The Song of the Trees

Chapter Seven: Those Unfolded Mysteries

Hermione had closed her eyes and was pressing on her temples with the tips of her fingers, as if she wanted to prevent her head from vibrating.

"Is bringing us shocking pieces of information about yourself becoming a habit?" she asked slowly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Is it my fault if all those things happen to me?" he said. "I would've thought the pair of you had become accustomed to this ability of mine by now."

"Yes, but this is going against every rule of witchcraft and wizardry!" Hermione burst out; and with those words she leapt to her feet and began pacing in her living room, where Harry and Ron had joined her in the early hours of the morning.

"Oh, I've never really followed the rules, have I?" Harry pointed out with a shrug.

"Don't you pretend you don't understand!" snapped Hermione. "I'm not talking about stupid school rules! I'm talking about universal rules, laws like laws of Physics! Something everyone abides to! What happened to you," she added, coming to an abrupt halt in front of Harry with her hands on her hips, "is both illogical and utterly impossible!"

"Yet it happened," said Harry tiredly. "Remus could confirm it if you like - I've never seen him so overexcited."

"Neither you nor Remus were in your right mind when you saw - whatever you saw!" exclaimed Hermione in something close to desperation. "I guess something weird happened, but how far can we trust a transformed werewolf's memory? What's more, I'm going to say it again: it. Doesn't. Make. Sense. You were bitten by a werewolf. You ought to be a regular werewolf."

Harry turned to Ron. "What d'you think?"

Ron was sprawled in an armchair and was staring at the floor with a slightly dizzy expression, as if he had received something very heavy on the top of his head. At Harry's question, he looked up and shrugged one shoulder.

"Oh, you know... I'm not asking anymore questions," he said good-naturedly, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender.

Hermione let out a frustrated exclamation.

"Thanks for your help, both of you," she barked. She stalked across the living room and crouched beside an old desk, whose many drawers were so full that they couldn't close completely; scrolls of parchment and notes were sticking out of them.

Hermione forcefully tugged on a drawer, which finally burst out of the desk and fell to the floor. Hermione heaved an exasperated sigh but didn't take the time to put the drawer back in the desk. She chose several sheets of blank parchment and a quill and straightened up.

"This calls for method and tidiness," she announced with a disdainful look in Harry and Ron's direction. With those words, she walked to the table standing in the middle of the living room and spread the sheets of parchment on the wooden surface.

"So," she began. "Let's list all the mysteries we have to solve. Number one, Harry?"

Harry scratched his head. "Er, I don't know... Where to start? My permanent insomnia, my inability to feel anything, the fact that I seem to have become a sort of Animagus rather than a werewolf, the behaviour of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, the mystery around Voldemort's death, er -"

"Okay, let's put all this into categories," said Hermione hastily, looking slightly unsettled.

She dipped the tip of her quill into a bottle of black ink and began scribbling on the top of a sheet of parchment, muttering as she wrote: "Strange... abilities..."

"There!" She underlined the title and turned to Harry. "So, a list of your strange abilities?"

"From the very beginning?" asked Ron with a grin. "Merlin, I hope you have a few hours to spare then, Hermione. Should we start with Parseltongue or is there something even before that o-"

"For God's sake, Ron!" snapped Hermione. "I am talking about the abilities we've been unable to explain so far -"

"I know, I know," said Ron with a hint of impatience. "I was merely trying to relax the atmosphere."

"If you think your stupid jokes -"

"Back to the problem at hand!" Harry chanted in a ringing voice, interrupting what suspiciously sounded like one of those pointless and violent arguments that were Ron and Hermione's speciality.

"All right." Hermione allowed herself to glare at Ron for a few seconds before directing her attention back to Harry. "So, Harry?"

Harry ensconced himself in his armchair and half-closed his eyes as he tried to clear up his memories.

"I think the first one is the loss of sleep," he answered slowly at last. "It occurred in the Forest, after the Lestranges and Nott's deaths."

"Remember the date?"

"Easy. The day the Death Eaters took Hogwarts."

A shadow went over Ron's face at these words, and Hermione froze in the gesture of writing down the date. Both had horrible memories of that day, though nothing in the like of Harry's. They had all witnessed murders and torture - many students Hermione had tutored and knew very well had died that day, and of course, they had all seen, horrified, Percy Weasley's atrocious fate.

Poor Percy had returned to Hogwarts as a temporary Arithmancy teacher - on Scrimgeour's orders, they had heard - and had been caught by the Death Eaters during the battle... His self-proclaimed allegiance to the Ministry, as well as his family name, which was known to be associated with Dumbledore's, had stimulated the Death Eaters' creativity when they had decided to kill him. They had made his blood boil.

"Fine," croaked Hermione, blinking furiously as she finally wrote down the date. "Insomnia. Probable cause: the four Cruciatus curses. Right?"

"...Right," Harry answered uncertainly.

Hermione began scratching her chin with the pointed tip of the quill, unknowingly leaving great inky lines on her skin as she furrowed her brow, apparently deep in thoughts.

"I can see an explanation for that one," she said at last slowly. "But I'm surprised the Healer you're seeing hasn't thought of it first... Yet it seems logical... But then, if he's completely opposed to Muggle tactics and ways of thinking... It could have escaped him..."

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance, eyebrows raised. Then Ron, against Harry's best judgement, interrupted loudly Hermione's muttering.

"That's absolutely wonderful, Hermione. Now I understand everything. However, I have a tiny little question. Why can't you explain yourself properly when you've got an idea, instead of mumbling incoherent bits of sentences?"

Hermione heaved an impatient sigh and spun her chair around so that she was facing Harry and Ron.

"Harry, you didn't go mad with the pain," she said brusquely. "That's another strange fact. You told us you had been protected from madness by... by the sound of the wind, is that it?"

"By the trees," corrected Harry, annoyed at Hermione's way of beating around the bush. "The trees were singing and their song kept me sane."

Ron muttered something about Hagrid breeding far too many weird creatures in that Forest. Harry ignored him and went on:

"What are you aiming at exactly, Hermione? Do you think there is a link between the fact I didn't go mad and the loss of sleep?"

"Well, that's a possibility," Hermione answered with a frown. "Think about it. You kept your sanity, but on the other hand you lost another ability, one that victims of the Cruciatus Curse aren't supposed to lose. It's as if the blow had been deflected, and instead of hitting its usual target, it hit another part of you."

"Is that even possible?" said Ron, scepticism written all across his face.

"Yes, it could be!" Hermione stood up, and Harry noticed that her face was shining with excitation, just as it used to when she talked about SPEW or the DA, at Hogwarts. She began to pace in front of them again, apparently too restless to stay still. "Look, do you remember the Brain Room in the Department of Mysteries?" she asked decidedly.

"Oh yes, I do," answered Ron bitterly. He absentmindedly rubbed his forearms, where could still be seen the scars left by the swirling thoughts that had coiled up around him, four years ago, in the room Hermione was referring to.

"Well, that's where I've been working these past months," Hermione explained feverishly. "I'm working on how the brain works, of course, but also how it can be affected by curses -"

"Are you sure you're supposed to tell us all this?" Ron asked, cutting across her. "You're an Unspeakable trainee -"

"Do quit interrupting me, Ron, it's hard enough as it is!" barked Hermione without even sparing him a glance. Ron sank back into his armchair, looking sulky.

"Anyway, I've been working in that room," Hermione went on as if Ron hadn't spoken at all. "The human brain is an extremely powerful machine, but it's also very fragile. The Cruciatus Curse, for instance, is supposed to act at first on one part of it - the neurones controlling the pain stimuli - but when the curse becomes too intense or lasts too long, other parts of the brain are destroyed as well. Whoever invented that curse knew perfectly well what they were doing: after inflicting on the victim as much pain as possible, the Cruciatus Curse is meant to attack the most subtle parts of the brain. Namely, the parts responsible for coherent thinking, and dreaming, and - everything that makes us different from animals! The curse is not supposed to act on essential biological functions, such as the ability to breathe, or digest..."

"...or sleep," Harry completed.

"Well... yes," agreed Hermione, coming to a halt in front of him. "That's what makes me think the two things are linked. That - song of the trees seems to have acted as a shield from the degrading effects of the Cruciatus Curses, and as it couldn't ward off the blow completely, it deflected it to another part of your brain. Precisely the one controlling the ability to sleep, the Somatosensory Cortex."

Harry nodded. It made sense - the low, soothing song filling his ears and dispersing the fog that had started to drown his coherent thoughts... And indeed, it had been at that very moment that he had found himself incapable to sleep.

"How can we verify that?" he asked. "We need to be sure..."

Hermione started to scratch her chin with her quill again, hesitation replacing the excitement that had been illuminating her face.

"You'll have to convince your Healer to let you go to a Muggle Hospital and have your brain scanned," she said slowly. "Er... do you think he will accept?"

Harry sighed. "I'll have to try," he answered doubtfully. "I'm almost sure he will be horribly vexed, though... And someone will have to have the Memory Charms ready, in case those Muggle doctors discover weird things in my head."

"I can arrange that, I guess," said Ron with a shrug. "I have one friend or two in my Department, so even if I'm not available, someone else from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad should be able to do it."

"Excellent," said Hermione briskly, clasping her hands together. "We'll not worry anymore about the insomnia for the time being. Next... oddity, Harry? You still can't feel anything, can you?"

Harry shook his head. "But I more or less know the origin of that particular symptom," he said. "Healer Parletoo and I have already talked about it. It's the abrupt loss of all my powers, then the recovery, that caused what he called the 'trauma'."

Hermione looked quite sceptical, but she wrote a few lines on her parchment without making any comment.

"So... We don't have to worry about that either... Oh, just for further notice, when did that happen?"

"The day Voldemort died," answered Harry in a dull tone.

Hermione nodded and added a note on her parchment. "Fine," she announced in a ringing voice. "I think that's all for your special abilities; at least, those you earned during the war."

"Speaking of the war," Ron suddenly interjected, "write that down: Try to find out who was the scumbag who shot at Harry the fourth Cruciatus Curse; you know, the curse that was lifted only after V-Voldemort's death. If I remember correctly, the first three curses were from Lestrange, his wife, and Nott, but we still don't know the fourth Death Eater's name."

"That's not nearly as important as -" began Harry, but Ron cut across him.

"Of course, that's not important at all to find the piece of filth, who made you go through hell for two whole months," he said sarcastically. "C'mon, Harry, there is a limit to forgiveness!"

Harry raised both hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. Forget I ever said anything."

There was a few seconds' silence as Hermione scribbled on a fresh sheet of parchment. She finally straightened up and ran a tired hand through her bushy hair, unaware that the quill she was still holding left a black and wet trail on her cheek.

"So," she said. "We have the 'Strange Abilities' parchment, but apparently we are very close to solving both problems. Next, we have the 'Mysterious Opponent' parchment, namely the caster of the fourth curse, or the Fourth Torturer, as I wrote it. Now, the 'Forbidden Forest' parchment. I'm listening, Harry."

Harry sighed and let his head fall backwards, his eyes closed, as he tried to remember the exact details of his brief stay in the Forest. He didn't like lingering on that memory: even after two years, the thought of the tall trees of the core of the Forest was blood-chilling. That place attracted him and scared him at the same time. A part of him was longing to hear the soothing, soft song again, to sit at the foot of the tall trees and rest there in the thick grass, bathed in the soft green light; and the rest of him could barely bear the memory of the loathing literally oozing from every crack of the bark of the trees, and the swift, lethal movements of the branches that had throttled Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Well... To begin with the most obvious," he started with some difficulty, "the trees in the old core of the Forest are alive... They're singing, and moving their branches on their own volition... And they hate us..."

"Alive..." repeated Hermione thoughtfully. "Mmmh... It makes me think of dryads, you know, those tree-spirits in Muggle mythology... Is there any dryads in the wizarding world, I wonder?"

Ron frowned and began to scratch his head, screwing up his face like he used to at Hogwarts, when Hermione was testing him before an exam.

"I don't think so," Ron said slowly at last, looking thoroughly unconvinced. "There may have been at a time, though... Many species disappeared in wizardkind history. Maybe a colony of dryads has survived in the very core of the Forbidden Forest."

"The hatred isn't limited to the trees in the centre of the Forest," Harry pointed out. "Hagrid told me the whole Forest hates wizards. But the hatred is stronger in the centre, and it all comes from there in the first place."

Hermione began to scribble furiously on her parchment. "Trees... Alive... Dryads?... Hate wizards... Why wizards, though?" she suddenly asked as she raised her head again to send Harry a perplexed look. "Isn't this Forest part of the oldest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the world? Shouldn't it be accustomed to wizards?"

"Not a valuable argument," yawned Ron. "I've grown accustomed to Slytherins after seven years of living in the same castle, and I still can't stand the smell of them."

Harry laughed at this, and Hermione rolled her eyes, though a small smile was tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Come on, boys, let's stay concentrated," she said in a reproving tone. "Mmmh... Maybe the Forest existed even before Hogwarts was founded," she went on slowly, the slight crease between her brows betraying her confusion. "Maybe it was the home of creatures who didn't like wizards, which would explain why it's so hostile to wizards while it provides a home for centaurs, who aren't too fond of our kind... But it would be odd that the four most powerful wizards of the Middle-Ages should choose a place exuding hatred for their own kind, in order to build a school for young magical children..."

Hermione dropped her voice to unintelligible mutters; Ron and Harry watched her in slight perplexity as she mumbled on, distractedly chewing on her thumbnail and twisting a strand of her bushy hair in the fingers of her other hand. After a whole minute of this, Ron leant towards Harry and muttered in his ear:

"Fascinating to see a brain at work, isn't it?"

"Yeah," agreed Harry in an equally low voice. "I can almost see the smoke coming out of her ears."

Ron snorted with laughter, but he quickly quietened when Harry elbowed him in the ribs: Hermione had finally stopped muttering, and from the determined look on her face, Harry could tell she had come to a decision.

"I'll reread Hogwarts: a History, then," she concluded.

"For a change," muttered Ron to Harry from the corner of his mouth. Harry bit his lip to prevent himself from grinning.

"I heard that," snapped Hermione. "And Harry, do stop smiling stupidly. Do you have anything else to add about that Forest?"

"No... Yes," said suddenly Harry, straightening up in his armchair as he abruptly remembered something. "There's this weird thing Magorian the centaur told me last month... Wait, what was it...? Oh yes - 'But do you still consider yourself as a wizard? The centaurs doubt you are so. The Forest thinks you are not.'"

A stunned silence followed these words. Hermione's quill had frozen halfway to her chin and Ron was gaping at Harry, obviously at a complete loss of words.

"Wait a minute," said Ron at last. "Those star-gazers, who are never able of uttering a comprehensible sentence, have decided my best mate isn't a wizard? And what are you supposed to be, exactly? A tree in disguise?"

"I don't know what I'm supposed to be," said Harry. "But the fact remains that the trees hate all wizards, except for me. They let me in. I could feel their hatred, but it wasn't directed to me. And they did save me from insanity. As if they had felt I was from - a different kind..."

"Or," Ron exclaimed suddenly, with the excited expression of someone who has finally found the answer to a difficult problem, "maybe they were only opposed to pure-blood wizards - or to wizards bearing the Dark Mark! The people they killed were Death Eaters after all!"

"Hagrid told me he could feel the trees hated him, too," Harry said dully. "And the day Hagrid gets a Dark Mark, Hermione will marry Malfoy."

Hermione emitted a disgusted noise. "Thanks for the mental image, Harry," she shot at him. "I really didn't need it... So, what should I write? The centaurs think you're not a wizard, and that's why you weren't killed by the trees; right?"

Harry nodded as he inwardly marvelled at how complicated the situation had become. Hermione scribbled a few lines with impressive rapidity - the parchment even let out a squeak of protest she completely ignored.

"Anything else?"

Ron groaned. "I hope not," he grumbled. "I like that Forest less and less every minute."

"No," said Harry. "I think that's all - wait."

Ron gave a kind of desperate moan and sank lower in his seat. "Great, what did those woody and leafy nutters do this time?" he asked mournfully.

"They defeated Voldemort."

Silence.

"Excuse me?" asked Hermione with a very dazed expression, as if she had been clubbed on the head. "Since when was Voldemort defeated by a Forest?"

Harry shook his head. "I didn't tell anybody about this. I can't really explain it... The fact remains that while Voldemort and I were wrestling, we found ourselves at the edge of the Forest. He... Tom... succeeded in escaping and he tried to lose me in the Forest... And we got near the old core. That's where it happened...

"The trees started singing again. It was not soft and soothing like the first time, it was much louder and fiercer, like a war song. It was - the most terrifying thing I had ever heard. We stopped fighting. I don't know what happened to Voldemort... I was caught up in the song and it was as if my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I - struggled to survive. And when it all stopped, I was still alive, but Voldemort was dead. He hadn't made it through."

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, clearly trying to take in Harry's new piece of information. Then, opening her eyes again, she cast a sad look at her parchment, which was already covered in her narrow handwriting. She turned it over and wrote a tiny note at the back of it.

"Voldemort, war song," she said rather dryly as she wrote. "That should be enough. I'm tired of writing novels."

She sighed noisily and pulled a hand through her hair again. Harry's eye was caught by the three parchments spread in front of her, covered in shining black ink. His head was swimming; so many unanswered questions... So many unsolved mysteries...

Ron's stomach grumbled loudly, pulling Harry out of his thoughts. He glanced at his watch: it was ten in the morning, and he hadn't had any breakfast; come to think of it, he hadn't had any dinner the previous night either. His insensibility prevented him from feeling hunger; it was quite handy when he had to skip a meal for work's sake, but it was a serious inconvenient nevertheless. More than once, in the months following Voldemort's death, he had fainted for lack of food, having simply forgotten to eat. He hoped Hermione had something to eat in her kitchen...

"Everything comes back to that Forest," Hermione cried out, so suddenly that Harry and Ron jumped. "Everything! From your weird symptoms to Voldemort's death, everything is related to those trees in some twisted way! And since the trees think -" She paused with a grimace of disdain at the thought of thinking plants. "Since they think you're different from the other wizards... Then I wouldn't be surprised if that Forest had something to do with your unusual reaction to the werewolf's bite as well!"

"Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten that," said Ron miserably. "Almost. Remind me of what you transformed into?"

"A great white wolf, bigger than the average werewolf, with green eyes," Harry said in a toneless voice. "And I was able to control myself."

Ron pressed the heels of his hands on his eyes, as if he wanted to push them back into his skull.

"This is just too - Hey!" He abruptly straightened up, his eyes open wide in sudden realisation. "A werewolf controlling itself? Doesn't it sound a lot like Luna's raving, yesterday? You know, about powerful werewolves?"

Hermione scoffed. "Ron, please. If I remember correctly, Luna's werewolves were able to - what was it? Change the course of the wind by howling at the moon, and probably tap-dance as well. As far as I know, Harry didn't have control over the wind, did you, Harry?"

Harry shook his head. No, the wind hadn't changed when he had bawled at the moon. But yet, Luna's theory was interesting...

"I'll ask her about tap-dancing werewolves, if you really want me to, Harry," said Hermione impatiently. She must have seen the uncertainty on his face. She took her quill again and scribbled down a few lines on a fresh piece of parchment, then planted her quill back into the inkpot and started rubbing her hand, as if it was sore from the constant writing.

"That Forest," she said again decidedly; Harry closed his eyes in despair. He had hoped she would drop that subject. A noisy sigh on his left told him Ron had had the same hope.

"I repeat, that Forest," Hermione resumed with annoyance, "is the key of the whole mystery. The trees recognise Harry, as if he was different; hence their behaviour when Harry got hit by the four-way Cruciatus Curse: they protected him and offered him a shelter. This matches with that declaration of Magorian's, according to which Harry isn't a wizard - or at least, not completely. And this declaration itself explains why Harry didn't react normally to the werewolf's bite: as he's not a normal wizard, he can't react like one."

"Wait, are you saying that Harry is a kind of mutant as well?" asked Ron incredulously.

Hermione looked a bit sheepish. "I'm sorry," she said. "But... but this way, it all fits..."

"That's all right," said Harry hastily. "So, what do you suggest?"

Hermione looked down at the parchments again and ran her finger down the long list she had written, as if wanting to gather her thoughts one last time before answering. Ron rolled his eyes and exclaimed exasperatedly:

"Here's an idea: why don't we just - cut off all those trees and make a huge bonfire with them? And roast the centaurs on it, while we're at it?"

"Tempting," commented Hermione grimly, while Harry laughed at Ron's suggestion. "But this way we'll never find out the truth. The mysteries we listed are now down to two: what is in that Forest? And, who is Harry exactly?"

"Or rather, what am I exactly?" said Harry quietly.

Hermione and Ron fell silent. Outside, the sun was now high in the sky and they could all hear the wind caressing the building in which Hermione lived - the noises of the street were muffled by sophisticated Double Gazing Spells. Harry thought he caught a glimpse of a tuft of bright green feathers on the windowsill, but in a split second it had disappeared. Probably a strange bird that had suddenly taken off...

"All right, who wants a breakfast?" said Ron loudly. "I could eat McGonagall. And without salt."

"A bit hard to chew," Harry pointed out with a grin. "A regular breakfast would be fine for me."

"Okay, let's see what our Hermione has in her kitchen. Brace yourself, Harry, last time it was a piece of cheese and a crust of bread."

Ron dodged the curse Hermione sent him and the three of them went into the kitchen, Hermione protesting, Ron laughing and Harry smiling from one ear to the other, all thoughts of the strange Forbidden Forest momentarily forgotten.

None of them saw the strange female head peering into the room by the open window. None of them saw the woman's silhouette hauling herself up on the windowsill, carrying on her back a bow and a quiver full of arrows, which were covered at their extremities with bright green feathers. None of them heard the woman jump into the room, creep up to the table and bend over the parchments covered in shining black ink.

She was gone when they went back in the living room.

***

"So, if I understand well," said Ron as the three of them walked down the stairs leading them back to the courtyard, "this glorious sunlit Sunday, that I could have spent in my bed with a cool drink or two, will be spent gathering information about weird wolves and creepy trees. I'm supposed to ask around if there used to be dryads at a time in the wizarding world - honestly, you couldn't have given me a stupidest question, Hermione..."

"Look who's complaining," said Hermione, raising her eyes to the heavens. "I am on my way to ask Luna Lovegood about tap-dancing wolves, remember?'

"And personally, I'd rather ask about dryads or imaginary wolves than be stuck with Healer Parletoo for another three-hours-long consultation," mumbled Harry, who could feel a migraine coming at the very thought.

"Won't he be annoyed at you for coming to see him when it's the weekend?" asked Hermione uncertainly. "Healers work hard all week, you know... Disturbing them on a Sunday afternoon..."

"Oh no, he won't be bothered," said Harry gloomily. "He will take that as a treat. Believe me."

Hermione unlocked the door at the bottom of the staircase, and paused on the threshold to look up at him gravely.

"Try to gather as much information from him as possible," she said. "But do your best not to reveal too much. From what you said, he sounds like a talkative person."

"Biggest understatement of the century," agreed Harry. "I got the point; but it won't be easy, especially if I have to ask him to let me have my brain scanned in a Muggle hospital. That's when he will be annoyed."

They had just reached the point where they could Apparate, behind the bins shed, hidden from Muggle eyes. Hermione fastened her cloak around her shoulders, then turned around to face Harry again.

"Keep that bit until the end of the consultation, then," said Hermione with a smile.

She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.

"Oh yes - before you do anything else, shower and shave, please," she added with a short laugh. "I'll go and buy a few things so that the three of us can have dinner at my place tonight, then I'm off to see Luna. See you! Bye Ron," she said more softly. And reaching up, she put her arms around Ron's neck and kissed him quickly.

A second later, she had Disapparated with a small pop.

Harry straightened his cloak and prepared to Disapparate as well.

"See you, Ron," he said quickly.

Ron didn't answer. Harry glanced back at him: he was staring at the point where Hermione had stood seconds before, mouth hanging open in an expression of puzzlement. Harry succeeded in containing his laughter as he snapped his fingers under Ron's nose, but he couldn't hold back a wide grin when Ron jumped comically and blinked several times.

"Welcome back on earth," said Harry pleasantly.

"Oh... yeah... hum..." mumbled Ron, who still looked a bit dizzy. "Er... okay."

"I understand why you haven't proposed to her yet, if you're reacting this way every time she's kissing you," Harry said before he could stop himself. "Could be dangerous to live with her."

Ron turned beet red.

"Not going to start with that, too, are you?" he muttered, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.

"Sorry," said Harry quickly. "That's none of my business..."

"That's not what I meant," said Ron tiredly. "It's just... I'm afraid that, if I ever - you know - marry Hermione..." He paused and became very interested in the laces of his right shoe. Harry found himself gazing intently at the overfull bins standing at a few feet from their Apparition point; why had he said that, why?

"Well, if I - do that," Ron went on, "I'm afraid I'll do it only because it was what everyone expects me to do... and not what I really want to do... See what I mean?"

Harry cleared his throat. "More or less," he mumbled.

There was a few seconds' silence.

"So... what would you advise me to do?"

Harry's eyes snapped back to Ron in horror.

"Excuse me?" Harry choked out.

"Well... You're my best friend, you know me, you know Hermione," said Ron, shifting uneasily under Harry's bewildered stare. "If someone can give us a piece of advice, then it's you... So, should I ask her?"

Harry scratched his chin, horribly embarrassed. "I'm not - Ron, in that area, every experience I had was a complete disaster... I'm not very well-placed to give you any advice..."

"Do you really picture me going to ask Bill for a piece of advice?" asked Ron miserably. "Or worse still - Dad?"

"No..."

"So?" urged Ron.

Harry pulled an unsteady hand through his hair. He vaguely wondered if he could Disapparate right now, without warning, then pretend later it had been an accident - but Ron's face, though still of a deep shade of red, was now shining with hope; and Harry felt compelled to say something.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "Do you want to live with her? ...To wake up next to her every morning, to listen to her frantic muttering every time she thinks she forgot something very important, to be asked if you like better the red lipstick or the pink one, to hear about how the pair of you should buy three or four house-elves and set them free... and to... become all bald and... white-haired with her... and have a lot of screaming Weasleys with bushy hair and big front teeth?"

Harry said the last part as fast as possible, and the thought of an 'accidental' Disapparition crossed his mind once more. To his great surprise, however, Ron's face had now split into the widest smile Harry had ever seen, and he was staring into space as if contemplating a blissful future.

"...I take that as a yes," said finally Harry, resisting the urge to snap his fingers under Ron's nose once more.

Ron was still smiling.

"Okay, hum... I guess you have the answer to your question... I'll be going, then," said Harry, almost stumbling over his own words in his haste to put an end to this extremely uncomfortable moment. "See you."

Harry heard Ron's joyful "Thanks, mate!" just before Disapparating, and he felt his own lips stretching into a rather silly grin as he was forced into oppressive darkness.

In the deserted courtyard, Ron did a kind of pirouette with a yell of joy; and he walked away, the wide grin still attached to his lips.

In the shadows of a skinny tree growing in a corner of the courtyard, a long-haired, slender figure took a thin arrow between two fingers and set it in her bow. The bowstring was drawn back further and further; the bright green feathers were quivering in the light breeze, and the lethal head of the arrow was directly pointed at Ron's retreating back, between the shoulder blades.

Tang!

*************

A/N1: For the first time in my 'career' as an author, I experienced something that suspiciously looked like writer's block; with, as a result, this insipid chapter. I dislike it thoroughly - though I'm not displeased with the end.

A/N2: Many thanks to Hamm On Wry for leaving me a detailed review about the possible reasons for Harry's inability to sleep. I shamelessly exploited his review in this chapter!