The Tree Of Life

by Mad Martha

Part 5

Ron was inclined to be wary of Sirius simply because the man frequently reminded him of the twins, but it was as difficult to wholly dislike him as it was to dislike James. 

When they arrived at their destination - alone and in the middle of nowhere, which was no longer a surprise - they had a short walk through some woods, during which Sirius sketchily outlined what had happened to the rest of the group when they lost Harry and Ron (they had arrived at an unspecified location, discovered Ron and Harry were missing and attempted to backtrack, picking up Lily in the process).  Interestingly, they hadn't found the White Mare Coven either and Lily had confirmed that she didn't know of such a place.  This (according to Sirius) was proof that James was a prat in need of an ear trumpet.

What Ron thought was that James could be annoying, but on this occasion he felt a certain sympathy for him.  After all, "Green Lord Coven" was different enough from "White Mare Coven" to make a genuine mistake on James's part unlikely.  And according to Sirius they'd ended up at another sort of coven entirely, called the Stone Spear ("Not a coven at all, really," he explained.  "An Asatru garth - they're Odinists ...") which wasn't exactly a name that could have been mistaken for the other either.  Had it been him and the directions had come from this Dumbledore bloke as Harry had indicated, then he would be wanting to ask some rather stiff questions of the old man.  What was the point in sending everyone around in circles?

In the meantime Sirius had located a small and ramshackle barn in the corner of an overgrown field; the building was barely visible under the vast overgrowth of brambles, ivy and other scrub that had grown out of the hedge and bank behind it over the years.  Nevertheless, there was a pair of well-hidden doors which he unlocked with a tap of his wand and opened, and another muttered charm produced enough light that Ron felt safe to enter without fear of spiders and other creepy-crawlies dropping on him unexpectedly.

The interior of the 'barn' was completely different and Ron looked around with great interest.  It was bigger inside than it was outside, and this was at least partly accounted for by the fact that they had to go down a flight of steps to reach the main floor area below.  Sirius closed the doors behind them and locked them, gesturing for Ron to look around.

"This is one of our emergency storage areas," he explained, "and if we have to, we can sack out here for a day or two.  It's well warded and we keep some of our equipment here.  Don't be fooled by the height of the stairs - the room below is completely underground."

Ron followed him downstairs and looked around.  "Whose is the motorbike?" he asked, admiring its sleek lines.  It was stored to one side of the main room, along with a sidecar, leaving a broad space in the middle of the room which probably had many diverse uses.  There was a single door on the left-hand wall, and in a corner were stacked bundles of canvas and netting which looked like camping equipment.  There was a broom-rack with a couple of spare brooms, stacks of things like lamps, cooking pots, a folding table and collapsible cauldrons, and a big corkboard on one wall that was currently bare of anything but a cluster of map pins in one corner.  There was another pair of double doors opposite the stairs and a trapdoor in the floor.

"It's mine," Sirius replied.  "Bought it the year I left school, and it's been worth its weight in Galleons ever since.  The sidecar has an internal engorgement charm on it.  Here - help me pack a couple of these tents into it.  We're probably going to need the good ones instead of those crap Muggle contraptions we've been using."

Ron quickly put his knapsack and broom down and helped Sirius to select three new tents from the pile in the corner.  The sidecar didn't look as though it could hold more than one of them but true to Sirius's word, all three were stowed with room to spare, which they used to pack the rest of their baggage and Ron's broom.  Sirius's broom went onto the rack on the wall.

"I won't be needing it with the bike," he said briskly.  "Now - this is the risky part.  Those doors there open into a tunnel which leads out onto the road.  I don't want to start the bike in here just in case we attract attention, so if I push it out can you manage the sidecar?  You'll need to douse the lights and secure the doors here behind you, because the tunnel's not big enough for me to squeeze around you to do it."

"Any special locking charm?" Ron asked.

"It's pre-set - just tap the lock with your wand."

"Okay."

"Great.  Let's go ..."

It was pretty dark in the tunnel.  Ron waited long enough that the light filtering through from the room gave Sirius a good start, then he manoeuvred the sidecar out and turned back.  "Nox," he said, flicking his wand at the lamp in the ceiling.  The light went out, plunging him into near-stygian darkness.  "Lumos," he murmured, and his wand lit up enough for him to see to close the doors and lock them.

Pushing the sidecar out was difficult for the floor of the tunnel was uneven and the wheels inclined to slip on it.  Ron cursed them amiably but eventually made it to the mouth of the tunnel where real daylight - for it was now true morning - filtered through more wildly overgrown vegetation that covered the mouth of the tunnel.

"We're okay," Sirius said softly, where he waited in the entrance.  "Let's not hang around though."

They attached the sidecar to the bike and pushed it carefully out to the side of a badly maintained Muggle lane.  Then Sirius handed Ron a crash helmet.  "Put this on and hop on behind me ..."

Ron did as he was told, excited in spite of himself.  He'd never ridden a motorbike before.  Sirius swung a leg over the seat and settled himself, then pointed out the rear foot-pedals so that Ron knew where to seat himself, and Ron scrambled on behind him.

"Okay, hang on tight!"

The bike roared into life.

~~~

Their journey took perhaps four hours and Ron enjoyed every minute of it, especially when they stopped to buy breakfast from a village shop and Sirius casually told him that the bike could also fly.  This, in his opinion, had been the only drawback to it and he pestered Harry's godfather with questions about how the charms worked until they had to saddle up and return to the road.

They were riding along the coast for much of the trip, so it came as no surprise when around midday they finally took a turning off the main road and followed a series of lanes that eventually emerged out of a stand of trees onto the side of a small cliff facing out to sea.  What did make Ron blink in surprise was seeing the little folly that had been in the clearing the day he joined Harry and the others.  It was perched on the side of the cliff in a small grassy space surrounded by rocks and while it looked marginally less out of place there than in the woods, it was still a fairly improbable structure.

He knew better than to ask how it had got there, of course.

They rode up to the building and followed the track around to the rear of it, and as Sirius slowly brought the bike to a halt a door in the folly opened and Peter stepped out.  Sirius shut off the engine and took his helmet off.

"Well?  Is he here this time?"

Peter nodded.  "Oh yes - everyone's here except you two.  You can leave the bike out - there's a perimeter ward that reaches halfway back up the lane."

"Right-oh.  Come on, Ron ..."

Leaving their helmets and packs with the bike and sidecar, Ron and Sirius followed Peter inside.

The first thing Ron noticed as they stepped through the door was that the folly was significantly larger inside than it seemed from the outside.  No one who attended Hogwarts would be particularly surprised by this, but Ron did find it rather odd to find himself inside a building that from the inside looked remarkably like a cross between a rather esoteric library and a cathedral, while on the outside it was perched on the side of a cliff in the middle of nowhere.

The floor and walls were stone, but this tended to escape notice because he was looking instead at all the shelves around the curved walls that were piled high with books, and all the little tables and cabinets full of knickknacks and oddities.  In the few free spaces on the walls and floor there were rugs patterned with constellations, charts of the Thaumaturgical Table, or paintings of people in old-fashioned clothes holding skulls and looking sceptical.

There were also things hanging from the ceiling and Ron was staring at the fossilised skeleton of some strange flying creature just above his head when a voice said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Weasley."

He started and looked around.  In the midst of all this clutter was a number of armchairs, none of which matched each other or went with the rest of the furniture, and seated on the chairs were Harry, his parents and uncles, and another man, very thin and bearded and old, who was regarding him over the top of his half-moon spectacles with twinkling blue eyes.

"Perhaps when we've finished here, you would like to take a closer look at Gnashes?  He is a most curious creature.  In the meantime, please - find a seat and have a cup of tea.  You and Sirius must be thirsty after your journey."

There was just enough space on a dainty little sofa next to Harry, so Ron picked his way over to it (feeling as awkward as a giraffe in these surroundings) and sat down uneasily.  A fine china cup and saucer drifted into the air.

"Milk?" their host asked solicitously.  "Sugar?  One lump or two?"

"Er - two please."

There were a couple of plops inside the cup and it floated across to him; Ron took hold of it carefully, made nervous by the fine fluting of the china.  The teaspoon resting in the saucer was so dainty that the handle looked like a needle.  Meanwhile the teapot poured another cup.

"Sirius?  Milk and one lump, as usual?"

"Please."  Sirius stripped his cloak off and found a seat on a stool close to Remus.  "Has anyone introduced ...?  Of course not.  Dumbledore, this is Harry's friend Ronald Weasley.  Ron, this is Albus Dumbledore - former professor, former headmaster, former Chief Warlock, former head of the International Confederation of Wizards, researcher, innovator, etcetera etcetera."

Dumbledore's twinkle became more pronounced.  "Biscuits?" he offered, and a dish began to circulate.  "My dear Sirius, what a litany.  But you left out my most treasured title!"

"Dissident," Remus supplied, smiling sardonically.

"You flatter me," Dumbledore told him.  "I prefer 'troublemaker' myself - it lends me an air of raffishness that I haven't legitimately been able to claim in many years."

"And you left out the most important of all," Lily put in.  "Head of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Former," Dumbledore corrected her, raising a finger.  "The Order stood down after the war, you know, and has never been recalled.  It's most important that the distinction is made, my dear, for the sake of those of our former comrades who now lead blameless lives - we wouldn't want the Ministry to think that the Order was still in existence.  They might feel the need to monitor those former members as well as us, making their lives unnecessarily uncomfortable.  Besides, our work is very different to that of the Order."

"Only inasmuch as we're cleaning up after the Death Eaters these days, rather than fighting them," James objected.  "And since we're still tracking the ones who got away ... amongst other things ..."

"I should be happy to argue the semantics with you later, James," Dumbledore said, smiling gently, "but our young friend has surely waited long enough for explanations - ah, no you don't, sir!  Manners, if you please!"

Ron started and nearly dropped his teacup.  Something large and golden had appeared abruptly in his peripheral vision ... and was trying to snatch the biscuit from his left hand.  It was a bird.  It was huge and magnificent in its gold and crimson plumage, and it was balancing on the leaf of a large potted plant by Ron's elbow as though it weighed no more than a feather.  Beady eyes fixed on Ron and it made a curious muted trill in its throat.

"That's Fawkes," Harry said, and he grinned at Ron's flummoxed expression.  "He likes custard creams."

"He really has the most shocking manners," Dumbledore said, shaking his head reprovingly.  "At the very least you could ask nicely, sir!"

"Is - is he a phoenix?" Ron asked, stunned.

"Yes indeed, and a very spoilt one too."

Fawkes raised his crest and made another enquiring sound, bobbing his head and peering at Ron.  Not quite sure that he could believe this, Ron gingerly held out the biscuit and equally gravely Fawkes reached out and took it very gently in a claw.  Ron noticed that his talons were long and black as obsidian glass, as was his beak.  Fawkes let out a low warbling cry, then bent to pick neat little pieces off the biscuit.

Everyone was looking at Ron.  "What?" he asked, unnerved.

Dumbledore beamed.  "Fawkes has taken a fancy to you, Mr. Weasley!  I should tell you that he's an excellent judge of character and doesn't take to everyone."

Confused, Ron took a sip of his tea.  The nibbling noises Fawkes was making reminded him of Granny Weasley's parrot, Pontius, when he was eating sunflower seeds.  Fawkes was neater, though; Pontius scattered seed hulls everywhere, but not a single biscuit crumb fell to the floor.

"Well, that's always good to know," James remarked cryptically.  "Shall we get started, Professor?"

"Yes, of course - quite right."  Dumbledore set his cup on a little table at his side and sat forward in his chair, his hands on his knees.  He had a look of anticipation on his face.  "Firstly, Harry and Ronald, please tell me about the past couple of days.  You found your way to the coven?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said, when Ron was reluctant to reply.

"And you discovered their problem with their Master Oak?  Tell me, were the two of you able to help them?"

Harry shot a quick glance at Ron.  "Yes - that is, we managed to heal the damage."

"But you did this together?"

"Yes … we sort of adapted one of the Great Rites."

"And between the two of you, combining your magical strength, you successfully instructed the tree to heal itself, yes?"

James sat up.  "Dumbledore, did you send them to this Green Lord Coven deliberately?  Because you told us to head for some coven called White Mare which doesn't seem to exist, and when we got separated in the cloud - "

"Oh dear, did I?"  Dumbledore looked remorseful.  "My dear James, I do apologise.  I've discovered the occasional tendency to slur my words a little as I get older, which is most frustrating for people who think I've said one thing when in fact I meant something else entirely."

Ron found this rather hard to swallow; Dumbledore didn't seem very senile to him, despite his obvious age.  Apparently this was James's opinion and possibly everyone else's as well.  Then he saw Lily covering a smile with her hand, and both Peter and Remus trying to hide smirks.  When he looked sideways at him, Harry looked … interested.

Ron didn't blame James for looking rather annoyed, but it was more interesting to wonder why Dumbledore would have perpetrated the scam on him in the first place.  Had he wanted Harry and Ron to become separated from the others?  Clearly he had intended them to go to the Green Lord Coven all along, but what was so special about their Master Oak that it had merited sending them there?  If he and Harry could heal it, then presumably so could someone else.

Or perhaps they couldn't.  Harry had mentioned that the two of them were good at raising power together, and there couldn't be all that many witches or wizards around who had been born as a result of Great Rites and thus with an earth magic connection like Harry's.

Dumbledore turned back to them.  "Did you have any problems raising sufficient power?"

"No, not at all."  Harry seemed a little bemused by the question.  "Actually, I was more worried that we'd raise too much and not be able to control it.  There was a ley-line quite close to the tree and Gwyn had to ward that, as well as putting barrier wards up in case we disturbed their beehives."

"You didn't call upon the ley-line for power?" he asked, his eyes sharp.

"No … why would we?  I was pretty sure before we started that we could raise plenty of power on our own.  Besides, it was a really weak ley-line."

"Excellent!"  And Dumbledore did look extremely pleased.  "Well!  That is certainly very helpful to know."

Harry exchanged a perplexed look with Ron (Ron was glad he wasn't the only one to be confused by Dumbledore's comment), but the others were moving on without them.

"Was this a test?" James was asking, sounding rather annoyed.

"It's helpful to take measure of what we're dealing with here, James," Dumbledore replied.  "It's one thing to have anecdotal evidence, but in our line of work you know we need more than that."  He sat back in his chair, propping his elbows on the arms and steepling his fingers before him.  His pale blue eyes fixed on Ron's face again with sharp intent.  "Now, Ronald - how much have you been told about our work and the purposes behind it?"

"Um … a bit," Ron said warily.  "I know you, um, clean ley-lines that got damaged during the war."

"Quite so.  Have you been told anything else?"

Ron shot a tiny glance at Harry, but his friend was scrounging another biscuit and didn't seem to see the look he gave him.

"They told me a bit about the Department of Mysteries."

"I see.  And you were told of the Death Eaters and their leader, yes?"

"Some, yeah."

"Since we're inside some very strong wards now, I can tell you his name," James said.  "He called himself Lord Voldemort."

For a moment Ron had the strangest sensation that he'd had a conversation - somewhere, with someone - and the name Voldemort had been mentioned.  Then it slipped away again, leaving only a strong sense of unease at the odd name.

"Voldemort?  What kind of name is that?"

"A made-up name," Peter said, speaking for the first time.  "Something he came up with to hide his true identity from everyone but his closest associates."

"Lord Voldemort's true name is Thomas Marvolo Riddle," Dumbledore said.  "Few people today would associate the man he later became with the boy who bore that name, however."

Ron's interest stirred.  "There's an award in the trophy room at Hogwarts, one of those things handed out for special services and stuff, with the name Riddle on it," he said.  "I saw it loads of times when Filch made me polish the silver as punishment.  Is that him?"

Dumbledore smiled.  "Yes, it is.  You're observant and have a good memory."

Ron shrugged.  "Got to, in Slytherin."

"You will find those to be useful qualities in life, especially in the work we do."  Dumbledore sighed a little.  "I would prefer not to go into a detailed history of who Tom Riddle was and what he did with his life - we can discuss that another time, if you are interested - but suffice it to say that for one reason or another he desired power and his means of attaining it were … unfortunate.  He played upon the insecurities and obsessions of certain sections of our society and in time amassed a significant number of followers who were willing to do almost anything to help him achieve his goals.  Fortunately an equally dedicated group of people were prepared to risk their lives in order to stop him and eventually he was stopped - at great cost, but stopped nonetheless.  But the damage done in the process was significant and we are still, nearly twenty years later, repairing that damage.  Worse, there are … hints … that we may not have stopped him as decisively as we first believed."

"We've told Ron a little about the Department of Mysteries," James said.  "Not everything, of course."

"I see.  Have you told him what became of Lord Voldemort?"

"No - not that."

"If you caught him, doesn't that mean he's in Azkaban?" Ron asked, looking from one face to another warily.

"Little as I relish the notion of taking a human life, even one as corrupted as Tom Riddle's, I was not prepared to see him confined to a place where it would have been all too easy for a wizard of his talents to escape," Dumbledore replied.  "It was never our intention that he should be caught by the 'right and proper' authorities, which is why the final confrontation of the war was staged in the Department of Mysteries."

Ron glanced at Harry again; his friend was listening with great interest, but it was impossible to tell if any of this was news to him.

"So you killed him," he said, looking back at Dumbledore.

"Not … exactly."

Ron forced down a surge of annoyance at the roundabout way the information was being given to him.  "How do you not-exactly kill someone?" he asked, with a patience he didn't feel.  "Either he'd dead or he isn't."

"It would be nice if it was that simple," Sirius remarked.  He sounded like he meant the comment quite sincerely.

"Peter?" Dumbledore said softly.

Peter looked up.  He was actually sitting on the floor next to James's chair, with his knees drawn up and his arms around them like a small boy.  For once he wasn't fiddling with his casting bones.

"The Department of Mysteries existed to explore the hows and whys of magic," he told Ron.  "Questions like - what is magic and why do we have it but not Muggles?  Where does magic come from?  Why do some people have more of it than others?  What is it for?  Why are there different kinds of magic?  And what did our ancestors do with it and why?  The Department is full of magical devices, some of them old that we have little or no understanding of them, and others that are newer but have potential that hasn't been fully explored yet.  For example - do you know what a Time-Turner is?"

"Yeah - it's a device that allows you to go back in time," Ron said impatiently.  "I'm not stupid!"

"But do you know what happens when you go back in time?" Remus asked.  Ron blinked and the man smiled.  "The person you are - here and now, in this minute - isn't supposed to exist half an hour ago.  If you turned a Time-Turner now and went back half an hour in time, you'd be in the same place twice.  What does that do to you?  What does it do to the you that you were half an hour ago?  What does it do to the world?"

"What does it do to the structure of time itself?" Peter added.  "We don't know enough about time to be sure - it could cause terrible damage.  People have caused terrible damage by going back in time.  You could go back days or years, and no matter how careful you were not to change anything, just by being there you would change something.  What does that do to the universe?"

"That's just one of the things we studied at the Department," Sirius added.

"And Time-Turners are a relatively recent invention," Peter continued.  "There are literally thousands of devices our ancestors created that we know so little about.  One of them is the Arch."

Ron was interested to see that several of them flinched very slightly at the mention of it, and even Dumbledore seemed to draw in a slow, very deep breath.

"What's the Arch?" he asked.

"It lies at the centre of a room known as the Death Chamber," James replied after a moment.  "As far as we know, it's always been there - it wasn't brought there by anyone, the Ministry was built up around it.  It's a long way below ground level and cautious estimates date it to a little bit earlier than the first circle of Stonehenge.  It's made of stone … it's just that, an arch.  There's a bit of old cloth hanging from it, so I suppose it's a bit like an … an entrance.  You can see through it from one side to the other."

"If you stand near enough to it, you can hear things," Remus said.  "Whispering …  That alone makes it quite dangerous, because if you don't know what to expect it's perfectly natural to want to get close to it to try and hear what it says.  And it's very dangerous to get close to it."

Ron felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle.  "Why is it dangerous?"

"Because if you step through the Arch, you don't come back," Peter said.  Of all of them, he seemed the calmest talking about it.  "Throw something through it and it doesn't appear on the other side.  It goes … somewhere else.  We don't know where, but most authorities agree that living things die when they pass its threshold."

"But how can you know?"

"Because at least once a generation a researcher will ignore all the advice and step through it," James replied grimly.  "Clairvoyants report having conversations with them later, although how reliable that is I don't know.  Clairvoyancy isn't a reputable branch of magical practice."

"Clairvoyancy's a load of dung," Ron said at once, scornfully.  "Gran says so and she should know!  You can't talk to the dead - they're gone.  Unless they're ghosts."

"Certain individuals dispute your grandmother's certainty on the subject," Dumbledore told him mildly.  His eyes had begun to twinkle again.  "Some surprisingly lively debates have been held about it over the years, and strong opinions aired."  In a disinterested tone he added, "I believe Mrs. Prewett even had words with Cassandra Trelawney about it."

"Is that what they got into a cat-fight about?" Ron asked.  It was nice to clear that mystery up.  He couldn't help letting out a rude crack of laughter though.  "How long did Trelawney live afterwards?"

This produced a few raised brows and Harry gave him a startled look.  "That's nice!"

Ron snorted.  "You're kidding me, right?  Gran's about as sweet as barbed wire - all the Prewetts are like that.  If she got into it with Madam Trelawney, then it's Trelawney who shouted for mercy first!"  He took a swallow of his tea, and grinned suddenly.  "She scared the crap out of the manager at the Pink Kneazle and I reckon she wasn't even trying that time."

"The Pink Kneazle?" Lily asked, bewildered.

"Ron's last job," James told her.

"But isn't that club a - "

"I was fixing sex toys for them," Ron explained, and he was rather pleased by her shocked expression.  The ability to shock these people somehow gave him a certain limited power and he liked that feeling; it allowed him to feel as though he had a tiny amount of control over his situation at last.

"I don't believe the disagreement about the merits of clairvoyancy was the defining moment of your grandmother's quarrel with Madam Trelawney," Dumbledore told Ron gently.  "I'm sure it didn't help matters, though."

This was rather disappointing.  "So what did they fight about?"

"You, I believe."  Dumbledore sipped his tea tranquilly in the silence that suddenly fell.

Ron had the oddest sensation of quicksand under his feet.  "They never.  Why would they fight about me?  I never met Cassandra Trelawney, she died before I was born!"

"I imagine it was something to do with the mark you bear on your back, among other things," Dumbledore said.  The smile he gave Ron was kindly, but his eyes were sharp.

"It's just a birthmark," Ron said tersely.  "How would she know about it anyway?"

"True, it is a birthmark inasmuch as it's a mark you've carried since your birth.  There is, of course, far more to it than that."

"No there isn't - it's just an ugly mark - "

"It's not ugly," Harry said quietly.

"And it's not just a mark," Peter added.  "I did a drawing of it after you showed it to us at Yule.  The drawing alone pulled power out of the air around it, so your birthmark probably does the same.  Plus your grandmother drew your horoscope when you were born, but locked the entry on the Divinatory Register so that no one could read it except you.  Everyone else in your family has a horoscope that's publicly available, but all your entry has is the date you were born."

"From your reaction I would deduce that you know nothing of the contents of your horoscope either?" Dumbledore asked.  "Your grandmother has not mentioned it to you?"

"Nope, and that's fine by me," Ron said.  What the hell?  He didn't need to know this!  He didn't want to know this.

"Don't you want to know?" Sirius asked, disbelieving.  "Two major seers had an epic handbag fight over you! Aren't you the slightest bit curious why?"

If he was, no one would ever know - not even Harry.  "Gran fights with everyone," he said coolly.  Everyone but him, he realised, but he wasn't going to mention that either.  "We hardly ever see her because she can't get along with Mum, and my uncles are both scared of her.  It doesn't surprise me that she didn't get along with Cassandra Trelawney."

"You might have to be a little bit curious about your birthmark if you're to work with us, Ron," Remus said into the quiet that followed this.  "Peter's an arithmancer and he specialises in tracking and measuring magical energies.  If he says your birthmark is pulling power out of the air, then it is.  In the work we do we deal directly with magical power lines and flows.  We can't afford to take the risk that a mark on you is influencing the ambient magic around us.  You're going to have to let us investigate that possibility if nothing else, or you won't be able to work with us."

How had he gone from feeling confident to trapped so quickly?  Ron stared around at them and felt himself break out into a cold sweat.  His birthmark was personal.  He still wasn't sure how he'd allowed himself to be lured into showing it to people at Yule and he certainly didn't want anyone other than Harry examining it in any detail.  It was just a birthmark.  Birthmarks didn't 'pull power' out of the air.

"I did hope you might talk to your grandmother about it," Lily remarked rather sadly.  "I'm sure she knows a lot more about it than anyone else."

"Gran doesn't talk to people about stuff unless she wants to," Ron said, wishing this didn't sound so stupid.  Actually, he hadn't asked her because his mother had done her best to prevent him having any in-depth conversations with Granny Prewett at Christmas, and after the Pink Kneazle incident he'd been cross enough with her for losing him his job that he hadn't considered discussing things with her.  Not that she had been very forthcoming even in the everyday stuff.

"Seers do have a habit of refusing to discuss prophecies and the like," Dumbledore said unexpectedly.  He was studying Ron over the top of his half-moon spectacles in a rather unnerving way.  "They prefer not to interfere with the future, believing that once it has been Seen it is somehow unchangeable and should not be tampered with, which is why very often - and rather frustratingly - they will refuse even to divulge a prophecy, or will express it in such oblique terms that it becomes useless to the listener.  This is not helped by the Ministry's policy of sealing prophecies to all but the subjects of them."  He paused.  "You are not a seer yourself, I suppose?"

Ron blinked.  "Me?  No, sir!"

"Ah.  Interesting.  The gift is inherited, you see, and Lillian Prewett is far from the first of her family to be a seer.  One of the reasons her kindred all have horoscopes entered into the Divinatory Register is due to the possibility of one of her descendents being born with the gift.  The fact that she chose to lock your entry did rather make me wonder if that was why."  Dumbledore gave him another sharp look.  "What of your brothers and sister?"

Ron grudgingly considered the question.  If Ginny had the gift, they would have all known about it by now, it wasn't as though she was shy about her achievements.  Impossible to tell with the twins, but it seemed unlikely.  Percy didn't see anything beyond the tip of his nose; and besides, he was their mother's favourite.  If he'd been born with the gift, it would suddenly have been something marvellous.  Charlie?  Charlie was the most normal bloke Ron knew.  And Bill ... well, who could tell?  But Ron didn't think so, for one simple reason:

"If any of us were born with it, I reckon Gran would have known and done something about it," he said, and Dumbledore nodded his agreement.

"True - I must agree with that assessment.  She may be very circumspect, but Lillian is not irresponsible."

There was a pause, but finally James broke the silence.  "Look, we could speculate on this all day, but we don't really have the leisure for it.  Ron - I understand why you don't want people nosing around in things that must seem personal to you, all right?  So I think that for the moment the question of what's in your horoscope and what it had to do with your grandmother and Madam Trelawney should just be left alone.  Maybe at some point you'll feel up to looking into it, but for now that's up to you as far as I'm concerned."

Ron noticed that it was always James who seemed to lead the group, and wondered if that was an official thing or just the way it had developed between them.  Either way, if it meant that he didn't have to poke around in things he didn't want to poke around then it worked for him.

And perhaps James wasn't as annoying as he'd initially believed.

"We can't ignore the birthmark," Peter said to James flatly.

"I know - agreed."  James looked at Ron.  "Will you at least let us examine your birthmark to try and get an idea of what's going on with it?"

Ron's immediate reaction was to say no, but before he could refuse Harry gripped his elbow gently but insistently.  Green eyes entreated him when he turned to look.

"No one's going to mess with it or hurt you," Harry said.  He squeezed Ron's arm gently for emphasis.  "You know I wouldn't let anything like that happen, don't you?"

"It's not that," Ron muttered.

"I know - I know how you feel about it.  But we're working with all sorts of power, some of it messed up and dirty with Dark magic.  If your birthmark really is pulling magic from the air and stuff, it could put you in danger."

"If it was pulling power into me, don't you think I'd know about it?"

"That depends where it's going, doesn't it?"

This idea was so creepy that Ron really wished Harry hadn't voiced it.  "You make it sound like it's some sort of separate thing that's doing stuff all on its own!" he hissed.

"I don't believe it's doing anything," Harry hissed back.  "It is what it is, Ron!  The Cerne Abbas Giant attracts power to it - it's not alive, it's just an image cut into the hill, but the shape and the intentions of the people who made it make the image draw power to it.  Like the runes you draw to make wards.  It's all the same."

"It's not a fucking rune!  Nobody drew it!  It's on my back."

"Wouldn't you feel better about it if you knew what it really is?"  Harry's eyes held his.  "You've been hiding it all your life - why?"

"Because people act freaky about it!"  Ron glared at him.  Harry knew all this, dammit.

"Most people don't even know it's there, so how can they react to it at all?" Harry asked reasonably.  A curious expression flickered in his eyes for a moment.  "You've been letting it control you instead of dealing with it, you know."

"Fuck you, Potter - "  Ron tried to pull away, but Harry still had a firm grip on his arm and refused to release him.

"Why don't you take control of it instead of letting it control you?"

"It's not controlling me!"

"Yeah, it is.  It controls you every time you decide not to take your shirt off.  Coward!"

Ron very nearly lashed out at him.  Then he suddenly remembered where he was and was horrified to realise that this argument had been played out in front of six pairs of interested eyes.  Having a knock-down-and-drag-out fight with Harry was one thing; having it in front of an audience, especially this audience, was something else entirely.  It took a real effort of will to do it, but he dragged his temper back under control, resumed his usual bland expression, and sat down again. 

Until then he hadn't realised he'd stood up in the first place.

"Are you going to let go of my arm?" he asked Harry as mildly as he could manage.

"Are you going to stop being an arse?" Harry retorted.

The anger bubbled up again sharply, then he saw the look on Harry's face.  His brows twitched upwards mockingly and he stuck his tongue in his cheek like a challenge.

So it was like that, was it?  Ron snorted, vowing to wipe that smug mischief off his friend's face very thoroughly - later, when they were alone and he could do a proper job of it, and preferably in a way that would remind Harry of who was in charge the next time he tried to sit on a broomstick.  He would enjoy that.

The expressions on the adults in the room were mixed when he turned back to face them.  Sirius was watching them with open and unabashed enjoyment, as though the argument had been staged for his personal entertainment (somehow this didn't surprise Ron at all), and Remus looked as though he was amused and trying to hide it.  Dumbledore was tranquilly sipping his tea as though nothing of any great moment had just occurred; Peter had got his little bag of casting bones out and was toying with it.  Lily looked concerned.  And James ... 

James's expression was unreadable, but when he saw that he had their attention he said with somewhat forced patience, "So - do we get to look at your birthmark again, or do I send an owl to your brother for him to come and get you?"

"My brother?" Ron said blankly.

"Your brother Bill has been doing some work for me in London," Dumbledore put in mildly.  "If you would prefer it - if you are not comfortable with what we ask of you here - then I feel sure he would be glad of your assistance.  Or you may return home, of course."  In a rather apologetic tone he added, "Unfortunately, either option would severely limit your opportunities for contact with Harry.  He has work to do here with us."

"Are you blackmailing me?" Ron blurted out incredulously before he could stop himself.  Then he remembered who he was speaking to and coloured up.  "Sir."

Sirius tried unsuccessfully to hide a laugh under a cough at this belated attempt to mitigate the accusation, but Dumbledore only looked at Ron over his spectacles with a smile.

"Not at all, dear boy - merely presenting you with all the available information, to assist you in your decision!"

Ron just managed to suppress a sarcastic retort, but he couldn't help eyeing the old man with suspicion.  If this was manipulation, it was pretty blatant.  What sort of choices were these?  Not that the thought of working with Bill was unattractive, but not to see Harry?  The past year had been slow torture, and Ron wasn't stupid - he didn't give out much hope for the chances of their relationship if he only saw Harry once every few months.  And he needed him, Harry understood him and kept him sane.

But they wanted to mess with that damned thing on his back ... 

Ron really wished that his attempt to hex the birthmark off when he was twelve had been successful.  Unfortunately not; all it had resulted in was a nasty case of sunburn and a scolding from Madam Pomfrey, but he still felt the principle was basically sound.  He really should have tried again, but Harry's soothing acceptance the first time he saw the mark had lured Ron into a false sense of security.  He should have known it couldn't last.

"Nobody's going to mess with your birthmark," Harry told him, as though he could read Ron's mind and see what was bothering him.  "They only want to look at it and see if it really is ... causing a power shift or something.  It's just to make sure you're safe, okay?  I won't let anyone mess with it."

The frustrating thing was that when it came down to it, there really wasn't a choice.

"Yeah, all right, whatever," Ron muttered ungraciously, and the tension in the room lightened considerably.

"Your trust in us is appreciated and will not be abused," Dumbledore said gravely, and he flicked his wand at the teapot.  "I think more tea is in order."  The pot began to circulate among them.  "Now ... what next?"

"I don't think we finished explaining the end of the war to Ron," Remus said, blowing gently on his tea to cool it.

"Ah yes - thank you!  Yes ..."  Dumbledore sighed.  "The Arch and its properties.  Peter, will you continue?"

Peter put his cup down and sat forward again.  "I think we agreed that most experts believe the Arch kills anyone who goes through it, right?  Only now we're starting to have doubts about that, and not just because we can't be sure clairvoyants really do speak to the dead."

Ron would have liked the opportunity to be grumpy about his capitulation on the matter of his birthmark, but he was too interested in the story of the Arch to bother.  "So what makes you think it doesn't kill people?  Did someone come back?"

"Not exactly," Remus said.  "It's more a case of something we think the Arch is doing - or something on the other side of the Arch, possibly, although that's pure speculation."

"Everything points that way," James said impatiently.  "Look, Ron, this is the problem: when we started work on cleaning the ley-lines, it was understood that it was a finite problem - it wasn't something we were going to spend the rest of our lives doing, in other words.  As far as we knew, there was only a small number of sites where the lines had been tampered with - but it didn't pan out that way.  Some of the sites we're cleaning now we've cleaned before, and the problems we're encountering are becoming more difficult to counteract.  Stuff that used to take a day or so to sort out now takes weeks.  And on top of that a lot of the ley-lines that were already plotted - some of them were mapped centuries ago - have suddenly shifted position or changed in nature, becoming stronger or weaker or even changing their direction of flow."

"And the Arch is doing something to them?"

"We're getting ahead of the game here," Sirius said.  "The thing you have to realise, Ron, is that when we faced off against Voldemort and some of his followers, we deliberately cornered them in the Death Chamber so that we could force him to go through the Arch."

"I got that," Ron said dryly.  It had been fairly obvious from the moment they told him what it did.

"It was the best way we could think of to get rid of him," Lily said.  "There wouldn't be a body left behind and anything he took with him, like his wand, would go too.  We would have settled for killing him, but there was always a risk that he might survive somehow or that his body would be retrieved by his followers and ... tampered with.  The worst possible outcome would be his capture, because none of us believed Azkaban could hold him and then it would all have to be done again."

"Believe me, he's not someone you'd want to face twice," James said.  He grimaced.  "Most people were lucky to survive one encounter."

"But he went through the Arch?"

"Oh yes."

"Along with a couple of his less likeable followers," Remus commented.  "We weren't sorry to see the back of Antonin Dolohov or Bellatrix Lestrange, believe me."

Sirius made a face over his teacup.

Ron looked around.  "So what's the problem if they went through the Arch?"

"It's a couple of things," Lily said with a sigh.  "Firstly, there was a big magical blast that came out of the Arch after Voldemort went through - that's never happened before, as far as we know.  Usually people and objects just ... fade away.  The wave of power that came out rocked the whole building, although the warding around the department localised most of the damage.  But the whole area was … contaminated … by the blast, and because the department was immediately sealed off to contain it we were never able to investigate what caused the blast in the first place.  And then there's the ley-lines."

"Many of the ley-lines the Death Eaters tampered with have begun to move, warp and realign themselves," Dumbledore explained.  "They quite strenuously resist our efforts to correct them.  And they are all aligning themselves in the direction of the Ministry - worse, they are beginning to affect other ley-lines in the network, slowly pulling others into alignment with them.  Magical power has begun to flow towards the Ministry and those of us who still have access to the building have found that the lines are aligning themselves specifically in the direction of the wall that seals off the former Department of Mysteries."

"Even more worryingly, some of them later change polarity," Lily said.  "In other words, they start carrying magic out from the Arch and there's something wrong with the magic they carry.  That in turn affects other lines as the power is carried across the net, and we're having a lot of difficulty in cleansing them.  They're steadily growing in number and soon we won't be able to keep up with it."

"Power doesn't flow in or out of the Arch under normal circumstances," Peter said.  "That's one of its oddities.  It radiates its own static magical field for a distance of about three yards in every direction around it, but you can get within an inch or two of the veil before the void between the pillars of the Arch actually affects anything that touches it."  The corner of his mouth quirked.  "An awful lot of rulers and tape-measures have been lost by people who tried to measure the depth.  You have to be pretty quick to let go, too - at least one researcher lost a hand because he tried to hang onto his tape-measure when the field grabbed it.  His colleagues had to cut it off to prevent him being pulled through too.  But if you were to cast a hex into the void, it'd just come out the other side."

"So why are the ley-lines moving towards it?" Ron asked.

"We don't know," James said.  He looked frustrated.  "That's the most alarming part of this, really.  We can't investigate!  No one's interested when you try to talk to them about ley-lines and the Minister is adamant that no one opens up the Department of Mysteries again.  Mention Death Eaters and Voldemort and at best you get accused of being an hysterical troublemaker."

"At worst, you suddenly find Aurors and Hitwizards asking your friends and neighbours uncomfortable questions about you," Sirius said.  "And if you're really naughty, people follow you everywhere and sometimes even accuse you of heinous crimes, like - oh, I don't know - not having a licence for your flying motorbike?"

"You're never going to forget that, are you?" James said to him with a sudden grin.

"What good would that do them?" Ron asked, bemused.

"Harassment," Harry said.

"It's when they don't harass us that I worry," Remus added.  "A few years ago there was a period where the watching seemed to stop for a while, but just as we were heaving a sigh of relief Peter got arrested and the Aurors held him for nearly three days without letting anyone know where he was."

"We were getting ready to bust him out of Azkaban," Sirius said, flashing a quick grin at Peter.

"Fortunately, Peter's reputation and appearance are quite at odds with his actual abilities," Dumbledore observed.  "He was eventually released without any charge or explanation, but since then we have exercised even greater caution."

"If you join us, you'll have to accept the same level of risk and caution," James warned Ron.  "They weren't too rough on Peter, but they probably won't be as nice to the rest of us."

"But if they don't think the ley-lines are important, why are they making trouble for you?" Ron asked.

There was a round of rolled eyes and wry looks.

"Not all of the Death Eaters were captured," Harry reminded him.  "Some of them got away with it and even work at the Ministry now.  They know Dad and the others were there when Voldemort got forced through the Arch and they interfere - they even have the ear of the Minister."

"Like who?" Ron demanded.

"I could write you a list," Sirius said, "but let's just go with the big one, since he has his fingers in everything and it's almost certainly him setting the Hitwizards on us."

"Lucius Malfoy," James said bitterly.

Ron twitched; he couldn't help it, even though he managed to keep his face still, and although the others showed no sign of having seen his reaction, he knew that Harry must have noticed.

"Draco's old man," he said sourly, hoping this would cover him.

"You know what he's doing these days?" Harry said.  "Draco, I mean."

"Cleaning the bogs on Platform Nine and Three Quarters?" Ron asked hopefully, and Sirius laughed.

"No such luck.  He's apprenticed to Ludo Bagman at the Department of Magical Games and Sports."  Harry was bitter.  "Not some underling - Bagman himself!  Apparently he didn't even have to sit the Ministry entrance exam - one word from Daddy and everything was golden for him."

Ron's temper soured even further, to a point where he almost wondered why his anger wasn't smashing up the china cups and saucers.  He quickly put his own cup down before he crushed it physically.  "I took that exam," he remarked and he was rather surprised at how casual he sounded even to his own ears.  "I failed the interview afterwards though."

"I'm thinking Draco's interview was more like drinks before dinner," Harry said grumpily.  "Bagman's a pillock anyway.  Too many Bludgers to the head, probably."

"Ludovic Bagman was a Death Eater," Dumbledore said mildly.  "Not a very important or active one, I think, but merely the fact that he was would be enough for a man like Lucius to control him."

Ron came to a decision.  Possibly he would regret being so forthcoming later, but -

"Lucius Malfoy's a member of the Pink Kneazle Club," he said.

There was a startled silence.  Then a big smile spread across Sirius's face.  "Ron, I love you."

"That is certainly an interesting piece of information, given his political persuasions," Dumbledore said thoughtfully.  "Not entirely a surprise, although I confess I hadn't thought it of him until now.  Might I ask, Ronald, how you know this?  I believe you were only employed in a maintenance position at the establishment?"

"He got stuck in one of Triton's bits of equipment one night," Ron explained.  He didn't feel equal to explaining the full details in such mixed company.  "I had to get him out of it."

"Did he see you?" James asked sharply.

"No - he was wearing a mask that blindfolded him and I didn't say anything while I was in there.  I'm not even sure if he knew someone else was in the room.  Triton was, um, doing stuff to him at the time."

"How did you know it was him?" Remus asked.

"I met him a couple of times when he came to see Draco at school," Ron said, "and he has this tattoo on his shoulder - Draco has an identical one, I think it's some kind of family crest."

"Nice!" Harry said, and he made a face.  "What about his wife?"

"It's not unusual," Sirius said, with a shrug.  "He may even have a mistress or two as well.  My father was a member of the Pink Kneazle, but he had women on the side.  I don't think my mother cared.  It's not like she married the love of her life, after all - it was arranged and she was probably just glad to have him of