it first — he raised it in his hand, swung it towards Slytherin, calling 'Master! It is here!' -
then there was a flash of green light brighter than any light Hermione had ever seen, and she heard Ginny scream, and then there was silence.
Hermione covered her face with her hands. 'That's all I remember.'
Sirius rocked back on his heels, his face bleak. 'Jesus,' he said.
'Charlie? Charlie Weasley? I don't believe it.' He glanced towards the kitchen, and she could see through the open door the huddled, blanket-shrouded form that had to be Charlie's body. 'It must have been the Imperius Curse.'
Hermione hesitated. 'I don't know.'
Sirius' hands were shaking. He looked from Charlie, back over to Hermione. 'He offered the sword to Slytherin? He called him
'Master'?'
Hermione nodded. 'I heard him. We all heard him. And Sirius -
earlier, when Charlie took the Lycanthe from me, said a very odd-sounding spell over it.'
'Can you remember it?'
Hermione nodded. 'Monitum ex quod audiri nequit.'
Sirius put his head in his hands. When he looked up, his dark eyes were blank. 'That's a Clairaudience Charm,' he said. 'It opens a line of communication between the speaker and someone far away.'
Hermione nodded. 'I think he was communicating something to Slytherin,' she said.
He winced. 'I can't bear the thought of waking them up,' and she knew he meant Ron and Ginny. 'I hope for Molly and Arthur's sake that it was the Imperius Curse.'
Hermione sat up slowly, feeling her head spin. 'I don't think it was,' she heard herself say.
Sirius glanced over at her. 'You don't think Charlie-'
'No,' interrupted Hermione. She got to her feet, refusing Sirius' offer of assistance, crossed the room and walked through the open door into the kitchen. She heard Sirius get to his feet and follow her, pausing in the doorway to watch as she tilted her head back, and looked up at the clock on the wall.
Ron's and Ginny's hands had returned to the 'home' position.
Percy's said 'work', Fred and George's 'travelling', and Bill's… Bill's said 'home.' And next to his, was Charlie's, also at 'home.'
She bit her lip and turned slowly to the huddled, blanket-wrapped figure on the floor. Then she knelt down by it, and with a swift decisive gesture, yanked the blanket off.
Sirius leaped in surprise. 'Hermione! What are you doing?'
But she was examining Charlie's body. It was still, already cold, his face slack as if in sleep. Suppressing a shudder, she reached out, took hold of his stiff right hand, and turned it over, palm-up.
It was unmarked.
Sirius was staring at her. 'What on earth?'
She dropped the hand, got to her feet. 'Charlie touched the sword,' she said. 'He's not a Magid. It should have burned him.'
Sirius shook his head. 'Hermione, I don't-'
She knew what to do now. She hurried across the room to the fireplace. Ranged along the top of the mantel were seven identical jars, each one labeled with the name of a Weasley child: starting with Bill at the left and ending with Ginny on the right. Hermione picked up one of the silver bottles, flicked it open with her thumb, shook some powder into her hand, and tossed the sparkling handful into the wizarding fire that always burned in the Weasleys' fireplace.
The flames turned orange, then blue, and a single sharp musical note resonated through the room. Hermione waited, holding her breath — the flames darkened suddenly, and solidified, and then a head and shoulders emerged from the fire, a familiar face turned towards her, blinking and astonished-looking, pushing the dark red hair back from his eyes as he stared at her in surprise. 'Hermione,' he said. 'What's going on? Usually only my mum uses this way of getting in touch with me. Is something the matter?'
Hermione released the breath she had been holding.
'Hello, Charlie,' she said.
Light came first, singing the backs of his eyelids, and then pain -
aching pain, in his shoulders, back and legs, as if he'd been thrown hard against a wall. Maybe he had. Harry opened his eyes slowly, and the world danced around him in a whirl of color — primarily blue, with lesser patches of green, black and red.
He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around. He was in a room, quite a large one, the walls and floor of which seemed to be made up of smooth blue marble. Black velvet tapestries depended from the walls, picked out in patterns of silver. There was quite a lot of unnecessary, heavy rosewood-looking furniture scattered around the room — chairs, tables, long benches, and a huge, heavy-looking oak wardrobe with two enormous doors that stood propped against the far wall. The ceiling was so high it disappeared into a cavernous dark emptiness.
There were no doors that he could see, and no windows.
'Good morning,' said a familiar voice in his ear. 'Or maybe afternoon, or maybe night, it's bloody impossible to tell in this place. How's your head?'
Harry looked around. That hurt too. Draco was sitting near him, leaning his back against one of the blue marble walls. He looked unharmed. He was still barefoot, and Harry saw that there was blood on his shirt, as well as long black burned streaks as if he had been dragged through ashes. Harry wondered again what had happened after they blacked out. The last thing he remembered was bright green light -
