Running AIAOY 7

Chapter 11

"Muggles say these keep evil away."  Luna mentioned airily.  She and Draco were downstairs, sitting on the steps outside the door.  

"Really?"  Draco looked up at the tinkling shells moving with the slight breeze.  "They're just chimes."

"Well, they're wrong."  Luna looked at his arm and tilted her head.  "Does it hurt?"

"No."  Draco turned his arm over instinctively.  

"Eyes are the reflection of the feelings within."  She was quiet a moment.  "You're not a very good liar."

"It doesn't hurt, not really.  It...it hurts knowing it's there."

Bill called for Luna.  He and Fleur were compiling a list of supplies needed for the group of Horcrux hunters who would be leaving soon and for those who would be staying at Shell Cottage a while longer.

Fleur took Luna's seat and pursed her lips at the boy in front of her.  "And what about you?"

"Me?"

"You."  She nodded to him.  "Are you needing something?"

"No, I'm okay."

Fleur sat quietly a moment.  "You will stay here, with Bill and I.  The others...they've been here too long.  They will have to go."

"I can go, too.  Not with them, I know."  Draco winced as he kept talking.  "I can't know locations, not more than this one, I understand that.  But I can go too, off somewhere.  On my own."

"And what then?"  Fleur stood and brushed her hands off.  "You will stay here.  I'm putting together clothes, you need to get out of that.  But you will stay here."

Draco looked down at his tattered, torn clothes.  They had been cleaned, but the shredded pieces remained as proof that two weeks earlier, he and Rebecca had been tying themselves back into one piece.  "Fleur, I-"  He chewed at his cheek.  "I speak some French.  If you ever miss it.  It's been a while, but I could probably, you know, understand a little."

Fleur smiled.  "Thank you."

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Rebecca stepped up the last stair as Molly had directed her to.  She wasn't surprised to find Harry at the end of the hall, looking down the length of the house to where Griphook's room was.  

"Underhanded, wasn't that?"

Harry grinned at her.  "Maybe.  But it made it so Molly won't fight even harder for you to stay behind, didn't it?"

Rebecca's jaw dropped.  "Sneaky.  I didn't know you had it in you."

Harry reached for arm and stopped her from going ahead.  "You know, you can stay if-"

"Let's go talk to Griphook, Harry."  Rebecca interrupted icily.

Hermione and Ron poked their heads out of a doorway midway down the hall, watching the exchange carefully.

"I'm just saying-"

"Well, there's no need to say because I am not staying.  I will be with you lot, that is that."  Rebecca caught sight of Hermione and Ron disappearing back into their hiding spot before joining the Potter twins, their hiding spot discovered.  "Backup?  Really?"

Ron nudged her with a smile as they knocked on Griphook's door.  It had become unspoken Weasley law that Ron's abandoning of the group was a result of the horcrux, that he had lost himself for a while.  Rebecca wouldn't have cared even if it had been talked about; Fred whispered every night how they were each other's, how their family was all around them.