28. Who’s the caring hand now?

I was a sleep and a little time later I woke up by the soft repeating of my name. “hmmm”
“Joan, I’m sorry, but are you alright?”
“Fred?” I asked with my eyes still closed.
“uhu”
“I’m sorry”
“you were right, tell me, what’s wrong?”
“can’t tell you, I’m sorry”
“that’s ok, come on here” he said and I straightened up to put my arms round his neck. His strong arms came round me, caring, but strong and it gave the feeling of safety. I remembered how I had loved the strong arms of Draco around me, Fred’s arms were even stronger and he gave me the feeling I could trust him in everything. Thinking this all made me put my head to his chest and cry softly. He held his one hand on my back and laid the other on my head, but didn’t ask to explain. An hour later I still laid in his arms, I still didn’t feel like going away there. Fred didn’t really seemed to mind to, he now sat against the wall with me against him. “Fred?”
“hmm?”
“thank you.” He just smiled and half an hour later Fred decided it was time for me go to bed. I agreed in that and he kissed me on the top of my head “goodnight Joan”
“night Fred.” I startled a bit of the little kiss, but didn’t really mind and got into my bed. I fell a sleep quicker then expected. The next morning I went for breakfast and got back in the common room when the twins and lee got from their dorm. “morning!” they said together.
“good morning” I answered.
“you come back with us?”
“no thanks” Fred all of the sudden came closer to me and grabbed my shoulders and looked straight into my eyes. “Sleep well?” I nodded and clearly appalled him when I stepped closer, but he recovered and putted his arms around me as I did with him. I putted my head on his chest again and he bowed his head to put his chin on my head. After a while I let him go. I heard Lee and George asking him questions while walking to the great hall, questions he nor I could answer. Harry already ate and he only needed one look of me to stand up and follow me outside the common room. “It’ll be a relieve when we can talk about it.”
“hmm, when you know more about it we can talk about it.” Harry was a bit astonished by my answer and remained silent while walking towards the office. “Aaah Harry, Joan, come on in” Dumbledore said friendly. And so we did, we each took a chair and sat down. “So, I’ll start with some regular information, especially for you, Harry. At first it’s important no-one knows yet. And well it of course is about Voldemort. You see our old friend, Harry, has lost a bit of his attention on you, because all of the sudden you have a new friend. You most probably have seen already she’s no ordinary girl. Voldemort aims on people who voluntary become death eaters and persons of great power as you of course know.” Harry nodded and Dumbledore went on. “Now his attention on you is weakened we can ‘attack’ him, by that I mean, we can terrify him, let him know we’re smarter and he’ll pull back for a while, or we could take the entire order and start battle, of course with the necessary preparations.” he gave a weird smile and looked at Harry.
“battle seems best.” he said after a long pause. Dumbledore smiled and nodded, “I’ll inform the order, in time. Now that’s all for today for you, Harry, Joan I’ll need you alone a second.” I nodded, while Harry got up, I knew this felt weird for him and Dumbledore saw it to. But didn’t immediately reacted. When he shot the door, Dumbledore looked at me for the first time that evening. “Professor Snape didn’t like my idea to much.” he gave a little smile, which I found hard to give an emotion. “He thought you should be kept away from danger.”
“I want to help.” he smiled again. “thought you would. So I informed him and the order of my idea to use Voldemort’s distraction, with Harry. It is of need that Harry is the one “finishing” Voldemort. We how ever need time, there’s a need of more preparations then you can imagine. In the mean time I need you to stay the distraction. You’ll need to play the game, Joan.”
“How?”
“you know he used Draco, right? Don’t ever make clear you do. But play Voldemort by playing Draco.”
“But..”
“you think you can’t, Joan? He’s doing exactly the same.”
“but I still..”
“love him? Then think of what’s more important, Joan. Besides you can play the game in a way it helps us, but yourself to.” he winked. “I know you wont let us down oh and before you leave Snape would love to talk to you to.” I nodded stood up and headed for the dungeons. Snape indeed seemed relieved to see me. “Joan!” the last time Snape was calling me at my first name more and more often, it though still felt weird. “So Dumbledore told you what he wants?”
I nodded. “well the three of us are the only ones knowing the entire plan, be proud.” he …smiled! “come” and he walked to the pensieve, a couple of seconds later we were back in time. I couldn’t fully focus at first. What Dumbledore had just asked went trough my mind. Snape stood in front of Voldemort, Lucius at his side. I decided to focus and it worked rather well. “how about it?” Voldemort asked. “Well Joan is feeling a bit depressed lately.” Snape said. “How come?”
“ I don’t know, but it’s quite obvious.”
“Lucius?” The man who’d seemed so terrifying when I met him the first time, now seemed terrified himself. He aimed his eyes on the ground as he uncomfortable tried to make a good sentence. Next I for the second time dived into the memory of a person in a memory. Snape apparently pushed himself into Lucius’ head.
“YOU WHAT?!” a furious Lucius screamed. The pale, handsome boy, he was yelling to looked scared to hell and mumbled, whilst stepping backwards. “I…I ..love her very much father…I can’t just deliver her to the dark lord in a package.”
“Don’t you realise that your oh-so-good-dead just brought me into very, very much trouble?!”
“but..”
“I don’t want to hear it!” and he slammed the boy in his face. Snape came back and stared at Lucius, a bit shocked. I felt the “now-Snape” look at me as tears filled my eyes. Lucius stumbled, “I think my son has made a terrible mistake.” Voldemort’s eyes caught flames, but I didn’t care if Lucius got punished. I needed a hug, but the only person around was Snape. I walked to the memory-Snape and threw my arms around him, not quite knowing why. There was a bound and Snape was as an older brother, that could have been my father. Snape was appalled to see me putting my arms around him, I knew that, but didn’t had the courage to do this with the now-Snape. I should have known that a great occlumens as him was able to adjust his memory and I startled a bit when memory-Snape carefully held his arms round me. I looked up to the now-Snape and he smiled at me. I let him go and heard Voldemort scream against Lucius, but now-Snape took my hand and pulled me out off the memory. I know he had done this because he thought I deserved to know. We stood back in the office of Snape and I kept staring at the pensieve and Snape looked at me. After a while I looked up “thanks” he just smiled in return and I headed for the common room, more specific to my dorm. I slept the rest of the day until Hermione woke me up, “Harry is asking for you.” she said and for a moment it seemed she was going to ask what this was all about, but she didn’t and I followed her to the common room. I looked at Harry, who canted his head and stepped outside the common. I followed him out. “what?”
“ Dumbledore asked to come.” When we arrived he told us to sit down and told us all about Horcruxes. He told us we’d both get a task. Harry’s was to destroy the Horcruxes
and mine was to distract Voldemort. We both got a schedule of when he expected to see us. Because we had different tasks he’d keep us apart, I knew it was because no-one may know what exactly I would be doing. “Harry, I know you will what so ever, so I’ll give you the permission. Hermione and Ron have proven their courage and loyalty to you before, they may know, but no-one else, understood?”
“yes professor.”
“and you, Joan.”
“I can’t tell anyone”
“exactly, nobody may know, not even Harry, ok?”
“yes professor.”
“good., then you may go, Harry you stay here, we’ve some important stuff to do.” I left his office to, surprisingly, get back into my bed, accompanied by Mayjin. The next day I woke up round half past ten. I hadn’t eaten the day before and slept more in these two days then I normally did in a week. I petted Mayjin and heard “ah you’re awake!” I looked up and Fred stood there, smiling. “What’s wrong?” I shrugged.
“don’t you want some breakfast?” I nodded and got up, he closed the door behind him and waited for me in the common room. I followed him down for breakfast. During breakfast Dumbledore announced that we were in the final against Kammfels and all the schools who had entered the WC would be there. The entire school was enthusiastic for the rest of the day…almost the entire school. That evening during practise, I again didn’t say a word, but the team trained hard and I was happy. And again Draco approached me after practise when everyone was gone. I thought of Dumbledore and felt uncomfortable, but then let Draco chose and come. And though I disgusted myself for it I still enjoyed him, his fingers and mouth. And he, probably with the same self-disgust, clearly enjoyed kissing and touching me. I had never been as truly in love with someone as with Draco, but this way it was painful and I knew that every part of how I felt, he felt exactly the same. We both were pushed to the one person we love so much, both knowing it would end bad for the other, but necessary because of fear, we in secret enjoyed each others touch.