Harry Thunderer and the Uru Hammer
Chapter Ten
"Round Two"
Updated d Month 2010
Harry, Ron and Hermione entered the Great Hall Friday morning, the final school day for their second week back at Hogwarts. For Harry, however, the week wouldn't be over until he'd served his detention with Snape — predictably, their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had simply moved his detention back a week when informed that Harry would be taking a private lesson with Professor Dumbledore.
Snape had read Dumbledore's note explaining the situation, then dropped it on the edge of his desk, saying only "Be in my office the following Saturday at eight-thirty p.m." Harry had picked up the note, nodded, and turned and left the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, but with a ghost of a smile twitching his lips. It was worth the detention seeing the sour look on Snape's face — at least Harry hoped it would be worth it.
"Blimey, I'll be glad when this week is over," Ron announced, ladling several spoonfuls of scrambled eggs and kippers onto his breakfast plate. "Even with all our free periods this week we've got more chapters to read and inches to write than I ever remember getting the first two weeks of school!"
"It's going to get worse before it gets better," Hermione reminded him.
"Yeah, thanks for cheering me up, Hermione," Ron said, adding a few sausages to his plate for good measure.
"And we've got Quidditch tryouts tomorrow morning, don't forget," Harry added. Ron suddenly looked rather spare.
"I know," he said, shaking his head. "Don't remind me of that, too! I'm so nervous I can hardly eat," he added, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
"Harry," Hermione said, as she buttered a piece of toast for herself. "Can you tell us anything else about your meeting with Professor Dumbledore last Saturday?"
"I think we've gone over it about a dozen times, Hermione," Harry shrugged, scooping a couple of fried eggs and sausages onto his plate. "I don't know what else to tell you — we looked at some Pensieve memories of some Ministry person visiting Tom Riddle's grandfather, mother and uncle." He glanced around, seeing that no one had taken a seat close enough to overhear them. "Just remember to keep all of this to yourself — and you too, Ron."
"Yeah, yeah," Ron said, his tone hovering between boredom and irritation. "I remember from the first dozen times you told us."
"Why do you think Professor Dumbledore doesn't want anyone else knowing about this, Harry?" Hermione asked, then answered her own question. "I suppose he wouldn't want any of what you're learning getting back to Voldemort, somehow. What, Ron?"
Ron had flinched violently when Hermione spoke the Name. "I wish you wouldn't use that name!" he hissed.
"You don't react nearly that bad when Harry says it!" Hermione pointed out archly.
"I'm used to him saying it!" Ron argued. "Sometimes he even says it in his sleep — gives the other fellows in our dorm a right scare, doesn't it, Harry?"
But Harry's attention had been diverted across the Great Hall as three figures entered the room: Draco Malfoy, accompanied as usual by his goons Crabbe and Goyle. "Harry?" Ron said again, then followed his gaze. "Oh, Malfoy again, is it? Harry, stop worrying about the slimy git, he's not worth it."
Harry said nothing, but Ron didn't know how wrong he was. Malfoy knew something that he hadn't even told Ron and Hermione about yet — that he possessed the hammer Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor the Thunderer. He was also pretty sure that Malfoy had been ordered to get the Hammer away from him, for Voldemort. That part was laughable, of course — Malfoy could never lift the hammer, much less use it. But Harry had to make sure he kept his wand (which was really Mjolnir in disguise) safe from anyone taking it. If it were lost, he would be defenseless against Draco and anyone else who came against him.
Malfoy and his cronies had taken places near the front of the Slytherin House table, forcing a couple of second years to slide down; the places they took were considered high status positions at the Slytherin table, close to the Head table and with a good vantage point to see the entire room. He was chatting with a couple of seventh-year students, two other Quidditch players; they kept glancing Harry and Ron's way, then snickering. So far, today was no different than any other day between Gryffindor and Slytherin — the two Houses loathed one another, and wasted no opportunity to bait or sneer.
There was a sudden fluttering of wings as the morning owl posts arrived. Hermione's copy of the Daily Prophet arrived, as usual, and she began perusing it as she nibbled at her toast.
"Anyone we know dead?" Ron asked, in the calculatedly casual voice he used every day when asking that question.
Hermione shook her head, reading quickly. "No. But there were a few dementor attacks. And the Ministry has made an arrest in the death of Elphias Doge."
"Really?" Harry perked up at that. "Who was it?" he asked, hoping to hear the name "Bellatrix Lestrange" issue from Hermione's lips.
"Stan Shunpike."
"What?" Harry nearly yelped
"Listen," Hermione said, and began reading. "Stanley Shunpike, conductor of the popular Wizarding conveyance the Knight Bus, has been arrested on suspicion of murder in the death of longtime Ministry employee Elphias Doge. Mr. Shunpike, 21, was taken into custody late last night after a raid on his Clapham home —"
"He couldn't have done it," Harry declared. "We left him on the Bus only minutes earlier! He was probably halfway across Britain by —"
"A lot can happen in a few minutes, Harry," Hermione pointed out, folding the paper closed and looking at him. "You can't really know what Stan might have done after we left the Bus. And you didn't see who killed Mr. Doge — you were with us in Diagon Alley when it happened!"
But Harry had seen what happened; he'd invoked the power of Mjolnir to show him what had occurred in the Leaky Cauldron while they were gone. It had shown him an image of Draco Malfoy appearing out of thin air, hitting Doge with a Killing Curse, then disappearing before anyone noticed him.
But even that wasn't true, because Harry had used the power of Mjolnir to probe Malfoy's memories during their first confrontation on the Hogwarts Express, when Malfoy used the Body-Bind Curse to incapacitate Harry and accidentally caused his wand to strike the floor, turning him into Thor. But Malfoy had already known, somehow, that Harry was Thor!
"It doesn't matter," Harry said, tired of arguing about it. "Stan probably tipped off the fake Death Eaters that attacked us, so his hands aren't clean anyway. What I'm really worried about is Malfoy — he's in on all this, somehow."
Hermione's eyes rolled heavenward for a moment. "Malfoy's like your own, personal Boggart, Harry!" Harry frowned at her, but she went on as if she hadn't noticed. "I don't even know why you're worried about him — we've barely seen him outside of classes these past two weeks."
"That's what's worrying me," Harry told her, keeping his voice low. "He keeps disappearing off the Marauder's Map! There've been hours when I couldn't find him — I've even seen Crabbe and Goyle wandering around the seventh floor looking for him."
Hermione digested this bit of information but said nothing. Ron, who'd just speared the last kipper on the end of his fork, stopped just short of popping it into his mouth. "I been meaning to ask this," he said to Harry. "Just what does Dumbledore expect you to do with the information he's giving you, Harry?" He frowned, remembering something else Harry had told them. "Does he really expect you to kill Y-You-Know-Who?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know, Ron. According to the prophecy, neither he nor I can live while the other survives. And — I am marked as his equal." Harry unconsciously touched his forehead, his voice becoming hard and tight. "He did that when he decided I was the one he had to kill, and my parents along with me."
"Do you really think you can kill him?" Ron looked at him intently. "I mean, you just barely escaped getting killed yourself the last time you saw him, remember?"
Harry didn't reply. The official story of what happened in the Death Chamber during the fight in the Department of Mysteries was that Harry and Neville were rescued by Order of the Phoenix members, during which Bellatrix Lestrange escaped, with Voldemort's help, after killing Sirius Black and after a confrontation with Professor Dumbledore. Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Ron were all incapacitated or unconscious when Harry, in his Thor form, had bolted through the room where they were so fast he was merely a blur to them. He hadn't seen them again until he returned from Norway a few weeks later, after his meeting and journey with Odin, the leader of the Asgardians. Now, trying to find Odin's son, the real Thor, lost somewhere on Earth disguised as the mortal Donald Blake, and find out what had happened to Sirius after he went through the Veil, were uppermost in Harry's mind.
But it would be nice to take care of the Voldemort problem somewhere along the way, if he could work it in! He knew the Dark Lord was using Malfoy, somehow, to try to get to Harry — and especially to get to his hammer, Mjolnir; Malfoy obviously wanted it, and Harry believed that Voldemort was behind that as well. With the power of Mjolnir, however, confronting Voldemort might be more like murder than self-defense.
"For now," Harry told Ron. "I'm just going to keep taking private lessons with Professor Dumbledore, to find out as much as I can about Voldemort. Then, hopefully, I'll know what to do if we meet again."
Ron opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he did he was interrupted by Zacharias Smith, who had come up behind them. "Potter, this is for you," he drawled, handing a scrap of parchment to Harry.
Harry looked at the piece of parchment. "What's this for?"
Smith shrugged. "Read it and find out." Harry unfolded the parchment and stared at the short message scrawled on it.
Potter —
Meet me at midnight Saturday in
front of the tapestry on the 7th floor,
the one with the idiot teaching trolls
to dance. We'll settle our differences then.
Malfoy
Harry looked up at Smith. "Malfoy got you running errands for him now, does he?" Harry asked, in a condescending tone.
Smith shrugged again. "He's a prefect — I'm just doing what he asked me to do."
"Good at blindly following orders, then," Harry observed. "That should come in handy for whoever you work for, I suppose." Smith sneered but turned and walked away without retorting. Harry glanced over at the Slytherin Table, seeing Malfoy staring fixedly at him. Slowly, Malfoy let a grin come across his face. The piece of parchment in Harry's hand suddenly burst into flame and vanished, like a piece of flash paper.
"What was that about, Harry?" Hermione asked, with a curious look back and forth between him and the departing Smith.
"Nothing," Harry told her. "Just Malfoy being a prat." Hermione stared at him for several seconds, then shrugged, apparently losing interest, and turned back to her paper. Slowly Harry looked back toward the Slytherin Table, where Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were all leaning together, talking quietly even as they watched to see his reaction.
Harry gave a short nod, his only acknowledgement to Malfoy's note. Whatever Malfoy was planning for this meeting, he decided, he'd be ready for him. Hopefully, Snape would let him out of detention well before midnight that night!
=ooo=
By Saturday evening, Harry had already muddled through one of the busiest days of his life, starting with the Quidditch trials after breakfast. As Hermione had predicted earlier, there was quite a turnout: not only Gryffindor students had shown up to try out, but the stands were also full of students from other Houses, mostly Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, quite a few of them female, to watch the activities. Harry couldn't remember ever seeing so many students at a tryout.
It was complete bedlam for a while, with first-years and non-Gryffindors trying out for positions, and Harry was becoming quite irate by the time an entire group of Hufflepuffs walked onto the pitch for one of his tryout tests. He ordered all non-Gryffindors off the pitch, then set up a number of trials for positions on the team. After over two hours and several tantrums, which included a broken broom and several broken teeth, Harry had his team: veterans Katie Bell and Ginny Weasley, and first-time player Demelza Robins were his Chasers; the selections were unusual in that all three were female. Demelza was a new find this year; Harry had chosen her because of her ability to dodge Bludgers well.
His new Beaters were Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote, who both did passably well, though neither showed the brilliance of Fred and George Weasley. His Keeper, selected after a hard-fought trial between Cormac McLaggen and Ron Weasley, had tipped in Ron's favor after he managed to save all five of his penalty shots compared to McLaggen's four. There was a tense moment when McLaggen, accused the Chaser taking the penalty shots had favored Ron (in fact it was his sister, Ginny), Harry stood his ground, saying that she had played just as hard against Ron as she had with McLaggen. McLaggen looked ready to punch Harry for a moment, but in the end only grimaced and walked off the pitch, growling threats under his breath.
There were also a few surprises of a different nature during and after the trials. Harry noticed that Lavender Brown, one of the Gryffindor girls in his year, kept smiling at Ron and cheering him on during his trials, more so than anyone else there, Hermione included. But when Hermione ran up to Ron to congratulate him after the trials were over, Harry noticed a rather grumpy expression cross Lavender's face as she walked off the field with her friend Parvati.
After the trials, on their way to see Hagrid, Ron mentioned that McLaggen looked as if he'd been Confunded during his last penalty shot, the one he missed badly, and Hermione suddenly turned a shade of deep pink, as if she were having a guilty thought. Ron didn't notice, being caught up in describing his own saves, but Harry made note of that bit of information for further thought.
Hagrid wasn't pleased to see them, initially — they'd been right that he was deeply disappointed that no one in their year had continued with his N.E.W.T.-level Care of Magical Creatures classes. Harry managed to guilt him into talking with them, however, and eventually they learned that the half-giant was terribly worried about his friend Aragog, the giant acromantula that lived in the Forbidden Forest with his hundreds, perhaps thousands of offspring. They made him feel better by lying through their teeth about Professor Grubby-Plank, saying she was a dreadful teacher, and by the time they left his cabin Hagrid was looking quite cheerful once again. As it turned out, the reconciliation with Hagrid was the high point of Harry's day.
"Blimey, I'm starving," Harry said, the moment they were away from Hagrid's door and on their way back to the castle. He'd given up on eating at Hagrid's when his first bite of rock cake had caused some strange sensations in a few of his back teeth. "And I've got Snape's detention tonight," he sighed, glumly. "I haven't got a lot of time to eat." He didn't add that there was another important meeting he planned on going to, afterwards.
He did smile a bit when, as they walked into the Entrance Hall, they saw Cormac McLaggen trying to enter the Great Hall for dinner. It took him two attempts; on his first try he bounced off one of the door frames, shook himself, and barely made it through the opening on the next try. Ron, watching this, laughed and gave Harry and Hermione a gloating smirk, then followed the seventh-year into the Hall. Harry's suspicions about what happened to McLaggen were confirmed, and he caught Hermione's arm before she could follow after Ron.
"If you ask me," he told her in a quiet voice, "I think McLaggen was Confunded this morning. What do you think, Hermione?"
Hermione blushed again. "All right, I did it," she whispered, not looking very penitent. "But you should have heard what he was saying about Ron and Ginny both being on the team, and Ron your best friend! He's not a very nice person at all — you saw how mad he got when you wouldn't let him have another go. You wouldn't have wanted him on the team, anyway."
"That's probably true," Harry agreed. And it was; as far as he was concerned, McLaggen was a braggart and something of a bully. If he hadn't been Confunded he might have actually tried to punch Harry, which would have been quite unfortunate — for McLaggen, as Harry was not in the least afraid of someone his size any more, as big as he was. "But wasn't that a bit dishonest of you?" he went on, looking at her archly. "I mean, you being a prefect and all?"
"Oh, hush," she snapped at him, and he smirked at her in return.
Ron reappeared in the doorway of the Great Hall. "What are you two doing?" he demanded.
"Nothing," they chorused, and hurried along behind Ron as he turned and stalked back into the Hall. But no sooner had they passed through the door than another familiar figure loomed before them: Professor Slughorn.
"Harry!" Slughorn boomed jovially. "Just the man I was hoping to see!" He puffed out his chest importantly. "I'm having a spot of supper tonight in my room, and decided to make it a little party, invite a few of the rising stars of Hogwarts to join me. We've got McLaggen and Zabini coming, and Melinda Bobbin as well — her family owns several large apothecaries — and of course I hope Miss Granger will favor me by coming too."
Slughorn smiled and made a little bow to Hermione as he said this last part, though he did not so much as glance at Ron, who was standing right next to her. Ron was giving the short, stout Potions professor a scowl worthy of Snape himself, but the man seemed quite oblivious to him.
"I can't come, Professor," Harry answered with a shake of his head. "I've got a detention tonight with Professor Snape."
Slughorn looked so disappointed his expression was almost comical. "Oh dear, oh dear," he said, twirling his walrus mustache anxiously. "That won't do! I think I'll go have a word with Severus about this — explain the situation to him." He clapped Harry heartily on the shoulder. "Yes, I'm sure I'll be able to persuade him to postpone your detention! I'll see you both later!" Slughorn turned and hurried out of the Hall, heading toward the dungeons and Snape's office.
Harry watched him hurry away. "Good luck with that," he added, in a sarcastic undertone, and then turned back to Ron and Hermione. "Snape's not going to postpone my detention another week. He did it for Professor Dumbledore, but he wouldn't do it for any other person!" The three of them began walking toward the Gryffindor Table.
"Oh, I wish you could go, Harry!" Hermione said fretfully as they found places at the table. "I don't really want to go alone!" Harry glanced at her; he was pretty sure she was thinking about McLaggen being there as well.
Ron snorted. "Don't worry, Slughorn probably invited Ginny along to boot!"
After dinner, they had enough time for Harry to spend a few minutes in the Gryffindor common room before he had to head off to detention with Snape. The room was crowded but they managed to find a free table; Ron, still in a bad mood, promptly folded his arms, leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, probably thinking ugly thoughts about Slughorn snubbing him earlier. Hermione saw a copy of the Evening Prophet abandoned on the arm of a nearby chair, and she reached out for it. "Anything new?" Harry asked, as she unfolded it, leafing through the pages.
"Not really…" Hermione shook her head, then looked over at Ron. "Oh, your dad's in here, Ron — no, he's okay!" she added hastily, as Ron looked at her in alarm. "It's an article about him visiting the Malfoy home. It says here Mr. Weasley went to search the home due to a confidential tip-off that there may be Dark activity going on there." Hermione looked up at Harry; her eyes had narrowed with suspicion. "You were talking to Mr. Weasley just before the train left, weren't you? Were you the 'confidential tip-off,' Harry?"
"I told him I thought Malfoy was up to something," Harry said, defensively. In fact he had told Mr. Weasley he saw Draco kill Elphias Doge, but he knew now that it hadn't been Malfoy, but someone posing as him. "I still think he's up to something — that's why he's been so scarce for the past two week, I'd bet. He probably brought whatever he's been working on this summer with him to school!"
"But we were all searched —" Hermione began, but cut herself off. "Oh," she said. "You and Malfoy didn't come with the rest of us!"
"Right," Harry nodded, glad she remembered him telling her that. "So we don't know what he might have brought with him, do we?"
"Surely Filch would have searched him by now," Hermione hypothesized. "If he was a Death Eater, as you say, they would have detected the Dark Mark on his arm, with that Secrecy Sensor of his. Even if wizards who've attained their majority have the right of personal privacy, underage wizards don't. I checked."
"Not as if it matters," Harry muttered without thinking. "Malfoy doesn't have the Dark Mark."
Ron and Hermione both raised their eyebrows at this. "Oh?" Hermione said, her interest piqued. "How would you know that?"
"Oh, uh —" that question caught Harry flat-footed. "Well, when I caught him sneaking around on the seventh floor last week, I accused him of being Voldemort's property now and having the Dark Mark on him, and he pulled up his left sleeve. There was no Mark on his arm." Which didn't mean much to Harry anyway — Malfoy may not have the Dark Mark on him, but he was still under Voldemort's thumb, somehow.
"The seventh floor? Did you report him to McGonagall?" Hermione asked.
"He'd just gone down some stairs to the sixth floor when I caught him," Harry said. "So he wasn't actually on the seventh floor — but I warned him about being out of bounds."
Hermione didn't look happy at that. "Technically you're not a prefect, Harry — you can't warn a prefect, especially not one like Malfoy! The next time it happens you should let me, Ron or one of the other prefects know about it."
"Right," Harry said, with heavy irony. "I'm sure Malfoy will stand around waiting with his thumb up his arse while I find one of you."
Ron stood suddenly, looking irritable. "Well, since I'm not invited to any parties or a part of this conversation, I think I'll go to bed."
"Ron —" Hermione started to say, sounding both reproachful and sorry they'd ignored him, but he stomped off toward the boys' dormitories, leaving her and Harry staring after him.
Harry was about to get up and go after him when a new voice stopped him. "Harry?" It was Demelza Robins, the new Chaser. "I've got a message for you."
Harry turned to her. "From Professor Slughorn?" he asked, a small ray of hope trying to filter through cloud of the day's events. Had Slughorn managed to convince Snape to let him attend his dinner party?
"No — it's from Professor Snape," she said, and Harry's expression fell. "He said to be in his office at half-past eight, uh, no matter how many party invitations you've received. He also said you'd be sorting out rotten flobberworms from good ones, and that you needn't bring your protective gloves."
"Great," Harry said, his expression turning grim. "Thanks, Demelza. Thanks a lot."
"O-okay," Demelza looked unhappy about giving her new Quidditch captain this news. "Well, I've — I've gotta go. I've got to go to —"
"A party?" Harry asked, sardonically.
"Er, to the Library," she answered. "To find a book on — on— for my Charms essay. See you at practice." She scooted out the portrait hole posthaste.
=ooo=
A few minutes before eight-thirty Harry stood and excused himself to go to detention with Snape, telling Hermione he'd see her tomorrow.
"If you like," Hermione said, thoughtfully, "Ron and I can arrange to be out 'patrolling' the ground floor — we can meet you in the Entrance Hall and escort you back to the common room, if Professor Snape keeps you late."
"Uh —" Harry gave her a surprised look. "No, I'll be fine," he answered hastily. "Thanks for offering, though — I appreciate you thinking of me." His manner, however, told Hermione that he didn't want her around after his detention. And maybe not Ron, either, she realized.
"I just don't want you to get in trouble with Filch," she pressed. "Snape isn't likely to write a note for you, is he?"
"No," Harry agreed, "but I'll have my Invisibility Cloak with me — I'll put it on if it looks like I'm going to get pinched."
The Invisibility Cloak, eh? Hermione thought. "Are you bringing the Marauder's Map with you, too?" she asked, trying to sound casual about the question.
"Are you kidding?" Harry arched an eyebrow at her. "I'm not giving Snape a chance to take that away from me!"
Hermione wondered why Harry thought Snape wouldn't take the Cloak away from him, but said nothing. "Well, all right," she said at last. "Just be careful."
Harry smiled at her and left through the portrait hole. Hermione sat for several minutes, analyzing the conversation. It was another instance of Harry being secretive around her and Ron, something he'd been doing ever since he'd returned to the Burrow late one night in mid-July. Even before that, in fact, when he disappeared after the Battle in the Department of Mysteries. She, Ron and Ginny had been worried something terrible had happened to him, but Dumbledore convinced them that he was just off "finding himself" after Sirius's death.
It was true what many of the girls in her year were saying — boys around Harry's age sometimes acted very strangely. Usually it was around girls, and while Hermione saw Harry mostly as the brother she'd never had, he did seem to be showing interest in Cho Chang near the end of their fourth year, even though she was seeing Cedric Diggory. Nothing might have come of that but for Cedric's murder, terrible as it was; Hermione had seen it as a potential opening for Harry with Cho, once she got over the shock of Cedric's death. But this year he had shown no interest in her so far, though Hermione had caught her looking Harry's way several times from the Ravenclaw Table.
Was there somebody else Harry was thinking of? He hadn't acted like a typical teenage boy, riddled with angst over an unrequited love interest. His most obvious problem was his obsession with Sirius somehow being alive, in spite of the fact that no one had ever returned after going through the Veil. Meanwhile, Hermione remembered, her thoughts darkening as she did, that she'd seen Lavender Brown making eyes at Ron several times since they'd returned to school — the girl was practically throwing herself at Ron! It was disgusting. And worse, Ron didn't seem to mind it all that much — Hermione had seen him smile shyly at her more than once in response to her batting her eyelashes at him!
"Oi!" Hermione turned, startled, toward the stairs leading to the boys' dormitories. Ron was standing on the bottom step, looking around the common room. "Is he gone yet?"
"Yes," she said, a trifle crossly; Ron's reactions to Lavender's attentions was still rankling her. "I thought you were going to sleep."
Ron made a who-cares? gesture, then walked up to the table and sat down next to her. "Too early yet," he added. "It's only a quarter 'til nine." He was silent for several seconds; then, "So what were you and Harry talking about earlier?"
"When?"
"Just before dinner. You know, outside the Great Hall."
"Oh." Hermione managed not to blush too much this time. "Nothing — just… Harry made a joke about Cormac McLaggen running into the door, and he didn't want him to overhear."
Ron was snickering again at the memory. "Who cares what that big git hears? You saw how many people wanted to get on the Quidditch team, Hermione — McLaggen is just another loser!"
Hermione sighed; it was another case in point that teenage boys sometimes couldn't see their hands in front of their faces. "Ron, they were all there because of Harry, not for Quidditch. Well — McLaggen was there for the Quidditch," Hermione amended herself. "Boys like him think being stars on the pitch make them poplar."
Ron snorted. "Well, it bleedin' does!" When Hermione frowned at him he put on his own look of exasperation. "Oh come on, Hermione! Even Galvin Gudgeon has been seen with a couple of hot-looking witches on his arm, and the Chudley Cannons finish at the bottom of the league every year!"
Hermione bent over and picked up her bookbag. "Well, if you came down to argue Quidditch with me, Ron Weasley, you can just go right back up to sleep!"
"Okay! I'm sorry!" Ron said quickly. "I really came back down to ask you a question."
"What is it?" she snapped, trying to look impatient.
"D'you think Harry is keeping something from us?"
Hermione sat back down in her chair; her bookbag thudded against the floor. "Have you noticed it, too?" she asked, in a half-whisper.
"Well, yeah," Ron said, as if it had been patently obvious. "He and I haven't talked about things in weeks, ever since he showed up at the Burrow this summer."
"I thought that, too!" Hermione agreed, fervently.
"And what's he going so hard at Malfoy for?" Ron began warming to the subject. "I mean, all bleedin' summer he was talking about finding Sirius somehow, getting him back from 'beyond the Veil,' when everybody knows that's impossible! Now all of a sudden he closes up about Sirius and starts banging on about Malfoy being a Death Eater! I mean, if I didn't know better I'd say he was cracking up." Ron gave Hermione a worried look. "He's not cracking up, is he?"
"I don't think so," Hermione shook her head. "But he's definitely being secretive these days. For example, I got the impression he's going to do something after his detention with Snape, something he doesn't want us knowing about."
Ron nodded. "I thought that, too." He looked around the common room; it was now just after nine p.m. and most of the students had gone up to their dorm rooms for the night. "I figured we better keep an eye on him." He brought a large piece of folded parchment out from beneath his robes and placed it on the table before them.
Hermione looked at the parchment in astonishment. "That's the Marauder's Map, Ron!" she said, whispering to keep anyone else from hearing. "Didn't Harry have that locked in his trunk?"
"Yeah," Ron grinned. "But if you recall, you mentioned the spell you used to get into his trunk to get his Gringotts key a while back, so I thought I'd have a go with it to see if it worked." He wiggled the blank piece of parchment in front of her. "It did!"
"You shouldn't have done that, Ron," she said severely, shaking her head in disappointment. "We shouldn't be going through Harry's things."
"Yeah, right," he snorted at her. "It's okay when you break into his trunk, then, but not when I do it?"
"That was different!" Hermione argued. "I was doing it to help him out — and your mum said it was at Bill's suggestion and it was okay!"
"So I suppose if I get your mum's permission I can break into your trunk, then?" Ron suggested, with a smirk.
Hermione gave him a weary look. "Why are we even arguing about this? We should be seeing where Harry is on the Map."
"Right," Ron agreed, feeling vindicated. If Hermione changed the subject away from an argument he knew he had the upper hand. He took out his wand and tapped the blank parchment, muttering "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Lines instantly began forming on the parchment, showing a map of the castle and surrounding grounds. They both bent over it, peering closely along the corridors of the lower levels, looking for the dot labeled "Harry Potter."
"Here he is," Ron said after a few moments of searching. "Right where he ought to be, in Snape's office. Snape's there, too." Ron shook his head. "I wonder what old Snape's making him do?"
"Sort flobberworms," Hermione answered. "The new girl on your Quidditch team, Demelza, gave him a message from Snape, that's what he was going to be doing tonight."
"Yuck," Ron said, grimacing.
For then next three hours they sat there, alternatively talking about the "Secretive Harry Problem" and checking the Marauder's Map for his location. The dot with his name remained in Snape's office the entire time, as did the one representing Snape. Ron checked the Slytherin common room from time to time; Malfoy's dot and name moved about that room, along with Crabbe and Goyle's. "They must be having a good time," Ron smirked at one point. "Probably tearing the wings off flies."
"Ron!" Hermione said, sounding reproachful, but she smiled a bit when she thought Ron wasn't looking.
Some time after eleven the portrait hole opened and Ginny and Neville came through, chatting quietly with one another. "How was Professor Slughorn's party?" Hermione asked them.
Neville looked at Ginny, who shrugged. "Okay, I guess. Bit dull — he spent most of the time fretting that Harry wasn't there and that he couldn't understand why Snape wouldn't let him attend. I guess he hasn't heard what a good student-teacher relationship they have," she added, with a grin.
"He sure wasn't making that Zabini bloke happy," Neville said, to be part of the conversation. "Or Belby either, for that matter. And McLaggen looked mad enough to chew nails — oops."
The portrait hole had opened once again, and the subject of Neville's last statement had stepped through into the common room. "Why don't you keep your fat mouth shut, Longbottom?" he said in a menacing tone. "Potter doesn't know what he lost when he didn't pick me for the team."
"Oh, he knows, alright," Ginny told him, coldly. "It's pretty obvious what an overbearing git you are, McLaggen."
McLaggen's face turned red, and his hand looked ready to go for his wand. Ron stood, turning to face him. "Don't get any ideas," he said, his voice becoming hard. "Don't forget, I'm a prefect."
"And so am I," Hermione said, standing as well. "It won't look good for you with McGonagall, attacking two prefects, not to mention four members of your own House."
McLaggen relaxed, realizing he was outmatched, then sneered and tried to shrug off his backing down. "As much fun as it'd be hexing all of you, I don't think I'll waste my time. I'm off to bed." He strode away from them, taking several steps before realizing he was walking toward the girl's dormitories. He stopped, glared at them a final time, then hurried up the stairs as Ginny and Ron laughed and Neville let out a small chuckle. Hermione merely sighed in relief.
After a few moments Neville sighed as well. "I guess I'll go to bed, too," he said, then glanced at the parchment on the table between Ron and Hermione. "Hey, what're you looking at?"
Ron had tapped the Marauder's Map with his wand and whispered "Mischief managed," as Ginny and Neville came through the portrait hole — he glanced back at the now-blank piece of parchment. "Oh, just a blank scrap of parchment I had in my trunk." So far as Ron knew, Harry had never shared the Map with anyone but him and Hermione. He wasn't sure if even Ginny knew what it was — Fred and George, his older brothers, had nicked it from Filch's file cabinet their first year, and had given it to Harry in December of his third year. Ron had never heard of it until Harry told him about them giving it to him sometime later.
"It's a pretty big piece," Neville observed, a bit wistfully. "I need a bit for a twelve-inch essay due in Charms next Monday — d'you think you could spare half of it?"
Ron's eyes widened. "Er— no," he said, firmly. "I'm— er, saving this bit for me an' Harry — we're writing papers, too."
"Oh, go on," Ginny said, reaching for the parchment. "I can lend you some later — hey!" Her hand had almost reached to Map when it was suddenly whisked away from her and into Hermione's hand, who was pointing a wand at the table where it had been.
Ginny looked up at Hermione disbelievingly. "What's up with that? It's just a stupid piece of parchment, isn't it?"
"If Ron says it's for him and Harry," Hermione said flatly, "then it's for him and Harry."
"Fine," Ginny snorted. "Come on, Neville — I'll get you some of my parchment." She stomped off up the girls' staircase, returning a minute later with several sheets, and thrust them into Neville's hands. Then without a word to anyone, she turned and stalked back up the staircase to her dorm.
Neville looked rather embarrassed by the whole thing; Hermione couldn't help feeling sorry for him, but she couldn't let Ginny accidentally tear the Marauder's Map in two! "Sorry, Neville," she said quietly.
"No, it's okay," Neville said quickly. He gave Ron a confused look. "I'll see you later," he said, then trudged up the steps to his own dormitory.
"Whoa," Ron said, plopping back into his chair and putting away his wand. "Thanks, Hermione! That was close."
"I didn't mean to make Ginny mad," Hermione said, regretfully.
Ron shrugged it off. "She'll get over it — she won't hold a grudge against Harry."
Hermione knew that, of course. In fact, she knew a lot more than Ron did about how Ginny felt about Harry — they'd had several long talks about him over the past few years. Hermione had tried to convince her to tell Harry how she felt, but Ginny didn't want to put pressure on Harry; she wanted him to talk to her about it on his own initiative. But Harry just couldn't see the subtle clues Ginny had been giving him, and last year she'd pretty much given up, turning to other boys like Michael Corner and Dean Thomas for companionship.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's nearly midnight," she said, put the Map back on the table. "Maybe we better check and see if Harry's on his way back here." She tapped the Map with her wand and murmured the phrase to reveal the Map, then she and Ron leaned over it, looking for Harry.
"Not in Snape's office any more," Ron announced a few moments later. "And — nope, Malfoy's not in the Slytherin common room, either." He looked up at Hermione. "What do you think?"
"I think we'd better find him," Hermione said, worriedly. "With those two out roaming the castle this late at night, no good can come of it!" She grabbed the Map and she and Ron ran to the portrait hole and out into the corridor beyond. It would have been nice to have Harry's Invisibility Cloak too, Hermione thought, but Harry had told them Professor Dumbledore suggested he keep it with him at all times now.
"Where d'you think they might be?" Ron said in a low voice as they walked slowly through the seventh floor corridors. "You know," he theorized. "Maybe he went to the prefects' bathroom, to clean off that flobberworm gunk before he came to bed."
Hermione had to admit, that was possible. "I'll feel better when we find him, though, or Malfoy. I have a feeling…" her voice trailed off as she looked closely around the corridors where the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy was located.
"What feeling?" Ron finally asked, after waiting several seconds for her to continue her thought.
"Look," Hermione suddenly said, pointing to the Map. They both saw the dot labeled "Harry Potter" moving along a nearby corridor, toward the corridor containing the tapestry. "He's headed for this corridor," she said quietly, pointing out the corridor with the tapestry to Ron.
"How d'you know that?" Ron wanted to know. "Malfoy's not there, is he?"
"No, it doesn't seem so," she admitted, not wanting to say where she thought he might be. If she was right, though, it could mean he was up to something very bad. But even if Malfoy knew where the Room of Requirement was, how would he know how to get into it? Could Marietta Edgecombe have told him? Hermione doubted it — the purple boils on her forehead and cheeks that spelled "SNEAK" would have been far worse had she said more than a few words about the D.A.'s meetings. As it was, Hermione recalled with a small, grim smile, the ones that had covered her face after ratting them out still hadn't quite disappeared yet. "But I'd rather just find Harry and get him back to the common room before he does find Malfoy."
They made their way quietly to the corridor where the tapestry was located. It was dark along this section at this time of night; Ron had taken out his wand and lit it, and was now looking around. "Wait a minute," he said at last. "This is where we came to the D.A. meetings, isn't it?"
"Yes, Ron," Hermione replied, a bit wearily. Malfoy knew about this corridor, of course — he'd caught Harry with a Trip Jinx as he'd tried to make it to a boys' bathroom further along the corridor.
The door to the Room of Requirement wasn't present, but Ron said anxiously, "You don't think Malfoy's in there —?"
"I don't know," she replied, shortly. She held up the Map to look for Harry once again. "Let's see," she said, looking along the corridor drawn on the parchment. "He's probably close by now —"
"I'm right behind you," Harry's voice said, and both Hermione and Ron started and turned around. There was no one there, but a moment later Harry appeared from under his Invisibility Cloak. "What are you two doing here?" he asked, sounding angry. "And what are you doing with that?" he pointed to the Marauder's Map. "Did you break into my trunk again?" he said, accusingly, to Hermione.
"I did," Ron said, quickly. "We were watching to see when you were coming back from detention with Snape."
"What difference does that make?" Harry asked, harshly. "I think I can make my way back to the common room on my own, thank you very much!"
"But you didn't go to the common room, did you?" Hermione pointed out, looking around. "You came here, probably to find Malfoy, isn't that right?"
"So what if it is?" Harry answered in a belligerent tone. "Malfoy and I have…things…to discuss. Things that don't concern you!"
"Of course they concern us!" Hermione argued. "We don't want anything to happen to you, Harry!"
"Nothing's going to happen to me," Harry shook his head. He folded up the Invisibility Cloak and stuck it into one of his pockets. "Besides, look around — you don't see Malfoy hereabouts, do you? He must've seen you and decided not to show."
"Or," Hermione suggested, looking at the wall opposite the tapestry. "He's in there."
"What, the Room of Requirement?" Harry was silent for several seconds. "Did you see him on the Map, then?"
"No," Hermione replied. "But the Room of Requirement isn't even on the Map. Maybe someone inside it can't be seen on it."
"But it showed Peter Pettigrew even when he was in his Animagus form," Harry objected. "Professor Lupin told me he saw him."
"I wonder why we never saw him on the Map," Ron said; he was still thoroughly disgusted that he'd kept the rat for nearly three years before they realized it was really a man in rat form. "Or why Fred and George never did — they had the Map all that time I was here but never said a word about him!"
"Probably because they never looked for him," Hermione said. "I don't think the Map shows anyone until you look for them — otherwise it would have dots with people's names moving over it all the time."
"Well, why don't we stop guessing, then," Ron said, jerking a thumb toward the spot where the door normally appeared. "Let's get in there and see if Malfoy's inside."
"No," Harry said at once. "Let it be — I'll find him some other time. Come on, let's go."
"Wait a minute," Hermione said, now thoroughly confused. "You don't want to talk to Malfoy now? After all the trouble you took to come here? What's going on, Harry? What're you up to?"
"Nothing," Harry said quickly. "I just — I decided I'm tired and don't feel like finding Malfoy now, anyway."
Hermione crossed her arms and gave Harry a suspicious look. "That's awfully convenient, Harry. You must've expected Malfoy to be here if you came, and under your Invisibility Cloak, too! Why don't we just —"
"So, Potter," a new voice suddenly said. "Afraid to meet me alone, are you?"
The door to the Room of Requirement had appeared, opening even as it faded into existence, and Draco Malfoy stepped through and into the corridor, sneering at the three Gryffindors. "I'm not surprised," Draco continued, with a smirk at Harry's friends. "You never were brave enough to take on your own battles."
Harry's teeth clenched in anger. Malfoy was gloating, trying to goad him into acting rashly. He still wasn't ready to reveal his secret to Ron and Hermione — especially not in front of Malfoy! He couldn't afford to give the Slytherin — or Voldemort — any more leverage against him.
"You know that's a lie, Malfoy," he snapped, but didn't move toward the door. "But we'll have this out later, not now — my friends don't need to be involved in our…business." He started to turn away, taking Ron and Hermione with him.
"Oh!" Malfoy looked positively gleeful. "They don't know, then, do they?"
"Know what, Malfoy?" Ron snapped at the Slytherin. "What are you on about?"
"Nothing," Harry said quickly, trying to keep them moving away. But both Ron and Hermione stopped, turning back to Malfoy.
"What are you hiding about Harry, Malfoy?" Hermione demanded. "Do you have some more vicious lies, started by the Ministry, to spread around the school again?"
"Oh, not lies, Granger," Draco said smoothly. "What I know is dead true." He waved a hand at them airily. "But if Potter doesn't want you to know, I suppose you'll just have to hear about it some other time — say when tell all my friends in Slytherin, and they start spreading the word about Potter.
"Or," Draco continued, with a malicious grin. "You can come inside, Potter, and we'll have our 'discussion' in private. It's up to you."
Harry turned to Ron and Hermione. "You need to go," he told them urgently, in a low voice. "It could get — dangerous around here."
"All the more reason for us to stay!" Hermione declared, now very worried indeed for Harry and what he had planned, as well as what Malfoy may have cooked up inside the Room of Requirement. "You don't know what he's got waiting for you inside there!"
"Whatever it is, I can handle it," Harry told her, sounding a lot more arrogant than he felt.
"But what if you can't?" Ron spoke up. "If that room can get you whatever you need, maybe he's got a way to beat you — or worse, a way to take you to You-Know-Who!"
"Look," Harry snapped, no longer interested in trying to be subtle. "I'm tired of arguing with you two — now both of you just clear off!" He pulled out his wand, unexpectedly, and took a step back as he shouted "Protego!" throwing up a Shield Charm between him and them. Hermione and Ron, both caught off-guard, were pushed back by the spell, and Harry turned and bolted for the Room of Requirement's door, which was now standing empty — Draco had disappeared inside. The Shield Charm faded, but it had done its job — by the time Ron and Hermione had reached the door Harry had yanked it closed and it disappeared from the wall even as Ron reached for it.
"Dammit!" Ron snarled, slapping his hands against the wall in frustration. "What's Harry playing at? He knows better than to put himself in a position like that!" He looked at Hermione. "What do we do now?"
"I don't know about you," Hermione told him determinedly. "But I'm not moving from this spot until one or both of them comes out of there." She looked Ron in the eye. "And heaven help Malfoy if he comes out alone."
Inside, Harry looked around, not seeing Malfoy immediately. But the Room—! It was like he'd never been in here before; it was now the size of a small cathedral, its walls stretching up what seemed an impossibly high distance, with tall windows that seemed to light up the room in spite of the fact it was after midnight, showing him what appeared to be a city with towering walls, built from thousands of items that appeared to be the cast-offs and leavings of students over the history of Hogwarts. Harry could see alleyways and roads bordered by teetering piles of damaged and broken furniture, thousands upon thousands of books of all sizes, shapes and condition. He saw piles of old, moldering clothing, and objects from every age imaginable, from rusty coats of mail, to toy catapults, and from there to old Fanged Frisbees. Where had Malfoy disappeared to in all this?
"Malfoy!" Harry called out. "You wanted me in here! Show yourself!"
"Come and find me, Potter!" Malfoy's voice, filtered by distance and the massive piles of objects in the room, came from somewhere ahead of him. Harry shook his head in frustration and hurried forward into one of the corridors of tottering books. He had gone a short distance when he heard Malfoy laugh; it seemed to come from somewhere to his right. He turned right, going past an enormous stuffed troll, and stopped just in front of the Vanishing Cabinet, the one Fred and George had locked Montague in last year; standing next to it, at one edge of an open space of perhaps fifteen feet, was Malfoy, holding an old, bloodstained battleaxe. He had a twisted grin on his pale, sharp face.
Harry frowned at the axe, but otherwise he felt like laughing. "You've got to be kidding," he told the Slytherin, pointing his wand at the axe. "You can't fight me with that old thing."
"Shows what you know, Potter," Malfoy said, hefting the axe threateningly. "This is a very special axe — it was given to me by the Room of Requirement, and I've been practicing with it for the past week."
"Maybe I should tell Hagrid," Harry replied, mockingly. "He might need some wood chopped for his cabin this winter."
"Funny," Malfoy said, though his expression showed no trace of amusement. "Maybe you'll get a laugh out of this, though." He crouched forward, knocking the handle of the axe against the ground, and a sudden blast of light momentarily blinded Harry.
When he could see again, Harry gaped in surprise at the person standing before him. Malfoy was gone, replaced by what seemed to be a tall, powerfully built version of his father, Lucius Malfoy, dressed in silver and black armor and now carrying a gleaming, double-edged axe. But when the man grinned at Harry he knew instantly who it was. "Surprised, eh? I bet you never expected this, Potter! Now let's see how well Thor does against me!" He took a step toward Harry.
Harry's wand was out, but instead of striking it against the ground he pointed it toward the transformed Malfoy, shouting "Petrificus Totalus!" The Full Body-Bind spell shot at Malfoy, but he batted it casually aside with his axe.
"Pathetic, Potter!" he grinned. "Now let's see you catch this!" and he flung his axe at Harry. Harry dived frantically out of the way as the gleaming axe spun past him, driving into and through the wall of debris behind him. There was a lot of tearing, snapping sounds and a final loud crunch as the axe slammed into something solid.
Harry had rolled into a crouching position, and now realized he would have no chance against the transformed Draco Malfoy. He struck his wand against the ground and a moment later there was a second flash of light as he transformed to Thor.
"Good," Malfoy said, seeing Harry's Thor form leaping to his feet. "Now let's see what your hammer can do against my axe!" He held out his hand; Harry heard a second crunching sound as the axe pulled free of whatever it had buried itself in and flew into Draco's waiting grip. He turned and leaped toward Harry.
Axe and hammer slammed together with a tremendous CLANG of metal against metal. Malfoy's attack was ferocious — Harry found himself barely able to prevent the axe from striking him, strikes that instinct told him would cut deeply into even his powerful, muscular form. Malfoy's eyes were blazing with hatred as he swung mercilessly, again and again, trying to cut or slash Harry open. At one point, with hammer and axe momentarily locked together, Malfoy lashed out with his left hand, catching Harry in the face and staggering him. It was the first blow Harry had received as Thor that he'd really felt. Recovering quickly, Harry released his hold on the hammer, freeing his right hand for a tremendous swing that threw Malfoy's huge form into and through a wall of old furniture, scattering it widely. The axe and Harry's hammer were both flung away as Malfoy landed on a heap of ancient books.
Roaring with rage, Malfoy sprung to his feet, eschewing further use of his axe, and attacked Harry with his bare fists, swinging with blows that slammed into Harry like Bludgers, even as his own massive hands grabbed at Malfoy's arms, trying to tie him up. But Malfoy was fighting all-out, like a man possessed, and Harry could not seem to hold him, even with his prodigious strength. They stood toe-to-toe, smashing each other with sledgehammer blows, until both at the same time held out their hands, recalling their respective weapons to themselves.
Malfoy's axe arrived first, and he swung it at Harry in a disemboweling blow that just barely missed, tearing the dark blue leather of Harry's tunic and gouging a shallow cut across Harry's abdomen. At the same moment, Harry caught Mjolnir and swung a blow at Malfoy that threw the blond-haired giant against the wall near the door, shaking the room. Malfoy staggered, catching the wall the keep himself upright, and looked dazed. Approaching him, Harry glanced at the door, seeing where the axe had apparently embedded itself earlier — he could see a deep cut in the door, deep enough that light was shining through it from the outside, and two eyes were peering through the crack, staring at him in astonishment.
But it was too late to worry about that now. "Had enough?" Harry asked the panting Malfoy, who was now crouching as if in pain.
Suddenly the axe swung toward Harry, faster than he would have thought possible. He put out an arm to catch the handle, but the edge of the blade slammed into his chest, cutting him deeply and throwing him backwards. The metal discs on his tunic had blunted some of the blow but Harry was now wounded. Malfoy leaped after him, slashing viciously with the axe, blows Harry mostly avoided, but also receiving cuts on his arms and shoulders from the flashing silver axe.
Forced backwards along one of the corridors of discarded object, Harry is finally standing beside the stuffed troll when Malfoy, trying to end the battle decisively, swung the blade overhead with both hands and chopped downward toward Harry, shearing off one of the troll's arms and slamming the axe into Harry's helmet, knocking him to the floor. The troll's arm fell across him, along with the bundle held in the crook of its arm, and landed on the floor next to Harry.
Harry lay on the floor, too dazed to recover quickly. Malfoy stepped over him, gloating. "Not so big now, are you, Potter," he said softly, swinging back his axe for the final blow. "Now I'll have Thor's Hammer, and you can join your parents!" But even as the axe quivered in his hand, preparing to strike, Malfoy blinked, at first uncomprehendingly, at what was lying next to Harry on the floor.
The bundle that fell from the troll's arm had burst open, revealing a jumble of bones that might have been a small, human skeleton. But it was the material itself that had drawn Malfoy's attention — or rather, an certain insignia sewn into the material: Sable, a chevron between two mullets in chief and a sword in base, argent; the terminology his parents had insisted on teaching him about family crests. What it meant was, a black shield with two greyhounds on either side, a green chevron in the middle separating two five-pointed stars above and a single sword, pointed upward below. Below it was the phrase "Toujours pur," French for "always pure." In even more basic terms, it was the Black family crest, the family his mother had been born into. And inside it were the bones of a very small human being.
Was this the "sticky situation" this room had saved his mother from. Draco bent down, snatching up the bundle, bones and all, ignoring Harry completely. What had she done? "Mother," he whispered, thinking of all the possibilities.
"NO!" Draco turned and strode toward the door, carrying the bundle with him. With the axe in one hand and the bundle in the other, he did not pause at the door, but simply kicked it out of his way, sending it flying across the corridor and into the tapestry.
Outside in the corridor, Ron and Hermione, who'd been watching as much of the fight as they could through the hole sliced in the door, had jumped out of the way at the last moment. They watched in amazement as Draco turned and strode down the hallway, ignoring them as well, until he reached the window at the near end of the corridor. With a single swipe of his axe, Malfoy smashed out the glass, then threw the axe out the window, catching the strap of its handle and flying out with it, just as Harry did with Mjolnir in his Thor form. The two of them rushed to the window, peering carefully through the broken glass, expecting to see his body on the ground below. "Do — do you see anything down there?" Hermione asked tremulously, not wanting to look herself.
Ron was squinting downward. "Nope, nothing." He looked back at her. "He couldn't have survived a fall like that, could he?"
"Not unless he could fly," Hermione answered, "and we both know that's impossible. No one can fly unaided."
"Well, he was carrying that axe," Ron pointed out, uncertainly.
"Ron, have you ever heard of a flying axe?" Hermione demanded.
Ron shrugged, scanning the skies for a moment, but it was too dark to see anything. "Do — do you think that was Malfoy?" he asked Hermione, looking unnerved by all he'd seen in just the past few minutes.
"It looked like his father," Hermione answered. Her voice was calmer than his — she'd guessed something was going on, after all, but nothing like this! "It might have been him, somehow. Come on!" She hurried back toward the Room of Requirement, with Ron right behind her.
They both peered cautiously into the room, both surprised by its size and contents. There was a moan, and Hermione hurried toward its source. Ron followed more slowly, looking around at the objects piled precariously atop one another. "Oh my God!" Hermione called out suddenly "Ron! Come here, quick!"
Ron hurried up one of the corridors between stacks of old furniture and books, following the sound of her voice. He'd gone only a few steps when he came upon Hermione kneeling over a large muscular man with long, black hair, dressed in strange, blue leather and a large red cloak. There was a large metal helmet on his head with wings on either side, and a deep dent across the top; rivulets of blood had run down the side of his face, and his head lolled back, as if he were dazed from a mighty blow. If Malfoy had hit him with that axe —
"Is this Harry?" Ron asked, amazed again. What had this Room done to him and Malfoy, he wondered — and how could he get some of it?
"I think so," Hermione answered. "Look at his eyes." Ron looked; the man's eyes, visible intermittently as the he blinked dazedly, trying to focus on something, anything, were a brilliant green.
"Those are Harry's eyes, alright," Ron agreed. "D'you think this is the secret he was keeping from us, then?"
"I don't know," Hermione answered, shortly. She was trying to get the helmet off him, but it seemed stuck on, somehow; she couldn't budge it. "I can't get this off!" she said, frantically. "We have to help him, somehow!"
"Shall we get Madam Pomfrey up here?" Ron asked, turning back to the door. "She might be able to do somethin'—" A hand caught his arm — it was Harry,
"No," Harry gasped weakly, "Don't — don't tell…anyone else…in school," he managed to say.
"We've got to tell someone, Harry!" Hermione insisted, her voice going shrill with worry. But the exertion had been too much for Harry; he lapsed back into unconsciousness. "He's out again! Oh, Ron, what're we going to do?"
"Who at Hogwarts would Harry trust?" Ron thought furiously for several moments, then snapped his fingers as he thought of the answer. "Dobby!" he shouted.
There was a crack and a moment later the small, homely house-elf stood before them. "Harry Potter's friend has called Dobby," he said in his high, squeaky voice. "What may Dobby do for them?"
"Dobby, this is Harry Potter, believe it or not. You've got to help him!" Hermione spoke with frantic haste.
"This is Harry Potter?" Dobby said, looking at the large man sprawled on the floor before him. "Harry Potter has grown up fast!"
"We don't know why he's like this," Hermione said quickly. "But you've got to get him to the hospital — to St. Mungo's — right away. Do you think you can take him there? But don't tell anyone who he really is!" she added hastily. "He —he doesn't want anyone to find out this happened to him, I think."
Dobby stepped up to Harry's form, putting a small, gnarled hand on his shoulder. Ron and Hermione both watched anxiously as he held it there for several moments. "Yes," Dobby said at last. "This is Harry Potter — Dobby will bring him to the hospital." He took hold of Harry's hands in his, then looked up at Ron and Hermione, who were now both standing over them. "But Harry Potter is so big, now! It may be difficult…"
"Will you try, Dobby?" Hermione pleaded. "Please, Dobby!"
Dobby nodded determinedly. "Dobby will try." A moment later there was a loud CRACK and both Dobby and Harry disappeared.
Hermione sagged against Ron, and he supported her as they walked through the broken doorway of the Room of Requirement and into the corridor beyond. Several steps beyond it, they both stopped, turning to watch as the door lying on the floor across the hallway slowly rose into the air, floating into place in the doorframe. The door then faded from sight once again, leaving the hallway as if nothing had ever happened, except for the broken window at the end of the hall.
"I hope Harry gets well quickly," Hermione said, looking up at Ron. "Then he's going to explain all this to us, or I'm going to kill him!"
=ooo=
Some time later, Harry had been admitted to St. Mungo's and was resting quietly in Ward Four (the Cliodne ward) on the ground floor of the magical hospital. He'd been placed on the Artifact Accidents floor of the hospital because the obvious injuries in his shoulder and head appeared artifact-inflicted.
It had been a strange admittance. The Welcome Witch in the reception area, used to unusual occurrences and situations, was nevertheless rather surprised when a six-and-a-half-foot man suddenly appeared on her desk, along with a frantic house-elf demanding he be admitted. Healers in lime-green robes rushed in, examining the unconscious form and quickly moving him out of the room while other patients muttered about him being taken out of turn.
"Just hold on!" the Welcome Witch finally snapped at the room in general, to quiet them down. "With obvious trauma wounds the Healers decided his need was greatest at the moment! So you can all just settle down and wait your turns!"
Grumbling and complaining under their breaths, the other patients went back to their rickety chairs while the witch questioned Dobby about the man.
"Name?" she asked.
"Dobby, the free elf," Dobby said, proudly.
"No, his name," the witch said impatiently, jerking her quill in the direction they'd taken Harry.
"He is not Harry Potter!" Dobby said at once, then suddenly banged his head against the top of the nurse's desk.
"Stop that!" the Welcome Witch reached out, jerking Dobby upright. "I know he's not Harry Potter," she said, in a irritated tone. "I've seen him in the paper and that's not him. Harry Potter's got the best-known face in the Wizarding world today, since Gilderoy Lockhart went barmy. Now, can you tell me the name of the man you just brought in?"
"Dobby doesn't know what to call him," the little house-elf told her. "He was unconscious when Dobby found him."
"Very well," the witch said, writing down the name "Joe Muggs" on the admittance form, then consulting a clipboard containing several parchment pages and adding "#96-102" after the name, for the 102nd such person admitted to the hospital that year. "Do you know how his injuries were inflicted?" she asked next.
Dobby shook his head, his great tennis-ball-sized eyes looking rather distraught.
"Do you know where the incident took place?" the witch went on, trying to sound more patient than she felt.
Dobby nodded his head this time, but remained silent.
After several seconds, the witch looked up at him. "Well?" she asked, a bit irritated. "Where, then?"
Dobby blinked at her, then shook his head. He then got down on his hands and knees and began slamming his forehead against the desk again, until the Welcome Witch reached out and restrained him.
"Alright, never mind," she said. "We'll get the necessary information from him when he wakes up — if he wakes up," she added, dispassionately. "You can go, now," she told Dobby.
Dobby nodded gratefully to her, though inwardly he was horrified by the implication she'd made. Harry Potter, not wake up? It was unthinkable! He disappeared with a crack back to Hogwarts. Harry Potter's friends should hear of this!
Back in the Cliodne ward, Harry had been placed in a bed and his helmet, cloak and tunic were finally removed by the Healing team assigned to him. The cloak detached from his tunic without much trouble but the tunic itself was more difficult to remove. It did not respond to spells to loosen it, vanish it, or cut it; neither did the helmet, though both had to be removed to treat the wounds beneath them.
Finally one of the Healers had the bright idea to try changing the man rather than the clothing. It took three Healers, each applying a Shrinking Charm to his body, to get him to shrink even a little bit, and they barely got his helmet and tunic off before he returned to normal size.
The wounds were just as obstinate about healing, almost as if they were made by a cursed weapon or spell. Fortunately, neither would was deep — no bones had been damaged, though skin and muscle had been lacerated by whatever had cut through the tunic. The helmet, though still intact, had a great crease in its crown; it had been that material, rather than whatever had hit it that had damaged the dark-haired man's scalp. Both wounds resisted healing spells, and Healers with special experience in healing potions were called in for consultation.
Dittany on the chest wound did not seem to help, and the potions specialists were baffled about what to do next until they noticed both wounds seemed to be slowly closing on their own, even without the addition of dittany. It was decided to prepare some Blood-Replenishing Potion in case he awoke weak from loss of blood; otherwise they recommended allowing him to rest comfortably and heal on his own.
Later that morning, as the day shift was coming on duty, Harry received another visitor in lime-green robes. This time it was the middle-aged man he'd met in the hospital Tearoom a few months ago, the Squib who'd called himself Joe. Joe walked slowly up the aisle to Harry's bed, leaning on his cane for support. He was just coming on duty when one of the other Healers had mentioned the new patient in the Cliodne ward: the tall, strapping but unknown male they'd called Joe Muggs #96-102. As this was Joe's name as well (or at least, the one he'd been given, all those years ago), he thought he'd look in on the person. Who would have thought it would be this man?
"Good morning, Joe," a voice behind him spoke pleasantly, and Joe turned to see one of the day shift Healers, a Miss Arachna, standing behind him. "I see you've met our latest 'Joe Muggs,'" she said, looking at the unconscious man.
"Yes," Joe nodded. "Though I've met him before."
"Really?" Healer Arachna looked surprised. "When was this?"
"A few months ago," Joe answered, looking down at the Healer; even though he was hobbled with a bad leg, he was still much taller than she was. "He was here with the Records Keeper, Henry Chamberlain, looking for a Muggle who'd been in the hospital more than thirty years ago, someone named….Donald Blake, if I remember correctly. Chamberlain called him 'Thor.'"
"Good, good," Arachna muttered, scribbling the information down on the chart she held. "I'll get with Chamberlain and see what he remembers. "Thirty years ago, huh?" she said, looking up at Joe with a wry smile. "A bit before my time, I think!"
Joe nodded absently at the young witch. She was a pretty, black-haired woman with large, round glasses reminiscent of a style normally adopted by witches older than herself — she had told Joe some time ago that she was just ten years out of Hogwarts, so she wasn't even thirty yet. He had been working here at the hospital longer than she'd been alive.
"Not before my time, I'm afraid," Joe smiled wanly. "But I don't remember any person named Blake coming into the hospital, so I wasn't much help."
"Well," Arachna said, with a small shrug. "That's not our worry, is it? We'll get this Thor healed and send him on his way. Hopefully he'll be able to find the man he's looking for. If he doesn't wake up within a few days or so of those wounds healing, though," she added, her expression turning somber, "we may have to move him to the Janus Thickey ward." Her smile returned as she looked at Joe once again. "See you at lunch?"
"I'll try to be on time today," he said, and she nodded and left the ward. Joe looked at Thor once again. The Janus Thickey ward was for patients with permanent brain damage. There were only a handful of patients in there now, thankfully — two ex-Aurors, a husband and wife team, and a rather annoying, golden-haired fellow named Lockhart who, even though he had no memory of who he'd been, was still quite vain about himself. Joe couldn't see this man going into that ward.
Joe stepped closer to the bed containing Thor's still form, laying a hand softly on his shoulder. The wound across his chest seemed smaller now; the skin was almost completely sealed again, and though it was still an angry red, there seemed to be no trace of actual infection. Joe wished he could remain until the man awoke — there were some questions Joe felt like he needed to ask, but his other duties must come first. He stood, moving slowly to the ward's door, and looked back at the still form before he left the room. He would be back, he promised himself, as soon as he had a break, and would return to sit here when his shift was over.
=ooo=
Draco had not fallen to the castle grounds after flinging himself through the seventh-floor window; instead, he was carried upward into the midnight sky by the axe, powered with Loki's enchantment, and flew south, toward Devon and his parents' home. Clutching the blanket to him, he paid scant attention to the wind whistling past him, flying faster than any broom or carpet, until a short time later he caught sight of the countryside surrounding the Malfoy estate. Having bullied his parents into buying him brooms in his younger days, and sneaking out to fly them at night, he knew the landmarks surrounding his home, and the happy times he'd spent up in the nighttime sky looking down on it, feeling glad that he was more special than the other families in the area — he was a Malfoy, and his family controlled most of Wizarding Britain. As they should!
But none of those memories mattered now, not after what he'd found. Draco could hardly think straight, he was so sickened by what he'd found in the Room of Requirement. His own mother was some kind of slut, some whore, who'd let herself be defiled by some wizard before she was even married! If his father ever found out — Draco shook that thought from his head; it did not bear contemplating, for his mother would be dead if Lucius Malfoy found out the truth about her.
Malfoy landed on the front lawn of the estate, slamming into the ground so hard his feet were driven in past his ankles. He stepped out of the holes and strode quickly up the steps to the front doors. It was locked, but with one furious swipe of his axe the door shattered inward, and Draco stepped across the threshold and into the long, dark hallway. "Mother!" he shouted. "Aunt Bella! Are you here! ANSWER ME!" His bellows resounded throughout the house, until a few moments later two women appeared almost simultaneously from two separate door and rushed up the hallway toward him, their wands lit and held high to allow them to see.
Narcissa reached him first, and as her wand illuminated him she stopped short in surprise. "Lucius?" she said, uncertainly. "What are you —"
"I'm not Father," Draco snapped. "I'm your son, Draco."
Bellatrix arrived a moment later, giving him a look that hovered between jubilation and fear. "Did you get it?" she asked, tenseness in her voice. If Draco had the hammer, and had used it, as his new body implied, there was no telling what he might be doing here.
"No." Draco held up the axe. "I used this to become like I am now. I got it from the Room of Requirement." He turned to his mother, holding out the blanket he'd found. "I also found this in there, Mother. Do you know what I found inside it? An infant's skeleton!"
Narcissa was backing away from him, shaking her head. "I — I don't know what — what that's —"
"You don't know?" Draco roared, shaking the blanket at her. Several bones, human remains, fell from the blanket onto the floor of the manor. "How can you say that, Mother? Look at the initials on the blanket!"
Narcissa's eyes were wide with fear. "I — I tell you I don't know, Draco! Someone must have stolen it from me, used it to make me appear guilty —"
Draco threw the blanket on the floor. "And you expect me to believe that? Mother, please! Who else knew about the Room, other than you? Why would they put it there to make you look guilty, if it was supposed to be a secret? Isn't it much more reasonable to believe this is the 'sticky situation' you told me about before I got on the train to Hogwarts?"
But before Narcissa could reply, the small, stout form of Peter Pettigrew appeared. "You've disturbed the Master!" he said, with as harsh a voice as he could muster, being confronted by a seven-foot-tall man wielding an axe. "He w-wishes to see all of you in his chamber, now!"
"Does he?" Draco snarled. "Good! I wish to see him as well!" He strode to the drawing room ahead of the others, slamming an arm into the door and smashing it from its frame, then stepped into the room to confront the Dark Lord.
Voldemort, as before, was seated upon the throne he'd erected before the marble fireplace at the head of the room. His red eyes followed Draco's movements closely as the young Slytherin stepped to the middle of the room, followed closely by his mother, aunt and the rat.
"Hmm," Voldemort said, after staring at Draco for several moments. "If I understand correctly, you claim to be young Draco Malfoy."
"I am," Draco answered forcefully.
Voldemort nodded slightly. "I see the truth in your eyes, Draco," he said softly in his high, clear voice. "I might even have believed you managed to obtain the Hammer of Thor, if it weren't for the fact that you're holding an axe, not a hammer, in your hand. How did you come by this power?"
"That's my concern," Draco replied coldly. "You only need to know that I have this power, and I intend to use it to take the Hammer of Thor — for myself!"
Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "Indeed? That seems rather presumptuous of you, Draco. After all, you are mine, now."
Behind him, Draco heard his mother whimper in fear. He hated hearing that, even more than he hated the thought of her disgracing herself before she and Father were married. Even if he despised her for her failures, she was still his mother, and he would fight to protect her, whatever it may take!
When Draco did not reply immediately, Voldemort stood and stepped down from the throne. "You do not answer me?" he said, a dangerous edge coming into his voice. "When you know I hold the lives of your parents in my hand?"
"You won't for long," Draco growled, hefting the axe. "Not when I've carved you into pieces for threatening my family!"
"You think so?" Voldemort looked almost amused by the idea. His wand was in his hand — Draco had not even seen him move to get it.
Draco grinned wolfishly. "You couldn't beat Thor when you met him, remember? Yet I beat him to a standstill just a short while ago! I would have killed him, too, if I hadn't found something that brought me here first. If you couldn't beat him, you don't stand a chance against me!"
"You may be surprised," Voldemort said, and his voice was as cold as ice. "I, too have been busy these past few months, creating spells to contain someone with even Thor's might. Attack me at your peril, boy."
"With pleasure, you old fool!" Draco shouted, flinging the axe at the Dark Lord with all his strength. Voldemort's wand had come up even as Draco's arm drew back, and by the time the axe was whizzing through the air at him, Voldemort had conjured a silver shield; the axe slammed into it, embedding itself halfway through the shield.
"Impressive," Draco said, then held out his hand. "Return to me, axe!"
But though the axe quivered, it could not free itself from the shield. Voldemort pointed his wand at the axe and the shield disappeared, leaving the weapon floating in mid-air. He reached out and grasped it, holding it easily, then waved his wand over it again as he spoke several arcane phrases. The axe shimmered and reverted to its original form: an ancient, blood-stained battle axe. At the same time, Draco's tall, imposing form began to shrink, and within moments he had returned to his pale, thin teenaged self.
Stripped of his power, Draco turned to look helplessly at his mother, horror written on his face. Her own face was a mirror to his, while Bellatrix looked on tensely.
"You were saying, Draco?" Voldemort asked, in a sardonic tone. He glanced once more at the battle axe in his hand, then let it fall to the floor with a clang of metal on stone. "What shall I do with you?" he wondered aloud, almost sympathetically. "I'll tell you what — I'll let you decide. Should I kill you for your betrayal of me, or shall I punish your mother for your transgressions as you watch? You may decide, but quickly, or I'll be forced to do both."