The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Chapter Twenty-Two
When they emerged from the Ministry, the ice was falling again. Just the few steps from the sidewalk to the bus were treacherous and more than one students slid and fell on the way. The sky above was darker than it had been before, closer to black than gray and the ice itself was a translucent black, not clear. As the Knight Bus drove through the streets of London, Harry saw that there were far fewer people out than usual.
The electric wires were coated with the dark ice, as was every surface they passed. Just before the bus leapt from London to Hogsmeade, Harry saw one wire, heavy with ice, snap and fall and the live ends of the wire fell spitting dangerous current of power that made a small chunk of the tarmac chip upwards on contact. The bus left them at the School's gates and the students were intantly covered in the freezing black stuff.
The very touch of it gave Harry the willies and it so coated his glasses that he could not see, so that he stopped dead and Neville, who had been behind him, plowed right into him. Shivering with cold and disgust, Harry pulled out his wand and tapped his glasses with the spell Hermione had once used for him to see during a stormy quidditch game. Then it occurred to him that they could all use it.
He tapped Ron and said, "Use the Impervius spell on your face so you can see." Ron nodded and passed the message along. McGonagall and Sanpe had already preceded them and they were melting the ice as they went so that the students could walk safely. Harry, Ron and Hermione pushed forward and started doing the Impervius spell as soon as Snape or Mcgonagall had cleared a part of the path, so that the failling ice stuck only to the grassy areas on the side and not where the rest of the students were walking.
They were halfway to the Castle when a strange sight met their eyes. Hagrid was waving his arms at a huge black shape that was hunkered down on the field and attempting to move its giant wings. It was Norbert. The great black dragon had landed, apparently to take what looked like a freshly slaughtered cow. However, the ice had so coated his wings that he could not lift off the ground again. Norbert made a weird keening, whistling sort of sound and then sent a huge spout of flame in the air in front of him. It barely missed Hagrid, who jumped to the side and fell flat on his back and then floundered about roaring and cursing quite loudly as he tried to regain his feet.
"Yeh got ter watch where yer flamin', Norbert!" Hagrid yelled. The dragon gave Hagrid and evil look from his amber eyes, but did not flame near Hagrid again. Unfrotunately, the dragonfire had not only melted the ice on the field in front of it, but it was so hot that it set the gras beneath the ice on fire and the ice falling on the dragon fire hissed in almost the same manner as the electric current had on contact.
Harry yelled to Hagird, "Use the Impervius Spell on his wings!" Hagrid, however, was preoccupied with keeping the ice out of his own face. Harry walked gingerly over to the half-giant and the giant dragon ignoring Snape's sudden roar, "Get back here, Potter!"
He melted the ice off Hagird's face and beard and then did the Impervius spell on him, so that he could see.
"I'll need help," Harry said. "We’ll have to give Norbert the same protection so he can fly."
"That's an awful lot o' dragon," Hagrid answered, 'an' he's blazin' mad so I dunno if he'll let yeh come near."
Harry looked Norbert in the eye and said, "Norbert! Don't flame me. I'm going to clean off the ice and do a spell so you can fly."Norbert gave him an evil look and smoke curled up out of one nostril.
"Hurry, wizard boy," the dragon replied. “This ice is keeping me from hunting and I want that cow in my den before it's totally frozen." Harry looked at the dead cow and decided not to say he thought it was already frozen. He did a small incendio spell first, to try to clear off some of the ice that was already coating the dragon and he was heartened to see that the ice melted and that the dragon's hide was unharmed by the heat. He worked from one wing to the other, first melting the ice and then immediately applying the Impervius spell so that it could not collect and weigh down the membranes that made up the dragon's huge wings and made him able to fly.
Because the dragon was so large, it took quite a few minutes and the teachres had scolded the other students for standing and gawping, so that by the time Harry had Norbert's wings clear, only Ron and Hermione were still outside waiting for him, along with Dumbledore and Hagrid.
Norbert flapped his wings causing a huge updraft of freezing air that nearly lifted Harry off the ground, too.
"Thankss, wizard boy," Norbert said. The he hovered just barely off the ground and looked at Harry suspiciously.
"You haven't been stealing my treassure, have you?" Harry found himself grinning at the big dragon.
"Not at all," he said politely. "I've just gotten back from London. And besides," he added, "I've got enough treasure of my own at the wizards' bank there. The one they say is guarded by dragons."
Norbert gave a funny hiss, the one he made when he was amused and said, "I know that place, my cousins there like it when gold comes in, but they don't like it when their treasure goes out again. What kind of treassure do you have, wizard boy?" Harry dug in his pocket and pulled out a small sack of galleons. He tipped them out in his hand and showed them to Norbert.
"See," he said. "I've got two whole vaults full, so I don't need yours." He saw the dragon looking greedily at the small cache of goldin his hand. He slid the coins back into the bag and held it out to the dragon.
"Here," Harry said, "You can have that lot. I didn't get to spend it like I wanted to anyway." Norbert snagged the bag with a single huge claw and then seized the cow in the other taloned foot.
"I'll remember this, wizard boy," Norbert said. "I might even spare you when I find out which wizard is ruining my territory! Firsst forest firess! Now curssed ice storms. These wizzards want flaming."
Harry said quickly, "It's not all of us, Norbert. Just Voldemort. And I promise you, if he ever shows up here, I'll point you his way so you can get your revenge." The dragon did not answer. It soared up still carying the dead cow, but he did an odd thing as he reached a height of about twenty feet. He bowed his triangular head in a nod at Harry and then flew off to the mountain behind the Castle, which held the entrance to his den.
By the time Harry made it back into the Castle to the Great Hall where a long delayed hot lunch was being served, he was frozen through and absolutely starving. He made his way to the Gryffindor table as quickly as he could, and he was grateful beyond words when Ginny came up to him and did a spell that melted off the ice, dried up the puddles and then dried him off as well. She hissed at him nearly as evilly as Norbert.
"Whatever did you think you were doing? And pulling stunts again at the Ministry! I knew you would get into trouble. And Ron and Hermione did nothing to help. They just stood there gawping, didn't they?" She would have gone on more in that vein, only Harry growled back at her very softly,
"Be quiet, Ginny. People are staring."
"Of course they're staring," she said more anxiously. "They've already heard you tried to go through that black veil in the Department of Mysteries."
"I talked to Sirius," he answered. Her mouth dropped open and he realized then that none of the others except, perhaps Dumbledore believed that he had actually seen anything or heard anything in the veil.
"I did really," he insisted. He wanted very badly for at least one person to believe he wasn't mad, as he realized then that everyone was going to be thinking once more.
"He's dead, Harry," Ginny responded more quietly than ever.
"Yes, I know," Harry, answered. "But I could talk to him through the thing, whatever it is."
"You can't talk to dead people," Ginny said.
"Course you can," Harry said. "You talk to Nearly Headless Nick quite often. He's been dead for five hundred years."
"But he's a ghost," Ginny said. "People don't talk to the dead when they've really passed on."
"Some people do," said a voice behind them. Both Harry and Ginny jumped. Luna Lovegood was staring at Harry with her mad protuberant blue eyes. With a sinking feeling, he thought, she's the only one who doesn't think I'm mad. And she's quite mad herself.
Luna added coolly, "A true Seer, some true Seers can talk to the dead. And I heard the voices behind the veil, too. If I had a chance, I'd try to talk to my Mum through the veil." Harry gawked at her and clapped himself on the forehead.
"I can't believe it," he said. "I could have tried to talk to my Mum and Dad, but I never thought of it. How could I be so stupid. Now they'll never let me near that place again."
Hermione, who had been following their discussion with great interest, however, said with obvious amusement, "I don't know about that. Professor Tofty was very impressed. But honestly, it was very strange, you know. It looked just like the descriptions they have in the Greek myths of the oracles speaking to the dead at Delphi."
"The what?" Harry asked.
"Didn't you ever do mythology in grammar school?" Hermione asked. Harry gave her a glance of thorough annoyance.
"Yeah, I did. But that doesn't mean I remember them all now without looking them up still."
Ron shook his head and said, "They don't call it the Department of Mysteries for nothing. But I'll tell you what's the biggest mystery to me."
Hermione, and Ginny and Harry and Luna all looked at Ron with various expressions of interest or annoyance.
"The biggest mystery to me," Ron said, "is why you don't stop babbling and let Harry have a hot drink and something to eat. That was a lot of dragon he de-iced there, you know."
Harry grinned at him and started to sit down, only a tall black shadow swooped by and a dry voice said, "It was indeed."
Harry turned to look at Snape wondering what trouble was coming next.
"How did you get the dragon to stop flaming long enough to de-ice him?" Snape asked.
For once, he was neither hostile nor malicious. Instead, he seemed merely curious. Being surprised by this, Harry didn't stop to think how odd anyone listening in might think his answer. "I just told him not to," he answered. "And I told him what I was going to do."
Snape stared at him with disbelief and said, "Perhaps you ought to go to the infirmary, Potter, and have your temperature checked. Talking to the dead and to a dragon in one day is a bit much even for you."
"What's wrong with it?" Harry asked heatedly. "Dragons are smart. In fact, Norbert thinks we wizards are basically rather stupid. Did you know that?"
"No one talks to dragons," Snape insisted.
"Why not?" Ron said. "It's just a big snake with wings when you think about it. Harry can speak Parseltongue, remember." Harry nodded his head and deliberately sat down.
"I had forgot," Snape said frowning. "It's very curious then, Potter, that you can speak Parseltongue, but you aren't in Slytherin." Harry shrugged.
"The Sorting Hat considered it," he said calmly. "It was this," he said, pointing to the lightning scar on his forehead, "that had it confused. I can speak Parseltongue because Voldemort can speak it. This is Voldemort's little gift to me, courtesy of the Curse That Failed." Ron and Hermione stared at him. It occurred to him that he had never mentioned that to them, but the thought of it no longer bothered him. If they didn't know him and like him for himself by now, then they weren't the friends he thought they were.
Snape stared at him, too, and again, he asked keenly, as though impelled by uncontrollable curiosity, "If the hat considered putting you in Slytherin, then what changed its decision?"
Harry shrugged and said, "Don't be insulted, Professor, but I told it not to cause I didn't want to be in the same house as that git, Malfoy."
Snape gave him an evil look, then, and said, "Every time I think you might have some redeemable character that differs from your father, you prove me wrong once again."
Harry retorted angrily, "Every time I think you have some redeemable qualities, Professor, you act like a nasty, sour old git whose got his mind stuck endlessly in the same grievances as he had fifteen or twenty years ago." Snape looked hugely offended then and Harry added, "And don't bother taking points off or giving me a detention. You're the one who raised the subject, not me." Snape stalked away and Harry looked at his lunch.
He grinned at Ron and said, "I can't believe it. I got the last word with him, for once." He ate his lunch hungrily and couldn't imagine why he felt perfectly happy after having spoken to Sirius. He shook his head to himself and thought, it's a mystery. It's all a mystery. For that one moment though, the riddle didn't bother him at all. Just having a proper meal and sitting at the table with his friends was enough.
That night, Harry dreamed he was in the Forbidden Forest again. He had changed into the bird and was flying through a landscape full of ghosts. The ancient trees that formed the Forest’s canopy were twisted and bent under the weight of the black ice and the moonlight made each misshapen form shine oddly. Mists slithered through the branches and undergrowth bringing a deeper cold to the very roots of the trees.
When he looked at the ground below seeking some living thing, the earth itself seemed to be transformed into black ice and he could see through to the dying jungle of roots that underlay all as though he were seeing through some ancient volcanic glass that was both dark and transparent. The glass shifted and reflected shapes all about him. There were centaurs, turned to a silver-gray, their manes and tails formed of long slivers of black ice. There were unicorns, no longer white, nor silver, nor gold. Now they were great black statues that but for their life-size and their still golden horns and hooves, seemed as though they were great sculpture cast by some Muggle artist out of iron, their purity corrupted, their magic turned evil.
In the very heart of the Forest, he saw once more the veela’s circle, and the dancing women, as before, remained frozen in the moment of their dance, forever encircling their queen, who lay entombed in the black volcanic glass, her moonstruck beauty dimmed to naught. The only color in the entire dark landscape was a very small drift of green that hid, dormant, beneath the queen’s still fingers and entwined about her hair. In his dream, he knew somehow that soon, very soon, even the last hidden buds would die and nothing would remain but a wasteland entire.
Harry woke suddenly, his mind still full of the ghastly images, thinking he had heard someone laughing out loud, an immoderate, howling sort of laugh. But when he grabbed his glasses from the bedside table, there was nothing there but the soft gentle snores of his sleeping friends and the faint crackle of the dying fire. Shivering, Harry wrapped his lion blanket about him and padded over to the window to gaze down on the Forest below.
Moonlight made silhouettes of the Whomping Willow and Hagrid’s Hut and he thought he saw a winged form rise up from the trees and then settle down again. A thestral, he thought idly. But then, the reassurance he sought sifted away as he considered that thestrals were rather like ghosts in reality. Perhaps they could survive where the other Forest creatures could not.
Harry’s brief feeing of happiness was further marred by the announcement that the upcoming Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin had been cancelled due to the weather.
“That’s one more Voldemort’s to blame for,” Harry said savagely.
“It’s just a Quidditch game,” Hermione ventured. She was knitting another set of elf socks, which because of their small size made Harry think of baby booties for some reason. Ron and Harry and Ginny stared at her in disbelief.
“Only a Quidditch game!” Ron said. “That’s our last chance to beat Slytherin and rub Malfoy’s nose in it.”
“Well, don’t you think,” Hermione said snappishly, “that it’s time to get over this House rivalry and start to unite. Professor Dumbledore told us to over three years ago, and none of you have been willing to give up your petty grievances. If you don’t watch out, you’ll all turn into Professor Snape.”
“Come on, Hermione,” Harry said. “This is different. This is Malfoy we’re talking about. And Slytherin.”
“It was you who invited him to sit at the Gryffindor table, Harry,” Hermione retorted. “He stood up to his father and you’ve hardly given him the time of day since.”
Harry frowned. “He stood up to his Dad because he was mad at him, not because he’s stopped believing Voldemort is right.”
“He saved Parvati,” Hermione answered. They all glanced over at the other end of the common room where Parvati was working on a star chart with Lavender.
“Well, she’s not going out with him anymore,” Ginny said softly.
“She’s nearly as smart as she’s pretty,” Ron said, “when she forgets to worry about what guy likes her.” Hermione glared at Ron and Harry exchanged a grin with Ginny. It wasn’t altogether clear whether Hermione was more annoyed with Ron for approving of Parvati’s ingratitude or for his comment on her looks.
He looked down at his Herbology essay, “the Properties of Stinksap,” and said, “I think we ought to get Neville to help us with this. The only properties I can think of are, one, it stinks; two, it’s sticky; and three, never get caught with it sticking all over you when a girl you like comes by.”
Ginny snickered loudly. Ron laughed and Hermione looked puzzled. Harry was inclined to laugh himself when he recalled the time Neville had poked his pet mimbulus mimbletonia and squirted stinksap all over himself, Harry and Ginny and Luna, just when Cho Chang had come to say hi.
“How about it has great healing properties?” Hermione asked. “And how about it’s effectiveness in potions for combating dark magic and poisons?”
“How d’you reckon that?” Harry asked. “What book did you find that we don’t know about?” They had actually scoured the library for references on stinksap and mimbulus mimbletonia and found next to none. Ginny gave him a sidelong glance and said, “Neville gave some to Snape and Madam Pomfrey to use when you were ill last year. After, well-- you know.”
“I don’t remember that,” Harry replied.
“That’s because you were unconscious off and on for a couple of weeks,” Ginny said tartly. Harry shrugged and looked over at Neville, who was saying something shyly to Parvati. He nudged Ron and said, “Do you think Neville likes her?”
It was Ginny who answered, though. “Yeah, he does. He told me so.”
“He told you?” Ron asked. Harry felt quite the same. He glowered at Ginny and wished once again things were different. He wished Voldemort had never been born. He wished his parents hadn’t died, nor Sirius. He wished for the hundredth bitter time that he had a normal life.
“Well, we’re friends,” Ginny said tolerantly. She gave Harry a gimlet eyed glance that dared him to say anything. He glared right back, feeling rebelliously that he was sick of everything. Most of all, he was sick of the dark, gloomy days and the constant hissing of the falling sleet that he felt was the sound of an army of serpents of ice, hissing at him, mocking his futile attempts to find Voldemort’s location with any magical detector, mocking his desire for the sun and warmth and love.
Some days later, the Weasleys’ owl Errol landed with a thump in the middle of Harry’s plate of eggs and bacon. Harry picked up the sopping wet owl gingerly trying not to spray any more food on his already spotted robes. He plucked the packet of letters off of the unconscious owl and handed them to Ginny and Ron. Ginny tore into hers and read it, her expression changing from smiling amusement to frowning concern as she read.
“What’s up?” Harry asked.
“Dad’s working himself to death according to Mum, trying to keep the Muggle officials calm, only they’re wanting to blame us and Voldemort for every weird event right now, whether it’s got anything to do with magic or not,” Ginny replied.
“That’s hardly surprising,” Hermione responded. “Fudge probably dropped every sensitive problem on his desk since appointing him. He can pretend he’s doing something and blame your Dad for everything that goes wrong.”
“Hmm,” Ginny said as she read the letter a second time. “It’s this bit about Fleur that has me worried.”
“She’s decided to sing lullabies for Fred and George to capture after all?” Ron asked hopefully.
Ginny gave him a scathing look and said, “If you’d stop eating for one moment and read your letter, you wouldn’t joke. Mum says she’s been unwell and they’re worried about her losing the baby before it’s born. She’s not putting on weight the way she should.”
“Maybe veela don’t put on weight the same as humans when they’re, erm, expecting,” Harry offered.
“She’s not a veela,” Ginny responded.
“No,” Harry answered. “But her grandmother is. She has veela blood. Maybe that affects her, you know.”
“That’s just—“ Hermione started to say, but Harry cut back in.
”It’s not prejudice. She is part veela. Maybe the weather affects her somehow worse than most humans.”
“What makes you think that?” Ginny asked skeptically.
“I dunno,” Harry shrugged. He didn’t want to tell the others about the weird dreams he’d had about dying veela. They’d probably take it as more reason to worry about him. “Maybe they can’t have their dance in weather like this,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe that affects them somehow.”
Hermione straightened up, her expression taking on the dreamy expression she got when some new idea was percolating. “That’s very interesting, Harry,” she said. “We’ve never really studied veela in any of our classes, have we?”
Harry shook his head and pushed the matter to the back of his mind. But later, images of the frozen dying creatures mixed in with recollections of the blinding beauty and enchantment of their dance came back to him. An ominous foreboding kept him tossing and turning for much of the night.
The following day was a Saturday and Harry and Ron reluctantly spent part of the morning listening to Hermione’s agitated lecture on scheduling studies for NEWTs. To calm her down, Ron pulled out a stack of Transfiguration notes about three feet high and began testing her on every Transfiguration spell they had ever learned.
After half an hour, Hermione glared at him and Harry and said, “You have to practice, too, you know.”
Feeling excessively irritated by the gargantuan stack of notes, Harry waved his wand and said, “Evanesco,” vanishing them and responding calmly when Hermione half-screamed, “It worked, didn’t it? Vanishing’s a transfiguration spell.” He grinned at Ron, who looked immensely relieved.
“Anyway,” he added cannily, “we ought to eat some lunch before dueling practice this afternoon.”
“Right,” Ron agreed. “Harry has to keep up his strength, you know.” Hermione made a slight huffing sound and cast an anxious look at Harry.
He contrived to look particularly pathetic and her gaze softened. He wondered whether he could convince her to change him into the bird that night. Another sleepless one like the last was not a pleasant prospect. Not to mention that he thought he had a good enough grip on the spell to try it on his own. Only he wasn’t entirely sure she would go for that just yet.
After lunch, they lined up with the other seventh years for practice. They had been dueling with wands since Tonks had started teaching, and Harry had been extremely pleased when she praised the high level of some of the students who had been in the D.A. fifth year. Neville had stunned Malfoy easily and Terry Boot had managed a really excellent shield spell, good enough to get a “Satisfactory,” from Snape, which was rare praise indeed. This time, however, Snape had distributed swords again for the first time in weeks. Harry noted with interest that Tonks was looking unusually nervous and couldn’t think why.
“When are we going to learn to use real magic swords?” Malfoy asked.
“When Professor Dumbledore thinks you are ready,” was Snape’s crisp reply.
“Well, we’ll never learn if we don’t start soon,” Malfoy groused back. A few students stared, but only a few. Malfoy had always been able to get away with less respect than others, but no longer.
“If you’d prefer to complain,” Snape said nastily, “perhaps you should discuss that with Professor Dumbledore in his office?” Seeing Malfoy’s mouth shut, Snape added, “No? Then if you wish to learn anything, Mr. Malfoy, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and follow directions.”
Harry would have enjoyed that little exchange except that he wasn’t sure whether Snape was being nasty to Malfoy to keep Voldemort happy or just on general principles. Harry made sure he could partner with Ron the first time around as there were still very few students who were willing to pair up with him. They ran through the warm up routines and then Snape had various students duel separately while the others watched.
Though she was much shorter than Hermione, Ginny was far quicker and more agile with a sword and she soon disarmed Hermione, making her scowl in annoyance. Harry thought that Ginny’s advantage might disappear if they were using real magic swords. He had a notion that ordinary swords required physical talent, while one might compensate for that lack with magical talent in a real duel. At the end of the practice, though, they were made to do something new. Snape lined them up in groups and had them practice trying to break through several ranks of opponents.
“We really are becoming Dumbledore’s Army, aren’t we?” Ginny remarked. Harry nodded grimly, and unbidden, an image surfaced, of ranks upon ranks of marching armored goblins, men and dark creatures, whipped up to battle fury by Voldemort’s enchantment. He shivered and swung his sword extra hard, knocking Justin Finch-Fletchly, who was far taller than he, right flat to the ground.
“Sorry,” he said, and offered Justin his hand. Snape, however, said nastily,
“You do not offer your opponent your hand, Potter. Are you going to stop and apologize to every Death Eater you hit?” He glared generally at everyone and added, “Apologies will impede you; guilt will kill you. You cannot afford to think of your opponent as anything less than the one who will slay you, or you’ll end up dead in a real duel.” Harry ignored him and pulled Justin to his feet.
“I think I can tell the difference between my friend Justin, who is practicing with me, and Voldemort,” he replied.
“Do not speak that name!” Snape all but shouted. Everyone jumped, Harry included.
Then he shrugged and said defiantly, “I’ve been saying his name for years and he hasn’t killed me yet.”
“You are an arrogant fool, Potter,” Snape snarled, “Just like—“
“My father,” Harry answered. For some reason, perhaps it was the accumulated irritation of being cooped up and the constant ice, or merely a flaw in his temperament ---later even, he wondered whether Snape wasn’t precisely right about him--- but he answered sharply then, “If I have to die someday, as we all do Professor Snape, I’d be proud to go down fighting Voldemort just like my Dad did. At least he fought, unlike some others, you know.”
Snape stared at Harry with fury and answered, “The point of this exercise, Potter, is to learn how to fight and survive. Kindly keep your idiotic romantic notions to yourself and don’t infect the other intelligent students with such nonsense.”
Harry felt his whole face and neck heat up, but he shut his mouth with a snap, not wanting the other students to think him even stupider than he must look already. Snape then went on coldly, "The first rule in a real duel is that there are no rules. Don't think your enemy will take the time to bow properly. In a real duel, he will attack you and kill you before you can give a polite challenge. Professor Tonks and I will demonstrate. As she is a trained auror," he continued silkily, "I am sure she can testify to the cunning and danger of the adversary." Tonks looked at Snape with annoyance and said, "I can."
He then flourished the sword he had been holding and said, "For the purposes of the demonstration, I shall be the Death Eater and Professor Tonks shall be just what she is --a Ministry auror."
Tonks lifted her sword and parried Snape's attack, but within seconds, Snape had thrust his sword at her legs and she tripped and fell and dropped her sword trying to get out of the way. Harry winced, remembering that Tonks was anything but graceful. He was certain that Snape had known it too and had counted on it when he proposed the demonstration.
Tonks, however, was not particularly intimidated. Instead, she didn't bother to get up. She simply rolled away from his next attack and drew her wand and shouted the disarming spell. Snape's sword flew out of his grasp and Harry felt like cheering. Snape's face contracted into what might have passed for a smile in anyone else.
"Very resourceful, Professor," he said sourly. "And you've proved my point admirably. Do not be bound by the rules of engagement. If your enemy attacks with a sword, don't hesitate to reply with a wand if you know that's your better weapon. For that matter," he said as a last snide comment directed at Harry, "don't hesitate to punch your enemy in the jaw like any common Muggle, if that will save you for the moment." Snape swept the crowd of students with his most evil look.
"Winning is what matters when you fight for your life. You can worry about the rules later: If you live."
"Does that mean we should use dark magic to win?" Harry asked. "The Unforgiveables, maybe? And what makes us any different from them if we do?" Snape did not blow up at Harry, as he would have expected.
He said quite calmly, "How sure are you that you are any different? Or better?" And once again, Snape had the last word. For he had asked the very question that haunted Harry's waking nightmares and twisted his insides with more fear than a Basilisk might evoke.
Wanting to avoid the anxious attentions of his friends, Harry climbed the spiral stairs to the dormitory and closed himself in behind the curtain of his four-poster bed. Sleep was the last thing on his mind, however. He rooted through his trunk looking for something of interest to keep himself occupied. He pulled out the book on crystals and mirrors and found nestled near it, the small obsidian mirror he had bought as a souvenir from the British Museum and another object that brought back the bitter bite of loss, the two-way mirror Sirius had given him at Christmas before his death.
Setting aside the cracked mirror, Harry skimmed through the book looking for some suggestion of a way to spy on Voldemort. The book contained a very useful spell for creating foe glasses and enchanted mirrors. Unfortunately, the spell required the use of sunlight and Harry thought gloomily that if the weather continued as it was, there would never be sufficient sun again to do the spell effectively. Abandoning the book, he examined the obsidian glass by wandlight and he read in the enclosed paper, “This mirror is an exact replica of John Dee’s own. The glass is made of volcanic obsidian and the inscribed runes are an exact duplicate of the ones used by the Elizabethan mathematician.” Harry grinned at his own dark reflection recalling the dry, scholarly tones of Dee and the astonishment of the Muggles when the portrait had talked.
In the wandlight, the runes seemed to shiver, and more for a joke than anything else, Harry said softly, “Show me Voldemort. Where is he?” The glass continued to show Harry’s reflection, but his black hair seemed to disappear into the black glass, until in the small light, only his green eyes were reflected. Some trick of the light changed them to red and the pupils elongated, staring steadily back at him like a reptile’s considering its prey. With a shaking hand, he raised his wand higher, to see better into the dark depths of the glass. The view widened, first to show a flat, white face, then to show a spidery hand wrapped around a long wand, then to show…others grouped behind him, robed and hooded in black.
There was no great stone cauldron, however; no old stone fireplace; no Death Eater stirring an icy pot. The Death Eaters were once again spread out in front of ranks of soldiers: armored goblins, hooded men with wands, and dark creatures that snapped and fought with each other and only stilled when the red gaze lit on them. The ranks of soldiers were practicing, even as the Hogwarts students had practiced that very afternoon. From time to time, however, a goblin or two would slice off another’s head, or a wizard would strike another and leave him bleeding and unconscious, but no one rushed to extend a hand or bind up the wounds. His stomach rebelled, but Harry held his gaze to the glass, hoping for some clue to their whereabouts, but the dark plain which the army occupied was featureless and was no place he could recognize. His heart shuddering, he tore his gaze from the glass at last and shoved it away in the depths of the trunk.
He whispered, “Nox,” and his wand went out, leaving only the general glow of the dormitory fire to provide some light behind the red velvet curtains. Harry rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply until calm returned. Oddly, despite the clear view of Voldemort the glass had afforded, his scar was not bothering him at all and he could only suppose that Voldemort was either quite far away or very preoccupied, so that the connection between them was thin and attenuated.
The glow of the fire dimmed imperceptibly, but Harry could not sleep. Taking refuge again in activity, he pulled out the leather diary and a quill and stared at the creamy parchment inside.
I hate Snape, really I do. Loathe is not sufficient. He revolts me, with his nastiness and his ever-alert faultfinding. I hate the way he still harps on my Dad. I wish, I wish, for just one minute, I could see my Dad as he really was. Not just some memory of his, Snape’s.
Putting his quill down, Harry picked up the cracked mirror and stared at his own face. There he is, he thought, staring at his cracked reflection. I look just like him, except I have my Mum’s eyes. Am I like him, really? He wondered. Well, he was brave. I know that. And he was smart. McGonagall said so. Smarter than me maybe, cause he didn’t have trouble with his school work. And he was reckless, wasn’t he? He went with Sirius and Lupin when Lupin was a werewolf. Unbidden, the image of a young Sirius seemed to slide into the mirror, handsome, arrogant, and restless.
“He was all right, your Dad,” the young Sirius seemed to say. “All right, so he hated Snape. We all hated Snape. Snivellus. He was a nasty interfering busybody who liked to get us in trouble. Always tattling on us to McGonagall. And sticking his big nose in where he wasn’t wanted. So I showed him, you know. I let him see what he wanted to, to get the goods on us.”
The image in the mirror shivered and Harry looking at the young Snape, creeping softly in the moonlight across the Hogwarts grounds. The thin face looked oddly bleached in the moonlight, but an eager anticipation lit it. The skinny boy seized a long stick that providentially lay discarded some ten feet from the Whomping Willow. From beneath the Willow’s complex of raised roots, a mouse or a rat peered out, its whiskers twitching as it watched the skinny boy.
Then the rat scurried down a large hole and disappeared. Nervously, the skinny boy poked a knothole in the roots and the swaying branches, which had begun to whip threateningly at the boy’s approach, stilled. Dropping the branch, the boy drew a long wand and lit it and proceeded down the passageway. The wandlight illuminated the earthen ceiling and the boy jumped once, when a spider fell from the ceiling onto his robes, before falling to the dark earth below. He pushed cautiously at a door and the light from within lit a horrible sight. The wolf roared and charged and the boy fled in terror, fear giving ungainly legs speed they never had otherwise.
All the way back through the dark passageway, the boy ran, never pausing, not even to throw a curse at the pursuing beast, because he knew it was useless. The boy came out of the passageway and tripped over a small form, the rat, and the wolf was upon him, about to bite, when another beast charged.
A full moon lit the white stag, which dropped its antlers and threw the wolf back again and again. The wolf clawed madly at the stag, scoring lines down its gleaming white hide, but the stag did not give way. A bear-like dog emerged from the tunnel and bit at the wolf dragging it away from the stag. Then, maddened and confused, the wolf ran howling into the forest chased by the dog. The stag changed, its graceful form altering into the form of a black haired boy that could have been Harry’s twin.
Clutching his side, the boy gasped, “Get up and run! Get inside now, before the wolf comes back!” The skinny boy stared at the other in revulsion and hatred and slapped the offered hand away that would have pulled him to his feet. “Run!” the other boy yelled and he turned once more into the stag and turned his head toward the boy, prodding him up with his antlers. The skinny boy yelled then, “I’ll get you, Potter, if it’s the last thing I do.”
The images faded and Harry was left staring at his own cracked reflection. He threw down the mirror and rolled over on his stomach. What does it mean? What good is any of it? He looked back at the words he had written and scored through them.
They all tell me I’m just like my Dad. Everyone does, even Snape. I wonder if I’m even as good as him. Would I save Malfoy, if the situation were the same? I hate him and he hates me, just like my Dad and Snape hated each other. What was it my Dad hated about him? Was it his ugliness or was it the ugliness inside? The way he insulted my Mum? Or was he only that ugly inside after what they did to him?
He did not write, but thought, and how much worse am I than any of them? I have held a sword in my hand and stuck it straight through a man’s heart. I can kill. I intended to kill. I only failed because Voldemort was…. He did not complete the thought. Nothing, nothing could quell the misery that scored through him. The soft snores of his more innocent friends reassured him as he crept out of bed and descended the stairs. He cloaked himself in invisibility and stepped through the portrait hole into the night dark corridor.
He passed Filch in the night, and ignored Mrs. Norris’s mew and padded on and up until he reached the Room of Requirement. Entering, he stood in the center of the room and defiantly said the spell that would change him into the bird. When the change came, shivering through him, he no longer thought about his Dad’s transformation or Snape or Voldemort. He flew up and settled himself on the perch and tucked his head under a wing and slept.
***
Unusually, Harry was not the first one up on Sunday morning. “He’s not up yet,” Ron said without preamble as they met at the portrait hole.
Hermione frowned and then said, “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? He looked pretty bad last night.”
Ron nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess. It’s hard to tell anything with him these days. His bed curtains were still drawn though, and I wasn’t going to be the one that woke him up.”
They proceeded on down to breakfast and found empty seats at the Gryffindor table near Neville, Dean and Seamus. Hermione occupied herself with drinking her coffee and eating her fruit. Idly, she wondered if Hagrid had been enhancing it somehow. It didn’t seem possible that fruit that looked so fresh and tasted so good could have grown naturally when the world was a living glacier.
A brown owl delivered the Sunday Prophet and Hermione dived into it looking for anything on Voldemort. The front page, however, was taken up with a report on the International Confederation of Wizards’ debate on the revocation of the Statute of Secrecy. A small contingent of wizards, The Brotherhood of Warlocks for Open Use of Magic, had raised the issue as it had every four years.
Hermione clucked at the paper and then showed it to Ron when he said, “You know Hermione, if you ever learn to do the animagus spell, I bet you’ll turn into a hen if your clucking is any indication.” She glared at him and reminded herself grimly not to rise to the provocation and boast about her real animagus form. Wordlessly, she stuck the paper in his face, but Ron merely chuckled.
“That lot. They’re a bunch of nutters, Dad says.” He grinned at her and added, “They’re always going on about how ending secrecy will improve the lot of the average wizard. But even Dad, who’s nuts for everything Muggle, would never support that. You’d have half the people lining up wanting their fortunes told and charms for love or to grow gold on trees and the other half’d be wanting to burn us at the stake for being demons or something.” Ron shook his head again and then he flinched under Hermione’s continued glare.
“What?” he asked defensively.
“What,” Hermione answered tartly, “is that obviously Voldemort’s in sympathy with their ideas now. Every other week there’s some disaster or killing that’s drawing Muggle attention. My Mum keeps writing me these letters asking if I’m okay and are there any bad wizards on the loose.”
“Now wait a minute,” Ron said, “you mean to tell me your Mum doesn’t know about You Know Who?” Hermione put her coffee cup down with a thud.
“You don’t think she’d let me come back to Hogwarts every year if she knew how many times we’ve got into trouble and nearly been killed? It’s hard enough for her to accept that I’m not going to Cambridge and being a doctor of some kind like her and Dad. Voldemort and Death Eaters and all: that would be more than she could take.”
“I dunno, Hermione,” Ron said slowly, “It’s not a good thing to hide things from your parents, especially not from your Mum. She’ll find out eventually anyway and she’ll be angrier that you didn’t say anything I expect.”
He considered her gravely and added, “Think about what you’d do if it was your kid. Go ballistic, I don’t think.”
Annoyed, Hermione retorted, “What makes you think I’m having kids anyway? Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m having babies.” The look on Ron’s face was so astonished Hermione nearly laughed.
Then he scowled. “What’s being a woman got to do with it? You get married, eventually you have kids. It’s just – well – normal.”
Hermione gave him The Look. “Women have the babies. Men just have fun making with the making of them.”
Ron flushed right up to his ears and said, “Shh! Someone will hear you.”
She went on anyway, “And don’t think I’m going to spend my entire life staying home and tending kids and cooking meals. I’m having a job and doing things. Like my Mum.”
Ginny slid into the seat next to her and said, “That’s about right, Hermione. The men have to share these days.” She snagged a strawberry and ignored her brother’s betrayed glare.
“Speaking of, where’s Harry, anyway? He’s never up this late.”
It was past ten o’clock. Hermione said anxiously, “Maybe we should go check on him.”
Ron stood up abruptly and said sourly, “Fine. I’ll go. You girls stay here and plan your careers. Just keep in mind, they’re not all that fun, if Dad’s has been any indication.” He stalked away from the table and Hermione stood up and immediately followed. Ginny was only a step behind her.
“Stop him before he takes it out on Harry,” Ginny said quietly. “It won’t do either one of them any good to be at odds with each other.”
Hermione stopped for a second. She closed her mouth on a retort for the second time that morning and swallowed the implicit rebuke. Irritably, she thought, it’s this constant gloom. The ceiling of the Great Hall, which reflected the sky outside, was so dark, in fact, that it looked like the dull, steel gray of a battleship.
In the common room, Ginny followed Ron right up the spiral stairs to the boy’s dormitory and Hermione went after. The Gryffindor boys’ room was utterly silent. All four of the other boys were up, she knew, and their four posters were all in various states of disorder.
Seamus’s had a pile of parchment scattered on it, Dean’s was rumpled and his pajamas were still laying half on and half off the bed. Neville’s was the neatest, but it was occupied by Trevor, who sat staring at them in that perpetual pop-eyed look of astonishment characteristic of toads and frogs. He croaked, as if to tell them something, but Hermione had no patience for it just then.
“Harry?” Ron called, through the closed curtains. “You up yet, mate?”
There was no answer. Gingerly, Ron twitched back the curtain and jumped back quickly, but Harry wasn’t there. His trunk lay open on the floor on the other side of the bed, and a few objects were scattered on the bed. The bed itself was rumpled and untidy and you could see where he had lain down for the pillow still retained the impress of his head. But Hermione could see that he probably hadn’t slept in it at all, as the covers were still on and the dent in the pillow was also in the cover, which had never been removed.
Ron cursed softly. “He hasn’t, has he? He wouldn’t…”
“He would,” Ginny said softly. “I bet he would. And he was plenty upset yesterday after Snape had to pick on him.”
Hermione thought. “Let’s not lose our heads here,” she said. “He could have gotten up very early, or come down after everyone was asleep and –“
“And what?” Ron asked. “Where is he then, if he is up?” Hermione had an idea, but it wasn’t one she wanted to share with the others. If she were right, McGonagall would kill her for letting them know.
“Let’s split up,” she suggested. “Ron, you go check with Hagrid. He goes there sometimes when he’s really down, you know. And we haven’t been to see Hagrid in ages.” It was a measure of Ron’s anxiety that he didn’t object to going out in the freezing sleet to see if Harry were there with the half-giant.
“Ginny,” she added, “why don’t you check the library. Maybe he’s studying.” She ignored their looks of disbelief and said, “Maybe he’s looking for more long-distance detectors or something.”
“Where are you going to check?” Ron asked. She considered.
“A few places,” she said vaguely. “Maybe he went to see Dumbledore. He does that sometimes too.”She waited for the others to depart and was glad neither one had questioned her last statement or offered to go with her. Then she made her way as quickly as possible to the Room of Requirement.
A mahogany door in the right location invited entrance. Silently she thought, just let him be here. Don’t let him have gone off to challenge Voldemort. She opened the door cautiously, and for one moment she thought the place was deserted. Then she saw with relief that a large red bird sat on its perch with its head tucked under its wing. The bird did not stir.
She coughed and said, “Harry? Harry, wake up!” A wing stirred lazily and the bird lifted its head up to gaze at her sleepily with inhuman emerald eyes.
“Come on,” she said, holding her arm out. “Everyone’s looking for you. Well,” she amended, “just me and Ron and Ginny right now.” The bird flapped its wings a bit but it didn’t come down. Irritated now, she drew her wand and did the spell that reversed the transformation. She held off from yelling at him as she meant to do when she saw how tired he looked, though he must have slept some.
“What time is it?” he asked wearily.
“Too late for breakfast and not yet time for lunch,” she answered. Then her worry broke loose and she said, “How could you? Go off and not tell us. And doing the spell on your own without anyone watching the first time. You could have --you could have…”
He shrugged and said, “ ‘S okay, Hermione. I’ve got the hang of it now. I just need a bit of practice on the change back, is all.” He yawned and said, “I could use a cup of coffee, though.”
Obligingly, this being the Room of Requirement, a tray appeared from nowhere with a coffeepot, cups, milk and sugar and a tray of biscuits as well. Harry collapsed onto the sofa and poured himself a cup of coffee, drinking it down in one long gulp. Hermione kept her gaze on him until he looked up.
“Why did you come here alone?” she asked again quietly.
He shrugged again, annoyingly, and answered evasively, “I couldn’t sleep. And it was too late to wake you. I can’t get up the stairs to your dorm anyway.” He pocketed a couple of biscuits and ran his hand through his untidy hair, which stood up more than usual giving him the look of a very surprised lion.
Then the green eyes narrowed with mischief and he said, “It’s a great trick, the animagus spell, isn’t it? I owe you for teaching me.”
“I didn’t teach you,” she said sharply. “I used it on you and you learned it yourself.” She sniffed feeling quite put upon. It was typical of him that he would learn to do the most difficult and impossible spells without instruction and yet he would flail about with fairly simple ones in class because he was too busy thinking about some puzzle or scheme.
“Don’t be annoyed, Hermione,” he said softly. “You just about saved my life with it.” Then he left quickly and made his way to the Great Hall a little in front of her, avoiding as he often did, the response to anything emotional.
