Muggle Summer
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.
Chapter 40: Mucking About
10:00am, Saturday, June 30
Mucking Marshes, Essex
Ronald Weasley found it hard to believe his first full day in official service to the British Monarchy would involve dressing up in white muggle jumpsuits and poking through heaps of muggle garbage with a willow branch.
"Cor, Hermione, can't you just give us bubble heads?" he whined, as he caught a whiff of waste. "I'm this close to adding my breakfast to the rubbish pile."
Hermione looked up from her own heap and shot him a look of disgust that had little to do with the soiled disposable nappies that were underneath her Wellies. "Save it for someone who's got nothing better to do than to care, Sir Ronald."
"I mean, really," Ron continued, "didn't expect being a knight would always be a walk in the park, but this is just foul."
"Suck it up and take the good with the bad, mate," Harry called out from his position a few feet away. "Didn't see you complaining about your duties last night when you were mucking about with the Queen."
The grin on Harry's face conveyed more amusement than anger; even he had to admit that their present situation was quite a step down from the previous night's ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Not that it mattered to him, mind you…they were horcrux hunting, and when compared to an inferi-infested cave this was a walk in the park.
Mucking Landfill was the kind of appropriately descriptive name that authors love to give to their characters and places. Only this place was far from fictional. A waste disposal facility located in Essex, Mucking Landfill was the current recipient of nearly all of the rubbish produced by the City of London. Had been, actually, since it was commissioned in 1994, which is why the Trio were busying themselves dumpster diving on a grand and magical scale.
Like seemingly everything else that had supported their campaign against Voldemort, the lead had come from the muggle world. One of Wally's colleagues had suggested that preparing a background profile of Voldemort's personality might help predict his future actions. As part of that effort, Harry and Hermione had reviewed the pensieved memory of Dumbledore's first encounter with young Tom Riddle. The memory began with a curbside view of the orphanage where he was raised, which caused Hermione to pull Harry out of the pensieve even before they saw Tom Riddle. She excitedly explained that the orphanage might be a potential horcrux repository, given its significance as the place where Tom first learned he was a wizard. Harry agreed, but told her that Dumbledore had shared her suspicions, but had been unable to find the orphanage's real world location (despite a thorough search of school and ministry records).
To the surprise of no one, Dumbledore's failed search efforts did little to deter Hermione.
"Albus Dumbledore," she simply stated, "didn't do Google."
With Wally's help, Hermione used the internet to locate the names and addresses of seven different orphanages that had operated within the City of London during Tom Riddle's childhood. Internet map sites then provided not just the locations of these addresses, but point-to-point driving instructions and route maps.
Harry, Ron and Hermione then visited all seven sites during a afternoon's drive in her Bentley. Unfortunately, only two of the seven street addresses were attached to buildings of appropriate age, and neither of these buildings had an exterior that matched what they had seen in the memory. Seemingly at a dead-end, they had returned to Windsor only to have Wally take renewed interest in one of the street addresses. A check on his laptop subsequently revealed that one of the street addresses with newer construction had been the site of a seemingly random Death Eater attack on muggles.
"That's it, then," Harry decided, once he heard the news. "Voldemort hid a horcrux at the orphanage, then sent his toadies around to check on it once he returned."
"Are you sure?" asked Hermione. "Why would he risk storing something so important in a building that could be torn down so readily?"
"Because he was thinking like a wizard," Ron explained.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked.
"Ever notice that there aren't many new magical buildings?" said Ron, answering a question with a question. "Wizards never tear down old buildings…reshape them, resize them, add on to them, sure, but never tear them down…think Burrow."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Because you'd lose the magical energy that was poured into the original construction," said Hermione, with a nod of comprehension.
"So Voldemort didn't plan on urban renewal?" Harry concluded.
"Exactly."
"So if there was a horcrux hidden there, where would it have gone?" asked Harry.
Ron paused, and then said, "Either somebody removed it from the building before it was torn down, or it went wherever the building rubble went when it was torn down."
"Could one of his supporters have taken it before the tear down?" asked Harry.
"Doubtful," surmised Hermione. "Those buildings are more than a few years old, and Voldemort wasn't around to let anyone know."
"That makes sense," Harry concluded. "Now, I wonder where the construction debris could have gone?"
Wally's inquires had provided the answer that placed them where they were today, with their rubber boots ankle-deep in the detritus of a disposable society. From the street address they got a building permit, which led to the demolition permit, which identified the general contractor, whose records provided both the date of building demolition and the where the debris was sent. The landfill that had accepted the waste kept rather meticulous records themselves, and could identify, within a quarter-acre area and twenty-foot depth interval, where the debris had been placed within the facility.
They'd arrived on site at 8am that morning, only to find that the Queen's men had once again done some excellent advance work. Two large backhoes had stripped off the protective soil cap and the waste that overlay the layer of interest. The muggle backhoe operators weren't surprised by the fact that there were government officials conducting this type of search; Scotland Yard investigators were out there on a near-monthly basis looking for this or that piece of evidence. They would have been very surprised by the search equipment, though, had they hung around after they had completed their work. But as it was time for morning tea, the two men cleared out of the search area before they could spy the forked pieces of wood that the three visitors had pulled out of their kits.
The search wasn't to involve active magic, as Harry had no desire to reveal their interest in the site to either Voldemort or the Ministry of Magic (explaining why Ron's desire for a bubble of fresh air went unmet). The forked willow branches were magical dousing rods, charmed by the Weasley Twins to point towards magical objects (MI-5 3/4 had already deployed prototypes of these rods to security checkpoints at Windsor, Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street). The rods were another reason why they weren't using magical spells…at the beginning of their search the only magic that the dousing rods would point to were their wands and Art Club badges. So, until Fred and George found a way to modify the charm to screen out known magical objects, the three were forced to take turns searching; two would douse while the third stood just outside the detection range with their own wand in one hand and the other two wands in the other.
The work was hot, sweaty and exhaustive. In the first hour of searching they had uncovered a small bag of gobstones, the tip of a forever-inked quill and a broken shard from a magical mirror. Each time they got a tip of the rod they had to stop and dig down through the waste by hand until they uncovered the object. Fortunately, the objects that they'd found were only buried a few feet beneath the surface; without the ability to adjust the range and sensitivity of the rod they could have been forced to dig as much as ten feet down with shovel and pick. Ron quipped that with all of this valuable field testing that they ought to get a share of brother's profits from developing the rod.
Given their search results, the three greeted the fourth time one of their divining rods gave a sharp jerk downwards with as much resignation as excitement.
"Any guesses on what it will be this time?" Ron asked, as they swapped out their dousing rod for shovels and began to dig into the waste.
"I'm actually surprised we've found anything," Hermione replied. "I wouldn't have expected to have wizard waste mixed in with the muggle trash."
"Well I still can't get over just how much muggle trash there is in the first place," Ron replied.
"What, you think the wizarding world is any more environmentally responsible?" asked Harry.
"Of course," said Ron. "You don't see wizards heaping their trash out over the countryside."
"So exactly where do they put their rubbish?" Harry asked.
"Haven't a clue," Ron replied. "Back home, Mum and Dad just banish the garbage with the bin is full."
Hermione shook her head. "Typical…out of sight, out of mind."
"Oh, so like you know?" Ron quipped.
"Yes, and you would too if you ever…"
"Bothered to read Hogwarts, a History," Ron and Harry finished for her in unison.
Hermione frowned a bit. "Well it's true, you know…the standard banishment spells were developed at Hogwarts in the Eleventh Century, with all banished material magically transported to the Waste Plane.
"Waste Plane?" asked Harry.
"Yes," Hermione replied. "It's an off-shoot of the small bit of ethereal plane used by the floo network."
"You mean the floo connections transport people through heaps of garbage?" asked Ron incredulously.
Harry snorted. "Always knew there was a reason I didn't like floo travel."
Hermione sighed (as much as she could sigh without breathing in too much stench). "I did say off-shoot, Ron," she explained.
Ron's retort was cut off by Harry's cry of discovery. During the conversation they had dug through a layer of household garbage and uncovered a separate layer of rough-hewn wood and plaster. Harry stepped down and began to push and pull at the timber. Ron eventually jumped in to help, and with shoulders underneath the end of one length of wood the two were able to pry up on a large piece of plaster.
"See anything?" Harry asked Hermione, as he and Ron struggled to keep the section of wall elevated off of the base of the pit.
Hermione jumped into the pit with her rod (which now pointed sideways rather than straight down). Following down the length of willow branch with her eyes, she quietly replied, "Yes, Harry, I do,"
She then stood and added, "Give me a second and I'll crawl under to get it."
"Don't you dare, Hermione," Harry replied. "Don't know how long Ron and I can hold this piece up.
Hermione looked at Harry and nodded as she swapped out the dousing rod for her wand. Deciding that just a small bit of active magic could be justified, she then pointed her wand underneath the wall fragment, and uttered an incantation that brought a grim smile of satisfaction to Harry's face.
"Accio Helga Hufflepuff's Cup."
+++
The discovery of another horcrux rekindled the destruction debate on the way back to Windsor. They just so happened to have planned on visiting Hogwarts the following day, as the network of Slug Club alumni had finally gotten word to Horace Slughorn that there was a fortune in potion supplies sitting underneath the castle. Ron thought that they ought to bring the cup down with them into the Chamber and try and destroy it straight away, until Hermione cautioned that it would be difficult to explain to their former Potions Professor why they were trying to ruin a priceless Founders artifact. And so, after returning to the Round Tower and cleaning off the filth and grime, they met with Wally and asked to "Indiana Jones" the cup to wherever the locket was presently stored.
Talking with Wally about the need to destroy these objects then brought out all types of creative contingency plans. It was understood that if the three teens were killed or captured before they could do the job that the muggles would have to try and do it themselves. Steel factory blast furnaces and other industrial sources of amazingly high temperatures had been discounted as possibilities, for fear that there might be a destructive explosion associated with the release of the soul fragments. The best two ideas so far were either blasting the objects during an underground nuclear bomb test, or sending the objects out into space, in a low-altitude orbit that would force the horcruxes back down to the Earth (when they would presumably be destroyed by the heat of reentry).
After completing their afternoon meeting with Wally, the three teens were delighted to find themselves unscheduled for the balance of the day. Ron decided to head back to the Burrow for a kip, as he was still getting used to a normal sleeping schedule (his overnight guard duty at St. Mungo's now at an end). He badge-jumped from the Round Tower to the Twins's shop so that he could use their floo; now that the anti-apparation/portkey wards were in place over the castle, this was the only way a wizard could magically leave Windsor Castle.
Harry plopped down the sofa that sat in front of their main fireplace, cracked opened a butterbeer, and arched an eyebrow towards Hermione.
"So," he said off-handedly, "I imagine there's at least a dozen reasons why we can't spend the rest of the day snagging?"
Hermione smiled as she spread out on the rest of the sofa and placed her head in his lap. She fluttered her eyebrows up at him and said, "Funny, but I can't think of any at the moment."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
Harry tried not to get his hopes up as he began to mentally review his "To Do" list. "Warding all done?"
Hermione nodded. "The goblin warders are done down here and have moved up to Balmoral in advance of the Queen's vacation."
"The Queen?"
"Down in her State Apartments, I imagine…she heads back to Buckingham tomorrow night."
"Prime Minister?"
"That meeting is Wednesday, in advance of Thursday's mini-summit with Scrimgeour."
"Fawkes Foundation?"
"Mum's over at Cumberland Lodge today, doing the advance planning for the Summer Institute. We'll be chatting with the Headmistress about that tomorrow."
Harry nodded, thinking that they did have a lot planned for their return to Hogwarts. He then continued down his list.
"Peanut Butter Brigade?"
"Ron and Neville have got their cells in place, Ginny's practically moved in with Percy and Penelope, and the Goblins have promised that Ron's first day in the Liaison Office would be rather productive."
"Well that sounds dangerous," Harry replied with a grin. "How about MI-stuff?"
"We're meeting with the Twins on Tuesday and touring headquarters, wherever that is."
"How about the Rookery?"
"Only seen run-of-the-mill patriarchal perverts so far. Oh, you will have to swap out the camera's battery packs next week, though."
"The Farm?"
Hermione let out a big sigh. "Really Harry, it comes down to worrying about The Farm? If you don't want to snag you could just say so."
Harry looked down at Hermione with a look of horror on his face. He took her into his arms and said, "Oh Hermione, of course I want to…it's just that we need to stay on top of things, right?"
Hermione lifted her head up so that her lips met his in a quick kiss. Leaning her head back down onto his lap she replied, "Harry, you are on top of things. Why don't you just move `Act like a normal horny teen-aged male' to the top of your `To Do' list?"
Harry cocked his head and waggled his eyebrows. Trailing a hand down Hermione's torso, he grabbed a soft mound of flesh and said, "Wouldn't it be easier just to put you on top of my `To Do' list?" He then punctuated this question with a pinch.
Hermione let out a soft moan as she ground the back of her head into Harry's lap. Quickly getting the desired response, she smiled and cooed, "Looks like I'm the one that's on top of things now."
And with that statement, Harry decided to trust in the power of delegated authority.
There was no further talk of "To Do" lists that night.
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