What's at Heart

Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback

The walls were painted sky blue, the carpet a faded warm brown hinting at many years passing along leaving a permanent tread. The walls were covered in several posters that Harry didn't recognize of bands, but also several hand done, and extremely accurate, drawings of dragons that someone had magicked to life, flying around through each other's edges.

It was crowded, the sparse bit of walking space nonexistent with the eight of them all in here at once, hardly much bigger than his cupboard; but the love and care that went into this room was evident from where Harry had landed in a corner watching the others groan and pull themselves together once more.

Ron was already at the door, banging and screaming with all his might, "Mum! Mum, it's Ron! Are you okay! Mum!"

Silence. Even Malfoy waited on tenterhooks to know if rescue was going to finally arrive, but there was no answer. Ron's next broken yell held back a sob as he kept going until his knuckles began turning red.

"Ron! Ron!" Harry and Hermione jumped beside him and tried to pull him back, but they may as well have gotten into another fight with the troll for all the good they were doing as he kept trying to beat the door down with his bare fists and screaming bloody murder. Neville sprung from the bed where he'd landed and finally all three wrestled Ron onto the red comforter, his face as bright as it.

"This room shouldn't exist," Remus murmured. He'd been here enough in recent times to know as he looked out the window what floor they were on. This was supposed to be Bill's old room, only one fading and always asleep poster of his favorite band covered the walls nowadays when he slept here. "We, truly are traveling right through time itself." He hadn't felt this out of place since he was eleven years old, having a sit-down with Albus Dumbledore explaining his special needs while being allowed into Hogwarts. Something as tricky and untested as time magic only just came in a close second to that feeling.

"Great, what a barmy adventure," Sirius groaned as he watched Malfoy prod his wand hopelessly against the door and uselessly tried the same on the window. He hoped the Department of Mysteries never found out about this or they might all vanish into the Ministry never to be seen again as they were prodded like potion experiments.

Ron's watery blue eyes were trained on the back of Malfoy's head, still listening for the slightest peep of his mother in the kitchen where he had found her every step of his life. It wouldn't matter he was so much older than he should be whenever they were, she'd help him and figure out what to do next.

There was no bustling or smells of food. He knew every member of his family's footsteps and what floor of the house they were one, he and Ginny had made more than a few games of it. Only the wind battered the house. For once in its existence, the Burrow was quiet.

He spent the chapter frozen in place taking back every awful thing he'd ever said about his family as he wondered if he'd ever see them again.

"Somebody please keep reading?" Hermione asked anxiously. The only reason she wasn't doing it herself was because she still had a death grip on Ron's arm and was rubbing his sternum to feel him keep breathing, the flush red in his face was the only sign of life.

Sirius did, picking up the book with plenty of curiosity why they were here of all places, and the chapter title about a rare breed of dragon named Norbert wasn't very enlightening. He read it blandly like he would a report to give to Dumbledore full of sarcastic updates how the house cleaning was going. With no real emotion other than mild surprise how that was going to connect.

Remus's watched with his heart doing a summersault in his chest. Some of Padfoot's memories had been jogged, but clearly not all of them, and his very rational fear of dragons from one particular summer of his youth could stay buried; and yet it made no sense. Dementor's fed on good memories, Sirius should well remember his loathing of those beasts and any mention of them should have at least caused a tick of annoyance.