Unofficial Portkey Archive

Thanks for coming back, and for the kind reviews for Chapter 1. The chapter below will contain two details not particular to canon. I'll address them in greater depth in a postscript. For now, read and enjoy.

Neville slunk through the shadowy bowels of Hogwarts Castle. His path was not straight, but his destination was no less certain for that. He ducked through tapestries concealing hidden doorways, answered a challenge from a night-black suit of armor that sought to block his way with a blood-stained battle axe, hissed curses at a portrait of an old hag, her seamed face twisted with hate as she croaked, "You don't belong here, boy! Go back to your own House!"

At last Neville stopped before a stretch of blank stone wall. "Password," he muttered in irritation. "They changed the password last night - ah, yes. Mudblood filth."

The outline of a door appeared in the midst of the featureless stone, and Neville pushed it open and entered the chamber that lay behind it.

The Slytherin common room was long and low, lighted by lamps which suffused all with a sickly greenish glow. Two Slytherin First-Years were doing some homework in front of the hearth, in which somber flames burned low. Apart from them, the common room was deserted.

The opposite wall of the serpentine chamber was broken by seven doors, each marked with a number from 1 to 7. Beyond these lay the dormitories housing the student body of Slytherin House. Neville passed these doors without so much as a glance. Instead he walked the length of the room and passed under a tapestry woven of black silk. He found himself in an alcove from which six doors debouched, each marked with an ornate letter P around which a green serpent was twisted. Neville drew his wand and traced a complex rune before the first door on the right, which immediately swung open. He entered the chamber beyond, closing and locking the door behind him.

Neville crossed the 5th-year prefect's quarters and, rounding the double-wide four-poster bed, stood before a trunk which bore seven keyholes. Grinning malevolently, Neville fetched a ring of keys from the top left drawer of an antique writing desk. He flipped through the keys, found the one he wanted and thrust it into the seventh lock. The lid sprang open, and with a hideous grin Neville looked down upon - himself.

The Neville Longbottom at the bottom of the trunk was clad only in socks, knickers and an undershirt. He lay unmoving, his eyes closed as if in sleep. Even as he surveyed the motionless form of his mirror image, the watcher's face began to change. From round and soft, it became thin and hatchet-like. The black hair paled to silver-blond, and the deep brown eyes to an icy grey.

Having felt his skin crawl in concert with the change, Draco Malfoy surveyed himself in the silver-framed mirror hanging beside the dresser - and he laughed.

"Thank the Dark Lord," he sneered down at the prone figure of the true Neville Longbottom. "I was getting sick of seeing your fat, stupid face every time I passed a mirror." Pitching the ring of keys onto his bed, Draco dipped a slender white hand into a pocket and pulled out a phial half-filled with a thick, mud-colored liquid. Holding the phial before him, he looked into the trunk and sneered, "Ever hear of Polyjuice Potion, you great oaf? Likely not. N.E.W.T. standard, this is. Bet you lot in Gryffindor couldn't brew up a batch to save your lives. And even if you could, it's not bloody likely that I'd be fooled by a sodding Polyjuice impostor." He laughed again, tossing the phial onto the bed next to the keys and pulling off Neville's robes, which were both too broad and too short for his lanky frame.

Donning fresh robes from his dresser, Draco peered over the edge of the trunk, his wand held at the ready. There was a momentary flicker of conflict in his pale eyes.

"No," he said regretfully. "Much as I'd prefer to have you climb out under your own power, it's not worth risking Azkaban to use the Imperius on you. Ah, well. There are other ways." Pointing his wand downward, he said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Neville drifted up from the floor of the trunk, lurching this way and that as his dangling limbs and lolling head caused his center of gravity to shift. He bumped against the walls of the trunk with every foot he rose, and Draco laughed again.

"I take it back. This is much more fun."

Neville rose past the edge of the trunk, and Draco directed him with his wand until he was hovering above an ornate Persian rug at a height of about three feet. Draco jerked his wand up, negating the spell, and Neville crashed to the stone floor.

"As clumsy as you are," Draco sneered, "no one will find a few new bruises unusual."

Draco grabbed a handful of Neville's hair and jerked him into a sitting position, thereafter propping him against one of the bedposts. With a distasteful scowl, he knelt and replaced Neville's shoes. "This is servant's work," he muttered as he looped and tied the laces. "Honestly, the school should assign a house-elf to each of the prefects. There must be loads down in the kitchens that do nothing but sit on their lazy arses all day. Do 'em good to serve a proper pureblood wizard instead of that lot of blood traitors."

But this thought soured his mood even more. His father had never told him how they had lost their own house-elf, Dobby. His father hadn't mentioned Riddle's diary, either. Damn his father and his secrets. But he should have known that Potter had had a hand in it. Meddling, Mudblood-loving Potter, his own personal demon, taunting him, bringing him nothing but misery. But no more, he mused with a twisted smile. No more.

He caught up Neville's robes and flung them indifferently over the insensate boy's head. As he tugged them impatiently into place, he felt a bulge in one of the pockets. He pulled out the small drawstring pouch, and his smile grew more venomous.

"Wouldn't want you to find this in your pocket, Longbottom. Don't want to give them any clues, do we? If anyone were to recognize this as Potter's Floo powder, there might be, shall we say, embarrassing questions."

A small piece of folded parchment had fallen from Neville's pocket with the removal of the pouch. Draco picked it up and unfolded it, grinning. It was a list of the Gryffindor passwords, which Neville had written down as a safeguard against his unreliable memory. Everyone in school knew of the incident wherein Sirius Black had invaded Gryffindor Tower by means of a similar list obtained from Neville. This was one reason he had been chosen by Draco as his Polyjuice subject. Draco stuffed the list back into Neville's pocket, lest its absence lead to still more questions best not asked.

Standing up now, Draco looked down on Neville, surveying his handiwork smugly. "What a pathetic excuse for a pureblood you are, Longbottom. If your family'd had any common sense, you'd all have sided with the Dark Lord from the first. If they'd done that, you wouldn't be a virtual orphan today, would you?

"You and the Weasleys never realized, it's all about power. Look at this chamber." He swept an arm around the room grandly. "Dumbledore took away my prefect's badge after the Umbridge affair. But I bullied the new 5th-year prefect into giving me his room. He's doubled with the 6th-year in the next chamber over. The Malfoy name is still a force to be reckoned with. My father may be in Azkaban, but it's only a matter of time, isn't it? The Dark Lord broke his loyal servants out once before, and he'll do it again. And now, with Potter and his Mudblood whore gone, that day will not be long in coming. If you don't wise up and switch sides, Longbottom, you'll go the way of your parents. If you're lucky."

Careless though he had been in re-dressing the other boy, Draco was satisfied that Neville looked no more disheveled than was normal for him. With a decisive nod, Draco drew his wand again and pointed it downward.

"Ennervate!"

Neville's eyes sprang open. With the return of conscious feeling, Neville immediately felt the deep ache of his bruises, both those just acquired, and those incurred when Crabbe and Goyle had waylaid him on his way back from breakfast earlier that morning. Blinking stupidly, Neville looked around until he saw Draco standing over him.

"M-Malfoy?" he stammered. "What - where am I?"

"Do you remember what happened to you?" Draco inquired coolly.

"I - " Neville said hesitantly, " - someone - hit me - " As if this memory had reawakened the pain of the actual event, Neville raised his hand to the back of his head, where he found a large, soft lump that pulsed hotly when he touched it.

"You fell down," Draco said condescendingly, speaking as though to a six-year-old.

"No," Neville said, wincing in pain as his voice echoed in his throbbing head. "I didn't fall. It was - "

Neville's eyes suddenly went round with realization.

"It was you! You hit me!"

"No," Draco said smoothly. "You're mistaken."

"If it wasn't you," Neville said, his anger rising, "it was your goons, Crabbe and Goyle. And everyone knows they only do what you tell them to."

"You really believe that?" Draco said, his voice remaining calm.

"Yes!" Neville said.

"And I suppose you're off to tell the headmaster?"

"Bloody well right I am!"

Draco sighed. "You're stupider than you look - and that's saying something." In a motion swift as a flash of heat lightning, Draco stabbed his wand at Neville and barked, "Obliviate!"

Neville's anger melted away, along with every other thought or emotion. A dreamy look spread across his face, and Draco pocketed his wand and bent to help Neville to his feet.

"By the time you can think clearly again - if you ever could, that is," Draco added caustically, "you'll be in the corridor leading to the Great Hall. If anyone asks," he said pointedly, fixing Neville's glassy eyes with his cold-fire orbs, "you ate too much at breakfast and went outside for some fresh air to settle your stomach. You got that?"

"I've been walking," Neville said vacantly. "It's lovely outside this time of year. The leaves are turning such beautiful colors. I love to walk through the fallen leaves. Do you like to walk through the leaves - " Neville paused, his brow furrowing. "Sorry…I seem to have forgotten your name."

"I'm just a friend," Draco said as he guided Neville through the Slytherin common room and out into the corridor, ignoring the wide-eyed stares of the two First-Years sprawled on the hearth.

"A friend," Neville echoed pleasantly. "That's good. Bloke can't have too many friends, can he?"

"That's true," Draco said agreeably. "But if he isn't careful," he added under his breath, "he can have one enemy too many."

As Harry and Hermione traveled through the Floo Network toward Diagon Alley, they had no idea where they would end up. Diagon Alley was the busiest spot in wizard Britain, making it far and away the most frequent destination for both Apparating and non-Apparating wizards. The latter proved quite a headache for the dispatchers at the Floo Network. It was their job to route travelers as quickly and smoothly as possible along the many byways of the Network. But there were so many destinations in Diagon Alley that any one fire was liable to be occupied at a given moment, causing a back-up in the system of potentially catastrophic proportions. To alleviate this congestion, the Floo Regulatory Commission decreed that travelers could not specify a particular location, but must simply declare their destination as "Diagon Alley." It then fell to the dispatchers to monitor the traffic to and from that general location and insert travelers into the first open fire that turned up.

All this had been explained to Harry by Hermione when he had related to her and Ron his near-disastrous journey to Knockturn Alley during his first visit to the Burrow.

"When they see a lot of people Flooing from one location," she said, "they always try to send them to the same fire. But all too often, that's easier said than done. When you first made your first Floo journey with the Weasleys, you were going to buy school supplies, right? How many other Hogwarts students were doing the same thing? Imagine if all of them had announced their destination as, say, Flourish and Blotts. Can you picture the mayhem of so many people trying to come out of the same fire all at once?"

Harry did not have to imagine it. Something very similar had happened on Privet Drive when the Weasleys came to fetch Harry prior to the Quidditch World Cup. None of the Weasleys had imagined that the Dursleys would have blocked their fireplace and substituted an electric fire. The Weasleys could laugh about the incident now, in retrospect, but it had been anything but funny at the time. Harry understood that the Floo Regulatory Board could not permit such a back-up in a public venue. It was only natural, therefore, that multiple travelers expect to be separated in the course of their journey.

But that wasn't going to happen this time, Harry thought as he and Hermione sped through the air toward their destination. Locked firmly in each other's arms, they would emerge from the same fire when they ultimately came to journey's end. The only question was, which fire would it be?

Whooshing blurs that were travelers like themselves flashed by on every side. As Harry and Hermione watched one grate after another fly past, they knew that, at any moment, one of these would eventually flash "clear" on the Floo Central control panel, and a dispatcher would push a wooden peg into an enchanted board, completing the open-ended Transfer Spell and depositing them at their destination.

And no sooner did that thought occur to Harry than the deed was done. Awash in a soft bath of green flames, he and Hermione tumbled abruptly out of a fireplace and got quickly to their feet. Now that they had arrived, their grate would flash a "clear" signal back at Floo Central, and they did not want to risk being trod upon by the next traveler to fall from this particular grate. This was the busiest time of the year for the wizarding world, and the air was no doubt filled to bursting with magical creatures of every sort setting out upon (or returning from) last-minute Halloween shopping.

"I keep forgetting how filthy traveling by Floo is," Hermione groused as she shook soot from her bushy brown hair.

"I'll be glad when we finally get our Apparation licenses," Harry said as he ruffled his hair, making it even messier than usual as particles of soot clouded the air. "Until then, I'd settle for being able to enchant a portkey. I understand Portkey Theory comes up in N.E.W.T., so I'm sure Flitwick will be bringing it up eventually."

"Oh, I already know how to enchant a portkey," Hermione said indifferently.

"You what?" Harry gaped. "How?"

"I'm taking an Advanced Charms class," Hermione returned. "Just as you're taking Advanced Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Harry was flabbergasted. "Then why in Merlin's name are we traveling by Floo when you could have Charmed us up a portkey at any time?"

"Because you can't just whip up a portkey whenever the fancy strikes you," Hermione said with a note of impatience.

"Why not?"

Hermione gave Harry another of her withering stares as they moved farther away from the fireplace, shaking her robes to dislodge loose particles of soot.

"Enchanting a portkey is like booking a flight on a Muggle aeroplane. A plane can't just take off and fly wherever it wants. A flight plan has to be filed. It's the same with portkeys. That's why the Ministry regulates the enchantment of portkeys, just like it regulates Floo travel.

"You saw how crowded the air all around us was with people traveling by Floo, right? Imagine the chaos that would result if Floo Central wasn't regulating all those hurtling bodies. Portkey travel is just as crowded. If two people inadvertently set portkeys for cross-destinations, they could clash in mid-air, just like a plane. Honestly, Harry. If you'd listen to Professor Flitwick instead of thinking about Quidditch - "

"Our Quidditch victories add points to Gryffindor's hourglass," Harry said defensively. "They've helped us win the House championship for - "

"There are more important things than House points and Championship Cups, Harry."

"More important things than House points?" Harry repeated incredulously. "We'd best get you to a Healer, love. I think you're running a fever."

"If we don't get to Madam Malkin's before she closes for the holiday," Hermione said tartly, "then you're the one who'd better run. Otherwise, you'll be wearing my bootprint on your backside from now until Ron's birthday."

"Point taken," Harry smiled. Looking around now, Harry realized that they didn't even know where they had landed. But when he caught sight of the bar, and the man standing behind it, he grinned. He waved at the bartender, who responded with an acknowledging jerk of his bald head and a broad, toothless smile.

"Mr. Potter," Tom greeted as Harry and Hermione crossed the table-strewn floor of the Leaky Cauldron. "The usual, then?"

"No time now, Tom," Harry said. "Maybe later."

Tom nodded amiably, but when he caught sight of Hermione, whom he had missed due to her short stature, his eyes narrowed. His grin widening obscenely, he said in a conspiratorial whisper, "You'll be wantin' a room, then? Got one with a built-in Silencing Charm. Privacy guaranteed."

Momentarily speechless at Tom's unexpected offer, Harry said at last, "No, no room." He felt the need to say more, to ask why Tom had made such an offer in the first place, but Hermione jerked the sleeve of his robes and dragged him toward the back door before he could put his jumbled thoughts into words.

"Why did he ask if I wanted a room?" Harry wondered aloud as Hermione pulled him close to the stone wall separating the Leaky Cauldron (and Muggle London) from Diagon Alley.

"What?" Hermione said distractedly as she counted the bricks in the wall carefully, her index finger wagging before her. "What did you say?"

"I said - " But Harry never got to finish his thought. Hermione found the brick she was searching for, touched it, and the stone wall shrank away on either side until an arched doorway stood open before them.

"Hurry," Hermione urged. "Madam Malkin closes at noon today. I may need some last-minute alterations, so there's no time to muck about."

Hermione scurried past the many quaint and fascinating shops lining either side of Diagon Alley, Harry trotting in her wake, as she made a beeline for a door standing under a sign that read Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions."

"I still don't know why we didn't just go to Gladrags in Hogsmeade," Harry sighed, his long legs easily keeping pace with Hermione's frantic scurrying. "They had virtually the same robes as the ones you picked out, and we could've walked there."

"The same robes at twice the cost," Hermione panted, which thought made her place a hand to the pocket in which rode her money pouch. "Honestly, Harry! If we're going to keep a household running smoothly after we're married, we've got to get every Knut's worth out of every Galleon. We've got to learn to budget ourselves. I expect we'll accomplish a lot of good in our chosen careers, but no one ever got rich working for the Ministry of Magic."

Gasping for breath doubly hard from running and talking simultaneously, Hermione burst into Madam Malkin's shop three steps ahead of Harry and collapsed into a chair, holding her side with one hand and patting her money pouch reassuringly with the other.

Madam Malkin emerged from the back of the shop just as Harry entered. She greeted him with a smile, her arms open.

"Ah, Mr. Potter! And what can I do for you on this beautiful Halloween morning?"

"I think there's another customer before me," Harry said, suppressing a smile as he nodded toward Hermione, who was rising from her chair on unsteady legs. Madam Malkin looked from Hermione to Harry and back again, and her smile retreated into one of detached professionalism.

"May I help you?" Madam Malkin said in a clipped, formal voice.

"I'm - " Hermione said as she regulated her breathing, "- here - to pick up - my dress robes - "

"Your ticket, please?" Madam Malkin said crisply.

Hermione and Harry exchanged a mildly surprised look as Hermione fished in her robes for her ticket. It was customary procedure, of course, to produce one's ticket for a special tailoring job. But over the past couple of years, Harry and Hermione had come to expect a more personal touch from Madam Malkin, especially since they had only last month contracted her to supply formal dress robes for the entire wedding party. Madam Malkin had treated Harry as warmly as ever upon his entry just now - but why was she being so coldly distant to Hermione?

When Hermione handed over her ticket, Madam Malkin scrutinized it with an intensity to equal Molly Weasley appraising Fred's and George's pockets for the presence of Ton-Tongue Toffees. Harry led Hermione back to her chair and sat down beside her as Madam Malkin disappeared into the back room. The old witch returned less than a minute later, her normally pleasant face hard as flint.

"This ticket," she said, thrusting it out before her as if it were contaminated, "is invalid. If this is a Halloween prank, I assure you we are not amused."

"What?" Hermione leaped up and snatched the ticket from Madam Malkin, drawing it to her face to read the writing thereon. Was it possible that one of their friends - or, more likely, an enemy - had switched tickets on her? But no, there was the number Hermione remembered, scrawled in Madam Malkin's own hand. It was even initialed by Madam Malkin. Hermione looked up into Madam Malkin's stony face.

"You did these robes up yourself," Hermione said, half angry, half panicked, as she brandished the ticket before her like a sword. "You told me you would handle it personally. I stood for three fittings - "

"Not in this shop you didn't, young lady," Madam Malkin said sharply.

Hermione was now fighting back tears. "Y-You told me…they'd be ready…for the…the Halloween Ball…"

"The what?" Madam Malkin said, her eyes suddenly raking Harry with the same caustic look she had heretofore reserved solely for Hermione.

"The Hogwarts Halloween Ball," Hermione said weakly. Madam Malkin snorted imperiously.

"The Halloween Ball has been cancelled this year," she said, firing her words like an arrow from a taut bowstring. "As you would know if you were a Hogwarts student as you claim. You don't look old enough to have graduated," she observed haughtily. "More likely you were expelled for some deviltry and were attempting to infiltrate the Ball, not knowing that it had been cancelled at some point after your dismissal."

"The Ball has been cancelled?" Harry blurted out. "When? How?"

"Hagrid related the story last night at the Leaky Cauldron, when he was in London on school business," Madam Malkin said as she eyed Harry shrewdly. "A group of Slytherins, who had been given week-long detentions encompassing the Halloween holiday, set off some dung bombs in the Great Hall during breakfast yesterday. They were determined that if they could not attend the Ball, there would be no Ball. Upon examination, Mr. Filch estimated that he would need at least forty-eight hours to rid the Great Hall of the stench. Students are taking their meals in their dormitories until further notice, and the Ball will not be held as scheduled.

"You would not likely have heard of this, Mr. Potter," she concluded. "Though that does not necessarily exonerate you in certain other regards." She flashed her eyes searingly at Hermione before tugging her starched robes taut with claw-like fingers. "I will be closing shortly, due to the holidays. I believe our business is concluded. Good day to you both."

Both of them stunned speechless, Harry and Hermione exited Madam Malkin's and drifted listlessly past the shops of Diagon Alley, all of which showed evidence of preparing to close early for the holidays. Walking aimlessly, the young couple found themselves back before the wall behind which lay the Leaky Cauldron and Muggle London. The wall was solid once more, and Harry scrutinized the bricks for fully five minutes before correctly choosing the one which would open the magical doorway. Hermione could have made a quicker job of it, but she seemed to have "gone inside" herself, and Harry thought it best not to disturb her thoughts just yet.

They entered the Leaky Cauldron, Harry's arm holding Hermione's shoulder comfortingly. Tom the bartender walked over, his evil leer returning.

"Looks like I will need that room after all, Tom," Harry said.

Tom's toothless grin became positively lewd as he went to fetch the key to the room.

I hope everyone is as baffled as Harry and Hermione regarding what happened in this chapter. That will ensure your return for another slice of the mystery pie next time. Until then, thanks for reading.