Threads

Threads: Chapter 4

Lupin looked around the room with a start, and there were the wrong faces staring back at him with expressions that he should not have recognised. His mouth was dry and it seemed to him that he had been speaking for hours or days or years. He swallowed with difficulty and said, "I think that's all I can remember. Soon after that Harry was born and you know what happened after that."

Hermione seemed to be in a kind of shock. "She even gave them mirrors," she whispered.

"Yes," said Harry absently, "I've got one." Hermione stared at him for a moment and then she seemed to slump as if defeated and Harry, without thinking, put his hand over hers where it lay listless on the table. Lupin stared at it for a moment.

Draco spoke up, his voice careful and cool. "There is one thing more. Peter Pettigrew. He was friends with all of you then, wasn't he? Was he friends with Harry's mother? Good friends?"

Lupin looked uneasily at him. He could not imagine what part Draco Malfoy was playing in this scenario, whatever it might be, this scenario that was being played out in Dumbledore's own office with three children who looked like ghosts and a sense of urgency that was sickeningly familiar. He had a moment's acute regret that he had agreed to speak to them; it felt like a betrayal. But then, he had never been able to say no to Hermione.

"Very good friends," he said, after a moment. "He was terribly fond of her, and she looked out for him a bit, I suppose." He shrugged. "Even she wasn't such a good judge of character, it turned out."

He found to his surprise that Hermione was staring at him with such intensity that he had to look away. On one side of her he saw Draco go still and taut, but on the other side of her Harry looked at them all in bemusement.

"What?" Harry said and then, his eyes going from Draco to Hermione, his voice took on a faint edge of alarm. "What?"

Hermione turned to him. He could tell that she was controlling her voice for Lupin, but her face was uneven with colour and something about her staring dilated eyes made him sick with apprehension.

"All those that loved us," she said, with a peculiar intonation that Lupin knew he had heard before. "Somebody is going to play Peter."

**

"Hiding is no fun," said Charlie Weasley, crossing his arms in front of him and looking prepared to argue. He looked around the room and saw Dumbledore nod but the three children just stared at him.

"Do you have a better idea?" wondered Draco, at the same time as Hermione hissed "Do you think I want to?"

Charlie looked at them both and then at Harry who just shrugged.

"It won't be so bad. People can come and visit. Dumbledore said we'll have to study. It's not going to be for ever."

"What he means is he'll be with Hermione," said Draco gravely. Harry and Hermione both glared at him.

Charlie looked at Dumbledore for support but the old man was looking thoughtfully at Hermione and did not see him. Charlie sighed. "It's not a holiday. You can't just have anybody come and visit. It's supposed to be a secret."

"Well, only people we trust," said Harry.

Hermione, astonishingly, smiled. It was so long since she had done this that Harry found himself smiling involuntarily too. "Well that's easy. There's nobody on Malfoy's list, anyway."

"There should be nobody on yours," said Draco savagely.

"Ron and Ginny. I'd trust Ron and Ginny with my life," said Harry immediately. "Ron should be here in fact. If anyone is involved in this stupid spell, people who - who - who are involved in my life - it'd be him." Harry was not such an abnormal teenager that he did not stumble over the word 'love', but it hung unspoken in the air, all those that loved us.

"I told him," said Charlie flatly. Harry stared at him.

"You told him?"

"Yeah, and I nearly brought him up here but I wanted to talk to you first."

Harry gave him an angry look, strode to the fire and yelled into it, "RONALD WEASLEY."

Ron's head appeared rather rapidly, as if he had been waiting by a fire. "Charlie? Oh, Harry. What's going on?" His eyes looked suspiciously around the room.

"Oh, Vello," said Charlie irritably, pointing his wand at the fire, and suddenly the whole of Ron came shooting out into the hearth, spluttering with astonishment. Charlie grinned faintly.

"Give us a bit of warning when you're going to do that, would you?"

"Yes," said Draco with distaste, "We might have had naked Weasley. Or," he gave a tiny shudder "Underthings." Ron and Charlie both rolled their eyes and looked for an instant identical.

Then Ron sat up and the planes of his face settled into something new; hard and wary. "So," he said carefully. "Charlie told me about the spell. And everything else."

Harry stared at him, bewildered. "Everything else?"

Hermione stepped hastily between them. "Ron, we couldn't tell you before. About me. And Malfoy. All that stuff. We weren't allowed, and then this happened, and now - you have to know, because we have to go and hide..." Her voice was high and urgent and for a second it seemed she might cry.

Ron looked at her with a faint and awkward alarm. "OK, Hermione. I get it, it's OK. Don't fuss." He sent Harry a look which made it clear that forgiveness was still far from achieved but his eyes when they came back to Hermione were soft. "I'm - well - sorry about your parents," he said, looking briefly despairing at the inadequacy of this. Hermione nodded at him gratefully and he added "Now what the hell is this about hiding?"

"Me and Harry and Malfoy," said Hermione with the sort of grammar lapse that usually made her cringe, "We have to go into hiding now - Malfoy says I'm still a target - everybody is in so much danger..."

Ron stared at her. "Malfoy says?"

He was still sitting on the floor, looking up at her with his legs long and awkward in front of him. Now she crouched down and looked him in the face. "This isn't the time," she told him, and Harry and Charlie both watched and wondered at the way Hermione could manage Ron in the way that Hagrid managed beasts. "We can have this discussion, there is going to be all the time in the world for talking. But now we have to tell you that we have to hide - soon, now. We can't break this spell if we aren't even alive to do it. I'd just like to go with - well. Um. Your blessing, I suppose."

Ron looked up at her, startled, and then something in her face seemed to hold his gaze. "I'll come and see you," he said after a long moment, and Hermione saw the effort that it cost him. "You be safe, and then we'll work it out, this stupid fucking spell." He looked past her at Charlie. "So how are they going to be hidden?"

"Not Fidelius," said Charlie shortly.

Watching ideas dawn on Ron's face was usually amusing but this time it was horrifying, and all the old Ron that Hermione had drawn back into his face disappeared back into somebody adult and appalled. "But that's the fate spell! Harry's parents hid! You can't!"

"There's no choice."

Ron looked incredulous. "But then it will all happen again! What are you thinking?"

Draco had been watching all this with a sort of contempt, but now he said "It doesn't have to happen again if nobody knows where we are."

There was a moment's silence and in it the realisation was horrible and absolute.

"You wouldn't tell me in case I - " Ron stared at Hermione, and then at Harry. "You are going into hiding with Draco fucking Malfoy and you don't trust me to keep it secret?"

Harry said sharply and unexpectedly, "I trust you with my life. Of course I'll tell you." He looked steadily at Ron who was open-mouthed with the momentum of his derailed argument. Then both of them looked at Hermione.

"I trust you," she began slowly. "I trust you - just like Harry said. With my life. But maybe this spell is more than that...more than your own choice...maybe it will be impossible..." She stared at Ron, and suddenly the unthinkable happened and Hermione was crying, Hermione who had not shed tears for her parents or in fear of her life, because Harry and Ron were looking at her like strangers.

Charlie had been watching this with a curious look on his face, and now he interrupted. "Forewarned may be forearmed," he suggested, glancing at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore nodded. "It may, or it may not, " he agreed. "You may be able to avoid making the decisions that the spell favours, because you know them. That is the nature of free will. But the spell may outwit you. That is the nature of magic. I am not sure that I know which I would be inclined to trust in this situation."

"Will," said Harry, at exactly the same time as Draco said "Magic." Hermione said nothing.

Dumbledore looked at them, and then at Ron. "Three," he said, "Is always a difficult number."

**

Justin Finch-Fletchley looked at his companion on the bench with undisguised dismay, but he was a well brought-up boy who had been to a good prep school and had never shaken off the memory that rudeness to prefects could carry consequences involving anything from boot polish to canes, via crunchy peanut butter and sometimes baby oil. Therefore he said mildly, "Evening," though he didn't particularly think that Ron looked like the caning type, or, for that matter, the crunchy peanut butter type.

"Yeah," said Ron morosely. He had always thought Finch-Fletchley poncy if not flagrantly camp and was not inclined to waste words.

"Good spot this," offered Justin, looking speculatively out at the lake. "Peaceful. Romantic, you might say."

"Yeah."

Justin edged a little closer to Ron and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Out here for a spot of action, by any chance?"

Ron's head jerked up and he shot to the other end of the bench. "What?"

Justin gave him a faintly puzzled look. "You know. A girl." He flushed. "I'm meeting someone here," he added, seeing Ron's blank face.

"Oh, a girl," said Ron, sounding unaccountably relieved. "No." He looked out at the lake again.

Justin sighed. "You know, Weasley," he said finally. "Three is not a romantic number." He glanced slyly under his lashes at Ron. "No matter what they might say in Gryffindor tower about Potter and Granger."

"What?"

Justin had reached the end of his patience. "Oh sod off before you ruin my date, you pillock," he said irritably.

**

Ginny stamped her way down the path with the snow flying out under her feet. So. She painted the picture, didn't she? She was the seer after all, the one with the mind the dead could talk through. She had worked it out, hadn't she, and taken the potion? If it weren't for her they'd all be in a pretty mess. But of course now she had finished being useful. She wasn't clever, was she, or romantically in danger, or a sodding Malfoy with a great big signet ring and a governor for a father. She couldn't be a romantic heroine, anyway, because whoever heard of a heroine with a flat chest and intoeing feet and freckles?

She pushed her way furiously through the trees and emerged on to the lake shore. She wasn't yet a pretty girl, but she was pretty at that moment in the flush of cold and anger, had she but known it, and it did not gone unnoticed. However, all of these things were far from Ginny's mind as she stared at the lake where her brother was wading purposefully into the half frozen water.

"Ron!" She arrived at the water's edge, skidding and breathless, just as Ron brought his fisted hands down on a sheet of ice and it cracked and split about him. He swung around, startled. "What are you doing?"

Ron opened his mouth and then shut it. He had an uncharacteristic hard set to his face that made Ginny's throat tighten with apprehension. "What does it look like?" he said finally.

Ginny looked doubtfully at him. "It looks," she ventured cautiously, "Like you are walking out into the lake. In the middle of winter." She waited for Ron to contradict her but he just nodded and took a step back. The ice swayed and clattered about his chest now, and Ginny said urgently "Ron, I don't know what you're doing, but you have to stop it. The squid isn't sociable, you know."

Ron looked faintly surprised. "Yeah, hadn't thought about the squid."

"Oh so you have thought about the hypothermia, pneumonia, and slow death by burial in Howlers when I tell Mum, have you?" snapped Ginny. "You're going to freeze to death in there, you stupid git."

"Ah," said Ron. "Am I?" He looked hard at her, and Ginny looked helplessly back.

"Yes," she said firmly. Ron looked satisfied.

"No. How can I, eh? Nobody died, did they? Not when they were my age. Sirius didn't. Lupin didn't. Dunno which one of them I am but if they didn't drown then neither can I."

Ginny stared at him. "Is this an experiment?" she spluttered. "Trying to die is a way of testing the spell?"

Ron shrugged. "Kind of."

"Well it's a bloody stupid one!" shrieked Ginny. Ron put his hands over his ears and looked resigned.

"It was the only way I could think of," he said stubbornly. And it wasn't till Ginny had dragged him dripping and shivering down the path back to school with a haranguing worthy of her mother that he realised that it had worked.

**

Harry looked up and the Portkey dropped from his hands in astonishment.

"But it's..." he trailed off and stared up at the great bulk of the building rising endless into the gloom and mist. The air was wet and salty in his mouth and there was a sound that was not wind which after a moment he realised must be the sea.

"It certainly is something," agreed Draco.

"But what?" wondered Harry, too astonished to be annoyed with Draco's flippancy.

Hermione picked up the Portkey crossly and said, "Haven't you ever seen one before? It's a lighthouse."

**