𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄

Part 20

1.

Three days before the first of September, Hermione’s head appears in the fireplace.

“Granger wants to talk to you about something,” Malfoy says, prodding Harry to answer the Floo-call.

“Hullo Harry,” Hermione says over the whoosh of the floo. “The Weasleys are having a family dinner tomorrow night at the Burrow. Come and have supper. We haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”

Harry nods and says he’ll come. Behind him, he can hear Malfoy grumbling already, but he doesn’t really listen too closely.

He orders a Portkey for Friday afternoon, but Tomkins in the Department of Magical Transportation can’t get one any closer than a field a few miles off. “That’s all right,” Harry says, “we can walk the rest of the way.”

“Walk?” Malfoy spits, after they portkey into a raining field, sopping with mud puddles and deep trenches between furrows, filled with cold water. “Walk?” He flicks his wand and Harry’s wristwatch falls off. Malfoy catches it like a Snitch and transfigures it into a large, black umbrella that their children all huddle under.

Harry ducks his head under, but the rest of him doesn’t fit. His back grows damp with the drizzling rain and his shoes squelch in the mud. They walk aways until Harry recognizes a hillcrest and says, “It’s not too far from here.”

Beside him, Malfoy rolls his eyes.

“We didn’t we just Apparate?” Abraxas complains.

“Too much effort,” Harry says.

“Like this isn’t effort enough,” Malfoy mutters.

Harry rolls his eyes again.

The landscape has changed little since Harry was last here- the trees are a little taller, a big, wide oak has a split down its trunk and the hill seems smaller, but the fields and the small houses dotting the world remain the same. He walks on, before veering left onto a little muddy pathway through some scrubby bushes. “This way’s shorter,” he tells them.

“My robes are filthy,” Malfoy grumbles.

“Mine too,” Viola whines. “If I’d known you’d make us walk through the mud, Dad, I would have worn my jeans.”

“It’s not far,” Harry assures them. “Really.”

It has been a long time since he has walked this way. He knows the Burrow is close, just through this small copse of short bushes and tall oaks and elms, but when they reach an open hillside again, he doesn’t remember this way or this place at all.

Gravestones lie cluttered in clumps of twos and threes, spread across the hill, overturned and crooked, grass growing up the sides. They walk throw the widest row between graves, toward the field where Harry can see the main chimney of the Burrow sticking up into the grey sky.

“What a lovely walk we’re having,” Malfoy drawls, sarcastic and condescending. “A pleasant day and a pleasant stroll through a graveyard.”

Harry feels someone reach out and clutch his hand with a small, sweaty palm. He glances down at James, who walks close to him.