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UnBroken	By : OddDoll Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 6172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 36
- 37
- 38
Unbroken
By Odd Doll
Chapter 37
The young man Sylvester Waterman provided turned out to be skeptical of the wizarding world, despite having lost a sister to the purging campaign. Frank Kelly, dark, twenty-three and already roughened from days in the sun and wind, had a no-nonsense air that refused to buy anything the witches and wizards did or said, no matter how much magic his sister had shown him. Finally Phoebe said, "Are you willing to take us or not?"
"Well, a'course. Pay's good. Should be an easy trip."
"You realize that once we get there we have no idea how long we'll be before we can return?"
"Prob'ly a good thing. My ex isn't too happy about me right now." His eyes drifted to the side for a second. "Wouldn't believe I got into her sister's bed by accident."
"Will you excuse me for a moment?"
"Sure."
Phoebe stepped outside of the pub where they met Kelly and dialed Waterman. "Do you have anybody else? Anybody?"
"Frank's a good captain. Don't worry. He only seems barmy."
"If you say so, Sylvester. You understand how important this is? The fate of the world could depend upon this trip." Having said it, the full reality of what they had set out to do crashed down upon her, ripping away all the composure she had so carefully layered upon herself day after day, year after year.
"I have to go, Sylvester," she said hastily. Her hand gripped the phone so tight she thought it would break as she started to lower herself onto the ground, but it then slipped from her hand when she lost all control of her body and fell the last foot. Black spots formed in her vision and, realizing she wasn't breathing, she gasped for air she couldn't get enough of. Hands scrabbled at the dirt, trying to crawl away and escape her crushing panic, but the rest of her body wouldn't move. Then pain, nothing but pain.
*****
Severus went looking for Phoebe, instinct guiding him to the back door. He had watched her over the last few days as she assumed more and more responsibility for the lives of others, and knew she walked the slenderest line between composure and panic. While it didn't surprise him to find her lying curled in a fetal ball, trembling all over, his reaction to it did. Deep down, it pained him, his heart squeezing in his chest. He wanted better for her, not because of any inconvenience in dealing with her frail emotional state, but for her own sake. Not since Lily had he cared more for another than himself. Not since Lily died had he loved.
He sat down beside her, pulled her rigid body into his arms and simply held her, stroking her back and hair, and waited. After many minutes, the trembling ceased and she lay limply against him.
"Phoebe? Is it over?"
She could only nod.
"Why don't we go back to the cottage?"
Again she nodded.
"Can you rise?" She tried, but her legs buckled and her hands grasped weakly at his shirt as he rose with her. He ended up Disapparating bent sideways, holding her weight. At the cottage, he let her collapse onto her bed, then gently removed her shoes and guided her to the pillows. After the last two panic attacks he had witnessed, she had been weak and disoriented for several hours. Although he had lost the right to share her bed, he lay down beside her. They faced each other, heads on the same pillow. He kissed her tear-dampened cheek, but did not otherwise touch her. He had the shameful thought that he was glad she wasn't the perfect woman she seemed from the outside. If she were, he would never have her. As it was, she was still too good for him.
"Talk to me, Severus," she whispered.
"What about?"
"I don't know. Something to distract me."
He thought for a moment.
"The caretaker at Hogwarts had a cat named Mrs. Norris. She's scrawny and spooky and I hated her intensely. If you do something illicit in front of that demon, Filch appears instants later. I would swear on Gryffindor's sword they have a psychic connection. Filch would come to me and say a student was smoking in the bathroom, and there that cat would be, standing outside the door. I have to admit she was useful, but I still hated her, because she made me nervous."
She smiled just a little, but her eyes still disturbed him. Too faraway, too vacant. "Severus is afraid of a kitty cat."
"Not afraid, merely...uncomfortable."
"'Fraid."
"Hush. Let me finish the story." He kissed her softly and resumed. "I decided to get rid of her, but since Filch seemed to know everything she saw, I had to be sneaky about it."
"Severus, no!"
"I told you I was a bad person."
"You couldn't."
"I could, and did. I spent a whole term feeding her snacks, trying to find the thing she found most irresistible. I was going to slowly poison her."
"What happened?" She still spoke softly, but her eyes might have been a little more focused.
"It seems arsenic agrees with her. She gained weight, her coat became shinier. What's more, she became attached to me. She would run to me down the corridors and rub up against my legs until I bent down and petted her. I quite like her now."
"You? A cat lover?"
"Shh. It's a secret you must take with you to the grave."
She just laughed a little and shook her head.
"Promise, Phoebe."
"I promise."
He put his arm around around her and pulled her to his chest. "Am I your Mrs. Norris?"
"No, Severus. I was never afraid of you, and I never hated you, even when you were picky or demanding or imperious."
"But you like me more now?"
"Yes, I do. I quite like you now."
He squeezed her. "Sleep, Phoebe. I told Frank he was hired and we would call him tomorrow. There's nothing else we need to do today that we can't do later."
"More people die the longer we delay."
"Hush. Don't think like that right now. Do I have to tell you another story?"
"Tell me about Harry Potter."
So he talked until she dozed off, and remained holding her while she slept, safe in his arms. He knew that when she woke she would get up, make phone calls, give support to the Order, and provide for their needs. She would stand up before a crowd, make vital decisions, and give orders, all as if she were unbroken.
How he loved this woman who shouldered the weight of so many lives in spite of her paralyzing fear.
*****
Two days later their little group assembled on a small yacht Phoebe had hired in the port at Plymouth. Frank Kelly brought two men with him to help crew the boat. When Phoebe and Severus arrived, the young people were already there, with Sylvester and two other pall bearers, all carting provisions from a Muggle vehicle to the hold of the boat. The island, according to the charts, lay only half a day from the coast, but Phoebe insisted on bringing a week's worth of food and water.
"When we get there, they should honor their agreement, but I don't trust that they'll feed and house us," Phoebe said.
"We would have to get certain promises before we could accept their hospitality, anyway," Severus told her.
They were soon underway. The first few minutes of the trip passed smoothly, but as soon as they passed out of the sound and into open water, Ron and Ginny Weasley both became violently seasick. Hermione fussed over them, but could do little to help. Typically, Phoebe came to their rescue.
"Come with me," she told Hermione. "They won't die if you leave them for a couple of minutes."
Phoebe led Hermione to the dark, cramped hold and said, "I can't remember which bin I put the first aid stuff into, but I think it was green. Or gray. I thought to bring some seasickness potions."
"Brilliant. Almost all of these bins are gray or green.
"Look for crackers, too. They won't be able to eat much for a while."
Hermione levitated a bin off the stack.
"We might as well organize it all while we we're at it," Phoebe said. "Who knows how long we'll need it."
They worked in silence, then Phoebe asked, "What have you been doing with yourself since Hogwarts fell?"
"I went to a Muggle school for a while. Now I work in a library."
"Do you live with your parents?"
The bin hovering in front of her dipped to one side and then straightened. "I sent them away," she said the tone of her voice conveying so little that it said everything about how much that cost her. "For their safety I made them forget they had a daughter."
"That's...extreme. Was it really necessary?"
"They target the families of Muggle-born, and Harry was --is -- one of my best friends. It makes me a particular target." She had been holding the bin three feet above the deck, forgotten, but now let it down with a thud and sat down on the lid. "They should have told us! We thought he was dead for over two years."
"Severus told me that they were close to a solution to the hold the Dark Lord had over him, they were just buying a little time."
A thoughtful look spread over Hermione's face, making her appear much older than eighteen. "Do you think it will be safe there? If Dumbledore did make it, they might not have let him leave."
"Severus and I discussed it at length and the upshot was that we just don't know." Phoebe sat down on a bin across from Hermione. "This is the kind of thing you only do when you're desperate."
"I've read about them."
Of course she has, Phoebe thought. The girl seemed to have read something about everything. Phoebe had gone through many of Severus's stack of books on the Sidhe. What she found hadn't reassured her. "They're capricious. They love to mess with humans."
"Yes. That seems to be true, but if you bind them into a contract where the wording is clear, they'll always honor it. They consider a promise of hospitality a contract."
"They also helped against Grindelwald."
"If you don't make the wording right, though, they like to keep humans trapped on their island. The few that returned said they were treated well, but they couldn't leave."
"What we're saying then, is that we don't know what will happen."
Phoebe was about to get up, but Hermione said, "Ms. Baher," in one of those voices that say a serious question was coming.
"What?"
"What happened to Professor Snape? He's...different."
"Different how?"
"More patient. Less arrogant. I still don't like him much, but he's a lot easier to be around. He actually looks at us kids like we're human beings." She smiled a little. "And then there's the way he looks at you. It's not super obvious, but I never thought I'd see a look like that on his face."
Phoebe had seen that look, a few minutes before he coaxed her into bed. "What kind of look?" she asked anyway.
"Like he adores you. He sort of relaxes and brightens when he's watching you and thinks nobody's looking."
"Oh." And right then she had to acknowledge that Severus had feelings that might go beyond sex. Having been in the same situation for twenty years with Michael, it revived painful emotions. It put her in a position to hurt him very deeply, and the man had already gone through so much.
"I wish that Ron looked at me like that."
"He does, when you're being an egghead."
"An egghead?"
"Smart." She thought for the right words. "Exceedingly clever."
"Oh." The girl ducked her head and smiled a little.
*****
For those who weren't seasick, the trip took on a party atmosphere. Bill and Hermione cooked a mountain of eggs and toast, and everyone except Severus sat on the upper deck and ate in the sunshine. The breeze snatched at Phoebe and Hermione's hair, pulling it into their faces, and both tied it back. Severus stayed inside at the table to study his curse-breaking books.
"Come outside," Phoebe insisted when she brought his plate. "It's a beautiful day."
"There's nowhere to walk. There's nowhere for us to sit and talk privately."
She held the plate in front of his nose, and he frowned, waving it away. "I'm sure the kids would give us some privacy if we asked for it. What do you want to talk about? It's pretty private in here right now."
To her surprise, he said, "How are you?"
She sank into a chair, but still held out the plate. "Eat before it gets cold."
First he organized his notes into a neat pile, set bookmarks in the books and stacked them to one side, then he took the plate and set to. "How are you?" he asked between mouthfuls.
"Do you think I'm a liability?"
He paused in his eating, watching her face, testing her mood. Sensing no anger, he said, "Not at all. You are what will make this trip a success. I merely..." He had to be honest. "If you have an attack on this boat, there may be little chance to hide it."
"Almost none at all, I would think. Very close quarters."
"How do you feel about that?"
She shrugged. "I am more than that, Severus. You taught me that. If people begin to doubt me, I'll just have to work harder."
"You're already taking on too much responsibility."
"There's no one else, really, although the Weasleys are helping. Sylvester, too."
Severus frowned at the mention of the Muggle's name, but he said nothing. He was learning.
"What do the Muggles call it, Phoebe? Delegate. Learn to delegate."
It wasn't the amount of work, though. That she had learned to cope with long ago. "It's the decision-making. I can't delegate that. No one wants it."
"The Order makes decisions as a group, but they always deferred to one person who was in charge. That was always Dumbledore. Once he's found, you can let go of the reins."
"I suspect I'll stay involved until this is all over."
"Yes, but you can let someone else worry."
She laughed. "I'm incapable of doing that. That's my whole problem."
*****
At noon of that day, the captain announced they were there. Everyone trooped to the top deck to look out at a vast, empty expanse of ocean.
"GPS is workin' fine," Frank Kelly insisted. "This is where it's supposed t'be."
Severus cast a revealing charm. For brief seconds a hazy outline of a rocky inlet shimmered on the sunlit water. He cast it again, more forcefully, but the image didn't change or remain any longer. "Fae magic is stronger than mine."
"Did we all see that?" Phoebe asked those assembled. They all had.
"Even I saw it," said Frank.
For the next several hours the witches and wizards stood at the bow of the boat and tried revealing charms and dispelling charms. Snape had prepared spells to counter Fae magic, but they didn't work either. Ron tried a paintball charm thinking that the splotches would be visible when the rocks beneath them weren't, but the little balls arced into the air and dropped uselessly into the ocean. At dusk Frank poured a bottle of wine over the side as an offering to Poseidon.
"The god always needs time to think," he said when nothing happened.
"That was a waste of a bottle of wine," Bill whispered.
"At least it wasn't champagne," Ginny said. The seasickness potion worked wonders, although both she and her brother smelled like seaweed. "Phoebe brought some."
"You weren't supposed to know about that," Phoebe said.
"Hermione told me. She said you were maybe over confident."
"It was optimism."
"Do ya have any cheese?" Frank asked. "He likes cheese."
Severus came up from below then, saving them all from the need to find a response. "It's getting too dark to see. We should resume tomorrow." He tapped the leather tube of Dumbledore's papers against this thigh. "Hermione," he said tentatively.
"Yes, professor?"
"Would you care to look at these papers with me? There might be an answer I'm missing."
Four jaws dropped. Hermione stood slowly from where she sat by the rail. "Certainly, professor." The others remained silent while she followed him below.
"I don't know what's stranger," Ron said. "That he asked for help or that he used her first name. What did you do to him, Phoebe?"
"He went through an ordeal. I had nothing to do with it."
Ron stared toward hatch where Severus and Hermione had disappeared. "He's still a tosser."
*****
On the third day, they ran out of both fresh food and their even tempers. The cabins each held four bunks, making cramped quarters for everyone. Whispered conversations at the rail always seemed to be snatched by the breeze and carried to the ears of anyone nearby. Only the dark, smelly hold offered a moment of privacy for Severus and Phoebe to discuss their situation without worrying the others, and even then they twice surprised Hermione and Ron snoggingg behind the stacks of bins.
Severus disappeared on that third night, Disapparating somewhere without warning. Over breakfast the next morning, the kids began to mutter that he'd left them.
"He's still a git," Ron said. "I mean, he's different, for certain, but you don't be as bad as he was and turn into a decent person."
"Do you remember when he deducted five house points because my Gryffindor scarf was touching the floor?" Hermione added.
"I once got three days detention for calling a Slytherin girl a slag when she turned my potion into mud," Ginny said.
As they recounted story after story of times when Severus had been cruel or unfair, Phoebe could not help wonder for the hundredth time who she had really befriended. The man who had trained her to duel had not been kind or all that patient, but he had been unfailingly determined to see to her safety.
"Was he a good teacher?" she asked, interrupting yet another anecdote.
"Well..." Ron began.
"Yes," Hermione said with conviction. "In between insulting us for poor performance, he was a very good teacher, but we had other good teachers who were a lot kinder."
Ginny narrowed her eyes at Phoebe and said, "He'll be back. I know it."
"Why do you think that?" Ron asked.
"He would never leave Phoebe."
Just then he returned with a soft pop outside the lounge.
"Phoebe," he said, standing in the doorway.
"Where were you?"
"Come. I have something for you."
"What?"
He glanced around at the people gathered there. "You'll see."
Phoebe shrugged and followed him to the hold.
"Here," he said, pulling a plastic bag from his pocket and thrusting it at her.
Phoebe took it and slowly opened it to find three medicine bottles. Each bore the name of a different person, but all three held the same medication -- her anti-anxiety drug.
"Severus," she whispered.
"It's the right drug, isn't it? I kept the empty bottle and matched the drug and dosage." She could hear the note of doubt in his voice. He wanted approval.
"They're perfect. This is three months worth, but..." She looked up at his face. He had stolen these pills for her. "You stole them, didn't you? You didn't need to do this for me, Severus."
"I did. You were suffering, and I could see how the medicine helped. I took them from a large pharmacy. They have more."
"It's a mercy you weren't caught." She wouldn't tell him it was wrong. In these desperate times, she knew the cause needed her, and she needed to function at the peak of her abilities. The fate of the world could depend upon the little pills in her hand. She also knew the cause had nothing to do with Severus's actions.
Severus stood, silent and dark, waiting for something that, even with this kindness, she couldn't give him. Cruel and unfair, a former Death Eater on one hand, and a kind, thoughtful lover on the other. Then it struck her: he was kind to those he cared about, but until Felicity House he had cared for no one except the memory of a girl who had died over fifteen years ago. Now he was kind to Phoebe, and her alone.
"The kids say you're being a lot nicer than you ever were before. I like that, Severus, but I heard you say something to Ron about his deplorable performance in potions."
He looked away, shifting from foot to foot. "Ron was a mediocre student."
"Perhaps, but you didn't need to tell him that."
"He was interfering with my research."
"And that's where you dig deep and find some patience. Give him something to do that's within his capabilities." She tried to say it as gently as possible. "You have so much anger in you, but you direct it at the world in general instead of those who need it."
"I'm not angry at you, Phoebe."
"No. I know that. I'm beginning to wonder if you ever could be."
"What do you want from me, Phoebe? Lily wanted me to be different, and when I ignored her, I lost her. But that was different. Lily and I were different on a fundamental level. You and I, we belong together. We're better together, Phoebe, than we are apart."
It might be true. Phoebe didn't know what she was waiting for. Some sign, maybe, that her trust in him wasn't misplaced.
"Are you ashamed of me, Phoebe?" he asked icily. "Am I your dirty secret?"
"No, of course not. The kids all know, anyway."
"Then what? You've changed over the last few days, and I don't think it's the close quarters." He moved closer. She didn't back away, instead placing her palms on his chest.
"I'm becoming too important to you."
"Isn't that what women want?" He placed his hands over hers, gripping them.
"Everyone wants to be loved, Severus, but they also want it to last. Michael loved me but he left me over and over again. I don't want to do that to you."
He placed one palm along her jaw, fingers threaded into her hair, holding it there while dark eyes stared into hers. At first she thought he would kiss her, but he spoke again. "I've known all along this wouldn't last, Phoebe. It is likely that within the next six months one or both of us will be dead. Or we'll defeat him and you will return to America while I return to Hogwarts."
"So you're saying we should enjoy it while we can?"
"Yes."
He did kiss her then, briefly, but she pulled away to rest her cheek against his chest. Leaning into him, she inhaled the garden scent from the herbs he used in potion-making that no amount of washing could remove. She wondered if in the future the smell of a garden would always make her feel this content. Of all the people who knew of her anxiety attacks, he was the first who simply accepted that they were a part of her. Phil had coddled her while secretly glad that she wasn't perfect. He liked her flawed, thinking it meant she needed him. They upset Michael, who turned to Phoebe for support and strength.
She moved her arms to encircle his neck. He responded by holder her tighter, squeezing a little.
"I wonder, Phoebe," he said in his silky voice, "if what concerns you most is not hurting me, but how you will feel when it's over."
She didn't respond; she didn't know.
She placed a palm on one cheek and a soft kiss on the other. "Be yourself, Severus, but rein it in just a little, and let me come to terms with it on my own," she said. When she left they were both confused, lonely, and hurting, but each held onto just a little more hope.
*****
After steering in circles for several hours, Frank had turned off the engines and anchored the yacht on the first day, commenting that the anchors had hit bottom. This further confirmation that they were tantalizingly close to solid land fueled both their hopes and their mounting frustration. On the fourth day, Frank unplugged the refrigerator to save fuel. On the fifth they ran out of bread, their meals consisting of canned food, snacks, and peanut butter on crackers. Severus predicted there would be homicide when the tea ran out.
For some reason, Ginny refused to speak with Bill, and Hermione and Ron bickered whenever they weren't alone together.
"Must you have your papers everywhere?" Bill grouched on the morning of the sixth day.
"I'm doing important work," Severus replied, condescension in every syllable.
Outside the sky poured down, and they all crowded into the galley to find some sort of breakfast. Hermione elbowed Ron. "Move aside. You need a shower."
"We all do," Phoebe said, "which leads me to what I have to say. We will run out of water tomorrow." They went quiet, looking around at each other. "We have to find a solution today, or we return home tomorrow."
"I have read every every scrap of paper Severus has," Hermione said. "Four times."
"When did he become 'Severus'?" Ron asked. Severus wondered the same thing.
"Shut it." Hermione snapped.
Severus leaned back in his chair a fraction. "Perhaps you think you could do better?"
Ron opened his mouth but then seemed to think better of it.
"I've been concentrating on the curses," Bill said. "Maybe I'll have a go at it."
"You've been here all week, and you haven't helped?" Ginny said. She grabbed papers from the table at random. "Which one is it?"
Severus picked up a paper from atop a pile at his elbow and held it up to her between thumb and forefinger. "Do your best," he said derisively.
Ginny looked at it for twenty seconds. "Well, duh, you need a seer."
Nearly everyone in the room said, "What?" at the same moment.
"'See' is capitalized. That means divination."
Severus froze, waiting for the condemnation to come. Instead, Hermione said, "How could I be so stupid? A seer. Of course."
Ginny read aloud from the paper. "See the Signs and follow. 'Signs' is also capitalized."
"How could I have missed it?" Severus murmured to himself.
Phoebe, right beside him, ran her fingers through his hair, kissed his cheek, and whispered, "You're damn good, but nobody's perfect."
"Too much is at stake to allow this kind of mistake."
Phoebe kissed him again and leaned away, and then said, "Do any of you have divination skills? I never studied it."
Ron snickered and Hermione let out a disgusted humph. Bill said, "You have to have a little to do curses well, but it's not my strong suit."
Ginny glanced at Hermione, blushed a little, and said, "I had high marks in divination."
Hermione threw up her hands. "It's easy to have high marks in divination. You make up a bunch of codswallop and recite it in a breathy voice."
"And you were unwilling to do that," Ron said. "Which is why you failed--"
"I didn't fail. I dropped out."
"Because you were failing."
"I wasn't--"
"Enough, children!" Severus said. "Ginny, do you think you could do something?"
She looked out the windows to the rain-swept deck, squinted a little, and shrugged. "Maybe something with a large mirror, or a scrying bowl."
Severus waved a hand to Hermione and Ron, who were leaning against the dish cupboards. With a shake of her head, Hermione turned and quickly produced two large mixing bowls, one white, one metal.
"Fill the metal one with water," Ginny said.
Severus stood and swept up his papers and books, making room at the table for Ginny. Hermione placed the large steel bowl in front of her. For a moment Ginny didn't move, then she lowered her face into her hands and wept.
"What's the matter, Gin?" Hermione asked. Both Hermione and Phoebe gathered around her.
"The scrying bowl," was all she could say for a few minutes.
"What is it, sweetheart?" Phoebe said, brushing away the long red hairs that clung to her damp cheeks.
"I stopped looking when they said Harry was dead." She glanced around at Ron and Hermione. "It used to show the same picture over and over. Harry and I and three little kids. When they said he was dead, I figured it had all been wishful thinking."
Phoebe produced a tissue. "We need you to try, Ginny, but take a minute if you want."
Ginny, tough as she was, didn't need any more time. She wiped her face and blew her nose and settled in front of the bowl. Five people stared down at her and, after a few minutes, began to fidget, the scrape of a shoe, a wall creaking when someone leaned against it.
"Would you get some of the mouth-breathers out of here?" Ginny said.
"Everyone out," Severus said. "We should have someone remain with you," he said to Ginny.
"Bill. He knows how to be quiet." She glanced up at him and to his surprise said, "You, too, professor."
The rest trooped off to the salon to find other amusements while they waited. Phoebe brushed his hand on the way out. When he squeezed it, she pulled him outside to the next room for a moment.
"Be patient, Severus," she whispered so that only they could hear.
"I'm a very patient man."
She snickered. "No, you're not, although from the looks everyone keeps giving you, I suspect you're a lot more patient now than you were before."
He crossed his arms. "Your point?"
"She's a strong, tough girl, but she's only seventeen, and the future of the world is sitting on her shoulders at this moment. You and I know how heavy that burden can be."
Severus looked back through the hatch to where Ginny sat with her back to him, head bowed over the bowl. "Divination is an art, but the fact that she saw both herself and Harry in the bowl together gives me hope."
"Me, too. If she has any sort of gift, it means we get through this."
"Don't read too much into it, Phoebe. It's a cause for hope, but not celebration. There are many more hurdles to jump, even if we get Harry and Albus off this island."
"I suppose they could run off together and have babies, and forget all about the rest of us."
Severus shook his head. "You've never met Harry Potter or you wouldn't say that."
From behind them, Ginny shouted, "Got it!"
"Holy crap," Phoebe said. "That was fast. The girl must really have a gift."
A shout brought their group running back to the galley.
"What do you see?" Severus asked.
"Whatever direction I face," she said slowly, her mind half-engaged in the task of Seeing. "I see what's really there." She lifted the bowl, turned toward the port windows, and pointed with her chin. "There is an enormous rock about five meters out there." She twisted back toward the bow. "It's a maze of tall rocks, with symbols carved into them. We're on the very outside edge."
"Get Frank Kelly," Phoebe said, and Ron, nearest the door, took off.
Already skeptical, Frank Kelly outright refused to believe that a teenager with a bowl of water could guide them through a maze of gigantic rocks that he couldn't see, particularly since he had already piloted the boat through the rock field more than once without hitting anything.
Ginny finally said, "Teach me that paint ball charm, Ron."
"Ron, what are you doing with a paint ball charm, anyway?" Hermione asked.
His eyes slid toward Bill. "Revenge."
"That was a long time ago," Bill said.
"It took Mum six weeks to get that dye out. Six weeks where I wore nothing but pink. Pink socks, pink pajamas, pink underwear--"
"Come on, outside," Severus said.
They huddled at the rail in the pouring rain and Ron, rather than teach his sister something that could potentially be used against him, cast a ball in the direction Ginny pointed. As before, the ball fell into the sea.
"Now would you teach me?"
As soon as she knew the charm, Ginny cast it. This ball also fell uselessly into the water. "No, wait," she said when everybody groaned. "It came up short." She tried again, more forcefully, and the ball of paint splattered against a vertical surface and hung there, rain washing it down into the water. "See? There's a rock there." And it was, visible now to everyone, a dark gray, lichen-covered mass the size of a fire engine rising vertically from the sea.
"I suspect, Mr. Kelly, that if you were to steer this yacht in that direction now, it would not pass through," Severus said. "Wizards do not often use this kind of magic. It's..."
"It's mind-boggling," Phoebe said.
"Yes. The power to produce even one rock is staggering. To charm a whole island would have taken centuries for wizards."
"Let that be a reminder to you," Phoebe said to everyone assembled there. "These are folk not to be messed with."
"Frank," Severus said. "Can we get in motion now? Ginny?"
"Paint balls ready."
Frank still stared at the rock hovering a few feet from the port railing. "How many more are there of these?" he asked in a wheezy voice.
"It's a forest out there," Ginny said. "This is a small one."
*****
Because of the rain, everyone moved inside and resumed scrounging for breakfast, except Ginny, who went to the wheelhouse. The party took turns standing at the windows and watching as each new rock revealed itself under a splatter of paint.
"This formation can't be natural," Phoebe commented.
"Think of the power it would take to build rock formations," Bill said.
Tricky, dangerous, powerful Sidhe. Phoebe couldn't plan for or anticipate what would happen once they reached the island. For the first time since California, fear for her personal safety began to unravel Phoebe's mind. "I'll be in my cabin for a while," she said. "Call me if anything happens."
Once there, she lay on her back in her bunk and practiced every relaxation technique she knew, breathing in and out slowly. The medication helped, but in times of greatest stress, it couldn't completely negate the rising tide of anxious thoughts. Relaxing now, she let that go. Nothing could be done at the moment except think herself into a panic attack, and she wouldn't have that.
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UnBroken