Logical Solutions

Phoenix Tears, Chapter Twelve : Logical Solutions

DISCLAIMER : The characters and many of the situations described in this story are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute. Dialogue marked with an asterisk is quoted from the original HP stories.

As usual, thank you to my marvellous beta readers, LAxo and WriterMerrin, without whom this story would be even more of a grammatical mess than it currently is.

"Hermione?"

For a tense moment, she considered ignoring him, but after several seconds spent scowling at The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, Hermione pressed the tip of one finger against the page to mark her spot and looked up. Though she focussed her eyes on his freckled face, she was thinking of something else.

How could he be so close and not bother to talk to me?

"Yes, Ron?" she asked in an exasperated tone, staring at him and pointedly raising both eyebrows. She knew that she wasn't really playing fair, that she wasn't really even mad at her red-headed friend, but it didn't make it any easier to forgive him.

"Er, cup of tea?"

Hermione blinked. The larger, grumpy part wanted to say no on principle...but then she wouldn't get the tea. The longer she stared at him, the more nervous Ron looked.

"Fine," she ground out eventually, rolling her eyes at the relief that suffused Ron's face and returning immediately to her book. Rita Skeeter was a complete cow, there was no doubt about that, but the book was fascinating. Even knowing that at least half of the observations Rita wrung from her data were patently false, the whole she'd compiled was a train wreck Hermione couldn't help but observe.

Take Dumbledore's sexuality, for example. Had Hermione ever thought about it (not that she had), it would have been obvious that the man was gay. Rita, however, was far wide of the mark if she seriously thought that there was something untoward in Dumbledore's relationship with Harry. The idea was laughable. Still, she was hopeful that Harry wouldn't read that chapter...particularly since Hermione had been reassuring him for months now that the blasted old man loved him. Harry hadn't really ever grasped the sensational untruths of Rita's prose style, nor the subtleties of love that would help him process the information contained therein.

Then there was the chapter about Snape; Hermione sighed at the thought. At just that moment, Ron returned with her cup of tea. He placed it on the table near her elbow and smiled tentatively.

"All right, Hermione?" he asked.

Hermione glared back.

Has he known how to find us this entire time?

Unexpectedly, she shut the book with a snap, banging it down on the table with slightly too much force. Her tea slopped dangerously close to the edge of the cup.

"You," she commanded, pointing imperiously at Ron, "sit."

He sat immediately, his knees folding and his body collapsing into a chair at the force of her command like an obedient dog. The resemblance was emphasised when he matched his expression to action, gazing at her with wide eyes and a hopeful-yet-anxious puppy dog stare.

"You're a fountain of news in your conversations with Harry," she commented a little petulantly. "I've a few questions of my own."

"Okay," replied Ron, apprehension winning out over hope.

"You can start with the Muggle-born Registration Committee: is it still running? How many people have been sent to Azkaban? What happened to those we helped escape?"

Ron cleared his throat and ran one hand nervously through his hair. "The Committee is still running," he began. In his willingness to please, his voice assumed the sing-song tone he'd developed for his OWL exams; Hermione had to smother a smirk. "Umbridge is still in charge, although there aren't so many trials any more. Most of the Muggle-borns that the Order knew about have disappeared. No-one's really sure where they are...Bill thinks that the Death Eaters don't even know."

"So they aren't in Azkaban?" Hermione took a large mouthful of her tea; the warmth of it helped to counter the shiver that thoughts of Azkaban invoked.

"Well . . . at first the Order thought they were, but Dad managed to get a look at some of the records. It doesn't look like they're keeping enough prisoners to account for everyone who's missing."

"How do they know they're not dead?" Why was Voldemort keeping Mudbloods alive anyway? Why not save himself the trouble of storing and feeding them?

"Sure, that's always a possibility." Ron looked concerned, but not as grim as the subject matter deserved. "But, unless they've found some way of circumventing the Official Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, it's not very likely."

Hermione felt sure that Ron was parroting conversation he'd heard from his older brother. When had Ron ever used the word "circumventing?"

"Bill says that corrupt Ministry officials and Death Eaters are always trying to get Gringotts to give them access to the vaults of convicted Muggle-borns and those listed as suspected or missing...the goblins always refuse, of course, they're staying neutral."

"Like Switzerland," commented Hermione, adding, "never mind," at the look of blank confusion on Ron's face. She swirled the last of her tea before tipping back her head and swallowing it down.

"Anyway," continued Ron, "from what Bill could make out, the second list was much longer than the first. Plus, the Ministry stopped publishing the list of suspected Muggle-borns who were wanted for questioning ages ago. Dad reckons it was getting embarrassingly long. The list still exists, of course, it's just not published in The Daily Prophet any more."

"Bill doesn't know where they all disappeared to?" asked Hermione thinking of Viktor. Was Dumbledore really so paranoid? The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing?

Ron grimaced and shook his head. "They could turn out to be in Azkaban after all, or held in some other prison somewhere."

"So, no-one in the Order was helping Muggle-borns escape?" In a way, the deliberate nonchalance with which Hermione phrased the question made it more offensive.

"Kingsley was!" replied Ron a little indignantly. "He was smuggling them through the Prime Minister's office and into Muggle society. But, as I said before, he was caught by the Taboo fairly early; he's on the run just like us."

"Hmm." Hermione crossed her arms. "And those we helped escape?"

"From what Bill knew, it seemed most of them got away." Ron paused awkwardly. "He wasn't very impressed that we'd gone to the Ministry, though."

Hermione pursed her lips and made no immediate reply. In retrospect, she thought it was a pretty stupid idea herself. If they'd dared to trust Arthur Weasley, he would have been able to discover...if not recover...the locket far more safely than they. There were several rather dangerous elements about Dumbledore's insistence that they do this alone. What the hell was he thinking? she wondered for the umpteenth time. What is it that we're supposed to work out?

Thoughts of Dumbledore pulled her eyes inevitably back towards Rita's book, and she reached out a hand to pull it towards her. "I'm going to read on the bed," she announced, not quite talking to Ron, but rather in his general direction. His shoulders drooped slightly at the realisation the conversation was over.

"Okay. I'll just wash up." Ron grabbed their empty mugs and headed for the kitchen.

Once settled on the bed, Hermione stared at the pages of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore unseeingly. Asking questions about events outside the thin walls of their tent had brought to mind thoughts of the one person she was trying to ignore: Snape.

How could he be so close and not speak to me?

Hot tears pricked at the back of her eyes. Pull yourself together, Granger, she berated herself ineffectually. What did you expect him to do? Drop by for a cup of tea? Wake you up and kiss you full of Felix Felicis? Hermione was ashamed at how selfish her desires were. Rolling onto her side, with her back to the main space of the tent and Rita's book propped in front of her face, Hermione let several self-pitying tears slide down into her pillow.

She wanted to speak to him more than she could have believed possible.

And last night he was so close. Disappointment and loneliness tasted like acid across the back of Hermione's throat, and she bit her lip to hold back a sob. A litany of unanswerable questions pounded through her head: What would Snape have done if I had seen his Patronus and followed it rather than Harry? How long had he been watching anyway? Days, or hours?

Maybe he saw me earlier in the evening and deliberately avoided me.

Hermione struggled to keep the sounds of her crying quiet. Ron had come back into the room and, after several minutes fidgeting with his backpack, had settled himself close to the tent door...near enough that he could talk with Harry, who was nominally keeping watch. Ron was tapping on a wooden wizarding wireless and muttering to himself while the dial span; the radio emitted bursts of occasional music interspersed with fuzzy white noise. His penitent politeness still held, however, and he'd turned the volume to a minimum.

Snape is a spy, Hermione reminded herself angrily. He was here for a reason, not for a social visit. Fishing under her pillow, her hand closed around the handkerchief she'd taken from him, and she blew her nose fiercely. Come on, Granger. Using a clean corner, she wiped her eyes.

The Life and Lies had slipped closed at some point during her tears, and now Hermione gripped hold of it with a new determination. Right, Granger, she told herself firmly, you're going to read a whole chapter without thinking once about Snape. She opened the book and flipped back through several pages, looking for the place she had stopped.

When the coloured reproductions of Rita's primary sources caught her eye, she paused. Hermione ran one finger thoughtfully down the picture of Dumbledore's letter. It was strange to imagine the imposing wizard she had first met, and the manipulative man she had grown to know, as a boy her own age. Odd to think of him in love with a young man who would grow into a monster. Weird to see his uncharacteristic opinions on Muggles spelled out in an angled script recognisably his own...though the loops of his letters were somehow softer and rounder than the writing he had used over one hundred years later. She paused with her finger on his signature, dwelling on the distinctive lines of his name: so similar to his adult signature, yet not-quite-right nevertheless.

Was it the slant? she wondered, tilting the book slightly. Recognition hit like an absence of oxygen. Shakily, desperately, she forced herself to breathe. Again? Hermione's heart began to beat faster in intellectual excitement. Was the odd sign something else Grindelwald had borrowed from Dumbledore? Hang on, Granger.

Her mind was racing as quickly as her heart; she had to think about this clearly. Conjuring a sheet of parchment and a pencil, Hermione listed the places the sign had shown up, attempting a chronological order.

5. Xenophilius Lovegood's necklace

After a moment's contemplation, Hermione used the tip of her wand to lift item number four up the page, reinserting it between items one and two. A little wrist flick at the end of the wand movement renumbered her list. After all, she rationalised, the book is old and was in Dumbledore's possession. He might have learned about it from the book . . . which would mean that Grindelwald came by it separately. She furrowed her brow in thought. Does that mean the sign has something to do with "The Tale of the Three Brothers"? Might it, she wondered, articulating burgeoning hope, provide an answer to the question of how to destroy the Horcrux without destroying Harry?

Hermione could think of only one solution. Picking up The Life and Lies, she climbed out from her bunk and strode towards the boys.

Ron froze immediately, his wand extended out over the radio. "If it's annoying you, I'll stop!"* he exclaimed nervously.

Hermione ignored him. "We need to talk,"* she said firmly, addressing Harry, who still sat in the doorway of the tent.

"What?"* he asked, his eyes fixed mistrustfully on the book in her hand.

"I want to go and see Xenophilius Lovegood,"* she replied.

Hermione gave herself a vigorous mental shake. She was so angry about Xenophilius' comments on her limited intelligence that she couldn't think straight; the infernal clatter of the printing machine didn't help. How dare that crazy old man call her limited? He was the one with a Class B Tradable Material pinned on his wall! He was the one prancing around in a filthy nightshirt and talking about Wrackspurt!

Lovegood senior had calmly sat and spun them a foolish tale, one that took fairy stories as truth, blending them in with a mishmash of recycled historical facts. The Deathly Hallows indeed!

Without her logic and her "limited" intelligence, Harry would never have got through Snape's wall of fire in his first year; he wouldn't have caught Quirrell, and Voldemort would have risen to power years earlier. It was logic and the use of the Time Turner...permitted only because of her "limited" intelligence...that had saved Sirius' life; logic and cold, clean Arithmancy skills that had recognised the dangers of Dumbledore's plan last year with Snape and rescued the possible future of the wizarding world; it was her logic and FAR FROM LIMITED intelligence that had kept Harry alive thus far!

And yet here she was, standing in Xenophilius' work room, her throat bitter with the taste of his hideous Gurdyroot infusion, arguing sotto voce with Harry and Ron over which of the three Hallows was truly worth having. What was the point? They didn't even exist!

How could she have been stupid enough to hope that Loony Luna's loopy father might have an answer to her Horcrux dilemma?

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Harry disappear up the stairs to the next level. "Harry," she exclaimed, "what are you doing? I don't think you should look around when he's not here!"*

Harry, however, ignored her. Shivering slightly, Hermione wrapped her arms around her torso, rubbing absentmindedly at the top of her scar with one hand. The Erumpent Horn gave her the creeps. Solicitously, Ron patted her between the shoulder blades. It was comforting, reminiscent of the easy rapport they'd had before the Horcrux had poisoned their interactions; Hermione sighed softly.

Harry came back down the stairs only seconds before Xenophilius arrived from the downstairs kitchen with several bowls balanced on a tray. Once look at Harry's face was enough to tell Hermione something was the matter.

"What's wrong?"*

"Mr Lovegood, where's Luna?"* asked Harry, speaking past her. Hermione spun around, eyes narrowing as she noticed the panicked expression on Xenophilius' face.

"I...I've already told you. She is down at Bottom Bridge, fishing for Plimpies."*

"So why have you only laid that tray for four?"*

Vaguely, Hermione wondered how many detective shows Harry had managed to watch during his various stays at the Dursleys'; his accusative questioning style reminded her of The Bill...and seemed to work just as effectively.

"I don't think Luna's been here for weeks," continued Harry. "Her clothes are gone, her bed hasn't been slept in. Where is she? And why do you keep looking out the window?"*

Hermione had her wand out in seconds and was pleased to note that the boys did too. It's a trap. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but her hand was steady. Dumbledore was right; we can't trust anyone...not even those who loudly proclaim their support. Keeping her wand trained on their host, Hermione glanced towards the window; her line of sight, however, was interrupted by the printing press. As if noticing her attention, the machine convulsed visibly and fell silent with one last bang. Several issues of the magazine slipped out from under the edge of the covering blanket. What, she wondered with sudden anxiety, had Xenophilius hoped to hide? Hermione bent and retrieved the nearest issue: splashed across the familiar face of her best friend were the words "Undesirable Number One."

"Harry," she said into the echoing silence as she held out the issue out towards him, "look at this,"*

Harry strode over immediately and glanced at the magazine, his face twisting bitterly. "The Quibbler's going for a new angle, then?" he asked rhetorically. "Is that what you were doing when you went into the garden, Mr. Lovegood? Sending an owl to the Ministry?"*

"They took my Luna; because of what I've been writing."* Xenophilius breathed, his face creased into lines of desperation so personal that Hermione wanted to turn away. "They took my Luna and I don't know where she is, what they've done to her. But they might give her back to me if I...if I..."*

"Hand over Harry?"* she concluded.

"No deal," responded Ron. "Get out of the way, we're leaving."* He pushed past Hermione and stepped threateningly towards Xenophilius.

"They will be here at any moment," the old man replied, throwing out his skinny arms to block the doorway. "I must save Luna. I cannot lose Luna. You must not leave."*

"Don't make us hurt you," warned Harry. "Get out of the way, Mr. Lovegood."*

Hermione turned again to glance outside. There she saw a sight that flooded her system with adrenalin: two figures on broomsticks swept past the window. "HARRY!"* she shrieked.

Automatically, Harry and Ron span towards her, and Xenophilius seized his chance. Hermione's belated attempt at a shield charm was derailed when Harry's body slammed into her, throwing her to the ground; Xenophilius' Stunning Spell shot directly through the place where Ron had been and struck the Erumpent horn where it hung on the wall.

The room exploded: noise, dust, debris and bodies were blown outward. Hermione screamed as her body twisted back and across, she skidded across a length of floor and thudded into the curve of the wall. Her head throbbed. Over her own shriek, she heard Ron shout out; Harry, frighteningly, made no sound at all.

Moving gingerly, Hermione pushed herself to her feet. White dust covered her entire body: hands, clothes, hair. Okay, everything still seems to work. To her complete and utter relief, her wand was undamaged.

Stepping over several broken pieces of the printing press, Hermione saw that the stairway down to the kitchen was completely blocked by debris...and there, struggling out from under a mound of destroyed Quibblers, was Harry.

Perhaps we'll get out of here, yet, she thought, hope blossoming at the sight of him.

And with that, the blessed clarity of logic returned. Hermione glanced around, cataloguing their situation rapidly. When she caught Harry's eye, she gestured for him to be quiet. Ron must have seen her, too, as he stopped muttering imprecations at the furniture that held his prone body to the floor and froze.

Downstairs, the door was thrown open violently.

"Didn't I tell you there was no need to hurry, Travers?" growled an unfamiliar voice. "Didn't I tell you this nutter was just raving as usual?"*

The bangs and squeals that followed indicated that the two Death Eaters were being far from gentle with their host. As the sounds of Xenophilius suffering filtered up the stairs, Hermione crept towards Ron. She was thinking fast. We can't leave yet: we need to know exactly what Xenophilius tells them. Assuming the Death Eaters don't believe him, we can wait until they've gone, overpower Xenophilius and Obliviate him, then leave. Worst case scenario, we're going to need to Obliviate all three of them.

Hermione was halfway to Ron when the situation got worse: while the Death Eater she had categorised as stupid was labouring under the misapprehension that Xenophilius had lured them to his house in an attempt to kill them, the other one...the calm one...had cast Homenum revelio. Dammit, she swore silently. She froze in place, one foot awkwardly balanced in midair.

The sensation was peculiar, as if a thin strip of cold light scanned over her body.

"There's someone up there all right, Selwyn,"* noted the other Death Eater, a new excitement ruffling the calm edges of his voice.

"It's Potter, I tell you, it's Potter!"* wailed Xenophilius. "Please . . ." he begged, "please . . . give me Luna, just let me have Luna. . . ."*

Too lazy...and not entirely convinced it wasn't part of an ambush...the Death Eaters set Xenophilius to clear the stairwell. Hermione used the sounds of his panicked sobs and noisy efforts to cover her own movements as she scrambled quickly over the rubble towards Ron. One non-verbal Hover Charm later, his legs were freed.

"Come on," Harry urged in a whisper, pulling Ron to his feet, "we've got to get out of here."*

Hermione was hunting around in her beaded bag and sighed with relief as she pulled out Harry's Invisibility Cloak. "All right."* She glanced over her shoulder at the top of the stairs. The remainder of the printing press was balanced across the opening. As she watched, it began to wobble: Xenophilius was nearly through.

"Do you trust me, Harry?"* she asked urgently. Her eyes were wide and round, emphasised by the white powder that lay over her lashes and across her cheeks.

He nodded, reaching out to take the Cloak. Hermione, however, didn't let go.

"Okay then."* Hermione's mind was still racing. "Give me the Invisibility Cloak," she instructed, gently pulling it back out of his grip. "Ron, you're going to put it on."*

"Me? But Harry..."*

"Please, Ron!"* Hermione was tempted to punctuate the rebuke with an uncharacteristic profanity, but she bit it back and raised one eyebrow instead. Hell, that works for Snape. "Harry, hold on tightly to my hand, Ron, grab my shoulder."*

Obediently, the two boys did as they were told. Harry held out his left hand, clearly...and sensibly...unwilling to hold onto anything but his borrowed wand with his right, and after a second's thought, Hermione offered him her elbow. He took a firm grip. She could feel both of Ron's hands, hidden under the Cloak, close tightly around the upper part of her left arm.

"Hold tight,"* she muttered, focussed on the gap at the top of the stairs. The printing press was shaking violently. "Hold tight . . . any second . . ."*

Harry shot her a worried look, but she shook her head minutely, her eyes didn't waver. There!

The moment Xenophilius appeared, Hermione shouted, "Obliviate!"* The spell hit him squarely in the face; he didn't stand a chance. Without hesitation, Hermione pointed her wand downwards. "Deprimo!"* she cried.

Unfortunately, the hole she blew in the floor missed both Death Eaters, but did afford her a memorable...if fleeting...glimpse of their astonished faces as she, Ron and Harry dropped like stones.

Before Disapparating her friends to safety, a fleeting and ignoble thought crossed her mind: Cool-headed reason just saved your life, Xenophilius; don't you forget it.

Later that night, Hermione sat and stared out into the darkness, her insides churning with anger. After a completely unexpected series of events, she was now rather well-disposed towards Ron (his repeated comments regarding her genius and brilliance in the aftermath of their escape from the Lovegoods' had only helped to cement their rapprochement) and furious with Harry.

Harry.

Harry was giving her the creeps. Whenever he talked about raising the dead, an odd, disturbing light lit his eyes.

If the Hallows existed, Dumbledore would have told him, right?

Things were so complicated that Hermione was struggling to reason her way out. Was the story true? At one point, Harry had twisted the facts in such a way that she'd almost doubted her own sanity...but then he'd decided the so-called Resurrection Stone was hidden in the Snitch.

Bullshit. Just because the Snitch is small on the outside, doesn't mean it's small on the inside. There could be anything in there.

Surely Dumbledore could perform an Undetectable Extension Charm at least as well as she could. That thought alone was comforting.

There must have been a reason Dumbledore didn't tell Harry about the Hallows . . . was he worried that he'd get distracted by them? Worried he might give up on the quest to find the Horcruxes?

Hermione was chewing mercilessly on her lower lip.

So, why then did he give me the book? Did he want me to find the sign?

The answer, when it came to her, was obvious:

He gave me the book precisely so we'd know it was nothing but a fairytale! Dumbledore knew...just like he knew Ron might leave...that Harry would find the Hallows seductive. He had to make sure that I'd know the truth, to make sure I could keep him focussed on the Horcruxes. After all, that's my job: to keep Harry alive!

The comfort of that realisation was short lived, however, for thoughts of keeping Harry alive returned her attention to her other, seemingly insurmountable problem: how to destroy the Horcrux inside Harry without killing him in the process. By the terms of the assignment she'd accepted from Dumbledore, Hermione knew it to be her task...hers, and hers alone.