Search:

SIYE Time:2:21 on 29th March 2024
SIYE Login: no


The Prevailing Counterpoint
By GHL

- Text Size +

Category: Alternate Universe
Characters:All
Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Humor, Romance
Warnings: Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations
Story is Complete
Rating: PG
Reviews: 193
Summary:

"We can prevail," Ginny whispered. "I mean sooner. Not later. Not months and months of people dying and lives being torn apart..." As the summer of 1997 draws to a close, Harry and Ginny return to Hogwarts to forge unlikely alliances, protect the innocent, and dispel the encroaching darkness. Propelled by powerful convictions and enlightened by a reclusive pair of mystics, they glimpse an unlikely path to victory.

Making the most of every day in a race against the clock, our two protagonists move all of the pieces into place: teaching, learning and refining their way toward a perfect strategy to quell the mounting threat. But one sudden disaster tips their world on end: armed with love, humour and steadfast friendships, they careen wildly toward the ultimate clash.

This is a modest attempt to explore where Matt Fake-a-Smile's thrillers 'Taking Control' and 'Free Life' could have taken us if the stories were extended. This plot presumes rigorous Rowling canon through the end of Order of the Phoenix, followed by Matt's divergent post-OotP theme. Most of the characters in this story are the intellectual property of J.K. Rowling, and many of the remainder are the products of Matt's imagination. ***This story is published with Matt (fake-a-smile)'s permission and in full SIYE knowledge.***


Hitcount: Story Total: 151039; Chapter Total: 6354
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
Funny how when I edit my non-fiction work, I always make things shorter, but when I edit my fiction, things get longer. Anyway, lots of revisions later and this chapter somehow got longer than expected. A lot of that is trying to cover the bases on the emerging plot elements, but I will probably take a crack at judiciously condensing some of these chapters later. For now, dear reader, you get the unabridged version :)




ChapterPrinter
StoryPrinter


Chapter 15. A Weary Harry    (September 16-17, 1997)

For the first time ever, their eyelids fluttered open at the exact same time. They had both been sleeping on their sides, facing each other, buried under a mountain of blankets in the chilly room. Their waking eyes were perfectly aligned, opening a direct channel into each others’ early morning souls.

A little grin flickered across Harry's face. Softly, quietly, almost undetectably, he edged his hand from where it had been embracing Ginny’s lower back. The motion, gradually and sensuously progressing upwards, lit a spark of rapt curiosity in Ginny's face; her mouth parted in an open-mouthed half-smile, glimmering eyes acutely keying on her partner's face, hoping to read therein what on earth might be coming next, in the mysterious faint tendrils of predawn. His hand reached her upper arm — the one coupled to Harry’s side. Fingertips brushed her soft skin with the lightest, tickling touch, eliciting a tremulous thrill. Her inquisitive gaze angled down to see... but the wandering hand had already moved on, creeping out of her peripheral vision, hastening more boldly up past her shoulder and cheek to her forehead, where it located its quarry: a precious bit of stray silken hair. A smooth fingernail caressed her fine skin as the index finger edged sideways, gently trapping the lock against his thumb. In a single bold move, he whisked the hair behind her ear and let his digit wander down to an earlobe... where it made three delicate loops. Her breath caught; her pupils strained wonderingly to the side, enthralled, before being drawn back to the fore, summoned by intense pools of green sparkling in the dim light. Their eyes met, questioned silently, then drifted shut. Her face drew in. His mouth approached, softly colliding with the moist velvet of her lips. In tantalized rapture, she exhaled a softly drawn adagio…

Pounce!!

They burst into laughter as whiskers and a cold wet feline nose made it an instant trio. “Oh Emmie, darling…” Ginny groaned, “don’t you ever sleep in?”

Knowing that they had at best thirty seconds before nosing and tickling transitioned to insistent gnawing, Harry chanced one last peck on the lips, nose and forehead before rolling out of bed to feed the sweet, ever-loving (but never perfectly altruistic) feline.

"Your choice on the workout this morning, Gin'," Harry called from the passageway that veered inwards from the back wall of their closet.

Ginny angled her head a bit to peer our the window. The faint stirrings of color outside were of the deepest blue. "Outcrop!" she sang out.

Harry smiled to himself as he dressed. In spite of the affectio interrupta, their lips might still get some good exercise this morning after all.


Most mornings, the grand staircase was still deserted when Harry and Ginny climbed, rosy-cheeked from their run, up to Room of Requirement. This morning, however, Professor McGonagall was pacing the Entrance Hall, apparently waiting for them.

"Good morning!" Harry waved genially, masking any concern he might have had over why the acting-headmistress was seeking them so early. "Is everything all right?"

"No, I fear that things are not quite all right," she confided with strain tugging in lines about her eyes. "Oh, but don't worry, Harry, it's not about the HA students; all of the parents who responded to our owls have been most wonderfully supportive. The problem is that three times now in the last five days authorities from the Ministry of Magical Education have floo-called asking for the headmaster, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to simply claim that he left the school premises for important research and that we expect him back soon."

Harry nodded soberly.

"Filius and I are trying to determine whether we need to begin some sort of active search for him. Harry, Ginny, you were almost certainly the last people at Hogwarts to see him — are you sure that you don't have any more thoughts or speculation as to where he might have gone?"

Harry had already recapitulated their final conversation with Dumbledore a couple of times, so he shook his head and deferred to Ginny.

"It was Thursday afternoon," Ginny recounted. "We arrived at his office on time for a two o'clock meeting. He was pacing about his office, distractedly asking questions but only half-listening to the answers. We had an agenda, but he wasn't able to stick to it for more than one sentence at a time. We were discussing a number of relics that had been important to Tom Riddle. He paid passing attention to most of them, but seemed to key in on one in particular."

"And you do not know precisely what that relic was?" McGonagall inquired.

"That's correct," Ginny responded. She had been essentially parroting Harry's words from the same basic conversation two days ago, and doubted that it was much help to McGonagall but she persistently patiently just in case. "Nor do we know anything helpful about where it is. All that I can recall is that it was in a box, located in a room that seemed to have a fair bit of filtered daylight streaming in. The poor air quality suggested a lot of dust or soot."

McGonagall nodded in private frustration. "Blast that old man," she muttered under her breath. "Well thank you both. If anything at all occurs to you, please do let me know!"

They started up the stairwell, as McGonagall walked off in a westerly direction to do her pacing elsewhere. About half way to the landing, however, Ginny stopped mid-step. "Professor!" she called.

"Call me Minerva please, Ginny," McGonagall responded from the corridor.

"Minerva, has anyone thought to try to speak with Fawkes?" Ginny asked.

"Speak with... the phoenix?" McGonagall was rubbing her chin, trying to make sense of the suggestion.

"Fawkes is sentient, Minerva," Harry explained. "I believe he thinks and reasons in a very sophisticated way that most of us can't interpret. I've been able to interact with him a little, but I suspect that he and Ginny may be forming a deeper, more fundamental connection."

McGonagall stared at them for a moment, then hurried to the staircase and rushed up past them, beckoning as she went by. Harry and Ginny fell into step and the three of them proceeded briskly together, straight up to the headmaster's office.

Once in the room, Ginny and Harry both approached Fawkes. The bird watched their approach with offhand interest... but it was immediately obvious to Harry that his reactions were muted; his eyes lacked their characteristic sparkle. When they extended their hands to him, he responded with affection, nuzzling both of them gently for a minute, and then keyed on Ginny. Harry withdrew from the phoenix and slid behind Ginny to embrace her protectively as Fawkes met her gaze and locked in. Although the bird did sustain a connection for several minutes during which he whirred through some undulating musical notes, unlike their first real encounter at the beginning of the month this communion did not delve into deep memories or emotions. Ginny did not get drawn into a disorienting cerebral journey; her eyes briefly went diffuse, but then she returned to the present, to the office, and to the questioning scrutiny of Harry and McGonagall. Fawkes lifted his head and gazed impassively out the window. He trilled very softly then went silent. Perhaps there just wasn't quite all that much to say?

"Well?" Harry asked in a quiet voice.

"Professor Dumbledore has gone to meet a destiny that he can't restrain himself from any longer," Ginny murmured with an unexpected tinge of sadness in her voice. "Fawkes told me that one way or another, he will return. When the time comes, we will be asked to try to help him. He hopes that perhaps we might succeed."

McGonagall looked first to Ginny and then to Harry with an expression of bewilderment.


Table Five was very lively that morning, and Harry was relieved to discover that he would not be the primary celebrity. Nick and Jack were holding court at the north end of the table, finding artful ways to spin out their 45 seconds of wild combat experience into elaborate stories for an audience that included not only those seated at the table, but also a crowd of others who had brought their breakfast plates over and were eating (or frequently not eating) standing up. Ryan, Jennifer and Quinn were waiting in the wings for the occasional opportunity to insert clarifications to the more outrageous embellishments, but mostly remained content to listen to the wild fables. On the south end, Sarah and Mary-Jo sat with bemused but more subdued expressions, talking quietly with Neville, Hannah, Blaise and Daphne. The latter area actually had two chairs available; Harry and Ginny sat down as quietly as possible, hoping not to draw any of the limelight away from those who were enjoying it so much.

"Who's on HART today?" Harry asked the group.

"Luna and Ron this morning," Neville answered. "Slytherin connection takes over after lunch."

Daphne waved her braceleted arm cheerily at the mention, while her left hand grabbed Blaise's wrist and flopped it about. Zabini rolled his eyes as he attempted to avoid spilling his pumpkin juice.

"Wow!" Ginny exclaimed. "Ron's already on board?"

Neville laughed while Hannah looked away with a blush. "Hannah was originally scheduled for today," Neville explained. "but we ran into Ron on the way down to breakfast. He told us you'd suggested he see me about getting involved in HART. Poor bloke had barely gotten two sentences out of his mouth before Hannah slapped the bracelet on him. When he finished sputtering, I gave him the quick rundown and he walked off shaking his head."

"I'm really sorry, Harry, but I need to scale back my involvement," Hannah said regretfully. "Between SHP and HART, I think I'm getting really overextended. I'm afraid that I'm just not smart like you lot — these NEWT courses are driving me batty."

"Oh, it's okay Hannah," Ginny assured her. "We're in great shape right now for volunteers, and I know that HART wasn't part of the original plan. If you think you could still do SHP, then that would be wonderful. But if you have to dial that back too, we'd certainly understand." Harry nodded in full agreement.

"Oh, thank you for being so tolerant," Hannah responded gratefully. "I'd really like to stick with SHP, but I'm just not cut out for the hard stuff yet."

"Hard stuff?" Harry asked inquisitively.

Hannah bit her lip. "Harry, yesterday I got swept into things, not really knowing what to expect. Then we arrived at Diagon Alley, and we were running up the steps into Gringotts to join you when I suddenly realized that I had absolutely no idea what was going on beyond that door; I didn't know what all the banging and shouting was about... then we crossed the threshold and saw you..." Hannah started trembling; Ginny and Neville instinctively each grasped her hands, while Harry looked on with deep concern, trying to summon his own memories of that fleeting moment.

"We'd barely gotten inside when the Lestrange bitch shot a killing curse right at you!" Hannah blurted. "And you just casually stepped aside like it was a stray butterfly; you didn't even blink when the table behind you exploded into a million splinters." The shivering rendered her tone suddenly quite weak and tremulous. "Harry, I knew right then that you must live moments like that all the time, and here I was just experiencing it personally for the first time, wondering how I could possibly have lived such a sheltered life at the same time as so many of my family members were getting murdered by those... those people. There was a little part of me shouting out that this was finally my chance to get revenge for all of the horrible things that have been done to my family and friends, but at the same time this other part of me was stating that I didn't want to die and I didn't want to kill, and that killing people would make me just as bad as... those killers!"

Hannah's eyes took on a crazed glint for a moment then subsided into grief. Daphne offered her a look of deep sympathy and covered Hannah's and Ginny's clasped hands with one of her own.

Hannah shook herself back to coherence and resumed. "So I was all caught up in the middle of my own personal conflict, and completely useless for the real battle at hand. I just stood up there with Neville, shaking like a leaf, clutching his hand to keep myself from running screaming back out into the street."

"I understand, Hannah," Harry spoke softly. "You're a human being. The more human someone is, the harder it is to rationalize something completely inhuman like a battle. One thing that helps just a little bit... not much perhaps, but a little... is to know that even in a bitter, nasty fight like that, most people aren't trying to kill. It's true that there are a small number of insane, brutal psychopaths like the Lestranges for whom a human life, even one of their friends' lives, means nothing. But a lot of the death eaters in that room were just as scared as any of us, and a fair number of them didn't want to kill, just like we would feel terrible if we had to see any of them die. Maybe that's why not a single person lost a life in yesterday's fight?"

Despite the philosophic words, Harry had himself gone tense as his next sentence struggled to emerge. He gripped the edge of the table with whitened knuckles and took a deep breath. "But I'm afraid I can't kid myself and say that's the way it'll always be. Just because we didn't see any death yesterday doesn't mean we won't see any tomorrow, or next week. So some of us grit our teeth and carry on with a life where we never know what mayhem the next day might bring. Until then, the best we can do is try to live for all the humour, warmth and happiness we can find. If we succeed in that, most people around us will think that we look normal and human..." He sighed. "But people who live each day knowing that they might have to wake up in the middle of the night and go risk, see, or maybe even cause, death... we need to put aside part of our humanity at times. We have to. In the short term it's either that or drive ourselves crazy. But if anyone has to keep deferring humanity too often or for too long, it's going to become harder and harder, maybe even impossible, to reclaim it later."

Harry looked at Ginny, and then at his other friends. "For me, if I can come home to love, friendship... a bit of fun and silliness... I remember who I'm really supposed to be and what's truly important. But every time I walk away alive from a confrontation, I'm reminded that I can't push my luck forever. And I don't want any of you..." his eyes swept the small group of friends, "to have to push your luck forever. I sincerely hope that this will all be over soon, before any of us lose the sense of what good people we all really are..."

Harry trailed off for a while, gazed out the window, then pulled himself back to the group. "Wow, sorry mates — I didn't mean to get so deep with you! I guess all I really wanted to say, Hannah, was that we need you to be you," he resolved. "You're already a tremendous help to us in the ways you're comfortable with and we really appreciate it. As far as what you might call the 'hard stuff', I wouldn't ask that of anyone who has any moral qualms about it. But just so you know, I think you're probably selling yourself short. With luck, perhaps you'll never be placed in a difficult situation where you have no choice but to act... but if you ever do encounter a crisis like that, I know deep down that you'll find all the courage and certitude you need."

"I'm not so sure about that Harry, but thank you very much again for understanding... and for staying human," she said softly and turned away to her own reflections.

"Anyway," Harry said, shifting gears to matters of more immediate practicality, "it probably does make sense to have Ron on call this morning. I really don't expect to need any help, but just in case we do signal, please tell him to contact the Burrow. We're going with Bill to an unplottable goblin facility that I've never been to before. Knowing the goblins, I would not expect the portkey charm on the bracelets to work, but I'm sure Molly would know some way to track us down."

Neville nodded.

"Are you going out and doing anything this evening?" Blaise asked.

"Yes," Harry answered. "But again I think it should be quite innocuous. We're spending the night at the house I co-own with Professor Lupin. We periodically help him with, uh, a medical issue of his."

Blaise nodded. "Woof woof," he said quietly.

Harry stared for a moment, then frowned, recalling how Snape had outed Remus several years ago. "Yes, that's correct," Harry confirmed as he stifled his old anger. "Anyway, we have it very much under control now — I don't expect any problems. But on the approximately zero percent chance that I signal you..."

"We'll all rush out and save you!" Daphne proclaimed.

Harry blinked in surprised consternation.

"Rah, rah, brave-HARTs! We'll never let old Harry down!" she sang.

"Uh, listen Daphne, there's this school rule..." Harry began, looking around nervously.

"Grace under pressure! Courage under fire! Never surrender!"

Harry gaped at her, his jaw struggling to remember how to form syllables.

Daphne, Ginny Sarah and Mary-Jo exploded into uproarious giggles. Hannah and Neville stared incredulously. Blaise pushed his chair back and guffawed heartily. Nick's and Jack's storytelling came to an abrupt halt as their audience all turned questioningly toward the disruption. Still snickering, Ginny waved them away and, after several more puzzled glances, the stories at the other end of the table resumed.

"Don't worry Harry," Daphne said as she wiped a tear from her eye. "On the roughly zero chance that you signal, we'll report straight to McGonagall."

"Thanks!" Harry responded with a relieved smile.

"And then we'll all rush out to save you!"

BONK!

All necks at the north end suddenly swung southwards again to see Harry, face down on the table, groaning in exasperation.

"Move along folks — nothing here to see!" Daphne called down the table at the gawking gaggle. "We're just making sure that Harry stays human."


Shortly before 9:30 a.m., Harry and Ginny apparated back to the Burrow and hurried down the hill to see if Bill was waiting for them yet. He was not, but Molly was delighted to see them, and Harry was relieved to see from her face that she'd seemingly had a decent night's sleep, apparently recovering from the anxiety that had gripped her prior to and after their close call at Gringotts. He hated to make Ginny's mother worry, so it was comforting to know that Molly didn't appear concerned about today's upcoming activities. There would quite possibly be more sleepless nights for her before this was all over, but at least she would be afforded a bit of a respite.

"Arthur brought this for you last night, Harry," Molly said, handing him a scroll stamped by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"Thank you." Harry said, although his tight smile did not appear too grateful.

Ginny squeezed his hand. "At least they don't know about the panther," she whispered.

One of several unpleasant outcomes from the Gringotts affair was that Harry had needed to publicly reveal his owl animagus form. As soon as Amelia Bones had been briefed about the incident by Kingsley, she had ordered that Harry be added to the animagus registry post haste in order to prevent anyone from charging him with non-compliance of Ministry regulations. He agreed with the necessity and was grateful that Amelia had pushed it through so quickly, but he hated to think that everybody, including any death eaters of at least modest intelligence, would soon learn every minute identifying detail of his black owl form. Figuratively speaking this had clipped the wings of what had been a very useful tactical tool. As a consolation, however, he and Ginny had analyzed the early moments of the battle many times in their pensieve, and each time had come to the same conclusion: unless he had taken that risk and flown straight to the main entrance, there would have been nothing to stop all of the death eaters from walking straight out into the street and portkeying away. It had been an inspired and very successful tactic; the only thing that would have done more to compensate for Harry's sacrifice would have been if they could have successfully sent Bellatrix back to Azkaban. But as it was, they would have to settle for sixteen death eaters and a horcrux.

"Will you take some tea, Harry dear?" Molly was asking him.

Harry jumped, startled out of his thoughts. He smiled. "Thanks, but no. Bill might be here any minute now — I wouldn't want to delay him."

Molly smiled and turned away to go back to the kitchen. Before she'd gone more than a step however, Harry, possessed of a spontaneous whim, grabbed her hand. She turned to look at him with a curious expression in her eyes; before she could say anything, though, he pulled her into a visceral hug. She uttered a tiny gasp, but then instinctively melted into him, shocked, thrilled, and a little overwhelmed to realize just what a solid, powerful and self-assured wizard her little black-haired waif had become.

Bill had flooed in; Harry, Ginny and Bill had all bid hurried goodbyes to her and portkeyed out before Molly realized that she was still standing all alone in her living room with a stunned look on her face... dreaming up wedding plans for her only daughter and son-in-law. Her future son-in-law, she mindfully corrected herself and finally made her way back to the kitchen.


"Is Mum okay?" Bill asked, his voice betraying a note of concern.

The three of them had landed on a high hillside overlooking the Irish Sea. The morning was mostly grey, but a few glimmers of gold had pierced through the mound of clouds to the southeast, making the choppy waters sparkle. Neither Ginny nor Harry had ever really gotten a good view of the ocean before, and what they had never realized they were missing had suddenly sprung forward and captivated them.

"Pretty isn't it?" Bill mused, before repeating, "Is Mum okay — she seemed a bit... out of sorts this morning."

"Huh?" Ginny asked, drawing her eyes away from the water for a moment. "Oh, Mum? It's all Harry's fault — I think he blew her mind."

"I what?" Harry inquired, becoming the last to discover that there was a conversation in progress.

Ginny laughed. "Fine lot of distractible dimwits you've got for yourself this morning, Bill! Don't despair, some of us will pull it together at some point."

Bill nodded with a wry smile on his face.

"Mum is fine — Harry just gave her sweet, innocent, spontaneous hug that will probably completely throw her off the cart all morning," Ginny summarized, "and Harry and I are just a couple of dreamy landlubbers who will probably recover once you throw us to the goblins."

"Where exactly are we?" Harry asked, scanning up and down the rugged shoreline.

"Maughold Brooghs," Bill responded. "The cluster of buildings you see to the west is the muggle community of Port-e-Vullen." He gazed around in an inland direction for a moment. "I can't narrow things down any more than that, because we're technically standing on unplottable ground. Anyway, can you please help me look for a path heading toward a little hollow?"

"Hey, is that it?" Ginny asked, pointing to a meandering line where the scurvygrass subsided to coarse gravel. Following it with her eye she noticed that it led up over a ridge upon which a subtle break in the heather could be seen.

"Brilliant — that must be it," Bill decided. "The entrance should be just over that ridge." They climbed for a couple of minutes and descended into a hollow. The path led to a small cairn, from which which Bill advised them to stand well back. He stepped forward, performed an incantation, and a ten foot radius of the green vegetation suddenly shivered and vanished, leaving a staircase descending into the dark island slate.

Stepping carefully down the damp steps, they reached a metal door, which swung inwards after Bill performed a second incantation. It revealed a clean but narrow, brightly-lit corridor with six red doors on each side. "Our reservation is for the second lab to the left," he said, leading them into a room, surprisingly large and bright, with a row of large windows. Although in non-magical space the windows should have faced directly into the underground stone of the descending hillside, the goblins had apparently magically projected a beautiful view of the Manx seascape into the room to create a bright, friendly workspace.

Bill slung his sack off his shoulder and pulled out a single magical containment box. It had white letters spelling out "Gringotts Curse Breaking Office (CBO)" on one side, but was otherwise identical to the one Dumbledore had used for the diadem. "Here's the cup," he said, placing the box on the table. "I have to get rid of some other junk first, and then I'll run the horcrux tests. You said you wanted to do some, er... mind experiments?"

Harry nodded.

"I guess you could use the couch over there," Bill suggested, pointing toward the magical windows. "Let me know if you need anything." He slung the sack over his shoulder again and walked back out into the corridor.

Harry and Ginny took seats at opposite ends of the couch. "Do we need to be further apart? I could get up and walk around." he suggested.

Ginny shrugged. "I think we can be trusted to sit on the same couch... but no touching!" she scolded with a wink. Harry laughed, and began to relax his mind, in preparation for the inevitable melancholy to come.

Ginny forced her thoughts down a vaguely unpleasant path... to a supper in the Great Hall, back in the spring of her second year. She was walking past the Gryffindor table... past Harry, Ron and Hermione. Hermione had given her a quick smile and wave; Ron had given her a scowl and thrown his arm protectively over some piece of parchment on the table, and Harry had... Harry had done nothing at all. He had stared blankly, fixedly toward a place on the far wall. Ginny had walked straight through his field of vision, no more than four feet away, and he had not so much as blinked.

Ginny felt a cold pulse of ancient insecurity and disappointment, and found her reservoir of shared magic beginning to flow antipathetically back from Harry toward her own core. Once she had mapped the path, she followed the flow upstream again, and found her perception stationed back in front of the bulbous foreign power near Harry's otherwise immaculate and impenetrable occlumency walls. Her thoughts remained there, stationary, waiting for her radiant power to evanesce and reveal the malignant mass buried within.

Within minutes, she began to see what she was looking for: her power had drained away enough to reveal the overall shape of the mass. She was intrigued and a bit startled: there had definitely been a marked change in the secondary growths. One of the appendages that she had recalled as looking a bit weaker than the others had become drastically shriveled like a very leaky balloon. If did not have the black, dessicated appearance of the lump she associated with the destroyed Riddle diary, but it nonetheless had a very sickly cast. She drew her mind closer to it in curiosity; she examined it carefully, trying to guess what might have weakened it so profoundly...

She gasped! Some inarticulable stab of dread pierced her: she rushed back downstream, reversed the magical flow back up toward Harry and hastily escaped to the safety of her own consciousness. In her unconscious panic, she had flung herself across the open space on the the couch and was clutching him protectively. Harry grappled for her, staring at her with wide, alarmed eyes. From across the lab, Bill glanced up in surprise from behind the cup which he had just removed from the box.

"That filthy thing is starved!" Ginny yelled blindly. "Don't touch it! Kill it!!"

"But Ginny..." Bill began.

"Kill it now!!" she shrieked.

Wide-eyed, Bill nodded. From a small toolbox, he withdrew a long silver needle mounted, awl-like on a porcelain bulb. He pulled a flask labelled "Basilisk Venom / Gringotts CBO" from his bag. In a study of professional composure, he rapidly inserted the needle into the clear yellowish liquid, withdrew it and, in a single fluid motion, stabbed the base of the cup.

"Eeehhhhhwwwwwww!!!" oozed a horrible pathetic sound: the aural equivalent to cold crank-case oil spattering over one's skin. Harry winced and spasmed as a spike of pain tore through his forehead... but then quickly subsided. A dingy, acrid grey mist seeped down from the table, spilled out over the floor for a moment, then mercifully evaporated.

Bill pulled the needle from the cup and laid it on a clean cloth. Other than a single clean, quarter-inch-deep jab in the base, the cup appeared normal, unscathed, and suddenly completely non-magical. He exhaled and looked searchingly at his two companions. "Okay, can someone please tell me what that was all about?!" he demanded anxiously.

Still clutching Harry, Ginny shook her head for a moment, trying to put abstract images into words. "It was nearly completely drained of power," she wheezed. "It's like it had just woken up... ravenous! That thing could have eaten us alive!"

"Horcrux drained of power... How...?" Bill pondered thoughtfully.

"The orange blast!" Harry and Ginny both exclaimed to each other.

"What? You mean the one that tore the hole in the wall at Gringotts yesterday?" Bill asked.

Harry nodded. "Do you suppose Riddle could somehow have merged his power with that of the horcrux to blast through the goblins' wards?"

"That's not what a horcrux is supposed to be used for..." Bill started to explain.

"But could he have done it?" Harry persisted.

The room fell silent as each of them lapsed into three distinct lines of thought. "Yes, possibly..." Bill finally spoke. "Possible, but it just seems conceptually appalling for a person to cannibalize his own horcrux."

"But that's no worse than the atrocity of creating one in the first place!" Ginny protested.

Bill nodded thoughtfully.

"Hey Gin'," Harry interjected, "do you remember the strange blast of power that Riddle summoned when he broke our attack during the August Diagon Alley fight?

Ginny nodded excitedly. "Of course! That was probably a test! He wanted to see if it was possible to draw magical power from a horcrux!"

"Yes, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the August outburst of magic was also drawn from this same cup — this was probably the only horcrux anywhere near Diagon Alley on either occasion." Harry speculated. "If so, it's no wonder the cup was so hungry."

Ginny nodded. "That might even be why the goblins were so eager to let us take it off their hands; if Riddle drained a blast of power from it in August, the horcrux was probably leaching power off everything else around."

Bill nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that would explain a lot. It's perfectly understandable that the goblins didn't want the Lestranges to walk away with it because the cup is a goblin creation and I'm sure they were hopping mad to discover how it had been defiled. But on the other hand they certainly couldn't abide having something that dangerous sitting in their main commercial site. Somehow they sensed that you, or perhaps we, would have some interest in eradicating the horcrux."

"I agree," Harry opined.

Bill frowned. "Listen very closely you two," he said sternly. "If you think there are other horcruxes out there, then we're going to need to start being a lot more careful in how we deal with them. I'm sure you have some ideas about how nasty they are, but I'm not certain you know all the risks."

Harry and Ginny stared at him intently, waiting for elaboration.

"For starters, you claim that this one was probably badly weakened. I completely believe you," Bill said, "because I didn't suffer any ill effects during the horcrux elimination. How about you two?

"Minor convulsions, I guess," Harry answered. "Uncomfortable, but nothing serious."

"Right," Bill exclaimed, "but it's not going to be so simple trying to kill another one that's at full strength; especially one created by someone as powerful as Voldemort. There isn't much literature on horcruxes, but what little I know is that these things can be expected to fight back, fight dirty, and fight hard!" His face took on a fierce sobriety. "I agree with Ginny that the main danger from this one was its state of hunger while it was alive, but for the other ones I'm guessing that you'll only really learn how threatening they can be when you try to kill them."

Harry nodded. "So, maybe we need to find a safe, hands-off way to destroy them?"

Bill cocked his head for a moment. "Yeah, that's a thought... I wonder what we could do...?"

"Time for a little more research, do you think?" Ginny asked.

Harry and Bill nodded, then Bill turned to face them again. "The other potentially big problem with these things is that if you try to destroy them, they may scream for their daddy. If Voldemort knows you're killing his horcruxes, that could be viewed as a dangerous, highly provocative act."

Harry gasped. "What do you mean scream? They might signal to Riddle?"

"Yes," Bill confirmed. "If he was able to coordinate his magic with a horcrux, then clearly he must be able to sense them. And how would he react if one of them sounded the alarm? Panic? Rage? I hate to speculate what the outcomes of either of those emotions might be right now."

Harry turned to Ginny with an aghast expression. "Damn! Panic or rage could drive him to attack before we're ready! Bill, do you think he knows that we just knocked off his cup?"

Bill wore an intense look on his face as he rationalized his way through a pile of diverse details. Finally his features relaxed. "I think we're okay," he said. "I think the containment fields around the facility are strong enough to have occluded any magical shock wave of that approximate scale."

"So, to translate that into English, you think that the containment wards kept him from perceiving the death of the horcrux?" Harry inquired.

"I hope so. The wards here are more specialized than anything the goblins erect around the Diagon Alley facility. These are specifically intended to mask magical signatures and disturbances. But the more general occlusion effect around our building in Diagon Alley is still nontrivial. If Voldemort was able to interact with the cup yesterday at Gringotts, it's clear evidence of an unusually strong sensitivity to them. So, I have conflicting thoughts on this. I'm guessing that if we tried to destroy a full strength horcrux here, he would probably be able to sense it... but I think the cup was weakened enough in advance that he won't have noticed."

"But he still knows that we have the cup," Harry stated worriedly.

"Perhaps not," Bill corrected him. "He's probably still trying to sort out whether you have it or the goblins do. If he tries to anticipate the most likely goblin behavior, I'm guessing he'll assume that the goblins would not have let you walk away with it. You have no claim to the cup, Harry — goblins almost always adjudicate strictly based on who has the rightful claim to a certain property or item of wealth. The agreement that they offered you yesterday to allow you to borrow the cup is really unusual. But for the fact that the cup was behaving so dangerously, I doubt the goblins would ever have let it leave their sight."

"So you think we're probably still okay... but we really need to watch our step?" Ginny concluded.

Bill nodded. "Yes. But now we come back to the question of the other stinkers. How many horcruxes do you know of, and how are we going to deal with them?"

"Well," Ginny began, "We're pretty sure that two of them have now been destroyed. We have a third in containment in a secure location..."

"And we think there are another three... er, well probably four... besides that," Harry finished.

"As far as how to deal with them?" Ginny posed speculatively. "I sure hope we don't have to do them all this way!"


At eight o'clock that evening, Ginny was waiting outside of the Room of Requirement while Harry finished a brief discussion with Blaise, Luna and Ryan, who had served as teaching assistants for the evening IHA session. She didn't eavesdrop on the conversation, but a small smirk crossed her lips as she heard the phrase 'Don't let Daffy get any wild ideas' decorate Harry's final sentence.

Blaise was grinning mischievously even before he stepped through the door and noticed Ginny leaning against the wall, struggling to keep her eyes open. Without comment or warning, he grasped her shoulders and planted a kiss full on her lips. Ginny gasped and sputtered; before she could retaliate, he had already scampered very efficiently down the hallway. Too startled for any more coherent retaliation, she scowled at his rapidly retreating form. "Weirdo!" she shouted ineffectually.

By that time, Luna had emerged through the doorway, explaining to Ryan something about 'cyclical wrackspurt infestations'. She looked up in astonishment. "Ginevra!" she cried excitedly, waving her hand four inches in front of Ginny's blinking eyes. "Hello! How are you? Please give my best to Professor Lupin tonight! Your lipstick is smudged — is that the latest style?"

Two minutes later, Harry emerged with a tired smile on his face. He warded the door and slumped against Ginny. She slumped into him.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she replied.

"Wolf?" he asked.

"Yup," she agreed.

They slumped along the corridor, down the steps and across the grounds.

"Merciful Merlin!" Remus exclaimed when he met them at the entrance to 12 Grimmauld Place and let them into the old house. "You two look completely knackered! Are you certain you don't want to just go back home and sleep?"

"No, we're fine thanks. And it's good to see you too, Remus!" Harry responded, recovering a little bit of cheeky spark.

"Yes, we're fine," Ginny added, "but we may need a bit of your natural effervescence to keep things lively."

Remus laughed. "You two have been spending too much time around those crazy students of yours — they've wild enough to wear anybody out." They laughed, but said nothing so Remus continued. "So, was there any major fallout from yesterday? These are very sensitive times and, conversely, I always expect most people in positions of authority to behave quite... insensitively."

"Well, we had an exhausting afternoon dealing with the goblins and ministry officials. A half dozen major things could have gone wrong," Harry admitted, "but it looks like we're coming through it mostly unscathed. The only person I'm concerned about is Kingsley: the goblins are crawling all over the auror department's inability to prevent or counter the intrusion."

Remus sighed. "It's one of the few Ministry bodies that's truly making an effort, but they're so undermanned right now..."

"Blood traitors... half bloods... filthy werewolves..." croaked a voice in the next room.

"Kreacher?" Harry asked.

Remus nodded. "Poor insufferable wretch," he groaned. "I've tried and tried to establish a rapport with him. I've tried kindness, mutual consideration, I've tried appealing to the memory of Sirius, but nothing's worked. I can't order him around because I'm not his master, but I was really hoping that we could at least coexist."

"You can't coexist?" Harry asked with concern.

"Not in a civil manner, I'm afraid. I have a room that I've thrown every ward I can think of just to keep him out. Otherwise things accidentally happen to my belongings, many of which I've found dumped into the rubbish bin every Tuesday morning. But that reminds me, Harry I know you're tired and I know that we'll all need to transform in about a half hour, but..."

"Transform!" Harry interrupted. "Is Kreacher in any danger when you transform?"

"No," Remus responded, "For some reason I've never threatened him as a werewolf... although he's no fan of it — he usually treats me with a special amount of disrespect and suspicion the day before and the day after full moon."

Harry nodded. "Well, I'm glad to hear he's at least not physically threatened. But sorry, I interrupted you?"

"Yes, I hate to ask Harry, but you're his rightful master and he should listen to you. I was wondering if you might be willing to speak with him? Extend an olive branch of some sort?"

"It's never worked before Remus."

"No, but I don't think you've ever spoken to him in your capacity as his master before. He might actually respond to you now."

"Mangy werewolves... scandalous blood traitors... filthy half bloods..." the voice in the kitchen croaked.

Harry rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and sighed deeply. Nonetheless, he made his way toward the kitchen door.

"Treacherous fiends in my sweet mistress's home! Poor Kreacher can't even... Ackk!"

Remus and Ginny stared in wide-eyed surprise, first at each other and then toward Harry's back. He had walked several paces into a kitchen that had suddenly gone dead silent... except for a peculiar gurgling sound...

After a moment, noises emerged that sounded like fingernails scraping the wooden floor. Finally a low-pitched whine began, followed by a gasp, and a sepulchral moan. "Master! Kreacher's master! You are the voice in Master Regulus's locket!!"

"I'm the what?" Harry asked the gurgling, prostrate house elf. He got down on his knees to try to make sense of Kreacher's babbling.

"Master mustn't kneel to Kreacher! Mustn't mustn't mustn't! Get away!" Kreacher started thumping his head on the floor.

"Stop!" Harry ordered forcefully. "Do not hit your head, Kreacher! I need you to explain to me what you meant by me being the voice in 'Master Regulus's locket'?"

"Locket must be destroyed! Master Regulus said so! Master mustn't speak through the locket!"

Ginny and Remus edged toward the doorway to observe the scene. "It is him, Harry!" Ginny gasped. "Kreacher has a horcrux; one that interacts with the others!" She stared at the pitiful form on the floor writhing in unarticulated terror. "And, Harry, he can tell — he must somehow be able to sense your magic through the locket when we try to examine the connections."

Remus stared in complete confusion as Kreacher recoiled in horror at the sight and sound of Ginny. "Master's witch speaks to Kreacher from locket too!! Master's witch must not speak to Kreacher from Master Regulus's locket! Locket must be destroyed!" he wailed. "Kreacher promised Master Regulus he would destroy locket!"

"Harry, Ginny, I really have no idea what any of you are talking about, but at least I do know who he must mean by Regulus. He was Sirius's brother!" Remus told them. "He was a death-eater, and... he was killed by Voldemort."

"Ackk!" Kreacher croaked horribly. "Silence!! Master must silence filthy werewolf! Must not speak name of twisted evil snake locket-maker murderer fiend!!" he shrieked. Kreacher was, per Harry's demand, no longer pounding his head against the floor, but he had twisted his face to the side and was savagely abrading his cheek against the coarse wood.

"Kreacher!" Harry ordered. "Stop that! Stand up and please fetch this locket!" He turned to Remus and Ginny. "Oh Merlin! I'm sorry Remus, but it's almost time for you to transform isn't it? Do you suppose that the two of you could you maybe find a room somewhere and transform without me? I think I need to deal with this now. I'm going to floo-call Bill and see if he has a spare containment box and see if we can secure the thing... this locket... before either Kreacher or the locket drives me insane. I'll join you as soon as I can."

Ginny gave Harry an intensely scrutinizing look, then nodded. "You come and find us at the first sign of trouble, understood? And I want to know everything that you learn?"

"Absolutely!" Harry confirmed. He leaned over and hugged Ginny. "Thank you so much, Gin'!"

Remus nodded in confusion. He took a look at his wristwatch, then he and Ginny hurried upstairs.


It was well after midnight before Harry finally wrapped things up. Unlike the Hufflepuff cup, the locket that Kreacher had retrieved was immensely powerful. Harry developed a pulsing headache even being in the same room as the locket and couldn't physically bear coming within less than a foot of it, especially after Ginny had transformed. He surmised that maintaining her lioness animagus form, a magically demanding process, probably diminished her magical reservoir available for unconsciously shielding him. So Harry was reduced to examining it from a distance, manipulating it with a long spatula he'd found in a drawer. Harry noticed that Kreacher could touch it, but seemed to treat it with a peculiarly deferential yet squeamish loathing.

After a bit of dialogue back and forth with Molly in the hearth, Harry eventually tracked Bill down and had explained the situation via a floo-call. By around eleven o'clock, Bill had been able to obtain a containment box and bring it to Grimmauld place. When Bill had helped Harry levitate the object into the box and had shut the containment door, the throbbing pain in Harry's head subsided immediately. Thankfully, Kreacher had also promptly ceased his incessant yammering, lowered himself face down onto the floor and had fallen into a rigid slumber.

While Bill had been of immediate and invaluable help in neutralizing the immediate threat, Harry was surprised to see Ginny's brother seem quite rattled by the experience. His speech in the aftermath of the horcrux containment seemed agitated, and he seemed to exude a bit of a panicked inclination to act in haste. He offered to destroy the horcrux as he had done with the cup, but Harry declined, citing Bill's initial hunch that attempting to destroy it, even within the confines of a specialized facility such as the one at Port-e-Vullen, would risk alerting Voldemort. Harry thus decided to hold onto it for the time being, so he stashed the containment box inside his storage trunk. Bill had hastened to offer to assist with the basilisk venom injection when the time came, but Harry wasn't at all sure that the time would ever be right to precisely replicate that procedure. Harry reminded Bill of his own earlier warning that even a highly skilled professional might not be able to safely deal with them. Confronted again with his own logic, Bill was momentarily dumbfounded, but then apologized for his incoherence and flooed out shortly thereafter, blaming his poor judgment on the late hour.

Harry watched the green flames die in the hearth and wondered if perhaps some other dynamic might not be at work? Was the horcrux trying to play counter-intuitive self-preservation games with them?

Harry collapsed into a chair and pondered the next steps. He and Ginny would need to develop a very precise set of conditions to be met before taking the step of eliminating Riddle's abhorrent toys. It could only be attempted when they felt truly confident that they had a very good chance of being able to successfully confront his most terrible wrath. It was true that they could not wait much longer, but the time was not yet ripe. For starters they would need to track down at least two more horcruxes...

After a while, Harry pulled himself back to his feet and returned to the kitchen, where Kreacher was still lying face down on the floor. "Kreacher?" Harry inquired softly.

Kreacher's eyes flickered open... then suddenly they gaped broadly. He didn't move, but his face adopted a very puzzled expression; he sniffed the air and frowned. "Yes master?" he finally responded cautiously.

"Kreacher, can you come with me to the sitting room please? I would like to ask you several questions."

Kreacher rose to his feet and nodded. Before following Harry, however, he peered around the room anxiously, and sniffed the air again. Harry observed this curiously, but then turned and made his way out of the kitchen and over to one of the more comfortable chairs by the dying fire. The house elf followed.

"Kreacher, how did Regulus Black come to be interested in the locket?"

Kreacher regarded him suspiciously for a moment. "Where is locket, master?"

Harry tapped at his pocket. "It's in a magical containment box. The locket is a very dangerous and harmful dark object that could do terrible damage to me and to you Kreacher. I am storing it somewhere safe where it can't harm me or you."

Kreacher pondered this for a moment carefully, a sad expression seemed to creep down his features. "Master Regulus also knew it was bad. Kreacher was to destroy it. Bad Kreacher did not destroy it. Bad Kreacher tried and tried, but Kreacher is too weak."

"It is very very difficult to destroy the black magic in the locket. It is not Kreacher's fault," Harry reassured him. "But I would like to know how Master Regulus knew it was bad, and why did he want you to destroy it?"

Kreacher regarded Harry carefully for a minute, nodded softly to himself, then proceeded with a slow, rambling, but ultimately quite gripping story about how Regulus Black had become a death eater, only to eventually recant and withdraw his allegiance to Voldemort; about how Regulus had shown Kreacher great kindness and expressed genuine remorse and anger after Voldemort had abused the house elf; about how in Kreacher's presence Regulus had made his ultimate conversion and pledged to thwart the evil wizard.

Harry nodded in fascination. He gazed at the house elf who was standing silently, facing a dim corner like a misbehaving child. "Kreacher, how did Regulus obtain the locket?"

"Kreacher cannot tell master," the elf whined in a tone caught somewhere between desperation and remorse.

"Why not?"

"Kreacher promised never to tell anyone from House of Black... or any dark witch or wizard."

"But I'm neither!" Harry protested gently.

"Master is heir to House of Black," Kreacher persisted.

"I'm Sirius's heir," Harry corrected, "but I've never been related to anyone in the House of Black."

Kreacher remained still and silent.

"If you tell me, I will help you fulfill your promise to Regulus," Harry vowed.

Kreacher turned slowly and examined him with large eyes. "You will destroy it?"

"If you tell me how the locket came to be here, then I will make certain that it is destroyed. I must not do it tonight, but I will have it destroyed well before the end of this year."

Kreacher stared intently into Harry's eyes for a long moment. Harry did not blink. Kreacher nodded, and began to recount a second tale. Kreacher described about how he had taken Regulus to an island in the middle of a lake filled with inferi, and about how Regulus was only able to secure the horcrux by drinking a basin filled with some sort of horrific, treacherous draught. Harry was amazed at how closely the story correlated with Dumbledore's rambling questions from their last meeting — clearly the headmaster had somehow been privy to some of the same experiences that Kreacher was now recounting.

As Kreacher struggled through the story, Harry saw something in the old elf's spirit begin to lift. His rigid, croaking throat muscles loosened somewhat, and the voice took on a tone that was less jarring to the ear. The ends of his sentences began to lilt upwards, a bit like Dobby's did. His face looked intensely tired, but somehow just slightly less stressed. When he finished speaking, he did not turn to stand in the corner again, but rather remained facing Harry.

Harry was lost in thought and failed to notice that the ancient house elf was still standing by, awaiting his instructions.

"Is that all, master?" Kreacher asked.

Harry shook off his ponderings. "Oh yes, thank you Kreacher, that will be all."

Still working his way through a jumble of unsorted impressions and speculations, Harry sat silently, hearing a rustle as Kreacher bowed; vaguely registering the sound of bare feet padding down a short hallway past the panty. A creaky door opened then rattled closed again.

Harry frowned then sat bolt upright. How could everyone have been so blind all this time! The detestable Kreacher was not detestable! The longstanding close proximity to such an evil object, plus the horrible guilt of living with an unmet promise, must have been driving Kreacher effectively, but perhaps reversibly, insane? This sudden leavening of Kreacher's features, his unexpected willingness to talk about sensitive issues and perhaps even somewhat trust Harry — was this some early but fundamental evidence of a healing process already underway?

Harry got to his feet and followed in the direction toward which the footsteps had receded. He spied a door, slightly ajar. It was for one of the two cleaning closets off the kitchen. He knocked softly at the door frame and began to pull the door open again. There indeed was Kreacher, lying among a clump of filthy rags that had been retired from cleaning service and now served to keep the pitiful elf warm during the chilly Grimmauld Place nights. From within these destitute quarters, surrounded by broken teacups, bent spoons, several old faded, scratched and torn photographs and other unidentifiable bits of trash, Kreacher was blinking at him, struggling to his feet.

"Kreacher?" Harry said.

"Yes master?" the house elf croaked, from his hands and knees.

"Please don't get back up. Just lie as you were, Kreacher," Harry said softly. "I only wanted to tell you something."

"What is it master?"

"We... that is Ginny, Bill and I... do know how to deal with the horcrux. I promised that we would destroy it, and I promise you again that we will. You should go to sleep tonight knowing that you have done your duty to your Master Regulus in delivering the locket to us. I never knew Regulus, but I am grateful to him for having given his life to achieve a tremendously difficult task, and I am grateful to you for your very painful and thankless role in keeping his quest alive. You have done your part. It's now up to us to take care of the rest."

For the first time in many many long years, Kreacher looked into the face of a wizard without resentment or loathing. It was very subtle, and one would have needed very discerning perception to register it, but Kreacher somehow recalled from the depths of old memories how to arrange a few of the facial muscles in his cheeks and around the eyes to accomplish an exceptional rarity: an expression of appreciation.

With Kreacher finally resting, Harry walked to the bottom of the steps, and transformed into his panther form. He padded his way softly upstairs, sniffing for scent of a werewolf and a lioness. They apparently had gone all the way up to the attic; his nose eventually led him to the right room and he discovered to his relief that either Ginny or Remus had charmed the door so that it opened inwards without him having to wrestle with the knob. As an animagus, he would have had neither the thumb nor the specialized magic necessary to get through the door without transforming back into human form. Remus had a great deal of self-control as a werewolf, but Harry was still not quite comfortable with the thought of being human in close proximity to him.

Harry nosed his way inwards and saw Remus calmly pacing back and forth, at the far end, while Ginny stirred from the sleep near the door.

How did it go? Both Remus and Ginny had spoken the same question to him telepathically at almost the same time.

Very well! Harry responded. Remus, several hours ago you asked me to do something?

Yes, to try to reason with Kreacher?

Well, believe it or not, I may have actually succeeded.


Harry and Ginny apparated back to the Hogwarts main gate a little after seven o'clock the next morning. On a normal day they would already have completed their run by now and would be jumping around or battling dummies in the Room of Requirement. All those normal activities would have to be shelved today, however. After having been up until nearly four o'clock talking about horcruxes and house elves, the most immediate goal was to try to get through the morning.

After quick showers, they both felt somewhat human as they made their way down to breakfast, but the pepper-up draft wasn't working wonders for either of them. After a rather subdued meal in which they nodded their way through discussions (and through non-discussions as well), they rose to leave the Great Hall. Neville, Terry and Ron met them at the doorway.

"Could we trouble you for a minute?" Terry asked.

"Sure, no problem," Harry answered. "What's up?"

"Er, well, when we coaxed Ron into HART yesterday, we didn't really explain to him how the bracelets worked," Neville admitted.

"Can I borrow a wrist for a minute?" Terry asked.

"Sure," Ginny said, offering her still-banded right wrist.

"Okay," Terry explained to Ron, "If Ginny was going to leave the castle today, she'd check in with one of the four on-duty monitors like me. Ginny, let's synch to show Ron."

Ginny and Terry bumped wrists.

"Okay," Terry continued, "Ginny and I are connected. If she was really going somewhere today, then... er, you're not going anywhere today, right?"

Ginny and Harry both shook their heads. "Thankfully no!" Ginny said with emphasis.

"Okay, if Ginny actually was going somewhere, I would find the other three on-duty monitors and bump wrists the exact same way, and that would automatically synch them up with Ginny too. And Ginny could similarly get Harry connected."

Ron nodded. "So what happens if she or Harry signals?"

"The first thing you'll feel is a buzz on your wrist," Neville answered. "If Ginny's signaling from close by, say less than a mile, then the bracelet can act like a homing device — it will draw you toward her. If you don't feel any draw, which will usually be the case, then your bracelet can still be used as a portkey. All you need to do is twist this knot and you'll portkey in, usually somewhere within about a hundred feet of her."

"Cool!" said Ron.

"Now, as long as Ginny doesn't forget to signal us at the first sign of trouble," Terry raised his finger sternly to her as a reminder, "we should be able to get the word out faster than any just about anyone else."

"Faster than patronus?" Ron asked.

"I think so," Neville responded.

"I think you'll reach four people faster with this than most people could reach one person with a patronus," Terry expanded.

Ron nodded appreciatively. "Wow, thanks!"

"Yes, thanks!" Harry chimed in. "I'd never actually gotten the full orientation from the monitor perspective — that's useful to know!"

"Sure, no problem — thanks for your time!" Terry responded as he began walking away.

Neville and Ron turned the other way to continue into the Hall for breakfast. "See you two later!" Harry called.

Ginny smiled brightly and waved... and then slumped into her boyfriend.

Harry put his arm around her and gently rubbed her back. "Why don't you go back to bed and try to get a few more hours sleep," he suggested. "I'll make it through AHA and my two classes, then after lunch I'm going go back up for a long nap. Maybe we'll both be recovered after that."

"Oh Harry, you're really going to put in a full morning?" Ginny moaned. "You look terrible! Maybe you can at least cancel HA? You were exhausted even before getting less than three hours of sleep. If you don't start taking better care, you're going to end up in the Hospital Wing!"

"I'd hate to put the students behind, Gin'! Only a few more hours and then maybe my beautiful girlfriend can coax me to bed," Harry winked.

She hugged him. "Okay. But you take care of my Harry! Don't you drop him on his head, okay?"

Harry smiled. He kissed her and they went their separate ways.

The AHA training went well: he split the class up into two alternating sessions, one of which focused on shields, while the other focused on strengthening wards. On the shield side, he focused on applying the recent discoveries of how much stronger two overlapping shields could be as compared to a single shield, so he asked everyone to partner up and try to erect joint shields that could withstand concurrent assault by as many as ten other students. On the other side of the room, he emphasized the strategic use of physical shields. He explained how people could effectively use walls, rocks or trees as ready-made shields against attack, and how physical objects were they only way to block against unforgivables, but clarified that that this would only work until attackers broke the physical barrier down with a reductor hex or something comparable. To thwart that, he showed them how a decent wall complemented with a strong strengthening ward could withstand intense battery. It was the perfect fare for a tired instructor: both were entertaining exercises, and neither required complicated or subtle explanations.

Having remembered in advance that he rarely felt on top of the world the morning after a full moon, Harry had thought ahead to make his morning DADA classes less instructionally demanding than usual. Students from both his sixth and seventh year classes were to hand him short project plans and to present to the class brief discussions of their intended goals and solicit peer feedback. In other words, it would be the students doing the teaching this morning, and his only responsibilities would be to moderate and evaluate the discussions.

Many of the sixth-year projects were ones that came as little surprise to Harry. He had already persuaded the super seven to transition their various team-dueling strategy studies from AHA into the NEWT classes, so many of them spoke about various coordination exercises — good topics for capturing student imagination. Their more sensitive discoveries like shield-breaking, Harry had decided should remain within the umbrella of secrecy that the AHA could maintain, although Harry had agreed to let Mary-Jo fold some basic aspects of her surveillance device studies into the class, and have Nick talk about shield strength optimization. Among the other students, many of the projects were a dull blur to Harry, however one that stood out in terms of innovation was Colin Creevey's ideas for site forensics: using a variety of techniques for recording and analyzing attacks post facto. Photography obviously figured into his plans, but he had also done a lot of research into magical signature diagnostics of the sort that Harry himself was very interested in. The final discussion of the class was by Luna who spoke about the use of magical creatures as allies and adjuncts for defense. Harry was quite taken aback when she didn't actually speak about any creatures whose existence was still controversial. Attempting to be a good sport, Harry decided to ask whether she was going to consider more exotic creatures such as heliopaths or umgubular slashkilters.

"Harry, honestly??" Luna huffed. "Have you ever succeeded in taming a heliopath or an umgubular slashkilter?"

"Er, no," he admitted.

"Hmmph!" she declared. "Well there you have it, class! If Professor Potter can't tame heliopaths or umgubular slashkilters, then should we really consider using them as defense adjuncts?"

Harry's brief attempt at an apology was parried by a detailed impromptu lecture about responsible zoological practices and ministry beast classifications. Fortunately, the class was saved by the bell.


Despite having an identical assignment, the seventh year class, as always, took on a very different complexion. Hannah, Susan and Daphne all led lively discussions about various social impacts of conflict and some effective remediation strategies. Harry enjoyed hearing their thoughts — the three of them had thrown themselves vigorously into different aspects of SHP, to the point where Ginny's role had been reduced nearly to the basic level of fiscal and executive oversight. Terry spoke thoughtfully about tailoring wards to automatically discriminate among specific aura signatures. Blaise elaborated with surprising passion about aerial dueling strategies, which was a topic that Harry had given very little thought about, but which seemed potentially rather farsighted considering that most wizards and witches could take to the air. After that, the excitement level began to drop off. Pansy spoke about wand-lore, but it was clear that her depth was lacking behind those students who had had the benefit of an extra year's worth of HA training. Neville spoke about healing plants: very useful information but a bit of a dry topic. Ron introduced the interesting issue of how to cope strategically with multiple simultaneous death-eater attacks — a very compelling subject, but unfortunately he hadn't prepared adequately and was stumped by some very basic questions from the audience. Zacharias Smith admitted baldly that he hadn't worked on anything, and went straight back to reading Quidditch Weekly. Hermione gave a factual but rather uninspired laundry list of different types of spells and charms required for dark arts defense. Draco was absent. Several other students stood up, talked, and sat down again — topics blurred in Harry's increasingly diffuse mind.

Forcing his eyes straight so that he could accurately scan the class list, he breathed a little oath of relief to note that only one more student was left to present. If Ernie MacMillan finished on time, Harry had decided that he would let class out fifteen minutes early, and go convince Ginny to take a quiet lunch in their quarters. And then sleep...

Ernie was speaking about fiscal policies for countering dark societal threats. Harry would not have even considered permitting a topic like that in his DADA class, except for the recent happenings at Gringotts, which had painted some rather interesting new implications of finances in wizarding conflicts. So he was prepared to give the Head Boy the benefit of the doubt. Sadly, this soon proved to have been a mistake. Thirty seconds into the talk, MacMillan was already droning in a soporific monotone that made Harry think of brisk sunny days and quidditch.

Must concentrate Harry — just a little longer!

Maybe a funny distraction would liven things up? Harry cast a furtive glance at Blaise, hoping that the crafty Slytherin might have prepared a little surprise of some sort for Ernie. Blaise was a skilled enough prankster that Harry always shuddered when he was in the same room as the twins. Harry gazed inquisitively at him, looking for a telltale smirk that might augur an eye-opening surprise. Blaise was indeed grinning, but he rigorously persisted... in doing nothing. C'mon Blaise! You've pranked MacMillan every other day this year — why not today?!

Harry took a deep, oxygenating breath. Must look at speaker; must listen to speaker. However, the speaker wasn't helping matters at all: every time that Ernie repeated phrase 'premeditated fiduciary intervention' that annoying little tuft of hair on Ernie's head did a little bob that reminded Harry of Buckbeak's tail. Ugh — sounds like Binns, looks like Buckbeak! Hey wait — Luna talked about hippogriffs earlier — I wonder if she might be interested in collaborating with Blaise on aerial combat? Boy, wouldn't that be a partnership concocted in the twisted fiery depths of Hades?! Oh, but that topic would never fly because hippogriffs aren't pack animals — you probably wouldn't be able to get more than a few up in the air together without them trying to kill each other... For some reason, Harry couldn't shake the image of a friendly pair of hippogriffs flying high up in the sky on a brisk sunny day. He was riding one, and off in the distance there was — no, it couldn't be? Oh, he would know that mane of red hair anywhere — Ginny was riding the other hippogriff! She gave him that tantalizing little taunt of hers; an offhand smirk and cute flick of her shoulder. Come on Bucky, fly! She thinks we can't catch up — let's show her! Buckbeak threw his wings back and surged forward. Wind streaming through Harry's hair, he and Buckbeak pulled level with Ginny and the other hippogriff. With a big grin he waved. She flashed him a wide smile and waved back, saying...

"Harry...? Harrrr-eee...?? Oh my, doesn't he look sooo sweeeet?"

Harry frowned. He knew that voice — that's not Ginny! With a start, his eyes sprang open.

"Urk!" he exclaimed, finding himself face to face with a cooing Daphne Greengrass. That in itself was startling... but it was not nearly as disconcerting as seeing a very affronted Ernie MacMillan looming over him with his Buckbeak-tail quivering in indignation.

"Blimey! Sorry mates!" Harry stammered. "My apologies — I had a long late night last night." He struggled to sit upright. "Ummm... what say we skive off a little early, perhaps? Ernie, if you catch up with me after supper, I promise to give you better feedback on your project."

"Tsk tsk!" Daphne scolded him as she gently patted his hand. "If only you had let us rush out and save you last night, none of this would ever have happened!"

The class snickered a little, but handed in their project plans in an orderly manner and began filing out of the room. The moment Blaise's project plan landed in Harry's hand, the scroll transfigured itself into a big puffy down pillow. Harry cursed under his breath, but laughed anyway, and the scroll reverted to normal form.

As the last of the students left, Harry sorted the sixth-year and seventh-year scrolls into two separate, small boxes, which he set carefully on the desk. He turned and bent over to pick up his backpack, then...

CRASH!!

"What the...??"

He wheeled around to find that the two boxes he'd placed on the table had somehow both fallen to the floor, scattering the scrolls everywhere. He groaned and kneeled down to retrieve and sort them again. He reflected that Hermione would probably know a perfect spell to automatically sort and stack them, but whatever. Just box them up again and get out of here.

He was crawling under a desk to reach for what was finally the last scroll, when he felt a familiar presence seemingly waiting for him at the door. He smiled. Although this would be yet another delay in him finding his dearly-sought pillow, it was nonetheless always gratifying for a student to finally take enough interest in the course to wait around after class. "Just a minute..." he called out, "I just have to... Ughh!!"

His whole skull throbbed sickeningly; his brain itched... crawled... lurched. He clutched his head and gasped in alarm as his occlumency shields quivered sickeningly. Random memories flashed through his mind, but all quickly dissipated and were discarded. Suddenly his scar flared and a stab of pain tore into his forehead as he raced through a vortex of jumbled sensory perceptions: there he was, kneeling on the floor with the room reeling around him, Ginny was tearing frantically down a stairwell, Riddle was clutching at him in alarmed disorientation... and through all this, he felt the bizarre, inexplicable presence of...

Everything went black, and his head hit the floor with a resounding crack.


Reviews 193
ChapterPrinter
StoryPrinter




../back
‘! Go To Top ‘!

Sink Into Your Eyes is hosted by Grey Media Internet Services. HARRY POTTER, characters, names and related characters are trademarks of Warner Bros. TM & © 2001-2006. Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions on this site are those made by the owners. All stories(fanfiction) are owned by the author and are subject to copyright law under transformative use. Authors on this site take no compensation for their works. This site © 2003-2006 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Special thanks to: Aredhel, Kaz, Michelle, and Jeco for all the hard work on SIYE 1.0 and to Marta for the wonderful artwork.
Featured Artwork © 2003-2006 by Yethro.
Design and code © 2006 by SteveD3(AdminQ)
Additional coding © 2008 by melkior and Bear