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Chapter 7: Protection Gone Astray

Molly was searching for eggs in the ancient icebox of the cellar kitchen, wondering what Remus and Harry were talking about upstairs. She knew that she had done the right thing in leaving them alone to talk, but her worry about Harry was growing, even though he was awake and aware now. What had been happening to him when she came into the room? Why were his hands over his ears? She had never seen Harry act that way before.

Molly was relieved that Remus had agreed to take over guardianship of Harry. It made sense that Sirius would have left his godson in the hands of the last Marauder, and Molly secretly thought that Remus was more suited to the role than Sirius had been, although she never would have said it. Molly intended to help him, though. Ever since she had met Harry on Platform 9 ¾ before his first year, she had cared for him as one of her own. Now that Harry was back with them, she was going to see to it that he made a full recovery, no matter what she had to do.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, finding a basket of eggs near the back of the icebox. She broke four of them into a glass bowl and used her wand to direct the kitchen whisk to scramble them while she heated the skillet and started on some sausage and toast. She turned as she heard someone enter the room.

"Good morning, Ginny. How did you sleep?"

Ginny was wearing a long, bright red nightshirt that went down past her knees and clashed violently with her hair. "Fine, Mum. What time is it? Can we see Harry now?" Molly had not allowed her children into Harry's room last night, fearing that their excitement would wake him.

"I'm about to take Harry's breakfast to him. You may come with me, dear, if you hurry upstairs and get dressed. It wouldn't be proper for Harry and Remus to see you in only your nightshirt. We aren't at the Burrow anymore." Molly's gentle reprimand caused Ginny to blush, and, telling her mother not to go without her, she hurried back up the stairs to change.

Watching her go, Molly absentmindedly finished cooking the breakfast of eggs and sausages and buttered three slices of toast for Harry. She wondered what her daughter was so anxious about. Of course, they were all worried about Harry, but there seemed to be something more going on with Ginny. She seemed even more anxious than Ron to see Harry, and that was saying a lot, as Ron had spent the better part of an hour the night before (after he had sent Pig to the Granger's) trying to convince his mother that Harry would want to see him.

Molly realized that she hadn't seen Dean Thomas' gray screech owl since the day before Harry's arrival. She wondered about that, too, and then she sighed. Ginny was becoming a young lady more quickly than Molly was prepared for. She would be entering her fifth year of school, the year, Molly remembered, that she had realized that she and Arthur were meant to be. The motherly witch knew that Ginny had once had a schoolgirl crush on Harry, but she was starting to wonder now if there were more to it than that.

When Ginny returned, she was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a Muggle t-shirt that she had stolen from Fred's closet. The shirt was black, and blank on the front. On the back, the shirt had a large white "U2" emblazoned across the shoulder blades, rather like a sport's jersey. What in the world was that supposed to mean?

"Come on, Mum!" Ginny took the tray of breakfast from her mother and backed out of the kitchen door.

When they arrived in Sirius' room, Molly was dismayed to find that Harry was already back asleep. "Remus!" she whispered, beckoning to him. "Harry needs to eat! Should we wake him?"

"No," Remus said softly. "I gave him a dreamless sleep potion along with the others."

"Why did you do that? Why couldn't it wait until after Harry had some proper food in his stomach? Look at him! He looks better, but he is still skin and bones!" Molly couldn't help but be annoyed. Remus had known that she was making breakfast. Why didn't he wait?

"Molly, let's talk about this outside, alright?" Molly noticed the concern in his eyes and stopped her whispered tirade, but she still felt a bit annoyed.

Casting a charm on Harry's plate to keep it piping hot until he woke up, she turned to Ginny. "Would you like to sit with him for awhile, dear? As I'm sure you can see, he's doing much better, but he'll need to see a friendly face when he wakes up."

Ginny nodded. "Mum...has Harry been crying?" She had never known Harry to cry, but the puffiness around his eyes and the blotches on his face were tell-tale signs of a good fit of the sobs.

It was Remus who answered. "Yes, Ginny, although probably best if you don't let on that you know that. Harry is very sad about Sirius right now. I think a good cry might have done him some good, but he would be embarrassed to have you know that."

Ginny nodded again; she understood that, as she had been doing a fair bit of crying herself the past few days. As Molly and Professor Lupin left the room, she took a seat in the old armchair and took Harry's hand in both of hers, as she had seen her mother do so many times in the past few days. Even though Ginny had not been able to bring herself to enter Harry's room while he was unconscious, she had peeked in several times, mostly to reassure herself that he was still alive.

Even though Harry was lying flat on his bed, his eyes closed and his face still dangerously thin, it was easily apparent that he was sleeping naturally now, rather than unconscious as he had been. For one thing, he had some color in his face, and there was just something about his peaceful expression that calmed Ginny's heart.

"Harry, it's me, Ginny," she began. She felt a little silly talking to him, as she knew well enough that people under the influence of sleeping potions did not hear the voices of people around them. However, she had seen her mother doing the same thing when Harry had been unconscious, and she reasoned that somewhere, deep down inside of him, Harry would hear her voice, if not her words.

"I've got loads to tell you, of course. The summer's only just begun, but so far we haven't had a dull day. Mostly, of course, everyone's been worried sick about you. What were you on about, starving yourself until you almost died? Don't you know what that did to us? To Professor Lupin? To Ron? Not to mention my mum. She's been in a right state, I don't mind telling you." Ginny had not heard what Harry had said to Lupin about why he hadn't been eating, and she incorrectly assumed that Harry had simply gotten so depressed that he wasn't taking care of himself, and that made her angry, even if she wasn't certain why.

"You great prat, Harry Potter!" she burst out. "If things were so bad, why didn't you tell us? Didn't you know that we would come for you if you needed us? Or do you think we were all just hanging around here having a grand old time without you?"

Ginny forced herself to calm down, wondering what in the world had made her talk to Harry like that. Just because he couldn't hear her, that was no excuse. Her voice softened. "I'm sorry, Harry. I can only imagine what you have been going through since Sirius died...I can remember how I felt when Dad was attacked last year, and we all thought he wasn't going to make it." Ginny's grip on his hand tightened as she remembered, and she felt an upsurge of pity for her friend. Her dad had lived, but Harry had lost his godfather, the closest thing he had to a dad himself. Maybe she couldn't really understand what he was feeling. With a shudder at the thought of losing one of her parents, she hoped she'd never have to understand.

Ginny got off this rather depressing subject and started to tell Harry everything else going on in the house. She was surprised how easily the words came, even though Harry was making no response.

"Dad hasn't been around too much, and we all miss him. Since you came, he's taken over Mum's duties in the Order as well as his own, and he's still working at the Ministry, of course, so he leaves very early each morning and we usually don't see him before we go to bed.

"I don't know exactly what the Order is getting up to these days. I know that, based on what Snape has said, Voldemort is building a stronghold somewhere, but since Voldemort is the Secret-Keeper for it, the old bat hasn't been able to reveal the location to us. You wouldn't believe it, but it was actually Mum who let that one slip!" Ginny giggled. "Of course, she forbid us all to talk about it, even to each other, but you know from experience how well that went over."

"Fred and George have finally invented their version of the nose-biting teacup for their shop. Theirs is even better than the one from Zonko's, though! Not only does it try to bite whoever drinks from it, but it makes little noises and hops around like it's trying to challenge the person to a fight. Of course, if there is any tea in it, it all splashes out. It's brilliant! Mum, I think, has finally gotten over the fact that Fred and George are going to be at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes for a long time. Business is booming, and she doesn't try to forbid them to make new products anymore, although she does shout when one of them interferes with whatever she is trying to do.

"You know what else, Harry? We all reckon that Ron and Hermione have got together! By something Ron let slip yesterday when you woke up, we gather that Pig could get to the Granger's with his eyes closed and one wing tied behind his back by now. Hermione is actually spending the holiday with her parents, for once. They insisted, and she does miss them quite a lot. When you get up and around, you ask Ron about it, and you had better tell me what you find out!"

Taking a breather from her chatter, Ginny looked around. There was really no more gossip she could tell Harry right now. She cast about for something else to talk about, enjoying being alone with her friend and knowing that once Ron, Fred and George woke up, she wasn't likely to get another opportunity like this for today or the rest of the summer, for that matter.

She lowered her voice. Maybe it was a good thing that Harry wasn't hearing a word of her banter, for she had something she wanted to get off her chest, but she wasn't sure if she was really ready for Harry to actually know. Maybe telling him while he was asleep would put the idea in the back of his mind without him ever knowing how it got there. "Dean and I split a few days ago. He sent his owl the day before you came here and said that if all I could talk about was you, then maybe we had best just be friends.

"The funny thing, Harry, is that I didn't feel too upset by it. I mean, I like Dean, of course, but I was starting to wonder if I really felt that way about him. And I can't really blame him...I think I have been rather unfair to him, but the fact is that I have been so worried about you that I really couldn't think about anything else. I can't blame him for being jealous, I suppose, although I don't really know if there is anything to be jealous of.

"All I do know is that when I thought you might die, it drilled a hole right through my heart. You can't ever leave me...I mean, leave us. We love you, Harry."

With these words, Ginny was finally spent. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that she'd had that whole one-sided conversation simply to get that last sentence out. She leaned over and put her cheek to Harry's chest, and sat, listening to his steady heartbeat and shallow breaths. She didn't know why, but she had an indescribable need just to be close to him.

*

As soon as the door had closed behind them, Molly rounded on Remus Lupin and demanded, "What happened to Harry? What was going on when I came into the room? Did he tell you?"

Remus passed a hand over his weary eyes. "Molly, I'll tell you everything I know, but I want to see if Dumbledore is still here. There are a couple of things we should all talk about."

Molly nodded nervously as they made their way to the drawing room, and she had to ask, "Remus, is he ok? What caused him to get so ill?"

"Just a minute, Molly." They entered the drawing room to find Albus Dumbledore still sitting in the wing chair where Remus had left him. He was staring into the grate, but had not started a fire as the room was already rather warm. He looked up as they entered.

"Ah, Molly, Remus," he greeted them. "Have you anything to report?"

They stared at him. Anything to report? That was an odd way to ask about Harry, as if he were just another piece of business for the Order to discuss.

"Harry told me what happened to him this summer, Albus," Remus began. "And there are some things that happened that you should know about."

Albus nodded, and gestured for both of them to sit down.

"First of all," Remus began, "Harry was not trying to hurt himself, as I had initially feared. He was trying to eat, but he said that every bite made him sick, and I think eventually he got too weak to even try."

"And the gag? The bruise?" Molly wondered.

"Harry tied the gag around his mouth himself, Molly."

Molly gasped. She had been fully expecting to hear that his uncle had done it. "Why?"

"Apparently he was having nightmares, and he woke his relatives one night when he woke up screaming. That's where the bruise came from," Remus answered. His voice was as calm as ever, but he was gripping the arms of his wingchair so tightly in suppressed rage that his knuckles were white. "He said after that he thought it would be best for him to stifle any sound, and since he couldn't use magic, he tied the t-shirt around his mouth."

"How horrible," Molly whispered.

Albus Dumbledore had yet to comment. So far, nothing Remus had said surprised him. He knew that Harry had a tendency to have nightmares, which was the only outlet for the fears and regrets the boy kept bottled up during his waking hours. He also knew that for the most part Harry tried to stay out of his relatives' way, and after his uncle had hit him, he would have tried any way he could not to wake them again.

"Why didn't Harry say anything?" Molly asked desperately. "Last summer hardly a day went by when he wasn't demanding that we come and take him away, and tell him what had been happening with You-Know-Who."

"I wondered the same thing, and he said that he didn't want us to come for him, that people are safer when he's not there."

Albus' turned suddenly to look at Harry's guardian. Something in the man's voice suggested that Harry had more reason than usual to think something like that. "Did he say why, Remus?" he asked.

"He said he'd been hearing things, a voice inside his head that told him if he didn't give in, more people would die, and that his head had been hurting the entire time he heard it."

Albus sighed. Ever since Harry had awoken, so terrified, so broken, he had feared something like this. "Voldemort," he said softly.

"I'm afraid so," Remus answered. "At first, I thought it was Harry's guilt that was speaking through his nightmares. But it appears there is more to it than that."

Molly was shaking, her face white. "I thought you said he was /safe/, Albus! That's why he had to stay there, because You-Know-Who couldn't find him, couldn't hurt him while he was there! We should never have sent him away!" Her voice started to rise.

Albus held up a hand to silence Molly. "Throughout Harry's life thus far, Privet Drive has been the one place Voldemort couldn't find him. Oh, he knows the location well enough, but the wards around the house have made it impossible for him to harm Harry or his relatives while Harry is there. It would appear that while Voldemort has not been able to physically penetrate the wards, he at last found a way to break past them and into Harry's mind. He is a very skilled legilimens, as you are aware."

"So you believe...you believe that You-Know-Who has actually been speaking to Harry all summer?" Molly asked the Headmaster.

"In a manner of speaking, yes, that is what I believe," Albus said sadly. For his own part, he regretted that he had not better protected the boy, but he had believed that he was safe at Privet Drive, what with the blood protection, the powerful wards surrounding the house, and the members of the Order keeping a constant watch.

"Harry feels as though Sirius' death was his fault, as you both know," Remus said. "I cannot imagine what he has been going through, and as if that wasn't enough, he had Voldemort's voice in his head telling him that Sirius would not be the last to die." He did not mention the Prophecy, for it would be Harry's choice to tell Mrs. Weasley when he was ready.

"What mental defenses Harry has would have been down significantly after his ordeal at the Department of Mysteries, and the loss of Sirius. It would have made it easier than usual for Voldemort to break into his mind," Dumbledore said.

"And you thought sending him to those people would help him become stronger, did you? Thought that being all alone with no one to care for him would keep him safe, did you? He should have been here with us!" Molly's voice was rising again, and both Remus and Dumbledore could hear the blatant anger in her voice.

"Molly, please," Remus said softly. "There was no way we could have known..."

"No, Remus," Albus interrupted. "Molly is right, to a certain extent. I put too much faith in the wards surrounding his aunt's house. I do not know, however, if we would have been able to prevent this, even here." His voice was incredibly sad, and he felt the heavy weight of Harry's distress on his mind.

"Was that what happened as Harry woke up? Why he suddenly became so terrified?" Remus asked.

"I was afraid so at the time," Dumbledore answered, "and what you have told us only confirms my suspicions. I think when Harry was so deeply unconscious, his mind was unreachable, and Voldemort was unable to find him. When Harry began to come around enough to hear our voices, Voldemort was able to break back in as well."

"What are we going to do?" Molly whispered. "We have to help him."

"The first thing to do is to get him healthy again. Madam Pomfrey has left potions that will allow Harry to eat, and help his body recover from the dehydration and starvation that it went through," Remus answered. "Harry needs to see his friends, to be with them, and with us. He should not be left alone, even for a moment, until he becomes strong enough to try to resist Voldemort."

Molly nodded.

"And I will be coming to the house daily to work with Harry on building his defenses against him," Dumbledore added. "I am afraid I made a mistake last year in assigning Severus Snape the task of teaching Harry Occlumency. The discord between the two prevented Harry from being able to properly block Voldemort from his mind."

"It seems you have been making many mistakes when it comes to Harry's well-being," Molly broke in, glaring at the Headmaster.

"Molly!" exclaimed Remus.

"I will not deny it," Dumbledore answered softly. "But Molly, I care for Harry more than you could know, and the mistakes I have made have always been because I care for him so much. And now, I must go back to Hogwarts. I have some preparations I need to make for Harry's training. I will return tomorrow morning."

All three stood, and Dumbledore swept quickly from the room. Molly and Remus looked at one another, and both were struck by the immense weight of sadness in the other's eyes. It was going to be a long road for Harry, they both knew, and of the two, only Remus knew that this story was not likely to end happily.