"Hermione! Hermione? Harry!" Rosalyn called, trying to wake up her friends.
It did, for in a few seconds, Hermione and Harry came out the tent. "Is everything alright?" Hermione asked.
"It's fine," Rosalyn told her. "Actually, it's more than fine," she stepped aside to reveal Ron.
"Hey," they both uttered quietly.
Hermione took a second to digest this, but as soon as she had she was storming towards the two boys. Her face was impassive, her expression icy. Rosalyn smirked.
"You- complete- arse! Ronald- Weasley!" She yelled, punctuating every word with a punch to Ron's stomach. "You show up here after weeks! And you say 'hey'!?"
She turned to Rosalyn, advancing towards her. "Where's my wand, Rosie?"
"I don't know-" Rosalyn backed up against a tree.
"Rosie, where's my wand?"
"I don't know!"
"Rosalyn Potter, you give me my wand!"
Rosalyn fumbled for a second, giving Hermione her wand. "How come she's got your wand?" Ron asked.
"Never mind why she's got my wand!" Hermione turned back to him. "What is that?" She barely breathed, looking at the locket which Ron held up. "You destroyed it?" She then saw the other possession they had. "And how is it that you just happen to have the sword of Gryffindor?"
"Long story," Rosalyn input.
Hermione looked from Rosalyn to Harry, then she turned to Ron. "Don't think this changes anything."
"Of course not, I've only just destroyed a bloody horcrux, how would that change anything?" Ron finally found some fire and fought back. "Look, we wanted to come back as soon as we left, but we didn't know where to find you!"
"Yeah, how did you find us?" Rosalyn asked with furrowed brows. "Harry, you as well, I didn't ask you that."
"Well, I searched every bloody forest in Scotland before I decided to come to England," Harry sighed. "It was just a whim that I got it this quick."
Ron sighed, knowing he had to answer. He held up the deluminator. "With this."
"What?" Rosalyn's eyes became wider and wider.
"I don't know what it is, but it doesn't just turn lights off," Ron told the girls. "But, one morning, I was sleeping in this little pub, keeping away from some snatchers, then I heard it."
" 'It'?" Rosalyn asked.
"A voice," Ron said quietly. "Your voice, Hermione."
"And what did I say, may I ask?" Hermione asked frostily.
"My name, just my name," Ron said. "Coming out of it, like a whisper. So I took it, clicked it, and this tiny ball of light appeared, and I knew, sure enough. It floated towards me, the ball of light, right to my chest, and went through me, right here," he patted his heart. "And I knew it was gonna take me where I needed to go, so I disapparated, came to this hillside. It was dark, I had no idea where I was, I just hoped that one of you would show yourself, and you did."
Hermione didn't look convinced, but thankfully, as Ron strode past her, Rosalyn got to see a tiny smiled etched upon her lips.
☆☆☆
Rosalyn, Harry and Ron were sitting in the tent. Ron and Harry talking, Rosalyn sitting opposite them.
"How long d'you reckon she'll stay mad at me?" Ron asked miserably.
"Just keep talking about that tiny ball of light touching your heart, she'll come round," Harry said in a low tone.
"Blimey, Rosie, I forgot, you want a wand, don't you?" Ron said, looking at Rosalyn sitting opposite them. "I have one here." He pulled a wand out of his pocket. "Blackthorn, ten inches, took it off a snatcher after Harry and I split. They're not the brightest, and one was definitely part troll, the smell of him..."
Rosalyn sniggered, pointing the wand at a jar with a floating flame in it on the table (Hermione's specialty).
"Engorgio," Rosalyn said to the flame in the jar. It exploded. "Reducio!"
The flame shrunk immediately. Rosalyn wasn't used to the wand yet. "What's going on in there?" They heard Hermione from the other room.
"Nothing!" Harry and Ron quickly called.
A second later, Hermione pulled the tent flap open. "We need to talk."
"Yeah, alright," Ron nodded. Hermione rolled her eyes at him.
Pulling The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore out of her pocket, she joined the others, sitting next to Rosalyn. "I want to go and see Xenophilius Lovegood."
"What?" Rosalyn exclaimed in shock.
"See this?" Hermione pointed to the book. "It's a letter Dumbledore wrote to Gindewald, look, there's the mark again." And there it was, the 'A' in 'Albus' was the triangle-circle-line mark.
"It keeps cropping up," Hermione sighed. "In Beedle the Bard, in the graveyard in Godric's Hollow," Rosalyn nodded.
"It was there, too," Rosalyn said, suddenly remembering.
"Where?" Hermione asked.
"Outside Gregorovich's wand shop," Rosalyn breathed. "But what does it mean?"
"Look, you've got no idea where the next horcrux is and neither do I, but this, this means something," Hermione told them.
"Yeah," Ron looked like a lovesick puppy. "Hermione's right. So I say we vote on it, all in favour of going to Lovegood's..."
He put his hand up whilst everyone stared at him. "Tough crowd," he muttered under his breath.
Rosalyn rolled her eyes, heading away to go and make dinner.
☆☆☆
The next day, however, they did go to the Lovegood's. Rosalyn knew it was near the Burrow, and she wasn't a bit surprised when she saw an isolated, weirdly shaped house in the middle of nowhere.
"Luna," Ron said under his breath as they neared the house and climbed up the steps. The other three echoed him promptly.
Rosalyn sighed as they reached the door, worried for what was to come. Before she snorted at the three signs on the door.
Xenophilius Lovegood, Editor of The Quibbler
Pick your own misteltoe
Keep off the dirigible plums
"Remind me why we're doing this?" Ron asked, him too snorting.
Rosalyn had already knocked on the door.
It opened immediately, well, the top half of it, and the exuberant, long blonde haired man that Rosalyn had met at the wedding looked out. "Yes?"
"Er- Mr Lovegood, forgive me, I'm Rosalyn Potter, we met a few months ago at Bill and Fleur's wedding? We were just wondering if we could ask you a few questions?" Rosalyn said politely. "Can we come in?"
Xenophilius looked reluctant, but then he suddenly perked up. "Yes, Miss Potter, come in, come in."
He wasn't the most organised, and the sitting room was full of mismatched armchairs and dining chairs. Xenophilius was dashing about, filling a kettle and putting it on the stove to boil.
Once the tea was made (very weak tea that Rosalyn pretended to sip to be nice) the five of them sat down to talk. "So Miss Potter," Xenophilius began, "what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"Actually, it was about something that you were wearing round your neck at the wedding, a symbol?" Rosalyn asked curiously.
"You mean this?" Xenophilius held up his hand, and in it was the charm of his necklace, the triangle-circle-line symbol.
"Exactly," Rosalyn said, touching the metal of the necklace. "What we wondered, is... what exactly, is it?"
"What is it?" Xenophilius echoed. "Well, it's the sign of the deathly hallows."
"The what?" All four asked.
"The deathly hallows," he rephrased. "I assume you're all familiar with The Tale of the Three Brothers?"
Ron and Hermione said "yes" whilst Rosalyn and Harry said "no".
Xenophilius gave a well-that's-the-plan-scuppered sigh. Hermione, however, held up The Tales of Beedle the Bard. "I have it in here."
She turned the page to the story, then read aloud. " 'There were once three brothers travelling along a lonely, winding road, at twilight'-"
"Midnight," Ron interrupted. "Mum always said midnight."
He quailed under the look Hermione was giving him. "Twilight's fine. Better, even."
Hermione nodded and resumed.
" 'There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure.
"And Death spoke to them. He was angry that he had been cheated out of three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him.
"So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother.
Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead.
"And then Death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not trust Death. So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility.
"Then Death stood aside and allowed the three brothers to continue on their way, and they did so, talking with wonder of the adventure they had had, and admiring Death's gifts. In due course the brothers separated, each for his own destination.
"The first brother traveled on for a week or more, and reaching a distant village, sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. Naturally with the Elder Wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. Leaving his enemy dead upon the floor, the oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where he boasted loudly of the powerful wand he had snatched from Death himself, and of how it made him invincible.
"That very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden, upon his bed. The thief took the wand and, for good measure, slit the oldest brother's throat.
"And so Death took the first brother for his own.
"Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry, before her untimely death, appeared at once before him.
"Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as truly to join her.
"And so Death took the second brother for his own.
"But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life'."
Hermione looked up from reading the story, all eyes were on her.
"That's it," Xenophilius said in barely a whisper. "Together, those three items make the deathly hallows. Together, they make one the master of death."