Apples

On a tiny island in the center of the Otter River, hidden among the reeds and willow trees, there stood a small stick cottage with a reed-thatched roof, which would not have looked out of place in the days of Alfred the Great. Muggles never saw it, but then, Muggles never see anything. It was as much a piece of Ottery St. Catchpole's landscape as Stoatshead Hill, and far less remarkable to their untrained eyes.

But wizards knew about the little cottage, and the wizened denizen who lived there. Little was known of the elderly woman, save that she had always been there. "Not really always," distant relatives would remind their local family members when the subject came up at reunions and Christmas get-togethers. "No one could really live somewhere for always. That's impossible!"

The locals would nod, and tell them that of course they were right. But some of them -- the thoughtful ones with clockwork brains -- would think back and remember their grandparents telling them stories that had been told to them by their grandparents... And they would wonder.

And then forget.

She lived in the reeds with her cat and her owl, and pruned her apple trees. She grew all kinds of apples -- shiny red, mellow gold, and burnished green with blushing cheeks. Some were tart to taste, others sweet as honey, and all of them would have filled the hand of a full-grown man. She never sold them, and no one ever asked for a taste, but enough had bobbed across the water to eager children's hands for everyone to know that a single bite from one of the hermit's apples was as filling as a whole Christmas feast.

She was quite the oldest witch anyone could think of, outside of Nicholas Flamel and his wife. Some even questioned if perhaps she was older; but they only ever said it in jest; because of course, that was impossible.

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Ron Weasley stared across the Otter River and thought about drowning.

He didn't want to drown, but how could he fight it, when water wasn't the culprit? You-Know-Who had come back with a vengeance, Harry was suicidal, Hermione was starting to fill out her sweaters, and Ginny was going through boyfriends faster than he went through Quidditch magazines. His O.W.L. scores were due any day now, and his mum had been on edge ever since the attack at the Ministry of Magic. She never let him out of her sight; this rare respite on the riverbank was sore won. He'd have to endure her shrieking and terrified anger as soon as she next laid eyes on him. Ron Weasley was drowning in a tide of Real Life that was threatening to sink him like a stone, and someone had weighted his boots with lead.

Closing his eyes, the young man sighed and leaned his head back against the tree trunk that was supporting his back. It was an old tree, with huge, knobby roots that acted like a natural lounge chair. He'd come here often as a child, to hide away from the teasing of his older brothers and the wailing of his little sister. It was his private getaway and he intended to enjoy every minute of his temporary escape, sitting here listening to the gentle lapping of the lazy river.

"Apple?"

Ron's head snapped up as the creaky voice broke his silent reverie. An elderly woman hovered over him, dressed in black, wearing sensible black shoes, with steely gray hair pulled back in a bun and held fast beneath a black scarf. She was round as an embroidery hoop, with laughing blue eyes that seemed almost violet in the afternoon light. One wrinkled hand was extended towards him, clutching a rosy red apple the size of a grapefruit. "You're not named Snow White, are you?" the elderly woman asked, with a little chuckle that sounded like squeaky hinges on a cellar door.

Ron blinked in confusion. "No...?"

"Good. Then you have no reason to say no to accepting an apple from an old woman." She waddled toward him, dropped the apple in his lap, and set herself down on one of the gnarled roots. She didn't have far to go -- she couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall.

Ron picked up the apple but didn't bite into it. "You're the woman from the island, aren't you?" he asked, squinting as though trying to remember her face. "The hermit."

Another cackle. "I prefer recluse," she corrected him.

A blush warmed his cheeks. "Sorry," he apologized.

"Don't go apologizing, child. I've been called worse in my day, and that's fact." She settled the skirt of her sturdy black dress around her and leaned forward on her knees. "I saw you looking miserable all the way from my island and thought I'd come see what's got a fresh-faced young lad moping around on such a fine morning. In my day young men the likes of yourself would've been making mischief and thieving carrots from garden patches on a day like today. In my experience people don't change all that much, even when time passes. That is, unless something makes them change."

Ron blinked at her. "Don't you know what's going on?" he asked.

"Enlighten me."

"Vol- I mean, You-Know-Who's come back!"

"Who's that then?"

Ron felt his jaw drop. "You don't know?" he asked in frank disbelief.

The elderly woman shook her head. "I don't hear much on my island," she said, eyes twinkling, "and I don't hold truck with gossip I get from the birds. I guess you could say I Don't Know Who. Do tell."

Ron opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again to say, "Did you say you talk to the birds?"

"Never said such a thing."

"Oh..."

"I said the birds talk to me. No good trying to talk back to them -- they've got the attention span of a candle wick, except when it comes to gossip. They'll twitter on and on about the hatchlings in the tree over from theirs and how the robin three branches up has the reddest breast they've ever seen, but just try to get them to pay attention to a bit of solid news for more than thirty seconds at a time and you lose them completely. Not owls, though. Owls'll pay attention till you feel ice water down your back."

Ron blinked again. It seemed the only sensible answer to what he'd just heard. Funny, he thought, she didn't SEEM like a nutter when she sat down...

"This You-Know-Who," she said, breaking the silence. Ron blinked, blushing a little when he realized he'd been gaping at her. "He's a bad bit of business I imagine?"

Ron nodded. "Um... Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, bad business. Worst sort of business, actually."

"Killing type of business?"

Ron swallowed, feeling a cold fist settle in his stomach. "Yeah."

"Where'd he got to?"

"What?"

"You said he was back. Back from where? Holiday?"

Ron blinked again. It was making his eyes water, all this blinking. "No," he said, shaking his head with surprising vehemence. "No, one of his spells... Well, I suppose you could say it backfired a few years back. Almost killed him. A lot of people thought it had killed him. They didn't want to believe it when he came back." He was surprised by the venom in his voice as he said that last bit. Idiots, he thought vindictively. Things would be different now if they'd believed us straight off! Harry wouldn't be so angry, those Death Eaters wouldn't have escaped from Azkaban...

Sirius would still be alive...

He became aware of a whistling sound to his left, and when he looked in that direction he saw that the old woman was sucking air through her teeth in the manner that all old ladies have, right before they're about to say something like, Wellll, let me tell you about the price of sausages in Switzerland, or When I was a girl, we had to walk to school uphill both ways, or If you was to come to me with news of a resurrected Dark Wizard, I'd've had a few choice things to tell you about it, believe you me.

She clucked her tongue; one sharp, hollow sound. It made Ron jump.

"People don't like to believe that sort of thing," she said, in an oddly introspective voice. "They don't like to believe it."

"What?"

"That bad things can come back from the dead. They like to think that once something's got itself a nice patina of age, it means it's gone for good. Everyone always forgets the dictators because they expect they've learned their lesson and they won't be silly enough to let another one rise to power. Course they also forget the simple fact that forgetting the tyrant means you forget the lesson, too."

Ron tried to wrap his head around this. He didn't quite understand what it meant, but it sounded good; the sort of thing Hermione would say. "Yeah, well," he hedged, "like I said, everyone thought he was dead. No one really thought he'd come back." He didn't know why he was defending them, except that he remembered a time when he'd wanted to believe You-Know-Who was dead and gone.

"No one?" the old woman asked with a sharp look.

Ron thought of Dumbledore and his foresight in handing Harry over to the Dursleys. He thought of Mad-Eye Moody and his mantra of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He thought of Barty Crouch, Jr., and Professor Quirrell, and Peter Pettigrew.

"Well... most folks," he mumbled, looking away, feeling himself blush a bit.

"Yes, I expect there were a few who remembered the lesson," the elderly woman said, leaning back on her tree root and looking out across the Otter River. "I expect there were some who knew that phoenix's aren't the only ones that rise from their own ashes." She chuckled slightly. "Course, I expect there were one or two in there who remember the even deeper lesson, eh?"

Ron looked up again, frowning. "What's that?" he asked, intrigued.

She leaned toward him, broad, lined face twisted with a matronly smile. "That for every tyrant that falls, there's someone who gave him a push," she imparted in a coarse whisper, laying her finger against the side of her nose. "Eh?"

Ron blinked, and again he saw Dumbledore setting Harry on the Dursley's front stoop. "Yeah..." he murmured, nodding faintly as he looked into her dancing violet eyes. "Some remembered."

"That's all that matters then, isn't it?" she said, sitting back again. "See, you'll never get rid of the bad ones. They always float to the top, or end up hanging around in the bottom like a rotten apple. Somehow they manage to stake their place in the world and there's nothing for it but to toss it on the compost heap with all the other refuse. The only difference between apples and Dark Wizards is the Dark Wizards need a firmer hand. That's where your heroes come in, you see. They're the ones who do the throwing down."

An insane image of Voldemort dressed like a Granny Smith apple danced through Ron's head before disappearing out his right ear. "What if you don't have a hero around?" he asked, thinking of all those years before Voldemort had tried to kill baby Harry, when so many good people had tried to stop him and had died trying. "What are you supposed to do then? Suffer through and wait?"

"Oh no, son. There's always heroes about. The good ones fight even when they know they can't win, because they know they have to set an example for the future; so that when the one who can win comes along, he has precedent to stand on. You can't expect someone to go from slackjawed acceptance to full-frontal rebellion all in one go, can you? That'd be like going from a standstill to a full run without putting one foot in front of the other first."

Ron thought again of the idiots at the Ministry who hadn't believed in Voldemort's return. He thought of the time wasted, the power the Dark Wizard had been able to gather, as people like Cornelius Fudge and Dolores Umbridge had plugged up their ears and closed their eyes and refused to believe bad things were happening. Then he thought of Dumbledore, and McGonagall, and (strangely enough) Professor Snape, working diligently to do what had to be done, even as they were called delusional by everyone who seemed to be anyone outside of the Order.

"Bad business, all right," the old woman said, shaking her head and drawing Ron out of his reverie once again. She shook her head, mouth set in a grim line. "Bad business all around." Then she smiled; a quick, sparkling smile. "But, like I say, you'll always have a hero who knows what to do. You just have to believe in him, that's all."

Ron nodded, images of Harry stealing the golden egg from the Horntail still fresh in his mind. "Oh, I do," he said quickly. "I believe like you wouldn't believe."

The old woman cackled and patted him on the head. "I believe it," she said with a wink.

Ron couldn't explain it, but he felt oddly comforted by this strange conversation. Everything seemed much easier to handle if you looked at it like one pendulum swing in an ongoing cycle. They were on the downswing at the moment, but soon enough they'd be moving up again. He just had to believe; he had to let Harry know he believed. That was all part of the magic, really; belief that, in the end, everything would turn out all right. That good would prevail over evil. It was cliche, but Ron wasn't much for fancying up the truth with fresh language.

"Who are you?" he heard himself asking, but he sounded faraway, even to his own ears.

The old woman shrugged. "No one special," she said. "Just an old woman with apple trees."

"Why do you live all alone?"

"Did I say I lived all alone? I don't think I ever did. I said I'm a recluse; I didn't say I was a recluse all on my own."

Ron frowned. "But-"

"I've got sisters," she explained. "Nine of them. We sort of... take turns minding the orchard."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"So where are the others?"

"Oh... resting."

"Resting?"

"I believe that's what I said, yes."

"Resting where?"

"Here and there. They aren't so bad as my brother, of course. You can't get the lazy sod out of bed."

Ron tilted his head. "You have a brother, too?"

She laughed, and somehow it didn't seem as creaky as her past laughs. It sounded... fuller. Richer. Younger. "It does happen in families," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "Sometimes you get brothers and sisters."

"Well... Yeah, I know that." Ron blushed to the roots of his hair. "It's just, you didn't mention him is all. Where's he at?"

"Like I said, he's resting. He's really only my half-brother, but it's more or less my job to take care of him." A soft, contemplative look came across her face. "He used to be a bit of a hero himself, my brother. People just about worshipped him, he was so heroic. Good and pure and all those things people tell you heroes should be. What they didn't realize was he had a bit of dark in his soul; guilty things he'd done, shallow ways he'd acted. You've got to have a bit of dark if you're going to be a hero; it's the only way you can deal the killing blow." Her hand was idly rubbing her knee as her eyes stared at a point somewhere near Ron's right ear.

"I gave him that dark," she murmured, and Ron wasn't sure if she was saying it to him or not. "Just a kernel of it, but it was enough."

She sighed, and suddenly the world seemed a little lighter; Ron hadn't noticed how it seemed to darken as she spoke. "One day he'll get up and thank me," she said with a bright smile. "Then he'll go off heroing again, I imagine. There's no other reason to get out of bed, after all." She stood up, bones creaking. "Speaking of which, I ought to be getting back. He might be a lazy bugger who can lay abed all day, but as for me, the trees need pruning." She looked down at him, and it seemed she was looking from a much greater height than her diminutive stature would suggest. "Feeling better now?"

Ron nodded. "I think so, yeah," he admitted, and found it was the truth. Sometimes all you had to do was talk about your troubles to make them seem less pressing. Oddly enough, he didn't seem to have done much of the talking, yet he still felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help," she said with a grin. "We don't get off our island much, my sisters and I, but I like to think we're not completely out of touch with our fellow man." She ruffled his hair, then stepped nimbly over the root she'd been using as a seat. Pausing, she looked back to him and said, "I wouldn't worry about this being the end of the world, if I was you."

Ron had been just about to take a bite of his apple, but he paused with the fruit halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Your aura," she explained. "It's still black as tar. Don't worry -- the world will get through this one. You just learn from this and don't forget the lessons you're taught and you'll be all right."

Ron let the hand with the apple drop back into his lap. "How can you be sure?" he asked softly.

The old woman gave him a knowing smile, and for a second it seemed he could see through the wrinkles and the steel gray hair, to an ageless face and stunning beauty beneath; the woman this woman had once been. "Because my brother isn't waking yet," she murmured. "We've waited and waited, but still he isn't waking. When your need is greatest, that's when he'll arise again. For now, content yourself that the world has seen fit to rest this trouble in your hands, in the belief that you can overcome it with your everyday heroes. It hasn't felt it necessary to saddle you with legend."

She began to walk away and Ron stared after her, jaw hanging slack. "Hang on!" he managed to call, before she disappeared into the shadowy woods that lined this section of the riverbank. Her speech had seemed so... off. So different. More regal. More ancient. "What's your name!"

She paused, then slowly turned to gaze at him along the distance of the riverbank. And now it seemed to Ron that there was no old woman; behind the black dress and round middle he could almost make out the slim, imposing figure of a woman taller than his tallest brother, slender as a willow switch, with a face that could make a Veela clench her teeth in envy.

But just for a moment. Then there was nothing but a hermit on the riverbank, smiling.

"I've been called a lot of things," she said, and even though she was faraway, she didn't have to raise her voice to be heard. "A lot of things, and that's no mistake. But I think in the end, Ron Weasley, I've always been partial to Morgan."

He blinked.

She was gone.

Ron thought he handled the situation rather well. His eyes immediately flew to the island in the center of the river. It was still there; no cloud of magic sparkles surrounded it , and it hadn't disappeared. It was just... there. It had always been there. A piece of him knew that it always would be there.

Until her brother wakes up, he thought, and felt a shiver work down his spine. Until he comes back to do more heroing. Fiddling crickets, you mean someday it'll be worse than it is now?

The thing about that, of course, was it meant there would be another someday. You had to find the silver lining.

He took a thoughtful bite of his apple. It was sweet and juicy, and even as he munched on it he knew he'd forget all of this in a few hours. He wasn't Snow White, but he knew an enchanted apple when he tasted one; the soil around Ottery St. Catchpole couldn't grow anything as good as this apple without enchantment. He wondered if that was why so many had been allowed to bob across the water to the riverbank for so many years; to help people forget about the old woman who lived on the island.

He hadn't asked her how she knew You-Know-Who was a man. Or how she knew his name. But then, he imagined she knew more than she let on. As Hermione and Ginny liked to tell him, a woman needs to have some secrets.

He took another bite of the apple and chewed slowly. Why tell him all this if he was just going to forget anyway? It seemed fruitless.

He chuckled at his own pun and leaned back against the tree, closing his eyes as he took another bite. Already he could feel the apple working on him as a dreamy lassitude settled in his limbs; he felt a little drunk, to be honest. And flighty. Why not? he thought idly. I imagine there's not much else to do when you've been tending your brother for centuries on end, stuck on an island of apples.

THE END