The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

23. The Deathly Hallows

"Well, I don't suppose it matters," sighs Hermione. "Even if was being honest, I never heard such a lot of nonsense in all my life."

"Hang on, though," says Ron. "The Chamber of Secrets was supposed to be a myth, wasn't it?"

"But the Deathly Hallows can't exist, Ron!"

"You keep saying that, but one of them can," says Ron. "Harry and Haylee's Invisibility Cloak --"

"'The Tale of the Three Brothers' is a story," says Hermione firmly. "A story about how humans are frightened of death. If surviving was as simple as hiding under the Invisibility Cloak, we'd have everything we need already!"

"I don't know. We could do with an unbeatable wand," I say, a shiver running up my spine when I remember the terror of finding myself without a wand back at the Lovegood house. 

"There's no such thing, Haylee!"

"You said there have been loads of wands -- the Deathstick and whatever else they were called --"

"All right, even if you want to kid yourself the Elder Wand's real, what about the Resurrection Stone?" Her fingers sketch quotation marks around the name, and her tone drops with sarcasm. "No magic can raise the dead, and that's that." 

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she seems to anticipate our rebuttal.

"Whatever magic brought your dad back is different!" she says quickly. 

"How so?" Harry retorts. "He was dead, and now he isn't. And anyway, if you want less solid proof: when our wands connected with You-Know-Who's, it made our mum appear...and Cedric..."

"But they weren't really back from the dead, were they?" says Hermione. "Those kinds of --- of pale imitations aren't the same as truly bringing someone back to life."

"But she, the girl in the tale, didn't really come back, did she? The story says that once people are dead, they belong with the dead. But the second brother still got to see her and talk to her, didn't he? He even lived with her for a while..."

I see concern and something less easily definable in Hermione's expression. Then, as she glances at Ron, I realize it is fear: We have her scared with Harry's talk of living with dead people. 

"So, that Peverell bloke who's buried in Godric's Hollow," I say hastily, trying to sound robustly sane, "you don't know anything about him, then?"

"No, she replies, looking relieved at the change of subject. "I looked him up after I saw the mark on his grave; if he'd been anyone famous or done anything important, I'm sure he'd be in one of our books. The only place I've managed to find the name 'Peverell' is Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. I borrowed it from Kreacher," she explains as Ron raises his eyebrows. "It lists the pure-blood families that are not extinct in the male line. Apparently the Peverells were one of the earliest families to vanish."

"'Extinct in the male line'?" repeats Ron. 

"It means the name's died out," says Hermione, "centuries ago, in the case of the Peverells. They could still have descendents, though, they'd just be called something different."

And then it comes to me in one shining piece, the memory that had stirred at the sound of the name 'Peverell': a filthy old man brandishing an ugly ring in the face of a Ministry official. And in perfect unison, Harry and I cry aloud. "Marvolo Gaunt!"

"Sorry?"

"Marvolo Gaunt! You-Know-Who's grandfather! In the Pensieve! With Dumbledore! Marvolo Gaunt said he was descended from the Peverells!"