Running On Air

Chapter 7

"I know he's not dead." Harry, once more, finds himself pacing in his friends' kitchen.

Ron, sitting at the table with a hot chocolate, raises an eyebrow and looks at Hermione. Hermione, however, seems to be frowning into her cup of tea.

"I don't know, Harry," Ron says at last. "Sounds like...well, sounds like a ghost."

"He's not a ghost, because he's not dead," Harry retorts.

Ron doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then he says quietly, "Are you sure?"

"I know he's not."

"Know, or think?"

Harry wants to snap at Ron, tell him he doesn't understand, but he recognises how Ron thinks. It's something their Auror training hammered into them: decisions should be evidence-based, made with logic and reasoning. Not intuition and 'I just know'.

However, help comes from unexpected quarters.

"This sounds familiar," Hermione says quietly, and Harry's attention snaps to her.

"Familiar how?" he says urgently. "This has happened before? There's been other cases?"

Hermione bites her lip. "Remember when you told me about your dreams, a while ago? And it reminded me of those dreams you used to have — the ones that weren't really dreams, they were Legilimency — "

Ron looks up sharply. "What, when You-Know-Who used to invade Harry's mind?"

"Not quite like that," Hermione says quickly. "But...could it be Legilimency? A skilled Legilimens could cast the spell across great distance."

"No," Harry says at once. "It's nowhere near the same — "

"Legilimency isn't as simple as that, Harry. It depends on the caster — every Legilimens has a different approach, a different style."

"Malfoy is reading Harry's mind?" Ron looks as if he's not quite sure whether he should be alarmed or not.

"It's not about reading minds! Honestly, both of you should really know better. Especially you, Harry. Haven't you been trained in the art of it?"

"Yes," Harry admits, feeling slightly defensive. "But I hate it. You try shoving your way into someone's mind. Anyway, Legilimency can do a lot of things, but it can't make someone appear — "

Hermione levels him with a look. "No, it can't. But it can construct visions, can't it, Harry?"

He stills. The visions Voldemort sent him. The dreams of Sirius in the Department of Mysteries.

Hermione, watching his face carefully, nods. "An exceptional Legilimens can construct visions, hallucinations..."

Ron stands up abruptly and starts pacing. "I don't like the sound of this. Malfoy's playing mind games with Harry?"

"He's not," Harry says slowly. "If you had the power to create a hallucination...anything you wanted...why would you choose to have an ordinary conversation with someone? Maybe this is a last resort, his last way of communicating." He thinks of the way Draco vanished at the end of the conversation. That wasn't part of the vision, he's sure of it. Draco broke an apparent rule when he tried to tell Harry his whereabouts, and suffered the consequences accordingly.

"You should be careful though, Harry," Hermione says.

"Why?"

"Well," she says quietly, "it might not be Malfoy sending you those visions."

Harry doesn't like that at all. He clears his throat and decides to try a different lead. "Hermione, what do you know about hindering prosecution?"