THE LOST CHAPTER
By Ricardo Bullemore M
Preface (extract)
The book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" that was lying on the kitchen table moved or so it seemed. "No," I thought, "it can't be. Probably a bird passing by, flying in front of the window and blocking the sunlight for just a few seconds; yes it probably wasn't anything more than a shadow." But then it happened again, the book not only moved but it opened between the end of chapter eleven and chapter twelve.
This was not normal. Something was growing between page 222 and 223. It looked like little white leaves with hundreds of tiny black dots all over them. I ran to my desk, opened the drawer, picked up a magnifying glass and looked at the growing leaves. I couldn't believe my eyes. What were growing between pages 222 and 223 weren't leaves with tiny black dots; they were pages, pages with black adobe Garamond font text.
It took ten more minutes for the growing pages to match the size of the existing ones. Then the growing stopped. I put the magnifying glass away, and started reading these magically grown new pages:
Chapter Eleven and three quarters.
"The Granger's House"
It was a hot but cloudy August morning, although the shady kitchen of number twelve Grimmauld Place was cool and agreeable.
Hermione, Ron and Harry had almost finished their breakfast in complete silence. The lack of activity was not only evident in Ron's belly, but also in Harry's mood and Hermione's worried expression. This gesture became more evident when she stood up from her chair and gave a severe look at Harry while saying:
"Harry, I need to borrow your invisible cloak."
Ron's face looked shocked, but before he could pronounce a word, Hermione stopped him by tapping her hand over his shoulder while continuing to speak:
"I need to go to my parents home."
Those words echoed in Ron's brain as he felt the blood surge to his ears. After all these years a gap stood between he and Hermione. Hundreds of images of the summers at the Burrows, and of all those years in Hogwarts were blurring in his memory at the sound of those words. He realised that he had never been to Hermione's house; he had never even imagined how that place could look like. In a flash, the image of the aseptic house of the Dursley's came to his mind. "No way," he thought, "she would never have had a childhood as Harry's."
For him Hermione belonged so much to his world that he never thought about her childhood, a muggle childhood, which now he realised would have been very different from his own. He had never before considered the possibility that Hermione might have even muggle friends.
A certain urge of knowing this aspect of Hermione's life was filling him up. Suddenly the heated discussion between Harry and Hermione got him out from his trance.
"All of us go together, or nobody goes at all" Harry almost screamed, then he added in a calmer voice "anyway, it would be a change, everyone of us needs a change of air"
"Are we going to your place?" Ron asked Hermione in a sort of blurry voice.
Hermione and Harry look at him puzzled, Ron's eyes moved from side to side from Hermione to Harry, and then he added:
"What…? Are we going to hide there…? is it safer?"
"You haven't heard anything that I said?" said Hermione.
"No… I…"
"Ron," Hermione continued, "we cannot leave any loose ends, not now that the ministry is moving against muggle-borns, they can burst in to my house at any moment."
"But your parents are in Australia…"
"Ron! My logs, I had to destroy them, haven't you listened to anything of what I was saying to Harry?"
Ron scratched his head with a confused expression.
"No," he said "for a moment I…"
Hermione didn't wait for Ron's answer and continued explaining:
"I have written in my logs a chronological account of my last six years at Hogwarts. I have written about us, about Dumbledore army, about Harry, Ron, about Harry." Hermione gave a special emphasis to the last two words. Then moving her head from side to side she continued; "I have been an idiot, I should never have written those logs."
Suddenly Ron seemed to awaken, he stood up and started walking fast, meandering between the chairs while he yelled:
"HERMIONE, SOMEONE COULD HAVE READ THEM! YOUR PARENT, YOUR FRIE…" Ron stopped cold. He fixed his eyes on Hermione's eyes, frowning
"Because you have muggles friends, don't you?" Ron's facial expression was the same as when Hermione talked about Victor Krum.
"Oh, come on Ron," said Hermione. And avoiding the turn of Ron's questions she added, "The logs are hidden for anyone who's not a witch or a wizard"
The expectation of leaving Grimmauld Place, even if it was only for a day, was growing in Harry, it was as if he was waiting for this to happened, a change, to start doing something, something important. Hermione's logs were the perfect excuse to take the risk and Harry was wanting desperately to get out into the open even if it was just for a couple of hours.
"Lets go now, right now" he said, "there's no need to wait, and we can be back by night."
All of them agreed. The enthusiasm suddenly seemed to illuminate the shadowy old house while they planed the route that would take them to Hermione's home in Hadley Wood. They also agreed not to apparate. They would take the tube towards Highbury & Islington Railway Station, and then the train. Hermione told them that her home was walking distance from the Hadley Wood station.
They left 12 Grimmauld Place at ten, taking advantage of the cover that an ice cream van, which was parked in front of number twelve, provided, and started walking the six blocks that separated the Black's house from the tube station under the invisible cloak. Beneath the cloak it was almost suffocating, not only because it was a particularly hot summer morning, but also because they had to walk squeezed under it to prevent any part of their body being exposed.
"This is impossible," murmured Ron, "we don't fit under the this any more".
"Shush, stop it Ron," said Hermione in an even lower voice than Ron's.
"They can see my feet, Hermione"
Hermione knew that this wasn't the moment for arguing and didn't elaborate. But Harry did.
"Just bundle up a little more" Said Harry whispering
"A little more? a little more and I'll be sitting in the pavement"
The three of them were walking extremely slowly in very uncomfortable positions.
The funnily dressed lurkers, a couple who were standing casually in the sidewalk apparently didn't notice them as they passed just a few metres from them. Once they made a last turn six blocks away and made sure that not only possible wizards but also muggles were out of sight, they took of the cloak which Harry stuffed inside his hoodie pocket.
"They saw us, I'm sure they did"
"They did not Ron, I watched them" said Hermione, "they were more interested in the ice cream van that was parked there"
"What? The funny truck? lucky us, then."
They entered the oddly located Mornington Crescent tube station and hurried to the escalators. Hermione pinched Ron's arm at regular intervals to remind him to look casual and not as a lost tourist. Once on the platform they waited for the entering train to stop, they passed the automatic doors and sat at the far end of the last and almost deserted wagon. The doors closed and the train departed.
Hermione and Ron were sitting next to each other and Harry in front of them. None of them were talking, nor looking at the two only passengers that were sharing their carriage: an old lady carrying a little poodle puppy in a small plastic pet carrier, and a middle aged man in brown overalls with a shabby tool box on the floor between his feet.
After a couple of boring minutes, Harry took from his pocket an old and shrivelled copy of the Daily Prophet and opened it at a random page. But before he could read the first line of the randomly chosen article, his eyes were watering in pain. Hermione's kick in one of his ankles made him put the newspaper back in his pocket again.
The "what are you doing?" expression on Hermione's face made him realize the danger of his actions. He stared carefully at the old lady and the man in brown overalls. They seemed not to notice what had just happened. What would have been their reaction if they had a chance to see the moving photographs of Harry's Daily Prophet?
Harry took a better look at the old lady. She reminded him of his squib neighbour Miss Figg.
She was wearing a very odd coat, unusual for an old muggle anyway. Could this old lady be a squib? Or worse a witch, a spy of Voldemort? Leaving the security of Sirius house and taking this trip to Hermione's home now seemed a foolish decision.
Suddenly the old lady stood up. Harry grabbed his wand and held his breath. He was ready if things turned nasty.
"Harry, get up" said Hermione, "what are you doing?" she asked him when he saw the wand in Harry's hand.
Harry didn't make a sound, his eyes were fixed on the old lady. The train stopped and the old lady got off.
"Harry" Hermione repeated, "We have to get off here." She grabbed him and pulled him out of the train. "Put your wand away Harry!"
"What was all that mate?" said Ron cornering his friend.
Harry was still looking at the old lady that was already a long way from them.
"Sorry, I just thought… never mind"
They changed trains at Euston station. Ten minutes later after a short walk, they were at Highbury & Islington where they took their last connection towards Hadley Wood.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when they arrived at Hadley Wood. Covered in broken glass and dust the peeling railway station looked rather abandoned. By contrast, out in the open, everything else was immaculate. The smooth breeze and the nice smell of recently cut grass gave them a refreshing sensation. Harry had completely forgot the incident with the old lady; the peaceful suburb made Harry feel safer.
The place was almost in complete silence. There were no cars but a couple of minicabs waiting for fares.
"Are we taking a cab?" Harry asks.
"No, I've told you before, we'll walk," said Hermione "my house is not far from here, about five blocks."
"Blocks?" said Ron in a funny voice while looking to the winding road ahead.
"East Crescent" read Ron aloud while looking at the luxury houses.
"You must be rich to live here"
Hermione pretended not to hear that.
"Dentists must make money," said Ron casually and added, "Are both your parents dentists?"
Hermione couldn't avoid the direct question but instead of answering she just said:
"Oh, come on Ron" and she sped up, making it impossible for Ron to talk and walk that fast.
Fifty metres after they made their last turn, Hermione stopped in front of a well-presented 'Tudor' style semi detached residence with a sign that read "FOR SALE" bedded in the lawn.
Hermione's house wasn't as luxurious as the others but it had the best taken care of garden of them all.
"All right, now hurry, it will be better if no one sees me here" said Hermione running across the garden.
"Hermione," said Harry trying to catch her up, "this place is deserted, we haven't seen anyone but that gardener two bends away. I think it is quite safe"
"Don't make a mistake, Harry, here it's a lot more difficult to pass unnoticed than in the city"
"It's always this quiet?" asked Ron
"Yes erm… This way!" said Hermione pointing not to the front door but to a second but more out of view one, close to the garage on the right side of the house.
"Here" she said indicating a tall bush.
Harry and Ron didn't move. Hermione pushed them behind the bush and said, "Quiet now."
Harry smiled at Ron letting Hermione play detective.
She searched her pocket and took out a plastic light blue key ring with two keys.
"Wouldn't it be easier using your wand?" asked Harry.
"We can't use magic, Harry, it wouldn't be safe, we could leave a trace for the death eaters, and we are here to wipe out loose ends not to leave new ones" she said in a bossy kind of tone.
After she opened the door, the three of them went in. Both Harry and Ron said, "Wow!" at the same time, when they entered a kitchen as impeccable as the Dursley's but four times bigger.
The black granite surface of the large working island was still shining, and unusually clean for a house that had been without residents for weeks. The maple hanging display cabinet with bevel glass doors was full of plates of different sizes, all in tidy piles, thirty-six wine glasses of three different sizes and half a dozen white serving bowls. Over the kitchen table, there were three wooden cutting boards, a red and white picnic style tablecloth that looked as though someone had just ironed it, a jar with flowers and attached to the wall a magnetic hanger with different sized cooking knives.
"Didn't your parents take anything when they moved to Australia?" Harry asked.
"There was no time, Harry," said Hermione
"So the refrigerator will be…" Ron didn't finish the sentence when Hermione said, "Yeah, I suppose…" and added after she saw Ron trying to manage a polite expression, "Oh, come on Ron, open it" giving him a nice inviting smile.
Ron opened the fridge and after he had browsed the shelves he asked with his head still inside:
"You wouldn't have any candies here, would you?"
"Not in this house Ron, my parents are both dentists, you know that."
"Yeah, I just thought…"
"What about this?" said Harry, taking a cookie jar from one of the floor cabinets.
"Just healthy snacks, but… shouldn't we be doing what we came here for?"
"Yeah, right" said Ron taking a handful of sugarless cereal from a box he managed to find in the fridge, while he followed Hermione and Harry out of the kitchen.
"This is quite good" Ron said shaking the box "we could take some back to Grimmauld Place, Kreacher's cooking, you know…" Ron stopped talking when he realised that neither Harry nor Hermione were listening.
They entered a luminous dining room. A big abstract painting stood out on one of the tall white walls. Facing it, in the centre of the opposite wall was a large wooden framed chimney. Between both walls was a twelve chair walnut wind-out dining table. And creating a grand focal point of the room a large window without curtains displaying a magnificent view of an impeccable lawn surrounded by magnolias, oaks, walnuts and all sort of tall trees in the house's rear garden.
Hermione knew at once of Ron's forthcoming commentary just by watching his face.
"Please don't," she said leaving Ron with his mouth open.
He sat down in the armchair close to the chimney, and put some more cereal in his still open mouth.
"Light a fire please, Harry" Hermione said pointing at the small wooden logs inside the dining room chimney.
"No Harry, no wands."
"Sorry I forgot," said Harry putting his wand back in his pocket.
"Take this." She handed Harry a fire lighter.
Harry looked at the white cube and handed it back to Hermione, he took instead an old copy of the Daily Prophet from his pocket.
"Thanks, but I prefer to use this" he said showing the newspaper to her.
He took a box of matches from the side table and started the fire.
"Ron, follow me" said Hermione and headed to the stairs.
Ron stood up from the cosy armchair where he was finishing the cereal, threw the box to Harry and followed Hermione.
Harry looked at Ron who smiling at him said: "Burn that mate."
"Come on Ron!" urged Hermione
"I'm right behind you," said Ron speeding up to the landing of the wooden stairs.
"In here, this is my bedroom," said Hermione.
Ron felt that odd feeling again. He suddenly remembered Harry snogging Ginny in her room back at the Burrows, but that image was wiped out completely when he entered the room.
He had never seen a tidier room in his life; it was a large and sunny room. The lower half of the walls had white wood panelling and the other half had pale pink and light green azalea wallpaper. A rustic cotton wheat colour wall-to-wall carpeting covered the floor, and a large small pane casement window with a wide-open caramel brown door curtain illuminated the room completely. Against the left wall was a queen size white wooden bed and a large library full of all sorts of books against the right wall. There were photograph frames over the desk by the window but none of them had photographs in them. Now Ron realized that there were no photographs in all the rooms he had been in so far. No moving ones and no static ones. He picked up one of the photograph frames.
"I removed all the photographs," said Hermione "I managed to do that before I left for the Burrows but I forget completely about the books and logs."
Ron put down the empty frame and started to play with a light blue plush teddy bear with a little red heart in its neck that he took from a large collection of them that were lying over Hermione's bed.
"Put that down and help me with the books."
"Who gave you this?" said Ron again in his jealous tone of voice.
"Never mind. Here, take the books"
Ron looked towards the large library Hermione was pointing at.
"What, all of them?" said Ron and started picking books randomly.
"Oxford Reading Three? Key Stage Two: Maths?"
"Not those. Those" said Hermione pointing at the upper shelf of the library.
Ron climbed a chair and started reading again:
"Oxford Reading Three, Key Stage Two: Maths. Come on, they are the same books"
"Just bring them down," said Hermione who was collecting small pink covered logbooks from one of the desk drawers.
"I don't know what's the point of burning these…"
"Ron listen, those are my primary school books" said Hermione pointing at the first books Ron picked from the middle shelf.
"And those are my Hogwarts books. They have enchanted covers to look like muggle school books, so my … muggle friends…" she was saying the two last words in a low voice when she noticed Ron's shocked expression.
"Oh come on Ron! What do you expect, that I stayed all by myself in this house every summer waiting for Hogwarts school term to begin? I do have some muggle friends, from my primary school you see?"
"Yeah, all right" said Ron frowning.
Hermione took one of the books that Ron got from the upper shelf and opened it at a random page where it read;
"Werewolves and How to Recognize Them", and showed it to him.
"Look" she said, "now bring down the books."
"Very clever, so I have to open all of them." Ron's expression looked already tired.
"No, just do as I told you. Take all the books from the upper shelf"
Ron putting his hand diagonally on the right side of his head, mimicking a soldier's salute, answered her bossy command.
Ron climbed on the chair and started throwing the books on Hermione's bed. He didn't care about hitting her plush toys. In fact, it seemed that he was doing it on purpose. Once he finished, he built a large pile with all the books, and lifted them from the bed; the book pile was almost two heads taller than him so he had to crouch to pass under the door lintel.
"Aren't you bringing anything else?" asked Ron pointing with his nose to the collection of recently smashed plush toys over Hermione's bed.
I don't need anything more from here, I don't have any attachments to my muggle life, or my muggle friends nor any objects in this room" she said, her eyes in tears. Then she added, "I'm a witch. Since I turned eleven Ron, my life changed."
Hermione was carrying no more than six small pink books, while Ron was balancing dangerously more than two dozen heavy books while sweating heavily down the stairs.
In the dining room, Harry had managed to ignite a decent fire without using magic.
"No way" said Harry watching Ron's big piles of books "those cant be your logs?" he said looking to Hermione "How could you write all those…"
Hermione answered Harry by showing him the small pink book logs.
"Then those…"
"Hogwarts books" answered Ron. "Should I throw them in the fire?" he asked Hermione who was having a last browse of her logs.
"Yes, please" she said, her eyes swimming in tears.
She handed Harry her logs.
"Put this inside the chimney, will you?"
Harry opened one of the small books. Hermione yanked the book from Harry's hand and threw it fiercely in the chimney.
"Just burn them!" she cried mopping her eyes
"I'm sorry," said Harry apologetically "I didn't mean…"
"Just make sure they burn," said Hermione recovering her strong voice again.
The chimney fire was bursting with the large amount of burning paper.
After twenty silent minutes the books were all ashes. Hermione took the flower vase from the dining table, removed the wilted flowers and threw the remaining water at the chimney. A large cloud of smoke darkened the room
"It is done," said Hermione "lets go now, someone can spot the smoke and come here to check"
She gave a last look at the place that was her home for the last seventeen years, a tear slowly descending down her cheek. She repeated, "let's go."
The three of them headed for the kitchen door, and at the exact moment that they opened it, there was a horrible sound of smashing wood and glass that made Harry and Ron draw their wands in a flash.
"No!" Hermione whispered, "your cloak Harry."
Harry took the cloak from his pocket and the three of them disappeared under it. They were breathing heavily. Hermione urged them to calm down. They stayed paralyzed under the lintel of the kitchen door in complete silence trying to hear the voices that came from the smashed front door.
"Are you sure that this is the house of the mud-blood?"
"If our informant is to be trusted, it must be," answered a high pitched voice, "He had access to Hogwarts student records"
It seamed that there were only two death eaters, and apparently they hadn't noticed that they were being watched.
One of the death eaters entered the still smoky dining room. His eyes opened wide when he saw the recently doused fire.
"Look!" he shouted in a high-pitched voice "someone has been here.
"Homenum revelio!"
"Lets go now!" Hermione said and the three of them ran through the still open kitchen door just in time to avoid been caught by the spell that reveals human presence cast by one of the death eaters.
They ran as fast as they could under the invisible cloak. Luckily there was no one near to watch the three pairs of sneakers running down the street. Harry saw a little forest on the other side of a fence.
"In here" he said.
With difficulty they managed to pass through the fence still under the cloak.
Once on the other side, they noticed that they were on the links of a golf club. They hid under the cover of the trees before taking the cloak off.
"It was Snape! Who else has access to student records? It must have been him." yelled Harry.
Hermione looked back. A thick black smoke column was still coming out from the distant chimney top.
"We are not safe here," she said "we must go back to Grimmauld Place right now."
"What if there are others?" said Ron, "they could be waiting for us in the station."
"There's no point in taking the train now" Hermione said looking at Ron's face, which had the same scared expression as hers. "We will disapparate; we'll do it under the cloak"
"Do you reckon that the ice cream van will be still there?" asked Ron.
"We can't count on that, so we'll have to do it in turns. You and Harry will go first, then one of you comes back for me."
"No way, you and Harry go first. I'll wait here for Harry."
Hermione didn't want to waste time arguing, so she just nodded.
"Right" said Harry displaying the cloak again. He caught hold of Hermione's arm and disapparated.
They travelled through space and time, squeezed in the dark oppressing tunnel and seconds later they were back in the city. They apparated not far from Harry's godfathers house, in a nearby alley that Harry had noticed earlier that morning. After a short walk they were back in number twelve. Harry went back to pick up Ron, and ten minutes later they joined Hermione in the drawing room.
"Do you reckon they'll sort it all out?" said Ron "that we've been there, about the logs and all?"
"That doesn't matter any more," said Hermione in a sad voice "the house will be destroyed by now. There was nothing left for them to find"
She sat down in the drawing room's comfortable leather sofa and added "There was nothing there that links us to my house."
"We did it well then," said Ron, imitating Hermione in a careless way, hunching over the sofa looking quite pleased with himself.
Harry, though he was as tired as his friends, didn't. He stayed by the window instead, watching out in silence. Hermione like Harry stayed in silence with her thoughts. The image of a distant smoking chimney was still flashing in her memory. It was like her muggle life and memories that were diluting like the smoke in the air. By now her home was probably destroyed, it could even be burnt down.
It was all over; she will never see her home again, the Granger's home.
Ron didn't stop talking about their little adventure, although no one was listening.
"I won't say it wasn't dangerous but it was easy though," Ron said while playing with his wand.
"That little trip to your place makes us fell we are doing something, aren't we? we are playing our cards, you know?"
Harry turned his back to the window and faced Ron.
"Yeah mate, big deal" he said raising his voice "but this is not a game, we are not playing and… COULD YOU PLEASE PUT YOUR WAND AWAY!"
"What? What is your problem?" said Ron.
He stood up, his wand still clutched in his hand.
"Do you want to have a go at me?" Ron face was livid, his wand pointing at Harry who drew his own and pointed to Ron's chest.
"STOP IT! stop it will you?, what happened to you two?" cried Hermione "we shouldn't be fighting with each other, we have work to do. PUT YOUR WANDS AWAY!"
Hermione stood up and got between them.
"We'd better be planning about how we'll find those horcruxes."
"Yeah," Ron nodded, "there's no point in staying here anymore, we've already done it successfully, haven't we'? Lets go then, where do you suggest we start searching?"
Hermione noticed the sarcastic tone in Ron's voice.
"No Ronald," she said in her bossy voice, "we are not leaving the house till we've managed to work out a plan."
"In fact" Harry interrupted "we are not leaving the house yet, but we are going out, Hermione"
"What?"
"Yes, we are going out in shifts" Harry continued
"What are you talking about?" Hermione gave Harry a funny look and insisted "What about the horcruxes? Shouldn't we should be looking for them?"
"We are, Hermione, the locket. The locket is here in London, in the Ministry of Magic. That toad Umbridge has it. We should find a way to steal it from her and destroy it."
"No way" said Ron "the ministry is full of death eaters, it would be impossible…"
"We must do it" Harry insisted, "We must sort out a way to get inside"
"Reconnaissance trips, we are going to watch the ministry entrance."
Hermione understood Harry's plan immediately. A smile drew on her face.
"Yes, we'll take turns, the three of us can't move fast under the invisibility clock, but one alone can. We'll be safer doing it that way"
"All right, lets do it then" Ron agreed, and looking at Hermione he said:
"But I think it should be just Harry and me. Hermione, if they catch either of us we stand a chance, you see, we are not muggle-born…"
The smile in Hermione's face vanished completely. She hesitated for a moment and then giving Ron a furious look, she said,
"Don't you muggle-born me Ron! I have all the right as Dumbledore trusted in me the same way he trusted you two"
Hermione was looking fiercely and directly in Ron's eyes. He had never seen such anger in her face before. He tried to undo his words by saying "I'm just worried for you, Hermione, you have every right, yes, but you know how things are now, it wouldn't be safe…"
"What has been safe so far, Ron? Don't you ever try to count me out again, ever."
Ron didn't speak again, instead he tried to catch Harry's eyes looking for support, though Harry's sympathy was all for Hermione. He smiled at her and said,
"We will start the surveillance tomorrow, we'll ballot for who goes first."
Harry walked out the drawing room towards the stairs.
"Now, lets go downstairs to the kitchen and find something to eat, I'm starving."