Harry had no idea what to say. He sympathized with Jane … for so many years, he had thrilled to people telling him how much he looked like his father, except for having his mother's eyes. Jane was almost the reverse – her mother's image, except for …

Except for what? 

He shouldn't even be letting it prey on his mind, and yet it did. The mystery of the identity of Jane's father nagged at him. He wanted to know. More, he wanted to help her find out, for her own sake. It had to be maddening, not knowing … and a thousand times worse than maddening to know that it could be any of a half-dozen or more men, all of whom were the among vilest of evil Dark wizards the world had to offer. 

As he walked back toward Gryffindor tower, expecting to see Ron ahead of him, he pondered possibilities. What was it about Jane that Dilys Derwent had seen as foreign? As her father's mark? Was it her hair? Dark hair … which would mean, by likely process of elimination, her father couldn't have been someone like Lucius Malfoy. 

Dark hair like … eew, like Snape? 

His stomach gave a bubbly churn at that. Of all the Death Eaters past and present, dead or alive, the one he would want least to be Jane's father would be Snape. Horrible as her circumstances were, that'd be the worst. The absolute worst. 

Her eyes, maybe? Dark eyes, too. Not the merry sunflower-blue of Dilys Derwent. Not the pale silvery-grey of the Malfoys. Snape had eyes as black and sharp as chips of obsidian. 

And then there was Mulciber, whom Karkaroff had ratted out to the Wizengamot as having used the Imperius Curse all the time … Harry had seen Karkaroff's confession in Dumbledore's Pensieve …

It was useless. He knew he was never going to be able to guess. And would it be any better if he did? If she found out? What then? As long as it was a mystery, she could let herself hope that maybe – as Death Eater rapists went – her father hadn't been that bad … but if she knew his identity, she'd be able to review his crimes in excruciating detail. And that might be more pain than she could handle. 

Ron was sitting halfway down a flight of stairs, beneath a large portrait of harlequins and tumbling dwarfs, looking morose. He grinned dourly as Harry approached. 

"Well?" Harry asked, sitting beside him. "How'd it go?"

"With Dumbledore or with Luna?"

"Both. Or either. Dealer's choice."

"Not so bad with Dumbledore," Ron said. "Offered us tea, chatted about the weather, idly mentioned appropriate behavior in and out of school. I reckon he saw right through the Concealing Charm."

"Reckon so," agreed Harry. 

"But nothing about sending owls to our parents or anything, thankfully," Ron said. "Could you hear Mum? I'd probably get a Howler."

"Did he say anything about what happened with Hermione?"

Ron winced as if he'd just as soon have forgotten the entire incident. "No, but he implied it. You know how he is, Dumbledore. Good at implying stuff. What I want to know is how he keeps track of what's going on when he's supposed to be running the Ministry?"

"Good question."

"McGonagall must send him daily reports, sure, but …" Ron slowly shook his head. "Blimey. I wouldn't want his job."

"So what about Luna, then?" asked Harry. "You sounded like, if it went okay with Dumbledore, it wasn't so okay with her."

"She thinks we're dating!" Ron burst out. 

Harry gave him the eyebrow. "Can't imagine where she'd get that idea."

"Making plans for when we can see each other again, talking about me like I'm her … her boyfriend!" Ron could barely bring the word out. "Like it's assumed next Hogsmeade weekend I'll be going with her, and she even said something about visiting her family over the holidays! Harry, it's bloody October and she's planning for me to meet her dad come Christmas!"

"Better get her a good present, then."

"You're not helping!"

"Sorry." He put on his most somber, attentive face. "What are you going to do?"

"Dunno what I can do." Ron sighed, only it was more like a groan. "It was just one date, and an accidental one at that!"

"Don't you like her?"

"Well, yeah, I like her well enough, I guess …"

"You must, if you made out with her."

He winced again. "Thanks for reminding me."

It was strange how, with everything so dark in his mind, talking to Ron – teasing Ron like this – could help to cheer him up. Harry had been jolted by what Jane told him … he'd thought that murder was the lowest depth to which Voldemort's people could sink, but there were lower depths. What they had done to Amaryllis … what they would have done to Jane … 

And it unnerved him to think that they'd had a tenuous but powerful connection since he was only a year old and she hadn't even been born. What did that mean? Anything? Nothing? There were plenty of people whose lives had been altered because of what had happened when Voldemort came to his parents' house, and thinking about all of those connections made him edgy. 

"Harry?"

He looked around. "Huh?"

"You came over all funny there for a second," Ron said. "You don't look good."

"I … don't feel so good, really." 

Had he just been thinking how teasing Ron could cheer him up? Maybe so … but the minute he started letting himself think again about poor Amaryllis Derwent, and what she must have suffered … 

Harry knew from personal experience what it was like to be under the Imperius Curse. Barty Crouch Jr., masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody, had cast it on their entire Defense Against the Dark Arts class during Harry's fourth year. Only Harry had been able to shake off the controlling effects, but he remembered it vividly. 

At first it hadn't been so bad, feeling like he was absolved of any and all responsibility for his actions. But as it had gone on, he had developed a sense of terrifying powerlessness, helplessness … his mind screaming in futile protest as his body acted independently, the slave of another's sinister will. 

"And for her …" he muttered. 

"What?" Ron asked. 

"Nothing … sorry."

"You're really not all right, are you?" Ron looked him over, concerned. "What's the matter? Did Dumbledore say something to you? You're not in trouble, are you?"

"No," Harry said. 

"Did he know about …" Ron swept a quick look around the hallway to be sure they were alone, shot a distrustful glance up at the pantomiming harlequins and tumbling dwarfs – all of whom were far too engrossed in their activities to be paying any attention – and whispered. "About Jane?"

"If he didn't to start with, he does now," Harry said. 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I had my arm around her when he came out to the hallway to fetch us."

"You never!" Ron said with grudging admiration. "Outside Dumbledore's own office? And he saw you?"

"Yeah," Harry said. 

"What'd he say?"

"He didn't say anything," Harry said. 

"Oh, that's rich," groused Ron. "I get the big lecture, and you're dating a Slytherin and not one word?"

"Big lecture? You said he implied! Besides, I didn't come back to school with big hickeys on my neck, and set off the dormitory alarms with another girl later that same damned night!"

"She set off the alarms! She kissed me! I didn't have anything to do with that and you were there to see for yourself! And what are you shouting at me for?"

Harry had been shouting, he realized. "I'm sorry, Ron."

"It's making you insane, this is," Ron said, not without pity. "Trying to see her without anybody else catching on."

"It's not just that," Harry said.

He wasn't sure why he hadn't told Ron or Hermione about Jane's parents. True, there hadn't really been an opportunity … it had only been two days, after all, though it seemed like much longer, that he'd learned her father had been a Death Eater. And too much had happened since. 

Besides, he didn't think it was any of their business. It wasn't even his business, in truth, but just because Ron and Hermione were his best friends, they didn't have to know every single thing that he found out. He'd kept loads of stuff from them over the years, for various reasons. 

Sometimes he'd eventually cleared the air – what he'd done with his Triwizard winnings, what really went on in Umbridge's detentions – or they had found out through other means, like with the Longbottoms. But some things, he still kept to himself. What he'd seen in Snape's memory, for example. The words of the prophecy that had gotten him into all this in the first place, for instance. 

Jane had trusted him, and he wasn't about to repay her trust by blabbing her tragic and sordid family history around, not even to his two closest friends. It had to have been hard for her, a Slytherin, to open up to anyone. Especially to a Gryffindor. Especially to him. He didn't know why she'd done it. That tenuous bond? Or was it simply that she knew she could trust him above anyone in her own House, because of the very qualities that had put him in Gryffindor in the first place?

Ron was saying something, and Harry hadn't been listening. 

"What?"

"I asked what Dumbledore did say to you, if he wasn't telling you off for inappropriate behavior, and hinting that you should see Madame Pomfrey if you had any 'health concerns or questions,'" Ron said, making quote marks with his fingers the way he'd often seen Dean and Hermione do. 

"He said that?"

"It was only kissing," Ron said in a grumbling tone. He reddened. "Mostly."

"Remember, Ron, I really don't want to know," Harry said quickly. "Anyway, I think Dumbledore mostly wanted to be sure we were all right. It was kind of scary out there in Hogsbrook. You know I've never been a good swimmer."

"So he didn't say anything to you about you and Jane?" Ron persisted. "He wasn't surprised?"

"How could he be, when he'd probably heard about it from Tonks and your mum?"

"Oh. Right. But he must've said something to make you look this bad."

"I'm fine, really," Harry said. He wasn't … he kept hearing Dilys Derwent's parting shot … or envisioning a pretty woman with Jane's face, hellish awareness in her eyes as hooded, jeering men surrounded her … 

"The hell you are," Ron said. 

Harry was saved from having to reply by a crowd of third-years clattering down the staircase toward them. He and Ron waited until the younger students had passed, then got up and resumed their journey to the Gryffindor common room. 

Desperate to take his mind off of those awful, haunting images, Harry said, "What are you going to do about your girl problem?"

"Remember I was hoping I'd fall off my broom to get out of having to help Hagrid with the spiders?" Ron said. 

"No such luck, with the Quidditch game canceled."

"Now I'm hoping one of the spiders finishes me off, so I don't have to worry about girls." Ron dragged his feet as they neared a familiar turn that indicated they were close to the Fat Lady's portrait hole. 

"You've got to talk to Hermione," Harry said. 

"What the devil am I going to say to Hermione? In case you hadn't noticed, she's not speaking to me. Hasn't said a word since Saturday night. She hates me."

"Actually, she doesn't. That's the problem."

"Tell me about it."

Hermione wasn't in the common room when they entered, so Ron was granted a bit more of a reprieve. He still had to endure the ribbing of everyone else as he made a mad dash for the relative safety of their dormitory, people imitating the sound of the alarm klaxon and loudly asking him what his secret was. Harry saw that several girls who had previously never before given Ron Weasley the time of day were now casting speculative looks at him. 

Any other time, Harry himself might have been the center of attention, with everyone wanting to hear all about the drowning of Devona Stormdark and his rescue of Jane Kirkallen, her being Slytherin only adding spice to the tasty tale. But Ron's adventures, for a rare change, had trumped Harry's. Sex beat death any time when it came to juicy gossip. If the whole story about himself and Jane had been known … 

Not that he was begrudging Ron his place in the spotlight. It didn't happen often, and Harry was personally just as glad to avoid the scrutiny right now. He didn't need anyone else noticing how awful he looked, and asking him what was on his mind. 

Ron didn't even linger long enough to eat, just snatched up the brown paper sack lunch that Colin had saved for him, and fled up the stairs. He didn't show his face until dinner time. 

Harry fed most of his lunch – a roast beef sandwich, a ham-and-cheese, an apple, an orange, cookies – to the ever-ravenous Dennis Creevey and a variety of pets roaming the common room. He got his books and tried to put in a solid afternoon's studying, though it was difficult to concentrate on writing an essay on merging-shapeshifters – combining two animal forms into one, believed to be the origins of many part-human magical species – or Flitwick's assigned reading on Grooming and Beautification Charms – Harry had tried to use a Combing Charm on his hair and it still refused to stay flat, so after that he gave it up as a bad job. 

Classes were canceled again on Tuesday, with preparations being made for the memorial service that evening. The students still didn't know what to make of so much leisure time. Under the circumstances, celebrating and enjoying themselves seemed rude, but few of them could properly concentrate on homework. 

By Tuesday afternoon, the clouds outside had finally thinned and broken up enough to allow a few feeble rays of sunshine through, and this caused a mass exodus from the common room despite the fact that the grounds were still soggy. Harry went up to put his books in his trunk and ask Ron if Ron was up for a trek down to Hagrid's, but found Ron snoring, splayed out face-down on his bed like a dead starfish. 

Hagrid proved not to be home, so it was a wasted trip after all. Harry detoured around the still-draining pumpkin patch and came to the lake. The surface was strewn with driftwood blown down in the storm, and several people were amusing themselves bewitching sticks to race through the water. The giant squid occasionally reached up from below and snared one. 

He saw a familiar mass of bushy brown hair. Hermione was beneath the beech tree, where the three of them liked to sit in the shade on warm days. She had spread an oilskin cloak on the ground and was sitting on it with her knees drawn up and her chin propped on them, arms circling her shins, gazing dolefully out over the lake. 

"I made a complete fool of myself the other night," she said without preamble, as Harry came up. 

"Not so bad," he said. 

"Don't fib, Harry."

"All right, it was pretty bad. But who could have known?"

"I knew! Because I'm still the only one who's read Hogwarts, A History. I knew all about the enchantments on the castle."

"How come there's none on the bathrooms, then?" he asked. "We spent all that time in the girls' loo our second year, and Myrtle can spy on the prefects any time she likes."

"It isn't everywhere," Hermione said. She eyed Harry in an odd way. "There aren't any Chastity Charms in the Slytherin dormitories, for instance."

"Chastity Charms? Is that really what they're called?"

"That's what the girls call them," Hermione said indifferently. 

"But there's none in the Slytherin dungeon?"

"Salazar Slytherin is quoted in Hogwarts, A History as saying that for the students of his House, they'd only see such restrictions as a challenge."

"Oh."

"How did I let this happen?" Hermione asked suddenly. "How, Harry?"

Carefully, he said, "How'd you let what, exactly, happen?"

"How did I let myself fall for that clueless red-headed buffoon?"

"Good question."

"I knew he would never figure out that I liked him, so what was I waiting for? Why didn't I say something earlier? Now it's too late. Now he's in love with Looney Lovegood and the whole school knows it and I'm a laughingstock."

"You aren't –"

"I am so!"

"And Ron isn't –"

"Yes he is!"

"I give up," Harry said. "I never can win a logical argument with you."

"There's nothing logical about this," she said wretchedly. "That's what makes it so unbearable. He's all wrong for me, Harry. From the moment we met, he thought I was a pushy, bossy, show-offy know-it-all and I thought he was a … a …"

"Clueless red-headed buffoon?" Harry volunteered. 

"Exactly. He's thick, he's stubborn, he's no good with schoolwork or exams, he was dismal as a prefect, really dismal, I had to carry the entire House thanks to him and he wouldn't lift a finger or say a word to help me, and it was his brothers causing most of the trouble!"

"So why do you like him then, Hermione?"

"I don't know!" she wailed, digging her hands into her hair like she thought she could get at the brain underneath and wring some sense out of it. "I should like someone witty, and clever, and responsible! Anthony Goldstein, or Ernie Macmillan, or somebody like that!"

"Ernie's responsible, but I'm not sure about witty or clever," Harry said. "Bit of a plodding, pompous bore, I always thought. Decent bloke, though."

"But Ron Weasley?" Hermione said as if she hadn't heard him. "What's the matter with me?"

"I like Ron –"

"Of course you like him, Harry, he's your best friend. And as a friend, I like him fine too. But think about it. Would you want to date him?"

"What?"

She flapped her hand. "Not that way. If you were a girl. If you were me."

"Never really considered it. And what about Krum? I thought you fancied him."

"Viktor's nice and all," Hermione agreed. "Not terribly handsome but he's good to talk to if you can get him without a gang of giggling girls around. But it isn't like that, Harry. Not me and Viktor."

He wondered if, somewhere off in Bulgaria or wherever Viktor Krum was currently hanging his cloak, Krum was doing this very same thing. Sitting on the shores of some lake, saying, "Vat is vith me, dat I like Hermy-own-ninny so much ven she thinks of me only as a friend?"

"Well, how was Ron supposed to know?" asked Harry. "It's not like you ever gave him any signs."

"I gave him plenty of signs!"

"Hermione, I mean signs that we boys can understand."

"You can't just tell a boy that you fancy him!" Hermione was highly affronted. 

"It'd make things a lot easier," Harry said. 

"But that's … that's not … it just isn't done that way! He should have known. He should have figured it out."

"You know how good Ron and I are at figuring things out."

She clawed her fingers into her hair again. "What's the matter with him?"

"You probably scare him."

"What?"

"Remind him of his mum."

"Harry!"

"Well, you do. Always scolding him, and, let's be frank, Hermione, bossing him around."

"If anything," she said, "that should have been a hint! Don't men always marry women who remind them of their mothers?"

"If that's true," Harry said, "then I'm glad I never met Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge's mother."

"Wouldn't you marry a girl who reminded you of your mother?"

"Why are we talking about marriage all of a sudden?" Harry asked uneasily. "I thought this was about Hogsmeade dates and kissing."

She gave him a withering look. "Hypothetically speaking."

"I don't know much about her," Harry said. He thought about it, thought especially of Lily as he had seen her at age fifteen in Snape's memories. "The closest person I can think of who reminds me of her would be Ginny, I guess. Red hair, hot temper. And I can't see myself with Ginny!"

"At least Ginny figured that out," Hermione said. "I kept on hoping about Ron. Does that mean she's smarter than me, or just more realistic?"

"Give Ron a chance, Hermione. He never had an idea that you fancied him before. Now he knows."

"Does he really?" She popped her eyes at him in mock astonishment. "What could have possibly tipped him off?"

"Believe me, it's on his mind now."

"Well, now it's too late!" she practically shrieked. 

"You mean that now you don't like him?"

"I mean now he's with Luna, and the whole school knows it, and everyone in Gryffindor knows that I'm a stupid dunce when it comes to boys. They all think he's some kind of … of … super stud –"

Ron Weasley, super stud. Harry knew that if he laughed, it'd be the last straw for Hermione and she would either go storming off and never speak to him again – not that she'd really spoken to either him or Ron in the past couple of days – or she'd jinx the living daylights out of him and then go storming off and never speak to him again. After what she'd done to Marietta Edgecombe, Harry didn't look forward to spending weeks in St. Mungo's while expert teams of Healers were brought in by Portkey from around the globe trying to undo whatever it was that Hermione had done to him. 

"—crazy about him, and I'm the one who came in second!" Hermione finished. "And there's not one thing I can do about it."

"This may sound nutty," Harry said, "and bear in mind that it's only because I'm as big an idiot when it comes to this sort of stuff as Ron is … but have you thought about … talking to him?"

"And saying what?" she snapped. "Done is done, can't be undone, Harry."

"So this is it, then?" he asked, more harshly than he meant to. "He's sixteen, he's had one real date with a girl, one real kiss, and now his whole future's locked in stone?"

"It was more than one kiss by what he was telling you!"

"He's not going to marry the first girl he went out with! And he didn't even want to go out with her; she surprised him into it!"

"And I suppose she surprised him into sticking his tongue down her throat," Hermione said frostily. "Or putting his hand on –"

"Give it a rest!" Harry cried. "We don't know any better, all right? We're boys! We don't understand the intricacies of all this … relationship stuff! When something happens, we react to it, and you can't expect us to have the least slightest idea what in the hell is going on! Not until someone else explains it to us, preferably in simple words! We don’t know what you girls are thinking or feeling. We can't decipher your hints and double meanings! You can wrap us around your little fingers or tie us in knots or stomp us like grapes, Hermione, and we won't have … one … damned … clue."

She sat back and stared at him for several beats, open-mouthed. "But you should," she finally said. 

"But we don't. We can't. Maybe when we grow up … but then again, maybe not. Now that I think about it, I don't know any grown-up men who are savvy about women."

"Bill."

"Pardon me?"

"Bill Weasley. Ron's brother."

"He's the exception that proves the rule," Harry said. "All the rest are either idiots bumbling along while women put up with them – like Hagrid and Madame Maxime, or Mr. and Mrs. Weasley – or they're doing exactly what you do, overthinking and letting their analytical reasoning get in the way of their emotions."

"Who's doing that?"

"Lupin, for one," Harry said. "Talking himself out of taking a chance with Tonks."

"Harry, he has very good reasons –"

"See? He's going to talk himself right into being alone for the rest of his life."

"He is a werewolf," she said gently. 

"Does that mean he can't love? Isn't worthy of being loved?"

"No, of course not! But –"

"It's hard enough finding someone," Harry said. "There are enough problems and obstacles getting in the way without rationalizing yourself a bunch more. Hermione, you like Ron. You let him know – in no uncertain terms, might I add! – and now he's got to figure out what he wants. He's got to figure it out."

"But he can't figure anything out!" she cried. "And I'm too late anyway."

"Where does all this 'now is forever' stuff come from?" Harry asked. "Why is one kiss a lifelong commitment? Particularly when it wasn't so much a date as an ambush? I've kissed Cho, and I'm certainly not going to marry her. I've kissed Jane, and --"

"You what?"

He bit his tongue. Hard. 

"When?" demanded Hermione. "How come you didn't tell me?"

"There hasn't really been a good time to mention it," Harry said, feeling his face turn warm. 

"Oh, after you rescued her, of course," Hermione said with a 'that explains it' complacency. "I guess that's only to be expected."

"What do you mean by that? My 'saving-people' thing?"

"Harry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I just … didn't realize you felt quite so strongly about Jane. Isn't it difficult?"

"Well, yeah," he said. "Yeah, actually. More than you know."

That was a mistake. There was nothing guaranteed to pique the interest of Hermione Granger faster than suggesting to her that there was something she didn't know. She perked right up, her distress over Ron pushed to the side for the time being. 

"I imagine I have a fair grasp of the problems you're facing," she said, sounding uncomfortably like McGonagall again. The longer she served as McGonagall's Student Apprentice, the more those mannerisms set in. "It's complicated enough when you're in different Houses, but when she's –"

"Slytherin, I know," Harry said. "Look, Hermione, I'd really rather not go into all this again. For once, it's not my life that's a mess. Comparatively speaking, anyway. No one's trying to kill me –" he leaned back and knocked the trunk of the beech tree, "—the teachers are tolerable except for Snape and he's no more abhorrent than usual, no bad dreams, no pain in my scar, no dementors. So, all things considered, it's you and Ron I'm worried about. I'd like to help."

Hermione thumped her chin down on her knees again. "I wish you could, Harry, but you're right … it's Ron who has to work out what he wants."

There seemed not much more he could say to that, so he sat beside her and they watched the driftwood-racing down at the lake until the sky clouded up again and the day darkened and dinner time drew near. Students abandoned their various outdoor pursuits – it really was too cold and dreary anyway, but after the storm there had been a strong unconscious desire to get out into the sunlight, in defiance of it and of Devona's death. 

The problem of how it would go with Hermione and Ron at the same table was solved by Ron not showing up. He was, according to Neville, still sprawled face-down on his bed and snoring fit to shake the walls. 

"Are you going?" Ginny asked Harry. "To the service for Devona Stormdark?"

He nodded. "Thought I would, yeah. You?"

"She was in our year, so we all agreed to go." Ginny gestured around at Colin and the other fifth-years. "It's only right, I guess. We saw her parents arrive an hour ago. They've been up with Dumbledore, and then Snape took them down to the dungeons to get her things."

It was a sobering notion, and Harry poked at his food while musing about it. 

He tried to imagine Aunt Petunia coming to Hogwarts to pack up his belongings if he got himself killed, and of course that was ludicrous. Someone else would do it. Mrs. Weasley, or maybe Gwenna Golden. Hedwig would need a new home. 

Hermione claimed she had some papers to grade for McGonagall, and slipped away before dessert. Lavender and Parvati and some of the other girls nearly gave themselves concussions from putting their heads together so fast to whisper once her back was turned, but a few Gryffindor girls watched her with evident sympathy. 

The boys, almost universally, were as oblivious as ever.

**

Continued in Chapter Twenty-Four -- For Funerals and a Wedding.