Something Better Than This

Chapter 1: King's Cross

A long, low whistle vibrated off the fog around the Hogwarts Express, and Harry Potter woke groggily to find that the scar on his forehead was pressed hard against cold glass, his neck was stiff, and Hermione was prodding him nervously in the shoulder. "Ow," he complained.

"Sorry," said Hermione.

"Not your fault." He sat up and tried massaging his neck with one hand and his forehead, aching for completely mundane reasons for once, with the other. "What is it?"

"We're almost to Kings Cross, mate," Ron told him from beside Hermione. Now that he was paying attention, Harry could feel the pull forward as the train slowed down. "I can't believe you slept through all that. Just as well, though."

"All that?" Alarm surged up, making Harry feel considerably more alert. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened, exactly. But the fog's been worse than it was last summer." Ron frowned uneasily out the window. Thick grey fog swirled up against the glass.

Last summer, the Dementors had been breeding.

"Ugh." Harry wiped a clear streak in the condensation on the window. It didn't improve the view. "Can't say I'm sorry I missed the scenery. I didn't mean to ignore you two, though."

"We didn't get here until halfway through the trip," Hermione said. "Luckily some of the DA took turns guarding you."

"Guarding me?"

"Not everyone who doesn't like you got spirited off by their parents or went to be Death Eaters," Hermione hissed, then resumed a normal tone of voice. "Considering all that happened at the end of the year, we thought it would be best to have a prefects' meeting on the way back -- with the new ones Professor... Headmistress McGonagall had named before we left. Of course it turned into a discussion of what would happen to Hogwarts, and whether it would be open in September, and half a dozen other things. That was the main one, though, and we didn't like to say we weren't coming either way. It would have given the wrong impression, though I suppose we'd better give Professor McGonagall notice in time for her to be able to replace us. I hate to think of its closing...." She trailed off as the train chugged to a stop. "Well, we'd best take our trunks and go on."

"You were well out of the meeting," Ron added, hauling his trunk away from in front of Harry's. "Some of the others were saying the stupidest things. Hermione lit right into them, though, be proud."

"Doesn't Hermione always?" Harry said, splitting a grin between them.

Hermione was perched on her trunk, looking rather pink. "Well, I did my best. I was quite surprised when Theodore Nott said he didn't think it should close -- he's replaced Malfoy, you know --"

"His father's a Death Eater, too," Harry interrupted in a low voice, frowning.

Hermione shrugged and stood up again, levitating her trunk but keeping a hand on it. "Yes, well, Blaise Zabini's mother hasn't decided one way or another about whether to send him back this autumn, or hasn't said at any rate, and Crabbe and Goyle would hardly be any better. Nott's generally been very close-mouthed; I was almost as surprised that he spoke at all as by what he said." Hermione looked thoughtful. "He referred to making Hogwarts into the fortress it was first intended to be. I'm not sure what he meant by that."

"Who knows what a Slytherin's thinking?" Ron muttered as they maneuvered out of the compartment and into the jostling crowd. It was sparser than most years, but nobody really wanted to step out into the oozing fog, so things kept backing up. "He could just mean it's the best place to defend, which it probably is, at least until you start wondering how many secret passages and things like Vanishing Cabinets we don't know about. Or for all we know he might think it used to be a fortress against Muggle-borns or some rot like that."

"According to Hogwarts: A History," Hermione said, "the castle was originally fortified in case of attacks by Muggles -- I understand Muggle attitudes toward magic at that time were a great deal less dismissive, obviously, but also, erm, highly variable, and the Muggle-repelling charms and other concealment spells that currently keep it looking like an old ruin and keep anyone from investigating it too closely were actually invented much later. When I was looking for the information Hogwarts: a History omits about house-elves," she added with a bit of a bite to her words, "I also learned that they might have had reason to worry about attacks from magical guilds, though it's not clear if any ever took place. Most magical training up until then was done by family members, or family friends, but the most advanced studies were guild-based, and the guilds could be very protective of their secrets, so they weren't very happy that the Hogwarts Four had learned quite a few of those secrets or discovered them independently and intended to pass them on--"

"Breathe!" Ron interjected.

Hermione, who had been running out of air but not steam, stopped to gulp in a breath.

Harry seized the opportunity to ask hastily, "Wait a second. Okay, Hogwarts might have annoyed other wizards way back when; I remember Mr. Fortescue telling me about that once..." back before he'd been attacked "but I've got a different question -- does Hogwarts: A History mention anything about items that belonged to the Founders? That might still be around? Left to their descendants, or something?" He wondered if he should have avoided asking about possible Horcruxes in public, but on the other hand, it wasn't exactly going to make anybody wonder to hear Hermione gabble about history.

Hermione blinked. "Well, there wouldn't be many that could be reliably identified, after all this time. Hogwarts is the big one, of course, and there are probably any number of objects there that the Founders had something to do with. The Sorting Hat was Gryffindor's, to start off with, of course; you remember it said so itself our fourth year. And there's the sword you used.... I saw mention of a few jewels that were supposed to be heirlooms of the line, but they belonged to someone who married into the family later on. Most scholars think Godric himself may have been dead by then, so you couldn't even say he handled them. Now, the others... I believe Hufflepuff passed down a cup to her descendants that was supposed to detect and nullify poisons."

"Sounds dead useful," Ron put in.

"I've seen... er... heard of that one," Harry said. He'd told them about seeing it in the Pensieve.

Hermione nodded. "Yes, well. You'd think Slytherin would have made a point of heirlooms, but nothing turned up for the longest time, or nothing really durable that could be verified as his. There's mention of a piece of jewelry turning up with his marking, supposedly too good to be faked, around... oh... sixty-odd years ago. I'm sorry, I've forgotten the date. It's since been lost." She lowered her voice. "Were you wondering if Voldemort might have something dangerous of his? Something else?"

Harry shook his head. He hadn't expected Hogwarts: A History to tell him where the lost Horcrux locket was, though he still carried the fake one and the note. He was a little surprised it was even mentioned. "Actually, I was wondering about Ravenclaw."

"Oh! I believe most of her surviving items are various books. I'd love to read one someday; she was brilliant. Let me see. It's said she claimed to have built the largest sundial in the world, but never told anybody where it was."

"That's a little bigger than I was thinking."

"I thought it might be. There's supposed to have been some sort of lamp, too. And a quill pen, which was eventually acquired by Hogwarts and is used to write down the names of prospective students. And... Harry, are you sure you wouldn't like to look at the list for yourself? There are an awful lot of rumored ones, and there's a whole section on the evidence for and against."

"Yeah," Harry said distractedly, "maybe I should." It didn't sound as if Hogwarts: A History was likely to be much help. Too many possibilities and most of them probably fake. He wished he'd put on a jumper when he'd changed into Muggle clothing. They were nearly to the door, and he felt as cold as if it were late autumn instead of midsummer. Sluggish and discouraged and as cold as --

The wind howled. The fog closed in. Harry abandoned his trunk and burst past the last few students in front of him, leaping onto the platform with his wand out and a bellowed "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" as he dragged sunlight on warm red hair to the front of his mind.

The silver stag ripped free from his wand and charged, catching the first of the Dementors on its antlers and flinging it into the rest. What had looked like fog seconds ago blackened, billowed, and crashed backward to the ground as the stag charged onward, then arced around in a wide loop.

The air lightened. As Harry's Patronus faded, however, the miasma pressed inward again. Sick dark grays swallowed the platform and teased at the edges of his vision. Harry caught his breath, gagging as Dementor-mist snaked into his throat, and cast another; screams were rising from the younger students and many of the older ones, from parents -- but here and there among the chaos rose a bright shout, and two of the voices closest behind Harry fueled his second Patronus. A little dog worried at the ragged hems of Dementors too slow to flee; an otter swooped through the air on its belly and scattered them like ninepins. He saw a swan trumpet -- Cho had found she had some fierce joy left after all, it seemed -- and radiant white wings bore down on the fog, veering off from a gigantic cat, no, a lioness, with a strangely warm tinge to its silver glow. He nearly tripped over a snake -- now who did that belong to? -- and was almost sure he saw a flamingo and a platypus running around together.

Harry changed direction abruptly, and somebody's hummingbird Patronus drove its beak into his eye. Everything exploded into searing white; what vision remained in his other eye overlapped to show him everyone on the platform lit in rainbows against blazing white light that washed out any other detail. The rainbows slipped and blurred across everything as dazzled tears swam across his eyes.

When he blinked, the fog was only a low cloud again, and it was shot through with light and lifting.

"Never thought they'd attack the platform," Ron panted, coming up beside him with both his own trunk and Harry's abandoned one. Hermione was next to him, her hair even wilder than usual with the humidity. "That's bad, that's really bad. Right in London. D'you think they were just after the students, or went across to the Muggles?"

The three of them exchanged a horrified look and rushed across the barrier.

Into utter normality. They all hastily put their wands away and tried to look as if they had not just dashed through a solid wall.

At any rate, nothing was overtly wrong. When Harry stopped to study the area, he noticed that an awful lot of people seemed to be just starting to move instead of continuing to. Too many of them were looking around as if they'd just woken up and remembered they were going somewhere, and too few seemed to particularly care.

"Don't," growled Mad-Eye Moody from next to his ear, "ever do that again."

"We were afraid the Dementors had gone after the Muggles instead," Harry said without turning. Nobody was in earshot. In fact, everyone was ignoring them now. He wondered if Moody had done something.

"They've been after the Muggles, boy." Moody sounded tired. "And we can't be everywhere. Order's doing what we can. At least they can't get at the Muggles' souls."

Harry did turn to him at that. "Can't they? Why not?"

"Well, I take it back. Long exposure can eat away at a Muggle the same as at a wizard. They can't Kiss Muggles, though. Same reason a mandrake doesn't cry unless you've got some magic in you." Moody shook his head. "We were afraid they'd come after the Hogwarts Express. Had guards on the platform. There were more of them, though... more than left Azkaban."

"Breeding," Hermione said softly. Harry thought he heard Ron add, "Ugh!"

"That about sums it up," Moody said. "You did a good job pushing them off. Picked it up before they closed in, didn't you, Potter?"

"Just barely." Harry shrugged uncomfortably. "I suppose being oversensitive to them is good for something after all."

"Constant vigilance, that's the key."

"And there are the Dursleys," Harry added. "I didn't think they'd come."

"Do you need any help with them?" Moody asked. "We'll give them the same warning as last year, if you like. As a reminder."

"No," Harry said thoughtfully, "I really don't think I do." He realized Moody wouldn't know this and added, "I mean I told them not to come. I was going to go straight to the Burrow for the wedding and only visit them later. I sent them a letter by owl." He paused. "Maybe that's why they didn't read it."

He walked over to where the Dursleys stood, looking stiff and uncomfortable among the drift of wizards and witches who looked less inconspicuous than they probably intended. "You didn't have to come get me," he said. "I thought you'd be glad to know. Didn't you get the owl? You must have read the one that said the Hogwarts Express was coming later, since you're here on the right day."

"I read your letter," Aunt Petunia said. She sounded strained and tired, and her eyes roved nervously even though her long neck didn't turn. "I didn't know what you were playing at." An angry retort leapt to the tip of Harry's tongue, that he wasn't playing, that there was nothing of play in what he had to do -- but her next words, though quick and sharp and just a little shrill, set him back. "Dumbledore said you had to come back one more time. I wasn't going to be responsible for leaving you at the train station instead!"

Harry took a breath. "You're right. He did say that. And even if he's dead, I will. I've been invited to a wedding; it's in less than a week. I'll come back once before my birthday. And then I'll leave you alone." He just hoped Voldemort would, but he didn't voice that thought.

If he had his way, Voldemort would be leaving everybody alone before long.

"If this Dumbledore's dead," grumbled Uncle Vernon, "why do you have to come back at all?"

"Dumbledore's not the one we had to be afraid of," Aunt Petunia said. "Not the most."

Harry looked at her in some surprise and nodded. "Because Voldemort isn't dead," he said. "Because Dumbledore wanted me to. Because if I come back one more time we might all be safer than if I don't."

Uncle Vernon glared. "We'd have been safer if you'd never been left on our doorstep!"

"Yes," said Harry, "you probably would."

Dudley stared; Uncle Vernon spluttered, apparently at a loss what to do in the face of agreement. Aunt Petunia pressed her lips together and didn't say anything.

Harry looked at them all and sighed. "I'm going to get rid of the people we're in danger from," he said, and turned away.

On his way back to where Ron and Hermione had been joined by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, he thought he heard Uncle Vernon say, "Did he just tell us he was going to kill someone?"

He kept walking, and Aunt Petunia's response was only a murmur to his ears.

Harry joined the Weasleys, trying not to look at Ginny for too long. "I'm ready," he said.

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