Dispelling the Silence: a Harry Potter AU
By Indygodusk
Chapter 36: The Research Room
When Harry arrived at Luna's research room, he found the door locked. In front of the door hung a turquoise cord ending with a tassel longer than his arm. A small sign was clipped to the middle of the cord. "Pull cord for admittance. Urgent business only."
Swinging the bags of food in his hands, Harry decided that the ladies would count food as suitably urgent. He'd also picked up drinks: a box of PG Tips for Sirius, bottled strawberry lemonade for Luna, and something called 'Pocari Sweat' for Hoshimi. Reaching up, Harry pulled the turquoise cord.
Immediately the edges of the door started flashing yellow and green and emitted a faint steam. Unfazed, Harry waited. The door opened about a minute later. "If that's you again, Phillips," threatened Sirius with annoyance before he recognized Harry standing in the hall with his hands full of food bags.
"Oh sorry, Harry. Come on in. We're absolutely famished." Taking one of the bags form Harry, Sirius ushered him into the room and resealed the door. Sirius had taken off his outer robes and rolled up his sleeves. His pants looked wrinkled and his curly hair slightly frazzled. "What took you so long?"
The ladies sat hunched over a table covered in books and slips of parchment. Hoshimi had a streak of ink along the edge of her chin. Additionally, a weird hair comb shaped like a gerbil crossed with a grindylow now kept Luna's hair out of her face and secured it in a large, messy bun atop her head. Harry blinked, but he'd seen Luna wear worse, so he shrugged it off and walked forward.
"I got here pretty quickly, all things considered. I wanted to make sure I had enough snacks for the rest of the day and I wanted to include some Japanese things for Hoshimi," Harry explained.
"Time field," Luna called out without looking up. "We've been working for hours and hours and are absolutely famished. Set up the food, will you?"
What made everyone think they could just order him around this morning? Had he become a waiter when he wasn't looking? Stuffing down his annoyance again, Harry reminded himself that no one had gotten much sleep lately. They were trying to help Teddy and he needed to support that, even if it meant fetching and serving food.
"I'll help," Sirius mumbled around the carrot stick dangling from his lips. He crunched, then began unloading the bags onto a relatively clear table. A picture of Teddy had been blown up and stuck to the wall above it for inspiration. His godson was smiling and showing off his new school backpack. It made Harry stare, then swallow thickly. Joining Sirius, Harry set out the food and drinks.
Suddenly Sirius paused with a disturbed look on his face. He held out the bottle of Pocari Sweat to Harry. "This isn't really bottled sweat, is it?" he whispered out of the side of his mouth.
"I'm hoping not," Harry answered softly. "The shopkeeper said Hoshimi would like it." They both turned to look at the Japanese woman.
Hoshimi sat up and stretched, making Sirius sigh in appreciation, before getting up and walking over. "Pocari Sweat is refreshing, like a cross between juice and a sport drink but less sugary," she said as she twisted off the cap and took a long swallow. Then she put down the bottle with a satisfied sigh. "Thanks. That was very thoughtful of you to buy it."
"You're welcome," Harry replied. "Also, you've got a bit of-" he gestured to the ink on her chin. She raised a hand to her face in confusion.
"Here, let me," Sirius said, stepping forward and sweeping his fingers down her jaw. She stared up at him wide-eyed until he flourished his dirty fingers.
"Oh, thank you," she said with a blush that dropped twenty years from her face. Sirius grinned into her soft eyes.
Luna unintentionally ruined the moment by bumping into them on the way to the food. "Sorry," she said absently as she grabbed a plate and piled it high with crisps, carrots, and a sandwich. "I made the mistake of skipping breakfast before going to the hospital this morning. My stomach's been turning itself inside out like a flubertian yelt."
Seeing the strawberry lemonade, her favorite, Luna snatched it up, tucked it under her arm, and turned to smile. "Bless you, Harry. You're a gift from magic herself." Then she moved to a chair and settled down to eat.
On seeing everyone's hunger and delight with the food, Harry felt guilty for his earlier surliness. They'd obviously been working hard. "I'm glad I could help," he said with real honestly. "How goes the research? I only vaguely remember the spell from when we used it six years ago."
Hoshimi looked up from her plate, "Your father is much more intelligent than he first appears," she said with mixed praise. "If he wasn't so focused on administration and politics, he'd do very well in the Department of Spell Recovery and Creation."
"You flatter me," Sirius said as he brewed four steaming mugs of PG Tips black tea. Harry took one and walked another over to Luna, who'd already finished her lemonade. Sirius passed one to Hoshimi.
After a sip of her hot tea, Hoshimi sighed into the mug and let the steam wash over her face. "You might remember that the spell was originally used to find lost hunting hounds and other prized pets. It required the ritual sacrifice and soul rendering of a blood relative to create a link between the remaining pets and the owner. What Hermione figured out, and what Sirius here rediscovered years ago, was that the spell records the unique signature of shared family magic, be it through blood or spirit. Then it tracks that unique pattern. We've examined how Sirius altered the spell to find Voldemort, but as there's no shared soul pieces between Teddy and anyone else, that makes that route useless."
"We think we've figured out what Hermione did. It looks like she used the basis of the spell to reveal the pattern of family magic shared with her cousins. Then she used that to track them down by skimming along the edge of the astral plane looking for a match. However we keep stumbling on the mechanics of the spell, mainly the blood requirement. We're missing something, because according to our arithmancy, Hermione should have died the first time she cast the spell. The amount of blood it demands should have killed her," Hoshimi explained starkly.
"Of course," Luna interjected, "we haven't figured out which part of the modified spell is actually the most deadly. It could be the initial stage, when the caster uses their blood to reveal the magical pattern for the spell to search for. Any relative but a maternal twin would require several pints of blood to generate an accurate reading. Even once the pattern is generated, it resists staying static. Family magic by its very nature is fluid, not fixed. The spell serves to bind the pattern to a scaffold."
Luna stopped to take a sip of tea. Then she continued, "The second part of the spell could be just as deadly. The caster needs to continually bleed during the search. This feeds extra familial blood magic into the search pattern to keep it from seeping away from the spell's scaffolding. If the bleeding stops before the target is found, the magical pattern evaporates and the initial pattern generation spell must be restarted. This continual exsanguination to maintain the magical search on top of the initial bloodletting should very quickly lead to hypovolemia, shock, and death."
Feeling pale, Harry asked, "Could she have used blood replenishment potions the first time?"
"We already thought of that," Sirius said dourly. "Blood replenishment potions don't regenerate the magic in the blood, just the physical components. They would keep you alive, but not the spell. It would still take days or even weeks to recover enough to cast the spell again."
Tossing her empty bottle of Pocari Sweat into the trash, Hoshimi added, "Since reports from those present indicate that Hermione cut across a previous scar to initiate the blood spell to find the Weasley girls, she had to be piggybacking on the previous spell with Gabrielle somehow. It is possible that successful completion of the spell creates a permanent mold of the family magic's pattern that can then be reused in the future."
"But that doesn't help us with initiating the spell for the first time," Sirius finished. "With you, Harry, we already had the sacrifice of the horcruxes to fix the magical pattern. We only needed the initial offering of blood, not the continual bleeding, to link the horcrux pieces through the astral plane." He rubbed his forehead wearily.
"Hermione did mention that she thought the blood would be a problem," Luna reminded them.
Disappointed and headachy from following the complicated explanation, Harry shoved his fists into his pockets. "So what's next then?"
"We narrow our questions as much as possible and then go visit Hermione," Hoshimi said dourly. "I'd prefer not to bother her again, but it's looking more and more likely that we're going to need her input soon. She's spent the most time with the spell out of any of us. We don't know how much time the boy has left. Parvati could have stashed him somewhere without any food or drink. We're using the time dilation field as much as possible, but at some point we're going to have to get out there and try something. We know we're racing against the clock."
"Right," Harry said, glad that she appreciated the severity of the situation with Teddy, but still shaken to hear it spoken out loud like that. "What can I do to help? Do you want me to go and get more snacks? Or any other books?"
Shaking her head, Luna gestured him over to a pile of books. "Look through those with us for something useful. We can also use you as a sounding board."
"Of course," Harry stood up and began tidying the food table. He was glad he'd gotten enough for several meals. "Just let me clean this up a bit and then I'll join you." Cleaning often made Harry feel better. At least it was something he could control.