InsaneJournal

Who: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore
When: August 1st, late afternoon
Where: The Burrow
What: Talking, Arguing, Planning
Rating: PG, Angst
TBC in comments.



Harry stared down at the table in front of him, poking at the locket there once. The Burrow was quiet - Molly and Arthur out, Ginny with them. It felt a bit strangely empty really. He was used to the bustle and noise of the Burrow, but with just him and Ron there, it felt big, instead of crowded, and calm instead of chaotic. He missed the chaos, really. But it'd given them time to go over their plans, at least, before Hermione left to fetch some things from her house.

Dumbledore had already told Harry that he planned to retire. He hadn't come right out and said why, but Harry wasn't daft, and he'd seen the signs, and been there to spoonfeed him poison. Dumbledore was starting to look. . . well, old. He looked his age, and weak with it. He'd said he'd be by later today. Or tomorrow. Dumbledore never was exact, he seemed to move on his own time schedule and Harry had given up trying to keep up with what that was ages ago. He'd just deal with the old wizard when he showed up. As always, Harry had the impression that Dumbledore knew more than he was saying. This wasn't fifth year though, and Harry had to trust that if there were things he wasn't saying, then he had his reasons.

But that didn't keep it from being frustrating. And Harry hated this bloody locket, and was tired of the constant search for who R.A.B. was, and why he'd done what he'd done - or she, as Hermione had been quick to point out. Harry didn't care if it was a he, or a she, or a slug - so long as they figured it out. They needed to know if they were going to find the rest and destroy them.

Plus he was just really tired of reading everything Hermione shoved at him and listening to her theories on who R.A.B. was. Not that they weren't brilliant ideas, but Harry's eyes were still starting to cross hearing them.

Although it was better than thinking about the flight from Privet Drive, and what happened, he supposed. It felt like it still hadn't quite sunk in. Hagrid had been his first friend, the first to take him away from his old life. He'd been larger than life. It was. . . impossible to think of him gone. Who else could fill the space he'd left behind? It had driven home just how dangerous this was, though. Dumbledore was old, and he was already dying - even if neither of them had quite said that. Harry could take his help. Hermione and Ron were different. They shouldn't have to risk this with him. . . he just didn't know how to convince them of that.

He looked up as he heard the crack of apparation, pocketing the locket quickly in case it was Molly. He got up to walk into the living room to see if it was Hermione. Neither him nor Ron had wanted her to go alone, but she'd insisted. Hermione was very hard to argue out of something she had her mind set on.

Ron had been putting away all the books and parchments they'd had out before Hermione had left, wanting it out of sight before his Mum or Dad came home, or perhaps in the vain hope that, if the books were put away, they could give it a rest for a bit. It was getting to be a bit much, and he was pretty sure that, contrary to a certain girl's belief, it wouldn't kill them to take an afternoon off from going around in the same circles over and over again.

He heard the crack of apparition as well and hurried down the stairs as quickly as possible, nearly bowling Harry over in his rush to see if it was Hermione and if she was alright. Bloody daft girl, going off by herself anyways. "Oy! Sorry, mate," he managed, as he somehow got his feet back underneath him and kept both himself and Harry upright.

Hermione had sat for a very long time in the small bedroom of her parent's home. Not her home. Not anymore, at least. Not even her parents, really. She had sat and thought about the years she'd spent here before Hogwarts - before she'd known what magic, or muggles, or obliviation charms were. Before she'd ever heard of a boy called Harry Potter. She knew that she'd been happy, then, but if she'd stayed that innocent of all of it? No, she decided. She wouldn't be happier now.

She didn't cry, and she was glad of that. Maybe this might have been easier if she'd told the boys what she'd been planning, but she knew that they'd try to stop her. Or at least that she'd feel the need to explain herself, and this hadn't been that type of choice. This wasn't something to be talked over or understood. It was just something she knew that she had to do to keep her parents safe while she did what she had to do to keep her friends safe. That was that, and that was enough.

But she couldn't stay there forever. Wendell and Monica Wilkins would be coming back soon, with the realtor, and as they didn't have a daughter, they wouldn't expect to find one sitting in the spare bedroom. She picked up the last of the things she'd want to take with her, and shoved them into her charmed bag, then slung it over her shoulder and checked her eyes one more time in the dresser mirror to be sure that they weren't red or puffy. Sure that they weren't, she apparated back to The Burrow with a crack.

Harry had reached to catch himself on the door frame when Ron bowled him over, shooting the other boy a dark look. "Watch it," he ordered, but really it was a bit comforting, the fact that Ron still tripped over his own oversized feet half the time. If Ron had to go and shoot up taller than him, at least he hadn't yet sussed out how to work his limbs properly, all the time. It served him right for turning into a giant. (Well. Not giant. But taller than Harry, which was enough.)

He extracted himself from Ron and relaxed when he saw Hermione, not Molly and Arthur. He loved the Weasleys, but Molly was starting to get in fits about wedding plans already, and she worried and fussed. And was always after Harry to eat. Harry thought if he stayed at the Burrow too long, he'd end up fatter than his Uncle.

Hermione looked. . . well, like Hermione. But Harry thought her face looked a bit. . . off, maybe. He frowned. "Everything all right there, Hermione?" he asked.

Ron rolled his eyes. "You watch it," he said back, "short-stuff," he added, a bit more smugly then he probably needed to. It was, he had to admit, more then a little gratifying to know he'd shot up way over Harry's head, and he wasn't nearly as clumsy as what he'd been last year. Usually. Most of the time.

Ron stepped in right behind Harry, his blue eyes raking over Hermione sharply, as if checking for visible signs of her being hurt or attacked, even though she looked perfectly calm. Too calm, maybe, but it was Hermione, so sometimes it was hard to tell. Usually she was the one keeping them from freaking out. He'd opened his mouth to ask her if she was alright when harry beat him to it. He snapped his mouth shut with an annoyed grunt.

Hermione looked back and forth between them once, then shrugged. She wouldn't lie to them to say that she was fine. That everything was fine. That would be too easy to do, and too much of an obvious lie to be believed. Hagrid's death had solidified it - she didn't know that anything would be fine again. They'd win, because there wasn't really an option but for them to win. She couldn't believe anything but that eventual end, knowing they'd work for it. But would that make things fine? She didn't really think so.

Still, she gave them a small, strained sort of half-smile while she didn't answer, and looked around to room. It was curiously devoid of the work they'd been doing. "You didn't figure it out, did you?" Her tone was half disbelief, half sarcasm.

Harry trod on Ron's toes "accidentally". Hard. He stepped out of reach then, crossing his arms over his still-narrow chest and frowning a little, then shrugging. "We've been at it for weeks, did you really thing you'd go off for a few hours and come back to find out we'd sussed it out on our own?" Hermione really ought to know better. Besides, they'd worked at it for an hour and then given it up for a bad job after arguing over the last almond biscuit in the tin. Which Harry hadn't even wanted all that much, but Ron had eaten about ten others. It was probably a good thing he'd shot up, otherwise he'd be short and round.

Hermione's smile wasn't very convincing, but Harry chalked it up to just the stress of it all. Her parents likely wanted her to stay home - they were muggles, but even they'd caught on something was wrong by now. And the flight from Harry's had been hard on all of them. Even the Weasley twins had been shaken by it. Much as they ever were. "We found a bit of a note about horcruxes in that one book that smells of cabbage, but nothing we didn't already know."