Chapter 35 – The Battle Plan
We were scheduled to have a final breakfast in Asgard, before returning home to visit with our spouses and get the advice from our Keepers and other advisors in formulating a battle plan to free the Valkyrie from Beyond World. Odin wouldn't let us depart without a pep talk, advice and a new assignment.
"I am pleased that so many of you have learned to world-walk. I know this isn't an easy skill to learn. It means we have much in common. We are among the less than a thousand beings in all the known worlds, who possess the world-walking skill. I think this proves that most of you have Aesir blood flowing through your veins and are my distant cousins. Perhaps not you Catta. Cantring may have a bit of Unicorn or Aesir blood. We once had a small herd of Centaurs living among the Aesir – legend says the product of highly inappropriate mating's with Unicorns. We were a pastoral people then and young shepherds will do what they do.
"You have already improved our worlds by building and repairing magical circles – even those you were tricked into working on can be positive forces going forward, now that their dark purpose is behind them. I encourage you to maintain them. I have spoken to your Black Stone. It is once again mostly in control of itself, although neither it nor I can explain what went wrong. I will tell you what you must do, knowing that you are already aware of this need, but have been avoiding action. You must become more fully one with the Black Stone than you have ever been before. This is not without danger. That Stone is very powerful and if it is not in control of itself during your visit, it could overwhelm and destroy you. Several of you must become one with the stone together. That gives you the best chance, both to protect each other and to learn the secrets of the evil entity which stole control of your Stone. This is a necessary step to complete before it is safe to travel to Beyond. You still have much training to survive Beyond, and much of it involves your Stone helping you.
"Enjoy your time at home. Finish fixing the Durmstrang Circle and its White column. Work on your spirit warrior skills. Those back home may know more than I do about killing a super ghost or variant inferi, or whatever those jail guards are. You've dealt with Dementors, perhaps you can deal with the swarm. Fix Beyond and you fix Valhalla and Asgard, and a lot more that I sincerely believe will benefit your world. Beyond has been an increasing problem. If not dealt with, it could finish us all. I have faith in your ability to do what must be done. You've learned to world-walk faster than any group of non-Aesir's I've ever encountered. That is an excellent omen. Enjoy your breakfast. I expect that it will be several weeks before I see you again, and then you will invade Beyond. I have what I hope will be a pleasant surprise to you. Frijjo is determined to accompany you to Beyond. I would never permit her to do this if I expected your mission to fail. Frijjo will lead you to the world-walking point which takes you home, right after you finish breakfast."
"Excuse me," Hermione interjected. "I still have several more hours of research that I must do in your library. It is important information for the planning we must do when we return home. I was just beginning to research the Black Stone and …"
"Of course. You can leave after a late lunch. I'll take the time to introduce your friends to spirit travel from the second of my White Columns. I was going to save that for your return, but it can't hurt to give a taste of that training."
I went off with Odin, while Hermione headed for the library. It was a little different becoming a spirit to be transported by the White Column. We had to lie within Odin's miniature circle and reach for the White Column. Those lying inside the magical ovals carried a magical bird and initiated the path for the others. In Hermione's absence, that became Adrienne and me. I was surprised to find Hermione's oval tuned for Adrienne. Odin must have been practicing with her last night. This became apparent as Adrienne was consistently a step and a half ahead of me. We had to visualise the spiral path reaching out to us here, at the same time we visualised the other end of that path snaking all the way to our destination. In this case, the chosen destination was Valhalla on Asgard.
I was summoning the spiral path, but not having a great deal of success, when I saw it appear, with Adrienne atop its leading edge. I reached out and pulled the edge a little closer so that the rest of us could mount the spiral. Only Mafalda, Barb, Cissy, Aagog, and Catta were making the trip with us. The others were filling the Keeper role, as the guards over our spirit-less carcases. We touched down briefly in Valhalla, waving at two spirit warriors and sending forth Patronuses to romp with them. Five minutes later, we were back on the ribbon, with me steering us for Durmstrang. We reached Durmstrang's circle. We surprised Viktor's guards as we lit up the cavern with our Patronuses. We didn't linger. I didn't feel safe with my body back on Asgard.
This time I led the charge onto the spiral path and moments later, we were re-united with our bodies. It was time for lunch. I hoped that Hermione had been as successful as we had been.
Hermione used every library minute at her disposal, arriving to lunch after we had finished the soup course and her cold soup had been waved away by a disdainful Odin. As soon as I saw Hermione's grin, I knew her efforts had met with success. As she saw my face light up, Hermione suppressed her grin and was all serious.
"I ran out of time before I could finish. I made a little progress, and I'll try to pick up my research when we return. It was most interesting, and I enjoyed the hunt. I heard of your adventure. Yours is so thrilling that I won't bore you with mine. If you're interested, I'll fill you in sometime when you're already tired and bored. Looking at you now, you're more energised than I've seen you in weeks."
"It was an exciting and slightly scary trip," I confessed. "I can work and repair circles and learn new skills, but I do crave adventure."
"I knew we were alike," Cissy declared from halfway down the table, punctuating her remark with a fist pump. "This whole Quest has been a most excellent adventure – not that there weren't times I was very frightened. Now I want to get back to my castle for a week of normality."
I think we all wanted that week of normal. After dessert, Odin's servants entered the eating room with our packed supplies and Frijjo led us to the White Column. I left Blacky with Odin, suggesting that he might scout the world-between-Asgard-and-Beyond in our absence. I didn't want any surprises when we entered that in-between world.
We would all walk to the Durmstrang reception hall. Since Cho had volunteered that she and Viktor would finish the work on the circle and the White Column, the rest of us would immediately Apparate from Durmstrang to the Ministry. I wanted to ensure that I saw Harry and Dad, before I saw McGonagall.
My team Apparated in small groups to Harry's reception room, making sure to quickly clear the Apparation target in the middle of the carpet. I asked my arriving team members to move into the corridor so others could arrive, but I headed straight into Harry's office. Harry was there and immediately stood up from behind his desk and came around the desk to snog me. Harry was becoming less shy, and the presence of Shacklebolt and Mrs. Longbottom didn't at all deter his exuberant greeting.
I was surprised to see Hermione standing next to us, when I came up for air. I had expected that she would lead the rest of my team into the corridor and give me a little immediate alone time with Harry. I could tell that she was very excited, and I didn't think that was because of the snogging display Harry and I had put on.
"Sorry, I know you wanted to be alone with Harry, but since you aren't alone, I should tell you right away what I learned in the library today. You might want to send for the Minister – this is big!"
Harry asked his assistant to go and invite Dad to join us. Hermione stood in silence until Dad arrived.
"I found a lengthy parchment describing a 'great mirrored black stone of enormous power', which I felt could only be our Black Stone. It's mainly a description of that Stone's powers, pretty much what we already knew, but then at the end of the manuscript was mention of a new way to enter the Stone. The Black Stone is unique among all the highly magical stones of the many worlds of Odin's domain, which is what the library describes. That is because it is housed inside its own mini world. Its mini-world is the ultimate entry-path-world-between-worlds. That is how the transporter can whisk you to the stars in under a minute. The big thing is that we can world-walk into the world of the Black Stone. There may be more space in that world than is needed just to hold our Black Stone. That is where we may find the answers to the mysteries of the Stone's origin and how some evil entity has been able to take partial control of it. The manuscript knew about other worlds and world-walking but said the Black Stone's world was different and artificial. It was the only world that was deliberately created. It theorised that this creator was the original great God of good. That might be the Light Guardian, it might be another ancient God, or it may just be legendary hooey. Anyhow, I wanted you to know right away that we can world-walk into the world of the Black Stone. I felt it important that Odin not know what I discovered. I left another parchment relating to magical circles and stones out on my study table and put the key parchment back where I found it. That doesn't mean Odin won't quickly discover what I was looking at. He might already know and that might be why Frijjo has suddenly decided to travel with us."
Harry and Dad insisted upon an explanation of world-walking. Dad insisted upon knowing why Hermione mistrusted Odin. Hermione gave a clear description of world-walking but couldn't adequately identify why she mistrusted Odin. Shacklebolt suggested that any being that powerful must inspire wariness as well as awe. Hermione agreed that this might be the reason, but also told Shacklebolt that she was disturbed by how Odin dribbled out information and that the mention of the purple diamond had come alarmingly late in the process.
This led to the general issue of the jail, its guards, bribing them with diamonds, buying spirits out of jail and Beyond World and, unavoidably, onto Harry's surmising that his parents' freedom might be purchased with an adequate supply of diamonds.
I hastened to shush Harry, telling him that it was a bad idea to buy his parents back to life, and unlikely to return them as anything more substantial than Peeves.
Harry gave me a very upset look and told me "I know that. We can talk to Peeves and the ghost of Voldemort spoke to us. I certainly wouldn't mind the chance to spend a week or two chatting with the ghosts of my parents, but mainly I don't want them languishing in Beyond World. They are heroes. Now that we know Valhalla is real, that's where I want their spirits to be."
Oh.
Shacklebolt thought negotiating for the freedom of Harry's parents was a most excellent idea. "Can you think of a better or easier way to safely get into the heart of that jail. If Odin sensed that he couldn't use magic or Godly powers to force his way into that jail, then I doubt your team will be able to fight their way in. You might well be able to take the jail, or of equal importance learn if anything inside the jail is worth fighting over, if two of you can use a couple sacks of diamonds to buy your way into the head guy's office. That could spare your team a lot of grief at the cost of just some diamonds. As part of the negotiations, it's natural that you would demand to have Harry's parents brought to you. That gives you two more allies inside that jail. I like Harry's plan. Did you have a different plan?"
No, I really didn't. I had thought about using invisibility cloaks but realised that the guards must not depend a whole lot upon their sense of sight. They would probably hear or smell us coming. They might even be able to sense the presence of another spirit, whether that spirit was attached to a body.
"Thoughts on super ghosts or the swarm?"
"I'm not sure Harry. I think Odin is correct that it takes a long while to alert and mobilise the swarm. I also agree with him that stealth is important, because if we can delay the guards summoning the swarm long enough, we can avoid them entirely. If we do have to face them, I'd try freezing the guards, as we did with the ghost of Voldemort and I would test the power of multiple Patronuses launched from a tight circle against the swarm. What I really want is a way to escape instantly if things go bad. If our portkey belts could be made to work in Beyond World, that would be ideal. Obviously, we still have a lot of planning to do. Hermione has done a lot of research, but we need to digest all that information. We plan to have one team as spirits in the atmosphere and a second corporeal team on the surface. It is important that the two teams be able to communicate quickly. We can't do much of anything until we find the Valkyrie and learn how they are being bound to Beyond World. Hopefully they will be able to answer that question. A lot depends on making the Black Stone trustworthy. At least one of the groups will travel via the Black Stone and it may be our best route for communications. A lot could go wrong very fast if the Stone turns against us. Oh, Odin did mention one item which may be of tactical value: the few streetlights on Hel are very dim, because the residents aren't used to light and bright light hurts them. I thought George and Lee could make some special Whiz Bangs for us that produced a very bright light. It seems the guards must rely on a sense other than sight to detect invaders. Perhaps the bang part of the Whiz Bang would also hurt their sensitive ears. If they depend on smell, we may want some stink bombs. George said he was working on that as a new product. We wouldn't use any of this until we were detected. They'd know we were there, but not exactly where we were, so if I'm right about how they track invaders, then these unorthodox weapons could prevent or at least delay their attack upon us."
"That's still a lot of 'ifs' and 'I don't knows' for an attack you seem to have already decided to go ahead with, Ginny," Harry clearly wasn't happy.
"I think you might want some spirit warriors on the surface," Mrs. Longbottom declared. "You really don't know whether spirit warriors or actual warriors will be more effective, although I assume that two of you will have to enter the jail in your actual bodies."
"In addition to needing some home-time relaxation, we're here for the next two or three weeks to get everybody's input in developing the best possible plan of attack," Hermione assured Harry. "We promise not to take unnecessary risks."
"This whole mission seems like an unnecessary risk," Harry lamented.
"And that's quite enough Quest talk for now, I want to see Mum."