Chapter Twenty-Seven “ Exclusive
Snape’s Professor’s Pass had been exactly where Luci had said it would be. Hermione had made a comment that Luci didn’t take very good care of valuable items if she just left them in the floor, and Harry had smiled to himself.
The trek up to the castle had been tiresome, as there was snow on the ground and the three of them weren’t dressed for it. At present, Harry and Ron were both dozing, covered by blankets and with their heads in the books that Hermione had assigned to them. A nudge stole Harry from his sleep.
“I think I’ve got it!” Hermione said in an elevated murmur.
“Why are you whispering? We’re the only ones here,” Ron informed her, coming out of his slumber.
“Habit,” she answered, and then, “besides, Filch is still around somewhere, caring for the grounds, and anyway, this is the book!”
“What’s it say?” Harry asked drowsily. In truth, he hadn’t slept much during those nights in the chair.
“Time,” replied Hermione.
“Time for what?” Ron asked.
“No, no! Time is what will save Sirius!”
“Huh?” muttered Harry.
“Inside of the Veil of Voices, time doesn’t work the same as it does outside of it. It’s almost suspended, in a way, but not quite. So if we can get Sirius backwards far enough, he might fly right out!”
“But wouldn’t he be back in the middle of that battle with Malfoy’s evil aunt?” Ron asked.
“Yes, but he could somehow keep his past self from falling through the Veil and then jump forward to us!”
“It could change the entire outcome of that battle if Sirius doesn’t go through the Veil, Hermione,” said Harry.
“No one ever said that time travel was uncomplicated.”
“Well, in order for Past Sirius not to see Future Sirius, he’ll need the Invisibility Cloak, and then, of course, we have to consider the entire past rewritten with Sirius in it, which means that I would have been living with him this whole time and he would still be wanted for mass murder, and Kreacher and Grimmauld Place wouldn’t be mine, and, of course“”
“Stop!” shouted Ron. “We get the point.”
“You’re right, Harry,” Hermione sighed. “We just risk changing too many things. Maybe we can find another way.”
“Maybe we’re not supposed to find a way at all,” Harry replied sulkily.
“Maybe,” agreed Hermione, “but if we can, we will.”
But they couldn’t. The three of them spent the entire night searching in vain, and then they returned to St. Mungo’s, discouraged and exhausted.
They were greeted by a healer who informed them that Percy had finally arrived to see Mrs. Weasley, which instantly put a grumpy expression on Ron’s face.
“That git,” he grumbled when the healer was no longer in earshot.
“Well, I’m sure he’s just worried about your mum,” offered Harry.
“Sure, now he’s worried!”
“Better now than never at all,” Hermione said, putting a hand on Ron’s shoulder.
Harry grinned. “Good luck with all that, mate. I’m“”
“Off to see Luci, yes, we know,” Ron griped, but his tone was good-natured, so Harry just shrugged in response and left the pair of them to Weasley family business.
When he returned to Luci’s room, he found her upon her bed, but fully dressed again in her Muggle clothes. Her mother was there, but so was a very unwelcome guest, and it appeared that he’d arrived just in time.
“I understand that you’re Harry Potter’s girlfriend of the hour, is that correct?” Rita Skeeter was saying, her Quick Quotes Quill scratching away on a piece of parchment.
“I don’t… know about that…” Luci replied uneasily. “Of the hour?”
“And the daughter of a confirmed Death Eater, yes?”
“Ma’am, she needs her rest,” Luci’s mother scolded. “Can you do this another time?”
Rita disregarded her. “Is it not true that Mr. Potter has trampled hordes of hearts just to be with you?”
“No, I…”
“Then you’d say that the two of you are exclusive?”
“Yes, we are,” said Harry nonchalantly as he strolled into the room.
The three of them turned their eyes to him. It seemed that he’d caught the reporter off guard.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he continued, approaching the bed.
“Let the record state that Harry Potter has confirmed his relationship with a Miss Luci Keegan, daughter of Lucius Malfoy,” Rita told her Quill, which scraped the paper in reply.
Luci beamed in welcome, ignoring Rita. “You aren’t interrupting. Exclusive, huh?”
Melissa smiled warmly at Harry. “Well, I should hope so. The boy wouldn’t leave your side while you were out.”
“He meets the future mother-in-law,” Rita whispered scandalously.
Harry glared at her. “Get out!” he fumed.
“Freedom of the press,” said Rita offhandedly.
“Or we can have you thrown out,” Luci’s mother contributed.
Rita scowled and pretended to be affronted. “Miss Keegan, I will be back to continue this interview. The public has a right to know about the private life of their hero!”
“Hero?” asked Harry, frowning, but Rita Skeeter did not respond, as she was now traipsing from the room.
Luci rolled her eyes. “How does she even know any of these things?”
“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’s dreadful but harmless.”
“That’s not what I understand,” countered Melissa. “I hear the woman is toxic. And of course you’re a hero! All you’ve done - saving my daughter’s life, scaring off the Dark Lord.”
Harry didn’t respond, due to his jaw falling to the floor, so she continued, “I’ll leave you two alone.”
As the small brunette woman exited the room, Harry gawked at Luci.
“Your mum is mental! I almost killed you!”
“She and I don’t see it that way. You were paying enough attention to know that you couldn’t really hurt me with that curse. I’m just grateful that you had such a crush on me.”
Harry, growing red, said, “It’s not a crush.”
“Oh? I’m not just the girl of the hour, then?” she grinned.
Those wintergreen eyes ignited a fire inside of him, and he plopped himself down on her bed and said, “No, you’re just The Girl.”
She laughed and cooed fondly, “You make me happy.”
“Hey, it beats you being gloomy.”
“Please, as if you’re not gloomy half of the time too. In fact, you look pretty gloomy right now.”
He shrugged. “Tired of fighting. With you, with your brother, with questions, with the forces of evil.”
“Well, you can take me off that list. I was wrong. To make things so difficult for you. I guess I hoped you’d think I was a pain in the ass and give up and save yourself. But it turns out you’re more stubborn than I am. So I warned you and that’s all I can do.”
“Well, you are a pain in the ass,” grinned Harry, “but I think I can handle you.”
“I think you can too,” she smiled. “So you really didn’t leave my side?”
Harry shook his head. “But I have to leave now. We still need to figure out how to rescue Sirius.”
“So the research didn’t go so well?”
“Nope.”
“Then you’ll like my news. I’ve been doing some research myself.”
“How?” asked Harry, moving closer to her, interested.
“This morning, I had a little visit with Craig Cambias.”
“The Death Eater?”
“Ex-Death Eater. Anyway, he’s pretty much seen it all, and I thought he might know something about this Veil of yours.”
“And did he?”
“Mmm hmm,” Luci nodded.
“Well?”
“Well, it’s not good.”
He frowned. “Please tell me it doesn’t involve time travel.”
“Time travel?”
“Nevermind.”
Luci furrowed her brow but didn’t probe further. “No, it involves sacrifice. The Veil collects souls, so if you want it to release Sirius, you have to offer it something in return, something more valuable than his soul.”
“How am I supposed to know what the Veil thinks is valuable?”
“Tortured souls,” she answered. “The more tormented, the better.”
“Then I bet it loves Sirius,” he sighed.
“Was he very tortured?”
“Very,” he answered moodily. “Well, I guess I could take his place.”
“You could, but I’d come in after you and strangle you with my bare hands.”
Harry would have smiled, had the situation not been so utterly hopeless.
Luci took a deep breath. “Harry, you have to promise me that you won’t go through that Veil trying to save Sirius.”
He glanced up at her.
“Promise me.”
“I promise. But that means that he’s never getting out.”
“No, it doesn’t. Push Voldemort though the Veil.”
Now Harry did smile. “Funny.”
“I’m serious! We could find a way.”
“Not likely.”
“Pessimist.”
Harry shook his head. “You don’t know Voldemort.”
“I’ve had my close encounter, remember?”
He clenched his jaw. He remembered very well.
“So what’s next?” she asked. “Are you still going to investigate the Veil?”
“I should probably go after Voldemort,” he replied bitterly.
“Now?”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right, Harry, and I don’t think you should go. Not yet.”
He smiled softly. “I know that you’re worried, but you’re going to be worried whether I go now or two weeks from now.”
“Yeah, but then we’d have two weeks,” she argued, her eyes clouded with concern.
“We’ll have a lot longer than that when I get back.”
Luci pressed her lips together, and as though she couldn’t come up with anything to convince him not to go, she simply said, “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Every time he said it aloud to her, it was like releasing pent up energy.
“You know, I thought you’d gotten into that room because of Ginny. I really had no idea.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “You must have had some idea. I feel like I’ve been chasing you for ages!”
She laughed. “I refused to hope, I guess. And it is hard to believe.”
“Why?” he asked, but he would not receive the answer, because a healer came flying into the room.
“Come quick!” she exclaimed breathlessly, and then disappeared from the door again.
Harry and Luci exchanged perplexed glances and then hurried from the bed and after the healer.
She led them to Mrs. Weasley’s room, from where Harry could hear sobbing. He stopped in his tracks.
“No,” he said.
Luci reached out and took his hand. His eyes went to hers and he said again, “No.”
She looked heartbroken and shook her head mournfully. He dropped her hand and rushed into the room.
Ginger hair met his eyes from every direction. Mr. Weasley sat by the bed, holding Mrs. Weasley’s hand. The twins stood at the foot of the bed with their backs to Harry, but he could see Ginny flung over her mother’s legs in despair. Bill and Percy were standing near one another, their heads down. Harry couldn’t catch anyone’s eye, but finally, his gaze met Hermione’s. She was holding Ron, who had fallen to the floor, and she, too, was crying. Then she nodded, as if to tell Harry that it was, indeed, true.
Harry’s legs felt funny, an odd weakness flooding over him. He reached out for something to steady himself, and he found Luci. She wrapped her arms around him and he fell into her, shuddering as a dam breaking and pressing his face into her silver-blonde hair. Finally, the tears had come. He cried for Mrs. Weasley, but also for his parents, and Dumbledore, and Hagrid, and Colin, and Charlie, and for his own suffering, and for the suffering of his best friend in this very moment. He could feel Luci’s warm breathing on his neck. She was running her fingers through his hair as he shook. He opened his eyes, but his glasses were fogged, so he closed them again, sagging against her. He didn’t know how long she’d held him as he’d cried.
Eventually, the grief mutated into the fury that he knew so well. He pushed himself away from Luci and immediately started for the door.
“Harry, hold on! Wait! Just a second!”
“I’m going to kill him!” Harry growled, his teeth gritted.
One backwards glance at her tear-stained face, and he could tell that Luci was almost as devastated as he was, but he kept walking.
“Please just wait, Harry!” she pleaded, trying to keep in stride with him, as he was now halfway down the hall.
“I’m going after him and you can’t stop me!”
“Yes, I can.”
Suddenly, he couldn’t move his legs. She had frozen him to the spot and he’d almost toppled over due to the momentum she had severed.
“Luci, take it off!” he snapped.
“No,” she answered firmly, stepping in front of him. “I can’t let you go in this state of mind; you’ll get yourself killed.”
“I don’t care! He’s taken everything from me!”
Luci came closer to him and pressed her hands against his chest. The pulsing anger slowed just a bit. “No, not everything.”
He was too overcome with fury to meet her gaze, so she demanded, “Harry, look at me.”
His eyes snapped to hers and he felt a strange and unexpected tranquility wash over him.
“No, not everything,” he echoed in agreement. “But almost everything.”
“How important am I to you? How important are they?” She gestured towards Mrs. Weasley’s room. “Important enough to not risk your life?”
“Yes,” he answered, “but I have to go.”
“Not this instant. You need to calm down first.”
“My best friend’s mother is dead!” Then he took a breath. “Luci, if this was about me, if this was really a choice I had, it would be different. But I’m the one who has to take down Voldemort, and I’d rather not put it off any longer, especially because the spell I used on the pair of you may have weakened him. I can’t afford to wait. It’s been days already.”
“Nice try, but I know you’re being driven by wrath right now, not this logic you’re spouting off at me. When rationality returns to your eyes, maybe I’ll consider letting you go after Voldemort.”
“Letting me go?” he threw crossly at her.
She reached up and ran her fingertips delicately along his jaw line. His stomach lunged into his chest and then back into place again.
“Another loss,” she said softly. “Yes, you deserve vengeance, but you told me yourself that when you go after him, it’ll be about obligation, saving the world, fulfilling the prophecy. You need to be able to focus.”
“You’re right; I’m not ready,” he sighed, suddenly plagued with despair and self-doubt.
“No, it’s not that,” she replied. “You are ready. You just need to clear your head first.”
He was barely listening, instead realizing how rash it would be to go after Voldemort at this stage. “I don’t have nearly enough education or experience. How am I supposed to battle the greatest wizard alive?”
“Harry,” Luci said in a manner that instantly brought his eyes to hers. “You’ve already defeated him once, and you were helpless at the time. You are certainly one of the greatest wizards alive, yourself. I believe in you and I think that you have everything that you need. You know your strengths, you have remarkable instincts, and I’ve read the exact words in the first part of that prophecy. You have the power the Dark Lord knows not. You told him so. You’ve used it to get the better of him before, and you can use it to conquer him for good.”
“But what if I’m not able to kill him? I mean, taking someone’s life…” All of the sudden, he could feel his legs again, but he made no effort to move away.
“Voldemort isn’t even human, Harry!”
He considered this. “Murder is murder,” he resolved.
She sighed and shook her head. “Unbelievable. Look, if you get the chance to kill Voldemort, you can’t hesitate. I will help you through the repercussions, but you have to be selfish for once and protect yourself. For me. Because I’m starting to get attached to you.”
Despite her effort at being nonchalant, Luci was taking in shuddering breaths. He could see that she was petrified for him, and though he was beleaguered with his own grief, he certainly didn’t want to cause her any.
“I will come back, Luci. We’ve only just started and I haven’t had enough of you.”
She smirked half-heartedly. “And when will you have enough?”
“Never. We’ve been over this.”
Her expression turned sullen again.
The sight of this filled Harry with even more misery, and he stepped forward and swept her into an embrace. She wrapped her arms around his upper body and rested her head on his shoulder. He loved how small she was. No other girl could make him feel this… able. An unexpected hope overtook him and he knew for certain that this wouldn’t be the last time that he would hold her.
He inhaled her sugary scent and then forced himself to say, “I have to go.”
She looked up at him, reaching a hand, and ran her thumb lovingly over his scar. He closed his eyes, relishing her touch.
Then she took a deep breath and began to recite a sort of chant, her voice low and melodic. Comforting warmth washed over Harry, very similar to the feeling he’d had the first time he’d kissed her. There was no wickedness in the world, only love and joy and peace and…
It was over. He opened his eyes.
“Wh…? What did you do?”
She didn’t answer immediately, her own eyes only just reopening. “It’s an advanced protective spell. It can only be forged with love. I used it on Draco - not a scratch on him. And it’ll work for you too.” Then she smiled softly. “See, love really is your power.”
He nodded. “I know that now.”
“Feeling lucid again then?”
“Yes,” he answered, and it was true. Harry now had a sense of being entirely prepared and competent. Under the continued protection of his mother’s love, and now Luci’s, as well, he felt like nothing could stop him.
“Take care of the Weasleys for me.”
“I will,” agreed Luci. “Is there anything else that you need?”
“Number Eight, Spinner’s End. That’s where I’m going. Just in case.”
“Right, but you’re coming back?” It was a question, but she sounded sure of the answer.
“I have you to come back to?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Then nothing could keep me away.”
He brought his mouth to hers, once again generating that heavenly lightning between them. Then, before he could change his mind, he broke the kiss, breathed, “See you soon,” and Disapparated.