Disclaimer: This is all JK Rowling’s work. Just like everyone on this site, I just spin off of it.
***
In the End
Breakfast Concerns
Harry jolted upright from his sleep. His lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead was red in searing pain. Sweat dampened his forehead while clear streams were sent trickling down his cheeks. His eyes were close to watering as his lip quivered in fear.
In the moonlight that fell from outside through the windows, Harry could see that Hermione, in her nightgown, had jumped out of her bed on the opposite side of the room and was running towards him. She grabbed her wand off the nightstand, igniting all of the four candles in the room with magic. As well as that, she whisked a glass of water out of thin air and handed it to Harry.
“You’ve gotten good,” Harry complimented between wheezes.
“No time for that,” Hermione scolded, though Harry thought he saw a shadow of a smirk on her face. She directed her eyes to Ron’s bed and said, “Ronald! Get your arse out of bed right now!”
Ron, wearing an embarrassing nightcap, limped over to the two in tiredness and sleepiness. Rubbing his eyes, he yawned and said, “Gave me a damn right scare, Hermione.”
“Shut up Ron. That was Harry. He had a nightmare. Didn’t you Harry?”
To avoid answering Hermione’s question, Harry immediately guzzled the glass of water, thankful for the cool sensation that was brought to his throat. He felt his body regaining its wholeness.
Once he drank the majority of the water, Hermione asked in a whisper, “What was it? It must have been horrible for you to scream like that.”
Along with the scar, it was torture to even recall the nightmare. But he brought himself to summarize everything for Ron and Hermione.
“Voldemort was in a room,” Harry started. “It was quite dark and cold, like death. Then Malfoy walked in. Voldemort forced him to kneel to him while Bellatrix stepped out of the shadows with Draco’s mum in her arms.”
“Her own sister?” Hermione intervened in surprise.
“Yeah,” Harry explained. “Anyway, Voldemort told her that he had already killed her husband, you know, Lucius. Then he went on to tell her that she was here to witness the death of her son. And right then and there, he…he killed Draco with Avada Kedavra. Right after…she was dead, too.”
Ron and Hermione’s eyes were wide in disbelief but both said nothing. Harry just loosened out in his bed, his scar reducing to a manageable soreness. He let the silence fill the room while his two friends processed this new information; he finished the rest of his water to hydrate his dry throat.
Moments passed, and then Harry spoke up again.
“But that wasn’t all.”
“It wasn’t?” Ron asked.
“Snape walked in. He coldly walked pass their bodies as though he didn’t care they were dead.”
“Of course he didn’t care!” Ron shouted, almost in anger. “He murdered Dumbledore, for heaven’s sake! What’s a teenager’s death going to mean to him?”
“Calm down, Ron,” Hermione said, gently taking Ron’s hand into hers. “Go on Harry.”
“So then Voldemort told him how they had to be killed, and Snape understood. He then said that he had another mission for Snape. He ordered him to bring him some people that he wanted alive to lure me in. Snape asked him if he wanted to get a girl at the school that I was fond of, but he told him no-”
“Ginny!” Ron and Hermione cried in unison.
“Merlin, Harry!” Ron cried again, this time standing up. “Snape is going after my sister!”
“Voldemort told him not to, though,” Harry explained anxiously. “He wouldn’t disobey his master, would he? After all, Voldemort gave him explicit directions.”
“Still,” Hermione said, “you should still write her to keep her safe. The two of you still have that code that you came up with, right?”
“Yes,” Harry answered scratching his head. “But I’ll write her tomorrow morning. Hedwig still hasn’t come back yet and I doubt that Snape will have gotten that far. As for the three of us, let’s get back to sleep. I’m fine!” Harry added, seeing the worried looks on his friends’ faces.
They reluctantly returned to their beds. Ron fell back into his mattress as Hermione, with two flicks of her wand, made the glass disappear and put out the candles. Once everyone was back into bed, drowsiness came over them once more and they fell straight to sleep.
***
…so please don’t worry for me. Security here has been pushed to the limit, especially with all the protective charms and spells cast on the school by the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor from the Ministry, Professor Waterhogg (don’t worry; she’s not crazy). Besides, after some nighttime prowling with Neville and Luna, we discovered that more than half of the Order sleeps here at night. Take good care of Ron and Hermione.
Ginny
Harry groaned; increased security at Hogwarts didn’t matter. After all, even all of the Order and Hogwart’s faculty didn’t prevent Snape from killing Dumbledore last year. And it wouldn’t help now, with what few professors left and Dumbledore out of the picture. He refolded the letter and stuffed it into his cloak pocket.
It was barely noon, and the trio was down in the dining room of the inn. They had checked out of their room earlier on so that they could look around the town for anything that could help them on their journey to Godric’s Hollow. It had proved difficult over the last few days to pinpoint its exact location because it was just as mysterious as McGonagall claimed it to be.
While they sat at the counter, the rest of the dining room was empty. Old vinyl booths gathering with dust were all around the room, their salt and pepper shakers untouched. There was only one window in the very back of the room, hardly enough to let some daylight in. And in the silence, a great, antique grandfather clock in a corner ticked annoyingly, accompanying it with a gong every fifteen minutes.
Harry stared down at his untouched breakfast plate constructed of one egg, several strips of bacon, and one large piece of buttered toast. While he was indifferent to his food, Ron and Hermione inhaled their breakfast. He suspected that they had gone through at least three plates already, and on more than one occasion, Ron asked Harry if he could have his serving. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he said no.
“Harry,” Ron mumbled behind his sausage, “You don’t need to worry. Ginny said herself that security has improved at Hogwarts!”
Harry shook his head. “But it didn’t matter last year, did it? The Death Eaters still managed to enter the castle and Snape still managed to murder Dumbledore. Even with the Order, we were sitting ducks.”
“But we were unprepared last time,” Ron explained, chewing vigorously on his toast. “This time around, the Order is actually sleeping there. I bet they patrol every night with the prefects, just for extra security measure.”
Harry, in a very Hermione-like fashion, rolled his eyes.
“As much as I would like to see it from your point-of-view, Harry,” Hermione started, “I have to agree with Ron. There was something in the Prophet about this. Nothing about the Order, of course, but that the Ministry sends officials every other day to the castle to do a clean sweep. Scrimgeour said in an interview that Waterhogg was a skilled Auror back in her day and that even in her prime, she’s still as sharp as she ever has been!”
Harry just sighed, taking his fork and stabbing his bacon unceremoniously. He still wasn’t hungry.
The clerk in charge of the counter came back from the storage room. He had in his hand a goblet that he was cleaning with a cloth. Upon seeing the three still eating at the counter, he grimaced. How long someone, even the hungriest person, sit at a counter and eat for two hours straight?
Hermione saw the clerk and her eyes lit up. “Can I please have another mug of your coffee?”
The clerk angrily muttered under his breath, but said nothing to Hermione. He set down his goblet and reached over from as far as he could to get her empty mug; he was afraid to get near the ravenous redhead. He walked over to the coffee pot and poured. Once he got the mug to Hermione, he returned to the storage room.
When he was out of sight and earshot, Hermione looked over at Harry and Ron. “How much do you think he knows?”
“What do you mean?” Ron asked, barely able to say it past the barrier of sausage in his mouth.
Hermione looked at him in disgust, but shrugged it off.
“I’ve been trying hard the last couple days to locate Godric’s Hollow. I’ve had no such luck. I’ve tried everything that this small town has to offer, including those cheap maps in the lobby. I think what we need here is a bit of local help. You know how these places always have their urban legends. Considering Godric’s Hollow is a Wizarding settlement secluded from Muggles, we might be able to find something out from their stories.”
“Worth a shot,” Harry said lazily.
Hermione waited patiently for the clerk to come out again. She took sips of her coffee, keeping an intent stare at the storage room door. Finally, the clerk came out, and he became aware of Hermione’s stare.
“More coffee?” he whined.
“No thank you,” Hermione said. “But I would very much appreciate some of your help. You see, my brothers and I are just passing through the town on our way to a relative’s house. But they did request that we stop by somewhere else before our arrival.”
“I’m not so sure that I’ll be much help. Maybe you should check the maps out in the lobby. They pretty much have everything.”
“Not everything,” Hermione said coolly. “I’ve checked.”
The clerk sighed. He knew that there was no talking with this woman, however young she was. He set the goblet in its proper place and pulled up a chair, sitting in front of Hermione. “Fine. Let’s see what I can help you with.”
“It’s a place called Godric’s Hollow,” Hermione said matter-of-factly.
A look of understanding and maybe relief crossed the man’s face. He smiled faintly and said, “No wonder. You’re one of them.”
Fear flickered through the three, fear that he had found them out. And unless he was a wizard himself, they were in trouble. Hermione dug into her jeans pocket and gripped her wand, just in case.
Hermione recomposed herself. “What do you mean by ‘them?’”
The clerk leaned in so that only the three of them could here. But it wasn’t like there was anyone else in the room that could listen.
“I can’t exactly put a label on them, but they’re an odd kind of folk that pass through here more often than you would think. They all wear some sort of exotic clothing, colorful and eccentric. They talk oddly, but not in a foreign tongue. Though it might as well be; I can’t understand a thing the say. And even though you three are still young and normal-looking, I can tell that you’re one of them nevertheless.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes; it was her way of gaining control over the conversation. “I’m not sure what you mean, but if you have any doubts of us whatsoever, let’s pretend that this is the first time you’ve heard the question, and that this is your first time answering.”
The clerk chuckled, surprised by her assertiveness. He decided he would play along.
In the End by WiCkEdWoRkInGs
Chapter Notes: Here is the newest chapter after...seven months. I apologize for the late addition.