Chapter 142 — Something She Chose

Permission to leave the hospital wing came with restrictions Pomfrey expected me to remember without Hermione’s help. I could walk to meals and lessons; I could not fly, transform or conduct practical experiments involving the shoulder until she examined it again. Carrying my books left-handed gave me plenty of time to discover how many doors at Hogwarts wanted the other hand.

Luna opened the library door, then walked past the table I had intended to use. When I asked where we were going, she pointed towards the shelves.

‘You said you wanted a book. You usually mean several.’ She waited while I caught up, taking two from my stack before I could try rearranging them against my shoulder.

Sirius had given me a question that was difficult to put down precisely because I was not allowed to test an answer. I wanted to know why the pouch had failed during my transformation, and what stronger would mean for an object whose important parts did not all occupy the space I could see.

Thick leather might resist a cut without keeping an enlarged interior stable. A clasp could carry a load and still break when the thing around it changed shape. I drew the ruined fastening from memory, then corrected the drawing when McGonagall allowed me to examine the fragments I had kept.

‘You have evidence that this arrangement failed,’ she said, making me separate the torn exterior from the damaged lining in my notes. ‘Do not announce that every arrangement must fail in the same way.’

The books offered examples: travelling pouches, boxes larger inside than out, tents with enough room to reward anyone who survived putting up the poles. Their enchantments were anchored in different ways, and knowing an ordinary pouch could be bought from a shop did not mean I could reproduce the maker’s work.

Hermione followed references with me until we found an illustration of an older storage vessel. Its ornament formed part of the construction, carrying charms around a central receptacle. The description said nothing about Animagi, but it came closer to Sirius’s suggestion than another advertisement promising room for a traveller’s entire wardrobe.

‘That could be what he meant,’ she said. I copied the reference, including the section neither of us understood, and began asking people whether their families owned anything similar.

Over the next few days I collected two useful descriptions, several questions about what I wanted to keep in it and a solemn warning that old Auntie Selwyn’s hatbox must never be opened. I left the hatbox alone. One boy described a promising case belonging to his grandmother, then explained it would be staying with her; I thanked him for the description instead of offering money for something he had no intention of selling.

Cho offered to ask at home. I showed her the drawing and said a receipt or maker’s name would help even if there was no object she could bring to school.

‘You’re looking for a whole bag inside a piece of jewellery,’ she said. She turned the drawing to inspect the narrow rim around the central stone.

‘One that doesn’t come apart when I grow a mane.’ Cho considered that, then said she would leave that part out of her letter.

By Friday I had a page of references and nothing to store a book in. I put it aside to finish the Potions conclusion Snape had asked me to correct; he had not forgotten the first version’s faults because other things had happened since. The replacement described what I had observed and left the explanation open where I still needed to test it.

He marked one line I had failed to qualify and handed it back. I made the amendment, and he accepted the sheet without suggesting we celebrate, which I took as permission to stop thinking about that particular paragraph.

On Saturday Luna and I followed the path past the teaching paddock. We stayed on the open side of the trees, where a low bank caught the weak winter sun and the castle remained visible. I had a scarf, permission to walk and no intention of investigating a hatbox, enchanted or otherwise.

‘Those roots will be uncomfortable,’ Luna said when I chose a place to sit. She looked at the patch beside it while I told her I had dealt with worse.

‘Your heroic resistance to roots can wait until spring.’ She moved a few feet left and settled on the smoother bank. I joined her, finding it difficult to defend my original choice once I was sitting somewhere better.

Reading the original on NovelPhoenix helps the author keep writing; this copy was made without consent.

She leaned against my left side, and I put my arm round her carefully. After freeing my scarf from her hair, we watched two birds argue over something in the grass until I admitted I had missed this.

‘Arguing birds?’ she asked. She tilted her face towards me before I could explain. ‘Yes, I know what you mean. I missed it too.’

I kissed her with no leaf beneath my tongue and no matron preparing to examine my shoulder. That still left her hair to get between us; she untangled it, laughing quietly, and kissed my cheek. By the time the birds left, neither of us had found a reason to follow them.

‘I’ve been difficult to find lately,’ I said. Luna began to say I had been helping Harry, but I shook my head. ‘And then I went looking for bags. I don’t want our afternoons to be whatever’s left when I’ve finished everything else.’

‘Then we can choose some first.’ She mentioned the work she had to finish, then suggested a free afternoon in the coming week. We settled on it, and I promised to tell her if anything changed.

‘Harry’s my friend too,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to leave him alone when he needs you. I would like to know when to stop waiting beside a staircase.’

‘You will.’ I stayed quiet when she rested against me again, giving the promise longer than it usually took me to hurry into another subject.

The envelope she brought out later had been folded to fit her bag. Her father’s handwriting covered one side, and she explained that he had found more papers to go with the notes he sent before. We spread the copies across our knees and held the corners against the wind.

His first reply had helped us see how many reports came from the same account. This packet included writers who had questioned it: one objected to treating a finger as a full explanation of a death, while another wanted to know how the Ministry had established who held the Potters’ secret. That article still assumed Sirius had been the Secret-Keeper, but its questions reached towards the part of the story we had since heard from Peter himself.

‘They were asking the right thing,’ I said. ‘They didn’t have the answer.’

‘They didn’t get to ask him properly.’ Luna held down a page while I read the next one, which proposed questioning Sirius under Veritaserum.

I read the whole argument before moving on. Wanting an answer did not prove one procedure would settle everything, but leaving Sirius unheard had plainly not settled it either. These names and dates were worth showing someone who could find out where the writers were now.

‘I’ll ask whether Dumbledore wants copies,’ I said, folding the sheets back into the envelope. ‘Thank your dad for me.’

‘You can write to him. He likes letters that disagree with particular things; it gives him something to answer.’ She smiled when I said I should have guessed, then reached into her bag again.

This time silver hung between us. The pendant was about the length of my thumb, shaped like a teardrop round an irregular black stone. Fine lines crowded its rim, worn smooth on the outer edges and sharper in the sheltered grooves.

‘Cho told me what you were looking for,’ Luna said. I held my palm beneath it, recognising the arrangement before I understood why she was offering it to me.

She lowered it into my hand. It felt cool and heavier than it looked, with the chain lying over her fingers while I inspected the stone.

‘It belonged to my mum,’ she said. I lifted it back towards her before I had thought of anything tactful to say.

‘Luna, I can’t take that.’ She left her hand open when I tried to give it back, waiting for me to explain. ‘It was hers. I might damage it trying to find out whether it does what I need.’

‘Those are two different things.’ She touched the rim without closing her fingers round it. ‘I haven’t asked you to damage it.’

I looked down at the silver between our hands. I had been searching for an object to solve a problem; she had brought me something with a place in her life before I ever met her.

‘I wanted you to have it,’ Luna continued. ‘Even if you only use it for ordinary things. Mum kept things in it; she didn’t wrap it up so nobody could touch it.’

‘You don’t have to give me something this important.’ My hand remained between us, holding it where she could take it back.

‘I know.’ She said it gently, leaving very little room for me to pretend she had misunderstood the question. ‘I want you in my life. I like the idea of this coming with us when we go places.’

My throat tightened. I had been trying to explain the value of her gift to her, when she was asking me to understand that she had chosen to give it.

‘So do I,’ I said. She ran one finger along the worn edge, then looked up at me.

‘Then you can say thank you.’ I laughed, not quite steadily, and did as she asked. She lifted the chain over my head while I bent towards her so she would not have to reach across my shoulder.

The pendant rested against my jumper, and her hand stayed there for a moment. I held her close, carefully at first, then simply because she was there and wanted to be.

‘I’ll look after it,’ I said into her hair. She murmured that I should look after myself too, and before I could answer someone cleared his throat by the path.

‘Oswald—oh.’ Harry stopped with a scrape of shoes against gravel. He looked at us, then behind him. ‘Sorry. Ron and Hermione are—I’ll wait.’

He retreated behind a tree that concealed almost none of him. Luna’s shoulders shook against mine, and I told him we could still see him.

‘Yes, I worked that out.’ He stayed where he was while I helped Luna up from the bank. At the path Ron was failing to look innocent, but Hermione had stopped smiling.

‘What is it?’ I asked. Harry glanced apologetically at Luna before answering without another false start.

‘Lupin’s leaving. He’s packing now.’ The pendant moved against my chest as I turned towards the castle, warm now where it had rested between us.