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Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
In the Gardens of Avalon
By Ishtar
Chapter Thirteen
In the Gardens of Avalon
That weekend, Mr. Weasley asked Harry if he still wanted to visit his parents' graves, and Harry jumped at the chance. Hermione hesitantly asked if she could come along, since she didn't know how the Wizarding community did these things and would like to find out, but if it was too personal for Harry, she would gladly stay home. Harry said he'd be happy if she came, and invited Ron and Ginny, too. So on Sunday morning, Mrs. Weasley packed a large picnic basket, everybody dressed in nice but comfortable clothes, and they set off.
To Harry's surprise, the first stop was the Leaky Cauldron. From there, they headed into Diagon Alley. At the far end of the Alley there was a high fence with a gate in it. The branches of some apple trees growing on the other side hung over and shaded the gate. There was no sign to identify it, and Harry, on his previous trips to the Alley, had just assumed this was the back entrance to somebody's private garden.
Mr. Weasley pushed the gate open and led them inside. Harry looked around curiously. It was a roughly pentagonal garden, with an apple tree growing in each corner. Planters containing tasteful arrangements of potted herbs and flowers were scattered about casually. In the centre of the garden was a white marble basin perhaps two feet high and ten feet across, filled with clear water. The central image of the fountain was a golden boat, occupied by three standing cloaked and veiled women, one of whom carried a pitcher from which water poured into the fountain's basin. A draped body lay at the women's feet. Placed seemingly at random around the edge of the fountain were a number of golden apples. It was Hermione who voiced Harry's questions. "Surely this isn't it? It isn't big enough, and there are no headstones …"
"Wizards don't use headstones, my dear," murmured Mrs. Weasley. "Stone is so cold. It isn't a fitting memorial for the lives of our loved ones. This garden is just an entryway to the real place." She picked up one of the golden apples from the rim of the fountain. "This is a Portkey to take us there."
"It doesn't look like a regular Portkey. Those are all rubbish," said Harry.
"That's because they need to be hidden from the Muggles, or are only temporary, so we don't bother to make them out of anything valuable. These never leave this garden or the memorial grove, and are reused constantly, so of course they were made to look nice. Now everyone touch the apple, please. All ready? Take us to Avalon," she commanded the Portkey, and with a stomach-wrenching lurch they were elsewhere.
They appeared at the edge of a fountain of the same design, only much larger, so that the boat, the women, and the body were life-sized. The area around the fountain, where they stood, was paved with coloured stones in a complex interwoven design. From the edge of the pavement, crushed gravel paths led off in various directions, winding through a landscape marked by beds of flowers and apple trees growing in small groups or singly. Some of the trees were in flower or bore ripe fruit, despite the fact that it was not the season for either. Birds and butterflies abounded. The air was fresher than Harry had ever experienced before, even in the country where the Burrow was located, and the clear sunlight brought out details of things even when they should have been blurred by distance. The cumulative effect made him feel slightly giddy.
A young woman veiled from head to toe in white approached them. "Welcome to Avalon," she said in a sweet, melodious voice. "May I ask who you have come to visit?"
"James and Lily Potter," answered Mr. Weasley.
The young woman flicked her wand, and a small ball of pink light appeared. "Please follow the guide; it will take you to the correct grove. When you wish to return, or if you wish to visit someone else, ask it, and it will lead you where you wish." Mr. Weasley thanked her, and she bowed slightly in response, then went to speak to a couple who had just appeared on the far side of the fountain.
The ball of light floated off along one of the paths, and the group followed. They did not dawdle, but neither did they walk fast, and Harry felt the tension he had been under for months, or perhaps years, gradually fading away.
"Where are we?" asked Hermione in a whisper.
"We are in the Gardens of Avalon," said Mrs. Weasley in a normal tone. "We're not quite on the material plane now, you understand. This is a place where the earthly and spiritual realms overlap. If we were on Earth, I think we'd be somewhere in the vicinity of Glastonbury."
"Avalon? You mean like King Arthur and all that? I thought that was just a myth!"
"If you accept that Merlin was real, why not the rest of it?" responded Mr. Weasley. "No, it's like a lot of Wizardly things, the Muggles got hold of the story and changed some things, but the core of it is true. The magical folk of Britain have been bringing their dead here since long before the first Roman ever set foot on the island. Even Arthur is here. For all he was a Muggle, he was a King recognized by magical folk as well. He's one of the few so honoured."
"Are all Wizards buried here?" asked Harry.
"Not all. All are entitled to be if they wish, and most of the purebloods have family groves. Muggleborns often request to be buried with their families in the Muggle world, or where they lived, but they can have trees here as well."
The pink light was now leading them along a path lined with apple trees, all of which were in bloom, perfuming the air with sweet scent and sprinkling the path with pink and white petals. At the end of the lane, the light stopped before two trees which grew so close together that their trunks had twisted together, and their branches were interlaced, one bearing flowers and the other fruit. "Oh, how lovely!" said Mrs. Weasley. She set the picnic basket down on the grass under the trees; opening it, she pulled out a picnic cloth and started to set places.
Harry walked up to the trees, gently touching the bark and the crease where the trunks of the trees had joined. The bark felt warm, and a gentle tingle ran through his fingertips where they rested against the tree. "So these trees were planted for my parents? Like the trees at the Burrow?" he asked.
"Like that, yes. It was Albus who saw to their burial, of course. They were buried in the same grave, together in death as they were in life, and their trees reflect that."
"What if … what if there's no body? Like if it gets blown up, or … or." He was unable to finish his sentence.
"You're thinking of Sirius?" asked Mr. Weasley. Harry nodded mutely. "I believe Tonks and her mother, as his closest family members, were going to make sure he had a tree here. We can ask the guide to take us there later, if you want."
"I'd like that, yes."
"Good. Now sit down, Harry. We're almost ready."
Harry turned to find a meal laid out, and places for eight. Harry started to sit down at the nearest place, but Mrs. Weasley pulled him around to sit across the cloth from the trees, next to Hermione. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat at the right hand side of the cloth, and Ron and Ginny at the left. While the teenagers helped themselves to sandwiches, crisps and salads, Mrs. Weasley picked an apple from the tree, the branch seeming to sway down to make it easier for the short, plump woman to reach it. She sliced it in half crossways, so that each half revealed a five-pointed star made from the seeds, and placed one half on each of the plates nearest the trees, while Harry and Hermione watched curiously.
Suddenly there was a shimmer of silver-white emerging from the bark of the apple trees. Harry gasped and his sandwich slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers as the two figures resolved from formless mist into detailed, silver-white images. A tall, slim man with shaggy hair and glasses, and a shorter woman with her hair drawn back in a bun at the nape of her neck, both dressed in slightly dated Muggle clothing.
"Mum? Dad?" Harry whispered, and the two spectres nodded. He lurched forward, heedless of the picnic cloth between them, but Ron grabbed his arm to stop him.
"If you touch them, you'll break the spell and they'll vanish," he said urgently. "You too, Hermione." Hermione lowered the hand she had involuntarily reached out towards the spectres, and twisted her fingers in her skirt to keep from succumbing to temptation again.
The two figures were now fully formed, more opaque than any ghost Harry had ever seen. They stepped forward to take their places at the picnic. Lily sat gracefully, her legs curled beneath her, while James sprawled out next to her.
"It's so good to see you, Harry," said Lily. "You've grown so; what are you, thirteen, fourteen now?"
"Err, I just turned sixteen, actually."
"Sixteen? Stand up, let me see you," demanded James, climbing back to his own feet so he could compare heights. "No, you can't be sixteen. I was already almost my full height at sixteen, and your mother's family aren't short, either."
Harry flushed as he resumed his seat. This wasn't quite what he had expected. "There are … reasons for my height, unfortunately. It's a long story. But that's not important now …"
"Yes it is important!" said Lily in a huff. "If someone's been doing things that affect my baby, I want to know about it! And where is Sirius? He was supposed to bring you every year on your birthday so we could see you grow!"
"Oh, God." Harry buried his face in his hands. "That's part of the long story. He couldn't. And nobody told me you were here. I would have been here every day if I'd known!" He felt Hermione putting her arm comfortingly across his shoulders.
"Well, we're all here now, that's the important thing," said Molly. "There's plenty of time for everybody to explain everything. Harry, dear, try to pull yourself together. I think there are lots of questions that need to be answered."
"Yes, Mum," Harry answered, and then realized what he'd said in front of his real mother.
Lily raised an eyebrow. "'Mum'?"
"That's one of the things we need to talk about," said Molly. "Harry here desperately needed a family, so we took him in, first in fosterage. Then we did a magical adoption, so he's a Weasley now as well as a Potter. I hope that's all right."
James was frowning mightily. "I wish we'd been kept up on all this, but I suppose it's all right. I don't have any doubts that you'll take care of him properly, Molly, Arthur. But would somebody please tell us what's been going on?"
"Like I said, it's a long story," said Harry. "It all starts the night you … the night you …"
"Died?" said James. "You don't have to worry about saying that, Harry. Not to us."
"Yeah, well … I'm still not sure exactly what happened that night. Nobody is. After Voldemort killed you two, he tried to kill me … and it didn't work, and he was blasted out of his body. Nobody knows why. Anyway, Dumbledore and Hagrid and Sirius came, and Dumbledore told Hagrid to take me away for safety. They didn't trust Sirius because they thought he was your Secret Keeper."
"But he wasn't! It was …"
"Pettigrew, we know that now. But nobody except Sirius knew that then, and knowing Dumbledore, he didn't even give Sirius a chance to get a word in edgewise. Anyway, Sirius loaned that flying motorbike of his to Hagrid to take me away, and then he went after Pettigrew, but Pettigrew blew up an entire street to fake his death and made it look like Sirius did it. The Aurors came and took Sirius to Azkaban, where he stayed for twelve years without a trial. So that's why he couldn't take care of me."
James' face showed his fury at this, while Lily's eyes widened in shock.
"So Dumbledore brought me to the only place I'd be safe. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's house. And he told them to take care of me."
Now it was Lily's face that showed fury. "WHAT!! My sister was the last person you should have been left with! How could he!"
"He said the blood protection your death made would keep me safe as long as I was there."
"Well that's just … James and I both cast blood rituals to protect you, that's true, but they had nothing to do with Petunia! The protection was to follow you, wherever you went."
"This was one that he cast, I think. I'm trying to remember what he said, exactly … something about a charm that he placed on me … because of your blood in me and Aunt Petunia, as long as I could still call it home, I was safe from Voldemort. Mind you, apparently I wasn't safe from anything else, since Umbridge was able to sic those Dementors on me last year …"
"Dementors!?" Lily squeaked.
"And I wasn't safe from the Dursleys themselves, since all three of them had their shot at me over the years. But I was safe from somebody who was a disembodied spirit and couldn't get at me anyway." There was more than a little bitterness in Harry's voice. "I wonder if there was really all that much difference between Dumbledore's blood wards and Sirius' family wards on Grimmauld Place. Or what's on The Burrow now. He never even brought that up when I had to move in with the Weasleys. And it was a Muggle social worker who made that happen."
"Why should Dumbledore have had anything to do with it?" Lily was becoming a little hysterical. "He wasn't your guardian! Sirius was! You should have been living with him!"
"He was in Azkaban, remember? And then when he finally escaped, he was on the run for two years, and then the last year he was stuck incommunicado at Grimmauld Place, and then …" Harry took a deep breath. "And then he died."
"Sirius is dead?" whispered James. "When?"
"A few months ago. Just before the end of term. It was my fault," Harry said, his resolution not to assume all the guilt forgotten. "I was tricked into thinking he was in danger. So I went to help him. Only he had to come rescue me instead, and he … he died."
"That's not quite how it happened," Hermione said to comfort him.
"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!" Harry snapped. "It was my fault you and Ron and Ginny were hurt, too. And Neville and Luna. Not one of you would have been there if it hadn't been for me. Sirius wouldn't have been there."
"Stop! Stop!" cried Lily, holding up her hands. "This is getting too hopelessly scrambled. Can we start at the beginning again and try to put this in some kind of order, now? Harry, you can start by introducing your friends, all right?"
Reminded of his manners and with his angry train of thought effectively derailed, Harry performed the requested introductions and began again, managing to give a fairly detailed rendition of his adventures with only a few side discussions along the way.
"I think I understand everything now," said James, rubbing his temples. "This is all so far from the way we planned it."
"Planned it? You knew about things in advance?" asked Harry.
"Well, of course we knew we were targeted by Voldemort," his father replied. "With me in the Ministry's Foreign Affairs department and your mother writing for the Prophet, we were fairly high-profile. I'm actually surprised we lasted as long as we did."
"You were with the Ministry? I thought you were an Auror or something."
"No, Sirius was the Auror. I think he was hoping to be an Unspeakable eventually, but that's Sirius for you. Some of that Slytherin ambition coming out. In any event, none of us had very long life expectancies. But we did have some time to prepare. We closed up my parents' house — it was too obvious — and hid in the Muggle community at Godric's Hollow. In retrospect, we were still being too obvious, but we trusted the Fidelius. We should have just moved to Birmingham or some such right away. We were planning on disappearing into the Muggle world if necessary, so we had some money put aside there."
"I know about that. The police found out about it when they were investigating the Dursleys, and my social worker arranged for me to get it. Between that and my Gringott's vault, I'm set for a while."
"The Gringott's vault you have now is just your trust fund. It's set to siphon interest from the family account to support you through school. The rest of it will become available to you on your seventeenth birthday, and the house will unseal then, too. Our family isn't wealthy on the scale of, say, the Malfoys, but we're well off."
"I'm not all that concerned about that, really. It's nice to know, but I always figured on supporting myself. What I'm really interested in is, well, you said there were blood rituals that you did that weren't related to Petunia? What were those about?"
"Since we knew we were at risk, we took steps to protect you magically, just in case. Your mother actually did most of the research … she's a demon in a library …"
"Sounds like someone else I know," murmured Harry, looking sideways at Hermione, who blushed.
"Blood magic is usually considered Dark," explained Lily, "but I found some old rituals that are not, because they draw on self-sacrifice instead of harming someone else. They were a bit iffy, because we couldn't be sure the right circumstances would occur, but it was all we had. So your father and I both performed rituals, except for the last step — which was, of course, the offering of a life — and then hoped that if we were killed, at least our deaths would do some good. Your father had the advantage of a Faerie Gift, so his ritual was designed to transfer that to you in the event of his death."
"A Faerie Gift? What's that?"
"Just what it sounds like," said James. "My parents were old-fashioned and arranged for a nurse when I was born. Nanny was even more old-fashioned, and in the night between my birth and my Naming Ceremony, she put out a bowl of cream and honey for the Good People, asking for their blessing for me. It must have worked, because I had the gift of insanely good luck all my life. Given some of the situations I found myself in, it was a damned good thing, too, or I'd never have made it through Hogwarts in one piece. From the sound of it, the ritual worked and you have the same luck as I did."
Harry thought about trolls and Bludgers and the Whomping Willow and had to agree that faerie luck probably played a large part in his continued survival.
"The thing with faerie luck, though, is that if you start to rely on it, it will abandon you. So you make what plans you can, and hope for the best as to the rest of it."
"I think I understand that. What about the one Mum cast?"
"Well, that one's a little more subtle," said Lily. "I didn't have a specific gift to pass along to you. But I looked at the relationship between your father and his friends, and I wanted to make sure that you would have friends like that, people you could depend on to help you if needed. So I put a spell on you to draw the people you needed to you."
"You mean my friends are my friends only because of this spell?" Harry was horrified. Ron and Hermione had been his only support through some very tough years. He didn't want to think it hadn't been real.
"No, not at all. I just made it easier for you to meet them. To make sure that compatible people would cross your path. Which of them you wound up developing relationships with was completely up to you and them. As it happens, from what you told us, you met Ron and Hermione and Neville almost immediately upon entering the magical world, and Ginny, Fred and George as well. And they're still part of your core group. You're even still friends with Hagrid."
"But it wasn't the spell that made them become my friends?"
"No. No spell can guarantee that. From what you've told us, Draco Malfoy was probably drawn to you, too, but you're so incompatible that no friendship could develop. If you'd been slightly different, you might have been Sorted into Slytherin and actually made friends with him. Or into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff and made friends there, as I understand you started doing through your study group last year. What I wanted was to make sure you'd never be alone. If we couldn't be there for you, at least you would have friends who would be like family to you." Lily smiled softly at Harry. "And I can see that I wrought better than I knew. My spell is still with you, Harry, and your own need has made it stronger. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you will be able to find friends and allies."
"There was another component to both rituals," interjected James, trying to distract his son. He could see the boy was not happy with the information he'd just received. "We did straight-up protections, too — you know, the deflect evil, keep harm away sort of thing — but that hasn't seemed to work as well. From the sound of it, trouble just keeps seeking you out anyway."
"I don't think any spell could keep it away," said Harry grimly. "It seems to have my address down in its little black book. But maybe that explains why Voldemort's spell bounced that first time. If it ran into not one, but two blood protections? And maybe that weakened the protections or burned them out so I'm not defended anymore."
"That's a distinct possibility," said Hermione, interjecting into the conversation for the first time. "Theoretically, every curse has to have a counter. None has ever been found for the Killing Curse, though. That's the main reason it's considered an Unforgivable even though other spells with more horrific ways of killing people aren't classified that way. The only way to avoid the Killing Curse is to not be there when it hits, or to put something massive in its way. If a pre-existing ritual blood protection is the only magical counter, then I can see why nobody's discovered it until now. They're not exactly common."
"You can say that again!" laughed Lily. "You have no idea the amount of research I did before I found those spells!"
"I think I might," said Hermione, grinning, and the two smartest witches of their generations shared a moment of sisterhood.
"Now then, we still have a picnic to finish, and I think Harry has quite a bit to think about," said Molly. "Perhaps we can talk of lighter things for now? And now that Harry knows how to get here, he can come back on his own when he's ready."
"Of course," said Lily. "I imagine all of this has been a bit much to find out about at once."
"That it has been," agreed Harry. "But it's better than how Dumbledore finally told me about things after the Ministry. I trashed his office pretty badly after that one."
"I'd have liked to see that," said James. "Did Sirius ever tell you about the time we …" And the conversation turned to happier and more innocent times, and laughter rang among the apple trees.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Afternoon was apparently eternal in Avalon, because there was no change in the light despite the hours they spent at the picnic. James and Lily finally became more ghost-like, and faded into their trees, but not before assuring Harry one last time that they loved him. Molly picked a number of apples from James' tree and put them in the now-empty picnic basket, while the pink ball of light that was the guide came down from where it had been hovering in the foliage and waited for instructions.
"Did you want to see Sirius?" Mr. Weasley asked Harry. "We still have plenty of time."
Harry nodded, Mrs. Weasley collected a couple of apples from James' tree, just in case, she said, and the pink light led them off to another grove. Here, at the edge of a group of older trees, there was a little whip of an apple tree growing. It stood barely as tall as Harry himself, and was in leaf but not flower or fruit. The earth at its base was still disturbed from its planting, and whoever had done the planting of the tree had surrounded the trunk with a circle of forget-me-nots. As she had before, Mrs. Weasley sliced one of the apples in half and placed it on the ground before the tree, and a silvery-white shade emerged from its trunk.
"Sirius!" Harry cried, and had to make a conscious effort to stop himself from attempting to hug his godfather.
"Harry!" Sirius apparently had the same problem. They both stared at each other for a few moments, trying to figure out what to say.
"I'm so glad you're-"
"I'm so sorry I-"
They paused and laughed at the same time. "You go first," said Harry.
"I'm so glad to see you're all right," said Sirius, a wide smile lighting his face. "I was so worried about you. I couldn't see what happened after … after I fell through the Veil. I didn't know if you'd made it out all right. But you did. You did." He braced his hands on his hips, looking down at Harry fondly. "And that makes everything all right."
"No it's not all right! Sirius, I killed you! And I'm so, so sorry things-"
"Hold it right there, Harry. You did not kill me. My annoying cousin killed me. And she wouldn't have had the chance if I hadn't been stupid in the first place. The middle of a firefight in an environment with unknown dangers was not the place to go having a private duel and taunting Bella! If I'd been that stupid in training, Moody would have had my hide, and justifiably, too. I'm the one that's sorry, Harry," he said softly. "Sorry I left you alone."
"I'm not alone anymore, Sirius. So that's okay, anyway. I've been adopted by the Weasleys now."
"Well, that's just fine! It should have happened a long time ago. Why Dumbledore kept sending you back to those-"
"Sirius, can we — not talk about that? I'd rather not think about it ever again."
"All right, that's fine. We'll talk about something else. Are you folks still staying at the house, by the way?"
"No," said Mr. Weasley. "It was compromised by Kreacher, so Dumbledore had us clean our things out and abandon it."
Sirius frowned. "My Will didn't kick in?"
"You haven't officially been declared dead. There's no way to prove you were even at the Ministry, except having Kingsley or Tonks admit they let you in through the Aurors' entrance, and that would get them kicked out of the Aurors, so Dumbledore wouldn't let them do it."
"Well, tell Dumbledore to get off his aged ass and get me declared dead. Or get Andromeda Tonks into that house to stay, one or the other. If it's not claimed by a member of the Black family or the title passed on according to my Will, in one year from the date of my death it will vanish. Completely. Gone forever. And there are things in there that Harry will want, trust me."
"Do you mean the set of Carmarthen? Remus got me those."
"Good, good, but there's more than that. A lot of things you won't be able to use until you're seventeen, unfortunately. But they have to still be there in order for you to use them. Molly, Arthur, much though I hate to say it, you have to save that house. Dumbledore may not understand. Fight him on it if you have to."
"We will. Would Tonks do to claim the house? She's with the Order."
"No, she was never entered on the family Tapestry. Andromeda was, even though my mother tried to burn her off. It takes more than that to get someone disinherited, trust me. Once a Black, always a Black. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get into the place, either. Bella, Narcissa or Draco Malfoy could claim it, too, but we don't want that to happen. The Fidelius is the only thing keeping them out right now." The ghostly shade seemed to shiver and become a bit more insubstantial. "I guess I don't have much time left. I have to go back. I just want to know … Harry, did you get my birthday present?"
"Yes, and I'm getting ready to go to America. I wish we could have gone together."
"I wish so, too. But it wasn't meant to be. Just enjoy it, kid. Relax, live a little … raise a little hell. And remember old Padfoot while you're doing it, eh? Then come back next year and tell me …"
"I will, I will. Sirius, don't go…" But Sirius sadly raised his hand in farewell, and turned into a twist of silver mist that slipped into the trunk of the tree.
0o0o0o0o0o0
The pink ball of light floated in front of them again. Harry sighed heavily. "Okay, I guess we're done. Take us back, please." The ball floated off with the Weasley party trailing along behind it. Soon, however, it approached another grove, with another young tree growing near it. This tree seemed somewhat older than Sirius', but not much.
"What are we doing here?" Harry asked. "There was nobody else we needed to see, was there?"
"Maybe somebody else needs to see us," Mrs. Weasley murmured. She pulled another apple out of the basket, cut it and placed it at the base of the tree. The now-familiar silver-white mist appeared and took shape.
"Cedric!" Harry whispered.
"Hey, Harry. It's good to see you."
"Cedric, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Harry stopped as Cedric waved his hand dismissively.
"Nothing to be sorry for. We both decided to take that damned cup together. If you'd had it your way, I'd have been there alone. And I doubt anybody would ever have heard what became of me then. I wasn't prepared to get out of a situation like that, Harry. You were."
"I feel like I should have done something."
"In what, the one and a half seconds' warning we had? I was the adult there, I was supposed to protect you, and I didn't." The ghost awkwardly stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I just wanted to tell you a couple of things, so I put in a request for your guide to bring you here. I knew you'd come eventually."
"What did you want, then?"
"Well, I wanted to apologize for not helping you. And to tell you I'm glad you made it out of there. You're a good man, Harry, and I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to tell you that during the Tournament. Too bad you weren't a Hufflepuff, I'd have liked to know you better."
"Too bad you weren't a Gryffindor. Me, too." Both boys smiled at each other.
"I also wanted to thank you for getting my body back to my family. You didn't have to do that — probably shouldn't have, given the way you were hurting right then — but it meant a lot to my parents."
"I couldn't leave you there. You wouldn't have left me."
"You definitely would have been a good Hufflepuff. Listen, can I ask you one small favour?"
"Whatever you want."
"It's kind of awkward. It's about Cho."
Ron made a choking sound, and Hermione pounded him between the shoulder blades. Cedric glanced at them, clearly not understanding Ron's reaction.
"What about Cho?"
"Well, you remember we went to the Yule Ball that year … we were getting pretty close by the time of the Third Task, and I was beginning to think … maybe ... But she hasn't come to visit me. I don't know if that's because she doesn't know about Avalon — her family is pretty traditional and I think they have their own ways — or because she really wasn't that interested."
"Oh, she was interested, all right," said Harry wryly. "She kept trying to get me to talk about you all year. But I didn't know enough to tell her what she wanted to know."
Cedric's face lit up. "You have no idea how much that means to me, Harry. Listen, could you … could you tell her I'm here? Tell her I'd like to talk to her? If she wants to, that is?"
"I'll do that, Cedric. I may not get a chance to tell her in person, but I'll send her a letter. Will that be all right?"
"That will be fine. Just fine." Cedric's face was more relaxed now. "That was all I really wanted to say, then. Just thanks, again. And good luck." Cedric waved farewell and vanished.
"That was unexpected," said Mr. Weasley. "We should definitely be on our way, then." The little pink light swayed indecisively. "Unless there's someone else we should see?" he asked it. The light brightened and bobbed up and down rapidly. "Lead on, then," he said resignedly.
"I wonder who this one is going to be?" Harry whispered to Ginny as they followed the light down more paths. "I'm about out of dead people in my life."
0o0o0o0o0o0
The light led them a long way, finally ending up at a grove full of apple trees that were gnarled and twisted with age. The light flickered about uncertainly between the trees for a few moments, then sank to the ground in the centre of the grove. The Weasleys looked at each other and at Harry in puzzlement.
"I have no idea, Harry," said Mr. Weasley in answer to the unspoken question. "I don't recognise this grove. It's old, though. Very old. Maybe a family that's died out?"
"If a family dies out," said Hermione, working through the idea, "what happens to the last person in the family? If there's no one to plant a tree for them? Can they still come here?"
"Let's find out," said Mrs. Weasley, pulling another apple from the picnic basket. Deftly, she sliced it and placed it on the ground where the pink light was.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then a thin silver-white wisp emerged from the ground and expanded into the form of a short woman who was unknown to Harry. She was rather attractive, he supposed. Large, expressive eyes were her best feature. Her figure was hidden by the shapeless Muggle fashions of the 1920's, and her hair was cut in a then-stylish bob. She looked as if she were in her late 20's. When she had materialized fully, she looked around as if puzzled. "Who are you? Why have you awakened me?"
"We were led here by the guide, child," said Mrs. Weasley soothingly. "We thought that you had called us. We are the Weasleys, Molly and Arthur, and our children. Who are you?"
"Weasley. I think I may have heard that name before, but I can't remember." The ghost seemed weaker than the others they had visited, more confused. "My name is … Constance. Constance … Marvolo … Riddle."
Harry's eyes darkened with anger and his fists clenched. "Constance Marvolo Riddle? Are you related to Tom Marvolo Riddle?"
The ghost seemed to become a little more solid as recollection came to her. "Yes, that was it! My son is Tom. My poor little boy," she crooned sorrowfully.
Harry found it hard to think of Lord Voldemort being anybody's 'poor little boy', but he supposed even a mother might love him. From what little he knew, the woman had died when Voldemort was born, and had never had a chance to raise her son. He wondered if things might have turned out differently if she had.
"Err, Ma'am, did … Did you want to talk to someone … about your son?" Harry reflected that this could easily become a very sticky conversation indeed.
"In a way … I know what he has become. Even in the realm of the dead, there are whispers … he has turned his back on his people, they say. Using his magic to destroy. That is not … not what I would have had him become. Not what I would have him be in the future. And I called … to one who might be able to help me change things. Is that you, young man?"
"Well, it's a little too late to stop him becoming it, ma'am, but if there's something I can do about the future, I will. My name is Harry Potter, and I've already crossed paths once or twice with your son."
Constance reached up and passed her fingers over Harry's scar, so close he fancied he could feel the chill of a ghostly touch. "He has placed something of himself in you. I can feel it. He has marked you."
"As his equal, I know." Harry's voice was flat.
"Then if you are his equal, I shall treat you as my son as well, Harry."
Great, Harry thought. Suddenly I have three Mums?
"Are you of age?" she asked.
"Not quite, no."
"Then when you are of age, you may go to my home and claim the birthright that Tom never did. It should still be there waiting for you, since my family's wards are strong."
"Your home? Your family? But your family is …"
"Of the line of Slytherin? Yes. But it is not what it once was. And it is not what you think. Regardless, it is now ended. My son shall have no child of his body, but he has a child of his magic. That child is you."
"I have no desire for anything of your son or his magic," Harry spat.
"Nonetheless, it has been given. What you do with it is up to you."
"It's not going to turn Harry evil or anything like that, is it?" Ron asked, his eyes huge.
"There is no good or evil," the ghost replied. "Only power…"
"And those too weak to use it," Harry finished.
"Yes!" The ghost seemed delighted. "You do understand! The power is there to use or not use as you see fit. And my family's legacy is yours as well, if you wish. My son is insane. He must not win. You understand that. He must not win."
"At least we see eye to eye on that one," Harry agreed.
"Then when you are of age, go to the village of Enderby Mires. Take the main road north; it will lead into the swamps. The snakes will lead you to the right place, and the wards will permit you to pass. Use well what you find, Harry Potter. He must not win." And with that, the spectral form of Constance Marvolo Riddle faded away.