Refuge Has Its Price

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CHAPTER 7: THE TALKING DEADS


Harry suddenly found himself back at the strange King's Cross Station once more. It was very different this time around.


The platform was now a hive of happy people greeting friends and relatives amongst them. A bright blue train was busily loading passengers from the crowded platform.


Many of them Harry had never even met before; some he recognized from his daytrips into Hogsmeade over the last few years or had glimpsed them in passing throughout the crowded corridors of Hogwarts, during his six years there as a student.


There were also a select few scattered among the hurried throng that he personally knew.


First among those few was a bustling Molly Weasley, bossily calling out, "Fred! Where've you gotten to now, you scamp? FRED! Oh, there you are! Don't wander off like that again, and keep hold of your ticket. Arthur? Have you found Percy and Charlie yet?"


The Weasley patriarch answered his wife with a twinkle in his hazel eyes, "Yes, dearest. I found them both, and they'll be along shortly. They're over at the Information Desk. You know how they both always want to know everything."


The couple exchanged amused glances with each other at their private little parenting joke.


Even when potty training, everything had always had to be thoroughly explained, in great detail, to both Charlie and Percy before they'd either dare to sit on the toilet.


The two of them had also taught themselves to read before the age of four, with Bill's help, just so they could understand the mysterious adult words that their parents 'spelled out' in front of them.


That both of them had followed in their eldest brother's footsteps to later both become Head Boy of their respective year's had not came as any surprise to either parent.


Harry's heart ached in the bitter knowledge of the loving family's death. Harry had grown to look on the Weasley clan as the family he might have had, if not for Voldemort's murdering his father and mother.


Even here, in this mysterious waiting room, his heart could still painfully grieve for the loss of yet more 'family'.


As sorrowful tears began to fill his emerald eyes, Harry felt a solidly firm hand slap him on the back.


"Oi! Hi ya, Harry!" Ron's smiling freckled face beamed at him when he'd whirled around.


"RON!" Harry joyfully screamed as the two best friends embraced in a tight hug, and engaged in much backslapping and laughter.


"You look great! But . . . Ron . . . if you're here, then that means that you're . . ."


"Yeah. I know," he somberly replied to Harry's unfinished sentence.


"Just my time, mate. Nothing you could've done to stop it even if you'd been right there. Never saw it coming, more's the mercy! One minute I was running through the Forbidden Forest for all I was worth, and then . . . nothing. I never felt a thing. Strange it'n it? It was easier than falling asleep."


"Yeah. I remember," Harry soberly said, remembering Sirius' final advice to him back in Godric's Hollow. "But you look great now! Death really suits you."


"Same to you, you poncy git!" Ron smartly responded with a broad grin. "What's happened to your glasses . . . and . . . bloody hell, Harry! Your scar's gone!"


"Yeah, I know. I guess I don't need them here," the green-eyed young wizard cheekily replied to his red-haired best friend.


Molly Weasley came bustling over toward them, her loud voice simultaneously scolding and loving. "There you are, Ronald. Here's your ticket," the Weasley matriarch said as she passed him a slip of pale blue parchment. The Weasley matriarch's attention, as usual, seemed to be in ten flustered places at once.


"Keep hold of your ticket, there's a good lad, and make sure you board the train before the last whistle. If you miss this train, I'll box your ears for days. You can't just nick your father's car this time!"


Molly turned to Harry and said, "Harry dear, now you make certain that Ronald doesn't miss the train, there's a good lad."


With a tender look of motherly concern, Mrs. Weasley gently patted Harry on his shoulder. She continued in a sideways whisper, as if she knew things that he was, as yet, unaware of, "And Harry, don't you worry now. Everything will be set to rights somehow, you'll see. I'm certain that you'll get it all sorted out soon enough. Then you come and visit us when you're done."


She had to rise up slightly on her toes, to give him a tender quick kiss on his cheek. Harry was no longer the skinny little Second year boy that she'd first welcomed into her home. He had almost grown into a man.


Activity a bit further down the platform caught her eye, and Molly Weasley's face crumpled into a disapproving frown as she observed Fred's attempting to levitate himself, wandlessly, above the station. She whirled around and flounced away from both of them with an annoyed, distracted, huff to go pull one of her ever-rambunctious twin sons back in line.


Both parents were acting like this was simply another great adventuring Weasley family vacation, and expected it to be great fun. Perhaps, for them, it was.


Ron stared down at the glowing golden letters embossed on the sky-blue ticket. "Bloody hell, Harry. I've only got a few minutes left before the train leaves."


Brilliant blue eyes misting with tears stared into emerald green. "Where's your ticket, Harry?" he asked, all of his concern for his friend making his deep voice tremble.


"I haven't got one," Harry softly answered. For a moment, a look of tremendous sadness clouded Harry Potter's young face. Seeing the worry on his best mate's face, he managed a small, weak, smile and then sighed.


"Not yet, anyways. See, I've been here once before and talked to Dumbledore that first time. He told me that there was something special about my blood. Something about when Voldemort took my blood to help reconstitute himself physically, he also took my mother's love that it held within it. Dumbledore said that he'd somehow bound us together, so that as long as Voldemort lives, I cannot truly die."


Ron softly whistled, then said in an awed whisper, "Blood magic! That's what he did! Harry, that's the very darkest of all of the Dark Arts. He's bound your very souls together! What can you do about it?"


"I don't know yet Ron; but I believe that there must be some form of Higher Power that is using me, and my connection to Voldemort, to prevent the whole Wizarding World from falling apart. Whatever it is that I'm still supposed to do . . . well . . . once it's been done, I think that then I'll get my ticket."


Ron choked back a sorrowful sob for his misused friend. Harry was trapped here and unable to move on.


He'd had it so very wrong for years! Harry'd never reveled in the spotlight's glare that had been forced upon him when he'd miraculously survived the Killing Curse.


Harry had never wanted the admiration and glory of being the Hero; or being the long-anticipated Savior of the Wizarding World, that had been thrust upon him, when he was just a baby.


All his friend had ever wanted was to be 'just Harry', have a place of his very own to belong to, and people around him who loved him. Even as hard and difficult as his short life had been, Harry Potter still had a remarkable amount of love in his heart to give. Remus Lupin had been right; Harry was indeed very much his mother's son.


Perhaps that very love, the love that Voldemort denied even the existence of, would be what would eventually turn their defeat around and bring back the Light.


The train blew a long, keening, last whistle and Ron looked once more into Harry's eyes. He said, "Harry, I've gotta go now or Mum will kill me."


The two young wizards quirked mirroring grins at each other. Molly Weasley's ire was to be avoided at all costs.


"Go on then. Off with you," Harry responded with a joking punch to Ron's shoulder. "Best of luck to ya, mate. Pick me up at the station when I get there too, will you?" he half-jokingly, half-seriously, asked.


Ron swiftly replied, "Of course I'll meet you at the other station, mate. Count on it." He began trotting towards the final few boarding passengers, then stopped and turned to wave.


Harry lifted his hand and returned his best mate's friendly gesture.


Ron called out, "Oi! Harry? P'raps love is the weapon that you needed all along to kill Voldemort with. Tom Riddle might've been redeemed. It was only after he'd made himself into Lord Voldemort that he truly crossed the line into using Unforgivables and making Horcruxes."


He turned to run grab the railing of the steps, and hopped onto the last car of the bright blue train as it let out a puff of billowing white smoke, and began to chug away from this strange King's Cross.


Ronald Weasley had been awesomely gifted with strategy. He had always been able to see the proper moves leading to victory well in advance when playing Wizard's chess. Perhaps it wasn't checkmate just yet.


Harry began to ponder on what Ron had just said.


Perhaps it wasn't 'Checkmate', but only 'Check' for the side of Light. Perhaps it hadn't been 'End Game', and there were still moves yet to make.


With the smoke from the locomotive no longer visible in the distance, Harry slowly turned around and walked back over to resume his seat in the waiting area.


It could have been minutes, hours, or even days, that he sat thinking and remembering; it mattered little to the Boy-Who-Had-Lived-Only-To-Die.


He wasn't hungry. He felt no thirst; although, from time-to-time, he thought that he felt a breeze, softly warm and infinitely loving, caress his skin and ruffle his unruly dark hair.


Time had no meaning here. Everything simply was.


From a long way off, through the misty distance, Harry suddenly thought that he heard the keening falsetto of a panicked child's voice shrilly calling--

"Friend? FRIEND! Where are you? Please help me, friend . . . I can't do this. Friend, I NEED you!"


Harry stood up, and calmly went to help the fragile bit that still remained of Voldemort's humanity.


If there was any way that he possibly could.

END OF CHAPTER 7

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A/N: YES, I meant for there to be an "S" on the end of Talking Deads. Anybody out there ever heard of the Talking Heads? (marvelous group) snickers

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