If it's incomplete, what is the rest?"

Hermione spoke slowly, trying to think of all the possibilities, "Love is the feeling that we have for those people we really care about." From the tone of her voice, she didn't feel that this was a good definition, either.

"It's the question of the universe," Gabrielle said, but seemed a little hesitant about continuing.

Luna asked, "Can you really care about someone without the feeling? Have you ever been sick or tired, and still done something loving for your parents, even though you didn't feel loving. Did you still love your parents, even though you didn't feel it?"

"I remember many years ago Fleur got me up early the morning after Mama's birthday to make her breakfast in bed. I didn't want to be awake, and I was very grumpy, but I helped. Later, I apologized and was glad I didn't sleep in. But I didn't feel very good when I did it."

"That's something like Satre said, if I recall correctly. You are what you do. If you want to be a loving person, you have to act loving." Hermione's face scrunched up as she tried to remember what exactly was said.

"And Professor Ransom said that love wasn't a feeling, but a decision," Luna added.

"Tonight?" Hermione asked.

"No, we've been owling since I met with Harry. He's been giving me meanings of words in many languages as we try to figure out what love is. But he says the feelings are nice, but not the essence of love."

Ginny looked annoyed. "You're taking all the romance out of it. If I love someone, don't I feel it?"

"But that's the point. If you don't feel it, does that mean you're not in love?"

"Of course. I really liked Dean at the beginning, but then his annoying habits just built up until I couldn't stand him. So it's obvious that I don't love him."

"Dean Thomas?" Luna asked. Ginny nodded. "He's really good at drawing. I've seen him sketching pictures around school. He seemed somewhat quiet, and maybe introspective, but maybe he was just concentrating. He must have some good qualities, or you wouldn't have gone out with him."

"Well, yes. We got along great at the beginning."

"If someone asked, would you have said you loved him?"

Ginny thought for a moment, and answered, angrily, "I don't know! I don't love him. I don't even like him anymore." The conversation paused for a moment.

Luna continued, "Ron and Hermione had some terrible fights this past year. I'm surprised they are even talking to each other now. As an observer, I would have said they didn't love each other, but they got past it."

Hermione nodded and said, "If I didn't care for Ron, what he said wouldn't have hurt so much. So, I think, even when we fought, we loved each other, some."

"But if it's not a feeling, why does everyone talk like it is? I loved my Papa, and I certainly feel it," Gabrielle said.

"We're not saying that the feelings aren't part of love. They are. It's just that when you're grumpy, or tired, or angry, and you don't have the feeling, you can still be in love with someone," Luna told her.

"The ancient Greeks had more words for "love" than English does. (Sorry, Gabrielle, we are talking in English here)," Hermione said with a smile to the younger girl. "They had agape for -- oh, how to say -- intellectual love? Love with your mind. Later used for holy love. And eros for passionate love." Hermione wondered how much to say with Gabrielle there.

"Yes, Ginny's feelings toward Dean at the beginning of their relationship. The longing for your lover, the quickening heartbeat when they appear, the sadness when they leave." Hermione wondered where Luna was getting this. As far as she knew, the girl hadn't gone out with anyone. Except Harry to the Christmas party, she thought with a little wonder.

"How do you know! You've never been in love!" Ginny was still angry, but did voice Hermione's questions.
"I've been loved, by my parents. And I've loved them back. And friendship is a form of love. Harry loves me, and I love him back...."

"NO HE DOESN'T!" Ginny protested.

Luna continued as if Ginny hadn't said anything, "In friendship. And Hermione and I love each other in friendship, and Neville too. And I had a crush on Ron in third year, into fourth. That was definitely eros. I think you have too small a definition of love, Ginny."

Hermione thought it significant what Luna hadn't said. But then Gabrielle spoke up.

"But Harry rescued me when he hadn't even met me. Can you love someone you do not know?"

Luna looked at Hermione. Hermione noticed that Ginny was reacting again to something said. She had an idea, but didn't want to bring it up in present company. She decided to answer Gabrielle.

"As I said, other languages have other words for love. English, at times, seems to lump too much into that one word. Greek has philia for a dispassionate virtuous love, but contains an idea of it being to one side's or the other's advantage. Although one book I read equated philia with friendship-love."

"Isn't that a problem with these ancient languages -- they're in use for hundreds of years, and they don't have the decency to not change during that time," Luna joked.

"You're telling me," Gabrielle said. "We are one of four languages grown from the Latin seed."

"But Harry is a hero, Gabrielle," Hermione said.

"He hates being called that!" Ginny exclaimed. "If you knew him, you'd know that!"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, he hates being called that, and when you can find a better word, tell me.

"We joke about his saving people thing, but really, I think you hit it on the head. Harry has a type of love for everyone -- he wants to help everyone, even people he doesn't know. When I was injured by a really nasty spell that could have killed me, Harry rescued me. We're close friends, but he would have done the same for anyone."

"'Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous, it doesn't envy, and it is not snobbish. Love is never rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries, nor think evil. Love does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things,'" Luna recited.

Ginny looked at Luna strangely and asked, "You were quoting that. Where did you read it?"

"It's from a book called The Book," she answered.

"The Bible," Hermione corrected. "Which is Greek for book, true, but it's called by the Greek name. I didn't think many witches or wizards read it."

"They don't. Professor Ransom sent me that quote, saying it was the best definition of love he had ever read. It also describes Harry. Except the patient part. And the anger part. And some of the brooding. He seems to do that a lot. OK, so it only describes him a bit, and sometimes. But he's certainly not self-seeking. He is kind. And he hates wrong doing. So in that respect," she addressed Gabrielle, "Harry was saving you out of love. His whole saving people thing is his love for everyone -- his rejection of wrong doing. I don't think it's very much like a love that a parent has for a child, or a wife for a husband, but it's in some ways greater, and in some ways less than those."

Gabrielle yawned, and put her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes. Her accent was heavy as she was falling asleep. "All this is very interesting, but I think you make it too complicated. Love is being cared for and caring back. Like Papa and Mama, and Papa and me. Good night."

"What do you mean, greater than and less than? How can something be both more and less than something else?" Ginny asked. Hermione nodded and thought, good question, because she could feel the answer, but couldn't put it in words.

"Bollywoggles are among the most annoying household pest in existence (that doesn't actually kill you). In that respect they're definitely less important than a pet. But if you're trying to make Quasilocus potion, they're more important than any other ingredient. Lots of things are less important when looked at one way, and more important when looked at another way."

Hermione sighed. "I'll bite, what's a Quasilocus potion?"

"It lets you walk through walls. It uses the Bollywoggles power to get into your house. Didn't you ever wonder how they keep getting in, no matter how hard you try to keep them out?"

Hermione smiled, and just shook her head. "OK, but lets get back to love. How can Harry's love be greater and less than a parents love?"

"That love of everyone is impersonal. Harry saved Gabrielle because his love hated injustice, not because of some quality or knowledge of Gabrielle. It is a very great love because it encompasses everyone he meets, but doesn't satisfy a person's need to be loved. Spouses' or parents' love has a richer and deeper appreciation of the person loved. It can be directed better for the good of the person when you know the one for which you are acting out of love. Even after spending a short time with Gabrielle, I can appreciate her vitality and humor, and in friendship love her that much more because I know it. Harry knows them now, too. And his impersonal love for Gabrielle has begun to change into a love for the specific qualities of her. And in a way, his loneliness is lessened because he now loves in friendship, rather than in abstract."

"Oh, give me a break! Harry saved her because he's noble and kind, and other good attributes, not because he loves everyone. And he's stupid that way, too. If he had used his brain he would have remembered that it was all a test, and not bothered to rescue Gabrielle. If he had thought for a moment we wouldn't even be using her as an example."

Hermione interrupted, "He's not stupid. He acts before he thinks, sometimes, but in a crisis, he'll think his way out, like at the graveyard, or in the Department of Mysteries. But not stupid. But it shows just how ingrained his heroism is."

"Stop calling him that! He hates it!"

"Calm down, Ginny. He hates it because most people who say it either use it in an insulting way, like Snape and Malfoy, or they use it to sum him up, which is just as insulting because it objectifies him. None of us here will use that to sum him up. It's just a description of how he acts. Selfless, or not self-seeking, as the quote said."

"And if we didn't have Gabrielle to use as an example, we could use you. He rescued you when you said he hadn't spoken more than two sentences to you all year. His love for all people shining through again." While Hermione thought Luna's words were true, she didn't think it was a wise idea to say them like that.

"He rescued me because...because..."

"Because you needed rescuing. It's true, Ginny. When Harry rescued you he was doing it mostly for Ron, but he would have tried to rescue anyone," Hermione said. "Of course what he did when he was 12 probably doesn't enter into his feelings for you now," she added, hoping to placate the fiery redhead. All they needed was to push her over the edge and there'd be bat-bogies flying all over the place.

"'Feelings are neither good nor bad, they just are and they just come. But once they're here, they're our responsibility to hold or let go.' I don't know how many times my Mum said that to me. The feelings themselves will come, be they embarrassment, fear, anger, loneliness, or lust, and there's not a thing we can do about the feelings showing up. But once here, we can encourage them, or discourage them. And that's the choice we make that decides what kind of person we are." Luna had regained some of her "normal" dreaminess of demeanor.

Hermione looked at the blond. Part of her reacted to what was said. Responsibility for feelings? What was that? Another part of her noticed the change in Luna. Hermione got the impression that even though Luna's mind was on the conversation, some part of her was away. Is that why she seemed so "dreamy" a lot of the time? Because her memories or emotions weren't engaged in the here and now?

"My parents said you can't keep your feelings bottled up or you'll eventually explode. I must admit, I don't do a good job of letting them out. I think I exploded a few times this last year with Ron. I'm not proud of it. I guess in that respect, I've not been responsible for my feelings."

"It's not the feelings you're responsible for. It's the encouragement or discouragement of them. It's your choices you make after you get those feelings. When the other girls in Ravenclaw started teasing me after I got to Hogwarts, I was very angry, and thought of horrible things to do to them. But then I remembered my Mum's words, and I let the anger go, and didn't act on it, and didn't dwell on it, and it subsided, and went away. Now, when they tease me, I can almost ignore it without any anger at all. But it took me several years to get to that point. It's a lot of work to ignore anger. I think what you did, when you bottled it up, Hermione, is you would take it out, review the memories of what made you so angry, and so fueled the anger more. If you could have left it alone, not thought about it -- maybe even forgiven Ron -- then I don't think it would have "exploded" as you said."

Hermione sighed. "Luna, I don't know anyone else with the ability to let so much bad wash over them without it affecting them besides you. I don't know how you do it."

"Lots of practice. Lots of discipline. It wasn't easy at first, but eventually I got it. The one emotion that it doesn't seem to work with is loneliness."

No one seemed to have anything more to say after that, and Hermione soon fell asleep.

Ginny lay there thinking about the conversation. If Loony was right, then Harry's rescuing her wasn't important to their feelings. Even their feelings weren't that important. And that quote "love is not jealous" -- who ever fell in love and wasn't jealous? That was just stupid. And every friendship being love. She certainly didn't love....Wait; Luna hadn't included her when she was talking about Harry and Hermione being her friends. Well, she didn't love Luna, although she liked Hermione, she wasn't sure she wanted to be friends with Luna. Despite everything, she was still very weird. But just because she didn't think of Luna as a friend, didn't mean she couldn't be friendly with her. She sighed. Quasilocus potion! Really! She soon drifted off to sleep.

While the girls talked, activity was still going on outside. More and more Aurors were Apparating into the area. Once they had finished with the guests, interviewing them, escorting them home or to where it was possible to Apparate, they began the real job. It didn't take long searching the area to find some Dementors. Trying the process described by Hermione and others, they proved to themselves that the Dementors could be killed. When the minister, who had gone to his office to wait for the Auror's reports, found that the Dementors were still in the area, he ordered every Auror, and a good portion of the workers from other departments to Ottery-St. Catchpole to eliminate as many Dementors as possible.

There were a few magical fights at first. A few of the Death Eaters were trying to control the Dementors, but these were not Voldemort's best people, and they left when it was apparent that they were outnumbered. That left the area to the Ministry people, who killed over a hundred Dementors. They estimated that over seventy were killed at the party, but it was difficult to tell.

Janice MacAvoy, the Department of Mysteries' expert on Dementors knew that slightly more than two hundred of the demons had left Azkaban. Their breeding ability was mostly unknown, but best guesses didn't assume more than the original number. So that night they had killed between one to three quarters of the Dementors. But they knew how! This changed everything. The fears of huge populations of kissed Muggles probably wouldn't come to pass. They'd have to set up hunter squads -- people well practiced with the Patronus spell. If she had her way, there wouldn't be any returning to Azkaban.

The Burrow was quiet for an hour or so after the girls fell asleep. They were suddenly awakened by screams from the floor above. Luna, who had been a light sleeper since her mother died, was the first into her bathrobe and up the stairs. Charlie was coming out of the other bedroom on the third landing when Ginny appeared, and they both raced up the stairs together. There were others stirring in the house. When they reached Ron's bedroom, they were met by a strange sight.

Ron and Neville were standing beside the bed Harry had been sleeping in looking lost. Harry was clutching his forehead and screaming, his body jerking spasmodically. Somehow Luna had gotten Harry into a hug, but when his hands went back to his head it wrapped around her neck squeezing her throat against his shoulder, choking her. Since Harry was sitting up in bed, it looked like he was dragging her on to the bed by his arm around her neck. Ginny ran over to Harry and threw her arms around him.

"Harry! Harry! What's wrong?" she asked, trying to push Luna away from him.

Charlie moved to the tangled teenagers and physically extracted Luna from the choking embrace. She stood by, simultaneously coughing, and trying to take big gulps of air.

"Well, that didn't help," she gasped.

Hermione was holding a clutching Gabrielle and said, "It's Voldemort! Something is happening, and it's causing Harry a lot of pain."

Harry suddenly stopped screaming, and collapsed on the bed, curling into a fetal position. As he fell down, Ginny lost hold of him. When he curled up, she really didn't have anything she could hug, so she sat near him and looked on helpless. He croaked out an explanation.

"Voldemort ... Crucio-ing Crab ... Goyle ... Nott ... others ... for losing the Dementors. No one knows what happened. They're sure that everyone ... at party wasn't kissed. He also thinks ... Malfoy deserted. He didn't return with the others after the Aurors attacked."

"When he uses Crucio, you feel it?" Luna asked.

Harry nodded. "When he's really mad. And he's really mad now. He's been biding his time waiting for tonight's attack for a couple of weeks, and as far as he knows, it went wrong, and he's lost the Dementors. He doesn't know that some of them have been destroyed."

Molly summoned a washcloth and used the pitcher of water in the room to get it wet. She started wiping Harry's face. She noticed how hot his scar was, and started concentrating on that. Luna squatted on the other side of the bed, rubbing Harry's back.

Fleur's grandmother came in to the room. She glided over to Harry and moved Luna out of the way. She reached to his forehead, and put her hand on it. Her hair started blowing in a non-existent wind, and the men in the room realized she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Molly looked at her in annoyance and was about to say something when Harry moved. He uncurled, and visibly relaxed. Zelda looked at Molly and asked for help getting Harry settled again. Her hair stopped blowing, and the men wondered why they had been so attracted to the old woman, good looking as she was.

As she, Luna, and Molly got the sleeping Harry under the blankets, she spoke in French. Luna translated.

"It is a Veela power. They use it to put their babies to sleep. It usually only works on family, but by the joining of the families, she was able to do it."

"But Harry's not in our family," Ron pointed out.

"He's been an unofficial Weasley for years, hasn't he? Mrs. Weasley mothers him and treats him like a son. You and the twins consider him like a brother. Even Bill and Charlie do. And your father cared for him like another son. You made him part of the family. So somehow, Mrs. Sapientiae could use her magic on him. He's sleeping, so we better go."

She got up and started moving towards the door. Zelda gave her a smile and a "Merci." She smiled back and when she got to the door, she took Hermione and Gabrielle with her down to the third level. Zelda followed, then the rest of the household. Ron and Neville looked at each other, shrugged, and they too, went back to their beds. As he was lying there, Ron realized that George hadn't shown up.