Chapter 9. Quest for Water    (September 8, 1997)

That evening, Harry, Ginny, Neville and Hannah sat by the fire in the sixth floor commons, nursing butterbeers, deliberately trying to talk about nothing serious. The rest of the room was occupied by a small but lively group: Jonathon Lyon and Lilac Brown were sharing a table with Edgar and Francesca Greengrass, mostly complaining about first year potions homework, while Ryan, Nick and Mary-Jo were engaged in good-natured bickering about a transfiguration project that Mary-Jo was helping the two fifth-years with. Harry smiled as he listened surreptitiously to the two conversations, reminiscing back to his own school days in the Gryffindor common room with Ron and Hermione. Those days seemed so long ago.

As Harry's thoughts drifted, Neville was orating enthusiastically about his recent success in propagating the Paliurus focus that Harry had given him or Christmas. Ginny was facing Neville, smiling, nodding and making all of the right little comments to encourage her good friend, but in truth her attention was elsewhere: it lay beneath the fingertips of her right hand, which was gently stroking the forearm of a very pensive Harry Potter.

As far as pensive moods go, Ginny decided, this was a good pensive. She smiled as the corners of Harry's mouth twitched upwards at the sight of Emerald choosing the exact center of Lilac's parchment as her place to sit as she intently battled with Edgar's quill. It was heart-warming to know that Harry was still able to relax and feel comfortable within the confines of his own thoughts. Especially after such a busy week. Make that busy month. Busy year!

Neville's monologue had wound down, and he noticed Hannah smiling quizzically toward Harry. Ginny noticed it too, and laughed softly. "Sorry Neville, I think you may have to try explaining it all over again next weekend." she said, with a little nod at Harry, who was still daydreaming and had not yet noticed the change of topic. "I think I'm going to have to carry someone to bed soon."

Harry startled. "Huh? Oh, I'm sorry Neville! I just got caught up in... other things. Please do keep me posted on your Paliurus focus, though. I think it may really come in handy!"

Neville chuckled. "No problem Harry!" he said. "You're allowed to be tired. Just because you two haven't been talking about your week doesn't mean that it wasn't exhausting."

Harry shrugged and smiled. "Yes. It was an amazing week, and I have to admit that I'm a little wound down right now."

"And you are going across the hall for an early bed-time too." Ginny stated unequivocably.

"It sounds like I don't have any choice in the matter." Harry said, with a wink to his favorite redhead. "Neville, can you stick around for a little while longer and make sure that the others head back to their houses before curfew?"

Neville nodded. Harry rose from the chesterfield but found his path blocked by a serious looking Ryan Jenkins.

"Harry?" Ryan inquired.

"Hi Ryan." Harry answered. "Anything I can help with?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Ryan answered with a wry grin. "On Saturday you asked each of the AHA students to think about projects that they wanted to work on. I have a project, that I'd like to start on Wednesday."

"Oh good!" Harry enthused. "What kind of focus were you thinking of for the project?"

"I was thinking..." Ryan responded with a solemn, theatrical dignity, "... of focusing on 'take down the teacher', attempt number 3."

Harry burst out laughing; his weary eyes sparking to life. There was no way around it — he really liked this Slytherin. "You're on. The usual gang?" he asked. Ryan nodded and stood to the side to let Harry pass. Harry paused to think for a moment, then said, "You guys set the terrain. Be in class 15 minutes early to set up and we'll put on a show for the rest of the HA."

"You bet!" he said, nodding courteously to Harry, but with the hint of a sly smile, as he made his way back to his table with Mary-Jo and Nick.

Ginny was ready and in bed several minutes before Harry that evening and when he emerged from his trunk back into the bedroom, she was observing him carefully. The exchange with Ryan had given him a bit of a second wind; he had reacquired his earlier alertness. He was alert enough, in fact, to realize quite quickly that Ginny wanted to talk.

He joined her, sitting upright against their pillows. "What are you thinking, Gin'?" he asked.

She frowned slightly. "I keep replaying discussions from the meeting with Dumbledore this morning," she responded. "I still find parts of that meeting disquieting."

"To be honest," Harry mused, "I found the things your father said this afternoon to be more worrisome than the meeting with Dumbledore, but what in particular did you find disconcerting?"

Ginny pursed her lips and remained silent for some time. Then she answered, saying, "One of the things that I'd noticed was how differently Dumbledore was acting. Last week it seemed like he was telling us everything we asked and then some. I found this morning to be really disappointing by comparison. Now I keep wondering to myself, who is the real Dumbledore? I still haven't forgiven him for his behavior in July, and I'm sure he will never be completely forthright with us, but I was just starting to hope that maybe we were really starting to learn to work together." She paused and spun a loose lock of hair around her finger. "It's not the same as old days when he would withhold things from us out of arrogant disregard for our need to know and our ability to help. No, today it felt like he was nervous around us. In one sense he was very solicitous of you Harry, but every time it looked like we were about to ask him for useful information, he changed the subject."

Harry nodded. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

"I think he finds you intimidating, Harry."

"Me? You're joking!" Harry exclaimed incredulously.

"No, think about it: last year you suddenly took control of your life and developed this great inspiring fount of confidence. Speaking as someone who has always kept a bit of an eye on you..." she smiled softly, but then continued, "it was pretty obvious that when people saw that confidence, they started really believing in you. It wasn't the little Harry Potter boy that would go off, do something stupid and come up smelling like roses. It was a man who knew what he was doing; who had a plan and all the abilities needed to make it work. I think that lots of students and even a fair number of adults started following you because you made them feel safe. Couple that with the high level of respect that some very senior people give you now: people like Remus, Amelia, McGonagall, Flitwick and so forth. You're starting to look and act like a real leader."

Harry shook his head reflexively, but didn't say anything.

Ginny continued, "Then there's this issue of trust. For better or for worse, you and I keep agreeing among ourselves to be very cautious about what things we'll share with Dumbledore. I'm not saying that we didn't have every right to be careful with him, considering what he tried to do to us, but if you think about it from his perspective, don't you think it's natural he might get a bit edgy around us? The whole field has shifted for him — you'll never again be an acolyte, Harry. I wonder if he's starting to look at you as a wary, calculating rival?"

Harry was momentarily stumped by the postulate. He couldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand, and he had to admit that Ginny was often better at reading people than he was. "What are you suggesting we do?" he finally asked.

"Harry, I know that he's done some very serious things to earn our mistrust. However, I think that maybe his exceptional candor last week might have been a sincere gesture... an olive branch aimed at trying to win back our faith in him. Maybe it's time for us to show a little faith in return? Be a bit more open with him too? Last night you really got me thinking when you told me that you thought his greatest weakness might be that he doesn't feel like there's anyone he can turn to in order to get meaningful feedback on his plans. Maybe he needs to be able to turn to you?"

"To us, you mean?" Harry responded with a smile.

Ginny smiled back with a slight hint of sadness. "Maybe, but I can't help thinking that no matter what I've accomplished in the last five years, whenever the headmaster looks at me, he still always sees the frightened little girl from the Chamber of Secrets."

Harry froze.

"Yes Harry," she murmured, "there are things that Dumbledore doesn't like to talk about around a supposedly fragile flower like myself."

A wave of remorse swept through Harry — he still hadn't told Ginny about that conversation. Dumbledore had maneuvered Ginny out of the room for it. Apparently either he had wanted to shelter her from any discussion of the Riddle diary or didn't trust her objectivity or something. It didn't seem terribly unusual to Harry because Molly and Arthur had tip-toed around the subject for years, but he, Harry, definitely should have known better. He couldn't keep a secret from her anymore and, given how important she had become in all his plans, it would be stupid to try. "Ginny..." he began.

"Yes Harry?"

"Dumbledore did start a short conversation the moment you left his office this morning... while you were retrieving the project plans."

"I know."

Harry's heart sunk a little further. "I was going to fill you in, but I had other things on my mind. I'm sorry I didn't get around to it sooner."

Ginny gazed at Harry's remorseful face. His eyes could easily have stopped her in her tracks, but she forced herself to soldier on. "I'm sure you would have gotten around to it eventually, Harry. That's not what I'd expect you to apologize about. What I need you to tell me is that if we're going to tackle these challenges together, you will not let anyone... not Dumbledore, not our friends, not even my parents... you will not let anybody deliberately hide important things from me. If there's something out there that affects me, then nobody should be trying to talk to you about it behind my back." Her expression was solemn; simultaneously both soft and firm.

Harry nodded in his contrition.

"Now you're going to tell me what I missed," she instructed.

"It was a simple message," Harry began. "It seemed that the quick magical profiling that Dumbledore did in front of us told him that the magical signature of the curse on the diadem was similar to... the Riddle diary. Perhaps more powerful, but he couldn't say much more until he'd run more thorough tests."

She nodded. "I guessed as much. Okay, well I guess there's not much more that I can contribute right now either, but next time Dumbledore tries something like that with us, please remember Christmas at Grimmauld place, okay?"

"Absolutely," Harry responded quietly. The message was clear: there was probably only one person alive on the planet who knew more about the magical effects of the Riddle diary than Ginny, and that person was not named Dumbledore. "Next time we meet with the headmaster, we can both remind him that your experiences with objects of this sort can be an asset rather than a liability."

Ginny nodded again. She took Harry's hand as a gesture of reconciliation, but continued to stare off into the distance for a while. Finally, she turned to face him, and said, "Thank you Harry."

He smiled shyly.

She reached forward and caressed the finer locks of hair above his ears. Binding him with her eyes, she traced her index finger down his cheek, to the ridge of his jaw, and forward to his chin. Pausing there for a moment in which the only sound in the world was the whisper of their comingled breath, her finger quivered slightly then edged upwards to his lower lip. Her eyes closed and her mouth hungrily sought its quarry.

As a faint grey light began to gradually suffuse the bedroom, Harry drifted into consciousness as he often did these days: marveling at this incredible journey known as life. Two years ago he would, with sincere gratitude, have traded his existence for someone else's. Practically anyone else's. One year ago, he had finally become comfortable with his responsibilities and burdens, but he couldn't let anybody else in the world really get to know who Harry Potter truly was. Anybody else, except perhaps for this one person who had made a somewhat foolhardy decision to be his friend: this delightful, sincere and thoughtful girl who asked little but knew much. Now, on this early morning twelve months later, that same girl... this beautiful young woman... was sprawled across him, breathing with the exquisite serenity of sleep. Her limbs were entangled with his; her moist lips were pressed against his neck; fingers woven through his hair.

Harry knew enough about the human body to realize that both of them should probably be incredibly sore and stiff from sleeping together in an intimate tangle like this. But for some wonderful, unknown reason he never experienced any discomfort at from their night-long embraces; whenever he spent a night like this, his body awoke feeling like it was drifting along a pleasant stream on a warm summer day. Ginny never complained of any discomfort either. Maybe this was, like other mysterious benefits of their relationship, just simply magic.

The way they slept mirrored the way they lived. A year ago he had begun to guess that Ginny would prove to be a true and special friend, but he never could have imagined how her whole life would become so enmeshed with his; how she would acquire his strengths, adopt and refine his goals, take on his burdens, share his peril. The part of him that had fiercely resisted exposing her to danger had been defeated. For better or worse, she was in this with him now, to the bitter or glorious end. And while he still did not know how exactly it would come about, every passing day brought him greater conviction that it would end in glory and not tragedy, and that it was their shared destiny to achieve something together that would not have been possible alone. The nature of that pending achievement was still beyond their grasp, but they would surely discover it in time. He was convinced that their cooperative shared strengths would make certain of that. Today, he believed, could be a big step along that journey: Ginny was going to take him somewhere important. He didn't know where that would be, but he trusted her. As a token of that trust, he reached his hand... the one hand that was free... to his mouth. He kissed two of his own fingers and pressed them gently to her cheek.

"Mmmmm..." she told him and tightened her grip.

Normally she would have already been awake by now, tugging him out of bed, ready and eager for their morning run. How she used to complain about these mornings! But somehow she had really taken them to heart, embraced the fullness of life and cherished every hour that could be spent learning, working and preparing together.

But this morning was a bit different. It was going to be a very busy day and she was clearly still worn from the intense week they'd just completed, so he decided to let her sleep for a while longer. They had both earned a bit of a lie-in. And even that was all relative of course: most of the students would not even be thinking of getting up for at least two hours. So there was no rush. They could rest here for a while longer, enjoy the quiet togetherness, and he could think over his plans for the week.

By the time he was part way through Wednesday's schedule, Ginny's eyes opened. She registered the amount of light in the room, and said, "You let me sleep in."

"Ten or fifteen minutes perhaps. I thought we could afford it."

"Okay." she said, raising her head to give him a quick kiss. "But it's important that we have a good run and workout this morning."

He looked at her quizzically.

"Here." she said, handing him a piece of parchment that had been sitting on her bedside table. "Read this while I get changed. We can talk about it on our run."

He unscrolled the parchment. It was a transcript of a short Evening Prophet capsule from the July 16, 1972 edition.

T wenty-five years ago today

Prague, Czechoslovak Republic, July 16, 1947. The 283rd Congress of the European Society for Magical and Mystical Research was brought to a close with what may have been the shortest keynote address in the history of the prestigious event. After a rambling introduction by society president Adalbert Waffling, the venerable if controversial authorities of magical theory, Salvatore and Tremelda Fugo, took to the podium to deliver a speech which organizers had requested to "not exceed 50 minutes". Speaking in unison and following a measured tempo, the pair spoke for twenty seven seconds, bowed their heads deferentially and disapparated without taking questions. Because of the brevity of their speech, which took the form of free verse, we are able to reproduce the text in its entirety:

   Goodbye compeers.
   Our farewell to
   fortissimi.

   W e'll miss your love,
   but fragile leaves
   we must appease.

   Those in need who
   seek to find us,
   ponder softly:

   Stoney hills, love,
   and withered leaves
   that never die.

Noted defensive theory specialist, Wilbert Slinkhard, offered a comparably brief comment on the Fugos' speech. The Daily Prophet quoted him on his way out of the lecture hall as muttering,"Completely barmy."

Having committed the salient points of the article to memory, Harry quickly changed into his workout clothes, just in time to accept Ginny's hand and hurry out the door. Ginny looked alive with energy. When she had first started accompanying him on his early morning runs last spring, he had frequent opportunity to tease her about how cute she looked when she was grumpy. Not any more. She was frequently the one pulling him out of bed now, and looking absolutely radiant doing so. It was probably a testament to the effort she had put in this past week that she had been a bit slow to move this morning, but she wasn't letting that show now. They hurried down the various to the main entrance and out into the misty chill.

"So Ginny..." Harry began as they made their way toward the lake, "I'm afraid that poetry never really was my thing..."

She laughed. "Don't look to me for any help with poetry — the only poems I ever heard growing up were by Celestina Warbeck. And if any time I actually thought about the words in her songs I'd get a sudden urge to hit my head on the floor."

Harry had the urge to chuckle, but charging up a steep knoll limited him to a facial expression that looked vaguely like a smile. "Okay..." he said when the terrain flattened out again, "But I get the feeling you understand what the Fugos were trying to say. And I don't."

"Sure." Ginny responded. "Once you've read the book, then a lot of it is quite obvious. All the talk about leaves: the Fugos said that your magical core is like a tree. Spells are like branches that extend out from the tree, so that you can affect the cores of objects that you're not actually touching. Leaves are little tendrils of magic out fluttering in the wind. Leaves are what we use to make subtle, delicate magic, or to sense magic in the world around us."

"Okay, that's a nice analogy."

"So the Fugos..." Ginny continued, then paused to pick her way carefully along stepping stones across a small brook. "The Fugos seem to have developed extremely sensitive leaves; they seemed to have such a great conceptual grasp of what magical essence was like because they could sense it all with extraordinary clarity. People have suggested that the last few years of their public lives, especially when the Grindelwald war was going on, must have been torture because they could sense all the magic around and it was being used with such ferocious abandon that maybe it sounded like endless yelling, shouting, banging and such. In an interview in 1946, the Fugos referred to Grindelwald and Dumbledore as 'Shrieker' and 'Clank' respectively."

This time Harry did laugh. "They're real characters, aren't they? So, they needed to take a break from it? Get away from magic... or at least from magical people?"

Ginny nodded. "But they couldn't just leave everything behind. I'm guessing that they were torn because they had a great capacity to love people, or at least to love the magical essence that emanated from people who knew how to love... so they wanted to say goodbye in a public way that might tip off loving people as to how to find them if anyone needed their help."

Both Ginny and Harry paused their discussions as they faced a steep hundred foot climb up to the high widswept plateau where they paused on their longer runs. They reached it together, slowed to a walk, then hunched over for a breather, hands on their knees. Harry edged over to Ginny's side, putting his right hand on her left knee. She smiled and put her left hand on his right knee. For some reason their heart rates dropped dramatically whenever they did that, and their breath soon slowed enough for them to straighten up again... and kiss. Wet bracing wind streamed past them, carrying shreds of cloud, leaving tiny mist droplets in their hair, lashes and eyebrows. They turned their backs to the breeze, gazed toward where the castle would be if they could see it through the fog and shared a smile across their roseate faces. As they turned to make their nimble descent, Harry returned to the topic of the morning. "So, does the poem tell you where to find them? I didn't see enough specific information in there to suit me."

Ginny took a moment to formulate her response. "No, that's the beauty of it. They don't tell you where they are. But they do tell you how to find them."

"Oh?" Harry responded.

"Yes." she stated. "We apparate."

"Huh? But you don't know where to go?"

"Harry!" she growled, "You of all people should understand. You learned apparation on your own and taught me. You don't have the myopic view of it that you get from the Ministry certification course."

"What?" Harry responded. "You mean no desperation, delusion, discombobulation?"

Ginny giggled. Ron's hilarious accounts of the semi-farcical Wilkie Twycross ministry course flitted through her memory. "Precisely!" she agreed. "No devastation, delineation, demonization." She paused as Harry laughed, then resumed. "So the point is you don't need to know your physical destination. Magic doesn't care about the street address for Quality Quidditch Supplies; you just have to want to get a new broomstick. So presumably, to find the Fugos we need to want to be in a place with stoney hills, love and withered leaves that aren't dead."

"Real leaves or magical essence leaves?"

Ginny shrugged. "Let's try both? Muggles call that a double entendre ?"

"Okay, and we have to be pretty quiet?"

Ginny shrugged again. "Be as calm as possible going into the apparation; shore up our occlumency shields before we leave, maybe? I think that if we make a good faith attempt to try to find them, are as considerate as possible in respect to their sensitivities, and they're in the mood to have visitors, then hopefully they'll take care of the rest."

"Uh huh." Harry said pensively as they descended back to the relative flat of the lakeshore. "So this is why we need lots of exercise this morning? Make sure that our magical cores are nice and calm this afternoon when we try?"

Ginny nodded. "Yes. Although just before kicking off we might also have to snog each other silly," she added with a wink. "Just to make the Fugos think we're in love."

"Hmmm... A minute ago I was still having my doubts about this." Harry deadpanned, "But I think I'm starting to warm to the idea."

Before setting out on any unfathomable journeys, Harry still had to navigate a morning's worth of responsibilities. His sixth year defense class was every bit the joy that he had already come to expect from the group: more than half the class had read up on the lesson before he even started and instead of lecturing, he ended up spending most of the period answering questions about intricacies of the various spells, and trying of-the-cuff demonstrations of specific points. His seventh years were also a lively bunch, although less disciplined; they were clearly a smart group of students, but unfortunately they were also a bit smart-mouthed. Blaise, as usual found an opportunity or two to needle him, but he wasn't too disruptive so Harry laughed along and cut him some slack. Daphne found an opportunity or two to needle Blaise, but she wasn't too disruptive so Harry subconsciously egged her on. Hermione found a few chances to ask questions that seemed intended more to try to trip Harry up than to actually further the subject matter. Zacharias Smith frequently attempted to start conversations in the back of the room that had nothing whatsoever to do with defense against the dark arts; fortunately Smith rarely succeeded since nobody actually had any interest in what he had to say. The others were generally quite attentive, but the sum of the different distractions meant that while Harry's sixth years flew through challenging material, the seventh years seemed willing to learn the basics needed for the NEWTs but not make way for opportunities to tackle some of the most advanced and potentially valuable topics that Harry felt they might really enjoy. He challenged himself to figure out some way of getting through to them, and he would, but not today. Ginny's message to him was clear: don't get stressed today!

The one interesting thing that happened in Harry's seventh year class that day was that a seat in the back row of class was occupied, for the first time, by Draco Malfoy. Draco's name had not yet appeared on the class register, but if he wanted to sit in on a few sessions, Harry was more than happy to have him there. If Malfoy had happened to participate in any of the class discussion, Harry promised himself that he would as solicitous and respectful as he would to any of the other students. But Malfoy seemed content to sit back and observe the class dynamic with almost uncanny attentiveness. Every time Hermione smugly asked a pointed or peripheral question Draco walked her carefully, and every time she was stung by Harry's quick (and generally apt) responses, Malfoy's watchful eyes would flit from one to the other. Harry wondered if there was something in that behavior that warranted some closer attention. But not today. Don't get stressed today!

Meanwhile, Ginny was doing her best to live by her own rule. She had decided that today was not the day when she was going to approach Snape about some possible potions guidance. That was not a recipe for stress avoidance. Instead she had retreated up to her attic study inside her trunk, where the weather was far more attractive than what Hogwarts had to offer. Flocks of songbirds were making their virtual way south, and the first few hints of orange were starting to grace the sunkissed forest as she gazed northwards with a cup of tea and several thick potions texts. Despite the idyllic setting she was still a bit on edge. Because although Harry had signed off on this hairbrained scheme of hers, she still had some doubts herself. Who in their right mind ever tried to apparate without some clear destination in mind? Would the Fugos recognize their need and help to guide them over to wherever it was that they had so mysteriously cloistered themselves? Were the Fugos still even alive? After all, there had been no documented interactions with the Fugos in decades.

Ginny had grown accustomed to watching Harry make bold plans and seeing them unfold successfully, but she didn't yet have the basis for self confidence. Sure she had seen some preliminary success in research and in organizing SHP, but this seemed different: she was leading Harry into a mysterious journey that might unlock secrets that could help them defeat Riddle or... who knows... get them both killed? Was she ready to figure out whether or not she had the same wonderful combination of instinct and luck that had managed to keep Harry alive all these years? After a while she put down the potions texts and reviewed the Evening Prophet article yet again. No, she would not second guess. Harry Potter trusted her, and he didn't trust anyone in the world anymore without a very good reason, right? So, she would trust herself.

After another hour of potions reading she descended out of her attic, out of her trunk and down to Harry's office where he was putting away his books after class. They ate a quick lunch with Sarah, Quinn, Alex and Luna, none of whom seemed likely to engage in either prying or contentious conversation, and then headed back out onto the grounds which, if anything, were even more drizzly than they had been for the early morning run.

"Do we need to bring anything?" Harry asked.

Ginny paused to think. "Out of habit, I have my wand. A few apples on principle... but I can't think of anything else that we really need."

Once the two of them had walked past the extent of the Hogwarts grounds and anti-apparation wards they stopped. "We're going to apparate together, right?" Harry asked.

Ginny nodded.

"You have a better mental image of how we're apparating, so I should probably side-on apparate. But would it help if I was focusing on something?" Harry asked.

"Yes." Ginny said with the slightest hint of shyness. "If you had any patronus memories that... umm... involved me..."

Harry laughed softly. "I only have a few patronus memories that don't involve you."

A subtle hint of colour suffused Ginny's cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. "I think it is time for you to kiss me." she said.

The fine mist came down around the pair; a water droplet that had been forming on Harry's bangs dripped down onto his cheek and rolled to their lips. Their ears were filled with the soft rhythm of water drops falling from the leaves and branches. And then painlessly, gently even, Harry felt as they were pulled away, somewhere dark. It was unlike any sensation of apparation that he had ever experienced: softer and slower. A lot slower. It rarely seemed to take as long as a second to apparate from one place to another, but this travel things seemed to drag... three, four... maybe five seconds. He could still feel Ginny's hands on his shoulders, her lips on his, his own hands pressed against her damp back. He could see nothing. He could hear the sound of a monotonous wind wooshing past his ears. He wondered if they were trapped somewhere in the place where things go when they've been vanished, and then... whomp!

Their feet impacted hard with uneven gravel, jolting their spines and straining their ankles, but holding onto each other they succeeded in staying upright. Brightness danced on their eyelids which fluttered open to what was, after the grey skies of Hogwarts, absolutely dazzling bright sunshine and fiercely hot blue skies.

Wherever it was that they had landed, they were not alone.

"Oh goody goody goody!" oozed a voice from behind them that made Harry's skin crawl. "Little baby Potter and his itty baby Squeezy!"

"Potty and Squeezy done their kissy kissy?" Bellatrix Lestrange sang, as she picked her way daintily among the cobbles, twirling her wand between two fingers, and staring at them with wide ogling eyes and a lurid grin. She brandished her hand at them, thumb and index finger waving like crab pincers. "Ready to be squishy squishied?" she taunted.

Flanking her were two masked death eaters, glaring at them, approaching at an oblique angle to prevent escape. Ginny darted a glance up the rocky hillside and saw three others fanned out above them, closing in, wands extended menacingly. She cursed violently and instinctively dropped to a defensive crouch.

Harry, however, remained standing. He blinked a couple of times, with a peculiar pensive look on his face. Ginny's eyes flashed to him in sudden panic, struck with the horrifying thought that he might somehow be stunned or confunded. Maybe the peculiar, long apparation? She grabbed for his hand to try to pull him down to cover, but at that moment he seemed to have come to some realization. He just gave her a quick reassuring wink and... chuckled?? He then raised his rain-spattered face to Bellatrix, smiled calmly and said, "Go away please."

Bellatrix stared at both of them, scowled and... disappeared. Ginny swung her head around wildly in time to see all of the other five death eaters vanishing.

"Wha...??" Ginny managed.

Harry grasped Ginny's hands and pulled her to a standing position. "I think..." he said, kissing her fingers lightly, "that you brought us to the right place."

Seeing the look of confusion on Ginny's face, Harry searched his thoughts for a moment, then asked, "Do you think there's any chance your friends the Fugos enjoy... practical jokes?"

"Pranks?" Ginny pondered, dumbfounded. "Lestrange and the thugs — that was all just a prank?"

Harry shrugged. "Well, whatever it is that we just saw is gone now, right? Gone without any fuss? Not the usual level of Bellatrix tenacity that one might expect. Anyway, you've already implied that the Fugos are reclusive. They probably don't like visitors; they aren't fans of flash and bang magic. They were famous enough in their day that surely some people would have tried to find them, but nobody has succeeded for ages. This could be part of their defenses — set up a few illusions to chase people away or test them. If we make it through their tests satisfactorily, somehow avoid using any magic that they would consider disruptive, then maybe they might open the door and let us in?"

Ginny nodded slowly. "That would make sense wouldn't it... but how did you know the attack wasn't real?"

"I know what Bellatrix's magic feels like." Harry replied. "It's every bit as foul as you can imagine. But here, well, there was no malevolence in the air. A whiff of mischief maybe..."

"Okay." mused Ginny. "So they tested us. I'm guessing we passed; I assume that if we had erupted in a burst of spellfire, then we would have blown the 'ponder softly' bit. But I wonder how they managed to create the illusion of Bellatrix... it was just so..."

"Vulgar? Appalling?" Harry suggested.

"I was going to say realistic, but I like your words better."

"If the Fugos are so sensitive to magic, it's possible that they make legilimency look like a parlour trick." Harry postulated. "They might be able to slide through our defenses like snakes through tall grasses."

"So, I guess we might have to be careful what we think for a while." Ginny concluded. "Which reminds me, thank you for thinking Harry — thank you for keeping your cool!" They exchanged pensive smiles, then Ginny continued her deliberation. "Clearly we've found their stoney hills." She gazed in a slow arc around the horizon. "Any idea where we are?"

"Not in Great Britain." Harry offered unhelpfully. Judging by the position of the sun, it was apparent that the hillside on which they stood overlooked a dusty plain that fell to their east, spanning perhaps ten miles or so before climbing to another set of hills. There were mountains far off to the north — craggy, and inhospitable but nothing more dauntingly precipitous than the Grampians that surrounded Hogwarts. The terrain in their immediate vicinity provided no great view of the south but the small fragments of horizon they could make out to the southeast looked golden brown; perhaps some sandy desert. Neither could locate any bodies of water that might provide some distinguishing geographical features. Not that the wizarding world paid much attention to geography. "How far can people apparate?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Not this far." Ginny said. "Charlie usually takes three hops to make it from Romania. What's the nearest desert from Hogwarts?"

"Spain." Harry suggested. "And Salvatore Fugo was Spanish, right? But this looks too harsh and desolate to be Spain. From a good lookout like this, we'd certainly at least see a road or something. Maybe we're in North Africa?"

Ginny agreed. "Northwest Africa would be closer to Hogwarts than Romania. And in order for us to make it in one hop... one very long, drawn-out hop it seemed... maybe we either got this far by pooling our powers, or else perhaps the Fugos helped pull us along. But speaking of them, where are they? I would have hoped to see them by now. What do we do next?"

"Look around I guess? See if we can find some clues?" Harry suggested.

"First things first, though." Ginny said, wiping from her brow moisture that was no longer just the residue from Howarts drizzle. "I'm hot. We're not exactly dressed for a desert afternoon."

Harry agreed. They transfigured their cloaks into light-colored, breathable fabrics and conjured fine white scarves to shade their heads. "Thirsty too." Harry said. He conjured a pair of mugs and proceeded with the aguamenti spell. Unfortunately the spell produced rather underwhelming results.

Ginny watched him with a puzzled frown as drops of water emerged from the air in front of his hand and dripped into one of the mug. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Harry was frowning too. "This is the lamest aguamenti I've ever seen anyone try."

"Are you exhausted from apparating?" she speculated.

He shook his head. "No, not at all, the apparation was uncannily easy despite the fact that we've come so far — something or somebody, perhaps the Fugos, must have helped us along. Anyway, I feel great, except for the fact that my water summoning is completely pathetic. Would you like to try?" he countered, handing her a mug.

Ginny tried the spell wandlessly and achieved comparably poor results. She summoned her wand from its holster and tried it, but the spell barely moistened the tip of the wand.

"Gamp's first law, I guess." Harry said. "You can't create sustenance from nothing."

Ginny nodded. "So aguamenti must just draw moisture from the nearby surroundings. No ocean,0 lakes or rivers; it must be too dry to get much out of the air or soil here."

"What soil?" Harry scoffed agreeably, kicking at the gravel. "But what does this tell us about the Fugos?" he asked.

Ginny thought for a moment. "They're human like us; they need water. There must be some place around here with enough water at least for a decent aguamenti spell."

"Exactly! So if we want to find the Fugos, we look for water." Harry suggested. "The question is how best to do that?"

"Well, I'd be tempted to ask you to transform into your owl animagus to get a better look at the place from a few hundred feet up," Ginny began, "but it's entirely possible that the water source we're looking for is subterranean, and furthermore the transformation involves a lot of essense manipulation-- the Fugos might consider it to be noisy magic."

A careful second scan of the plain amplified their initial impression that it was dry and inhospitable. There must have been a river running across it at some point in history, or else it would not have been a plain, but it clearly wasn't host to much moisture anymore. The sight of some far off dust devils did little to enhance their enthusiasm for the downward direction. The only prospect that they could think of was the one direction they could not see much of — up and over the hill to their west. At the very least, climbing the hill would give them a better vantage point for scanning the lands to the west and south. So they each drained a couple ounces of water that their aguamenti efforts had produced and started up the incline.

There appeared to be a path of some sort worn into the cobbled hillside so although the walking was not easy, Harry and Ginny both at least found it to be viable. They were bolstered by good footware — they rarely wore anything but sturdy exercise shoes with robust treads since athletic agility was a critical element of their style of magical defense. After a little over an hour of steady progress, they crested the ridge and scanned the wider horizons accessible to them. The south was indeed desert. Whereas to the east there were sporadic fringes of scraggly brush and stunted trees, the south was truly barren and far away on the horizon they could make out the golden ripples of dunes. The west held more hills and rough terrain. Ginny pointed to a depression below them, weaving around the contours of the hills. "It that a valley or a gulley?"

"In other words, is there water?" Harry extrapolated. "Possibly." he answered himself.

"Speaking of which, let's sit here for ten minutes and see if we can fill our mugs." Ginny suggested. Once again, each was able to extract a bit of liquid, but still only a couple ounces, which they again proceeded to drink.

"I'm sure we're losing more moisture every hour than we're drinking." Harry observed. "The apples will help a little, but I think it's critical to find a water source for our own sake, even if it doesn't lead us to the Fugos."

On that sobering note, they began to make their way down into the valley, following a westerly direction toward the possible ravine. For a while the going was fairly easy, but when the downward slope began to increase, the loose stones and gravel made for shaky footing and many steps required cautious experimentation before a commitment could be made. Nonetheless, with only a modest amount of skidding and minor scratches on their hands, they were eventually able to make their way down to a decision point. The trough of the valley lay about thirty feet below them, flanked by sides that, although not perilously steep, looked discouragingly crumbly and unstable. The alternative would be to continue northwards along their current contour line, in the hopes that they would find an easier descent a bit further along as the ravine bottom crept upwards in parallel with the surrounding topography. After a bit of discussion they opted to try the northward route, but after only five minutes they found their way complicated by a rock slide that had left a field of jagged, jumbled boulders. It was difficult to make out what they might face if they tried to tackle the bouldering, but their best guess was that the ravine walls were probably steeper than what they had seen earlier, and that they would have to choose between ascending a ridge or climbing a dangerously precipitous cliff wall.

Having not wasted too much time on the northerly spur, they decided to double back and attempt the crumbly incline. They stopped again to try for water and this time were mildly encouraged by the fact that in ten minutes they were both able to fill their mugs. Harry put a chilling charm on the mugs; the water tasted heavenly but didn't come nearly close enough to quenching their parched thoats.

Ginny cast a wary eye on the sun, whose descent toward the western hills was in the early stages. "Let's try to devote one more full hour to trying find the Fugos. If we're no closer by then, we'll eat our apples, replenish our water and then decide what to do next. At a certain point we may have to consider giving up and going home," she said with a hint of regret.

"That makes sense, but hopefully things will start to sort themselves out before then." Harry agreed. He turned and frowned at the inauspicious slope. "Could we just apparate down there and save ourselves some scrapes and bruises?"

Ginny gazed out over the lansdscape pensively. "I think..." she trailed off, but then came to a decision. "My instinct is telling me that we should probably go down on foot. I think apparation might one of those magical acts that the Fugos would consider loud. If they really did guide our earlier apparation, that might be why they landed us in the middle of nowhere and did so quite softly. Anyway, until we're ready to give up and pack it in I think we're stuck traveling on foot."

"Sure thing, fearless one!" Harry said with a wink. "Should I go first?"

Ginny laughed. "Yes, please! I'd rather I fell on you than vice versa."

Harry chuckled. "Be careful what you wish for." He went over the lip, warily testing rocks here and there for stability, but making reasonable progress. After a while he commented that although the footing was poor, there seemed to be enough solid footholds and handholds to make a go of it. Ginny studied his progress carefully to memorize which holds had worked and which had to be forsaken. After he had descended about ten feet, she lowered herself down and began to retrace his steps. About six feet down, she grasped an embedded rock firmly in her left hand while simultaneously committing her left foot to what Harry had found to be a stable boulder. She shifted her weight to the new points of support and... something happened.

In the instant she had available, her head wasn't angled to be able to see exactly what had gone wrong, but it was as if the boulder she had committed her foot to had just... vanished. Her foot plunged down into open air and then onto loose gravel that afforded no purchase. Her hand clenched around its rockhold, only to feel a sickening jolt as the rock gave way. A small avalanche composed of Ginny, pebbles, stones pelted down on Harry. Braced with one secure hand and foot, he cringed as first a rock and then a shoe pummelled the side of his head, but despite this he reached out with his one free arm to capture her midsection as she tumbled into him. For a moment everything held, leaving them locked in a precarious trembling embrace. The chaotic clatter of rocks and gravel died away. Harry took a deep breath and carefully shifted her onto his chest so that she was aligned with his center of gravity. "We're only fifteen feet up..." he whispered. "So if absolutely need be..."

Crack!

T he rock holding his right foot (and most of their combined weight) splintered. Realizing that his one remaining handhold couldn't sustain them both, Harry relinquished the stone and wrapped his second arm around Ginny... and down they went. It was not a sheer drop. Harry had survived much worse, but it far from pleasant: not unlike trying to run a sled down a rocky surface. And Harry was the sled.

With all four of their feet bracing, attempting to dig into the cliff, they skidded to a halt in the trough of the ravine, Harry hunching forward over Ginny, absorbing with his back the brunt of several tumbling rocks. Once again the clamor subsided. Harry unclenched his cringing eyes to see Ginny staring breathlessly into his eyes. "Umm... are you okay?" he asked with a weak smile.

Gingerly she took a step back from him to test her own legs and quickly scanned her front and limbs. Everything seemed to be in working order, so she nodded and turned her gaze back to Harry. "How about you?" she asking, grimacing as her eyes flickered across the many visible scrapes and bruises.

Harry pushed up from the slanted rock face and tested his legs. They still moved; he felt a lot of superficial stinging and burns blurring together, but none of the sickening sensation that he knew should accompany a broken bone or torn connective tissue. "I'm okay." he pronounced.

Ginny's face was knotted in concern. "No you're not." she contradicted, staring at his left leg. His trousers had shredded badly and a steady stream of blood was coming down his calf into his sock and shoe. "Sit over there." she commanded, pointing to a boulder a few feet to his right.

He sat as directed while she knelt down and lifted his leg, studying the wound. "It doesn't feel bad." he assured her. "We'll just fix it up with episkey and keep moving."

She shook her head. "The wound isn't Harry Potter bad..." she said, trying to inject a bit of levity into the situation, "... but it's laced with dirt, gravel and..." she swallowed in empathetic discomfort. "Little shards of slate. We can't close the wound with all that in there."

Harry nodded. "Okay, let's give it a basic cleaning and then patch it up."

"Water, Harry." she said patiently. "We need water to clean with."

"Oh... right."

They fell silent for a few minutes. Ginny tried to summon water to cleanse the wound, but although she was now able to produce a small stream, the flow was too weak to dislodge the grit. Ginny then cut of the shreds of Harry's trousers from just above his knee, chose several of the larger swaths, scourgified them, and used them to loosely bind the wound. A blood stain spread through the makeshift bandage, but then stopped as the bound wound began to clot. She looked into his face and said, "Stay here for a little while. I'm going to go a little ways up the ravine looking for more water. Maybe I'll have a bit more luck a little further up there."

"Let me come with you."

"No, Harry. If you walk, you'll bleed more and the last thing we want is for you to lose more blood when we're already both dehydrated. I won't be long. If you want something really useful to do while I'm gone, then you could get us some more drinking water." Ginny said resolutely, handing him her mug and turned to make her way up the ravine.

"Yes ma'am!" Harry said, with an accommodating smile.

Ginny froze, and turned to face him, with a weak smile of her own. "Oh Harry..." she said, suddenly feeling uncertain and inarticulate. "Thank you."

"Thank me?" Harry responded quizzically. "Thank you, Ginny, for keeping your head, for thinking things through and taking charge. For getting us this far. We're nearly there — I can feel it!"

Ginny regarded him fondly for a moment, turned to take another several steps upward, but then stopped again, saying, "Harry... I'm sorry this is turning out to be such an ordeal... I've been so unprepared... but, well, thanks for being so patient with all this."

Harry had started filling the first of two mugs, but looked up from his efforts. "Don't worry about it, Gin'. This is a minor bump in the road — I still trust you completely. Now, good luck finding water. I'll be here when you get back."

Ginny smiled and made her way in earnest up the trough, turning every hundred feet or so to check whether or not she could still see Harry in case he... or she... needed help. After a while, the sight line was lost. Hopefully we'll still be able to hear each other... she thought as she forged onwards.

Ginny made her way further up the winding gulley for another while before she was brought to a halt by two factors. Most importantly, she was confronted by a bit of confusion as to how to proceed further. It appeared to her that she was coming up to a solid, stark, impassable wall where she had thought there should be at least some marginal continuation of the trough. She resolved to investigate that further, but was more immediately intrigued by a second observation: possible evidence of human presence. It wasn't much, but she had found an area of the ravine trough that was almost like an alcove or small courtyard: the channel width was greater than any she had seen thus far within the gulley, the space had a relatively flat stone floor, and on three sides the stone walls rose high and straight; almost giving the impression of arching inwards as they rose, although a patch of sky was still visible directly above.

Up against one wall of the alcove was a large boulder with a relatively smooth and flat top — almost like a crude table. On the floor around the table stone she saw a bit of detritus that looked a little like what she might expect from human activity. Kneeling down she noticed small, round white seeds that she thought might be edible indigenous grains. There also was leaf matter. She picked up a little on her fingertips and raised them toward her nose. She thought she detected a sweet aroma indicative of savory or medicinal herb. A little more scrutiny around the side of the flat rock brought the discovery of what were small fruit stones — possible date pits. Interesting! She leaned against the table stone and was about to test out the aguamenti spell to see if there might be enough water nearby to cleanse Harry's wound when she suddenly became aware of... encroaching darkness! Shooting a glance at the sky, she found to her shock that the color was deepening past sapphire and toward navy. Shadows stretching out toward the east had grown very long. She gasped. I thought I still had a couple hours — how did I lose track of so much time!

And then she spun around to see Harry making his way up the ravine toward her. He did not look pleased.

"Here you are!" he said with a scowl. "Having fun? Looks like you forgot about me."

"Harry... I... I..." Ginny was aghast. She had promised to return soon — how long had she been gone from him? "I'm sorry! I have no idea how I lost track of time!"

"Yes, well the day is pretty well shot now. Thanks for the great adventure, Ginny. Sure accomplished a lot!" his voice grated unpleasantly. "I'm going home."

"But Harry, we need to fix up your..." she looked down at his leg. It was clean, whole, no evidence of the large gouge. "Harry, how did... were you... able to get that cleaned out before you healed it? Please tell me..."

"Sure." he said. "No thanks to you. Blimey, you nag at me last night for not keeping you in the loop, and then you bloody well take off on your own and abandon me on a rock doing women's work! Listen, if you ever get tired of whatever it is that you find so engrossing here, then maybe come visit me sometime, but I've had enough. Goodbye Ginny."

"Harry, listen to me!" Ginny's voice was rising toward hysteria. "If you bloody leave me here I'll..."

POP!

H e was gone. Disapparated.

hex you! What she had been about to say, never made it to her lips. Instead she collapsed to her knees, and leaned slowly forward until her head and forearm rested on the cool shaded stones. The dwindling air of her exhalation punctuated her unfinished sentence with single faint word.

"... cry."

The she sobbed, and precious moisture ran down her cheeks to the arid ground.

How could everything fall apart like this? How could I have come here so unprepared? No water, no healing herbs, no idea where we were going. Not keeping track of time. No wonder Harry gave up and walked out on me.

Harry is gone? He left me in the middle of some desert? How am I going to get back?

I got us here in the first place. I can find my own way home.

But it would be easier together. We could pool our magic for long distance apparation.

What if I run into real death eaters? What if Harry runs into death eaters?

We should be together! Harry knows that our combined magic is a lot stronger than what either one of us can manage alone — it was his bloody experiment where we discovered that!

We need each other. Harry must know that!

Of course Harry knows that. And Harry knew I was trying to help, and he knew that it had been his suggestion that we try to find the Fugos, and just a little while ago he'd been so patient, gracious and... grateful? Just a while ago? Or was it hours ago?

For more than a year, Harry's been the perfect friend and gentleman, and he seemed eager and enthusiastic to let me lead this quest. Despite the bruises, scrapes and bleeding leg, he had been all smiles when I left him sitting on a rock, dutifully filling water mugs...

There was no way she could reconcile that with the image of a blustering, irritated Harry, talking through her, not listening, then disapparating with an obnoxious POP...

"Harry doesn't go POP when he apparates." Ginny said aloud.

"Harry doesn't apparate at all right now." came the soft, familiar voice walking toward her. "Like you said, we don't want to frighten the Fugos. Are you okay Ginny?"

Ginny looked up in perplexity. Harry?! He was walking toward her, he had a bit of a limp, lots of scrapes and bruises, and blood seeping down his leg into his shoe again. He had a grimy face... tear tracks running from his eyes, staining his cheeks.

"Harry..." she gasped in confusion. "Harry, you're here... your leg is... you're crying?"

Harry looked puzzled as he knelt down and put his arm around her. "I'm crying because you're crying Ginny... I saw you sobbing on the ground and I... just felt so overwhelmingly sad all of a sudden." He gave her a gentle smile. "I guess I have this thing about you..."

Ginny stared deep into his eyes, uncomprehending. "But your leg..." she stammered.

"I'm sorry Ginny. I know you asked me to wait back down there so that I didn't agitate the wound, but a little while ago I got this panicked feeling that there was something wrong... so I couldn't just stay there. And then I heard your voice, it sounded hurt, or pained or something... so I started running... and that must have reopened the wound." Harry studied her with concern. "But forget about me — you've found water so we can get my scrapes patched in a jiffy now. What I really need to know now is if you're okay?"

Ginny looked around, still having difficulty processing the contradictions. The sky is not darkening. It's still midafternoon. Harry's leg is still hurt. Harry is still here! "I what? Water?" Ginny finally blurted out.

"You found water." he repeated, gesturing toward the fresh spring trickling out of the rocks nearby. A realization dawned on him "You're all scrambled, Ginny -- the Fugos must have tested you again!" he exclaimed then paused to reflect. "Listen, I don't know what you might have seen or thought, but... everything's okay, right? You're not hurt or anything, right?"

Ginny shook her head, more than anything to clear the confusion from her mind. "I'm fine." she assured him. "I just got a little confused." She wiped her eyes, stood up and helped Harry to his feet, beckoning him toward the spring. Still puzzled that she had not seen the water at all on her first approach, she examined it. The liquid was clear and clean, emerging from between cracks in the stone wall on the west side of the gorge, running down over smoothly weathered stones then disappearing back into gravel a short ways on. Around the smoothened stones there was one small flowing pool several inches deep — enough depth to immerse Harry's gouge. She helped him to a sitting position, removed his shoe and sock, and guided his bare leg into the shallow pool so that it would soak while she scourgified his footwear. "Soak for a while to loosen the dirt, then I'll clean it properly."

"We're very close now." Harry said as he sat on the flat stone floor. "There's magic practically pouring off all the stones here."

"Really?" she asked, handing him a passably clean shoe and sock.

"Definitely!" Harry confirmed. "I think now maybe we just wait here and await the final test from the Fugos."

"What final test?" Ginny asked.

Harry smiled. "Oh you know... it's in all the old stories. There's always three riddles, three tests of faith or courage." Then he laughed. "Well, sometimes seven... but Merlin knows if we'll survive another five tests. I'll settle for one."

Ginny laughed and began to kneel down to check his wound, but on the way down she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Tremelda..." croaked a kindly but ancient voice. "The little ones say they would like another test."