Escape ↣ Harmione

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter 49 - Conversations

It was dark, and her voice was quiet as it floated up to be swallowed by the darkness. "Harry? Are you awake?"

"No," he replied in a sleepy voice.

"Harry," she said a little more insistently.

"Fine, I'm awake, but I'd rather not be." He scooted over, closing the small gap that lay between them and rolled onto his side, her form a darker blob next to him. She scrunched down until her head was under his chin, pushing her back against his chest, entangling their legs and feet together. He settled an arm around her and waited, hoping he wouldn't fall asleep before she got off her chest what was bothering her. He didn't have to wait long.

"You know the shields?"

He made an encouraging noise.

"Do you, do you worry that, well, that they might make things worse?"

He could feel under his hand and against his chest the tension that had entered her. The slight hunching of her shoulders as she said the words, and it made him pause and think, measuring his reply. She'd been stewing on this for a couple of days, she'd not said anything, but he'd seen the glances at the small dish on his desk containing the jewellery he'd made. She'd said nothing when he'd asked what was wrong and he'd decided to let her tell him when she was ready. It seemed now she was.

"Worse how?" he asked softly.

"If we give them to everyone now, won't we just make the Death Eater's try harder?"

"Try harder?"

"To hurt people, to inflict fear. The shields will protect people, but once the shock wears off, then they'll have something to aim for, to break. There's no way of knowing what they might do to break them, and if someone isn't wearing one, are they at risk of being hurt more because they might be?"

"Ah," Harry said. "I had thought of that."

"Oh?" she said twisting her head to look at him in the darkness. Her shoulders followed the movement, and she resettled herself facing him

"If we hand them out indiscriminately then yes, we're going to force them to try harder to hurt people. If we don't hand out them at all, then we leave people open to being hurt when we could help prevent it. If we give the Death Eaters an opportunity to get hold of one, by whatever means, then they'll get the chance to counter them. I am not quite big headed enough to think someone wouldn't be able to unravel the spells and find a way around them. Or make their own. Death Eaters and Aurors all wearing shielding jewellery going at it hammer and tongues? It's a recipe for disaster. I think we're going to have to keep them a sort of secret. There's an argument that handing them around the higher risk Order members is a good idea, as long as they don't stand and make a fight of it, and only use them while they get out of Dodge. That way it looks like bad luck on the Death Eaters part, but it's not a decision I think we can make, it's something that only Snape or Dumbledore, or maybe Kingsley can. We're only going to get one or maybe two opportunities, I think, to use them to the utmost effectiveness. The fight that's coming? Yeah, we need everyone going out there to be wearing one. The general public day to day?" He shook his head.

"You're ok with that?" she asked. "You got them working because of what happened to Bill. You wanted to get them working to protect kids."

"They can still protect kids from school bullies, just not yet. As for the other, it's not my call."

She settled against him once more, and he waited for her to speak again. She didn't, and he felt her body relax as she fell asleep, mentally shrugging, he let himself follow her into sleep.