CHAPTER 24 – The Fight
As he sat in the stands, Harry could not have been more proud. Gryffindor was in the lead for the Quidditch Cup and, since the Slytherin lost their last game, the team was now playing against Hufflepuff for a chance at the prestigious trophy. Harry was confident of their win as they had practiced long and hard for a chance not only at the Cup but also to play against Harry's team.
Ginny was sitting next to him, looking radiant in her Gryffindor red and gold. For the last game of the year, she had abandoned all pretence at being neutral and was now proudly wearing her Gryffindor colours, to Harry's great pleasure.
As she had done all year, Ginny would interview the players after the game and write an article for the Daily Prophet retelling the match. It seemed her articles had been hugely successful with the wizarding world and, when the Prophet failed to publish the article after the third game, it had received so many owls of complaints it had no choice but to print her story the next day. The Prophet confided to Ginny afterwards that in recorded history, it had never received so many owls requesting for something to be published. Harry suspected people were just looking for something positive to read, and kids' successes were always welcoming news. And the way Ginny wrote her articles, even the losers sounded like winners.
"I love you, Ginevra Molly Weasley," he whispered to her ear.
"And I love you, Harry James Potter," she said with a radiant smile.
Ginny's articles were not the only thing Harry rejoiced over. The fundraising efforts had been so successful, Professor Flitwick had to add another row of seats to the stands to accommodate the growing crowd. In addition, Hogwarts coffers, while not as full as before the war, had a certain cushion which allowed the school to remain free for all who attended. As he did for all the previous games, Harry had again donated an hundred galleons and a lot of Hogwarts graduates had followed his example with mostly lesser or equal contributions. Some had even contributed more, to Harry and Professor McGonagall's delight.
The players flew out of their changing room and a few moments later the game began amid cries of encouragement from the crowd. As the game progressed, Harry was secretly happy to see how badly Dennis Lewison was playing that day, and he really wondered how Ginny would be able to put a positive spin on the Keeper's performance. He actually played so badly that after an hour, Hufflepuff had no chance of winning at all, even if their Seeker was to catch the snitch. And to make matter worse for the losing team, the Gryffindor Seeker did catch the snitch with barely any competition from the demoralized Hufflepuff Seeker who had been halfway across the pitch with no chance of reaching the snitch on time to offer any real challenge.
"I wonder how you will be able to make them sound any good, Ginny," said Harry to her ear after the game.
"I – I don't know," she said with a worried frown. "I'll – I'll figure something."
As people were walking out of the stands, she turned to him, biting her lips.
"What's wrong? Your article will be fine," he said, thinking she was still worried about it.
"Can you come home tonight?" she asked, taking him by surprise.
"Of course," he answered, caressing her cheek. "What's wrong?" he asked again.
"I have to be away for the next two weekends," she said. "We're going to train in Bulgaria and we will be playing the Bulgarian National team in a friendly match."
"But that's brilliant, isn't it?" said Harry.
"Well, yes," answered Ginny. "But – but we haven't been away from one another for that long, and, well, I don't like it."
Harry kissed her forehead.
"We'll be fine, my love," he said with a smile. "We'll be just fine."
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But two weeks later, Harry regretted his brave words. His nightmares had come back, haunting his nights, in addition to two new dreams which were even more gruesome than the ones before. The torture of the woman in the last dream had been so completely inhuman and savage, it had made Harry vomit when he woke up. He had decided to notify Holmes of the latest victim but he knew there would be no life for her after what had been done to her. As bad as it may sound, he hoped, for her sake that she wouldn't survive the ordeal.
The day Ginny returned, Harry woke up exhausted. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in days and he decided to go see Ginny that night, after her Quidditch practice. His decision made, he picked up the Daily Prophet from his desk, opened it and his heart stopped.
'Ginny Weasley's New Romance: She dumps Harry Potter for Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum' read the headline, under which was a moving picture of Ginny with her hand on Viktor's arm. The picture moved to show her in his arms and then, they were turned as if they were kissing.
Harry put a hand on his heart as if someone had taken a knife to his chest: his Ginny, with another man, his Ginny with Viktor Krum of all man, Viktor who was supposed to be his friend. He looked at the picture again, hoping it would change but it did not. Full of pain and grief, he tightly rolled the paper and walked out of his office. He reached the Teachers' lounge and, without hesitation, threw Floo powder on the fire. He called the 12 Grimmauld Place and walked into the green flames.
He found Ginny, walking into the kitchen, yawning and stretching like a cat.
"What is this?!" he hissed, throwing the paper on the table.
With a frown, Ginny took it and read the headline.
"You believe this?" she asked incredulously.
"You felt like you enjoyed yourself good enough when you were there!" he responded shortly, showing her the ring.
"Of course I did! I was playing Quidditch!" she replied, her temper rising also.
"And being very cosy with Viktor Krum, I see!" spat Harry bitterly.
"I will pretend I did not hear that," she said very quietly, red with fury. "Go back to Hogwarts, Harry. Go and think about what you're saying! I don't want to see you until you're ready to see reason and make sense again!"
Without another word, she walked out of the kitchen. Harry hesitated a moment before taking the Floo network back to Hogwarts.
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"You did what?!" asked Hermione that evening when they were sitting in Harry's office.
After being questions, Harry had admitted he had been particularly miserable all day because he had fought with Ginny that morning.
"You fought over a stupid news article by Rita Skeeter, no less?!" she asked furiously.
Harry hadn't even noticed who had written the article but he knew Hermione must have received an owl from Ginny during the day since he hadn't mentioned what they had fought over.
"She looked pretty cosy," he said shortly, in his defence.
But even to his ear, his defence sounded lame.
"How stupid can you be, Harry Potter?" she yelled at him, standing up. "Are you really stupid enough to throw away all you've got because of a stupid article by Rita Skeeter?"
Harry looked at his desk feeling miserable, and more than a little bit ashamed of himself. Again, he had acted before thinking, a thing that had got him in trouble more than once in the past. He could feel Ginny's misery and pain through his ring and it made him feel even worse. Hermione was right; he was an idiot.
"I do not want to talk to you until you apologize to her," she said and stormed out of the office.
Hermione was true to her word. After a night of nightmares, to which he could add dreams of Ginny leaving him for all sorts of reasons, Harry tried to seek out his best friend to ask her how he could make it up to Ginny. When he found her in the Teacher's lounge, he had barely opened his mouth when she raised her hand to stop him and walked away. To make matter worse, all day he could feel Ginny's misery reflecting his own.
The next morning, after another horrible night of nightmares, he woke up resolute to go home that evening, right after Ginny's Quidditch practice, and make it up to her somehow. This decision made him feel good enough to eat some lunch in the Great Hall, later that day.
He had been eating for a few minutes when he saw Professor McGonagall make her way towards him, her lips so thin he knew she was upset. Then Connor came into the Great Hall, running towards him, in tears. Harry stood up alarmed by the sight of him.
"Connor?" he asked worried.
The eleven year old stopped in front of him and began pounding him on the chest with his fists.
"Why?" he screamed in rage. "Why did you send her flowers? Now she's gone! She's gone!"
"Who, Connor? Who?" asked Harry, trying to stop the youth's fists.
And Harry felt an intense joy through the ring linking him to Ginny, a joy followed by surprised, then anger, and then fear, a deep fear that made his heart stop, followed soon after by pain, a pain in his chest so intense he let go of Connor and would have fell to the ground had he not hit the table with a loud crash instead.
"Harry!" yelled Hermione, reaching his side.
Pale as if he were dead, he turned unseeing eyes towards Hermione.
"Ginny," he whispered, tears flowing freely from his eyes. "Ginny!" he yelled and began to shakily make his way to the door.
Professor McGonagall reached his side and, helped by Hermione, brought him to the staff room at the end of the Great Hall.
By the time they sat Harry in a chair by the fireplace, he was shaking violently from fear, a fear he felt as much through his ring as in his heart.
"Harry, what's wrong?" asked Professor McGonagall.
"Ginny... Ginny's in danger, and in pain," he said, shaking.
"How do you know?" asked Professor McGonagall.
"The rings?" asked Hermione.
Harry nodded and Hermione quickly explained the nature of their rings to Professor McGonagall.
"I think we should talk with Mr McKeithan," said Professor McGonagall. "He may have seen something that could help us."
Professor McGonagall left and Hermione put a blanket over Harry's shivering shoulders.
"We'll find her, Harry," she whispered. "We'll find her."
The fear coming from Ginny was so strong, it threatened to completely overwhelm him. He had to concentrate very hard to be aware of what was going on around him and stay as focus as he could.
Professor McGonagall came back a few minutes later with a still very distraught Connor. Hermione walked to the boy and sat him in a chair away from any view of Harry.
"Connor," she said gently. "I need to ask you some questions. It may be very difficult but I want you to be very courageous, as courageous as Godric Gryffindor. Can you do that?"
After a few seconds of hesitation, he nodded.
"When you walked into the Great Hall earlier, you spoke about flowers. Did you dream about them?" asked Hermione as gently and calmly as possible.
"No," he answered, looking at his legs. "I was about to ask something to my friend when I just saw... something wrong."
"Can you tell me what you saw?"
"I saw Ginny in her Quidditch uniform. She was walking towards some changing room. She walked to a locker and opened the door. She saw the roses and smiled. The card said 'I love you, H.'. She looked so happy..."
Connor tried to turn around to look at Harry but Hermione stopped him, gently holding his chin in her hand.
"Connor, I want you to look at me. I want you to pretend there are only you and me here, okay?"
Connor nodded again.
"What did you see afterwards?" asked Hermione.
"She took the flowers and she disappeared," he said. "Then, in front of her, there were the two men and the woman I saw in my dreams before," he said and tears fell from his eyes again.
"Connor, think about where they were. Can you describe it for me?"
"They were on the side of a mountain," he said, closing his eyes in concentration.
"Keep your eyes closed," invited Hermione gently. "What else do you see?"
"I see a small village far away," he said.
"How do the houses look like?"
"They have pointed roofs and they are dark brown. There are four rows of them. It's like on a plateau."
"Is there a train station?" asked Hermione.
"I don't see one," answered Connor. "I don't see any cars either."
"Okay, Connor, good job," encouraged Hermione. "Now, look at the woman. How does she look like?"
"She – she looks happy. She's smiling," he answered with a shudder.
"What colour is her hair?"
"Brown with white in it. They are tied up like Professor McGonagall."
"In a bun?"
"Yes."
"Is she tall?"
"No, she's at least a head smaller than the men. She's round, like Mrs Weasley, but she looks a lot meaner. She's wearing a black dress with big black shoes."
Hermione took a sharp intake of breath and looked up at Professor McGonagall. She had recognized the description and so did Professor McGonagall.
"What about the men?" asked Hermione.
"One is tall and skinny. He has dark brown hair and a little beard. He looks mean, too. He's also wearing black," said Connor.
"You're doing good, Connor," encouraged Hermione. "Tell me about the other man."
"He is tall and muscular. He makes me think of Viktor Krum but he has no beard, and his eyes are cold. He's wearing a black leather duster and black trousers."
Harry was reminded of his own dream and he knew who the man was.
"Antonin Dolohov," he said, looking up at Hermione. "He's got Ginny!"
And he became even more afraid, if that was at all possible. He knew what Dolohov could do; he had seen it in his dreams.
"Connor, you are very, very brave," said Hermione. "You can open your eyes now."
Connor did and turned around to look at Harry.
"Why did you send her the flowers?" he asked, tears running from his eyes.
"I – I didn't," said Harry, his own eyes full of tears. "I swear to you, I didn't."
Connor ran to him and hugged Harry who returned the hug.
"You'll save her, will you?" he asked Harry.
"Yes," said Harry. "We'll save her."
But in reality, Harry was far from convinced they could.
Once Connor was gone, Hermione turned to Harry.
"Antonin Dolohov?" she asked with a frown.
Harry nodded. It all fit. His dreams of Muggle attacks had seemed so familiar to him, as if he had known the perpetrator, recognized the level of violence somehow. And now, he had his answer. Antonin Dolohov. He remembered reading the Death Eater's file and it was all there. Harry would have to send an owl to Holmes to let him know.
"I think the woman is Alecto Carrow," said Hermione.
"Yes, I would think so," agreed the Headmistress. "And I would assume she is with her brother."
Hermione nodded in agreement.
"And the village could be Hogsmeade," continued Hermione. "The fact Connor did not see the train station doesn't mean it isn't there. It may simply mean the angle of his vision didn't allow him to see it."
The Headmistress only nodded.
Harry looked at his hands, a feeling of defeat in his heart. How would they ever find Ginny in such a vast territory? Somehow, he felt it was impossible.
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Ginny had been gone for twenty four hours when Harry received an owl from Mrs Weasley asking him why he and Ginny had missed their weekly game without letting her know, and telling him she was getting very worried. Harry had sat in front of a parchment, continuously feeling Ginny's pain and fear, and incapable of writing a response, when Hermione took the quill and parchment away from him and wrote it herself.
That was over an hour ago.
Harry was still at this desk, paralyzed by Ginny's fear, when Hermione walked to him and slapped him on the cheek, hard. It got him out of his stupor and he looked at her in surprise.
"Snap out of it, you big loon!" she exclaimed. "I need you to help, Harry! We're the only chance Ginny's got! And you may think you're the only one who cares, but I love her, too! And I don't want her to die!" she finished, bursting into tears. "And – and you, staring into emptiness is not helping! Right now, as it is, the last thing Ginny needs to feel is despair coming from you!"
"Hermione, I'm so sorry," said Harry remorseful, looking down at his hands. "But I'm so afraid!"
"You were afraid too when you went to confront Voldemort, and it never stopped you from doing the right thing!" she spitted back at him. "Get a grip, Harry, now!" she added, angrily drying her tears with the sleeve of her shirt.
He knew she was right and tears from his eyes, afraid of what was to come next, afraid of what may have already been done to Ginny.
Once they got themselves under control, they went to Harry's room, and Hermione retrieved a parchment and quill from her rucksack to take notes.
"Professor McGonagall and I are pretty sure the woman is Alecto Carrow," said Hermione, repeating what she had said the day before.
"Don't we have pictures of her we could show Connor?" asked Harry. "In an old Daily Prophet, maybe? If I recall right, they were pictures of her when she escaped from Azkaban. Otherwise, I could owl Holmes for some."
"Good idea. I'll search the library," said Hermione, beaming at him. "We'll do it as soon as we're done here. If the woman is Alecto, the first man Connor described could be Amycus."
"It sounds like him," agreed Harry.
"And you think the third man is Antonin Dolohov?"
"Yes," answered Harry. "The description fits and so do the patterns of the Muggle murders, which have all taken place fairly close to here."
Hermione wrote furiously.
"You know, we need to ask Hagrid to search the mountains," suggested Hermione, writing another note. "He knows them fairly well since he was hiding there during the war."
"Maybe Ron and I can do some flyover, too," suggested Harry. "You really think the village is Hogsmeade?"
"It would make sense, really," answered Hermione, writing another note. "How many places do you know with no cars?"
There was a knock at the door to the office, and they looked up to see Professor McGonagall enter. As she joined them in Harry's room, she looked uncommonly distraught.
"You're making plans, I see," she said, looking at the quill and parchment in Hermione's hands. "Good," she added. "We will need those."
She walked to the window and looked outside. Hermione and Harry waited silently for her to speak.
"Mr Potter, the reason I was coming to see you yesterday when I was interrupted by Mr McKeithan is the... the ring is gone," she said very quietly.
"Wh – what?!" said Hermione, dropping her parchment.
Harry looked at the Headmistress not sure he understood what she had just said. Professor McGonagall did not look back at them, ashamed of what had happened.
"I had kept it in my pocket, thinking it would be safer on my person than anywhere else I could have left it. I still had it yesterday morning but by lunchtime, it was gone," she said. "Albus must be turning in his grave out of shame at my incompetence," she added, keeping her eyes fixedly on the window.
Harry stood up and did something he had never done before. He walked to her and hugged her, putting his chin on her shoulder and looking through the window with her.
"You know, Professor, Dumbledore was the first to admit he could make mistakes, too," said Harry gently. "You're not incompetent. The school is well run and on its way to retrieve its former glory, and it is all because of you. You did what you thought was best for everyone. It just turned out it didn't have the expected results."
"Mr Potter, you're too kind, just like your mother," she said, patting his hand. "I'll let you continue to plan," she said, walking towards the door. "As you have said so kindly, Mr Potter, I do have a school to run."
"Professor," said Hermione before she walked out. "Can we have Hagrid help us in our search?"
"You may have anyone you need, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall, as if surprised they felt the need to ask. "Miss Weasley has done great things for this school with her articles, in addition to be one of our former students. It is only fitting that we shall help her any way we can," she said.
Once the Headmistress had closed the door behind her, Harry sat back on his seat and looked into the fire, trying to think of something that could help them. Hermione was sitting silently in the chair next to him, as if thinking very hard about something, as if trying to remember some details which had escaped her.
"Harry! I've got it!" exclaimed Hermione. "Alecto must be the one who's got the ring! Last year, when I was doing my N.E.W.T.s, I remember somebody mentioning that Alecto, when she was here, had been asking about rings, as if obsessed with them. Harry, she's got to be the one!"
Harry looked at her. It made perfect sense. After all, Alecto was powerful enough to have bewitched students. In addition, her recent tenure with Hogwarts would have allowed her to discover the ring in addition to giving her intimate knowledge on the inner workings of the school. And she knew Hogsmeade well enough to be able to conceal her presence.
"Harry, go to the Burrow and get yours and Ron's brooms. Tell Mrs Weasley what happened as I doubt the owl is there just yet. Then come back and start flying over the area," said Hermione in her typical bossy tone. "I will go talk to Connor and Hagrid. Then I'm going to the library to try to find… something! Anything!"
She stood up and left, her mind set on a mission. Harry looked at her leave and stood up, glad someone was taking charge for now.