Two quick notes before I get started. One, I'm not J. K. Rowling. The characters aren't mine, so I don't plan to make money off of them. Two, I will try to update this story about once a week. My schedule's hectic, though, so bear with me. Alright, on to the story.
The worn volume sat just beyond his reach, hidden behind several thick panes of glass. The tint of the glass obscured the book a bit, but not enough to fully disguise its identity. He read the words written on the cover with wonder in his voice. "The Covenant of the Founders." His reflection stared back at him, his skin drawn and pale and his mouth set in an evil smile.
His eyes looked the tome over longingly, but he made no effort to steal it, choosing to speak to it instead. "Come to me," he hissed, his words not in the King's English but in parseltongue. "Reveal your secrets. Give me your power." He stared intently at the ancient book, as if willing it to obey him. Instead, it only sat in the window lifelessly.
A roar of frustrated rage escaped his mouth. "Lies." With a flip of his dark brown cloak, he began striding purposefully down a long dark corridor. "Mardian, Rutland," he called out, capturing the attention of two similarly robed figures who looked to be coming out of a trance, "there's nothing here. Burn it to the ground." The two men moved swiftly to obey.
As he walked briskly down the hall, fury flowed from him. Countless priceless objects on display quickly became shattered flotsam and every door he passed angrily slammed itself shut. Eventually, he seemed to tire of the theatrics and walked into a large room filled with mammoth file cabinets and hundreds of identical desks. Several dozen brown and black-robed figures stood around aimlessly. A few of them pointed their wands at a terrified group of wizards and witches, some of whom sat meekly at their desks, while others cowered on the floor. "Is this all of them?" his voice demanded coldly.
A young, tall black-cloaked minion stepped forward. "Yes, my Lord."
The brown-robed figure who was obviously Lord Voldemort gave a slight nod. With a flourish, he turned to address his followers. "Today, my friends, we tread on sacred ground. The Department of Magical Relics is home to some of the most precious treasures known to our world." Voldemort shot a look of seething hatred at the frightened people around him. "Unfortunately, it has been perverted. Midas Fox has allowed mudblood filth inside these walls, permitting them to hold our history in their hands. We have come here now only to take back what is rightfully ours and to send a message to Mr. Fox. We have now been pushed too far."
Voldemort's words were met with cheers of approval from his followers. "We have spent too long skulking in the shadows, hiding our faces behind dark cloaks while the Ministry find ways to taint our world, day by day. No more. With this act, we make our presence known." Pointing his wand in the air with a look of evil determination in his eye, Voldemort's lips formed the word "Morsmordre" and the familiar skull and snake formed in the air. The sickly green color of the Dark Mark added to the sense of fear in the room. Overwhelmed, a man standing by a heavyset Death Eater in purple fell to his knees.
"Please," the thin, bespectacled man blubbered, his bottom lip shaking in terror. "I swear I'm not muggleborn. I…I was raised muggle, it's true, but… my mother was a pureblood witch. You can check my papers, they'll prove it…Please, I'll do anything…"
The purple robed Death Eater shoved the slight man down to the floor and spat in his face. "Did you really think we'd spare you because your mum was a blood traitor and a slag?" he asked the terrified man, an evil grin on his face.
Voldemort's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Does he speak the truth?"
"Who cares?" the large man with thinning blonde hair retorted tartly. "All muggle trash are the same, whether they're half-blood or…"
A cry of pain cut his sentence short as Voldemort used the Cruciatus Curse on him. "Treat my order as a request again, Pym, and it will be the Killing Curse next time." He turned to another one of his followers, an older man with a somewhat scholarly appearance. "Look at his proof of birth status, Gracchus. If he is half-blood, then we dilute our message by killing him. We wouldn't want anyone to say that the slaughter was random."
With a simple nod, Gracchus acknowledged that his papers were in order. Voldemort leveled his wand at the head of this strangely fortunate man. "Obliviate!" His thin frame crumbled, thick eyeglasses falling to the floor and shattering below him. "Take him outside. Leave him for the Aurors to interrogate. He'll be lucky if he remembers his own name." A mean-spirited laugh spread like a wave over the Death Eaters. "Kill the rest." Like a ritual chant, over a dozen "Avada Kedavra"s were spoken at once. What only moments before had been scared people in a bad situation were now merely corpses, victims of a hatred that they barely understood.
Harry himself couldn't fathom what he was seeing or why he was seeing it. Had he entered Voldemort's mind again, through his dreams? If so, why was it happening now? And was that…?
"Hermione?" Harry's confusion was growing by the minute. Hermione Granger stood amid the carnage, seemingly oblivious to the grave danger around her. What was she doing here?
"Harry," she called to him, concern evident in her voice. "Harry, you have to wake up. Can you hear me?"
Harry's head shot up from the pillow, sweat pouring from his forehead and his heart beating wildly. Hermione stood next to him with one arm around his shoulder and the fingers of her other hand pressed firmly against his chest, as if to keep him from leaving his hospital bed. His eyes captured hers with their intensity. "Hermione," he began, his voice confused, "you've got to get me out of here. I…we have to stop them."
"Harry, your vital signs are off the charts," Hermione replied, her voice panicky. "You're not going to be able to go anywhere. Just lie back and wait for the healers." She tore her eyes away from his to glance down the hallway. "Oh, where are they?"
"Hermione," Harry breathed urgently as he fell back onto the bed in fatigue. "It's Voldemort. He's at the Department of Magical Relics, along with a handful of Death Eaters. They're killing people…muggleborns…we don't have much time."
Hermione shot Harry a look that was both sympathetic and curious. "Are you sure that's what you saw? Because, well…", she tilted her head sheepishly, "…there hasn't been a Department of Magical Relics in over twenty years."
"What?!" Harry exclaimed, rising again from the bed. "No, that can't…can't be right. I just heard him talking about it…"
Hermione walked back over to him and ran her hands down his arms in a soothing motion. "Try and rest, Harry. Everything will be alright."
"No," Harry contradicted her as half a dozen healers rushed anxiously into the room, "those people…they'll be killed, I have to stop…" His voice trailed off as something a male healer had waved under his nose made him drowsy. "Can't let them die," he slurred.
Hermione looked him over sadly as he drifted to sleep. "He's starting to feel it already," she remarked to herself with a note of melancholy in her voice. "The weight of the world."
*
Harry felt the fading sunlight bathe his face in its warmth and opened his eyes eagerly, hoping that everything he'd experienced over the last few days had been nothing more than one long nightmare. Upon seeing the worried looks on his best friends' faces, however, those hopes were quickly dashed. Harry frowned inquisitively at Ron and Hermione. "What's happened?" he asked as he reached for his glasses. "Is something wrong?"
Hermione's pained expression made Harry expect bad news. "They're releasing you."
He blinked rapidly. "Oh." Harry considered this a moment. "I'm sorry, did you say…?"
"You heard her right," Ron answered him with a sour look.
"The thing is, Harry," Hermione began warily, "you're not completely healed yet and you won't be for some time."
Ron scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "Maybe we should take him to a muggle hospital. They have to help their patients, right? Because of that Hypodermic Oath."
"Hippocratic Oath," Hermione corrected him.
"Yeah, that," Ron added without embarrassment.
"No more hospitals," Harry moaned, sitting up slightly as he did so. "I always seem to have more problems when I leave than when I came in." Harry looked up at his best friends in anticipation. "So when can I leave?"
Hermione smiled at him indulgently. "If you swear to get plenty of bed rest and keep taking that dreadful stuff Bill gave you, the healers said you could check out any time you like and continue your recovery from home."
"Home," Harry repeated with a pleased grin on his face. "I guess that means Grimmauld Place now."
Hermione nodded. "I apparated all of our things over there this morning. The Dursleys spent the entire time pretending as though I didn't exist and Kreacher wasn't happy about our new living arrangements, but he'll come around eventually." Ron rolled his eyes.
Harry stretched a bit and then reached for the glass of water that had been sitting next to his glasses. Having slept off and on for more than a day, he felt largely refreshed. Looking down at himself, he saw that the bandages around his upper arms, neck and calves had been removed. "You know, I do feel a bit better. I suppose I must be healing nicely."
"Er, not exactly," Ron winced. When Harry gave him a questioning look, Hermione handed him a copy of the Daily Prophet. "Things have gotten crazy here, Harry."
"There have been almost a dozen Death Eater attacks confirmed in the last twenty-four hours," Hermione stated apprehensively as Harry scanned the front page of the paper. "There are five more that they aren't sure about, but they fit the profile."
"Yeah, ever since the Prophet reported that you were at St. Mungo's," Ron complained, "You-Know-Who decided it was open season on everyone else. Ruddy healers couldn't keep their traps shut. Now that they've got more patients than they can handle, they're kicking you to the curb."
Harry gave them both a concerned look. "What would my landing in the hospital have to do with increased Death Eater activity?"
Ron and Hermione shared a sigh. "You can be a bit daft sometimes," Ron informed him.
When this didn't appear to ease Harry's confusion, Hermione explained. "With Dumbledore…gone, you're the only one they're afraid of, Harry. You're the one Voldemort's worried about. With you in here, they feel they can do whatever they want."
"But…surely the Ministry…" Harry sputtered.
"Unless you're going to finish that sentence with 'are a bunch of barmy gits who couldn't find their bum with both hands and a fairy globe,' the answer's no," Ron interrupted. "It's all down to you, mate."
Harry ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He wanted to scream that he wasn't some younger version of Dumbledore, that he was no one, just a prospective seventh year Hogwarts student and not even the best in his class (that honor belonged to Hermione, naturally). If Death Eaters were killing people because of what he was or wasn't doing, then their lives were in his hands. Only right now, his hands were bandaged and trembling.
His thoughts wandered back to his dream of only hours before. Could that have been showing him one of the attacks that the Prophet had reported on? "Hermione, about the dream I had…" Her face became solemn as he spoke. "Are you sure that there isn't a Department of Magical Relics?"
Hermione nodded. "It was consolidated with the Department of Historical Artifacts years ago. But if that's what you saw…" She looked thoughtful. "Harry, what did Voldemort say in your dream? Other than the usual Death Eater tripe, I mean."
Harry did his best to ignore the disgust that he felt as he remembered the Dark Lord's hate-filled diatribe. "He said he was sending a message to someone." The name took another moment to come to him. "Midas Fox. Does that name…mean anything to…?"
He stopped as Ron's eyes bugged out and Hermione looked extremely confused. "Blimey, Harry!" Ron exclaimed. "Midas Fox used to be Minister of Magic…ages ago, back when my Dad was at Hogwarts." Ron shook his head. "He's not someone You-Know-Who would send a message to, seeing as he's probably off drooling in a cup somewhere now."
Hermione seemed to have figured it out. "No, not now," she remarked brightly, "but about forty years ago, it would have made perfect sense." Despite Harry's bemused look, Hermione continued enthusiastically. "Harry, I think what you dreamed about was Voldemort's infamous St. Swithin's Day Massacre. In 1958, the first group of wizards calling themselves Death Eaters killed over a dozen muggleborns in response to an integration law which allowed non-purebloods into sensitive areas of the Ministry for the first time." Hermione paused to take a breath, then turned her attention to her boyfriend. "Also, Ron, you should know that Midas Fox died nearly ten years ago, so he isn't 'drooling in a cup'."
"I should know that?" Ron asked incredulously. "I thought that was what you were for."
Before Hermione could fire back an appropriately heated reply, Harry interceded. "Wait a mo. Why would I be dreaming about something Voldemort did forty years ago? When I was able to peek into his mind before, it only showed me what he was doing now. Why would I suddenly be able to see into his past?" He was especially curious given the great lengths Dumbledore had gone to last year to procure memories of Tom Riddle's life history.
"Here's a better question," a worried Ron remarked. "Why are you inside You-Know-Who's head again at all? Didn't Dumbledore say you wouldn't have to study occlumency any more?"
Both Harry and Ron stared at Hermione. "Why are you two looking at me that way?" she demanded. "I don't know any more about this than you do." When neither Ron nor Harry stopped looking at her, Hermione's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Fine. I suppose it's 'what I'm for', after all." She sent a scathing glare Ron's way, which he ignored. "The only reason why Voldemort would send you a vision of his past is to tell you something. Something very specific." Chewing her bottom lip nervously, she turned to meet Harry's inquisitive gaze. "Can you think of what that might be?"
"'Death to all muggleborns'?" Harry ventured in a disgruntled mumble, then remembered who he was talking to and winced apologetically. "There was something that stood out. An old book." Hermione's eyes lit up as Ron snorted derisively. "'The Covenant of the Founders'. Voldemort wanted it badly, but then he lost interest after it didn't do anything when he spoke to it in parseltongue. He had the place burned down because of it."
"There must be something to this whole parselmouth bit," Ron remarked thoughtfully. "Hey, do you think maybe this Founders' Coven book could be a horcrux?"
Hermione dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. "That's silly, Ron. Why would Voldemort have it incinerated if it were one of his horcruxes?"
"Maybe it used to be one," Ron answered her defensively. "It could have been destroyed. By Dumbledore or someone."
Harry shook his head. "I don't think so, Ron. He would have told me if he knew for sure what one of the horcruxes was. Even one that we wouldn't have to worry about finding."
"Besides," Hermione cut in, as if she were reigning in a frivolous discussion about Quidditch, "I'm sure that even Voldemort doesn't believe the ridiculous rubbish that's in 'The Covenant of the Founders.' It's been dismissed as mythology for centuries."
"You already know about the book, then?" Harry asked, more than a little impressed.
"It's an apocryphal history of the four founders of Hogwarts," Hermione began. "The author claims that Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin founded Hogwarts not as a school, but as a fortress to protect themselves from wizard-hunting muggles. They had nearly driven wizardkind to extinction because they were being helped by traitorous muggleborns, who were eager to save their own necks." Ron gaped at her. "It's all a lie, of course. Probably written by angry Slytherins centuries after the fact. None of it is in Hogwarts: a History," she stated with finality, as if that proved her point. "Any more questions?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and a playful grin.
"I have one," Harry said, examining Hermione carefully as he did so. "Why were you in my dream?"
Hermione looked away from him for no reason he could tell. "I…I was in your dream?"
"Yeah," Harry continued insistently. "You were there talking to me, telling me to wake up. You were inside my head, Hermione. How did that happen?"
"Bloody hell!" Ron exclaimed, his voice a mix of astonishment and horror. "You're some sort of natural legilimens or something, aren't you?"
Hermione blushed. "No, nothing like that," she replied softly. "Oh, this is so embarrassing."
"What could be embarrassing about legilimency?" Harry wondered aloud. "It's a great power to have. You have to be really talented to master it. I couldn't even handle occlumency lessons, remember?"
"Only because they were with Snape," Hermione remarked darkly. She then chuckled mirthlessly to herself. "Although I suppose my teacher wasn't much better." Hermione sighed audibly. "Here. I might as well get it over with."
Hermione handed Harry a slightly worn goldenrod piece of paper with bold black letters on it. "'Want to find out what your man is thinking?'" Harry read aloud. "'To know for sure if she's really faithful? Or keep powerful wizards out of your own wandering thoughts? Expand the horizons of your mind. Learn legilimency by letter or occlumency by owl at Leon Chambers' Mental Correspondence School.'"
"'Mental Correspondence School,'" Ron repeated with a laugh. "As in you'd have to be mental to sign up for it." Ron's eyes suddenly widened. "Tell me you didn't get hooked in by this, Hermione."
"No, of course not," Hermione exclaimed as Ron turned away from her. "It was my parents. They heard me talking about Harry's occlumency lessons after fifth year, about how I wished I could have helped him. Then they signed me up for this without even asking me first." Hermione threw her hands in the air. "What could I do? They'd already paid for the lessons. It was only a few hours' work a week: meditation, mental exercises, things like that."
As Ron huffed, Harry regarded her seriously. "So you really learned legilimency through a correspondence course?" Hermione blushed a deeper shade of crimson. "That's brilliant!"
"It's a nightmare," Ron exclaimed. "She could be reading our minds right now. You know how she loves to read." Ron looked at Hermione warily. "Can you really see what I'm thinking?" he gulped.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Hermione replied slyly. Ron jumped back about a meter and seemed very anxious all of a sudden.
"I'm going to see if Harry's release papers are ready," he squeaked. Harry and Hermione shared a laugh as a flash of red hair and long legs shot out the door.
"I think you scared the life out of him," Harry said with a wide smile. "Can you really…?"
"See other people's thoughts?" she finished for him. "No. I had never even tried legilimency before last night. You were thrashing around, screaming for help, and I couldn't stand just sitting there and doing nothing. I wanted to help you so badly and before I knew it, there I was, inside your mind." Hermione looked in the direction that Ron had fled in. "It does make me wonder, though. What's in his mind that he doesn't want me to see?"
"I don't think there's any great mystery about it," Harry assured her. "He's a seventeen-year-old male with a very attractive girlfriend." Harry paused. He wanted to tread lightly here, as he was unwilling to make things uncomfortable for either one of his best friends. "Even if you haven't…done anything, he probably thinks about it all the time."
"That doesn't shock me," Hermione retorted, crossing her arms modestly over her chest. "I just wish I knew what he wanted from me."
Harry cleared his throat and looked very uncomfortable. "I didn't realize I'd have to spell it out for you. You see, Hermione, when a witch and a wizard really like each other…"
Hermione swatted him lightly. "Not that, Mr. Low Brow. What I mean is that I want to know what he needs out of our relationship." Harry wiggled his eyebrows mischievously. "I mean how he wants it to grow." Harry then began to chortle a bit. Hermione's eyes were blazing. "Would you please stop giving everything I say some dirty double meaning?" She tried to sound stern, but ended up giggling a bit herself. "It isn't funny," Hermione insisted.
"It really isn't," Harry agreed, although neither of them stopped laughing. They shared a few warm, friendly glances before Hermione sat down next to Harry on his bed.
"It's just that…" she explained to Harry, her voice dripping with frustration as her face dropped into her hands, "I don't understand Ron. At all. If only I knew what I was doing, or where we were going in our relationship…"
Harry grimaced. "I wouldn't bring that up with Ron. Talking about where your relationship's going would probably send him out of the room screaming faster than the idea of you reading his mind did." Hermione smiled at him winsomely. "Besides, he probably enjoys the uncertainty of it all. That can be a lot of the fun in a relationship, you know."
"Not for me," Hermione complained with a bit of whine to her voice. "I like assurances and boundaries and mutual understanding and I just don't have any of that with Ron."
"Maybe Ron isn't the right guy for you, then," Harry replied before he could stop himself. He closed his eyes tightly in humiliation. He had no right to interfere in his best friends' relationship and he was sure Hermione would be angry with him for doing so.
Instead, Hermione's voice sounded soft and kind, although somewhat weary, as she said, "Maybe not." Harry opened his eyes in surprise and found Hermione looking back at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. He had no idea why she was looking at him that way, but he felt the desperate need to say something.
"Hermione, do you think you could teach me occlumency?" Harry asked her, a sense of panic making his words jumble together. For the second time in the space of a minute, he wanted to run and hide in a hole somewhere. Why was he acting like such an idiot?
Hermione looked taken aback and, if Harry wasn't mistaken, a little flattered. "Me? Harry, I'm not exactly a master legilimens…"
Harry's face flushed red and he suddenly felt very alone. "It's alright, Hermione. It was stupid of me to ask…"
"But I'll give it my best effort, and so should you," Hermione continued forcefully. "Just because Snape couldn't teach you occlumency doesn't mean that you can't learn it." The determination in her voice made Harry smile proudly.
"Oy!" Ron's impatient voice called from the hallway. "Are you two still in there? Harry's been released. If we hurry, we can still make it to Grimmauld Place in time for dinner."
Harry groaned and Hermione rolled her eyes. Having dinner at Grimmauld sounded singularly unappealing. Ignoring strong protests from his various limbs, Harry nevertheless pushed himself up from the bed and began to stand for the first time in days.
Hermione blushed and turned her head away quickly. "I should give you some privacy. Your clothes are on the dresser." As she closed the door behind her, he could hear her yell at Ron. "Must you always think with your stomach?"
Harry ignored whatever retort Ron came back with as he slipped into the pair of navy blue slacks that Hermione had brought him. Horrid as it was, living with the Dursleys had at least meant that his two best friends kept their bickering (and snogging) to a minimum. At Grimmauld Place, the rules might change. Harry felt his stomach turn a bit at the thought.
Examining himself in the mirror, Harry ran his fingertips slightly underneath the strips of gauze, gingerly touching the burnt flesh that they covered. He had the strangest urge to tear his bandages off and scratch all of the little itching places on his skin, even though he knew it would cause him a lot of pain in the long run. Shrugging the feeling off, Harry pulled his hospital gown over his shoulders, replaced it with a simple white t-shirt and joined his friends outside, not considering for a moment why that sensation felt familiar.
*
Harry walked slightly in front of Ron and Hermione as the trio approached #12 Grimmauld Place. "I still don't see what you're on about," Ron complained. "It's not that big of a deal."
"It's a very big deal!" Hermione contradicted him. "You made Harry apparate you side along. He just got out of the hospital, Ron!"
Harry was beginning to regret his decision never to use a spell from the Half-Blood Prince book, as he was in desperate need of a good 'Muffliato'. If only he had learned how to cast it on himself… "Hey, you're the one who told me I couldn't apparate myself here."
"That's because it would be illegal! You're not licensed," Hermione replied in horror.
Ron nodded smugly. "But Harry is." Their former DADA professor, Remus Lupin, had gone with Harry to take his apparation test on his birthday. Unsurprisingly, he had passed with flying colors. The test was still giving Ron trouble, however. "Which is why it made sense for him to take me side along, instead of apparating without a license."
Hermione ground her teeth together as Harry once again reached for the serpentine silver handle of the door to his godfather's old house. "There was a third option, Ron."
Ron shook his head. "Yeah, I know. I could have used the summoning charm to get my Cleansweep from the Burrow, but you said that would take too long."
Harry was more than a bit surprised when the roar of frustration which followed came from his own mouth instead of Hermione's. "Would you two just stop for a minute? Hermione, I appreciate your concern, but I feel fine and I didn't mind apparating Ron side along. Ron, just because you're not comfortable grabbing your girlfriend around the waist and letting her apparate you somewhere doesn't mean that you can act like a dense prat. Now get over it." Ron stammered around a bit and Hermione looked stung as Harry walked into the house. As soon as he stepped past the threshold, he saw Kreacher standing at the staircase, carefully polishing the railing. "Kreacher, you're…you're cleaning?" Harry asked in disbelief.
Kreacher almost seemed excited to see Harry. "Kreacher had to make the house worthy of Young Master Parselmouth," he said with a crooked smile. His expression drooped a bit as he saw Ron and Hermione. "And he has brought guests with him, a mudblood and a blood traitor," he muttered under his breath.
"That's enough, Kreacher," Harry growled. "You'll not call them those names in my presence. And if you must call me something other than Harry, it's Master Potter, not Master Parselmouth."
Kreacher looked extremely disappointed. "If that is what Master wishes."
"Good," Harry said with a satisfied expression on his face. "Now take us to the Master's study, Kreacher," he ordered, drawing a mildly irritated glare from Hermione. "I have something to show you."
As the three ascended the staircase slowly behind a pouting Kreacher, Ron showed a bit more interest in his surroundings than seemed necessary, eyeing the gold leaf trim of the wallpaper in particular. "It just occurred to me, Harry. You own this house."
Harry looked at Ron as though he had taken a few too many bludgers to the head. "Yes, Ron. I do own this house. What of it?"
"It would take a bloke like me years to actually own a house," Ron pointed out. Harry began to feel a burning sensation in his throat and chest that remarkably resembled guilt. "A mansion like this would take me a lifetime to pay off. But you don't have to worry about any of that, do you? It's already yours."
"It's yours now, if you want it," Harry offered. Kreacher stopped abruptly in front of them, nearly causing Harry to trip over him. Ron was flabbergasted. "I hate this place, Ron. I won't be staying here any more after the war is over. I could have someone from the Ministry send over the paperwork tomorrow and put the deed in your name, if you'd like."
Ron considered it, then shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, Harry, but….a bloke would go a bit nutters if he lived here very long." Kreacher let out a small hiss, but otherwise said nothing as he led them to the large mahogany door with the sparkling gold handle. Ron and Hermione were less than impressed. "It's a wall," Ron declared. "Now can we eat?"
Harry looked at Kreacher for reassurance that he wasn't crazy (which was strange enough in itself) as Ron and Hermione searched aimlessly for what Harry was trying to show them. "Is there some way that I could let them see it?" he whispered to his house elf.
Kreacher's voice became both soft and shrill. "Master would have to give the…misguided pureblood and the lowborn witch partial ownership of the house for them to enter. I must warn Master Par…Potter that it is very dangerous to give the house to…"
"That's that, then," Harry announced, turning around to face his best friends. "Effective immediately, the three of us have equal ownership of Grimmauld Place. I don't know if it has to be official before you…can…" But Ron and Hermione were already transfixed, staring at the door before he could even finish speaking.
"Where'd that come from?" Ron asked in a bit of a daze.
Harry grinned in satisfaction. "If you're through staring at the door, what's inside is even more impressive." He led his friends into the Master's study, giving them a few moments to examine its interior. Ron picked up an oddly shaped mace with protracting metal spikes while Hermione busied herself examining books, tracing her finger along each spine.
"It's a fascinating collection of literary works," Hermione observed. "If you're a Slytherin."
"That's funny," Harry told her, his head nearly bumping into hers as he looked over her shoulder. "I thought the same thing the first time I saw…"
"Ow!" Ron yelped loudly as blood poured from his right index finger. The mace fell with a dull thud to the floor and Hermione hastily pulled out a bandage and wrapped it around Ron's finger as he shook it violently.
"This was supposed to be for Harry," Hermione complained as she performed a sticking charm on the gauze. "Although if you both keep acting like idiots, playing with things that you don't understand, we'll go through more bandages than St. Mungo's does in a year."
"How was I supposed to know it was going to attack me?" Ron asked in a whine.
"Just be more careful next time," Harry advised, although he was having trouble not clenching his teeth as he said it. Turning to Hermione, he gestured toward a messy pile of parchment which lie undisturbed under a pile of dust on a large oak table. "That's Regulus' research on the horcruxes. According to what he wrote to Sirius, he got all of his information from the books in this room."
"Harry," Ron exclaimed, his voice filled with equal amounts wonder and protest, "there must be thousands of books in here. It'll take us months to go through all of this." Neither Harry nor Hermione disagreed. "I guess we're really not going back to Hogwarts, are we?"
The three of them had discussed the matter while at the Dursleys' and had agreed that finding the horcruxes was more important than returning to school. It was a moot point now, though, as by order of the Ministry Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was still closed. It seemed unlikely to reopen in time to accept the enrollment of very many students.
Harry turned to face his best mate. "No, Ron. We're through with Hogwarts."
*
Dinner was a brief affair, mostly due to Ron's ravenous appetite, but also because Harry and Hermione ate next to nothing. For some reason, Harry found steak and kidney pie unappealing when it was prepared by someone who'd once sent him maggots as a Christmas present. Kreacher cleared the table without comment on how little his master had eaten and, despite Hermione's best efforts, began to wash the dishes without any help.
The three of them spent the rest of the evening searching through books and reams of parchment in the study, hoping to find some mention of horcruxes, rare objects which belonged to the founders of Hogwarts or, in Harry's case, 'The Covenant of the Founders.' He couldn't escape the feeling that the book was important, no matter how frivolous Hermione made it out to be. As it happened, all the books from Curses of Pain by Antigonus Abbott to Organizing Troll Fights for Fun and Profit by Barnabas the Brutal had nothing in them about any subject of interest to the Trio. Well, unless you counted a book on trick Quidditch plays that Ron found had been mislabeled 101 Household Uses for Shrunken Heads. He squawked indignantly when Hermione snatched it from his hands.
"This library is completely disorganized," Hermione complained mostly to herself. "Madam Pince would have a fit if she saw it."
"I'll have to remember not to invite her over, then," Ron remarked, boredom evident in his voice. He heaved a sigh and looked up at her wearily. "Can't we please just call it a night? I'm completely knackered."
"I'm not your boss or your mum," Hermione told him as she stood on tiptoe to return the book to the shelf, her tone noticeably frosty. "You may do whatever you like."
Ron grinned appreciatively, apparently not picking up on her change in mood. "Thanks, Hermione. You're the best." With that, he darted off down the hall.
Harry suppressed a sigh. It had gotten late, at least according to the clock on the wall which read 'Time for all the good little witches and wizards to be in bed. Which means you've still got a few hours.' However, he didn't want to make Hermione more upset by rushing off to bed like Ron had. After a few more minutes of pretending to be interested in the migratory patterns of wild hinky punks, Hermione put her hand on his shoulder. "Go on to bed, Harry. You've had a long day."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked her with a grin. "I haven't even gotten to the part where it tells how the hinky punks reproduce. I've always been curious about that."
Hermione screwed up her nose at him. "I don't think I need the details, thanks. Now get some sleep."
Harry walked toward the door, then spun around to face her just before stepping out into the hall. "Are you coming?" he asked without thinking. Harry's cheeks flushed. "Er…not to bed with me…obviously…but to your own bed…or Ron's, I guess, I dunno…" He forced his mouth closed before he could embarrass himself further.
Hermione laughed a bit at his predicament, although there was no malice behind it. "Don't worry about me, Harry. I'll find my way to bed before too long."
*
It was a restless night for Harry. His bandages itched like crazy, the Ahura Akbar potion was making him feel nauseous and he couldn't help dreading dreams where he entered Voldemort's mind again. Also, staying in Sirius' old bedroom gave him a creepy, morbid feeling, like he was taking a kip in a cemetery. Sleep came fitfully or not at all.
When the dawn broke, Harry dressed quickly and rushed to see Hermione. He was sure Ron wouldn't be awake yet and he wanted to assure her that he hadn't spent the night reliving evil historical events. Harry had a sneaking suspicion that he would find her slumped over Regulus Black's research in the Master's study, quill still clutched in her hand.
He was half right. Hermione was in the Master's study, but instead of finding her asleep, she was stirring a cauldron frantically with a large ladle. Her bloodshot eyes and the dark circles around them told him that she'd probably slept about as well as he had.
"Hermione?" Harry asked, confusion and concern blending on his face as he entered the study. "Are you alright?"
Hermione gave him a hurt look. "Why didn't you tell me about the Animus Signatus potion?"
It took Harry a minute to understand what Hermione was asking him. "Regulus said that it didn't work, that L.E., er, my mother messed it up." Harry tilted his head to look at her. "Hermione, have you been here all night?"
"Regulus Black was an idiot, Harry," Hermione declared, her steely gaze making Harry retreat a bit. "You should read some of the things he's written. No, on second thought, don't. Just get Ron in here." His best friend's frazzled demeanor gave him pause. "Go!"
After being told twice, Harry grumpily walked down the hallway to find Ron. "Good morning to you, too," he grumbled, thinking to himself that Hermione could have been nicer. Knocking on what he assumed was Ron's door, Harry called out, "Time to wake up."
"Whuh?" Ron asked in a loud, sleepy voice. "Whahsa matter?"
Harry sighed. "Hermione wants to show us something. An Animus Signatus potion."
Ron didn't reply, but emerged from his room several moments later wearing inside-out pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that read 'Identical in Every Way' which was clearly a hand me down from either Fred or George. "Some bloke that hates baby swans makes a potion and Hermione has to get herself all in a twist about it," he complained under his breath.
The two of them passed the large gilded door and followed the smell of noxious fumes inside the study. "There you are," Hermione exclaimed. "I can't believe you two were sleeping at a time like this." Harry glanced at the clock, which now read 'Too bloody early'.
"Yeah, we can't believe it either," Ron retorted sarcastically. "Now could you please tell us what this is all about?"
Hermione looked positively giddy all of a sudden. "The Animus Signatus potion is incredibly rare, but apparently Harry's mum brewed a cauldron full of it for Regulus Black. It can discern individual magical signatures, track them and then transmit what it finds in visual form onto the surface of the potion." Both Harry and Ron stared at her blankly. "Don't you see? The Animus Signatus potion is the key to finding the horcruxes!"
Harry desperately wanted to sit down. "Um…how?" he asked with a shrug.
Hermione ran her fingers through her frizzy hair. "Let me give you an example. I've put the remains of Slytherin's locket into the potion. That means the soul it's searching for is Lord Voldemort's. Once it finds something that matches the signature of the locket, like another horcrux, an image will appear…" Hermione looked down at the thick black and gray substance as hundreds of bubbles began to surface. "I think something's happening."
Ron and Harry peered carefully into the cauldron, only to see colors and shapes slowly taking form. "It's a book," Ron commented confusedly as the potion began to cool and solidify a bit. "And…wait, is that Ginny?"
Harry felt fear grip him as he watched Ginny Weasley's figure come into focus on the potion's surface. She was smiling brightly, wearing her Hogwarts robes and looked years younger. "What does this mean, Hermione?" Harry asked, concern wrinkling his brow.
"It means that Ginny's spirit connected with Voldemort's back in our second year at Hogwarts," Hermione informed him, "And that's Tom Riddle's diary there. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell the Animus Signatus to only look for horcruxes that haven't been destroyed."
"But it will find them all, right? Eventually, I mean," Ron asked, his interest now piqued.
"This batch is probably only good for finding one or two more," Hermione answered him honestly. "It's been sitting here for twenty years, stored in jars behind the book shelves, and it's already done the search twice, which drains a lot of its magical properties." Hermione blew air up through her bangs as sweat formed in beads on her forehead. "We could brew another batch of it, but that would take a few months. Also, most of the ingredients are illegal."
Harry nodded. He had wondered why Dumbledore hadn't mentioned this potion last year. Now he at least had an answer, unsatisfactory as it might have been. "We'll have to make this one count, then."
"Look, it's doing it again," Ron said as he pointed at the bubbling cauldron excitedly. Harry crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that it would not show Marvolo's ring, Slytherin's locket or the diary again. His hope was rewarded by a bright blue feather which formed in place of the ruined book.
"Ravenclaw's quill?!" Hermione cried out in shock. "But that…that's not possible."
Harry almost asked her why, until he became transfixed by the image of the person forming just above the quill. The three of them gazed down in horror as a familiar girl with dirty blonde hair and glazed over silvery gray eyes looked back at them. It was Luna Lovegood.
Thanks for all the reviews so far. You guys have been great!
ITL