Harry Potter and the Norse Gods

{24} Return to the Burrow

STORM

"For the last time, Albus, I've told you everything I know," I snapped. 

He sighed, leaning back in his chair with a pained look on his face. 

"I know - I do, truly. I only wish we knew more. A breach of Hogwarts' barriers is something that has never been accomplished before, and could prove lethal."

"'Could'?" I questioned. 

"Would," he corrected. 

"Will," I corrected again, "It's more of a when than an if now, Albus. At some point, this impenetrable 'fortress' will stop impenetrable." 

Albus didn't argue with me, which was nice, if a little unusual, given the fact that it seemed to be his default setting. 

"What do we do now?" I asked. 

He glanced up at me, surprise glittering in his eyes. 

"You're asking?" he inquired. 

"Well, I'll get in trouble if I do anything without permission," I pointed out, "And if something goes wrong, I can always blame it on you if you're the one who came up with the plan." 

"Right. Of course." 

"Did you expect anything else?" 

"Expect? No. Hope? Perhaps." 

I tensed, looking away from him and electing to study his office in detail instead. 

"Either way, my question still stands. What do we do now?" 

"In short - we wait, we watch, we secure Hogwarts. We be vigilant. That's all we can do, I'm afraid." 

"Well that's boring," I groaned. 

"I suppose it is, but we can't rush into anything." 

"No, you're right - for once. I just don't like sitting around." 

"I never said anything about 'sitting around'," he said, a familiar twinkle in his eyes, "Just don't be reckless."

"What am I? A Gryffindor?" 

"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive," Albus pointed out, a hint of defensiveness in his voice. 

"Yeah, but they kind of are." 

"Agree to disagree." 

I snorted, shaking my head. 

"I should be going before I do something I'm going to regret just to prove a point," I announced, standing from my chair. 

"You sound like you already have the rest of this conversation planned out," Albus chuckled. 

"It doesn't end well for you," I said.

"I figured," he said, smiling sadly as he looked up at me. "You could stay? To drink and talk like old times?"

The sadness was disappearing now, replaced with something that vaguely resembled hope. I felt equally vaguely sad about crushing it.

"Look, I might be being relatively civil to you, Albus, but we're not at that point." 

"Yet?" he asked hopefully.

I was almost - keyword: almost - tempted to agree with him if only so he would stop looking so sad. The thought sparked annoyance, mostly directed at me, for not having the discipline to stay mad at him. I had every right to. I wanted to, even. But I didn't seem capable of it. Every conversation we had, no matter how fiery, was underlaid with history, both good and bad. But we had more 'good' history than we did 'bad', and even though the 'bad' did more than enough damage to eliminate the good from the equation, I couldn't help but slip back into old habits.