Hermione abandoned Harry after breakfast that morning to do her head duties with Daniel, Dumbledore, and McGonagall. They would be discussing the new procedures that would be taking place late this evening in response to Voldemort's attack in Somerset, so as to alleviate all the parents worries about their children's safety. The conversation would involve traveling the breadth of Hogwarts and explaining each new security feature. Not a good thing to discuss with a junior marauder with a self-updating map of the school, Harry thought, but it wasn't his decision.
With all four of them gone on their campus tour, Dumbledore's office would be vacant. It was a perfect opportunity to risk his occupation as a student by raiding the Headmaster's office for dark art books. The chancy plan was made easier by the attack last night; Dumbledore had left a window open for owls delivering letters. Harry wouldn't have to get past the gargoyle.
He was tempted to send Hedwig in because one more owl wasn't going to trigger any warning bells with the Headmaster. However, the snowy owl was out on a hunt, so the point was moot. He figured he had only a few hours at the most and taking the fifteen minutes to get to the Owlery had wasted precious time.
Thinking on the situation, Harry gazed out of the smelly, owl dripping strewed tower searching for ideas. Across from him, he could see the Quidditch pitch. The Slytherin team was flying in their green and silver robes. They seemed not at all affected by the latest in Voldemort's campaign for Great Britain and eventual world domination as they were still practicing for next month's match against Gryffindor.
Harry saw sunlight flash off of Draco's potion enhanced hair and took a few moments to study the Slytherin in action. Malfoy had already caught the quaffle and flown toward the opposite side of the pitch when it came to him. Harry could take a school broom and fly it up to the open window! Easy and brilliant with little room for error.
Swiftly going down the tower's outside stairs, Harry crossed the grounds over to the pitch and locker rooms. He walked inside and retrieved the Cleansweep without incident. A quick disillusionment charm on him and on the broomstick and he was good to go.
Dumbledore's office was directly across from the pitch and several feet higher up. The shortness of the trip would gain him some of time he had lost by going to the Owlery. Stopping several feet from the window, Harry closed his eyes and swiftly pulled his magic to the forefront. Two feet from the open window an owl perimeter ward had been set. Five feet closer to him from that was another ward Harry couldn't distinguish.
Frowning, Harry drifted closer towards the ward to examine its edges with his magic. Mentally, it was like touching a color. Physically, it was even trickier to explain. He poked the ward with a sliver of magic, but it did not react.
Cautiously, and a little disbelievingly, Harry raised his wand and said, "Finite Incantatem."
The ward sizzled and disappeared with a soft pop.
"It couldn't have been that easy," Harry muttered to himself, changing his grip on his broom and flying a tiny bit closer.
The ward didn't reappear. Harry slipped past the old edge of the ward and pivoted sharply to watch the space behind him. Several seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, Harry faced the window again and moved forward.
He got rid of the alert ward for the owls without a problem and eased ever-so-carefully up to the ledge and peered through the window. Inside he could see Fawkes sleeping in his golden perch just behind the oak door. Beside the perch was a black cabinet slightly ajar with a silver glow permeating from it.
Across from the door was the Headmaster's claw-foot desk and high-backed chair on a raised platform. Behind the desk set between thee tall and narrow rectangular windows sat four, very large and overflowing bookshelves. The shelves in the middle bookcase did not contain very many books, but instead a myriad of silver whirling ornaments and a familiar tattered old hat which was snoring softly. A sword whose handle was set with glittering rubies rested in a glass cabinet a shelf below the sorting hat.
Above the bookshelves, in a continuous row, were the portraits of Hogwart's previous headmasters and mistresses. They seemed to be quietly conversing with one another, slipping in and out of one another's gilded frames. Holding his breath, Harry raised his wand at a thin grumpy looking fellow with a hooked nose who was eyeing the next portrait with a beady look.
Thinking of the Latin for the charm he hoped would do the job because he hadn't had a chance to test it previously; Harry gathered the magic within himself and projected it. The man in the portrait continued to stare irritably at the man in the other frame. Harry took aim again and cast the spell on the occupant in that frame.
Neither man reacted as if anything was changed. The second man continued to search his reddened nose for an elusive booger while the other continued to watch. Harry grinned smugly and threw several more silent nonanim advertos at the remaining portrait inhabitants. They too continued about their business, blissfully unaware of anything.
Just as he began to ease himself over the ledge, clicking noises drew his attention to Fawkes. The phoenix was shuffling around on his perch, his talons making the distracting noise. Harry held his breath and wished that spells worked on phoenixes, but knew if an unforgivable could not, no mid-grade notice-not would stand a chance.
Fawkes dipped his head and tucked it back under a brilliantly scarlet wing. Harry drew breath again and carefully launched himself through the window to land lightly on the old patchwork floor carpet inside.
Harry held himself still as an arrogant hippogriff and waited. Fawkes continued to sleep and the portraits continued their pointless conversations. Now that he was inside, Harry could hear them better.
Three old witches gibbered on about schoolboy pranks that had taken place in the last week causing the hair on one poor unfortunate girl to fall out. The hooked nose was distracted from the nose-picker when a stern looking woman asked him about his opinions on last night's attack. The nose-picker got upbraided by motherly butterball opposite him and he immediately stopped picking his nose.
Harry turned his attention away from them and keeping one eye on Fawkes, hurried over to the bookshelves. The engraving on the sword caught his attention and reminded him of the cup he still had in his possession. The sword however belonged to Godric Gryffindor instead of Helga Hufflepuff.
It was curious that the cup was labeled a Horcrux implying both extraordinary evil and great worth and sitting in Dumbledore's office was another artifact of one of the four founders. Were the artifacts themselves the Horcruxes? Or just the cup?
Harry stretched out a hand to lift the case and find a ward. It vibrated ominously, just centimeters from his fingertips. Retracting his hand quickly, he pivoted, and started browsing the titles on the leftmost bookcase. Amidst The Magical Properties of Lemons and The Complete History of Pepper Imps there was The Dos and Don'ts of Evil Masterminds by Drew Dalling and The Monologue: Pros and Cons by Galvin Binns.
Mindfully aware of the occupants in the room, Harry slipped the two books out of their spots and cast silent copy spells on their covers. He watched for a second to see that they were copying correctly and were not hindered by copyright spells or other protections. Satisfied that they were duplicating smoothly, Harry went back to browsing.
In the second bookcase Harry found a book by Dumbledore and took it down to examine. It was called Dark Lords and Their Inner Childs. Figuring it wouldn't be a complete waste of his time, Harry hit it with the copy charm and pulled out the next book in the row: How to Love the Dark Lord in You by Fergus Maddock. Harry bit his cheek to keep from laughing and put it back on the shelf.
The How-To for Dark Lords by Catriona Marsh and Dark Hexes, Curses, and Jinxes that Should be Unforgivable by Ogg Mortlake were taken from their spots and hit with the charm. There were several contemporary histories on Dumbledore and Grindelwald littering the third bookcase and even more on Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Daniel. Harry one took down one and cast a copy charm on it. That book was The Only One He Ever Feared by Barry McGonagall.
The rest of the books were nothing attention grabbing and mostly about sweets. There was everything from recipe books to creator biographies and in depth tours of candy making factories. It appeared to Harry that Dumbledore had a candy obsession. Not finding anything of worth on the last bookcase, Harry returned to the six books busily reproducing themselves.
It came to him when he was flipping through the fifth book to check on its progress that the room had become too quiet. The sorting hat wasn't snoring anymore and the portraits had stopped talking. Carefully turning his head, Harry jumped at meeting Fawkes' beady black eyes. As they stared at one another, a trickle of sweat poured down the side of Harry's face.
He was in such deep shit.
Subtly checking his right hand holding his wand showed Harry that he was still under the disillusionment charm. The books were right then about phoenixes seeing through transparency and invisibility spell work. Harry brightened, maybe Fawkes thought he was his brother. They certainly looked alike and had scars on their foreheads. He'd pulled it off before.
Harry gave a little wave and a fake smile and ran his hand through his hair ruffling it extensively. Fawkes continued to stare and getting anxious Harry turned back to collect the almost finished copies. The first four were done but he had two to go before getting out of there.
As Harry waited, he watched Fawkes as Fawkes watched him. He fought the urge to fidget and tried his best to pretend he was really suppose to be there; the sweating did not help. The seconds seemed to tick by, though Harry really had no way of knowing. He didn't have a watch.
Harry glanced up at the circle of portraits. They were all staring with either a glazed over expression or were squinting hard in concentration in his general direction. He was sure they couldn't actually see him, but had to know something was amiss when the books from Dumbledore's collection were levitating and creating copies of themselves.
He looked at the books again; five done now. Sweat trickled steadily down his back. His glasses were getting slippery and threatening to slide off his nose. He pushed them back up and ran his hand through his hair again for something to do.
A crunching churning noise rumbled through the room. Somebody was coming up! Harry glanced at the door in trepidation. Hurriedly gathering the five completed books, he stashed them haphazardly into their spaces only to go back and painstakingly fix them so their manhandling wouldn't be noticeable.
Come on, come on, he thought wildly, watching the final volume forge its last one hundred pages. He could hear voices in the small antechamber outside the doorway by this point, and though Harry couldn't make out the conversation, he knew it was only a matter of seconds before that door swung open.
Fawkes sat up regally and chirruped loudly. Bloody bird, Harry thought, panic-stricken. The last book finally finished replicating itself and smothering a cry of triumph, Harry picked it up and shoved it into the bookshelf as the door inched open. Hurriedly he shrunk and pocketed the copies and placed them in his robes.
"I understand, Mr. Robards," Dumbledore was saying as they walked through the doorway. "But I simply can not allow you to bring them onto school grounds."
"Professor," Robards said, sweeping along behind the headmaster, looking agitated. "I'm afraid I must insist. Parents want to know their children are safe and I can't afford to place two full contingents of Aurors here at the castle and another two in Hogsmeade. It is a waste of manpower!"
Harry slowly scooted around the desk and found himself clear opposite of the window. The door was still wide open, but there was no telling what Fawkes would do. Robards crossed in front of him and blocked his view of the Headmaster in his lime green robes.
"Hogwarts will not play host to Lammasu. You will either have to stretch your forces or come to another arrangement."
Robards slammed his hands on the polished desk, upsetting a stack of papers onto the floor. Harry looked down and his eyes practically popped out of his head. A corner of a black leather bound book with gold embossing was exposed under the toppled letters. It read, The Hor…
"Leave it," Dumbledore said sternly; conjuring a teapot as Robards hastily bent to retrieve everything from the floor.
"Yes, sir," Robards replied, straightening.
Harry edged back toward them and held his breath. Carefully he pushed the letters with his toe and grinned wickedly as the title was revealed; The Horror of the Horcrux by Horatio Weatherby. Finally, a book that would explain something about them. If only he'd known where it was when he had first arrived, it would have saved so much time.
"I would like to cooperate," Dumbledore stated congenially as he busied himself with preparing them tea. "But after the incident with the Dementors and Peter Pettigrew a few years ago, there's simply no way, in good conscience, I could let Lammasu near the students."
"But what if they stayed just outside the grounds?"
"One lump or two? Milk or lemon?"
"Huh?" the young man asked as he sat down in an oversized chair. "Oh! One and milk."
Harry crouched down slowly, in an attempt to minimize the shimmering outline of his body that would attract the headmaster's attention. If the Dumbledore caught him now, he was doomed for expulsion. When he was below the line of the desk, Harry stretched out his hand to try and grab the corner of the book. Robards shifted in his sit and nearly kicked Harry's outstretched hand. Sweat trickled down his heated face and Harry wiped it off on his sleeve.
"Lemons have all sorts of magical properties," Dumbledore said cajolingly, his hand hovering over the lemon before sighing and pouring the milk in the cup for the Head of Aurors.
"Thank you, Albus," Robards said accepting the cup.
"That's what Rufus Scrimgeour said when he brought the Dementors," Dumbledore stated, taking his seat as he got back to the conversation at hand. "You fill his shoes now because Minister Fudge has had him relocated due to the incident with Daniel Potter and a few other students."
Harry rolled his eyes at the mention of Daniel and made a grab at the book, but he hit the edge of a bound corner. It scooted farther away from himself and closer to Dumbledore. Damn. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward slightly to try again.
Robards nodded, drinking from his cup. "Good tea, Professor," he complimented, shifting again causing Harry to drop his hand quickly once more.
"Thank you, Gawain."
Harry shuffled forward and this time boldly snatched the book and hobbled backwards, almost falling on his arse in the process. He didn't dare use magic and alert Dumbledore to his presence. Instead he kept the book low so hoped that it didn't look like it was being held and eyed his surroundings. Fawkes was still eyeing him like a hawk--er phoenix. His unwavering gaze was really starting to unnerve him.
The portraits, were focused entirely on the ministry visitor with the exception of hook nose who was glaring balefully in Harry's general direction. If only he could be positive that doing magic around the Headmaster wouldn't alert the barmy kook, he'd shrink the book and be gone.
"Lammasu are not Dementors," Robards pointed out, swirling his cup a little and watching the headmaster.
"No, they are not," Dumbledore agreed, throwing his beard over his shoulder and taking a deep sip. "You can't deny however, the many documented incidences of their violence."
Harry eyed Fawkes appraisingly and glanced at the window. If he crouched and shuffled carefully towards the door, he would remain out of sight of Dumbledore. His broom however was hovering just underneath the window and would get him away faster than his own two feet. Surely if he stayed low, he could cross the circular room and disappear the way he'd come through. The door on the other hand was closer.
"They have been tamed and are loyal--"
"Can you guarantee that, Gawain?" Dumbledore asked the Head of the Aurors, peering over his spectacles.
"Why--I--"
Harry shook his head at Robards position. Deciding on his course of action, he planned to get to and go through the door where then he would wait at the bottom for the gargoyle to open for Robards to come down from his meeting. Dumbledore would not be with him then and Harry was positive that Robards would be too preoccupied to notice his shimmering outline.
He moved forward on his haunches awkwardly. Fawkes ruffled his feathers in agitation but looked away. Relief flooded Harry at the sign of capitulation and with more confidence than before he hobbled to the door. Just as he thought he was going to make it out a postal owl swooped through the window and Harry watched it in horror.
"Strange," Dumbledore said, taking the letter from the tawny owl. "You should have activated the alarm."
Snapping his gaze from the scene, Harry got to his hands and knees and scrabbled forward quickly coming even with Fawkes. The scarlet phoenix eyed him smugly and trilled. Harry cursed the bloody pigeon as Dumbledore stood to his feet and bellowed at the room. The window snapped shut and locked. Harry stood and threw himself through the fast closing door.
He got caught in the doorway, his robes stuck in the sealed door. Harry turned around and yanked on them with all his might. A ripping sound filled his ears and suddenly Harry was falling backwards down the stairs, arse over elbow. The stairs jabbed at him all over until Harry knew he'd looked like a loser from a Quidditch match brawl. He landed flat on his back with a loud and temporarily paralyzing whump.
"Fuck that hurts," Harry wheezed, sitting up gingerly and bracing himself against the wall.
The book laid sprawled across from him and Harry summoned it and shrunk it, stuffing it into the side pocket of his robes. Clumsily, Harry got to his feet and heard a small thud. Frowning, he glanced down and saw the Horcrux book lying on the floor. He checked his pocket and sure enough it was ripped and the torn cloth continued along his side, leaving his robes breezier than ever. He looked up and saw the other books spread out over several stairs.
But Harry didn't have time to think about the other books as the door banged open and crashed against the stone. He scooped up the miniature book and raced over to the gargoyle. It didn't budge. Swearing heatedly, Harry cast about for the password.
What would Dumbledore pick? His familiar?
"Fawkes?"
The gargoyle didn't move. Thinking again Harry remembered the theme of the books in the bookcases. The Headmaster loved lemons.
Harry whispered, "Lemon!"
The gargoyle didn't budge and Dumbledore or Robards was picking his way down the winding stairs. Harry couldn't see him and the sound of footfalls grew louder. Time was of the essence. Harry thought back again and recalled all the candy titles.
"Ice Mice! Cockroach Clusters! Fizzing Whizbees! Jelly slugs!"
None of them moved the statue and Harry could see his pursuer's shadow flickering along the walls. It was Dumbledore! Harry clutched the book tighter in his hand and wiped his brow.
"Broomstick Gummies!"
A grinding noise issued from the gargoyle as it slid slowly open. Harry could see Dumbledore coming around the bend, beard flying. Harry squeezed himself through the slim opening, thanking Merlin for once about his short stature.
In the corridor, Harry broke out into a run. Shouts and stunners hit the walls in front of him and he ducked, narrowly avoiding a mysterious yellow curse that pulverized the stone floor in front of him. Harry jumped over the hole and skidded around the corner.
Panting harshly, Harry clutched his side. He was out of shape and tired, the stitch in his side twinging with every step he took. A loud crack sounded behind him. Harry slowed to a stopped and looked disbelievingly behind him. The crack was definitely the sound of an Apparition!
"Don't be stupid, Potter," Harry growled at himself, taking a few more halting running half steps. "You can't Apparate on school grounds."
Harry watched over his shoulder as Robards and Snape skidded around the corner but Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen. He didn't bother to think about where Snape had come from as he swiveled his head in dawning horror as the next deafening crack sounded in front of him.
"Reveal yourself!" Dumbledore bellowed, his lime green robes swirling around his intimidating figure.
Harry dropped the book, banishing it to the Chamber with a wave of his hand. Dumbledore shot a spell at him and he side stepped it hurriedly.
"Professor?" Snape sneered, coming to a halt on the other side of Harry, wand raised. "What are your orders?"
Robards stepped up beside Snape and held his wand aloft, squinting hard to detect Harry's shape. Harry let out a calming breath and concentrated on his magic, pulling it up through his veins until it shimmered along his skin creating goose pimples.
"What is that?" Snape asked, a shaky scowl on his sallow face as his eyes darting between Dumbledore and Harry's nearly transparent form.
Dumbledore sent a silent spell out from his wand. It shot fast and straight, aiming true and Harry did the only thing he could think of--he stepped into the void and felt his lungs burn and ache. A loud crack rang in his ears as his body squeezed impossibly small through a narrow tunnel.
Distantly he heard Snape bellowing, "Stupefy!"
As Harry was dragged into subspace, he knew both spells missed him. In an instant he was falling from several feet in the air, another loud crack heralding his arrival. He hit water with a splash and fell into the dark abyss.
Struggling in his robes, Harry kicked out trying to reach the surface. But he didn't know how to swim. It had been foolish of him to Apparate without a destination in mind. His lungs constricted as he flung his hands about wildly. Two dark shapes fell into the water above him. They were long bodied and sleek parting the water easily as they dived toward his sinking form.
§Hang on!§ Orrjit hissed, folding back his wings and striking out with his tail.
§We are coming, Harry!§ Serion shouted, slicing through the water.
Blackness hazed his vision as his lungs forced his mouth open. Gagging on water, Harry watched bleakly as the two snakes whipped their tails around his wrists and tugged urgently. They were too small and he was too large.
His lungs burned as if they were on fire. He couldn't breath. Harry kicked his feet urgently; he didn't want to die.
§Use magic, Harry!§ Serion hissed, struggling to swim upwards.
§Use it now before it's too late!§ Oorjit screeched, beating his wings in the water.
§Rise,§ Harry said expending the last of his breath and falling into darkness.
º«««º»»»ºEnd Chapter 14º«««º»»»º