PhoenixSong.net :: A Harry/Ginny Fanfic and Fanart Archive

Author: MyGinevra

Story: Losing Each Other

Part: 10: Immortal Mother

Rating: Young Teens

Status: Completed

Reviews: 7

Words: 5,689

Updated: June 1, 2009, 7:17pm

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10: Immortal Mother

Harry flew as low as he could over the Dementors’ mist. He had gone higher after he took off from the lane outside Hogwarts, but it was much colder and his hands had quickly become numb, so he had dropped closer to the ground. Now, wearing his heaviest traveling cloak under his Invisibility Cloak, he was warm enough. He had tried to Disillusion himself, but either that charm could not be done on oneself, or he had again lost his ability to do complicated magic. He put that possibility out of his mind, and told himself that as long as he had his father’s Cloak he did not need the charm.

The mist obscured landmarks, so whenever he thought he might be straying from a southerly bearing, he tapped the Firebolt with his wand and said, “Austra cardinalis,” a spell he had discovered during those long hours alone in the library. He also had pored over a Muggle atlas of England, as well as Muggle newspapers and magazines from the Restricted Section. He familiarized himself with the location of towns and villages in Cornwall and neighborhoods in London, and he now knew exactly where Grimmauld Place and the entrance to the Ministry of Magic were. He had figured out the latter by tracing the route of the underground line he had taken two years ago with Arthur Weasley.

As Harry neared London, tall buildings began to appear above the Dementors’ mist, and the mist itself became thinner. Soon only wisps of fog lingered near the ground. He looped around the city, and it did not take him long to find the bedraggled park on Grimmauld Place across from number twelve. There were only a few Muggles sitting on benches in the cold weather, and to Harry’s eye they looked like types who would mind their own business because they would want the courtesy returned. Anyway, he was wearing the Cloak.

Harry landed in the empty street, and number twelve appeared. He placed his hand on the front door and, as he expected, it opened. He stepped inside and closed the door. He put his hand back on it and heard the locks and latches click into place.

He removed the Invisibility Cloak and peered into the gloom. The house smelled musty and moldy. The portrait of Sirius’s mother was covered, and he could hear snoring behind the drapes. He went carefully past the troll’s–leg umbrella stand and the heads of the house–elves mounted on the wall, and descended the narrow stairs to the basement. In the light of his wand, he found what he had been hoping for. A wooden bowl sat on the long table, filled with fruit and loaves of bread that Sirius had put out and never come back to. He tested it with his wand. A Preservative Charm was protecting it, and everything was as fresh as the day Sirius had put it there.

He went to the cupboard near the pantry where Kreacher’s disgusting den was. Wishing he could think of a different way to hide his broomstick, he bent down and wrapped it in rags that were slightly less filthy than the others, then put it behind the boiler and covered it with the foulest shreds of cloth he could find. Satisfied that the Firebolt would not be found, Harry went to the sink, washed his hands, and drank a long draft of the charmed water flowing from the spigot. With his pockets bulging with food, he went up to Sirius’s room, but hesitated before opening the door; he was not looking forward to this.

Inside was a mess. Sirius had probably been in a frenzy the night Snape had reported to the Order that Harry and his friends were at the Ministry. Cupboards and wardrobe drawers were standing open, and clothes were strewn on the bed and floor. Harry walked to a dresser, but as he was opening the top drawer, he stopped. Two photographs in silver frames were sitting on the dresser. One was the same Order of the Phoenix photo that Mad–Eye Moody had shown him. Harry looked at his parents and they waved to him. He gave a small wave back, and put the photo down.

The other one was of himself. He recognized the pavilion in the background as the one in which he had waited for the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. He didn’t remember having the photo taken, but the Harry in the photo had a broad grin on his face, so it must have been after the task. He put that photograph down, also.

He poked around in the top drawer, and found a large wad of Muggle money under a pile of unmatched socks. He flipped through it and realized, with a smile, that something in his Muggle upbringing was actually turning out to be useful: he could count their money. The amount was large enough that he would not have to sell any of the gold Galleons he had brought with him. It would make things much simpler.

He pocketed the money and started to leave. But at the door, as he turned to look over Sirius’s room one last time, his eye fell on the photographs. He went back and put them in his cloak pocket. He left the room and went downstairs, tiptoed past the portrait, opened the front door, and walked outside. As soon as he closed the door, the house vanished.

Well stocked with funds and food, Harry walked to the underground station and boarded a train for central London. There was a map mounted on the wall of the car, and it confirmed what he had memorized in the library at Hogwarts. Since he had to sleep somewhere tonight, he had decided that the best way to avoid discovery was to stay near the Ministry but not too near, in a locale with which he was at least vaguely familiar. He got off at the station nearest the public entrance to the Ministry of Magic, and walked past the street where the broken–down phone box stood. It was not the best neighborhood — a little seedy around the edges — but two blocks farther on Harry spotted a small hotel down a cross road. It did not appear totally run down, so he headed toward it and went inside. The furniture in the lobby was worn and the carpet threadbare, but it seemed clean. The clerk looked at him suspiciously.

“I’d like a room for the night.” Harry tried to sound self–assured.

The clerk frowned; he was a middle–aged Muggle with thick eyeglasses and bad breath. “No bags?” he asked.

“What? Oh, no. I’ll be getting them later.” It hadn’t occurred to him that luggage would be an issue; at Hogwarts the house–elves took care of things like that.

“How old are you?” the clerk asked dubiously.

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen? You don’t look nineteen.”

“I’ve aged gracefully.” Harry was becoming annoyed. He didn’t want problems with Muggles, especially one that was starting to remind him of Uncle Vernon. He put one of Sirius’s larger bills on the counter. “Can I have a room, please?”

The man took the money and handed Harry a key. “Room thirty–seven, two flights up on your left. And keep your door locked. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Harry told him. “I can take care of myself. And you owe me change.” The clerk grunted and handed Harry his change. Harry fingered his wand inside his cloak, and the man suddenly began scratching his nose vigorously.

Harry climbed the stairs to his room. He sealed the door behind him with a Colloportus spell, and settled down on the lumpy bed to think. So far his plan was working. He had got out of Hogwarts and down to London undetected. The Order would start looking for him at twelve Grimmauld Place, and hopefully they would assume that he had gone from there straight to Penzance. By not finding him at the graveyard immediately, maybe they would think that he had gone someplace else instead. At least if his pursuers got there first and were there when he arrived, he would be able to spy them out, and wait until after they left. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it gave him the chance of destroying the Horcrux without putting his friends in danger.

Of course, there was the strong possibility that one person alone would not be able to destroy it, just as Dumbledore had not been able to retrieve the locket in the cave without Harry’s help. Then he would have no choice but to fetch someone else and bring them back to the graveyard. But until he knew for certain that he could not do it alone, he would not drag Hermione or Ron or anyone else into it.

The face of “anyone else” floated into his mind, as it always did when he was alone with thoughts like these. He did not want Ginny in his head, but her image came often and persistently. Even when he tried thinking about unpleasant things, her face appeared and pushed every bad thought away. He wished — yet did not wish — that she would leave him alone.

He had let down his guard and told her about the Horcruxes, but he had to admit that some good had come of that mistake. Ginny had spent a lot more time with him afterwards, and he liked that. He liked looking at her; he liked listening to her. When she became aloof during the last few weeks, he had missed her. But he had to protect her. If she — or Ron or Hermione — died because of him, he did not know how he could go on living himself.

Harry tried to distract himself with the photograph of the Order of the Phoenix, but it only deepened his morbid mood, and he finally broke down and turned on the television. He had no idea what he was watching, but at least it diverted his thoughts. The afternoon passed in utter boredom, and finally, when it grew dark, he slept.

When he checked out the next morning, a different clerk was behind the counter, a younger man who had obviously been told about Harry. He looked at him curiously as Harry dropped off his room key. “The mattress was lumpy but I smoothed it out for you,” Harry couldn’t resist telling him. The man just stared. “Have a nice day,” Harry said as he walked out.

He took the underground back to Grimmauld Place, and slipped on his Invisibility Cloak before numbers eleven and thirteen came in sight. He sat down in the park, and waited. After an hour of shivering in the chilly breeze, he had seen nobody come or go, so he walked up to number twelve. When it appeared, he opened the front door and once again there was only stillness inside. Sirius’s mother was stirring behind her drapes, but Harry could hear nothing else; the house was deserted.

Nevertheless, he didn’t want to linger and take a chance on being discovered. He hurried to the basement without bothering to remove his Cloak, and retrieved his Firebolt. Back in the front hallway he paused. “Goodbye, Mrs. Black, and thank you very much!” he called loudly. Her shrieks of surprise and rage were cut off when he shut the door behind him.

Harry mounted his Firebolt and kicked off. Now he flew more or less southwest, which he would do until he reached the coast. If the Dementors’ mist was too thick and obscured the ground, he would have to land frequently to get his bearings; there was no helping that. But his luck held. The mist was thin all across the southern part of the country. When he saw the coastline, he landed near a small village and approached a woman filling her automobile at a petrol station. He found that he had been on a true course, and was only about twenty miles from Penzance. He flew on, and in a few minutes he reached his destination.

In one of the Muggle magazines in the library, he had seen an advertisement for a seasonal rental cottage near Penzance. It was under a cliff along the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. On the plain above the cliff was an old stone castle, an ancient ruin and a local attraction. The cottage was used by tourists who came into the area to visit the castle and the surrounding countryside. Harry circled it; he saw no one and there were no automobiles parked nearby. He landed behind the cottage, and cautiously approached. He peered through a window, and saw a small kitchen with bed sheets covering the table, chairs, and counter–tops. The lock on the back door opened with, ”Alohomora”, and Harry was inside.

He tried not to disturb anything, and he did not turn on any lights. He settled down on a sofa in the parlor, ate some bread from twelve Grimmauld Place, and once again waited.

And once again Ginny invaded his thoughts. He got up and paced back and forth, trying to think of anything else: his plans for the graveyard; what he would do when — or if — he returned to Hogwarts; what he would do after — or if — he finished the school year. But every line of thought led to Ginny. He gave up and sat back down.

The inevitable conclusion was that the Ginny in his brain would never go away. He had tried walking away from her; immersing himself in school work; practicing Quidditch for hours on end with Ron; he had ignored her, talked to her, kept her in his confidence, and excluded her from his confidence. But he might as well have a picture of her attached to the inside of his eyeglasses with Spellotape; her face was always in front of him.

It was starting to get dark outside, which Harry was thankful for; these thoughts were wrecking his composure and resolve. He thought about the task in front of him and about what had happened to Dumbledore the two times he had confronted a Horcrux, and suddenly Harry found himself standing with his Firebolt in one hand and his other hand on the door handle. Ginny was only a few hours away, maybe sitting in the common room with Ron and Hermione, probably wondering what had happened to him. He leaned his head on the door frame, trying to overcome the urge to fly back to Hogwarts and... and what? The Horcrux would still be here, in a graveyard that was only a mile or two away from where he stood. Voldemort would still be out there, waiting for a chance to attack him. And Ginny would be in mortal peril until either Voldemort or Harry was dead.

He sat back down on the sofa and shut his mind to any thought but the Horcrux and the last part of his plan. His resolve gradually returned, and finally full darkness fell and he went outside. The graveyard was inland from this place, near a tiny village called Tregavarah. He would Apparate there, so that he would not have to worry about his broom while he was looking for the grave or in case something went wrong.

He folded his Invisibility Cloak and put it in a pocket inside his robes, pictured his destination as best he could, felt a brief inside–out sensation, and found himself in front of the open gates of a cemetery. He listened carefully for several minutes, but heard nothing. He lit his wand, walked through the gates, and looked around.

It was a well–tended cemetery; the grass was neatly trimmed and many of the graves had fresh flowers placed on them. He wandered around looking at the headstones. After fifteen minutes he found the grave of Elspeth’s mother. The simple headstone read,

Eleanor Guelwan Pendragon

1953 – 1986

Harry wondered how a little girl visiting her mother’s grave in this peaceful corner of the world would have provoked an attack like the one she had described.

There wasn’t much nearby, only more well–kept graves. He increased the glow of his wand and started walking in widening circles around Eleanor Pendragon’s grave.

He finally saw it, set somewhat apart, as if people had tried to keep their loved ones separated from it. The grass around it was as neat as in the rest of the cemetery, but the stone was different — taller and thinner — and there was no name or dates on it, only:

Immortal Mother

Harry stared. The sentiment was remarkably moving, and it was incongruous that the author of those words could have become the essence of total evil.

Harry moved cautiously around the grave. Nothing but other graves were nearby, except for a few gnarled old shrubs about ten yards away. There were three of them, spaced evenly around Merope’s grave, which was in the center of the triangle they formed. They did not look right. With his wand at the ready, he approached one. It looked like an ordinary bush, except that Harry had seen no others like it in the graveyard. He pushed it with his boot. Nothing happened. He backed away and whispered, Rosarium! Nothing happened, and Harry smiled grimly; the plant was protected by magic. Or, he thought even more grimly, his own magic was not working.

He shook off that thought and went back to the grave. He carefully put his hand on the headstone, but again nothing happened. He stepped on the grave; the earth was soft, and gave slightly beneath his weight, but nothing happened. He scuffed the ground next to the headstone with his heel.

A bolt of red flame shot from one of the bushes and struck Harry’s heel. He cried out and dropped his wand. Another spell hit him in the back, and he screamed and fell to the ground. A green flame shot over his head, missing him by inches. He crawled along the ground, not knowing where he was going, and his head smashed into the headstone, just as another red bolt hit him in the side. He cried out again, as more spells struck him. His whole body was burning, and the world began to swim before his eyes. By the pain coming from his right foot, he thought it might have been blasted away.

The firing suddenly stopped. Harry could not move, but he heard voices. He moaned and looked up. Two dark, massive figures stood over him, and others were behind them; they were pointing their wands at him. Their forms and everything else wavered in his eyesight, and then the pain overwhelmed him and he passed out.

When Harry regained consciousness, he was lying on his back. Sound was the first thing to come to him, and he heard a deep voice call out, “He’s coming around.” Next came pain; his foot felt like it was being crushed in a vise, and his entire body ached as though someone had pounded it with a hammer. Someone moaned, and he realized it was himself. Finally vision started to return, and he saw a face bending over him. But he could not focus, and he didn’t recognize it.

Someone else touched him, and he turned his head. The movement made him dizzy, and everything went black for a moment. When his head cleared, he forced his eyes open, and even though he still could not focus, he recognized Ron leaning over him. Hermione was next to Ron, and when she saw his open eyes she stroked his face.

“I thought I left you two at school,” Harry croaked. Then he jerked around and tried to lift his head; he put it down when, again, he almost blacked out.

“Easy, Harry.” Ron put his hand on Harry’s chest. “Don’t move. You’re hurt.”

“Where’s Ginny? She didn’t come, too, did she?” Harry looked up at Ron fearfully.

Ron glanced at Hermione, who was wiping Harry’s forehead with her hand. “No, mate. She went home. She’s at the Burrow.”

Harry closed his eyes and felt a flood of relief, and then shame. Ron and Hermione were here, somehow. How had he been so foolish as to try this without them? And what would Ginny think, what would she feel? He had run away from her again, and this time he had almost got himself killed. It was Harry Potter who needed protection, not Ginny Weasley. He was an idiot.

“I’m an idiot,” he whispered.

“What?” Ron wasn’t sure he heard Harry right.

“Nothing.” Harry reached up and gripped Ron’s arm. “It’s here, Ron, it’s in the grave. We can get it out!” He slumped back; the simple movement had made his head spin.

Ron looked across Harry, and Harry turned his head slowly. His vision was clearing, and he saw three men standing next to him: Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, and a short, wiry man who looked vaguely familiar. Harry strained his foggy memory, but could not place him.

Kingsley Shacklebolt glanced at the man. “This is Edward Pendragon, Harry. Elspeth’s father.”

The man squatted down. “Everyone else has had the sense to stay away from that grave ever since Elspeth was hurt. Either you have no sense, Harry Potter, or you were looking for something very important.”

The ache in Harry’s head was starting to diminish, although the rest of his body was sore in a dozen places and his foot was still burning. He took Ron’s arm again and, with his and Hermione’s help, slowly raised himself to a sitting position. “We have to open the grave,” he said.

“Potter, you’re all smashed up,” Mad–Eye Moody growled. “Nobody’s doing anything but getting you to St. Mungo’s as soon as you can travel.”

“No!” Harry tried to stand up, but Ron and Hermione pushed him down.

“Harry, you can’t do anything now.” Hermione’s face was streaked with tears. “Please, stay still.”

Harry looked at Moody. “How did you get the jinxes to stop? You must have done something to get them to stop.”

“Those bushes are dead,” Moody answered, and his magical eye turned back to look at the grave and the triangle of bushes; Harry noticed for the first time that he had been moved outside the triangle. “They won’t hurt anyone again. But I repeat, you are going straight to hospital, and soon.”

Harry looked at Kingsley. “I watched you lift that boulder and move it off the train track last spring. How hard could it be to dig up a grave? We don’t need shovels.”

“Not hard at all, Harry,” Kingsley replied. “And we know what you’re looking for, but we can’t do it right now, like Alastor says.”

“Why not? And how do you know about the... “ He looked at Ron. “How do they know?”

“We went to McGonagall when you disappeared,” Ron answered. “She wanted to know why you had left, of course, and Ginny told her. When we got here, Hermione and I told Kingsley and Mad–Eye everything.”

Harry stared at him. Now he owed Ginny thanks, as well as another apology. “An idiot,” he murmured.

“Who is?” Ron was taken aback.

“Not you. Me.”

“Huh?”

Harry turned back to Mad–Eye. “Why not right now?” he demanded. “We have an ex–Auror and an Auror here, plus a witch who’s the smartest of her age. You know what’s in that grave, so why isn’t it worth a try to destroy it right now? Then there would only be two left.”

“What’s he talking about?” Edward Pendragon asked Kingsley. “Two of what?”

Kingsley lowered his voice. “Edward, you have to promise not to reveal this to anyone, and I mean anyone. The war could be lost if the wrong people hear about it.”

Pendragon looked startled. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

“You already know plenty.” Kingsley gave Harry a wry smile. “You might as well know the rest.” He looked at Moody, who nodded.

“There’s a Horcrux in that grave,” Kingsley said, and Pendragon’s eyes bulged. “It was created and put there by Lord Voldemort. He made five others, we believe – or at least, Albus Dumbledore believed. Two have definitely been destroyed, and another one probably has. This one here is the fourth. The fifth is still a mystery. Dumbledore guessed that he keeps the sixth one with him; it may be a snake.” He grinned. “His little pet. Until all the Horcruxes are gone, he cannot be killed.”

There was silence in the graveyard. Not even a breeze stirred the trees outside the gates. Finally, Pendragon spoke in a shaky voice. “Do it! Do what Harry says!”

“And now I agree.” Kingsley smiled at Harry, then looked at Mad–Eye.

Moody was silent; only his magical eye moved. It went to Harry, then back to the grave, then to Shacklebolt; it seemed to be looking for an answer. Finally, he pulled out his wand. “Okay, we’ll do it. Potter, you will stay here with Pendragon. If anything happens, you are to go to headquarters and wait there. Understand?” Harry nodded; Mad–Eye was neither asking for his opinion nor interested in objections.

Moody continued. “Granger, you and Weasley will come with us. You will stand off to the side, with your wands ready, but if something happens to me and Shacklebolt you will help get Potter out of here and back to headquarters. Do you understand?” Ron and Hermione also nodded.

Shacklebolt and Moody walked toward the grave. Ron and Hermione followed, and Hermione looked nervously at Harry as she walked past him. “I’ll be fine,” he said to her. “So will you.”

With Edward’s help, Harry crawled to a headstone and leaned back against it so he was facing Merope’s grave. He reached into his belt, and suddenly realized that he had no wand. He looked around. “Where’s my wand? Do you see it?”

Pendragon retrieved it from the spot where Harry had been carried. “Here, we picked it up when we moved you.” He handed it to Harry, and drew his own.

Moody and Shacklebolt stood a few feet below the foot of the grave. Mad–Eye directed Ron and Hermione to move to the side and farther back. He and Kingsley pointed their wands, and grass and dirt began flying into the air. “Granger and Weasley!” Mad–Eye called out. “Pile it up over there!” Ron looked at him uncertainly, but Hermione extended her wand and the loose soil began to gather into a mound in front of her.

After a few minutes, the flying stream abruptly stopped. “That’s it,” Moody announced. He and Shacklebolt walked toward the open grave, and the light from their wands increased. Ron and Hermione also moved forward, but Kingsley motioned them back. “Wait!” he ordered.

Mad–Eye and Kingsley looked down, then at each other. Moody frowned, but Shacklebolt’s face held an expression of amazement. “Edward, come here!” he called.

Ron and Hermione also came and looked into the opening. A wooden coffin lay there, plain except for a small, carved serpent. Lying on top of it, glowing with a soft yellow light, was a wand.

Edward Pendragon stood next to them. “Good lord! The lost wand! How did it get here?” He looked back at Harry leaning against the headstone a few yards away. “How did he know?”

“Then it’s what I think it is?” said Shacklebolt.

“Of course! No question. But what’s the yellow light?”

The Auror grinned. “That, my friend, is one–seventh of the soul of Lord Voldemort, and in a few hours that one–seventh will vanish on the wind like a lover’s whisper.”

Mad–Eye snorted. “Since when are you a poet, Shacklebolt?”

Kingsley laughed, a deep, booming sound, and Ron and Hermione startled. “How can you be laughing now?” Ron said. “And what if someone hears?”

“Then we’ll enchant the whole cemetery,” he replied, still smiling. “Don’t worry, Ron. That wand is harmless as long as no one touches it. And as soon as daylight strikes it, it will no longer be a Horcrux.”

“How can that be?”

“You explain,” Kingsley said to Mad–Eye. “I’ll bring Harry over. He should see this.”

“It’s a very crude Horcrux,” Moody said. “He probably made it when he was young. It wasn’t protected very well, either, as you saw. The bushes were pathetically simple to disarm. I’m surprised Potter couldn’t do it. And that wand is not a very efficient container for a Horcrux. It has its own pretty strong protective qualities.” He looked at Edward Pendragon with his normal eye. “Right?”

Pendragon nodded. “It would have resisted being used for such a foul purpose. It was in our family for a very long time. I was young when it disappeared, right about the time this grave was dug, now that I think about it. I wonder why You–Know–Who wanted to use it?”

Harry spoke from right behind them. “If you tell me what it is, then I can probably answer that.” They all turned, except Moody, whose magical eye looked backward through his head. Harry was supported by Kingsley, but Ron and Hermione both came and took him from the Auror. “Let me see it,” Harry said. They helped him limp to the grave and he peered down at the glowing wand. “Whose was it?” he asked Edward Pendragon.

The man hesitated. “It’s a family heirloom, but we do have letters and wills that go back over a thousand years,” he said diffidently. “It’s Merlin’s wand.”

There was silence, until Kingsley Shacklebolt said with a smile, “So, Harry, you were going to tell us why the Dark Lord used Merlin’s wand as a Horcrux.”

“It makes complete sense,” Harry answered. “Everything he used was a hallowed relic of some kind. Professor Dumbledore thought that he preferred things that were connected to Hogwarts. But this one must be older and more valuable than anything else in Britain. Somehow, he found out about it and managed to steal it. He stole most of the other objects that he turned into Horcruxes.”

They all gazed at it. Finally Ron spoke. “So what happens when the sun comes up?”

“A Dark Art performed on something like this can’t stand the light of day,” Moody growled. “What are they teaching you at that school, anyway?”

“Nothing about Merlin’s wand,” Ron shot back. “So now we just wait?”

“Now we just wait,” Kingsley said.

They sat around the open grave and, while Kingsley examined Harry’s foot, they discussed what they would do after sunrise.

“Potter, you’re going straight to hospital,” Moody said. “You took more hits in five minutes than I did in five years.”

“No,” Harry shook his head. “I’m going to the Burrow.” He looked at Ron, then back at Mad–Eye. “I’m going home.”

“That’s not your home,” Moody replied.

“It is, and it has been for six years. Anyway,” he lowered his voice and put his head down, “there’s someone there I have to talk to.”

Ron grinned, and Hermione, who was sitting behind Harry, put her hand on his shoulder. “Harry, that would be the best Christmas present for everyone,” she whispered in his ear.

Harry put his hand on hers. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”

“Give up, Alastor,” Kingsley laughed. “Remember what I said about lovers?”

“Fine, fine,” Mad–Eye growled. “Molly can take care of him, I suppose. But what about that foot?”

“Bruised, and the skin’s pretty badly burned.” Shacklebolt looked at Harry. “Seriously, Harry, you need someone to fix it. I can’t do much more.”

Edward Pendragon spoke. “There’s a Healer a few miles from my house. She works at St. Mungo’s, but she comes home for the holiday.”

“That’s it then,” said Harry. “I’m going home tomorrow, but I’ll let the Healer see it first.”

“‘You’ll let her see it first,’” Moody repeated in a deeper growl. “Damn right you will, Potter. If I let you go to Molly Weasley with your foot like that, she’ll put me in one of her pot pies.”

Everyone laughed, and soon all the plans for tomorrow — Christmas Eve — were settled. Mad–Eye would return to the Burrow first. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Kingsley would follow as soon as Harry was well enough to Apparate, hopefully later the same day. Edward Pendragon would fetch Harry’s Firebolt from the cottage by the sea, and return it to Harry as soon as possible. Then they sat and waited — wrapped in their cloaks and warmed by a charm that Kingsley cast — until the sky in the east started to grow light.

They all stood, and Ron and Hermione helped Harry, who could not put weight on his right foot. Slowly the sun rose and a small breeze came up. The sun cast a pale light on Merope’s headstone, and inside the grave the coffin and the glowing wand lying on it became more distinct. The light strengthened. Suddenly, the yellow glow flashed and was replaced by a yellowish veil of smoke that rose above the grave, then above the headstone. The breeze quickened, and the veil disappeared.

Ron, along with everyone else, stared at the wand, but then he looked around at the others. “Why was it so easy? How can we be sure it’s gone?”

“Don’t underestimate Voldemort, but don’t overestimate him, either,” Moody growled. “I told you he was probably young when he made this one. Young and arrogant.” He looked at Ron with both eyes. “That’s a common combination.” Ron didn’t answer.

Harry’s arms were draped over Ron and Hermione’s shoulders. He lifted his face from the coffin and the wand, and looked into the rising sun.

“What is it?” Hermione said.

Harry turned to Alastor Moody. “When you go to the Burrow today, I want you to deliver a message for Ginny Weasley, and ask her to have her family about her. Tell her, ‘We could have had ages... months... years. And we will when I come home.’”

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