Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
**corrected version, thanks to HERMIONE GRANGER and VICKLES**
Magic Never Dies
Chapter 21
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Ron thought Durmstrang students - at least the ones still left there, anyway - remarkably dense. Thick as bricks would hardly be exaggerating. Surely at Hogwarts they would have been called out by now, if nothing else for a pranking. And yet so far…nothing. It wasn't that he wanted to be caught - far from it. It just seemed wrong somehow that they had managed to get this far.
He glanced beside him at Harry, head purposefully ducked so that his fringe kept his scar well out of view. Neither of them looked all that much like your average Drumstrang student, if their attempt to find uniforms that fit was any indication, but Malfoy…
The joke was that Malfoy was the one who could well in theory have actually attended here; Ron reckoned it was a life-saving instinct on his mother's part that insisted on Hogwarts instead. Even in the militaristic Durmstrang uniform Malfoy could be nothing but… Malfoy.
The route Ogby had mapped out for them was simple enough, the problem was the nature of their destination. Much like Hogwarts, the Durmstrang trophy room was centrally located not far from the Dining Hall. Ogby had told them the cup was in the trophy room itself, not on the display shelves lining the hall, one small gift to be thankful for. The problem was getting there: while it was well past the dinner hour the hall was more than likely used for other purposes and busy even at odd hours.
They had encountered mostly younger students so far; none as young as Hogwarts first years, but certainly no more than thirteen or fourteen. They had an air of being kept round as errand-boys: the whole vibe of the place was wrong for a school. A barracks, more like. Obviously it was the older students who were more closely involved in readying the school for Voldemort's visit. It seemed an awful lot of fuss really…
Unless they were up to something they shouldn't be? Or else had something to hide.
"Have you noticed that no one has any books? No one at all?" he whispered to Harry. "You'd think at least some of them would be worried about exams and such."
A group of three younger ones passed, each carrying an identical, weighty, highly polished wooden box by brass handles. Their eyes strayed toward Ron, Harry and Malfoy and widened.
"What are you looking at?" sneered Malfoy. "Eyes ahead and get to it; the Dark Lord didn't send us ahead for you to stare at."
At least they squeaked like Hogwarts firsties, only slightly deeper. Three sets of eyes dropped to the floor as their owners scurried away.
The sound reminded Ron of something. "How do you reckon they manage without girls at all? Seems like it'd be marvelous to start with, but by sixth or seventh year it must get right boring."
"Why do you think those three ran so fast?" Malfoy snickered.
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Lupin, Tonks, Mad Eye, Bill, Fred and George, Viktor Krum and Hermione all apparated to roughly the same spot on the bank of the stream where the thestral had deposited the two girls earlier that day. This time, however, they were prepared with brooms in hand. Viktor had offered to fly Hermione in, but she was determined to do it herself. So Harry'd better be alive when she got there, because he was going to owe her big for this.
"Right," said Lupin. "Disillusionment charms on as soon as you kick off. Modified migration cluster formation, with Viktor flying point. As soon as we hit the roof, shrink and pocket your brooms. Mad Eye's going to stand guard up there and keep his eye roving for signs of Voldemort while Viktor leads the rest of us in. We'll head for the dungeons first unless we see signs of them elsewhere on the way. If you find them injured in any way, immobilize them, use a weightless charm and run. Our goal is to get them out and get them home. We'll deal with anything else once we're clear of here Speed and stealth are the key; the fewer encounters we have getting in and out the better off we are. Everyone with me?"
There were terse nods all round and they took to the air.
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They were so close. So very close. Just not close enough….
There was no give away sound, no dramatic shout of `There they are!' or `Stop them!'
The first spell brushed the side of Harry's neck with a small shock as it passed, and erupted a quaffle-sized crater in the wall in front of them. They spun around to find what appeared to be Ratzel with ten or so older students spread out in front of him.
"Run! In here!," Harry called out, and took off around the nearest corner. They jerked open a set of doors before them and found themselves in a stairwell. "This one doesn't go downstairs," Ron gasped out breathlessly.
"Up it is then," Harry panted back. He spun around and cast a locking charm on the doors.
They tore up the first set of steps and turned the corner to the next flight just as Ratzel's army managed to burst through to the stairs. Ron shielded them this time and Harry stunned three of the first in swift succession then let off a quick series of Reductors on the steps. They pitted, crumbled and fell in with a crash.
Unfortunately, basic architectural principals meant there wasn't much left holding up the flight they were on any longer, either.
"Way to go, Potter," sneered Draco.
"Shut it and move!" Harry snarled back as the three grabbed at anything they could reach and scrambled up the rapidly collapsing stairs. Ron ended up climbing hand over hand up the banister to reach safety. Once all three made the landing they turned around, briefly examining the gaping hole behind them.
"At least no one's gonna follow us," Ron pointed out. "That's going to take one hell of a Reparo to put back together."
"If we were stupid enough to waste our time trying," a voice informed them from the other direction.
Ron noticed Harry didn't waste time turning around. His wand hand shot out and let fly without aiming, and the burly upper former who'd pushed open the stairwell door flew back, from the sound of it taking at least one of whoever was behind him with him. Ron cast a Colloportus on the door and it sealed with a squelch. "Where to?"
Malfoy eyed him incredulously. "Potter blew up the way down and you just sealed off the only door. Are you really that directionally challenged?" He started up the next flight of stairs. "There'd better be another staircase back down somewhere, moron," he informed Harry.
"There's always the laundry chute," Harry pointed out.
Draco snorted and continued upwards, wand at the ready. Ron started to follow him until he heard a hoarse "shite!" from Harry and felt the swift rush of a hurling spell past his ear. He looked up in the direction Harry was firing and saw two Durmstrangers hanging over the railings two levels above. One ducked in time, the other was hit off-center by Harry's spell and cart wheeled over into the empty space of the stairwell, still casting hexes as he fell.
Another difference between the Durmstrangs and your average Hogwarts student occurred to Ron just then. He himself would have been desperately trying an Arresto Momentum or Wingardium Leviosa-ing himself. At the very least he might have taken a shot at conjuring a featherbed at the bottom. These guys were clearly under instructions to go down taking the enemy with them - and they'd bought into it utterly. He threw himself at Malfoy, shoving him back against the outer wall. There was a stomach churning thump from the bottom of the stairwell but never a moment's hesitation in the hexes flying down from above.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Malfoy hissed. "Get off me."
"Reflex action," Ron snarled back. "I'll never admit I touched you if you'll just conveniently throw me off and die next time."
"For godsake shut up and run, the both of you," Harry told them. "I'll shield you to the next landing, Ron you cover me once you're there."
Ron saw a hurled hex rebound off Harry's shield above them as they scurried up the steps. It hit the caster square in the chest as he leaned over the railing and his uniform erupted into flames. He disappeared from sight with a howl.
They really weren't pulling punches now. At least with him and Malfoy. He wondered how much they truly cared about delivering Harry alive to Voldemort.
They reached the next landing and he turned and shouted "Now, Harry!" casting a Protego across Harry's path as he scrambled after them.
The stairwell door behind them burst open when Harry was roughly half way up, and Ron realized with sickening certainty he should have sealed it before calling him on. There was nothing for it this time: he and Malfoy were at close range wand point.
He locked eyes with Harry and yelled "go back! Now, Harry. Go!"
He saw Harry's anguished indecision, the long moment when so much of their friendship was summed up in two simple words.
"Do it!" Ron yelled. A year ago Harry wouldn't have, couldn't have. Ron knew he would have given up, sure that his job was to save his friend. It had taken a lot to get here on both their parts.
"See you later," Harry choked out, and threw himself over the railing. Ron exhaled gratefully.
"So noble. So stupid," sneered Ratzel. Ron noticed Malfoy was already down, but seemed stunned rather than…
"Stupefy!"
For the first time the almost instant blackness of the spell hit Ron as something of a relief. He was pretty sure he didn't want to know what was going to happen next.
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Hermione hated brooms. Truly, truly disliked them. She knew Harry saw them as freedom and felt perfectly at home balanced on one even when buffeted by wind - or unscrupulous Slytherin seekers - but she just couldn't get past the vertigo induced by being so exposed on such a flimsy instrument. The warmth and solidity of Harry's thestral form had gone a long way to easing her fear of heights; the disillusioning charm now only exacerbated her certainty that the magic of broomstick travel and the scientific reality of gravity were at a tug of war she would surely lose.
They flew in silence in an inverted `V' shape with Viktor as the point, leading them on. The black night swallowed them utterly; there were no lights below in the forest that surrounded Durmstrang so the brightness of the school ahead beckoned like a lighthouse beacon, leading them on to the rocks instead of clear of them.
She prayed the dragons were sleeping. She prayed that Harry and Ron were okay. She wasn't exactly sure who she was praying to, but she felt certain that something, someone was listening and their identity mattered less than their sheer eternal presence.
Viktor led them in a strange, circuitous pattern as they neared the school and they flattened out to single file and followed precisely. It occurred to Hermione that far too many windows were alight for the hour, and something was obviously going on inside. Hopefully simple preparations for Voldemort, but she knew it was far more likely something to do with discovering Harry and Ron.
They landed as quietly as possible; in Hermione's case with an embarrassingly loud thwump. She felt like the victim of a jelly legs jinx as she staggered about, shrinking her broom. All that practice time for Quidditch at last made sense. She had a whole new respect for the fact that Ron could stop a speeding ball, or Harry catch a snitch while balanced on one of those.
Mad Eye silently took up his station, eye roving madly, while the rest followed Viktor to a trap door cleverly hidden in the shadow of one of the three enormous chimneys that crowned the roof. They dropped one by one through it and Hermione realized as she went, second to last with Fred holding the door for her, that it was a leap of complete faith. For all the lights on down below, whatever they were jumping in to was pitch black.
Thankfully the drop was short, perhaps five or six feet, and they were in some sort of attic crawl space with a dim glow of brightness at the far end.
"Wands at the ready," Lupin whispered. They followed Viktor carefully across eight or nine meters of exposed beams like tightrope walkers, gathering again in a circle around the light leaking through the trap door in the ceiling of the floor below. Tonks gingerly pulled the door open and Viktor and Remus dropped swiftly through. Hermione saw several bright bursts of silent wand fire and then one of them must have given Tonks the high sign, because she nodded once and Bill and George dropped through ahead of her.
Hermione came through the ceiling into what could only be a boys dormitory room, although militaristically neat. She wondered vaguely if it were always so, or if was meant to impress Voldemort. Somehow Hermione found it hard to believe the Dark Lord cared at all about hospital corners on bunks. Two students were stretched out to one side on the floor, clearly stunned.
Viktor lead the way out of the room and into a hallway, pausing to listen. Hermione could hear faint shouting from somewhere, the words too indistinct to decipher. They traveled from door to door in silence, each waiting for a signal from the one ahead. Tonks was now behind Fred, with Viktor, Remus, Bill and George before her. Hermione knew she should feel secure surrounded by them but she was forced to acknowledge how much she had come to take for granted the feeling of having Harry around. Even though trouble had a tendency to seek Harry out she still felt safer somehow when he was there.
They reached an open hallway that seemed to run the length of the building with double doors on either end. The shouting was louder now, but whatever it was seemed to have drawn the attention of the students as well, for the corridor was empty.
"Now, we split up," Lupin said. "Bill, you take Hermione and Fred and George and go that way. Work your way down to the main floor and check out Ratsel's office on the way with the extendable ears, then head to the central staircase Viktor showed us that leads down to the basement level. If there really are dungeons down there that's more than likely where they'll have Ron and Harry. Tonks and Viktor and I will go down the other way, and head straight for the dungeons. Have you all got your coins? Yes? Remember, hot means we've found them, meet on the roof; fluctuating means the situation is unstable and we should try and locate each other immediately, and cold indicates retreat. Wait for nothing, just get yourselves out. If you find Harry and he is attempting to secure a horcrux you are under orders to stun him if you have to and get him out. We can always surround and reenter the building later with reinforcements when and if the situation is secured. Understood?" His eyes rested on Hermione the longest; she met them unwaveringly and nodded. "Off you go then."
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Harry landed on the body of the Durmstrang student who had fallen from the fourth floor. Whoever it was let out a loud "oof" and rolled over, pitching him against the wall. Harry knew he needed to move quickly; Ratzel had seen him fall and was surely sending someone to retrieve him even as he lurched to his feet. He used a blasting spell to blow the doors out into the hall, hoping to take anyone who might be coming in the other direction with them, and from the sound of things was successful on at least two counts.
He ran. He knew where he was going now, could visualize the door he was aiming for. He had to get there, had to know for sure if it was truly the Hufflepuff cup that he sought and if it were truly a Horcrux or not. He would have them all then… he desperately hoped Ratsel wouldn't recognize Slytherin's locket for what it really was if he searched Ron.
Once again he was almost to the door when a spell just missed him and he cursed, anger suddenly flooding him. He turned to take aim and found a boy of perhaps thirteen on his own behind him. The momentum of turning had cleared Harry's hair from over his scar and the boys eyes widened suddenly when he realized who it was he had found. Harry sighed and waited for the inevitable `You! It's your fault my Uncle/Cousin/Father/best friend is in Azkaban/on the Dark Lord's shit list/a useless squib.'
It didn't come. The boy stuttered out something that sounded like "Your harpoon has otters!" His wand shook so hard Harry reckoned he wasn't hitting anything anytime soon.
He hissed "Durmstrang is for wankers," in parseltongue. A dark wet spot bloomed on the front of the boys' uniform trousers and he let out an abrupt squeal of terror, turning and fleeing like the hounds of hell were chasing him.
`How flattering,' Harry thought. Women cry when I kiss them, and children run in terror. And I'm not even trying, This whole evil overlord thing's not nearly as hard as Voldemort makes out.'
He pushed through the door of the trophy room at last. It wasn't so different from the Hogwarts one, a smallish room lined on three sides with glass enclosed cabinets housing shelf after shelf of inscribed objects of all shapes and sizes. He closed and sealed the door with a Colloportus, knowing that it was only a brief matter of time until Ratsel or one of his minions found him. He could at least slow down the inevitable.
Viktor Krums' name gleamed dimly back at him from a good number of trophies and he was glad in a way Ron wasn't there to see it. Funny, really, how he wasn't even seeing Hermione any more and yet the thought of Krum…
Saying, even thinking, Hermione's name opened the door to thoughts Harry couldn't presently bear. He'd done his best not to let his mind linger on her while he'd been chained to the wall in the dungeon. He couldn't cope with it all now; he was prepared to do whatever he had to do to destroy the last horcrux and if he thought of her, of being thrust unwillingly into his next great adventure without her, he'd go mad. But then, that was to the organized mind, one prepared to go, wasn't it? Harry felt Hermione might as well be his horcrux now; he'd willingly given her his soul in every way he knew how and he couldn't imagine being able to go on while leaving her behind..
He searched amongst the shelves, eyes roving from cup to cup until he remembered Ogby's words;
`Ogby knows it needs cleaning, Young Master. Don't blame Ogby. Ogby not allowed to touch the Hogwarts cup. No house elf allowed to touch.'
The cups he searched were all shining as brightly as the Hogwarts ones after a busy month of detentions. His eyes roved further afield. The last case on the left had faded purple velvet-covered risers in place of shelves, and the trophies and statuettes were crammed together more tightly. He moved closer, eyes picking through them methodically. A small golden cauldron, eternally burbling on its tiny fire, awarded for excellence in potions in 1917. Several prizes for Wizards Chess matches were shaped like oversized chess pieces; a white queen mounted on a small golden column eyed him evilly and a black knight on a rearing charger shook his lance at him. He could see the white queen's lips move but could not make out her words through the glass. A dueling trophy stood beside her; the two small silver wizards ceased their hostilities toward each other to turn on him as well. Time had turned them partisan… or they guarded something.
There, behind another taller cup for something that looked roughly like polo played on thestrals, sat a small, brownish, tarnished cup with delicate handles. The least noticeable and most humble of the lot, and yet the most valuable by far. Harry recognized it immediately from his pensieve travels with Dumbledore. Hepzibah Smith's cup, shown to Tom Riddle shortly before she was murdered.
Harry laid a hand on the glass and listened with all his might, stretching every sense toward the cup. He could almost feel a faint vibration, but not enough to be sure. He leaned his head forward and rested his forehead, his scar, against the glass. It throbbed helpfully, seeming to seek to pull him right through the glass molecule by molecule in its blind, anxious need to join its other, like a pair of magnets. The pain made his eyes water. He struggled, pushing with all his strength away from the glass. For a moment he thought he couldn't manage it and when he finally did he noticed a thin smear of blood where his scar had rested. For whatever reason, this was a strong one. He would have thought it would work the other way round, having more of the mass or essence of Voldemort now within him, he should by rights have pulled the cup to him, and yet…
Harry's stomach churned. He had so little time, he had to get on with it but he was frightened of this one for some reason, dreaded having to take it. He felt himself sweating. There was no obvious opening in the glass, no door that he could see. If breaking it was the only option he would, but he was afraid the of the noise and commotion glass that size shattering would cause. Maybe if he cut just a little hole…
He tried, hesitant at first with the claimed wand rather than his own. The third cutting charm he attempted worked; it was one he had learned to cut ice with in Flitwicks' class (`Never know when that might come in handy!' the diminutive wizard had informed them, teetering on his pile of texts. How right he'd been.)
The charm had to be swapped round a bit to keep the tip of the wand cool rather than hot, but soon a small, roughly circular hole, just large enough to extract the cup appeared. Harry tapped it in the center with the wand and it fell cleanly into the cabinet without a sound… but the air within the cabinet began escaping with a hiss. Shite. That couldn't be good. Effing Tom Riddle, of course he'd figure anyone coming in to steal his cup would seal the door to give themselves more time… Harry covered his mouth and nose with as much of the Durmstrang tunic as he could get over it and still breathe and reached through the hole, groping for the cup.
The white queen leapt nimbly down from her column and advanced, teeth bared in an evil grimace, while the two wizard duelists turned from each other on the top of their trophy and began firing small, stinging hexes from their tiny wands.
Bloody hell! Harry thrust himself harder at the glass, stretching his arm, reaching desperately for the cup as more awards for things he had never even heard of began to wake and realize their glass citadel had been breached. A hard brass bludger from a Quidditch trophy smashed into his knuckles. The black knight spurred his horse and it jumped down from its plinth and galloped straight for Harry's hand. The knight dropped his visor and raised his lance, stabbing at the vulnerable underside of Harry's wrist as the horse leapt over it.
Effing hurt for such a little bastard, and the cut it left was no laughing matter actually. Whatever was hissing out of the cabinet was making his head feel woozy, too. If he could only just get… his fingertips grazed the lip of the cup, knocking it over, further out of reach.
He slammed his forehead against the glass and tears of frustration and pain prickled at the back of Harry's eyes. He was such an idiot. Ron had been trying and trying to get him to remember.
"Accio cup," he sighed.
The cup righted itself and flew to Harry's hand in the cabinet. He pulled his arm out slowly, tilting and rotating the cup free of the glass as the trophy ornaments revolted, stampeding after his retreat. Just as he extracted it, the door into the room behind him literally exploded. The inward rush of splintered wood met with the outward rush of the noxious smoky vapor from the cabinet, seeking to fill the now larger space. The magical vacuum created within the cabinet warped the glass slightly inward and was released in exploding shards. Harry clung to the cup with both hands now, feeling the magic swirling around him in the chaos of the cabinet's destruction. Glass stung his hands and a part of the flying door struck his injured arm, but it took Ratsel's own stunner to finally bring him down.
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The first thing Hermione noticed about Durmstrang's stairwells was that they were very unsafe. Hogwarts
moving staircases might have a mysterious missing step or two, but this was ridiculous.
"Sort of screams `Harry Potter was here,' doesn't it Fred?" George said, viewing the damage.
"Too right, George. And wherever Harry is, I would have to wager our littlest brother won't be far behind. The question is how best to get there?"
Bill sighed. "Don't you two have some sticky shoe plaster for walking down walls or something? Isn't that why we put up with you, so you can use us to test out your products?"
"Keep your shirt on there, Bill. How about this." Fred removed a small pouch from his pocket and tapped it with his wand. A tiny tendril of green plant snaked out of the pouch.
"Er…" started Bill dubiously.
"Hang on then," protested George. "Give a bloke a chance."
Fred looked about the landing and after kicking a bit of stair rail several times to reassure himself of its stability tapped the tip of the tiny plant to it. The tendril wrapped itself securely around the railing, growing at an amazing rate. Hermione, who had seen Devil's Snare once before at Hogwarts during her first year, recognized it immediately. Fred leaned out a bit over the edge to reconnoiter and the cast the spell once more, first tapping the plant and then pointing his wand to indicate a spot far below. A second tendril quickly grew out of the plant and made it's way down to the first floor, sending secondary tendrils off every so often to twine around and strengthen the main body. In no time at all there was a long rope-like strand.
"Instant Escape Plant, we call it. The Prankster's best friend. You first, George," Fred said.
George wrapped his arms and legs around the plant and slid swiftly and safely down the empty cavern of the stairwell to the first floor. "Never fear," he called up softly. "There's a nice passed-out Durmstranger down here to break your fall."
"Hermione? Now that George has proved it safe I do believe it should be ladies first."
Hermione looked down once and realized her mistake. She shut her eyes tightly, grabbed hold of the plant and slid, landing far quicker than she thought possible and thumping ungracefully onto her bum.
"Up you get, Hermione. All clear, Bill," George called.
Bill slid down with a swashbuckling pirate's grace and ended up laughing. "Only you two."
Fred followed, and patted the vine fondly as they prepared to move out. "Such a nasty name for such a useful plant, Devil's Snare. Should keep anyone from coming after us too quickly, too; we chose an especially loyal hybrid. Twine right around them, it will."
The corridor beyond the doors stretched in two directions; at the far end of one a door stood blown in off its hinges and Hermione automatically turned that way. Bill laid a hand on her arm to stop her.
"More than likely Harry did go that way, Hermione, but he's not there now and Lupin told us to go check out Ratsel's office. That's our task and we've got to stick to it if we're going to get Harry and Ron out safely," he whispered. She nodded once, showing her understanding, and they set off in the opposite direction. Viktor had drawn a sketch for them showing Ratsel's office paralleling another that opened into a further hallway; their hope was to locate the office behind Ratsel's and attempt to listen there.
"One, two, three, four. Fourth door on the left he said. This should be it." Bill whispered. They flattened themselves to the hall wall on either side of the door in question, wands drawn. "Anyone in there?" Bill questioned Fred softly, and Hermione watched as he secured one flesh colored appendage to his ear and let the end roll toward the crack at the bottom of the door. A low groaning sound came from beyond the door, easily discernable to the naked ear. Fred pulled the extendable quickly out of his own.
"Don't need any help for that."
Hermione saw the twins eyes meet and turn as one to Bill.
"What are we waiting for?" she whispered urgently. "That doesn't sound like Harry to me, but it might well be Ron."
"I'm seriously hoping not, Hermione" Bill whispered back. "Last I knew, unless you broke him of it Ron still fancied girls and this is a decidedly all male school."
Hermione froze for a moment then found her face scrunching up of its own accord. "Ewww?"
"You wait right here for a sec and we'll go in and, er… check it out." George said softly.
Fred and George crouched down, Alohamora-ed the door knob and slunk in on their knees. The door shut quickly behind them. Hermione and Bill carefully avoided each other's eyes while a quickly muffled scream, a thump, and the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor issued from within.
The door opened slightly and one of the twins poked their heads around it.
"All clear!" they whispered brightly.
The other was inside, quickly reducing a stack of what appeared to be magazines down to doll-house size and pocketing them. "They've got brilliant questionable reading materials here," he said with a grin. "Confiscation for further examination seems called for. Professor Wank is having a little nap in the corner."
Bill rolled his eyes. "For merlin's sake, can you two stay on target for five minutes? Roll out the ears already. We're here to find Harry and Ron."
The twin - Hermione thought it was George - clicked his heels together and saluted. "Oh no, brother ours," he said with a quick grin. "This is the time for our latest invention. Fred?"
"Well, really - how would we get extendible ears IN there, I ask you. No door! So we have instead… the magic mirror, travel version." Fred produced a small round mirror from his pocket and enlarged it until it was roughly the size of his own head. Turning with an enormous grin, he removed the protesting portrait of some hideous ancient dark arts wizard with three teeth and greenish skin from the wall and hung the mirror on its hook instead. He tapped the face of the mirror with his wand and the incantation Perlustro!
The surface went iridescent, swirled round and became… transparent. Hermione flew across the room as Fred and George both leaned in towards the new one-way window to Ratsel's office.
Bill grabbed her before she could push one of the twins out of the way. "Well?" he whispered tersely.
Fred turned, his face suddenly serious. "They're there alright. Ron looks stunned and Draco Malfoy of all people is with him. Harry appears to be…er, answering some questions. Signal Lupin, Bill. Quick."
Bill turned Hermione round so that her back was to the window and handed her his coin. "You do it."
She took the coin but let it drop through her shaking fingers. Smiling apologetically, she bent down to retrieve it from the floor and dodged quickly between George's legs, straightening up in front of both twins and peering hungrily through the mirror-window.
Ron and Draco were laid out on the floor of the office with all the care of rolled up carpet, their limbs every which way or pinned underneath them. Wait a minute… Malfoy? What was he doing here? Ron's color was normal - well as normal as Ron's could be, he was a little disconcerting that way with the paleness and freckles. Still it was a good sign that he was breathing, if not consciously. There were no obvious injuries that she could see. Harry was sitting directly across from her; across his captor's desk. He was slumped in his chair, guarded by a uniformed student on either side. His eyes were downcast and she could see that he held one of his arms as if it was injured, but he seemed otherwise blessedly whole and alive. As she watched the man behind the desk with his back to her reached out and placed two objects on the desk in front of Harry. One she saw was the potion bottle that Snape had hid in the Hogwarts Room of Requirement, the one that had portkeyed them here in the first place. The other was…
"NO!" she cried, forgetting to whisper, forgetting everything else. The Hufflepuff cup. The last horcrux. It was there.
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"Of all the trophies you could steal, why this one?" Ratsel asked. "Who sent you for it? Was it Dumbledore, before he died?"
Harry was still reeling from whatever had been leaking out of the cabinet while he retrieved the cup, and he felt as if he was trapped under water. He could breathe only shallowly and Ratsel's voice came to him as if through a long tunnel. The cup, something about the cup…
"It belongs at Hogwarts," he said stubbornly, trying not to slur. "Belonged to Huff…fle. Pufflehuff. See the little badg, badg, badger?"
"Then why has it been here all this time? Why did no one contact us? Ask for it back? No, I think we came by it fairly and it is you who are stealing."
"Why do… do you even want it?" Harry managed. Ratsel's eyes flicked dangerously to the left, and the boy on Harry's right backhanded him with every impression of great enjoyment. His world exploded; he swore he could hear the blood sloshing in his own veins as he hit the back of the chair and slid down toward the floor. The two students grabbed his arms and hauled him back up. The pain from the dislocated one was like a splash of ice water. Harry shook his head, doglike, desperate to keep it clear.
"You will speak only when spoken to." Ratsel informed him. "And what is this, then? This potion you carry with you?"
Harry eyed him, still swallowing the metallic taste of biting his tongue the last time. He had no intention of playing that game again. "Don't know."
Ratsel shook the bottle, frowning. He opened the stopper and sniffed it cautiously, then set the open bottle down on the desk. "Tell me this, Potter. This much you must know. How did you escape the charm I left around your pathetic little neck?"
"Not nearly as pow…pow…werful as you'd think." Harry bit out, leaving it up to Ratsel's imagination whether it was Harry or the charm that was less than expected.
Ratsel looked at him assessingly, then glanced over to where Ron and Malfoy lay. He lifted his wand and let fire a wordless spell that veered wide of the mark. Once, twice, three times he aimed without success, always just off his goal. Harry was sweating profusely by the time he stopped, breathing like a long distance runner.
"Oh, no," Ratsel said. "I think my appraisal of your magical ability was quite on target, Potter."
He caught the glance of a third student standing at attention beside the door and nodded to Ron and Malfoy. "Ennervate them."
"Let them go," Harry said.
Ratsel smiled. He reminded Harry of a combination of Malfoy's father and Bellatrix Lestrange. Part sycophant, part tyrant in waiting. Waiting to off the other tyrant, if only he could, but in the meantime he needed to please to stay his place. Ratsel's eyes flicked right and Harry lunged forward against the desk, ducking the blow from his left and grabbing for the cup. Ratsel snatched it up. "Or you'll what?" he said unpleasantly. "You have nothing I want, and I am not the least bit impressed. You have power, but you are too unstable and undisciplined to put it to any purpose."
"You don't really want to serve Voldemort," Harry rasped. "You're just sucking up to him until you can get your own act together. Fine. Use me. Go on, everyone else has, Dumbledore did. Just let them go, and you can suck out my magical bloody essence with a straw for all I care."
"Perhaps I shall just keep your little friends and do that anyway. There's very little for you to say about it. Now tell me about the cup."
"Harry…" came Ron's voice from behind him, awake now and low with warning. "Don't."
Brilliant Ron!
Harry sighed and forced himself to look pained. Actually, that part wasn't really that hard. "It's…it's the last source of power I need to come to full strength and defeat Voldemort. You're right, Dumbledore did tell me before he died. Its power was a secret known only to Helga Hufflepuff. The knowledge was passed down to Dumbledore as Headmaster."
Ratsel's shrewd black eyes glowed. "How do I know you are not lying to me?"
"Bring the cup toward me. You'll see."
He laughed. "You take me for a fool, Potter."
"Even if I ran with the cup, it wouldn't do me any good," Harry said bitterly. "That's what the potion is for. I have to drink the potion from that cup. It won't work in any other. Now my bloody arm's dislocated and it's not like I could get anywhere trying to carry it and use a wand at the same time. Not that I've even got a wand, thank you very much. You're more of fool than I if you're worried about that."
Ratsel's curiosity was piqued. "Conlacertus" he muttered, swishing and flicking his wand. The spell sliced through the sling Ron had fashioned for Harry and the fabric fell away. Harry hissed angrily and quickly moved the good arm to support the injured one. Ratsel picked up the cup and walked cautiously toward him. Halfway there he paused and frowned, clearly feeling the cup's attraction to Harry. He walked forward another step, extending the cup slowly, as if testing it. It seemed to quiver in his hand, its desire evident. The two students guarding him took a step back, eyes bulging fearfully. Ron groaned and Harry could have sworn he was only letting out what Harry was trying so desperately to keep in himself: the pain in his scar was throbbing unbearably the closer the cup came. Malfoy cursed under his breath.
`Fascinating. Could it possibly be?" Ratsel murmered. He spun around and poured the contents of the potion bottle into the cup.
Snape, you son of a bitch, you'd better not have lied… Harry thought, and allowed the horror of that idea to substitute for what he should have felt at seeing his magic enhancing potion about to be downed by another. A swift glance revealed Ron and Malfoy each looking suitably horrified as well, each for reasons quite their own.
Ratsel sniffed the potion once more and waved his wand over it.
`Dumbledore could only find that he had to drink it,' Harry thought. `If there'd been anything else to see he would have done.'
And grinning widely, his tormentor raised the cup to Harry in a mockery of a toast.
"To your health, Potter. May you last long enough for the Dark Lord to kill you in the morning."
"No!" Harry heard himself cry as the cup touched Ratsel's lips, and a part of him actually meant it. It had been awful, what that potion had done to Dumbledore, and Harry hated being any part of doing that damage again. Dumbledore had had to drink cups and cups of the stuff, but Ratsel was no Dumbledore…
Ratsel downed it in one, licking his lips in triumph. `I can feel it working… I can…" His expression altered quickly to one of terror as his eyes took in something no one else could see.
"…get effing stuffed, I'm afraid," Harry said regretfully, and grabbed the wand of the student guard beside him with his good arm as they stared in horror at their Headmaster. "Expelliarmus!"
He threw the wand in his hand to Ron and managed to catch the next two in the same hand, stepping on the third with his foot when it dropped. He tossed one to Malfoy, kept one and snapped the last in half beneath his boot. Its owner whimpered before Malfoy stunned him as Ron took care of the other two.
Ratsel was screaming now, babbling in his terror, eyes wide. "No! No! I'll never do it again, Never! Leave me my magic, I'll die without my magic, Leave me alone!"
Harry began to pry the cup from Ratsel's fright-strengthened hands and yelled to Ron, "Our wands - his desk. Look."
Ron passed him and began slamming desk drawers as he looked. "Got them!"
"No! No! No!" Ratsel insisted and begged, clinging to the cup.
"Extractus." Harry cast, but once he had the cup he hesitated. According to Snape the effect of the potion was inevitable; there would ultimately have been no saving Dumbledore and the Avada Kedavra was in fact a mercy. Harry didn't know if he bought that and he knew he would not use the killing curse even if he did. A stunning spell, however, might leave Ratzel unconscious of his fate; it felt like the merciful thing to do. "Stupefy."
"What now, mate?" Ron asked.
"Make like Malfoy," Harry told him, pointing to the already opened and empty door, "and run like blazing hell."
"Got your back. You go," Ron told him, and they headed out the door. They peeled off down the hall at top speed and rounded the corner to the still-standing main staircase… and Harry collided with something. Hard. Something coming fast and furious from the other direction. Someone. He saw Hermione's horrified expression as the force of their collision sent them both airborne and he dropped the cup with out a moment's hesitation to grab on to her and pull her to him to break her fall.
He landed heavily on his back with Hermione sprawled across him. The cup bounced and rolled toward the edge of the stairs. Harry stretched out his working arm over his head, fingers grasping once more - bloody desperate thing! He felt the handle, his fingers scrambled for purchase as his legs twined around Hermione. He had it!
Until Ron tripped over them as well.
The force of his impact against Hermione's back threw both Harry and Hermione halfway over the edge of the landing and onto the stairs. Once again Harry withdrew his hand from the cup, this time to grab at the railing in the hope of arresting their fall. Their combined weight and momentum drove all three in their heap backwards down the steps. They slid, thumping from step to step until Ron managed to wedge his feet against the next landing. The silence of stillness was bliss until Harry heard the metallic tink-ting-tink of the cup still falling. It stopped abruptly with a muted thwink.
Harry groaned and craned his neck but all he could see was Hermione's hair.
"I'm sorry," she whispered brokenly. "I'm sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry."
"Bloody hell," said Ron.
Harry stroked back her hair and lifted his head over Ron's knee to find the cup had been stopped by… Voldemort's foot. And he had the least humorous laugh Harry'd ever heard.
Bloody hell indeed.
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A/N: I know, I know… the cliffies have to go, and wasn't there supposed to be more than five lines of vaguely romantic thought in this chapter????? All I can say is sorry. It's there, it's coming, but all this stuff seemed to want to happen first. For those of you that can't stand the pressure (and so no one thinks I forgot…. <Spoilers ahead>
Did Hermione really forget Lily's words?? Would she do that? Her chance is yet to come. Hey Voldemort just showed, and NO - THIS IS NOT THE END. Remus and Tonks have a large part to play helping the trio return to Hogwarts, because that's where the end HAS to be. Potions and portkeys and the Marauder's presence in the cave all are yet to come. As is the post Durmstrang battle shag, which is fully written and just WAITING desperately for its turn. And where did Malfoy go? He'll be back as well. Honest - I haven't forgotten any of you. So thanks for sticking with it and I'll get the next one out as soon as life allows - but I'm going to see GOF in IMAX on Friday and my brain will be on happy Harry overload. I personally can't WAIT to read all the fics inspired by this movie… but I PROMISE to finish this before starting anything else.
Enjoy the movie, and thanks so much to all of you who review - you really inspire me. ~ Lynney
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