The Road To Nowhere

Disclaimer: I own the plot and a few characters at best. Rowling is the real genius here.

Author's Note: Well, this is where the sh*t officially hits the fan. I hope you're liking this. Drop me a review if you are. If you're not, well stop reading then!

Oliverwoodsgirl, I dedicate this chapter to you for reasons that will become apparent as you read. Thank you for your review.

Hibiscus, thank you for your faithful reviews. I appreciate what you had to say about Lucy. She is my favorite.

Brown-sugar, I tired as hard as I could to get this out ASAP. Enjoy.

Chapter Sixteen

Ravenclaw's Chosen Heir

"I am no superman

I have no answers for you

I am no hero, oh that's for sure

But I do know one thing

Is where you are is where I belong

I do know where you go

I where I want to be

Where are you going?

Where do you go?

Are you looking for answers

To questions under the stars?

If along the way you are growing weary

You can rest with me until a brighter day

It's okay..."

Dave Matthews Band: 'Where are you going?'

Harry stood there, staring down the dark hall where Malfoy had just vanished. It was out of Harry's hands. They would all have to rely on Malfoy to keep his word. He wondered if the price they would pay for being blindly trusting where their gut told them to be suspicious would cost his dear friend, Ginny's, life. But then again, he reasoned, Malfoy had made a trade off of sorts. He'd trusted Harry with his little sister's safety just as they would have to trust him with Ginny's.

"Harry!" Hermione's voice sounded at the end of the hall. He thought he was either hearing things or going crazy. He heard her footfalls as she approached and then it dawned on him and he rolled his eyes. "Lucius Malfoy was here and Draco's gone with him, I think he's might be betraying us."

"No he isn't," Harry countered, reaching around in space, finally feeling something solid, Hermione's head, he pulled the invisibly cloak off of her. "What is it with you and stealing my things all of a sudden?"

"Oh, right," Hermione said as she realized she'd still had the cloak on. "It's lucky, really, that you left it in the library or they would have walked in on me. I can't believe that you left me in there."

"I was tired," Harry said in his defense. "What did you want me to do, drag you all the way to your room?"

"At least wake me up. Well, we're off topic now. As I was saying, I overheard them talking, Malfoy and his father. He said he didn't care what happened to Ginny. He's not who we thought he was," Hermione continued hysterically.

"It seems to me you're trying to find a conspiracy to support exactly what you think he is," Lucy said in a less than surprised voice from behind Hermione, Harry hadn't seen or heard her coming. "You were never going to give him a chance, were you? No one ever does, you've just got everyone bloody pinned down and stigmatized don't you? You're not as clever as everyone takes you for," she finished with a hurt shake of the head and turned back the way she'd come. "I'll be in the library if you need me, which you won't because I am just as guilty by association and you don't trust me either, I suppose."

Hermione stared after her with a stunned and humbled look.

Harry shook his head and followed after Lucy. He would talk Hermione out of her suspicions another time.

***

Hermione did regret that Lucy had heard everything, but she stuck by her opinion. Everything was hopelessly messed up. They were playing a waiting game in which they were supposed to sit and twiddle their thumbs and hope Malfoy would make good on the promise to bring Ginny back safely.

She didn't like relinquishing control of even the smallest of situations, especially to someone she'd never liked to begin with. She couldn't imagine why Malfoy had all of a sudden grown morals and had become a decent human being. She'd always known him, book ended by his two horrid thugs, trying to get Hagrid fired, being absolutely awful to everyone, speaking ill of Cedric Diggory, not even a week after he'd been murdered. The Draco Malfoy she'd known prior to this had no heart, he was evil, like his father. What he'd become in recent months, Hermione couldn't guess. He still seemed as stubborn and arrogant as always, but disillusioned too, a little wiser of the world and less likely to bother with the petty conflicts with herself, Harry and Ron that he'd previously seemed to live for.

He was easier to figure out and anticipate when he was like that. She couldn't imagine what might have changed him.

She shook her head.

Opening the heavy oak door and looking into the lowly lit room down the hall from Harry's, she sighed and entered. She'd made a mess of things, she would admit it, but she was too exhausted to do anything about that now.

Ron was lying spread out over the bed and she asked him softly to move to one side. He groaned and shooed her away like a pathetic wretch with a hangover. She shook her head and gave him a shove, creating enough space for herself. No covers, though, he was rolled up in them.

She lay there on her side, her head cradled on her arm. Ron had all the bloody pillows, but she didn't care. She kept replaying the moment in her mind when Harry had given her that cold, questioning look before running off after Lucy. She was frightened for Ginny, but that was no excuse for her to treat everyone else like they didn't matter. That's what he would have said, if he'd found the words. He looked too shocked to voice his disapproval.

She sniffed slightly, hoping that she wouldn't lose control over herself and start crying. Stress and anxiety got the better of her and she cried quietly for several minutes before she felt Ron's comforting arms wrap around her. He kissed her lightly on the cheek before sinking back into a deep sleep that Hermione was envious of. But it was relaxing just to lie here, even if sleep was impossible.

***

Frantic for news on his friends' whereabouts, Sirius crashed through the doors of the office casting about desperately for Corbin.

Squirrelly and sometimes annoying, there was one thing that could be said for him: he was dependable. That's why he'd been asked specifically by Dumbledore to serve as reception and dispatch for their little outfit. A meticulous and hardworking student from his same year in school, Corbin had sometimes been at the receiving end of the pranks he, James, Remus and Peter had played. He was a Hufflepuff and an easy target, Sirius reasoned. But Corbin had gotten over that; it was after all, twenty years ago.

But where was Corbin now?

It wasn't uncommon for other members of the team to be out of the office and in the field on random assignments, but Corbin could always be found at his desk.

The only thing at his desk now was a note.

Sirius picked it up and scanned the neat handwriting quickly, his breath catching in his chest painfully and swore.

It said that the meeting with the giants had been a front for an ambush. Dumbledore and Hagrid had walked into it blindly, unaware of their danger.

At the bottom it said that Dumbledore was taken to St. Mungo's.

That had to be where Corbin was as well.

Sirius had been too late to stop it.

He threw the note down and rushed out of the door he'd just entered, heading for the hospital and praying that it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

***

Harry hadn't found Lucy in the library. She'd probably expected that someone would follow her and try excusing and apologizing the entire scene away. Harry knew she must be smarter than that. She hid, and in this house, that was easy enough.

He figured that he needed only search the first floor, as he doubted the place had an elevator. That narrowed things down a bit, but not by much.

Turning the corner in a lonely part of the house where he doubted there had been any inhabitants in quite sometime, he caught a stream of light coming from a partially opened door.

He carefully swung the door open a little further, creating enough space to admit him. He stepped inside and shut the door, the hinges quiet up until now, gave him away.

Lucy, sitting with her back to the door, turned when she heard the sound. She didn't look surprised at all. She looked anything but surprised--worried, hurt, frustrated, but not surprised.

"I'll go if you want me to. I was just checking to make sure you were all right," Harry said. Standing there, with her staring at him, he felt oddly exposed and self-conscious. On closer inspection, he saw tears in her eyes, her face darkened by a pitying frown.

"You talked to him before he left, right?" she asked in a trembling voice, "Did he say he would be back soon?" Harry unconsciously moved into the room and knelt beside her. Her lip began to tremble and a tear rolled down her cheek leaving a silver trail on her face. "This isn't going to end well. I know I shouldn't say that. But I don't think everyone is going to make it out of there safe. Did he say anything, leave me a message or anything?" She looked desperate.

It hurt to tell her that he didn't know what was going on. He wanted to tell her it would all turn out all right and that she had no need to worry, but he couldn't. He was worried too. He shook his head and she looked the other way, fingering the frame of a picture she'd held in her lap. Harry hadn't noticed that she was holding it the entire time.

He recognized the subject of the photo immediately, her mother, Narcissa Malfoy.

"He's really good. Hermione's got him wrong," she said after a moment, as if she were talking to herself. "He's all I've got. And I trust him even if no one else does."

"I trust him, Lucy," Harry said, surprised to hear himself utter those words, but he meant them or he wouldn't have said it.

"What if he doesn't come back? What if Tom--," she began, and the tears began again as well.

"He'll come back, Lucy," Harry said confidently, taking one of her small hands in his, "and Ginny will as well," he held her gaze, her light blue eyes full of worry, but no longer doubt. He was surprised that he could see so much of a person's soul if he really took the time to look at them hard enough. She trusted him, he could see that. And, he realized, he would do anything to keep her safe with or without her brother asking him.

Reluctantly, he broke the connection, asking her if there was anything she needed before he left her alone. He had to get back to searching for the Ravenclaw heir.

He was afraid that he'd become so transparent to her that she'd seen what he was feeling every time she was in the same room with him. It was the last thing he wanted to be thinking about right now. She was Draco Malfoy's sister. He hadn't even known her all that long and still, he was getting the uncomfortable feeling that he was falling hard for her.

But now was not the time, perhaps there would never be a right time--and that's what Harry feared. He might never be able to love her the way she deserved to be loved. He'd had so little experience with the emotion himself. She was too high above him.

***

"A form of coma induced by a pretty suspicious curse. We can't trace its origins, or its nature. We suppose it to be a curse of the Dark Arts," the short, spectacled doctor was rattling off impersonally.

Sirius wanted to stop him with some well chosen sarcasm, but bit his tongue.

"It gets even more precarious when you add in his age," the doctor continued.

Holding up a hand to stop him, Sirius demanded, "What does all of that mean?"

The doctor sighed, they never wanted to come right to the point. You would think they were paid by the hour. "It means, Mr. Black, that he may never wake up. His body is really too old to recover from the injuries he's sustained. Frankly, we're all surprised that he's made it this far."

"Jesus!" Sirius breathed, staring past his reflection in the glass and into the room where Corbin sat next to his former Headmaster and mentor. He wished that there were a way that he could contact Arabella or even Snape for that matter. They would want to be here as well. But, as it often happened, when in the field, many agents were out of contact for weeks altogether.

"And Hagrid, Rubeus Hagrid? Was he brought in with Dumbledore? How is he?" Sirius asked, suddenly remembering the kind and gentle half-giant that had accompanied the Headmaster on this trip.

The infuriating doctor shook his head gravely, "I'm afraid there was nothing we could do for him," he said in an even graver, but rehearsed tone.

"Nothing you could do for him? Or nothing you would do for him?" Sirius asked in a measured but still accusatory tone. He knew the stigma surrounding Hagrid, tamest and kindest of people, but still alienated and mistreated. Remus had gotten the same treatment when people had become aware of the stigma placed on him. He shook his head. Jesus Christ, was there no one in this God forsaken place that wasn't under the sway of Voldemort and his wealthy supporters?

They just let him die.

Dumbledore would share his fate too, if he weren't too high profile to kill off as blatantly.

He pushed roughly past the doctor and out of the large doors of the emergency room. He had to get out of here for a moment, if just for fresh air or because he'd had the urge to be sick all over the place, he wasn't certain. He just needed out.

***

Hermione turned up in the library a couple of hours later, followed by a bleary-eyed Ron. Hermione had apparently disturbed his sleep, Harry had guessed, looking up only briefly to see them enter, before going back to the manuscript that he'd been studying.

Rowena Ravenclaw looked back at him from the page he had been staring at for the past hour or so. She was wearing that same fleur-de-lis pendant that he'd seen her give to Maren in the Pensieve. But where was it now? That was surely the clue to finding this last party to the hypothetical downfall of the dark lord. The prophecy he'd heard Rowena reciting as she'd given the silver and sapphire charm over to her chosen heir had said specifically that this one person with the charm would lead the way. The way, Harry supposed, was the same way that would lead them to where Ginny had been taken.

"Where's Lucy?" Hermione moved over to the chair by the fire where Harry sat.

"She's around," Harry said a little bit colder than he'd meant to, he softened at the guilty look Hermione gave him, "Don't be so hard on Malfoy. I know this sounds strange beyond comparison coming from me, but I think he's trying hard to change. I know he can be trusted to do right by Ginny," he explained.

"How are you so sure?" Hermione asked, not wanting an argument, just enough evidence to support his claim.

"He asked me to take care of Lucy, make sure she's not involved in any of this. That means two things: He plans on it being difficult to get Ginny out, but he's going to try regardless, and it means that he trusts me with his family and so I trust him with mine," Harry answered simply.

Hermione nodded. It was answer enough for her.

"D'you need some rest? I could take over here, if you want?" Hermione offered.

Harry accepted readily. He was still feeling the effects of Apparation lag and he was eager to check on Lucy. She wasn't taking all of this worry well. She had looked as if she were straining under the pressure of it all, when he'd left her last.

He got up and handed the stack of manuscripts to Hermione and left the library, heading down the deserted hall on the far north side of the house.

***

He pushed the heavy oak door open and looked around for Lucy. He saw her chair by the sofa, but it was empty and he felt panic rise in him when he didn't see her there.

His fear was stayed as he came around the other side of the sofa and saw her sleeping, her face lighted serenely by the dying fire. One final tear trailed down her cheek and onto the cushion that her head rested on. Harry knew if she'd woken up just then she would have lectured him on how rude it was to stare, but he hoped he could stare at her a little longer, even if it was rude.

She had the appearance of a perfect angel. The sight of her was calming. He would give anything to feel half as peaceful as she looked at that moment.

While she slept there, he sat on the rug between her and the fire and tried to imagine what angels dreamt about. He hoped, for her sake, that it was a beautiful dream, a dream worthy of her.

He had no idea how long he'd sat there before he saw the picture that she still clung to. Her mother, in a garden. She was lovely, Harry noted, just like Lucy. Then he took a closer look and started when he saw the pendant, Ravenclaw's pendant. Narcissa Malfoy had had it.

He stood urgently and started for the door. Then, a voice at the back of his mind told him that it was careless to leave her here, by herself in this drafty room with the dying fire.

As carefully as he could, trying not to disturb her, he bent and lifted her small form off of the sofa and kicked the door shut behind him.

Halfway to her room, Harry felt her stir and lift her head from his shoulder. "Has Draco returned? Can I see him?" she asked, blinking to gain focus of her surroundings.

"No, he's hasn't come back yet," Harry answered softly, freeing one hand to turn the knob of her bedroom door.

She nodded and then her head fell back on his shoulder and she was out again.

He set her down and laid her head back gently on the pillow, his hand brushing her silky curls.

Harry leaned down and kissed her forehead, hoping she wouldn't wake again. It was a chance he was willing to take.

He would have sat there with her all night silently adoring her as she slept, had it not been for the urgent news he had to bring to Ron and Hermione. He wasn't sure what it meant that Narcissa had the pendant, but it certainly wasn't good news, he gathered.

He reluctantly left Lucy's side and shut the door behind him.

Walking quickly back to the library, Harry studied the picture he'd taken from Lucy's hands and scrutinized the necklace around her mother's neck, hoping in vain that it wasn't the same one.

He stopped where he was, just outside of the library doors when he'd heard a scream. It hadn't come from the library, but from the hallway he'd just left. "Lucy!" he gasped, his stomach flipped with the frightening realization. He dropped the picture frame that crashed to the ground and shattered.

Harry wasted little time in getting back to her room, Hermione and Ron close behind him. They must have heard it too.

He flung the door open with furious urgency.

Lucy was gone.

He rushed over to the bed where he'd just laid her moments before.

Only a silver chain, broken near the clasp, remained where Lucy had been. On the chain was the same fleur-de-lis pendant in silver and sapphire.

They had found the Ravenclaw heir in the same moment they'd lost her.