Chapter 20. The Other Side of the Door (September 21-22, 1997)
After a happy Luna Lovegood left the Room of Requirement with her certificate, Fred and George arrived to demonstrate their horcrux trap to Harry, Ginny, Lupin and Tonks. For the most part, the device was very basic, simple and effective: an internal mechanism was in place that would stab an immobilized horcrux hard with a venom tipped awl. The surrounding magical containment box would prevent any outside party from interfering with the intended operation. The really intricate part of the construct was the trigger mechanism.
"The trigger switch is outside of the magical containment field," Fred explained. "So although you can't magically interact with anything on the other side of the containment door, there are ways to make the switch physically spring the trap... as long as you know exactly how to flip the switch."
"What we struggled with," George elaborated, "is the 'exactly how to flip' part of the equation. We figured that among many criteria, the single most important issue was being able to ensure that nobody else could prevent the trap from springing."
"Exactly!" Fred continued. "Suppose you needed to physically press the switch to activate it. What happens if someone took the box away from you before you could trigger it? Suppose you had to cast a triggering spell and someone put up a shield. Hard luck!"
"So after some thought, we figured that to make it foolproof we needed reverse impetus," George explained. "In other words, we had to make it so that the only way the trap won't snap is if you magically hold it open all the time." He laughed. "It's like a toy that's stuck in the on position unless you sit on the button and force it closed."
"Yes, normally the term used to describe a toy like that is 'broken'," Fred joked.
"So the only two people I can imagine being barmy enough to deliberately make a broken toy are standing before you right now," George said with a grin.
"And the only two customers barmy enough to buy it are sitting in front of us," Fred snickered.
Harry and Ginny turned from the prototype and gazed thoughtfully at each other. "So we need to commit a magical intent to keeping the trigger from springing," Harry mused. "It has to be wandless..."
Fred nodded. "Yes — if you commit your intent with a wand, the intent will fail as soon as you put your wand away or cast some other spell."
"I like it!" Harry enthused. "Most people wouldn't be able to sustain the intent, but I think I can train myself to do pretty easily. And it will be a cinch for Ginny."
"It will?" Ginny inquired with a frown.
"Of course," Harry replied. "I'm thinking of a magical intent you committed months ago, and you only ever slack off that commitment when you consciously decide to."
"Oh, of course!" Ginny exclaimed, although she didn't elaborate the answer to the room. Harry was obviously alluding to her magical quarantine around his scar.
"The more I think about it, the better it sounds," Harry expanded. "If someone tries to steal the box, we can just decide that we don't want to restrain the trigger any longer."
"Yes, it also takes the human element out of it," Ginny continued. "Horcruxes are nasty, manipulative little tykes, but I doubt that they'll be able to protect themselves from this. Also, the restraining spell will lapse if someone stupefies us, or if..." Ginny's excitement faded for a moment by a distracting thought that she decided not to verbalize.
"Er, yes, exactly." George said in a somewhat uneasy tone. "It's insurance in case something bad happens to you."
Pushing aside these unpleasant thoughts, Harry and Ginny both breathed deep sighs of relief. The devices were exactly what they needed, and solved a whole lot of problems in a quirky, innovative manner that Riddle would probably never unravel.
A knock sounded on the Room of Requirement door.
"Come in please!" Ginny called.
The door opened to reveal Hermione and Ron, who entered to a cheery round of greetings. The gathering devolved for a while into casual socialization for a while as everyone caught up with the latest news and goings on. Ron, however, cornered Harry near the periphery of the group.
"Hey Harry," Ron said, "I know I kind of limped through my Wednesday talk on multi-attack response coordination, but I've been doing a lot of homework that I'd like to update you on. Do you have time this evening?"
Harry looked at Ron quizzically. "Er, you do know I'll be out of a job here in two weeks, right? It would probably make more sense to talk to Professor Caldwell about course project plans, don't you think?"
Ron shook his head. "I don't care about the course right now. Caldwell's hardly going to be leading the fight against Voldemort is he? It sounds like things are getting dicey and you've been running ragged trying to plan defences. I was hoping that maybe I could help a bit?"
Harry took a moment to gauge Ron's seriousness. Ron was giving him an intensely earnest look of the sort Harry had not seen from his friend in well over a year. Finally he nodded. "Okay, but if your goal is to help our defence then I think you'll need to refocus a bit. Your topic would have been ideal if the death eaters were still planning cluster attacks like they did last year, but every bone in my body is telling me that they gearing up for one single knockout punch. I think it's coming soon, and I need people who can strategize, think on their feet, and perhaps lead and improvise in my absence."
Ron stared at him. "Your absence?" he asked dumbfoundedly.
"Yes," Harry answered, "If the battle shapes up like I expect, I think the only way we can win is if I can lure the top dog away from the pack and deal with him separately."
"Top dog? Who...?" Ron began, before the spark of comprehension flashed across his face. "Oh!" he exclaimed.
"So I'm envisioning a possible scenario where the only thing standing in the way of Voldemort conquering the castle is maybe a dozen students and a handful of Order operatives," Harry said grimly.
"Aurors, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, before turning on Tonks. "We need aurors here!"
"Well, Williamson and Proudfoot will be on site tomorrow," Tonks responded. "there will be two per day stationed at Hogwarts from here on in, but the Minister won't let us have any more than that."
"Two?!" Hermione asked incredulously. She scowled and muttered something indecipherable.
"Within the Order, the only two people with much experience in strategic planning are Remus and Moody, and only Remus really knows anything about the students' skills," Harry continued, "so we're placing a fair bit of reliance on home grown talent. Mary-Jo, Ryan and Quinn have been studying and designing battle tactics for eight months now, so they're our backbone," he elaborated. "but you have a different perspective on things than they do, and you've seen death eater operations up close too. If you'd be willing to work with them, it would be great."
"I, er, okay... yeah, I'll talk to them if you'd like Harry," Ron agreed. "But I'd prefer if you were there too. It's just that I've never really gotten to know any of these people."
"Sure — I'll do my best to make it," Harry agreed. "Don't worry, they're great kids — I'm sure you'll work brilliantly together.
Ron nodded with little conviction.
"So, is our favourite potioneer ready for show and tell?" Fred asked, sidling up to Hermione with a grin.
Hermione looked up from a long scroll on which she'd been making last-minute annotations. She smiled back. "I guess we'll soon be finding that out, now won't we?"
Last year, Hermione had experienced a bitter blow to her pride when Harry had explained to her how she was a poor teacher. He had couched the criticism diplomatically but accurately: because she grasped concepts so quickly and intuitively, it was hard for her to reverse-engineer the learning process to effectively instruct others. Fortunately, just because something is hard does not mean that it is impossible. She now realized that, with practice and bull-headed determination, she could learn how to do it. Today she was determined to prove it.
She held in her hands two small saucers, each holding a small pile of white powder. "Okay class, I need a taste tester. Do I have a volunteer?"
Harry, Ginny, Ron, Lupin, Tonks, Fred and George, all sitting in student desks that the Room of Requirement had conjured for them, regarded Hermione with amused skepticism. Nobody volunteered.
"Ahem. One of these substances..." she held up the saucer in her right hand, "is the primary ingredient in sugar quills. The other..." she held up the other sample, "tastes identical, is non-toxic and will not harm you in any way."
"I'll do it!" Ron volunteered.
Hermione smirked slightly. "Please first taste one and then the other, and tell me if you can detect any difference."
Ignoring any delicate sensitivities in the assembled group, Ron licked the first sample directly off the plate, paused the barest instant, and then licked off the other. Hermione cringed at Ron's table manners, but Ron didn't notice. "Oooh — tastes like honey!" he exclaimed. "Oh, and nope, they definitely taste the same... Hmm, I wonder what's for lunch?" he added, glancing at his watch.
"They look the same and taste the same," Hermione emphasized, "but they're not the same. To explain the difference, I need a second volunteer for another non-fatal, non-debilitating demonstration."
George stood up eagerly. "At your service! I hope my snack is larger than what you gave ickle Ronnie."
"Sorry, no more treats until you've successfully completed the lesson," Hermione said sternly. George effected a look of grave disappointment, and Fred somehow conjured a frightening stomach-like rumbling. "Fortunately George," Hermione steadfastly continued, "you will get to play with toys."
George beamed an excited face around the room.
"Before that, though, I'd like you to tell me if your two hands are the same shape." Hermione requested.
George held them up in puzzlement. "Umm, basically, yes. I have a scar on my left hand from... er, never mind."
Hermione raised an eyebrow, but turned back to her notes and conjured a large square spongy block. "Okay, please spread out the fingers on your right hand and press your open hand about six inches into this block, then pull your hand out again."
George did as requested, producing a deep hand-shape depression in the block. The cavity remained, even after he'd withdrawn his hand.
"Now if your left hand is the same shape as your right, then you should be able to put your left hand into the hole exactly as you put your right one in, correct?"
George nodded. Lupin and Harry both shook their heads, furtively appraising the situation. George attempted to insert his left hand into the hole, stopped, tried to reinsert it with his wrist facing inwards, but that didn't work either. He took a step back and shook his head in a puzzled way.
"The same, but different, yes?" Hermione asked. "Can anyone tell me the difference?"
Ginny raised her hand. "His two hands are like mirror images, yeah?" she asked. Lupin and Harry both nodded vigorously.
"Exactly!" Hermione exclaimed. "And that's the exactly what was different about the two sugars that Ron, um inhaled, a little while ago. The shape of the little pieces making up one sugar sample are mirror images of the sugar molecules in the other sample. The two sugars are sometimes called called right-handed glucose and left-handed glucose."
Harry sat bolt upright as he thought of something. He opened his mouth for a moment, then decided to let Hermione finish the lesson.
"Okay George, these are the last two toys I'd like you to play with," Hermione said, conjuring two spin tops of the sort given to small children. She placed them onto the table. "Please get both of these tops spinning at the same time; use your left hand to spin the blue top, and your right hand to spin the red top."
George did so, and Hermione pointed to the two toys that were spinning rapidly on their axes, while tracing out larger meandering circles on the table. "Everyone notice this," she instructed. "The blue top is circling in a clockwise direction, while the red top is circling in a counterclockwise direction. That's because the strongest spinning motion we make with one hand goes in a direction opposite from that of the other hand."
"This is absolutely brilliant, Hermione!" Harry exclaimed. "There's absolutely nothing magical about beating the anti-portkey wards at all is there? It's just elementary muggle science!"
Hermione grinned. "Did anybody else in the room figure out what's going on yet?"
The Weasleys and Tonks all shook their heads, but Lupin nodded his head tentatively. "Is it..." he paused a moment to collect his thoughts. "It is because portkeys work by spinning us across space like some sort of counterclockwise corkscrew, and... and antiportkey wards block that motion...?"
"Exactly!" Hermione beamed. "If I make a portkey out of a normal right-handed sugar, then the normal portkey spell will project it across space by spinning it counterclockwise. If I make an identical portkey, except I use a left-handed sugar, the portkey spell will cause it to spin clockwise through space. A normal anti-portkey ward that would block the normal portkey counterclockwise motion, would actually speed up the opposite-handed portkey!"
"So, the death eaters discovered that if they used Deliquesco Magia to administer a left-handed sugar portkey, it would burst straight through normal anti-portkey wards?" Ginny inquired with obvious thrill in her voice.
Hermione nodded excitedly. "And here's the proof," she said, placing two lumps of sugar onto two plates on the table. "Ginny, can you please add portkey charms to both of these and set them to portkey to the forbidden forest in thirty seconds?"
Ginny stood up, quickly cast the portkey charms then stood back. Everyone waited for the allotted time, then suddenly one lump sparkled briefly and disappeared.
"Bloody hell!" Ron stammered. "You just portkeyed a lump of sugar out of Hogwarts!"
"That makes one happy little centaur..." Fred exclaimed as he gestured to the empty plate, then pointed at the unaffected sugar lump, "and one sad little centaur."
Hermione laughed and stood fidgeting energetically. "Furthermore," she elaborated happily, "even though the portkeys taste the same, our bodies digest the left-handed sugar much more slowly than the normal one, so the portkey magic will remain intact for hours rather than minutes. It's a perfectly brilliant little twist of charm design!"
"This is utterly superb, Hermione!" Harry declared. "So, to close the loop... how do we block the left-handed portkey?"
Hermione wore the most convincing Cheshire cat grin. "It's so very simple..." she said as slowly as possible to draw out the suspense, "You can make a left-hand anti-portkey ward exactly as you would a normal one, except that the spell..." she drew out a vanity hand-mirror, "has to be reflected through this!"
As Ginny brought Ron, Hermione, Tonks and the twins up to their den for a late, private lunch, Harry led Professor Lupin solemnly down to a private room in the Hospital Wing where the immobilized headmaster lay, waiting for some point in the future when he would be granted either life or death. Harry knew that Lupin very much wanted to pay his respects to Dumbledore — a man who had afforded the werewolf great kindness and inspiration through the years.
Remembering the state of pain in which the headmaster had been prior to the freezing spell, Harry dreaded seeing Dumbledore again, and certainly did not relish the anguish that it might bring to Lupin. However, when Madame Pomfrey admitted them to the room, Harry was shocked to see that the headmaster's body had somehow relaxed, and his face looked perfectly serene.
"Did something happen to the freezing spell?" Harry whispered to Madame Pomfrey at the doorway as Lupin entered in to sit by Dumbledore.
The healer shook her head slowly. Her face was unreadable. "I can only guess that the headmaster may have some sort of very deep powers that can function even within the exceptionally strong freezing field placed on him by Mr. Weasley," she said quietly.
"But if the headmaster was able to change his appearance under the freezing spell, does that also mean that the curse is continuing to slowly progress?" Harry asked as he steered her out of the room.
She shook her head. "Thankfully no. The curse is in exactly the same state as it was before. Perhaps Professor Dumbledore is somehow slightly stronger than the immobilization, but the curse is not."
"That's strange but fascinating — thank you, Poppy!" Harry said, grasping her hand. "There's still hope, isn't there?"
She smiled at Harry. "Yes, there's still a bit of hope. Now please go in there — I'm certain that he would very much like to see you."
Harry walked slowly back into the room, watching a ray of sun break through the noonday clouds and edge its way up Dumbledore's chest to his placid face.
"We will break the curse, Albus," Harry whispered to himself as a mist crept from his lower eyelids to partially blur his vision. "We have a plan. I promise you."
I trust you Harry... to succeed where I have failed...
Harry eyes flashed wide in surprise. He stared at Dumbledore convinced that the old man just just spoken to him... but he lay every bit as still and peaceful as before. Harry glanced around the room to see if anyone else had heard the headmaster's voice, but obviously not: Pomfrey was scratching out notes on a scroll, and Lupin was still grasping the old man's one remaining hand, gazing at his face in solemn contemplation. It was then that Harry spied Fawkes. The bird was staring intently at him from a table in a corner of the room, apparently unobserved by anyone else.
Fawkes's dark eyes conveyed compassion and a silent plea for help. Next to him was a jumbled array of get-well cards, flowers and candies left by friends, students and faculty in the hopes that the headmaster would return to enjoy them. Beside the pile, however, were two objects that were quite incongruous: the magical containment box from Dumbledore's office and the Sword of Gryffindor. Fawkes glanced at the box and sword, then stared very meaningfully at Harry.
Harry nodded. With one hand he gently stroked the phoenix's long, smooth neck feathers. With the other hand, he shrank the containment box and sword, summoned his storage trunk from his cloak pocket, and hovered the box and sword inside. Fawkes trilled very softly, but neither Lupin or Pomfrey noticed him, even as the bird gave one final whistle and vanished in a small flicker of flame.
Harry stared for a moment at the empty place on the table, then went to stand beside Lupin and gaze at the old man in his peaceful slumber.
Harry and Lupin walked back to the sixth floor in complete silence. Harry struggled with the age-old question of whether or not to talk to someone who was brooding. He knew that Lupin was almost certainly having some difficulty processing the headmaster's dire condition. On the other hand, he also knew that Lupin was a very private person who had spent much of his life in various levels of isolation and might not be comfortable discussing his feelings. Finally as they reached the top of the last flight of steps, Harry recalled the wise words of a girl he knew who had adeptly dealt with another similarly reticent individual.
"Remus," Harry said, "if ever you need someone to talk to about this, then you know where to find me, okay?"
Lupin smiled at him softly. "Thanks Harry," he said simply. "I appreciate it."
Harry opened the door into the den, which Ginny had magically expanded to accommodate a table with lunch settings for eight people. Indeed, the room had never been quite so lively — Ginny, Tonks, Fred, George, Ron and Hermione were already part way through lunch. Seeing the door open, Hermione broke off a conversation with Tonks and beckoned to Harry, who came over and took a seat next to her.
"Harry, things have been so unsettled, and there's been so much to do," Hermione began, "but now that we can actually sit down and be calm for a few minutes, I just wanted to tell you that I think that whoever made the decision to sack you is a daft, pompous prat!"
Fred whistled and grinned. "Wow — mighty harsh words for my illustrious older brother, don't you think Miss Granger?"
Hermione scowled, George burst out laughing, but Harry just angled his head thoughtfully. "You know, I think Hermione phrased it perfectly when she said, 'Whoever made the decision...'" Harry mused. "I know that nobody in this room has been particularly close to Percy in a long while, but I got the impression that even before all of the students walked out on him last night he was feeling uncomfortable. A lot of people are in tough spots right now, Percy not the least. I strongly suspect that decision was Percy's to implement, not his to make."
Fred studied Harry for a moment, then his mouth reshaped itself into the letter "O" and he nodded.
Tonks nodded knowingly but said nothing. Then she gazed around the table with a puzzled look on her face and then glanced back at the still-open doorway. "Wolfie!" Tonks called out over the bustle of conversations. "What are you waiting for? Grab a seat before Ron scoffs all the nosh. If you're expecting a formal invitation from this lot, then you've crashed the wrong party."
Lupin shook himself and gave a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I was just admiring the decor," he said. "Say Harry, has anybody ever told you this room looks just like your dad's den at Godric's Hollow?"
When Harry opened the door to their den again after supper, the room was very much back to its normal, peaceful self. Ginny preceded him through the door, while he followed somewhat hesitantly. He looked around the room and marveled at how quickly and completely the place had come to feel like home in the three intense weeks since school had started. A small cloud of melancholy crept over him — this would not be home much longer.
It seemed to be a foolish, whimsical thing to be saddened by. He and Ginny (and unquestionably Emerald) loved the brighter, cheerier, more modern environment at Magpie Lane, and for that matter they could easily find another place if they wanted to. But there was something about his associations with a place where the two of them had learned so much about each other and the quest that they both shared. This would always be a place of intense memories for them.
Ginny had crossed nearly to the bedroom when she realized that Harry had fallen behind. She turned to check for him, and immediately recognized his heavy-hearted expression. She sighed sadly, understanding that beneath his superhuman drive to prepare, and his excitement at the rapid, critical progress being made on many fronts by his friends and students, he was nonetheless suffering from an innately human feeling of disappointment. She watched him for only a moment before crossing quickly back. She slid her hands under his arms and up his back to their accustomed spot between his shoulder blades. She peered into his eyes projecting sympathy and comfort.
He met her gaze for a moment, offered her a subdued smile, then leaned his forehead down against hers. He hugged her tightly and let his head subside to her shoulder. She tightened her hold on him and began to gently rock him back and forth. There they stood for several long minutes: a quiet, indulgence, before sparking back into action for a busy evening of planning.
After they reluctantly disengaged from each other, Ginny walked over to the table and picked up two tiny miniaturized parcels. "One for each of us," she said. "Emergency water, food, bindings, dittany, bezoar, various other healing ingredients, and spare clothes in case we're magically weakened."
"Brilliant, thanks!" Harry enthused as he picked up one parcel and placed it in his storage trunk. From the open trunk, he withdrew one of their two filled horcrux traps. "I think we need to split up these two little imps. I'll keep the diadem and you can have the locket?"
Ginny grimaced, but nonetheless accepted the object and placed it in her trunk. "So what's next?" she asked.
"I'm going to fill McGonagall and Flitwick in on our plans," Harry replied. "It may not exactly be classes as usual tomorrow, and they deserve to be forewarned."
"Are you sure you want me at the meeting?" Ginny asked.
"Absolutely!" Harry proclaimed. "This has nothing to do with my job, and everything about what you and I are doing together to completely disrupt the school." He smirked.
"Please don't joke about it, Harry," Ginny chided gently. "It's not your fault this place is imperiled. If, in the course of helping us to save hundreds of lives, a few of the brightest and bravest students miss a few classes, I don't want to hear any self-important quill-wankers squawking that you encouraged truancy. Besides HA students are learning so much more outside of class right now than they are behind their desks."
They made their way down to McGonagall's office on the ground floor. Harry knocked on the open door, they made their way in, and sat beside Flitwick, facing McGonagall.
"Thank you for asking to meet with us Harry," McGonagall said. "We're very interested to hear what you wanted to speak with us about."
"Thank you Minerva," Harry responded. "I'm assuming that you both have guessed that we have an emerging crisis that has nothing to do with my teaching appointment, the state of Slytherin House leadership, or Ministerial interference in the school?"
The two faculty members nodded.
"If you had asked my honest opinion a couple weeks ago," Harry continued, "I would have said that before the end of October Hogwarts would probably suffer a death eater attack more massive than anything seen in this wizarding war so far; perhaps the biggest battle since Grindelwald."
Flitwick hissed; numerous small lines around McGonagall's eyes contracted into a fine network of anxiety.
"Unfortunately," Harry began again, "everything in the past couple of weeks seems to have conspired to compress the time scale: the Gringotts account freezings, the thwarted heist attempt, and now, more than anything else, Professor Dumbledore's undisguised destruction of one of Riddle's horcruxes..."
"Is that what this is all about, Harry?" Flitwick gasped. "Voldemort created horcruxes? Albus's injury was sustained in disposing one of them?"
Harry nodded. "Yes. Riddle created horcruxes and will act violently to protect them. He would have found a reason to attack Hogwarts eventually for the sake of his own agenda but it would be hard to imagine doing anything more effective to incite him to rash retaliation."
"Some degree of rashness might work in our favor," McGonagall surmised, "especially if he rushed into action unprepared and we're ready for him. The latter is most important: how much time do you believe we have to prepare?"
"I might be able to find that out quite accurately, but it risks getting him even more agitated," Harry replied, "so right now I'm resorting to guesswork..." he paused for a moment to weigh how to present his message. "Do you want my most honest speculation?"
McGonagall and Flitwick both nodded grimly.
Ginny's hand crept discretely onto Harry's and enveloped it in strength and confidence. Harry fixed his two senior colleagues with a look of profoundly sober intensity. A distant bell tower began to solemnly chime the hour.
"We will be attacked this week," Harry intoned. "Perhaps as early as tomorrow."
In the inter house common room that evening, five people had commandeered the larger table and had erected a variety of privacy wards. Three of those people: Ryan, Quinn and Laura Madley, were listening to closely to a fourth, Mary-Jo, who was providing an overview on the state of their current planning.
"Based on this afternoon's discussion with Harry," she reiterated, "the two main objectives are to secure the castle so that death eaters don't threaten any students and, in the event of a death eater attack, to immobilize and capture as many them as possible. Harry had asked Ryan to head up the defence planning."
Ryan nodded. "Over the past couple days I've lined up people with the skills we need. With help from Blevins and Peakes, Laura is training and leading a team to strengthen and specialize castle wards. MJ and Quinn will coordinate a dynamic response team that can take the fight to the enemy. Nick and Jennifer couldn't make it this evening, but I talked to Nick a little while ago: they've started recruiting people for passive defence skill training. We're hoping to have at least a hundred students with basic defensive training by tomorrow night, but there's a logistical problem: Nick and Jennifer are great at teaching, but I'd really prefer to have them present for dynamic team planning. Any recommendations?"
"Maybe we can shunt the basic defence training to Michael Corner," Quinn suggested. "He's never had a big HA role because his dueling instincts aren't great, but his spell work is top notch. Weasley, you've had six years of classes with him — what to you think?"
Ron was staring obliquely at the others, still trying to fathom the fact that he was meeting with a Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff, and two Slytherins with the goal of mapping out a comprehensive set of plans for castle defence strategies.
A Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff...?
And two Slytherins??
After a moment, he jumped, realizing that they other four were now staring back at him, apparently wondering if and when he intended to start making some tangible contribution to the discussion. "Er, sorry, can you repeat the question please?" he asked, trying not to sound quite as foolish as he felt.
"Can Michael Corner teach basic defence?" Ryan asked.
Ron shrugged unhelpfully.
Ryan gazed at the ceiling for a second then locked back onto Quinn. "Quinn, why don't you ask Sarah's opinion on Corner?" he suggested. "If the two of you agree he'll be good, then that's fine as far as I'm concerned."
Ryan turned to Ron again. "So I know it's a little awkward Weasley, but Harry kind of tossed us into the room together and told us to brainstorm on how to protect the castle in case of a large scale death eater attack. He definitely wants your input, so let's make this work, all right? Maybe you can help us all by suggesting how you might fit into castle defence planning?"
"And feel free to comment on the plans we've been making for our own areas of responsibility," Quinn added.
Laura smiled sympathetically. "Don't worry, Ron," she said. "It seemed overwhelming for me at first — a few days ago Harry barely knew my last name, and then suddenly he wants me to help coordinate a big activity. But the key is to realize that you don't need to do everything yourself. Thank goodness for Lucia and Jimmy — I'd be dead if I had to do all this ward stuff by myself. Anyway, just keep an open mind, do what you do best."
"Laura raises a good point," Ryan added. "The rest of us have been able to grow organically into the roles we're naturally best at — maybe we can try to play to your strengths too. What would you say those strengths would be, Weasley?"
"Er, quidditch? Chess? Yeah, definitely chess!"
The other four students took a moment to process the unconventional answer. Fortunately, Mary-Jo was always adept at nonlinear thinking. "So you're going to be a dynamic strategist as well, then?" she surmised.
Quinn frowned. "I see... The problem is that Ryan, MJ and I are all big on dynamic strategy, and it's taken a while to figure out how to share the responsibilities. At some point we're going to have too many hands stirring the potion. Laura's the only one doing static configuration — I would have hoped you could help her out somehow."
"Well, Harry wouldn't have suggested him if he wasn't going to bring something complementary to the table," Ryan interjected. "Quidditch is pure dynamics, but chess is a mixture of static planning and dynamic execution, so maybe the best fit is in there. Anyway, it doesn't look like Harry will make it tonight, so we have to somehow decipher his intent without him."
"Harry's not going to show up?" Ron asked, displaying a bit of dismay.
"He's with McGonagall and Flitwick," Mary-Jo answered. "Their meeting seems to have gone overtime; he might still pop by, but who knows? Anyway, maybe we can help you find your niche by giving more detail about what the rest of us do. Quinn and I work on team tactics; he's the theoretical mind, and I put theories into practice. Ryan is the master team builder."
"I suppose you could say that," Ryan replied. "I mostly try to figure out what Potter needs to have done, and find the right people to do it. I don't have any particular talents other than twisting arms."
"Yeah right," Mary-Jo scoffed.
"So, do you like to play with battle formations? Spell selection? Multi-team configurations? Communications protocols?" Quinn asked.
Ron darted nervous glances around the room. Laura smiled at him soothingly. "I'm, er, more of a, umm, big picture person," he improvised.
Ryan leaned forward and examined the lanky Gryffindor with an appraising eye. "So if I was to give you a bunch of chess pieces: say some for dynamic combat pieces, some for ward conformation, and some strictly defensive pieces, you could use them together strategically to optimize a specific response for a given threat?"
"Er, yeah, something like that," Ron agreed hesitantly.
"So, Mr. Chess Master, you've heard the outline of what we've been planning. Any comments? Do you need more rooks or bishops to work with? Do you need any of the existing pieces to work differently? Any tools or spells that we need to add to the mix?"
Ron thought back to his successful recent encounter with Draco. The brain that had been so useless through that episode was the same one who was now telling him that he needed to scramble out of his chair and race down the hallway as fast as possible. However appealing that sounded, the recipe for fun and success had been to ignore that brain. What really seemed to work was just opening his mouth and seeing what happened.
Ryan and Quinn leaned forward, expectantly, while Mary Jo and Laura were leaning back, trying to ease the pressure. Ron knew that it was now or never. He opened his mouth.
"We need two dynamic teams," Ron's mouth said. "If the enemy knows that we only have one single highly trained squad of seven, then they know exactly who to avoid. If you have more than one team, then we can keep them on their toes and pull more feints and lures."
"Aha!" Ryan's face displayed a mixture of surprise and satisfaction. "Good deal that Potter pushed through all those combat accreditations, huh?"
Mary-Jo nodded earnestly. "He told me that thirteen people passed. The question is whether the six new students are good enough to make a second team?"
"Perhaps," Ryan said, "but if we need to rely on both teams equally, we'd better spread the existing seven and new six across two new teams. MJ and Quinn: you're our the master tacticians, so why don't you each be a team lead and repartition the others under you so that both teams have a similar range of skills and experience levels? Does that sound good to you, Mister Chess?" Ryan queried.
"Er, fine!" Ron blurted out, surprised that his idea had carried weight. "That would be great!"
"That works for me too then," Quinn agreed. "Let's get everyone together in the last fifteen minutes of breakfast tomorrow so that we can divide into two teams. MJ and I can chat later about how best to balance the other eleven people. We'll decide, for example, who gets to have Lovegood?"
Mary-Jo grinned. "Come on Quinn," she scolded, "Luna is in your house and your year. I'd have thought we'd have long since caught you two snogging in AHA sessions by now."
"Er yes, well, we do have to keep up our professional appearances you know." Quinn deadpanned.
"Ahem!" Ryan's eyes smouldered with the ferocity of someone trying hard to hide his amusement. "Back on task please! We still need to hear the rest of Chess's recommendations before we can break off and you can all pursue your various recreational interests." He turned to Ron. "So Chess? Anything else?"
Ron's brain desperately wanted to quit while it was ahead and go talk quidditch scores with Seamus. Fortunately he again ignored that impulse and opened his mouth. "Did it ever occur to you," he began, "that the two objectives of developing an airtight castle defence and capturing death eaters kind of cancel each other out?"
The others stared at him with engaged, analytical frowns. "Please elaborate," Ryan requested.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about Weasley! Let's go see what's happening in the kitchens!
Ron smiled because it was getting increasingly fun to spite his meddlesome brain. "Well," he said confidently, "here you have a team that's going around strengthening Hogwarts' already strong wards, you have two skilled teams ready to knock off any death eater vanguards before they penetrate." Ron's hands were playing along with his mouth, drawing imaginary shapes on the table that the others stared at avidly. "So fine," he continued. "The students will be safe, but as soon as the death eaters figure out how good your defences are, they're going to go straight into siege mode: they'll rope us in, set up camp around the lake or the forest. They'll hold onto the outskirts where they're free of castle wards, and if they're smart, they'll set up their own wards to lock us in until we starve."
Quinn nodded. "Okay, are you just going to criticize us or are you going to propose something?"
"Well," Ron mouth forged on bravely, "if we had ten times as many duelers, maybe we could break them in a huge battle in an open field, but we don't... so the only other way is to give then some false hope of busting in here to capture us. Suppose we try to deliberately leave some sort of gap that we can lead them into — maybe some part of the castle where the wards are left weak and there are no visible means of active defence? We could try to set it up so that it looks to them like a real winner but is actually risk-free for us. What do you think?"
Laura, Quinn and Mary-Jo exchanged silent worried glances as they each, with their different backgrounds and perspectives, worked through various implications and considerations. Ryan, however, responded quickly and instinctively. "I think I understand what you're suggesting Chess — we set a trap by sabotaging some of our own wards. Here's the problem: Potter is a living breathing human conscience. Selling him on an intentional defence breach is going to be like flossing your teeth with a flobberworm."
Ron's brain did a few 'told-you-so' cartwheels and started looking forward to a big celebratory sandwich courtesy of the house elves. But another part of him shifted uneasily in his seat as his chastened heart sunk.
Ryan, however, continued heedlessly. "So here's the deal, Chess: we'll try to make a go of this, but you better damn well comb through your breach plan until you'd swear on Merlin's grave that it's absolutely foolproof. Next, MJ, Quinn and I are going to tear it to shreds at least twice. After all that, if we all agree that it should work, we'll take it to Potter for final approval."
Ron's eyes widened at the unexpected compromise.
"I hate to think how much work you've just bitten off," Mary Jo empathized, "but if you're up to it then this could be a great idea!"
Ron's brain was just in the process of complaining loudly about no longer having time to make that trip to the kitchens when fate — better known as Nick Jones — intervened. "Food!" the Gryffindor fifth year shouted as he entered the common room carrying a large tray full of meats, cheeses, bread and various spreads.
Ron's brain gaped for a minute, officially declared a truce, and ordered the mouth to dive in.
After taking nearly two hours longer than expected to thoroughly brief McGonagall and Flitwick on student preparations, Harry and Ginny had returned to their quarters, shuffled into their night clothes and collapsed. Ginny had fallen into a deep sleep almost immediately, but Harry and tossed and turned wearily for a while. Every time he drifted into sleep, he would imagine some major gap in the defence planning and find himself yanked back to consciousness by a myoclonic twitch.
He finally pulled himself out of bed, taking care not to disturb Ginny who was resting deeply and peacefully. Edging to the other side of the room in the near darkness, he found the door frame to lean against and began to work quietly through some slow stretching exercises to try to ease the tension from his mind and body. Within a couple minutes, however, his attention was drawn back to the bed he had temporarily forsaken: Ginny had begun stirring and murmuring in her sleep. After another minute she began thrashing and subsided into wracking sobs; he rushed back to the bed and wrapped her in an embrace.
"Ginny," he whispered urgently. "Ginny, it's okay! It's me, Harry! Everything is okay!"
She startled almost immediately and stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. "Harry?" she said aloud. "You're back?"
"I'm back, Gin'! I'm here for you," Harry assured her, softly stroking her cheek. "Everything is all right. We're right here in our bed at Hogwarts. We're fine... we're safe."
"We're safe?" she whispered in her confusion. "You don't have to leave again?"
"I'm here for you now. If I have to leave, then we're leaving together, okay? You and I might have to leave in a couple weeks to go back to Magpie Lane, but if we do, then we'll go together."
"Magpie...?" she said, as her mind began a laborious journey back to reality. "Oh Harry!" she exclaimed. "I was dreaming! I had such a terrible, draining, demoralizing dream!"
Harry said nothing. One of his hands was stroked her shoulder, as she buried her head on his chest.
"You broke up with me..." she sniffled tremulously. "You said you needed to break up with me to protect me, but you went away for months and months, and the school completely fell apart... death eaters everywhere... students being..." Ginny paused for a long time, inhaling deeply to soften her ragged breathing while Harry continued to stroke her shoulder and back. After kissing the top of her head, he pressed his cheek to her forehead and held it there silently.
"You finally came back," she finally resumed in a voice that was steady but haunted. "You finally came back and there was a terrible battle... death everywhere... and Riddle called out to us and said that if any of the rest of us wanted to live, you had to go to him and..." She shuddered convulsively, unable to finish the sentence. "And you went to him." she cried softly, forlornly.
He continued to hold her for several minutes until he heard her breathing settle again. "I'm not going to him. You and I are setting the agenda — he's going to have to come to us," he whispered.
After a while she nodded. "We can't let him drive us apart, Harry," she said. "It was the worst possible impotence not knowing where you were or even if you were alive. Everybody was weak and divided; nobody had a plan..."
"We have a plan, Ginny," Harry spoke softly yet firmly. "We've planned together to succeed together. Maybe in some dream... maybe in some other world, under other twists of fate I would have felt I had to leave you behind, but this time, here and now, you're stuck with me."
She pulled slowly back from him to meet his eyes in the ghostly dimness of the deep night. "Together," she whispered. "We will prevail."
She held his eyes for a long moment, raised her hand to his jaw, then settled back under the covers, coaxing him gently back to bed.
Arms around each other, the two of them fell into sound, dreamless sleep until the Hungarian Horntail and Emerald both emerged to announce early dawn glimmers of the equinox.
Dreams and angst were forgotten when the beasts, real and simulated, issued their summons. Ginny giggled as Emerald hissed at the dutifully aggressive horntail. Harry rolled his eyes and pulled himself out of bed to serve some kibble and hopefully coax the cat away from an unwinnable confrontation. Neither of them needed to speak their exercise intentions today — it was all perfectly clear and unambiguous. Forty minutes later they stood on the outcrop.
Unlike their past visits to the spot, when the sun crested the eastward extension of the ridge, they were not embracing. Rather, they were right at arm's length, facing each other with fingertips just barely touching.
"Should we really be standing for this?" Ginny asked, recalling the disorientation that sometimes accompanied mind exercises.
Harry nodded. "We do. We need to be able to trust ourselves not to fall. We need to be able to trust each other to strengthen, not weaken, each other. If either of us senses any weakness in the other, we'll need to respond accordingly."
Ginny nodded in understanding. If one of them was to stumble, the other would break their fall, magically or physically — whatever was most practical. "You'll go first, I guess?" she inquired.
"I think so; I have a rough idea what we need to do — it's similar to the legilimency we tried last time in the Room of Requirement, but we need to be a lot more subtle going in. Once I've done it on you, I think you'll know how to do it on me."
"Thank Merlin for that," Ginny said with a smile. She closed her eyes and let her hands fall to her sides.
Harry shook his head. "Let's also see if we can do this with eyes open," he suggested. "If there are enemies around, we'll need some peripheral awareness."
Ginny nodded. She opened her eyes and stood impassively, with a diffuse gaze that vaguely registered everything, but focused on nothing.
Harry poured his consciousness inwards first, to rally his magical essence for a legilimency probe. He tuned it, transforming the aura from hard static to a soft humming cloud. He adjusted it until it had a weak intensity and a clear, precise pitch, a bit like the musical note of a clàrsach. He projected it outwards toward Ginny, and felt it envelope her occlumency walls. He studied her face: at the weak intensity, she displayed no sign either of discomfort or pleasure from the probing. He carefully tuned the pitch downwards, but still detected no response, so he reversed the tuning and scaled upwards to higher pitches. Suddenly he felt it: her previously rigid occlumency walls became soft and responsive; they started vibrating in tune with his spell; he saw a small curious frown dance around her eyes. He adjusted upwards a little further and suddenly he found himself blending almost seamlessly with her shield. Experimentally, he gravitated inwards and, without the slightest sensation of resistance, became aware of everything that was Ginny Weasley: all of her thoughts, her memories, her knowledge, was displayed before him. He discretely ignored this complete personal disclosure and withdrew the probe.
Her eyes locked in on his and she smiled in amazement. "That didn't hurt at all!"
He grinned at her. "Not when you do it right."
"I could tell that you were there, though," Ginny said thoughtfully. "Whereas the Fugos could get in without us even suspecting it."
"The Fugos had a century's worth of practice, though, didn't they?"
Ginny smiled. "You have to admit that this is a scary concept — if everyone learned how to do this, nobody would ever have any secrets at all."
"I don't know. Apart from the Fugo's, the only other person we've ever met who's accomplished anything even slightly similar to this is Hermione, and she had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I suspect that most people will never get anywhere near to achieving this."
"Hah, well thank you so much, Potter," Ginny grumbled playfully. "Nothing like offering encouraging words just before it's my turn to try it."
"Ginny Weasley," Harry said with a devious grin, "has never needed encouraging words! You've had the chance to feel what I did to probe — knowing you, you'll replicate it and take it two steps further. Just try to tune to a pleasant musical note, humming very softly, then vary your pitch until you find something that resonates."
Ginny had already spent some time practising precisely this in the days since Hermione's botched legilimency experiment, so she was indeed able to quickly produce a cloud probe. She had not attempted it on anyone else though, so she was a bit nervous. "Harry, please let me know if you feel any discomfort like last time, okay? It's one thing to smack your crown on a classroom floor, but something entirely else to fall headlong off a boulder."
Harry nodded passively; he had already relaxed his mind in preparation for the experiment. Within a few seconds his head and face felt distinctly warm. "Dial down the intensity a bit, Gin'."
She nodded, and the apparent temperature came down almost immediately. The sensation from that point was subtle but fascinating. The probe almost seemed physical — on one hand, there was the real sensation of a distinct, chilly morning breeze sweeping across the outcrop from the southwest, but the probe settled in like a separate sensation on top of that: it felt like a soft summer zephyr, except that it swept over him from all directions at the same time. Her pitch sampling was mostly undetectable, until suddenly she crossed over his resonant frequency giving him a noticeable buzz like a vague electric current. Within a couple of seconds, Ginny found the pitch target, overshot it briefly, and then doubled back to hone in. For Harry, it felt one moment like he had been sharing a pleasant, emotional connection with a friend, when suddenly he was almost a tour guide, showing her his own mind, casually answering any inadvertent questions she might have had. Ginny sensed the same feeling of complete disclosure and quickly departed.
The two of them stood in the brisk morning air, facing each other, holding hands.
"So," Harry said, to break the silence, "when the time comes, you know what to do?"
Ginny nodded. "How much more powerful do you think my probe will need to be?" she wondered.
"I don't know," Harry replied thoughtfully. "I think you'll know when the time comes. Your probe is incredibly efficient, so you'll have more than enough power to accomplish what you need to; I guess you should just keep increasing the intensity until the job is done."
Breakfast was already underway when Harry and Ginny climbed the front steps and onto the first flight of the marble staircase up from the Entrance Hall. Ginny cast a quick glance toward the Great Hall as they went past; there were certainly some students there, but it looked rather quiet for this time of morning.
After quick showers, they decided to head back down to catch the end of the morning meal before setting up shop in the Room of Requirement. Neither of them knew precisely how the day was likely to unfold, but they definitely knew that a good number of students were feverishly planning and training, and they wanted to make themselves available for questions, consultation and any impromptu training requests. And Harry actually did intend to show up for his two classes, on the offhand chance that anyone else attended.
When, they finally did arrive for the last twenty minutes of breakfast, the sight was definitely unusual. Attendance at all of the house tables was decidedly substandard, and there were only four Slytherins seated at the entire table. Table Five, however, was a hotbed of activities, apparently hosting at least two distinct breakfast meetings, as was evinced by people balancing parchment and quills above their meals while they conversed and ate at the same time. There was a leadership session underway at the north end of the table and Harry noticed that two empty seats had been set aside within a region that had been aurally veiled with privacy wards. He pointed out the seats to Ginny, and they claimed them.
Mary-Jo glanced at them with a smile, and tipped her wand at them to bring them into the privacy sphere. "G'morning!" she said brightly. "Welcome to Chaos Central!"
"Morning Harry," Ryan said, grinning wryly from within the circle of parchments that several other students were handing to him. "How many more weeks did you say we had for preparations?"
Harry grinned back and look at his watch. "Sorry, what was that Ryan? Did you ask how many hours you had left?"
Ryan stuffed the parchments under his plate for wont of any other place to put them, then turned to face Harry. "We've just formed two tactical teams: one with six students and the other with seven. We're heading off right after breakfast to start team exercises, so we won't be in class. Blevins, Madley and Peakes are each leading warding teams: they warded nearly two thirds of the castle exterior yesterday, and hope to finish this morning. Don't expect any of them in class either. Corner has booked the Room of Requirement under your name for the morning to teach protego, expelliarmus and stupefy to everyone who doesn't already know the spells. Also, Granger asked me to give you these..." Ryan handed a greatly miniaturized wooden crate.
Harry looked at inquiringly for a moment before catching on. "Specialized anti-portkey wards?"
Ryan nodded. "There's twelve in the box for personal use. She's made another forty eight for deployment in the castle."
"Brilliant!" Harry exclaimed excitedly. He handed the box to Ginny, who slipped it inside her miniaturized trunk.
"Oh," Ryan remembered, "I should also mention that Chess... I mean Ron Weasley, is going around with Madley's team, working on a some customized warding configurations. He said he'd be happy to fill you in if you want more details on what he's doing; all I know for sure is that if we sound the attack warning, we have to evacuate all students and staff from the Entrance Hall and Great Hall."
Harry gave Ryan an inquisitive look. "I'll track him down later and ask..." Harry paused, wearing a look of slight trepidation. "I hope that Voldy isn't rude enough to attack at meal time."
Harry felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw Percy Weasley gesticulating at him, with his mouth labouring in vain to produce any noise. Harry laughed — apparently the privacy wards were screening noise in both directions so that people outside of ward could neither hear nor be heard from within. Plate in hand, Harry stood up and stepped away from the table and out of ward-range. "Good morning Mr. Executive Administrator, sir," Harry said.
"What in Merlin's name is going on, Harry?" Percy demanded, looking completely flustered. His unfocused and sunken eyes suggested a bad night.
"Sorry, I need a little context please?" Harry asked. "Life's so busy — always something going on: between my hobbies and financial interests; school updates; domestic news; world affairs — a full account could take most of your day's busy schedule."
"I MEAN..." Percy thundered in his most intimidating voice of authority, "Why is everyone clustered into big groups, taking notes, talking to people outside of their houses and acting so...?!"
"Collaboratively?" Harry suggested.
"They're not supposed to be collaborating!" Percy groused "This is a school, for pity's sake!"
"I'm embarrassed to say I somehow missed that bit of ironclad logic," Harry responded with a bemused smile. Ginny had now also risen from the table; she waved enthusiastically and beamed a saccharine smile toward her brother.
Percy raised his eyebrow imperiously; a subtle nod of his head conveyed to his excessively cheerful younger sister that she too was being regarded with suspicion. "Mr. Potter, if you are found to be engaged in any activities that in any way contravene your faculty responsibilities, I'll see to it that..."
"That I'll be sacked, Percy?" Harry offered. "Sounds reasonable to me. What do you think, Gin'?"
Ginny shrugged. "I'd say he should do what makes him feel important, don't you Harry?"
"Yes, although I suppose we should exercise caution in letting him blindly follow instincts that might prove self-damaging." Harry debated, willfully overlooking the steam rising from Percy's collar.
"Harry Potter!" Ginny scolded sportively, "Percy is not a child anymore. He's old enough to learn how to make decisions on his own. Sometimes we just have to step back and let boys grasp the consequences of their actions. Such discoveries are all part of growing up!"
"Okay, you win!" Harry conceded. He turned back to Percy, "Okay Perce, I guess I'll just have to..."
Harry flinched; his bemusement vanished instantly. Ginny's face froze and she thrust her braceleted right arm forward. "Damn!" Harry gasped. "That's Arthur!"
"Oh no!!" Ginny cried out in realization. "Harry, he had that big meeting this morning at the Ministry! He wouldn't sound the alarm unless it was...??"
"An attack? Kidnapping? Who knows — we just go!" Harry blurted. "Give me a minute to tell Ryan!"
Harry thrust his head back into the leadership group at Table Five, shouting, "Emergency signal from Ginny's dad! I don't know where or what, but she and I have to check. All of you please stay here — absolutely critical to finish prepping the school! Got that?"
Ryan regarded him gravely. He raised his right wrist. "Understood, Harry — we stay. But synch wrists — just in case."
Harry looked at Ryan's arm for a moment then nodded. They knocked wrists together, then Harry cuffed his student on the shoulder. "Synch up the rest of the monitors. If I signal, please go straight to McGonagall, okay?" he requested earnestly. "Good luck Jenkins -- take care of this place!"
Ryan nodded grimly. "Come back alive, Potter."
Harry grinned, then whipped around to grab Ginny's hand. Forty seconds later, they had sprinted out the front gate and portkeyed away.
Back in the Great Hall, Percy stood in a state of paralysis, his wide eyes staring blankly. "Father...?" he called like a lost, lonely child as McGonagall approached him with a look of grave concern.
Harry and Ginny landed on a knoll in a well curated expanse of pine woods. Wherever this was, it was not the Ministry of Magic!
Harry walked a few feet to one side, and was able to spy through the trees a stately residence that he remembered far too vividly. His heart sunk. He and Ginny had escaped from here once before by the absolute barest of margins. The manner of their departure had left them both forever changed.
Ginny walked in trepidation over to where Harry stood. She had never seen the outside of this place before but every sensation she could feel emanating from her boyfriend told her that this was not a place with happy memories. "Dare I ask?"
Harry nodded. "You dare... but you're not going to like the answer."
"Malfoy summer home," she said stoically. "And Dad's inside."
"Yes," Harry answered. "I assume your dad and some other Ministry people have been kidnapped."
She looked down at the dignified building. Lucius Malfoy was certainly a horrid person, but this particular property seemed pleasant, if a bit sterile. She found it sad to think of all the horrible crimes that had likely been committed in this scenic area. Then she shook her head. Focus girl! "What do we do?" she asked. "How did you get inside there last spring?"
"I got in through owl post," he replied, gesturing to a gabled turret on the west end of the manor. "I don't know if any of Riddle's cronies have seen the animagus filing yet, but if not then I might still be able to get in that way as an owl. The problem is, how would you get through there?"
Ginny grinned at him. "Potter, you and all these tight squeezes — it's no accident you have a thing for petite girlfriends is it? If a bird nearly as large as a great horned owl can get through the portal, then I think I can too."
Harry regarded her with a skeptical eye, but within a moment his expression shifted to one of appraisal. "Okay," he said, "but how are you going to get up to the roost?"
"I packed a broom," she said. "I learned a few things from our little hike in the Atlas desert, yeah?"
He smiled. "Beautiful, petite, and brilliant! Any more exceptional attributes to reveal?"
"Many!" she exclaimed with a wink. "Let's go find my dad first... then I'll get back to introducing you to the endless wonders of Ginny Weasley."
Harry kissed her. "I love you!" he whispered in her ear, and they embraced quickly but passionately, before he separated to issue instructions. "Disillusion yourself and follow me up there," he requested. "Give me five seconds inside before trying to enter — if I sense another presence too close to the owlery, I'll fly straight back out again. Okay?"
She nodded.
Harry took a deep breath then announced, "Let's do it!" He transformed into his owl form and flew up to a bare branch, waiting as Ginny retrieved her broom and disillusioned herself. He took flight and covered the two hundred yards to the owl portal in less than ten seconds. Coming in through the open portal, he quickly found a perch, steadied himself and concentrated on essence perception. There were two owls already in the turret, but the closest human, he surmised, was one single person — at least a hundred feet away. He dropped to the floor, transformed back to human form and waited just to the side of the window. Several seconds later, he heard a soft clattering at the portal.
It occurred to him that although the portal would indeed be large enough for her to squeeze through, it might not be easy to dismount a broomstick into a narrow opening. Because of the disillusionment, Harry couldn't make out exactly what transpired, but fortunately another of the fine attributes of Ginny Weasley was exceptional broom-handling skills. In less than fifteen seconds, Ginny and broom both reappeared in front of him, with a smile. She shrank her broom and returned it to her trunk. "What now?" she asked
"I guess we both disillusion again, and make our way downwards and eastwards until we sense where everyone is," Harry suggested. "You'll be able to track me under disillusionment?"
Ginny nodded. The two vanished, and Harry made for the stairs leading downwards from the owlery.
Harry remembered from his last visit that there was only a single door between the owlery and the rest of the residence, so he descended toward it. As he approached, however, he grew more anxious. The single human presence, he gradually realized, was probably standing guard immediately outside that door.
Descending the final flight of steps, Harry and Ginny came to the ground floor of the tower: a small den that likely would have been part of semi-isolated guest suite, servicing a bedroom that they had passed on their way down. He looked suspiciously at the closed door, on the other side of which a lone sentry apparently stood. He then glanced around the room, hoping against hope that in his hasty previous visit he had overlooked some other way through to the rest of the building. He scrutinized the magic near the two ground floor windows in the room, but quickly determined that the detection wards outside the building came all the way back to encase the window panes, so it would be impossible to sneak out of one window and try to re-enter somewhere else on the ground floor.
Neither of them dared to speak; Ginny did not have the same sensitivity for other people that Harry did, but she could sense his consternation, had a vague impression of some other magical entity in the vicinity and quickly grasped the nature of his fruitless search. After several minutes, he edged over to where he was invisibly standing beside the hearth, at the point in the room furthest away from the locked door. "What do you think?" she whispered.
"I'm puzzled," he whispered back.
"How so?"
"I'm puzzled because it makes no sense to send a single person to guard that door," Harry answered, "Also, I don't know who's on the other side, but it's someone who seems... just a little bit familiar to me."
"A death eater you encountered in passing?" Ginny asked.
"Perhaps, but unlikely," he murmured. "Unlikely because the person seems... not particularly evil, and a bit... frightened?"
Ginny made a soft whirring noise in the back of her throat as she contemplated her way through the conundrum. Finally she whispered, "Single person. Slightly afraid. I'd say we bluff them."
Harry emitted a grin that Ginny couldn't see but could somehow feel. "Ever the twins' little sister, huh?" he whispered. He tiptoed silently to the door and put his ear up to it so that he thought he could hear the breathing sound of the person on the opposite side. He spoke in a voice slightly louder than he used for normal conversation, saying, "We have you surrounded by four disillusioned aurors! On the count of three, open the door and step through it with your hands on your head!"
Harry heard a sharp intake of breath. He started counting, "One... Two..."
"You're Harry Potter and you're lying!" came a woman's quavery yet defiant voice.
"You're all alone and outnumbered," Harry replied, undaunted. "Open the door and enter with your hands on your head! You don't want to find out the hard way what will happen if you fail to comply."
"Listen to me Harry Potter!" the woman responded sharply. "Absolutely nobody is going to touch that doorknob, do you understand? Not me, not you and not anybody you brought along. You walked yourself right into a trap, and I'm the only person who knows how to get you out of it!"
Aura perception can be a strange thing at times. Harry and Ginny were still nearly perfectly invisible, but that didn't prevent them from both staring directly into each other's eyes in bewildered consternation.
Harry inhaled deeply but quietly. "Okay," he began, "let's assume for a moment that you're telling the truth. What do you believe must happen next for us to deal with this supposed trap?"
The woman's quaver was gone now. She emitted a soft but slightly haughty laugh as a seasoned confidence began to assert itself. "So you're not as foolish and impetuous as some people claim," she mused. "I am going to tell you how to very carefully undo the wards on this door," she said. "Once that's done, you, and anyone with you, are all going to move over to the west wall. If you're disillusioned, then each of you will reveal yourselves. At that point, you and I are going to negotiate a deal." She paused for a long moment before cautioning, "If you foul up the ward spell or try anything stupid, please be aware that we will all likely die prolonged and unpleasant deaths."
Harry reached for Ginny's hand. "What do you think?" he whispered.
"I think either we have an unexpected ally... or else we bluffers just got bluffed," Ginny answered softly. "Either way, you have to admit that we're on the wrong side of that door. I don't think we have any choice."
Harry nodded and cleared his throat. "Okay," he said in a voice of forced calm. "We are prepared to doing as you requested... except that we will not reveal ourselves until after you have entered the room and we've scanned you for any signs of probable deceit."
Several long seconds passed in silence.
"That is agreeable," the woman finally affirmed. "Are you ready to cancel the wards?"
"Yes," Harry replied.
"Please face the door as close to the center as possible, remain there, and listen to me very carefully."
Harry moved into the requested position. "Ready," he said.
"Notice on the door how there are vertical and horizontal slats. I am going to assign numbers to each of junctions between horizontal and vertical slats. The junction closest to your head is point one; those closest to your left and right shoulders are points two and three respectively, and those nearest your left and right knees are points four and five. Understood so far?"
Harry examined the door. "Yes, that's fine."
"To lower the wards, you need to tap your wand on the following points in the correct order: four-four-three-five-two-five-one. If you get it wrong, we'll have twenty death eaters on our throats. Do you understand?"
"Four-four-three-five-two-five-one," Harry repeated.
"That's correct. Go ahead."
Harry took a moment to visualize the sequence spatially before attempting it. Once he was confident that he wouldn't waver or flub the sequence, he willed his way through the motions. After finishing the sequence with his slightly tremulous hand hovering in front of his face, he waited a breathless second... then heard a distinctive soft whir as the wards went down. He exhaled slowly in relief, then he and Ginny took their places against the far wall. A few seconds later, the door opened.
Through the open door, with nervous pride, strode the imperious witch whom Harry and Ginny recalled seeing in Gringotts! That in itself came as a surprise, but there was something else; some aspect of the current light, environment and circumstance that made Harry believe that he had encountered this woman somewhere else in the past. But where??
Harry drove the question from his mind, and evaluated her. She was clearly of noble stock, but projected a basic level of honesty, albeit of a predominantly self-serving nature. Harry pegged her as unpleasant, abrasive and potentially arrogant, but not inherently evil. She wore glamour charms that were obfuscating her appearance, but they were of fairly modest scope and Harry's aura detection assured him that they were not disguising a monster or anybody too dangerous. Her veneer of dispassion was clearly shrouding some rather complex emotions and motives, but it seemed unlikely that she intended them outright harm. Harry peered over the woman's shoulder to confirm one more time that there were no other people in close proximity, then he and Ginny revealed themselves.
She examined their faces carefully then nodded slightly to herself. "Good morning, Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley," she said. "My name is Narcissa Malfoy."