Chapter 7
"Bloody hell!" Harry whispered as he took over watch for Hermione. Rebecca had clearly found a way to keep busy on watch--he was surrounded by an army of snowmen. The locket clicked and whirred around his neck, not yet filling him with anger, only unease.
He sat and looked over Rebecca and Hermione's wands carefully, wishing he still had his own like he did every time he had to borrow one of theirs. He had taken to borrowing both, using his time on watch to compare their strengths. Harry had no idea how they were going to repair his wand. He had only ever heard of two wandmakers, Ollivander and Gregorovitch. It seemed to be a very career-specific skill to repair a wand, especially one cracked in half.
The fire crackled and Harry tossed another stick into it. It was freezing. More snow hadn't fallen since the first day they arrived in the Forest of Dean, but there was so much on the ground it hardly mattered. The fact was only made more evident by Rebecca's means of entertaining herself.
As time slipped by, Harry checked his watch. His watch had only gone on for two hours and he was struggling. Movement caught his eyes, something flitting in the air near the edge of the firelight. He pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at the wisp, leaning forward as it transformed into a patronus. A doe.
Harry stood and let his blanket fall to the ground. A sense of familiarity accompanied the doe and, as she turned to leave, Harry walked after it. It kept looking over her shoulder, making sure that Harry followed along. The doe went out of their clearing and through the trees surely, bowing its head to the floor before changing their course.
There was a string of ponds on the outside of their defences. Over the biggest of them, the doe stopped. Harry held Rebecca's wand carefully: it tended to do what it wanted in the hands of someone else. It was the quicker option compared to Hermione's, however. Hers only behaved for another if the spell was done perfectly.
"Lumos?" Harry tried to cast. Rebecca's wand must have either learnt that Harry could be trusted or agreed that it was too dark because it illuminated without issue. Harry walked faster towards the doe as it turned back into the wisp he had seen first. The ice cracked under his weight, but held solid as the wisp sank slowly into the center.
Harry crouched to one knee quickly, trying to stay with the wisp. He felt a loss at the light's disappearance. When he raised his hand off the otherwise opaque ice, there was a clear handprint. He dropped his elbow to the ice and wiped away at the blur, making a window into the depths. Something shown at the bottom.
The Sword of Gryffindor.
"Accio sword!" Harry tried. He wasn't entirely discounting the possibility that it was Rebecca's wand keeping the spell from being cast, but he also knew that that would be too easy. And, as their trek had learnt, nothing was easy.
"Accio Sword of Godric Gryffindor?" He sighed and stepped away from the window he had made. Harry abandoned the idea of bringing the sword to him. "Diffindo!" A hole melted through the ice. Harry looked at the trees around shook his head, "This is stupid." He pulled off his jumper and then began to pile his clothes next to it. "Really, really stupid." Harry repeated as he stepped out of his boots. He considered taking off the locket too, but leaving it out in the open seemed too dangerous and idea.
The ice of the pond's surface was a lot colder on his bare feet and he crossed his arms against his chest as he stood overlooking the hole. His briefs did little to keep any of the chill out. He dipped his foot in and pulled it back out immediately. The water was so cold it hurt. The sword seemed to taunt him from where it lay out of his reach.
Harry crouched down and, if someone had been watching, they would have seen a thing boy with his arms wrapped around his knees in nothing more than his pants in the middle of winter. Harry took a quick breath and fell forward into the water. To the invisible onlooker, the pond appeared to be alone once more.
Harry kicked through the water, his arms out in from of him to claw through the frigidity. He had kept his glasses on, afraid of being more blind than necessary, and the locket floated, gently bouncing on his skin.
As Harry's hand reached out for the sword's pommel, Salazar Slytherin's locket sprung to life and tightened around his throat. Harry's hands jerked away from the sword and fumbled around his neck. The freezing temperature of the water left his fingers thick and immobile, unable to get between the locket that continued to tighten. Its chain cut into his skin as it tried to bring him down to the bottom of the pond; dark swirls of blood climbed in the water.
Harry fought his way up, searching for the hold he had entered the water in. He abandoned the fight to get the locket off and began to punch at the ice above him with both hands. His lungs burnt, his vision was going fuzzy and dark around the edges. He kicked wildly, using the last of his strength to continue his fight against the ice. "I'm drowning." Harry thought in his fading consciousness. "I'm another drowned Potter."
Harry's eyes closed. He heard a crash come through the water, but he was too far gone to look or move towards it. A hand grabbed him and pulled him up out of the ice before slapping him, hard. "Fuck, Hermione!" Harry shivered violently and turned onto his side, clearing his lungs of the water inside.
"Are you mental?" Ron asked incredulously, crouched in front of him. Ron looked back at the drag marks left from where he had taken Harry out of the water and reached for his glasses, knowing how much Harry hated not being able to reach them when he woke up.
"It's you?" Harry tried to stand up but slipped on the ice. He braced himself on a fallen tree and managed to get his feet under him.
"Bit obvious, I'd think." Ron stood and turned his head away from Harry, unable to look him in the eyes.
"Did you cast the doe as well?" Harry asked angrily, trying to get his legs he couldn't still into his trouser legs.
"No." Ron paused. "You saw it too? I thought that was you or Rebecca."
"No." Harry shook his head roughly. "My patronus is a stag and hers is a cardinal."
"Oh yeah, antlers." Ron held his hands up over his head before turning his attention to the sword. "Bottom of a pond. No wonder we didn't find it."
Harry ignored Ron's attempts at conversation and continued to try and put his clothes back on. Ron stepped forward to try and help Harry separate the end of his jumper, but Harry jumped back and did it himself. Harry knew Rebecca would be able to get the blood out of it as his neck dripped down his still-wet skin.
Harry considered healing himself with Rebecca's wand, but with it he was more likely to end up with a second head. Harry tried to lay the locket onto the felled tree he used to stand, but he knocked it off with his shaking hands.
Ron picked it up and set it down, not letting Harry try again.
Harry tucked his hands under his armpits and jerked his head to the locket. "Go on then, do it."
"I can't do that!" Ron looked at the locket with fear clear in his eyes. "That thing affects me more that it does you three! We all saw that-"
"Yeah, we all did." Harry stood in place. "All the more reason you ought to be the one to finish it."
"I can't." Ron backed away.
"Then why are you here?!" Harry shouted. "Why did you come back?" Harry marched forward and poked Ron's chest roughly, though the effect was diminished by his chattering teeth. "You couldn't have come back just to hurt her more, right? Hurt them both more?" Ron looked down in shame. "Do you know how much they've cried? The damage you did?"
"Yeah, I do."
"No." Harry walked back to the tree. "No you don't. Because you left."
Ron lifted the sword. His decision was clear enough that he didn't have to voice it. Ron would face the locket.
"I'll speak so that it opens, the locket of Slytherin will need Parseltongue." Harry frowned, thinking of the locket's own influence on him whenever he had worn it for too long. "I don't know what's in there, but it will put up a fight."
Ron nodded and hoisted the sword higher.
"Shih hashanath he esth."
The locket's door opened and sent a shockwave out as a plume of shadow erupted from it's glowing centre. A high-pitched buzzing sent Harry to the ground with his hands covering his ears as the horcrux reared its voice at Ron.
"I have seen your heart." The voice was dark and foreboding, seeming to project out into the night only to crash down on Ron's ears. "It is mine. I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley." Ron shook his head up at the tower of darkness, his face white as the snow around them. "And I have seen your fears."
A wave of spiders washed out from the locket, the arachnids scuttling over the leaves and snow. Ron whimpered and shook his head faster. His breath came in panicked pants.
"Least loved by your mother of all her children, including the one she did not birth. Least loved by the girl, her preferring your best friend." A light grew out of the centre of the shadow, a light that Harry knew would draw Ron further under its spell.
"RON!" Harry forced himself back to his feet, battling the wind that began to spin around them. "Kill it! Don't listen, kill it!!"
Three shapes formed in the shadow: Harry, Rebecca, and Hermione. Shadow-Harry grinned lifting his hand helf by Hermione's higher. "We were better off without you. Happier without you."
Shadow-Rebecca threw her arms around the two. "After what you said, we were relieved you were gone. A burden left on its own." Ron froze, staring up at the embodiments of his worst fears. "I never considered you a brother anyway, not like Harry."
Shadow-Hermione when in for the another blow. "Who could look at you compared to Harry Potter? What are you compared to the Chosen Ones?"
Harry screamed into the wind again as Ron failed to kill the horcrux that was nearing him. "It's lying, Ron!"
Shadow-Rebecca put its arm around Harry. "Your mother would take both of us over you, she's all but said so herself."
Shadow-Hermione grinned. "Who can blame her? No woman will love you compared to-"
Ron jumped up and let out an animalistic roar as he charged forward, swinging the Sword of Godric Gryffindor through the image and directly onto the locket on the tree.
Harry looked up from where he had cowered. For a moment, he hadn't been sure whether Ron was attacking him or the horcrux.
Ron dropped to his knees, panting.
"Ron," Harry started, his shivering less than it had been before. "None of that was true. Hermione...Hermione is like a sister. And Molly? Your mum?" Harry shook his head. "Ron, if there's one thing she's proven, it's that she's got enough love to share."
Ron didn't say anything for a moment. "Did they really cry?"
"You will never understand what you did to them that night."
Ron lowered his head and wiped at his face before standing and sniffing deeply. "I may not, but I'm going to make up for it." Ron held his hand out for Harry to take to help to his feet. "Besides, there's only three more horcruxes now."
The sun had begun to shine over the the forest by the time the boys made it back to the camp, though it brought no warmth--only light. "Hermione? Rebecca?" Harry called, motioning to Ron to stay back a bit. "Good morning!"
"Harry?" Rebecca questioned as she poked her head out of the tent with a poorly stifled yawn. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong?" Harry smiled as the girls went to the fire that was nothing more than embers. "Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine, actually. More than fine."
Rebecca froze when Ron came into view, but Harry tried to keep the mood as positive as he could. He looked to Hermione instead.
Ron looked different to Rebecca, she was disappointed to find. She had considered the fact that her view had been skewed beforehand, but hoped that it wouldn't be true. If it was, it meant that her every memory with Fred were with how she had seen him unclearly. Ron's hair was brighter than she thought, less of a red and more of an orange. His face was sharper, and there were freckles clear across his nose and cheeks.
"Hey!" Ron called with a little wave.
Hermione marched forward without a second's delay. The first thing she did was throw a punch into his eye exactly as Rebecca had the night they had fought.
Ron's hand shot up to his eye and he cried out, "Every time!"
Hermione punched at his arms, taking the bag off his shoulder and throwing it on the ground. "You...you complete arse, Ronald Weasley!" She picked the bag up and used it to beat on him more. "You show up here, weeks after you left, after you said-you said what you said, and you say 'hey?'"
Ron stared at her and didn't say anything. His hand fell away from his eye that seemed as if it would be perpetually black.
Rebecca still stood where she had, not knowing what she felt. She was relieved to see him okay, but seeing him there in front of her made everything he had said rush back into her thoughts.
Hermione turned on her heel and focused on Harry. "Where's my wand?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know." Hermione marched towards him and Harry walked backwards until his back was up against a tree, her wand held up out of her reach.
"My wand, Harry Potter! You give me my wand!"
"How come he's got your wand?" Ron asked concerned.
"You never mind why he's got my wand!" Hermione shouted over her shoulder. Then, she noticed what Ron held in his hand. "What is that?"
Rebecca gasped as she took notice of the horcrux Ron lifted up higher. "You destroyed it." She moved closer to see it.
"And how, do tell, do you just happen to have the Sword of Gryffindor?" Hermione demanded.
"It's a long story." Harry spoke from behind her before falling silent at Hermione attention landing on him again. Hermione stomped off while muttering about going to gather more wood. "Do you want to hear?" He asked Rebecca.
Rebecca looked from the locket, or what once was the locket, to Ron. "Don't think this changes anything, not between us." Rebecca turned so that she could go see why Harry had a ring of blood around his throat.
"I just destroyed a bloody horcrux! That doesn't change anything!" Ron shrunk under her eyes meeting his again. "I went home-"
"Your home, right?" Rebecca interrupted. "Your home, to your mum and dad, to your brothers and sister."
"No." Ron said firmly. "Ye-No, just let me explain!" Ron exclaimed loudly, holding his hands out so that Hermione stayed too instead of dropping off the armful of branches and going to get more. "I did go home, to our home, but the Burrow was empty. Everyone's been split up into safe houses. The Order made them. I ended up at Aunt Muriel's house. I went there and I waited."
"You waited?" Rebecca scoffed. "Well, by all means. Someone get a bloody trophy! You know what we've done? We've raised more questions, fought a giant fucking snake, went to a bloody optometrist because apparently glasses aren't just permanent, we had to-"
"I waited for a sign." Ron interrupted her, sensing a list that would only end in her crying based on the emotion sneaking into her voice. "I waited for a sign. It doesn't just turn out the lights." He brought the Deluminator out of his pocket. "I don't know how it works and I don't know what else it can do, but it brought me back here. It spoke to me, Hermione. It spoke to me in your voice, just a whisper."
"And what exactly did I say?" Hermione demanded.
"My name. Just my name." Ron glanced down at the little tool in his hand. "I took it, I clicked it, and a ball of light appeared. It showed me this hillside, so I disapparated." Rebecca looked at Ron without being able to hide her worry--he hadn't apparated by himself since he nearly splinched his arm off. "That little ball of light...it went right through me, through my heart. I knew I had to follow it. I ended up here, in this forest. It was dark and I had no idea where I was. I just hoped that one of you would show yourselves and you did."
Ron looked at them all in turn as he finished, not sure what was to happen next.
Hermione stomped back into the tent while Rebecca went to Harry. She brushed her hand against his wet hair and surveyed the cut from the locket's chain. "You're mental." She healed it. "Go on and change, wet clothes on a cold day and you'll catch your death."
Harry walked away, looking behind him as he entered the tent. Rebecca was moving towards the fire and Ron was lingering at the edge of it. Just as Harry ducked inside, Ron moved to sit down across from her.
"Hermione's right?" Ron asked, holding his hands up to the flames. "Always loved the fire she makes."
Rebecca ignored his chatter. "Who else was at the cottage?"
Ron jumped up and grabbed his bag, tearing through it roughly. "I've got it in here somewhere, as well as a box from mum to you lot, and more letters." Ron pulled out the envelope with Fred's writing scrawled across the front and held it out to her. "Nearly everyone was there. Charlie's back in Romania, preparing the dragons. Percy-" Ron cleared his throat. "Percy's still gone. Sirius and Remus were there quite a lot too, they're not too fond of me anymore." Ron's face flashed white and then red with shame. "Fred was...upset with me."
Rebecca opened the letter and tuned out Ron's nervous chatter, reading over Fred's words with a need bordering on desperation.
"My love,
This has been the hardest letter I have ever had to write. To know that you will be able to hear from me, but that I will not get a response...it's forcing me to face some of what I have distracted myself from. Distractions have been my focus, it seems. Potterwatch, work, writing to you.
Pathetic I know, but pretending we talk--even through an old notebook--has kept me sane. I hope, when you come back, you bring my sanity with you. It seems to have left when you did.
When Ron finds you, which I know he will, I want you to remember what he said."
Rebecca glanced at Ron, thinking he must have lied to them for Fred to say something like that.
"I want you to remember it all so you can hear just how wrong it is. You will always have a family and I will always, absolutely always, be yours.
There is little we can be certain of, but that is one we can. You and I will have each other.
I love you so much more than words can tell you.
I miss you so much more than I can tell you.
And I need you.
Stay safe, stay smart,
Your Fred."
Rebecca held the letter in her hands and methodically folded it back up.
"I've got more." Ron turned towards his bag again. "Most everyone wrote something."
"Not now." Rebecca was walking away, needing to be alone with her aching heart at Fred's pain and his distance. "Not yet."
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"How long do you think they'll be mad at me?" Ron asked Harry after dinner had passed tense as ever. The girls were still out at the fire, but he and Harry had retreated inside the tent.
Rebecca and Hermione remained silent, though the anger that rolled off of Hermione left the boys relieved at that. Rebecca was distant, cold towards Ron but not angry.
"Don't get me wrong," Harry pointed at Ron. "I'm still pissed." He glanced out the tent flap where Hermione and Rebecca sat for first watch rotation. "But you didn't hurt me, not like you did them."
Ron sighed, but when Harry reached for his wand out of habit and grabbed nothing but air, his thoughts were brought elsewhere. "You need a wand!"
"Yeah. Mine...snapped."
"Bloody hell, remember mine after the Whomping Willow?"
Harry laughed. "Remember how you ended up eating slugs?"
Ron's laughter ended abruptly. "I've got one in here, blackthorn." Ron handed it to Harry. "Nothing special, I'm afraid. But it'll do. Ran into some Snatchers out there, pretty dim lot."
Outside, Rebecca sat with her arm against Hermione's. "Y'alright, aren't you?"
"Yes." Hermione looked at Rebecca alarmed. "Are you?"
"I just meant with the whole Ron thing."
Hermione's eyes darkened. "I just-I can't believe he just comes back. After everything, he shows back up."
Rebecca bit her lip. "I know." There was a silence before she spoke again. "I think we have to move on though."
Hermione looked at her skeptically.
"I know, it's not something I'd normally say. I'm all for a good grudge." Rebecca's jaw dropped when Hermione nodded sharply in agreement. "Hey!"
Hermione raised an eyebrow and Rebecca couldn't argue against her, not really.
"He had the horcrux on, okay? He had a part of You-Know-Who's soul around his neck. I'm sure he's thought all that before, it had to have come from somewhere. But he only said it to us with evil on him."
Hermione looked at the fire, refusing to meet Rebecca's eyes. "So you're saying to forget it? He didn't even say that to me an-and you don't even seem to care!"
Rebecca sighed, not taking the bait for a fight. "I do care, Hermione. It hurt. It hurt just like it hurt you when he left. But-" She paused. She didn't want to relay what Fred said, not yet. For now, that was only hers. "It just doesn't matter. Not when we have other things at hand; bigger things that we'll need each other to deal with."
Rebecca laid her head on Hermione's shoulder until shouts from in the tent made them both jump to their feet.
Harry had waved the wand at the candle in front of them to test the wand, trying to make the flame slightly bigger. "Engorgio." The fire jumped out of the jar and shot up at the ceiling, dangerously close to the top of the tent. "REDUCIO!"
"What's going on in there?" Hermione demanded.
"Nothing!" Both boys said in unison.
"You know that's not nothing." Hermione muttered, motioning for Rebecca to check on the tent with her. "I won't forget and I won't just move on," Rebecca winced. "But I will behave less murderously. It's incredibly taxing."
Rebecca laughed as they stepped into the tent, and only stopped when Hermione gave her a look.
"We have to talk." Hermione began. "I-"
"Yeah?" Ron looked up excitedly.
Hermione walked past them both and went towards the table. "I want to go see Xenophilius Lovegood."
"What?" Harry asked confused. This was very much not what he had been expecting.
"It makes sense, just-show them the book, Hermione." Rebecca motioned. She wasn't sure how Hermione had lasted so many years of her not knowing what she was talking about. Not without strangling her.
"In a letter Dumbledore wrote to Grindelwald, the sign. On one of the graves in Godric's Hollow, the sign. It keeps cropping up and you said he had it on a necklace." Hermione looked to Harry as she began to outline how their plan desperately needed some fresh inspiration. "We've got no idea where the next horcrux is and this--this sign--it means something. I'm sure of it."
Ron crossed the room eagerly. "Hermione's right! We ought to see Lovegood!" He raised his hand high over his head. "Let's vote on it!"
Hermione stared at Ron unimpressed, but Rebecca and Harry both raised their hands.
*******************************************
"Mum sent biscuits and I didn't touch a crumb." Ron walked around with the box as they walked. From their camp, they chose a location far enough from the Burrow to not raise suspicion from any sentries left but close enough to be able to walk to the Lovegoods. "I swear it!"
"I believe you, Ron." Harry laughed. "After all, there are still some left!"
This brought a smile to the girls' faces.
The other letters had been read over breakfast, all words of encouragements and warnings to be safe. Rebecca used Fred as a crutch in the woods and hills surrounding the Burrow's location. She had thought that walking in the woods on the way to Caterham had been reminiscent of how she arrived to the Burrow, but it wasn't. Not compared to walking the very same lands she had eight years earlier.
"You never said what Fred wrote." Hermione remarked, wanting to dray Rebecca out of the shell she was retreating into.
"Oh, same old, same old." The humour didn't reach her tone. "Bloody hell, I miss him." Hermione didn't say anything, only letting her eyes drift to Ron's back ahead of them. "Still mad, are you?"
Hermione gave Rebecca a raised eyebrow. "I'm always mad at him."
"Madly in love." Rebecca muttered.
Hermione turned and looked at her with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "What was that?"
Rebecca paled and hurried ahead to walk in line with Harry and Ron. Later, long after they had begun walking, a house appeared in the distance with kites attached to its stones so that they flew as long as the wind lasted--which was nearly always on top of the hill the house was situated on. "Whimsical, just like her." She remarked.
Harry and Ron gave each other a knowing look. Whimsical must have meant strange. The house only grew more...whimsical as they approached. The outside was decorated by mural after mural of different creatures.
Hermione reached forward and used the knocker underneath the metal plate that read: Xenophilius Lovegood--The Quibbler Editor in Chief.
A shadow of the man Harry had seen at the wedding threw the top half of the dual-split door open. His hair was limp and knotted and dark bags had collected under his eyes which were only exaggerated by his protruding cheek bones.
"What is it?" He demanded. "Who are you? What do you want?"
Harry raised his hand from the back of their group. "Hello, Mr Lovegood. It's Harry Potter. We met a few months ago at Bill and Fleur's wedding?" He walked up the few steps to the door and glanced over his shoulder. They were too exposed like this. "Could we come in?"
Xenophilius' personality changed instantly. His eyes brightened as he corralled them through his house that more like a tomb of books and loose papers than a home. He put a kettle on and laid out a plate of biscuits before sitting in his chair silently.
Rebecca sipped her tea and looked around. "Where's Luna?"
"Luna?" Xenophilius repeated. "She'll be around." He looked up at the house warily.
Hermione peered up over the fireplace at the horn that was hung. "Is that an Erumpent horn? They're so combustible! Having one so close to the-"
"That," Xenophilius paused and lowered his voice from the shout he began with. "That is the horn of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack." He pushed himself to his feet and went out of the room, muttering about getting Luna.
"Really?" Harry hissed once they were alone. "What are you doing insulting him?"
"It wasn't an insult!" Hermione whispered back. "It's a-"
"How can I help you, Mr Potter?" Xenophilius marched back in without revealing that he had heard them before or whether he had had any luck finding Luna.
Harry set his cup down. "Well, actually...it's about something you were wearing at the wedding. A symbol."
Xenophilius rattled through the necklaces around his neck and pulled one out, showing it to them against the palm of his hand. "This?"
Harry nodded and stared at it. "That exactly. What we've wondered is--well, what is it?"
Rebecca didn't see anything remarkable about it, other than the fact that Harry had noticed such a small detail.
"What is it?" Xenophilius echoed incredulously. "It's the sign of the Deathly Hallows, of course."
Hermione and Rebecca spoke in unison. "The what?"
"The Deathly Hallows." Xenophilius said. "I assume you're all familiar with 'The Tale of the Three Brothers?'"
Harry and Rebecca said that they were not, while Ron and Hermione sat up straighter and said that they were.
Xenophilius stared at them, clearly waiting for them to inform their uneducated companions.
Hermione reached into her back and began to search out the book Dumbledore had left her. "I have it in here..." She rummaged around, bottles clinking audibly before she pulled out the aged book. She flipped through the pages quickly, very familiar with the book's layout. "There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight-"
"Midnight." Ron interrupted before sitting back sheepishly. "Mum always said 'midnight.' But twilight's fine! Better actually!"
Rebecca tapped the edge of the book, eager for Hermione to continue. She remembered how mental Fred had thought of things like the moon being made out of cheese, but they had never found time to sit and share things like this--things like the story Hermione began again.
"There were once three brothers who were traveling down along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too treacherous to pass." Rebecca looked at the pictures while Hermione read, contently against her side. A comfortable chair, a story, tea. It was the most peace she had felt in a while. "But, being learned in the magical arts, the three brothers simply waved their wands and made a bridge."
Harry lifted his cup and drank while Hermione continued.
"Before they could cross, however, they found their path blocked by a hooded figure. It was Death, and he felt cheated--cheated because travelers normally drown in the river. But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the brothers on their magic and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him. The oldest asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence. So Death fashioned him one from an elder tree that stood nearby."
Xenophilius paced by the window.
"The second brother decided he wanted to humiliate Death even further and asked for the power to recall loved ones from the grave. So Death plucked a stone from the river and offered it to him. Finally, Death turned to the third brother. A humble man, he asked for something that would allow him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death."
Rebecca still listened, but there was something about Xenophilius' gait that caught her attention.
"And so it was that Death reluctantly handed over his own cloak of invisibility. The first brother traveled to a distant village where, with the Elder Wand in hand, he killed a wizard with whom he had once quarrelled. Drunk with the power that the Elder Wand had given him, he bragged of his invincibility. But that night, another wizard stole the wand and slit the brother's throat for good measure. And so Death took the first brother for his own."
Harry stared at the book, shocked that such violence would be in a children's story.
"The second brother journeyed to his home where he took the Resurrection Stone and turned it thrice in hand. To his delight, the girl he had once hoped to marry before her untimely death, appeared before him. Yet soon, she turned sad and cold. She did not belong in the mortal world. Driven mad with hopeless longing, the second brother killed himself as to join her. And so Death took the second brother."
Ron didn't remember one of the favourite stories of his youth being so dark, he only remembered Molly's voice, how she would brush her hand along his hair as she read. The times they spent together. Now, an adult who had had far too much experience with death, the story didn't have that warmth.
"As for the third brother, Death searched for many years but was never able to find him. Only when he attained great age did the youngest brother shed the Cloak of Invisibility and give it to his children. He then greeted Death as an old friend and went with him gladly, departing this life as Death's equal."
Rebecca held her tea cup longer even though it was empty, she needed an excuse to hold onto something, to try and keep the tears that threatened to well in her eyes within. This was a horrid story. "I will never greet Death, not ever. How could you?"
Harry was thinking similar things, though Xenophilius' voice brought him out of his dark thoughts.
"There you are, those are the Deathly Hallows."
"I still don't quite understand." Harry admitted.
Xenophilius turned away from the window and searched around them, talking to himself about needing a pen before hopping up with one. Harry got to his feet and stood behind the man, the others joining him a second later.
Xenophilius drew a line down the paper and spoke without looking at them. "The Elder Wand." He drew a circle around the bottom half of the line. "The Resurrection Stone." He connected the top of the line to the three others, a triangle enclosing the symbol. "The Cloak of Invisibility. Together, they make the Deathly Hallows. Together...they make on Master of Death."
Hermione spoke as Harry and Rebecca raced through thoughts they would never speak aloud. "That mark was on a grave in Godric's Hollow. Mr Lovegood, does the Peverell family have anything to do with the Deathly Hallows?"
Xenophilius began to stammer, walking through them to go back to the living room. "Ignotis a-and his brothers Cadmus and An-Antioch are thought to be the original owners of the Hallows and therefore the inspiration for the story." He picked up the pot and cried out, "Your tea's gone cold!"
Ron watched the strange man run down the stairs talking to himself. "Let's get out of here." Ron swung his bag up over his shoulder. "I'm not drinking any more of that stuff hot or not."
Rebecca walked over to the happily decorated door that could only belong to Luna. She twisted the knob and knocked, hoping to ask how Hogwarts was. Rebecca opened the door and grinned at the ceiling, painted as the outside of the house was. Neville was up there, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Cho, Rebecca herself, Fred, George, Cedric, Nigel...all members of Dumbledore's Army and who had been kind to Luna. Gold writing wove underneath their portraits of their names, the paint meeting into the word "Friends" under it all.
Besides the beautiful sentiment, Rebecca paled at the room. It hadn't been touched in quite a while, evident by the dust collected on the furniture and the unslept in bed.
"It's time to go." Rebecca said, pulling her backpack on before turning sharply onto the stairs and went down two at a time. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach and an ache growing in her temples.
The others, who had still be arguing over what they would do, joined Rebecca immediately--they knew what this tone meant.
"Thank you, for the help." Rebecca offered Xenophilius as she tried to walk past him. Harry and Hermione followed her closely.
Ron paused in the kitchen, looking at him. "You forgot the water."
"The water?" Xenophilius stared at him blankly.
"For the tea. Your kettle's empty."
Xenophilius laughed madly. "Did I? How silly of me!"
Hermione stepped forward and motioned for Ron to walk closer to the three of them at the exit. "It's no matter. We really should be going anyway."
Xenophilius threw the kettle into the sink full of dishes and screamed, "No, you can't!"
Rebecca's wand was in hand before his shout had even finished, already pointed at his chest. "That's enough of that."
Xenophilius ran across the room and put his back to the door. "You're my only hope...they were angry at what I'd been writing. They took her."
"Harry, check the windows! Hermione, get that back door!" Rebecca held her wand higher at Xenophilius. "You stupid, stupid man! They'll only kill you too!"
"What's going on?" Harry shouted, doing as he was told anyway.
"My Luna." Xenophilius was talking to himself again. "They took my Luna, my darling Luna. I'm so sorry."
Ron watched as the three others jumped into motion and barricaded themselves into the house the best they could. "Who? Who took Luna?" He didn't understand, not yet.
Xenophilius looked up at the ceiling and sealed his decision. "Voldemort."
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