Wheels Within Wheels—Part Two
Kendra and Lily
Chapter Twenty-One
The Return of Grindelwald
Daphne completed her rounds in good order, but she had had to force herself to focus throughout. That was a very rare occurrence for her, usually appearing only when she was distracted by a health matter affecting a member of her immediate family. Otherwise, she was both highly professional and genuinely interested in the welfare of her patients, to the point that she sometimes needed to consciously distance herself when she was nominally engaged in other activity away from the hospital.
Daphne made sure her notes were up-to-date in her patients' charts. Then she chaired a meeting of the department staff. By noon, she was done with everything she needed to do at the hospital. Harry wouldn't normally be free from the ministry until sometime after five o'clock, so there wasn't a lot for her to do at #12 Grimmauld Place. She wasn't aware Kingsley had ordered Harry to leave the ministry, but she felt the need for some fresh air and exercise, so she took the lift to the roof and disapparated, apparating just outside the wards of Greengrass Manor.
The talking gate welcomed Daphne back, and she thanked the gate for the sentiment, before going on inside to greet Raffles. Once he was settled down enough to stay under her arm, Daphne scooped Raffles up and went upstairs. She went to her room and got out of her work clothes, choosing a matched warmup set from her closet, along with some running shoes. Packing up Raffles once more, she returned downstairs and went outside via the sunny room by the patio. Daphne passed Fabio on her way down through the gardens to the green.
"Father," she said, "Are you taking some time away from work, following sound medical advice?"
"Daphne! It's all about priorities, isn't it? And today, pulling up these stalks had to take priority over earning money. It's almost time for lunch, so don't stay out too long," Fabio said.
"I'm going to run along the lanes for a little way, just until I get London out of my lungs and Greengrass Manor air in," said Daphne. "Raffles won't last very long, so he can be my timer. See you at lunch."
Daphne reached the green at the bottom of the slope and put Raffles down. He took off across the green and Daphne started after him. She jogged slowly, keeping Raffles in sight but letting him find his own way and pace. Gradually, she lengthened her stride as her muscles warmed up, although Raffles still had no trouble staying in the lead. The December air started out cold in her nostrils, but soon she appreciated the feel of it coming in, as she warmed up and began to sweat a little.
It wasn't long before Daphne had run out of sight of the manor, to a part of the lane bracketed between two parallel rows of hedges. She turned around and jogged backwards, looking carefully at the lane behind her. When she was sure there weren't any people about, she transformed into a lynx, feeling once more the thrill of going from biped to quadruped in mid-stride. Daphne never got tired of the sensation of leaving behind the thump-thump-thump of the two-legged runner for the smooth, effortless, guddle-ump-guddle-ump-guddle-ump of four legs. Daphne thought she started with a fixed amount of energy and endurance as a human, and drew it down the longer she ran, but the lynx seemed to able to run forever, getting stronger as she ran. She understood that had to be a physical impossibility, but Daphne had yet to run, as a lynx, to the point of exhaustion.
Raffles started out with a good lead, but the lynx closed the gap, steadily, letting the Bichon extend himself as much as his short legs could. When she got close enough, the lynx extended her neck and bumped Raffles with her nose. He, for his part, took advantage of his lesser size and mass and dodged left and right, stopping quickly and letting the lynx run past, timing his own restart to run past the lynx while it was still getting started after stopping and turning. Once Raffles managed his timing and ran back through the cat's legs after a course reversal. Raffles and the lynx had played this way many times in the past, enjoying the solitude of the hidden lane. Unless there were farmers in the area, a rare occurrence for late December, the two had the lane to themselves. Thus it was not surprising that neither noticed the portal, nor the heavy bars of the steel cage that sat, with its own door open wide, just on the other side.
Harry left the ministry with no real plan. He was simply complying with Kingsley's orders. He considered his options and decided Kingsley, as usual, had the best suggestion, which was to go home and work out. He apparated to #12 Grimmauld Place, went upstairs, grabbed a pair of pants from a track suit, and headed for his dojo.
Harry kept his workout simple. Track pants and bare feet, some stretching of the long muscles in his arms and legs, then kicking, then speed work for his hands. When he was finished, he decided he would proceed to the flat, where the familiarity and informal atmosphere felt more comfortable than the still-fussy, and barnlike, #12 Grimmauld Place. As he headed for the front door, Harry noticed his Head Auror's baton, still sitting on the bookcase where he had placed it after the St. Mungo's Ball. He could not have articulated why he picked it up and tucked it under his arm on the way out of the house.
Once at the flat, Harry considered dropping everything and going to the Leaky Cauldron for some lunch. He felt sharp, and not that hungry, following his dojo time, however, and decided to put off eating for a while. He sat down at the little desk and chose a note card, on which he wrote, "Daphne, at the flat. Kingsley sent me home (literally!) if you are free, let me know. Harry"
Harry dispatched the note and sat by the window. He picked up the baton and looked it over. He hadn't noticed it before, but the silver knob was slightly loose. Harry looked closer and saw what appeared to be the traces of threads showing on the neck of the knob. He twisted the knob and found he could unscrew it, revealing the ebony shaft was hollow. Harry held the open end up toward the window and tried to see the bottom, but the light just seemed to disappear into the ebony interior.
Harry's wand lay on the table, and he picked it up and dropped it in the baton. The wand had plenty of room until it got to the handle, then it stopped dropping in. As Harry watched, the ebony part of the baton expanded, allowing the wand to drop in fully. Harry screwed the knob back on. He waved the baton at his casement window, the latched popped, and the window opened. He waved it again, and the window closed and latched. He tried the refrigerator, with similar results.
"Interesting," he thought to himself.
Harry tucked the baton under his arm, like a swagger stick. He looked at the refrigerator and thought, "Open." Nothing happened.
Harry checked his position to make sure the baton was pointed at the refrigerator door, and thought, "Open." The door opened, a bit sluggishly, perhaps, but it opened. Harry thought about what he had just seen. He pulled the baton out from under his arm, turned it around, and put it back. He pointed it at the refrigerator door and thought, "Open," and the door opened as if he had pulled on the handle.
"Well, that's good to know," Harry thought.
He was sitting at the table, about to come to a decision to head to the Leaky Cauldron for some lunch when he heard the sound of nails scratching against masonry, and Raffles ran, barking, out of his fireplace.
Harry immediately saw that Raffles was encumbered with some non-Bichon accessories. A piece of twine was tied around his neck, and with it a wand that bumped along the floor as he ran toward Harry, and a rolled-up piece of paper hanging in front under his chin. Raffles jumped on Harry as Harry knelt down on his kitchen floor.
"I know, it's important, isn't it?" Harry said, as Raffles made it difficult to remove his impedimenta, with all his jumping and twisting. He kept up a steady yapping and whining routine while Harry tried untying the twine, so that Harry had to pick up the baton from the table and cast muffliato before he risked a complaint from the neighbors.
Harry got the wand removed from the twine, and recognized it as Daphne's. He put the wand next to the baton on the table and turned to the piece of paper that was rolled up and tied into the twine. Harry took up the baton again and cast an untying charm, causing the twine to drop to the floor, as it released the paper. Harry picked it up and unrolled it. A blotchy message that looked like it had been written with cheap ink and an old quill overlay some printing. Harry oriented the paper and read:
"Be holding the dog when it becomes a portkey if you want to see her again."
Harry literally saw red. The meaning was unmistakable. Grindelwald, presuming it really was Grindelwald, had snatched Daphne and was using her for bait. Something emerged and fought for space in Harry's consciousness. He could not allow himself to sit holding Raffles waiting for transport to someplace where he would wreak death and destruction. That could ensure death or serious injury for Daphne, and probably for himself as well. Grindelwald was not brute strength, Grindelwald was intellect, magical skills, and curiosity run amok. Intellect and cunning would defeat him, not a street auror, no matter how well-tuned.
Harry looked at the castoff paper upon which the note had been composed. At the top he saw '328 Infantry Regiment – 82ndDivision – AEF.' The text appeared to be a unit newsletter. AEF was American Expeditionary Force, so Grindelwald was back in France around 1918. Harry decided to get into uniform, so he grabbed Raffles and ran to his bedroom. He got out of his street clothes and pulled his brigadier's uniform from the hanger. A wand speeded up dressing considerably, and he was ready for departure in less than a minute. Harry tucked the baton under his arm, slid Daphne's wand up his left sleeve, picked up Raffles and sat down on his bed.
Nothing happened, and Harry decided to try one more thing, keeping Raffles on his lap, just in case time ran out. He unscrewed the silver knob and leaned forward so his wand slid out into his hand. Taking Daphne's wand in his left hand, he tapped his wand, and said, "Proxima reverso" before sliding his wand back into the baton and replacing the knob. He sat there, clearing his mind, preparing to be transported into that three-meter world of combat as soon as Raffles the port key went active.
He did not have to wait very long.
Harry had his first three moves in mind while he was being transported by Raffles. As soon as his feet touched down, he bent at the waist, put Raffles' feet down, and stood up holding Daphne's wand in the first dueling position.
"Expeliarmus!" said a handsome young man, and Harry lost Daphne's wand as the spell pushed him back. Harry had expected something like that, so he did not have the rag doll reaction of someone taken by surprise. He landed on his feet and glared at Gellert Grindelwald.
"Impressive, Potter," said Grindelwald. "Your reputation has gotten around, of course, but there is nothing like seeing the actual man in action. I have something of yours, I believe. You must become more attentive to your livestock, Potter. This one was running loose all over the countryside, so I penned it up for you."
Grindelwald flipped Daphne's wand toward a steel cage that held a lynx with a platinum coat, sending sparks toward the cage and causing the cat to become agitated.
"What's her name?" Grindelwald asked.
"What do you want from us?" Harry responded. "You're breaking a lot of china, to no good purpose, at least not that anyone I know can discern."
Grindelwald pointed Daphne's wand at the cage again, and shouted, "WHAT'S HER NAME?"
"Princess," Harry said, as the rumble of artillery sounded from some distance away. "Now let her go. Then, we'll talk."
"Just so we understand one another, Potter, I'll give you the conditions of your employment. You work for me. Princess stays healthy as long as you work for me. That's all. Do we have an understanding?" Grindelwald asked with a sneer.
"You don't need to know what I'm doing or why. You don't need to know why I'll send you to do things for me. You'll just do them. Then you'll come back. If you do those things well, Princess will be here waiting for you." Grindelwald seemed to find that an adequate new employee orientation.
"Now, Potter, since you don't have any questions, you can give me the other wand. This one belongs to Princess. You will have brought your own," Grindelwald said, as if he expected Harry to be dazzled by his superior logic.
Harry reached up with his right hand, across his body to the silver knob on the Head Auror's baton, which was tucked under his left arm. He moved deliberately so as not to give Grindelwald any doubt about his intentions. With his right hand, Harry unscrewed the knob so that the open end of the hollow baton was pointed at Grindelwald.
"Accio wand!" Grindelwald said, the glee in his voice quite apparent. The lynx made a yowling sound in the cage, clearly distressed by what she was witnessing. Harry's holly wand flew out of the hollow baton and across the room to Grindelwald, who caught it in his right hand.
"Send her back," Harry said. "She hasn't done anything to you. You've got me where you want me. You've won."
"I don't think so," Grindelwald said. "That's a very nice cat. You're clearly attached to it. I think it is going to be quite useful, as a little insurance. You see, Potter, I have a plan. The small minds around Durmstrang, with their spells and curses, can understand so little. They are limited, just like their magic. Wizards are capable of so much more than potions. Wizards who take the time can learn to use magic to shape time, mold light, change the elements into energy. Muggles are pressing forward in their relentless, ant-like way, discovering powers beyond imagining just a short time ago. The only problem is the muggles doing research are consumed by their investigations, and the muggles who will exploit them are corrupt, power hungry, and completely lacking in vision.
"What is wanting is a little guidance. With or without your help, Potter, a small and very select group of wizards will take control of the muggles' research. We will use magic to amplify their primitive attempts and exercise vigorous oversight to keep them confined to constructive channels. The greater good must be served, it is the way of things. There will be opportunities, for the wizards with the right skills, and healthy attitudes. Don't pretend you don't have unsatisfied ambition, Potter. Someone with your abilities, tidying up street crime for Kingsley Shackelbolt? Work for me, Potter, and do a good job. You'll move up as fast as your accomplishments merit. Entertain foolish notions, and you can expect to see a lot of this!"
Grindelwald swung his arm and pointed Harry's wand at the lynx, as Harry shouted, "NO!" and lunged forward.
Grindelwald was more than fast enough to react. He brought Harry's wand back around, and had gotten as far as "CRU" when the holly wand sent Crucio straight up Grindelwald's arm to his breastbone. Grindelwald's face went slack and the hand holding Harry's wand dropped. Harry had anticipated the opening and hit Grindelwald with a combination of punches to the head and body, before picking him up by his throat and slamming him to the floor. He stepped on Grindelwald's right wrist and felt a very encouraging series of crunches as the wrist underwent some adjustments, before Grindelwald's right hand unclenched, freeing Harry's holly wand.
"Accio!" Harry shouted, catching his wand as it popped up from Grindelwald's open hand.
"Brachiabindo," Harry added, pinning Grindelwald's arms to his sides.
"Get back," Harry said to the lynx, and cast Alohomora, popping the cage door open. Harry expected to see Daphne transform as soon as the lynx was clear of the cage, but the cat leapt across the room and stood on Grindelwald's chest, looking down into the immobilized wizard's eyes. Harry had felt those lynx eyes on him before, and he wondered if the cat remembered they needed to let Grindelwald go, so he could face his destiny. He didn't consider it a problem, one way or the other. If they both ended up in Perdition, at least they'd be able to enjoy one another's company for a good long while. They might even be celebrities there, for having dispatched such an abomination as Grindelwald.
"How could anyone think it was alright to torment such a beautiful animal as Princess, anyway?" Harry thought to himself.
Princess, though, was just giving Grindelwald a tutorial in manners. She calmed down and stepped back, then transformed back to Daphne.
"Princess?" was the first, withering word out of Daphne's mouth, once she returned to her human form.
"Short for Fairy Princess," Harry explained.
Daphne looked at him. Eventually, she spoke. "We'll talk, later," she said.
"Now, what do we do with this? He has been very naughty. Your mentor wants you to put him back. It's quite the dilemma."
"No dilemma," Harry said. "She made her wishes very clear. I didn't know about his experiments, though. If we just send him back, he'll undoubtedly return to what he was doing. The world is in peril if he takes his knowledge back with him. I figured out what he's doing here. One of Albert Einstein's correspondents was Belgian, Georges LeMaitre, and Belgium is right over there.
"I think, to let him go, we have to make sure he doesn't go back to his scientific pastimes. Do you understand, Daphne? For him to go back to 1899, and not be a mortal danger to the world, all over again, we have to make sure he doesn't remember you, me, France, Belgium, Einstein, LeMaitre, timestreams…"
The meaning of Harry's soliloquy began to emerge for Daphne.
"Oh, no, I'm a healer, Harry," she said. "You're asking me to experiment on a human being. This isn't saving a memory in a vial for the pensieve. I'd be wiping a portion of his mind."
"We have to let him go back, and do all the things he does, and end up facing Dumbledore and getting locked up for the rest of his life. Everything that happened after his expulsion from Durmstrang depends on that series of events. That's the meaning of my instructions," Harry said. "We have to let him go, in a condition that allows him to do all of those things, even the bad ones. If he remembers any of this," Harry gestured with a sweep of his hand, "he'll be able to stop us, just by assassinating one grandparent each."
"Let's get started," Harry said. "It's the only way."
Harry knelt beside the immobilized Grindelwald, pulled the baton out from under his arm, and unscrewed the silver knob.
"You can put them in here," Harry said.
"Ariana Dumbledore," Daphne said, her sudden distress apparent in her voice.
Harry looked back at her, his face grim, and nodded.
"I know," he said.
Daphne, with the discipline of a physician, put all the bad that Grindelwald had done, and would go on to do, out of her mind, and went to work. Harry knelt and held the baton with the open end up, while Daphne probed, identified memories, removed them from Grindelwald, and dropped them into the hollowed-out baton.
Harry concentrated on keeping the baton upright so the memories didn't get spilled out onto the floor and contaminated. There were going to be some interesting internal discussions in the Ministry of Magic when he turned in his baton. His position, as Head Auror, would be that the silver knob should be covered in sealing wax and the baton put in stasis for at least 1,000 years in hopes that by then all danger of unauthorized time experiments would be past, and magical humanity matured to the point his baton was a quaint artifact shown to schoolchildren on field trips.
The Unspeakables, of course, would want to take it back to the Department of Mysteries and poke and prod and keep their results to themselves. There had to be liaison desks where at least a part of the story was known, and they would have their own justifications for favored approaches.
Just another day at the office, Harry thought.
Harry looked around the room. It reminded him of the farmhouse where he had been introduced to Sergeant James Potter. He wondered how Grindelwald had managed to requisition it for his purposes in the middle of a combat zone.
It was well after dark, and Daphne was pulling memories and dropping them into the baton when the door opened. Harry gripped his wand, hard, and looked up. Kingsley Shacklebolt entered, followed by Bart Fudge and Blaise Zabini.
Harry looked at them, and gave them a little shake of his head.
It wasn't long before Daphne said, in a voice that was not much above a whisper, "Done."
"Sure?" Harry asked.
Daphne nodded.
Harry screwed the knob back on the ebony baton, which he tucked under his left arm. Then he offered his arm to Daphne and lifted her back onto her feet. He leaned over and scooped up Raffles, who had been, surprisingly, respectfully quiet while Daphne worked on Grindelwald, but re-energized as soon as she stood up.
"Gellert Grindelwald," Harry said, indicating the immobilized man on the floor. "We'll need some transport, if you want to take him back."
"Already arranged," Kingsley said. "It should be here any minute now. How are you, Chief?" he asked, looking at Daphne, the concern quite evident in his tone.
"I'll take a few days to process, Minister," Daphne said, using the back of her wrist to wipe the corners of her eyes. "I may need a little getaway, but I think I'll be okay."
The distinct sounds of a four cylinder engine and mechanical brakes came in from outside. Blaise opened the door, and Harry could see Sergeant James Potter in the driver's seat of the Model T Ford. A woman wearing a military uniform, and an imperious air, stepped down from the rear passenger seat. She strode into the room and looked around.
"Is this the man who hit you, my Lord Potter-Black?" she asked, without prologue.
"It is, ma'am," Harry said.
"And you're Healer Daphne," she said. It was a statement, not a question.
"Ma'am," Daphne said, curtsying out of habit.
"I've heard you know your business, Healer," she stated.
"I do, ma'am," Daphne answered.
The woman looked at Kingsley.
"Take him back," she said, then, turning, spoke to Harry and Daphne. "Well done, you two. Very well done"
With that, she exited and turned the corner. She should have passed by a window a short distance further along the wall, but Harry didn't see her.
Kingsley took charge, issuing a series of succinct instructions.
"Our guest in the Ford, with the Major, in front. Harry, Daphne and Bart in back. The portal will take you to Godric's Hollow, 1899, and you'll drop him in front of Bathilda's. The Sergeant will keep driving and Harry and Daphne can hop off in the lane where you were running, okay? I've got a portal just around the corner, here, a minute from now. See you all tomorrow."
Everyone took their place in the Model T according to Kingsley's directions. Grindelwald was still immobilized, so Blaise used levicorpus to put him in the middle of the front seat. In back, Harry got Daphne settled and handed her Raffles for company. Sergeant James Potter looked at Daphne in her track suit, then at Harry.
"Don't say anything, don't say anything, don't say anything," Harry pleaded, in desperation, trying to will the sergeant into keeping silent about Harry's personal arrangements in the parallel time stream.
Just as Kingsley had said, no sooner had the Ford been put in motion than they appeared in the main street of Godric's Hollow. Harry elbowed Bart Fudge.
"Want to do something? Levicorpus, in front of that house, now!"
Sergeant Potter kept driving as Mr. Fudge used his wand to lift Gellert Grindelwald out of the front seat of the Ford and direct him to Bathilda Bagshot's front gate, where he dropped him. The Model T drove directly into another portal, and out onto the lane between the hedgerows. Sergeant Potter coasted nearly to a stop, as Harry and Daphne stepped onto the running board, then, one after the other, hopped down. Blaise smiled, and saluted with a tap of his wand to his cap bill, just as the Ford entered another portal.
"Quite an operation, just stringing those portals together, the way they did," Harry said. He looked at his watch.
"This way," Daphne said. She put Raffles down in the lane. Raffles promptly began working the hedge row on the left, looking for lively little animals to harass, and coming up short.
They crossed the green and climbed the hill to the house, passing the dormant beds where Daphne had talked to Fabio earlier.
"What time is it?" she asked. "I must have left my watch inside."
Harry told her.
"They have to put us back at the same time we left. Otherwise the time ledgers get unbalanced," Harry said.
Daphne looked like she didn't believe him.
"Honest. At least, that's how it was explained to me," Harry said.
"Well, lucky for you, then, Head Auror, because you're about to get a healthy lunch, prepared just for you, under my supervision," said Daphne.
They climbed in silence for a bit, each keeping their own counsel.
"That guy was a pain in the ass," Harry offered.
"He sure was," Daphne agreed.
"I see what you meant by how disruptive he could be to planning," Harry went on.
"Harry, what did you do to get him to curse himself? I was just trying to keep track of the wands, and then he got hit with something, just before you were all over him," said Daphne.
Harry almost snickered. "I knew I would have a hard time, wand to wand, because he's Gellert Grindelwald, after all, and I suspected he'd do something like he did, and get the drop on me as soon as Raffles brought me there. I guessed he'd get the wands away from me. To make it not seem too easy, I concealed mine in the baton. The trickery was literally schoolboy stuff, very…silly schoolboy stuff. We used to do it to the Slytherins all the time, and they'd do it to us. Mostly the boys. Millicent might know it. I know for sure Ginny does. It's just a jinx, proxima reverso, and all it does is make the wand send the next spell back at the caster. It's just the thing to make your enemy look stupid in Potions. I used your wand to put proxima reverso on mine, so the first thing he tried with my wand went back to him. Of course, all I wanted was a little moment of confusion, so I could move in close and take magic out of the equation, but Grindelwald obliged me by putting a cruciatus on himself. The cur."
"Can we talk about any of this?" asked Daphne.
"Not a word," Harry said. "But the way these things usually work, it will be the prime topic of conversation in the Leaky Cauldron by this time tomorrow. We won't confirm or deny, and the mystery just adds to the legend, of course."
Daphne walked along, pondering Harry's answer. Finally, they stood on the patio, ready to enter the house through the sunny room. Daphne looked at Harry.
"My sweetheart, the Head Auror, is the only person alive who has defeated both Voldemort and Gellert Grindelwald in single combat. Neither of us is allowed to discuss it, with anyone. Does that sound fair to you?" Daphne asked.
"Well," Harry said, "you will be getting included in the rumors, so brace yourself. You're already well-known in magical scholarly and medical circles. You're just moving up a notch on the chart of fame. Maybe we should think about some home improvements, over at The Mill. Would you like that? The fairies seemed glad to see you, and you looked very, very happy in your crown. I expect Raffles would love to run with them."
"The minister did send me home, for the day, and my director saw me working well after dark. You already did rounds. Neither of us will be missed. What if I were to suggest, after lunch, another visit to The Mill, where we'll begin to develop a To-Do list. What do you think?"
Daphne opened the door and stepped into the sunny room, followed by Harry.
"Yes. Absolutely. I need a few hours to clear my head. That sounds perfect," said Daphne. "I may actually need a few days, or weeks, Harry."
"Nothing like a little project to give you that sense of satisfaction, while chasing the unpleasant memories away," Harry said, as if he knew what he was talking about.
"I'm convinced," said Daphne. "The first rule will be, Keep It Simple."
"It will be for getaways," Harry said. "No extraneous complications allowed."
"Peace and quiet," Daphne added.
"Contemplation-friendly," Harry suggested. "But not the hard, problem-solving kind, more like, allowing the problem to present itself as a non-problem."
"Will there be hand-holding?" Daphne asked.
"Lots," Harry assured her.