The Lewis House 50 страница

“I don't know for sure,” Ron went on, still sounding dazed. “But I'm betting on Crabbe, because it was him they were threatening when I woke up. Him and Goyle. The Lestranges kept ranting on about how they were supposed to come back with Harry Potter, not me. I was useless, they kept saying, and when the Dark Lord arrived, he'd do to Crabbe and Goyle what he'd planned to do to Harry.” Ron gave a disgusted snort. “They had Goyle blubbering. Crabbe just kept saying that it wasn't his fault - and he said I wasn't useless at all. I was bait for Potter. Crabbe sounded pretty desperate, but he convinced the Lestranges to wait for Harry's arrival. I could tell by Crabbe's tone that he was bluffing - he didn't think Harry'd show up. He was just buying time. The Lestranges were smarter. They thought Harry would come.”

“And you?” Ginny moved her hands to another cold spot, and began to work it as if she were untying a very complicated knot.

Ron turned and looked her in the eyes. “I knew he'd come,” he said simply. “And Hermione.”

Ginny moved her hands again, and Ron watched her fingers.

“What's that you're doing?”

“Helping,” she replied. “Don't ask me to explain it. Just tell me what happened next.”

Ron reached for his water and took a long drink. “I need something stronger,” he muttered, when he set the glass down. “What happened next?” He gave a laugh that was half sigh. “Truthfully, it's a little pathetic. I had to sneeze. I couldn't hold it in - I tried. They realized I was awake, they stopped talking, and Mr. Lestrange got right up in my ear and started - bribing me.”

The heat began to drain from around Ron, and Ginny didn't know where to put her hands; it seemed the whole room was suddenly tight and cold. A wave of nausea rolled through her, and she felt her heart speed up to twice its normal rate. “How?” she asked, pressing her eyes shut.

Ron didn't notice her distress. “Money,” he said. “Everything. Anything I wanted, he said. He knew I was poor, knew I felt it, knew where I was vulnerable. The Lestranges knew everything about me. Everything. They must've picked Wormtail's brain and studied Crouch's notes -”

“Notes?”

“Well, there were just things they couldn't've known. My academic weaknesses. And Wormtail - well.”

“He knew everything about all of us,” Ginny said, trying to keep from slumping. Ron's emotions were growing rawer by the second, and his voice was speeding back to normal, as if now that he'd consented to talk, he couldn't stop.

“Everything, from how jealous I was of Harry, down to what I saw in the Mirror of Erised. Because I told him.” Ron laughed coldly. “I used to talk to him, you know? The way kids talk to pets. Not realizing that he was listening. So Lestrange got up to my ear and fed it all back to me. You know you want this, he said, you know how you really feel about Potter. It's all right. It's natural. You've worked hard, and you'll always have to work hard, because you were born into your family. And what do you have to show for all you've done? How are you celebrated? You know what you're known as, don't you? Potter's sidekick. His tagalong. Your work is in his shadow, and you'll never have the recognition you deserve - not without help. Not while you're next to him. What makes you care about him - really? What did he do to deserve you? Or any of what he has, for that matter? Potter was born, that's all he ever did to get what he has. We're trying to set things right. You have to understand that our Lord only wants justice. Justice for people like us, who didn't get it easy and need a leg up in the world.”

Ron was breathing heavily, and his face was flushed. His eyes had fallen shut, as if he were blindfolded again, hearing it all happen again. Ginny held her stomach with both hands, unable to help him any longer, hoping that she could stay alert long enough to hear him out, now that he had begun.

“He talked and talked. It felt like forever. I didn't move or make a sound but I hated myself for that hour because he was saying all the things I'd tried so hard to hide from everyone. He was right about me.”

“No -”

“Yes.” Ron's tone left no room for argument. “Don't hate me, Gin - I didn't mean to be jealous of Harry, but you can only stand by and watch the glory for so long before you get resentful - and I never, never acted on it, not when it counted, but I felt it, and that was enough to let Lestrange under my skin. And he knew it, and he kept on talking, telling me how undervalued I was, how talented and how brave, and what a pity it was that I was going to waste away as an extra at Potter's side, and how powerful I could be, and how wealthy I would be, and how much I was already valued by the Master and the Master's army, and how welcomed I'd be if I'd accept their help and give them mine. And when I still didn't answer, the LeStranges woman started laughing, from across the room. I heard her footsteps come towards me, and felt her get behind me and put her - hands on my shoulders.”

Ginny opened her eyes - Ron's energy had changed again. She thought he might throw up. “What is it?” she managed.

“She just rubbed my shoulders,” Ron answered weakly, his eyes still shut. “But God it was disgusting. I'd rather have the Cruciatus. Kept it up the whole time she talked. And she was talking about Hermione, telling me that the only way I was going to protect her from death was to join them. If money won't move you, she said, and if power's no object, then perhaps you'll give up your pride for your girlfriend's life.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I wanted to. But all I had going for me was that they didn't know what was going on in my head. She kept going, saying things like 'It's too bad about her parents, isn't it?' and I kept wishing death on them and praying that Harry and Hermione wouldn't show up. But I wouldn't speak, I never spoke a word, and finally she let go of my shoulders and bashed me over the head. Hard. I shouted bloody murder and she laughed at me, said she was surprised I wasn't a mute. And then she did it again.”

Ginny could hardly breathe. He was only telling her the things that words could describe, but she could feel the rest of it - his residual pain, the isolation and darkness he had felt, the helpless terror and the not knowing. The sickening fear that he would lead his friends into a trap and that he would never see his family again. A sob caught in her lungs and pressed against her ribs, and she shuddered.

Ron's eyes flickered to her and a guilty, worried look crossed his face. He shook his head. “You don't want to hear this.”

Ginny pulled her knees up under her chin, and hugged her legs. “Talk.”

“Are you going to pass out?”

“No.”

Ron didn't look convinced, but he continued. “Lestrange said she knew that Harry had a Secret-Keeper, and she knew that I knew who it was. All I'd have to do to go free, she said, was name the person. That was the first time I spoke. I started laughing and asked her if she'd ever read anything about the Fidelius Charm, because if she had, then she might've noticed that it's dependent on absolute secrecy. If Harry's got a Secret-Keeper, I told her, then I'd hardly know about it, would I?” He gave a dry laugh. “And that's when I found out what the Cruciatus feels like.”

Ginny could tell that he was trying to smile, to make light of his memory; but he failed. His face was very white. And though her stomach was tight with nausea and her head felt light and achy, Ginny couldn't help but put out her hand and grope for Ron's. He took hold of her fingers.

“You've never felt it, have you?” he asked, glancing at her. Ginny shook her head. “Good. It's as bad as they say it is. Worse. I screamed - begged her to stop - tried not to blubber, but it's not the sort of thing you can help. She stopped, and asked me again for information. I told her she could -” Ron said a few words that made Ginny glad that Hermione wasn't within earshot. “And she put the Curse on me again. Several times. By the middle of the night - or early the next morning, I don't really know when - I was in so much pain that if I'd had any information to give, Harry might've been in danger. But I knew nothing.”

“Harry never had a Secret-Keeper.”

“I didn't know that at the time and I'm glad I didn't. By the next day - I think - all four of them were in on it. Harry hadn't come, and they were starting to panic. They even wasted Veritaserum on me, and got no thanks for it. They had nothing to give Voldemort, not even information, just miserable useless me.”

“Ron.”

“Their words, not mine. I had four Curses on me at once, and them all screaming at me - you're Potter's best mate, do you think we'll believe for a minute that you're this clueless?” Ron rubbed his temples. “But I was. And finally the Lestrange woman stopped them and grabbed my face in her hands and got so close that I could smell her breath, and she said that the one they really needed to interrogate was the girlfriend with the brains. She shouted at Crabbe to go and take any measures necessary to get Hermione, if Harry was still out of reach. She said she'd take my blindfold off when my sweetheart arrived, so I could watch everything. And her husband started laughing, and in this really sick voice he said everything. And for a second I thought I was going to break the straps on my arms and legs, I was so angry.”

“Ron.” Ginny didn't know what else to say. She squeezed her brother's fingers and kept listening.

“At the end of that day, Crabbe returned empty-handed. Said he couldn't find Hermione or Harry, and it wasn't safe to trespass on Hogwarts' grounds at the moment. All I heard in reply was a crack and a thud from the other end of the room, and Goyle started blubbering again. Mr. Lestrange started muttering to his wife about letting Voldemort deal with me - the Master, he said, had ways of getting information out of people. I felt hands on my wrist, felt the strap coming loose, and assumed they were taking me to Voldemort. I thought, if only I hadn't just been Cruciatus Cursed to within an inch of my life, I could really fight right now - it seemed stupid of them to let my wrist go when there are ways of keeping a person bound and transporting them. But I was too drained to think straight. The hands on my wrist left the strap slightly loose and moved around to my other side. I felt some sort of silky material between my skin and the fingers that were touching me - at first, I didn't know what to make of it, and then -”

Ron stopped and clenched Ginny's hand, and she felt a rush of love and gratitude so strong that it was nearly as overwhelming as the pain she had felt earlier, only its effects were quite the opposite. Ginny found herself able to sit up straight again, without pain.

“I felt that weird silky material on my ear,” Ron said quietly, his eyes shut. “I felt breath. And I heard her say 'It's me, Ron, don't move.'“

“Hermione,” Ginny murmured.

“She'd left Harry behind a tapestry - we were too big to get under the Invisibility Cloak all at once anymore. I didn't know it at the time, but she'd practically had to cripple Harry to get him to stay in the corridor - she didn't want him coming into the room, didn't want him to be discovered for any reason. And we might've been able to take them by surprise if it weren't for bloody Crouch and his Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. They knew I couldn't fight the Imperius. They knew it.”

Ginny held his hand more tightly still. His voice was harsh, and his shame and anger flooded the air.

“They put the Curse on me just as Hermione was loosening the last strap on my ankle, so that I'd go without a struggle. Of course, they thought they'd still have to untie me, but I was already untied, so I pulled out of my bonds and stood right up to go with them. I felt Hermione's hands grip my robes to stop me - which of course everyone could see - Lestrange started laughing, and then Hermione's hands were gone and I heard her struggling against him. I could hear it. I could have reached up and taken off my blindfold and helped her, but I just stood there and listened to her fighting - and losing. And then the Lestrange woman pulled off my blindfold and told me to watch. And I did.” Ron began to shake. “I just watched them pin her hands behind her back and force her into the same chair where I had just been - they didn't even bother strapping her in. Lestrange got her wand and Goyle stepped up and shot the Cruciatus Curse at her before she even had a chance. She was yelling for me - trying to get me to snap out of it - and then she'd start screaming again - and I did nothing.”

Ron pulled his hand free of Ginny's, put his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.

Ginny’s first instinct was to embrace her brother, but even as she reached out an arm, a large knot in the air in front of Ron stopped her. There was something else. There was something more terrible than everything he had just told her. Though her stomach was gurgling unpleasantly, and a small sweat had broken out across her skin, she knew that she was alert enough to carry on. Ron’s shoulders heaved, and Ginny closed her eyes, holding both hands out in front of him, and pulled softly. She felt the cushions on the sofa shift, and she knew that he was upright again.

“You must have done something, Ron,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Because you’re here, and Hermione’s here, and Harry’s here. What did you do?”

There was silence for several minutes, and Ginny continued to breathe deeply and pull at the air around Ron. Then: “It was Harry. He stopped it.”

“He gave up his hiding place?”

“Yes.” Ron was speaking very slowly now, as if he were once again experiencing the helplessness of the Imperius Curse. “He’d been watching through the door. He surprised them… disarmed Goyle and knocked out Crabbe. I’m not sure how, exactly. I was too busy arguing with the voice in my head.” He laughed. “It was probably really funny to watch, actually. All the time they were torturing Hermione, I would take one step toward her, and then one step back. I was fighting with myself, deciding whether or not to get over there to help her.”

“So, did you snap out of it?” The knot in the air had moved downwards, towards Ron’s heart, and Ginny felt something like panic. She’d never felt this much movement in an aura before – she knew how to deal with head and back injuries, but Ron was hiding a secret that was buried so deep that she felt as if she needed a mediwizard license just to uncover it. Remus was going to kill her. Why did she never listen to him?

“Harry threw me Hermione’s wand and I was able to catch it. Mr. Lestrange was laughing – he started shooting little sparks and arrows in Harry’s direction. Let’s have some fun with the great Harry Potter, he said. They were so stupid - Harry could withstand just about anything at that point. Then everything happened so quickly. The Lestrange woman’s voice was in my head. We can’t take everyone to see the Master, she said. Why don’t you use that wand in your hand to help us?”

Ginny snorted, despite herself, at the impression Ron was doing of the woman's sickly soft voice.

“Yes, shut up,” Ron answered. “She kept talking to me like that – bribing me some more and offering to spare my life if I would …. Well, anyway. She got tired of trying to persuade me and I saw her rolling up her sleeve and getting ready to touch the Dark Mark on her arm with her wand when I heard Hermione moving on the floor. She said … she loved me …. She’d never really said that before, I mean, we’d never…” Ginny allowed herself a smile at her brother’s embarrassment, but still did not open her eyes. She could guess he was very red. Recovering herself, she continued to dig with her fingers. The knot seemed to be loosening.

“Kill Hermione. That’s what the Lestrange woman wanted me to do.”

A soft wind blew around them. Perhaps Ron was causing it, or perhaps they both were. Ginny couldn’t tell if it was pain leaving Ron, or if she had naturally conjured up something to soothe him. Her fingers seemed to move without permission; she had no control over them. It frightened her for a moment, but “Give into your power”, she remembered reading. “When it becomes second nature, give in.” She did not stop her hands.

“Kill Hermione. She kept repeating it. Over and over and over again.” Ron made a noise like pain. “For a second it made sense in my head and I… She even gave me back my wand so that I could do it with greater force. I raised it. I - I actually pointed it.” His voice was heavy and shaking - the knot of all his hidden emotion pulsed beneath Ginny's hands.

“But Hermione’s still alive,” Ginny said gently, and waited for Ron to answer.

“Yes,” said Ron, and suddenly, the knot went taut and hard - Ginny felt her lungs constrict. She couldn't breathe or move, but her fingers pressed insistently against the anger and fear in the air as Ron continued. “I pointed my wand at Mrs. Lestrange,” he said slowly. “Ginny, I killed her.”

The knot snapped. There was a wild unraveling, and warmth surrounded them; Ginny gasped for breath and fell forward into the empty space where the pain had been. She hit her chin on Ron's shoulder and groaned, but he didn't help her up - she struggled to sit straight again and when she finally opened her eyes, Ron was looking at her, his face full of wonder.

“I killed someone,” he said, almost as if to himself. Then, a bit louder, “I used the Killing Curse. I didn’t even know I could do it. I didn’t even know how to do it. But there was a flash of green light just like…” He pressed his mouth shut and didn't open it for a long time. “What kind of person am I that I can do that?” he finally said, looking into Ginny's face as if she were the only person who could help him.

Ginny felt as if her blood were running cold. She could hardly move her mouth to speak; an exhaustion so complete had drugged her senses. “Hermione and Harry saw?” she managed.

Ron nodded. “But they've never mentioned it.”

“They love you.”

He didn't answer. For a long time there was silence, and Ginny felt something new in the air between them. A need for absolution.

“Dad killed Malfoy,” she said thickly, fighting sleep.

Ron's face relaxed a little. “I know.”

“Harry killed Voldemort.”

“Yes.”

“You saved Hermione.” Ginny let her eyes fall shut, but not before seeing something good and clean dawn in her brother's face. “You made the right choice,” she murmured. Sleep swept around her in thick, dark, soundless waves - but the story wasn't over. She wanted to ask Ron how they had made it out of that place - what had happened afterwards and how Hagrid had come to be there… she knew that Hagrid had died that night, but no one had ever told her how…

Distantly a clock struck, and to Ginny it seemed that every chime pushed her further into darkness. With a long breath, she let her mind relax, and gave into the swirling comfort of sleep.

“Harry should be home soon,” Ron said quietly.

Sleep vanished, but Ginny didn’t move. Harry would Apparate into the room at any moment, and if she asked him to then he would hold her. She wanted him to hold her. She deserved it.

“Then I can't stay,” she made herself answer, and struggled to open her eyes and stand up. She wasn't surprised to feel Ron's arm slip under her shoulders.

“I could carry you,” he offered.

“No, I can walk. Just help.”

Ron supported her home. He helped her through the dark and quiet house, into her room, where they both stopped and listened to a wolf's piercing howl, and a dog's returning bark.

“Want pyjamas?”

Ginny shook her head. “Too tired to change.” She fell into bed and let Ron tuck her blankets around her.

“Once upon a time, in a far off land,” he said quietly, in a voice startlingly like their father's, “there were six mighty wizards and a powerful witch.”

“Oh my God.” Ginny giggled and shut her eyes. “Not that old thing.”

“If the first five wizards were mighty, then the sixth one was absolutely brilliant,” Ron continued with a grin in his voice. “And luckily for the witch, he was usually around to make sure she didn't pass out in the street.”

“Shut up,” Ginny mumbled, and curled on her side.

“He was so amazing, in fact, that every woman in the world was in love with him - he got loads of fan mail - so much that he just couldn't answer it all. So he employed a rough looking kid with black hair and glasses to do it for him…”

Ginny would have laughed if she hadn't just dropped off the precipice of sleep and into her waiting dreams. The last thing she heard was a quiet “Thank you” and in her dream, someone with a very large, warm hand was ruffling her hair.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Seeker

~*~

A/N: This chapter wasn't meant to be. It never existed in our notes - well, part of it did, but we had decided to cut it. Chapter twenty-eight, or the information therein, was supposed to be the next chapter (and it is therefore very nearly written). But then I picked up Zsenya from the train, and she and I went to dinner, and AtE came up, and it was rainy story weather… and…

Author’s Notes: (From Zsenya) … we figured, you know, this story is already 8700 pages long, what are a few more chapters here and there?

~*~

It was colder than Penelope had expected. She pulled her hood up, shut her cloak against the bitter December wind, and stared at the slate gray sea.

She was unsure of why she had come. It had been one of those mornings - they'd been much less frequent since Leo's birth, but they still happened - when Percy's absence had weighed on her like an illness. She couldn't stay at the Burrow. She couldn't touch Leo without being overwhelmed by depression. It was wise, she knew, to leave him with Molly and to take a day alone, even if it made her feel like an unfit mother to need that.

She hadn't known where she was going when she had left the house. She'd merely walked toward the village until it had come into view, and then she had pulled her wand and given it a definite twist.

Now, sitting on a slab of stone and watching the cold tide roll along the rocks, she was no closer to understanding her choice of destination. But at least she could breathe, here. She shut her eyes and took icy air into her lungs, tasting the tang of salt and wind. Space. She needed it. To think, to plan, to become herself again. And Molly would understand about the new flat. After all, Penelope couldn't move out until after Christmas; the lease did not begin until February.

February. Penelope knew she'd tear the month out of her calendar and throw it away.

"Who's there? Identify yourself!"

The sharp voice startled Penelope; she jumped and turned to face it.

"Get that hood off your face." Mad-Eye Moody limped over the rocks towards her, wand out, eye rolling, eyebrows gathered so tightly in concentration that they looked like one wiry caterpillar in the middle of his forehead.

Penelope pushed back her hood with a slow, wandless hand, and showed herself.

Moody relaxed. His wand hand dropped and his scars shifted into something like a smile. "Pleasure to see you, Miss Clearwater - that is, Mrs. Weasley - " Moody stopped. His good eye winced and his face shifted again, becoming darker and more gnarled than usual. "What would you prefer to be called?" he asked, his voice warm and gruff.

"Penelope," she said, and stood up to give him her hand. "How are you, Professor?"

"Oh now." Moody flushed a bit and waved her off. "You're under no obligation to do that. You were never a student of mine. Just Moody'll do."

"All right."

"You've come out to have a look around, I expect. Thought you would. Arthur says you've had your notes out lately."

"Yes, I've been working - just a little."

"Care to see the place?"

Penelope nodded. She hadn't been to Culparrat, and though she was no further along in the process of formulating an Imprisonment Enchantment, she suddenly knew why she had come here. She needed to work again. Truly work, not just fiddle with the notes from last year, which were covered in Percy's slim, slanted writing.

She followed Moody away from the bay and around a hillside covered in sea grass, towards what looked to be a deep, well-hidden cove.

"Muggles can't see any of this," said Moody, without looking back. He scraped along the shore with the help of his walking stick. The weak sun glinted on his random patches of silver hair. "Looks like marsh bog to 'em."

Penelope thought immediately of her father, who had never been able to comprehend the idea that Hogwarts was hidden from those who refused to see it. It should have made perfect sense to him - he had refused to see it, believe in it, or pay for it. Penelope had been one of the very few scholarship students at the school; it was part of the reason she had often "volunteered" to help Madam Pince in the library, but few people knew that. And none her friends in Ravenclaw had known that Professor Vector had come, in person, to convince her mother that Hogwarts was a safe and appropriate place for a young witch.

Her mother had thought it was a cult. Penelope was almost amused, now, by the summers she had spent being prayed over, the hours she had listened to her mother beg heaven to save her daughter's soul. But it hadn't been amusing at twelve. Or thirteen, or fourteen. She might have gone mad if it hadn't been for Percy's fervent, daily letters, the summer of her fifteenth year. Every letter had come just when she needed it most, and each one had made her father's refusal and her mother's fear seem a little smaller. A little less important. When they'd got back to school, she had told Percy everything. He'd had a hard time believing that anyone's family could be so strange, and he had written to her parents, the minute she'd been Petrified. They had never written back. When she had awoken, Percy had promised she'd never have to live with them again after Hogwarts, if she didn't want to. And she never had. She'd rented her own flat near his, and it had all been so wonderful for a little while.

It would be nice to be back in a flat of her own.

"How's your son?"

Penelope snapped out of her thoughts, surprised at herself. It had been a long, long time since she'd reflected on those things. "He's doing very well, thank you. Getting perfectly huge."

"Cute kid."

"How do you -"

Moody snorted. "Seen enough pictures, haven't I? His grandfather's gone a bit loony in his old age. Seems to forget he showed me the album before."

Penelope smiled, and stepped over a boulder. Arthur was such a sweet man. Almost a father, really. "Well I'll bring Leo to meet you in person," she said. "Pictures really don't do him justice."

"Ah, it's a proud mum, is it? Well, that's the best sort. Right - there we are." Moody stopped walking and gestured with his cane towards the middle of the wide, deep cove, at the massive castle structure that was Culparrat. Penelope let out a breath of awe.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04