This is an unofficial fan site that shameless pirates JK Rowling's story and characters, Warner Brothers' movies, and Dan Radcliffe's good looks.

 

Horrified by the thought of what he might see, Harry lifted his eyes from Ron and Hermione to the charred shell of a cottage, looming above them. Harry scanned the scene frantically; whoever had done this couldn’t be far away. Then, as if in answer to his fretful wonderings, a hooded figure stirred in the rubble.

“Ron! Hermione! Move!” Harry shunted Hermione sideways into the dense undergrowth, but couldn’t budge Ron, who stood rooted to the spot.

“Nooo—” Ron moaned, unable to tear his eyes away from the smoldering ruins.

In a valiant second attempt, Harry lunged at Ron and pulled him to the ground just as a volley of spells issued from the ruins.

“Halt, fool! It’s me!”

The gaunt form of Bellatrix Lestrange emerged from the thickets. We’re done, we’re through, Harry thought dully, this is it. But Bellatrix Lestrange did not glance their way, her eyes were upon the hooded figure, who stumbled from the wreckage and lowered his mask. Harry’s numbed brain registered a modicum of surprise. Ludo Bagman, with his face scrunched up in concentration and his once-rosy cheeks sunken, bowed low. “My lady.” There was no youthful spring in his step anymore.

“Did the Dark Lord not tell us to withhold our attacks until the time is at hand?” Bellatrix seethed.

“I was sent by the Dark Lord himself!” Bagman said indignantly, his chest swelling with self-importance. “To retrieve his most precious–”

“Do not speak of it, fool!” she spat again, circling Bagman like an overgrown vulture. “Fool – who both passes and fails the Dark Lord’s trial in one laughable attempt!”

All the color had drained from Bagman’s fast, which appeared starkly white against the black of his robes. “What are you saying, woman?”

“Only that the Dark Lord may ordain a task for his followers - a task of no particular importance -  the better to test their allegiance and cunning. Allegiance and cunning – of which you have neither, Bagman!” 

Bagman’s mouth wrenched open in fury, but Bellatrix cut in before he could speak.

“You do not dare to answer that charge?” she sneered. “You think the Dark Lord has forgotten your stint before the Wizengamot – where you denounced your involvement in his noble work?”

Bellatrix Lestrange threw back her tangled mane of black hair and laughed mirthlessly. “Come, fool, make haste before the authorities arrive!” She seized him by the neck of his robes and the pair Disapparated.

* * * * *

“Bagman,” Hermione breathed, and Harry knew immediately what she was thinking. Everything fit -- Bagman at the Weasleys…Bagman Imperioused Gabrielle…Bagman murdered Ron’s Auntie Muriel and torched her house – all for naught? Where did that leave the tiara? His mind raced; if it was a Horcrux, as Hermione suspected, would Voldemort have trusted Bagman with such a task? And what of Bellatrix Lestrange? Surely, she would have known…or perhaps she had merely been playacting and knew nothing…or everything.

At long last, Ron lurched forward and staggered out of the thick underbrush towards the carcass of a house.

“Hang on, Ron!” Harry and Hermione scrambled to his side. Glass shards littered the charred floorboards and ashes choked the air as the threesome moved into the house.

Ron moved numbly through the rooms, pausing occasionally to run his hand over a singed canvas or overturned trinket.

“Keep him here,” Harry hissed to Hermione, as he set off to explore the house. “I don’t want him to see…anything.”

After much searching, Harry located the woman in an untouched room in the back of the house. She lay slumped on the floor beside an ancient claw-footed bureau. A lump formed in Harry’s throat - Auntie Muriel looked altogether too much like Ron and the rest of the Weasleys Harry knew so well – even though there were streaks of gray in her red hair and her freckles tucked into the laugh lines and wrinkles on her aged face.

An irrepressible sadness welled up within him as he stared down at her lifeless body. He bent over her and closed her vacant eyes, then conjured a coverlet of finest silk from thin air to hide her from view. 

Still shaken, Harry returned to the parlor, resolved to keep Ron away from the back room. Hermione was wandering through the rubble, putting out mounds of burning embers with water from her wand. Harry pulled her aside.

“Take Ron with you and go back to Hogwarts.”

“What about you?” Hermione asked, her brown eyes widened fearfully. “You won’t go after them – Harry – you mustn’t!”

“I’m going to the Ministry of Magic.”

“Let me go with you!”

“No.” Harry said firmly, “Someone’s got to take Ron back. He can’t stay here!”

 “He’s been Confounded—Harry, I thought it would be for the best, so he wouldn’t have to know–! We’ll both take him back!” Hermione protested.

“That would be wasting time.”

“We’re wasting time arguing about it! Come on, we’ll take Ron with us,” she hissed under her breath.

“No, no,” Ron moaned from across the room, where he was rummaging wildly through the debris, “—she kept it here – always!” He tossed a broken vase aside and let out a gasp; Hermione rushed to his side.

“Ron! Are you alright? Did you cut yourself?”

Ron held aloft a single brilliant red feather.

“Dumbledore.” Harry pawed through the wreckage until he found a scrap of parchment. The edges were torn and a dark coffee stain obscured the entire left-hand side; indeed, it looked as though it had been sitting in Auntie Muriel’s home for a very long time, yet Harry knew instinctively that this was what he was looking for. Show me, he thought.

Slowly, letters and words appeared; it was as though an invisible quill was trawling across the page. Harry felt his chest constrict painfully as the glittering ink dried and the words became legible--

You are on the wrong track.

“What have we done?” Hermione whimpered. She looked crestfallen and her brown eyes shimmered with tears. Ron stood behind her, staring down at the paper uncomprehendingly.

“We’re going,” Harry said sharply, striking out through the rubble towards the door, which flames had reduced to a gaping hole.

Ron moved obediently to Harry’s side, his eyes strangely out-of-focus, but Hermione lingered inside the house, clearly fighting back the urge to cry.

“Come on, Hermione.”

“It’s all my fault. My mistake…I could have gotten us killed,” Hermione murmured faintly.

“Hermione – we’re fine, you’re fine,” Harry said bracingly.

Hermione edged towards Harry and Ron, “You could have been killed…and it would have been entirely my fault!”

“Look, now you see how I feel everyday, eh?”

Hermione looked up at him in surprise.

“That’s right – every day you two insist on sticking by my side, I know I’m putting your lives in danger, but we’ve made out alright so far. Here,” he motioned her to Ron’s other side, “we’ll need to help him Apparate. It might not be a good idea for him to try it on his own at the moment.”

Destination. Determination. Deliberation. They were spiraling inward, outward, and onward all at once.