Chapter Fifty-Three: Of Apparitions and Machinations
Professor Aloysius Milner, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Dean of the Cambridge University Thaumaturgical Research and Mousetrap Development Faculty, accredited and certified (in a number of senses, according to many of his students) teacher, currently engaged at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the dual role of teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Advanced Magical Theory, stood in his office, looking thoughtfully out of the window down to the lake, and lightly tapping his wand against his cheek, lost in thought. He massaged his forehead with his other hand, running his fingers through his receding, thinning hair, and considered the four distant figures, perched on the white stone wall of the Convalescence Pond. They had grown still, less animated, since the fourth had joined the first three, and now, for several minutes, none had moved. He was aware of at least three spells which would have enabled him to bring sound along a line of sight to his rooms- or a fourth which would have magnified an image, whilst a convenient little charm upon the image would have reproduced lip-reading as the spoken word- none, unfortunately, would work through the protective wards which separated castle from grounds, and again grounds from the land beyond.
His hand dropped from his forehead to the lapel of his green tweed robes, fingertips lightly drumming on the fabric, and he frowned thoughtfully, returning his wand to his pocket. He pivoted around on one heel, and carefully lifted the thaumometer from its stand on the table behind him, training it on the four teenagers in the distance, and sighting down it, as if aiming a weapon. For a long moment, he studied the patterns which shimmered and sparkled between the cores at the centre of the device. With a slight movement of his small, twisted mouth, which might have been a smile, but then again might not, Milner nodded at what he saw, and set the device down once more.
"Oh, Florence, Florence, Florence… whatever wuid ye be doin', ye ken?" He tutted faintly. "Must the sins of all be passed down, I wonder?" Then he shrugged, and shook his head, laughing quietly to himself. He looked quietly among the bookshelves a moment, then, remembering, tugged a slim, leather bound album from its place. "Tick tock, you know," he added, addressing the thaumometer Core. He sighed, and glanced back out of the window at the four friends. There had been a little gang of them, rather like that, at Hogwarts when he was a student, he remembered. Inseparable and incorrigible. Other people had looked up to them though, for all that. He laughed again, a stifled, half-cough of a laugh which did not part his lips, and shook his head, looking out once more at the group.
"And as for you, Mr. Potter, if you and your little cabal are much longer about your lunch break, sure an' you'll find yourselves late for your next class, ye ken" he commented quietly. After a moment, a thought struck him.
"Which, since I'm meant to be teaching it, probably means… oh dear."
Hermione raised her eyebrows and looked at the two of them, while Ron whistled in surprise. Neither Harry nor Ginny spoke, but his eyes flicked to hers, and with a moment's silent communion shared a hope- and a terrible fear. The boy swallowed- more to obscure the sound of his own heartbeat than any other need. The last few minutes seemed, suddenly, to have somehow lasted years. Years upon years. Harry lifted his head, slowly looking up and down the lake, then back up at the towering edifice of Hogwarts behind them, as he waited for Hermione to speak. He felt Ginny's hand press into his, and gathered his courage.
The Giant Squid turned over, sending ripples chasing this way and that across the water, and coursed back for another circuit of its convalescent home.
Hermione's face seemed conflicted, a half-dozen or more emotions seeming to flicker across it. Finally, she spoke.
"That could actually work." Hermione mused. "It'd be terribly dangerous, of course- you realise, if you got caught, you'd be completely discredited-"
"I know that," he put in quickly. "Hermione, honestly, don't think I'm happy about the idea of this. I'm not happy about asking Ginny to pick her way through Voldemort's magic- and I'm not happy about - well, about doing something like this to someone - but -"
"Umbridge is no innocent. All right, Harry, I'm not denying it." The girl shook her head. "If we lived in a better world she ought to have ended up in Azkaban after what she did to all of us last year-" her eyes flickered briefly toward his hand, "But she didn't. She's had the deck stacked against us from the beginning. She's turned the Daily Prophet into- well, I don't think we realised what, until it was too late."
"How d'you mean?" Ron swung himself round, giving his girlfriend an odd look.
"I mean she's run it into the ground, Ron," Hermione's lips whitened. "It's exactly like Milner and Dumbledore said. Umbridge is using this war- our war," she nodded to Harry- "And if we're not careful, we could walk away from the war- win or lose- and find that we might as well have let Voldemort win, because the Ministry will have changed into something just as bad. Our press is a joke. The Prophet's… well, it's barely more credible than the Quibbler, these days. You laugh about it- but tell me, how many people depend on the Daily Prophet or the Seer to know just what's going on in the world - those of us who aren't just buying it for the Witch of the Day pin-up on page thirteen-"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ron's face flushed.
"What I'm saying, Ron, is that Umbridge has already taken all the right ways of dealing with her away from us." She drew in a long breath and looked unhappily at Harry. "She's worse than Voldemort- this-" Quite suddenly, Hermione turned her head away, and Harry was shocked to see tears standing in her eyes.
"Hermione!" Ron moved before either Harry or Ginny had the chance, and his arms were round her, almost cradling her. "What is it?" the redhead gently stroked her shoulder with a tenderness Harry had never before seen in his best friend.
"Damn it," Hermione shook her head, clinging to Ron. "Damn it…" she tried to look up. "Harry, I know you're not a monster. What you're suggesting…" she sighed. "To be honest I'd love to say no… but I can't. It's just that this- have you thought about this? I mean, really? What we're talking about doing- what Dumbledore's talking about doing here- we're basically undermining the whole structure of magical law in this country, you realise that? Putting the Acting Minister of Magic under blackmail?" She seized a piece of loose, chalky stone from the top of the flat wall on which they sat, and threw it into the lake. It vanished from sight with a very final sounding splash, and slowly, a faint cloud of chalky dust undulated its way through the ripples, sinking into the darkness of the black lake.
"I know that, Hermione," Harry admitted, unhappily- "But what's the alternative? Like you said, if we just focus on Voldemort- let her get away with this- then even if-" he looked at Ginny, who wordlessly squeezed his hand, "Even if I can do that, even if I can stop him- it might be too late to stop her." He heaved a heavy breath. "So, here we are again. We have to go into the dark to stop them from pulling everyone else into it." He looked up. "I dunno what I was hoping for, to be honest." The boy managed a weary half smile. "That you'd say yes, or that you'd talk us out of this."
"Harry, I can't talk you out of it." Hermione's voice had grown very small. "I'm not even going to say I think you're wrong… because I think we're wrong, doing this, but I don't see any other way."
"Nor me," he admitted.
"She's thought this out too many moves ahead." Ron dug in the pocket of his robes and handed Hermione a tissue. She handed it back. Ron extracted his wand and cleaned the tissue with a charm, and handed it back to Hermione. Hermione dried her eyes. Ron watched her a moment, then went on, his face intent. "She's playing like a Ravenclaw, and she's bloody good at it, I'll say that much- better than I'd have thought after the way you two and Dumbledore ran rings round her last year."
"I think that's why Dumbledore came to Harry in the first place," Ginny agreed with her brother. "Not because Harry's better than him, or because Hermione's smarter- but just for something that Umbridge couldn't predict that Dumbledore would do."
"Except that this is what he did last year," Ron bit his lip. "I know Dumbledore just as much as you do, Ginny, and I seriously doubt he was surprised by what we did with the Association last year. Most wizards go for their wands when there's a duel on. Dumbledore pulls us four out and drops us on the table." He tapped his fingers irritably several times against the stonework. "We need something else." He looked up. "Hermione's right, you know. If you got caught doing this- if she could prove it was you that cast the Dark Mark on her, then you'd be right back where you were the September before last."
"We've got Harry's invisibility cloak," Ginny noted, "And as far as everyone on Umbridge's side in the Ministry knows, the yew wand doesn't even exist anymore."
"Voldemort still had it when he killed-" Ron paled, "When he killed Percy and Fudge," he went on, very quickly. "What I'm getting at- the defence wards around all the Ministry gates and portals are going to have that wand's magical signature as public enemy number one."
"So… we need to.. first- get this thing inside the Ministry with us," Harry frowned. "We can't take it in through the front entrance- they weigh wands anyway, I don't like to think what else they'll be doing after the attack. Then… somehow, we have to get ourselves in unnoticed. My dad's cloak ought to help with that." He looked up. "I… we're not going to be able to get all four of us under that." He looked unhappily at Ron. His oldest friend gave him an odd look, and glanced at first his sister, then Hermione.
Hermione spoke first. Her voice was still a little shaky and uncertain, but it strengthened as she spoke.
"We make a good team- all four of us," she added. She looked speculatively at Ginny for a moment, who returned the look, with a slightly awkward puzzlement. "And you're trying to tell us you need Ginny with you for this," she added, to Harry, "... but you're embarrassed and upset about saying it because you don't want to be the one breaking up the old team?"
Harry stiffened slightly, and felt his cheeks reddening. Ginny herself, her face flaming, looked down into the water in a rather fixed way, and Harry, his arm around her shoulders, felt the tension knot in her.
"I do," Harry nodded, grimly. "I need all of us- you and Ron to knock this plan into some kind of shape that stands a chance in hell of working, you and Gin to complete the spell- but- for casting it, once we get inside the Ministry- to cast it without setting off all the Dark Detectors- I'm going to need Ginny with me for that." He gave his girlfriend an apologetic look as he spoke.
No pressure or anything, Gin.
"Harry- people change- and that's ok." Hermione put a hand on his arm and forced him to look at her. "More to the point, you're the one who gave a lot of us the chance to change in the first place. I don't know where Ron and I would be if we hadn't met you- but-" she looked at Ron and smiled with a wry look in her eyes. "I don't think we'd have explored the Charms classroom stationery cupboard quite as much."
"Oh really…" Ginny looked up sharply, and gave her brother a roguish grin. "Do tell…?"
"The point is- Ginny, you're not a third wheel here. I know you think that I think you are sometimes- but I don't." Hermione looked at the younger witch, her eyes - still red from her tears- intent. "You're one of my best friends, and if I've been driving you out of your mind these last few weeks trying to ask you to hold back, back off, take care, think it through-" Hermione sighed. "Well… that's what I have to do, sometimes. You've met these two."
"We still love you, 'Mi," Harry grinned, after a moment. "You did kick Vernon in the balls, after all."
Ginny looked at Hermione with more than a trace of her old shyness, then drew in a deep breath.
"I'm a mess," she admitted- "No, really," she put her arm back around Harry's waist, and laid her head against his cheek to quell his response. "Everything that's happened- I'm scared of what would happen if I stop." She looked up at him. "Do you remember last autumn, Harry- when you went to see Hagrid? Just before the Amoeba Vendetta?"
Harry nodded, pensively, and hugged her. What Ginny explained wasn't exactly a surprise- though their public jousting of playful words tended to be left at the door to Helena's Nest, when within its blissful privacy- or even outside, in the conversations they held with a shared glance, or a lingering touch, he'd seen beneath the girl's air of bravado easily enough to recognise it very well. He remembered only too well how he had felt, in the early part of that autumn, and too, what it had taken to be prepared to admit it. His arm encircled her protectively.
"What I'm trying to say, Ginny," Hermione grimaced slightly- "I don't quite know how to put this- but -" she bit her lip.
"How about this," Ron proposed, "It's not so much that she's angry that you're taking Harry away from the two of us- it's more she's thinking 'Damn it, now I've got three of those bloody idiots to keep in order.'"
"Well, I would have tried to phrase it with slightly more tact, Ron Weasley-"
"Only because you reckon Ginny might set a Basilisk on you again-"
"Oh, well, that only just goes to prove my point-"
Harry met his girlfriend's eye. She rolled her eyes and squeezed his hand. "Not such a bad idea," Ginny murmured to Harry while their friends 'discussed' other matters. "Maybe we could do that- put another giant snake in the Department of Mysteries to distract Ministry security while we go after Umbridge?"
"I think your dad might vote against that one, Gin," Harry mused. "Anyway- how much Parseltongue do you actually remember? Because I think I'm going to be too busy in there to be micromanaging diversionary snakes."
"Enough, Potter, enough. I understood what you were saying at Christmas when that bit of tinsel started following us round with mistletoe," she added, grinning at him sideways. "And what you tried to ask it to do," she added, with a sparkle in her eye. Harry cleared his throat.
"Moving on…" he blushed, aware that Ron and Hermione had fallen silent. He looked up and observed that they had moved on to a less verbal form of communication. Or possibly argument. Even these days he was never entirely sure where the line was drawn, except in so far that he was increasingly certain that they were no more sure on the issue than he was. "Oh. Again?"
Ron protested, somewhat inaudibly. After a moment, Hermione clarified.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, Ron," she admonished him. "And I think you two-" she turned to Ginny and Harry, "Had managed to distract each other as well."
Harry glanced at the lowering sun and the lengthening shadows of trees, stretching out across the lake. "OK- and yeah, ok, let's get on with it." He looked around at the other three, and felt an unaccountable surge of pride in his three friends. "Together- we can pull this off. If we can find Umbridge- Dumbledore might be able to help with that-"
"And he's chief warlock at the tribunal.." Ron suddenly slammed his fist into the palm of his hand. "I knew there was something!" Hermione looked at him, puzzled, and Ron went on. "Well- the Wizengamot's ancient, there's all sorts of weird customs about it- and the Chief Warlock has to be a kind of figurehead, he can't tell the court what to do- but- he can ask to have evidence brought to him- by his personal servant. Dad lost a case about that, back when he worked in Muggle Artifacts- the house elf broke some bit of dark gear in the trial against some wizard or other- the court said it was inadmissible. Dad was bloody furious about it- but that's it- that's how we could get Dobby to get in. That's the loophole, that's how a House Elf can be in the Ministry," Ron grinned, broadly. "He just has to pop up to bring something to Dumbledore, when the court's sitting- and nobody can do a damn thing about it."
"Can't be the wand though," Harry mused, holding it between his fingers. "If anyone in the Ministry finds out I've still got it- anyone apart from Umbridge, anyway -"
"It doesn't need to be," Hermione leant forward intently, holding Ron's hand and gently stroking his fingers as she spoke. "Professor Dumbledore just needs to ask for the right piece of evidence- and then Dobby can get into the Department of Mysteries."
"Why do you want him there?" Ron put in, in confusion.
"Because we know the way out of there," Hermione pointed out. "And because of the time turners, which we're going to need once we get back, and because we already know the place is stuffed with Dark Magic. It's the only place in the Ministry where the yew wand could stay undetected once a House Elf isn't holding it."
"So… when Malfoy's on trial…" Ron began.
"Enquiry, Ron, it's not actually a trial-"
"Don't spoil my lovely dream," Ron grinned at her. "While Malfoy's on trial, Dumbledore announces he wants some bit of evidence considered- calls in Dobby- Chief Warlock's privilege- and Dobby pops in right next to Dumbledore- doesn't have to go through the door wards-"
"Can a House Elf do that?" Ginny asked. "I thought they could only go where they had a bond of loyalty- and Dobby's a free elf- I mean, he likes Dumbledore- everyone likes Dumbledore, but is that going to be enough?"
"You're forgetting our star witness in the courtroom," Ron nodded to Harry. "Dobby'll be able to apparate to him, wherever he is- just about as easily as you could if you were a House Elf, Ginny," he added, and ducked.
Ginny stuck out her tongue at him, but Hermione took up the tale.
"Then Dumbledore sends Dobby down to the Department of Mysteries to pick up the evidence- and while he's down there, Dobby hides the yew wand- and steals us a Time Turner. I know how to set it, for what we want."
Harry looked puzzled.
"The earth rotates, Harry," Hermione pointed out.
"I had noticed."
"Well, then- if you go back in time ten minutes- properly speaking, unless you have safeguards programmed into your Time Turner- you won't just move in time, you'll also find yourself ten minutes' rotation further back on the Earth's longitudinal axis. Normally the safeguards automatically transpose you in space to the nearest 'point me' location for a plottable area- for Hogwarts, that's generally the Entrance Hall- I suppose it probably would be for the Ministry as well. If I disable that safety interlock- which I'm almost sure I can do- then all we need to do, in the evening after the court session's over, is find the right position, slip back, and we'll rematerialise right in the middle of the Department of Mysteries, slipping past every anti-apparition ward in the place."
"Then what?" Ginny frowned.
"Then," Hermione nodded, "Ron and I cause trouble. The boy has a natural talent, after all. You and Harry slip up to Umbridge's office, under that cloak- do- what you came there to do-" Harry noticed that she still avoided referring to it in too much detail, "- get back to meet up with us- we can use the Galleons I enchanted for DA meetings to communicate, most of them still work- and out we go." She smiled and nodded to Ron.
"Then we use the Time Turner again- once Hermione's fixed it- go back to the start of the evening and make up our own alibi," Ron grinned broadly at Hermione. "That's brilliant."
"There's just one thing," Harry frowned. "What is Dobby getting from the Department of Mysteries in the first place. What are you going to ask Dumbledore to ask for?" he looked at his two friends curiously. It had to be something convincing, he realised. Dumbledore might have the authority to ask for anything at all to be brought forth as evidence- but, without a good reason, suspicion would be aroused, and whilst it might not be the end of their plan, he knew that if he left a loose end for Umbridge to grasp at, she would not be one to miss it.
It was Ginny who answered, and he felt her grip on him tighten, for security, for protection, as she did so, quietly.
"We just gave them the idea, Harry," she murmured, in a low voice. "The last time Voldemort managed to use one of Hogwarts students like a puppet, to try to get you killed, remember? That's relevant enough for Dumbledore to call for it as evidence," she admitted, with a bitter look out across the water. "I told you the Ministry found it outside the gate, remember? After that bastard Lucius chucked it away? Where do you think they'd have put it?" - the question was rhetorical, for she went on, shivering at a chill which owed little to the January cold. "Dumbledore sends Dobby down into the Department of Mysteries to fetch what's left of Riddle's diary."
Next morning, too, dawned bright and clear, but very cold. The December snows in which Harry and Ginny had fought Voldemort in the woods up on the bluff, in that strange, stark, monochrome world of midnight-black fir trees and pale, gleaming snow, had dwindled to a few grey, sludgy patches upon the higher peaks, yet all the world around seemed frozen and glassy. Harry himself watched the rising sun, as it turned the sky pink and orange and glittered on the mountaintops, from the steps of the front door to the castle. As he watched, leaning with his back to one of the pillars, he felt a smaller figure lightly push against him, and slipped a hand around her waist, leaning slightly to kiss her.
"Morning."
Ginny responded in kind, and stretched slightly. Neither she nor Harry were of their own accord especially partial to a particularly early start, but circumstances being what they were, over the last few months, they had begun to establish a sort of tradition, which Harry had come to rather approve of- that when both up in time for the dawn, they would see it in together.
"How are you feeling?"
"Hungry," she yawned widely. "Sorry."
"You're a Weasley right enough," Harry teased her gently.
"Can't think what gave me away. Breakfast in Hogsmeade?"
"I hope so," he admitted, with a smile.
"Adopted Weasley," she nudged him in the ribs.
"Everyone else up?" Harry turned, and took her in his arms. "I don't somehow think Snape's going to be thrilled if he has to go chasing round the place looking for us all."
"Hermione's back there with Ron and Neville," Ginny nodded. "Luna's just turned up, along with her hat- and, I suppose Snape's bringing Blaise." She tapped the end of his nose as he yawned in turn.
"You started it," Harry protested. "You'd think when it's Ministry business, they'd depolarise the floo and let us start down there a bit later on- or-" he yawned again, "A lot later."
"Hold me; I'm cold," Ginny murmured, and buried her nose in his scarf. "Everything all right with Dobby?"
"Fine, Gin," he smiled. "Though after what Hermione and Luna told me about their trip to Malfoy Manor, I'm going to have to ask about silencing charms if he gets excited."
Ginny looked up. "Harry Potter, Harry Potter!" she squeaked, opening her eyes very wide. Harry tweaked the tip of her nose gently.
"Step away from the trifle, Miss Weasley," he grinned, and held her, slightly rocking to and fro on their heels, lowering his face to her shoulder and inhaling the scent of her hair, until a shadow fell over them both. He looked up sharply, then relaxed to see Hagrid's huge form towering over them, a smile just about visible through his tangled beard.
"All right there, 'Arry?" the big man asked. "What're you lot doin', gettin' up so early?" He glanced to left and right, then leaned in, whispering. "If you're just goin' off to bed, you'd best nip round the back doors and in quick, before Professor Snape catches you- you know what he's like, after you, Harry, and you don't want to go gettin' young Virginia into more trouble…" He gave the two of them a conspiratorial wink.
"We're all heading into Hogsmeade," Harry explained, "- With Snape. Portkey to the Ministry- for Malfoy's hearing," he explained, seeing Hagrid still looking rather nonplussed.
Ginny's right. If absolutely everyone is going to just automatically assume that whatever we do, we've been thinking laterally together, then really, we ought to -
"Ahh…" Hagrid frowned. "You know, isn't for me ter say it, but when I think of that nasty little boy, I can't help but think of poor Beaky, and what would'a become of him, if he hadn't got away- thanks to the three of you as was, o'course- and no thanks to Draco Malfoy."
Harry looked up at his old friend, and sighed.
"What's yer trouble, Harry?"
"Thing is, Hagrid," Harry frowned slightly, "Nor can I- but I…" he hesitated. "I also can't help thinking of what you said about Azkaban." He flinched as a shadow passed over Hagrid's face. "You know- like it was the worst place on Earth, and like after a few days, you didn't even care if you woke up again in the morning?" He looked seriously into Hagrid's dark eyes, remembering the man's air of rage and humiliation, when he had seen him from afar yesterday, and what Dumbledore had said, of how much Umbridge's Registration Act, had affected his old friend.
"No…" Hagrid said. "No, Harry, I'd not forgot." He laid a hand on the boy's shoulders, and looked down at him and Ginny. "Nor about them as got me out of there- and made up to Professor, an' all." He frowned. "Gave me a second chance, that did. If it hadn't been for you- an' Professor Dumbledore before yer, when they chucked me out of Hogwarts-" he stopped, and shook his great shaggy head. "But that Malfoy's trouble. Known it as soon as I set eyes on him, and six years in he's shown it again and again. Cocky little gobsh-" Again, Hagrid rather hurriedly stopped mid-sentence. "Best be on my way. Have a nice time in London," he beamed at them, and continued to tramp slowly off round the side of the castle.
Harry pulled a face. "I wish people would remember I'm not actually judging Malfoy," he muttered. "It's all very well, Dumbledore trying to warn me, but-"
"Potter, Weasley, what, precisely, do you think you are doing?" a familiar voice snapped, its tone dripping with malice and bad temper. Harry closed his eyes and hissed in frustrated annoyance. "Are you deaf? You were clearly instructed by Professor McGonagall last night to await me in the Entrance Hall- I do not believe she advised you to instead go and canoodle in the porch. Five points from Gryffindor. Each."
Ginny felt her boyfriend's back tense. His teeth bared, mouthing something entirely unrepeatable, before turning. She moved to disengage from him, but stopped as his hold on her did not loosen.
"The Entrance Hall which is - what, three steps back inside?" Harry sardonically asked Snape, who stood in the doorway glaring at him. Behind the teacher, Ginny could see Ron and Hermione and the rest of the group- all those who had been attacked by Draco Malfoy last December- looking on apprehensively. "And no, funnily enough, McGonagall didn't mention canoodling," Harry went on, his tone deceptively mild to Ginny's ear, aware of the rigidity of his stance.
"One way or the other. We were just using our initiative." He waited, giving a rather carefully calculated pause, "... sir."
"Ten points from Gryffindor." Snape stalked out to them, his eyes flickering quickly across the grounds ahead, and along the ridge of the skyline as he moved to stand close to them, his face mask-like, cold and hard. "Do not imagine that long usage has either caused me to grow fond of your insolence, Potter, or that your typical arrogant assumption of your own self-righteousness somehow confers upon you some marvellous or creative talent for humour which you certainly do not possess."
"Oh lovely," Harry remarked, with an arch tone of irony in his voice, tilting his head to one side as he released Ginny from his arms and turned to face Snape fully, "You're going to be a real little ray of sunshine on this trip, aren't you, sir?"
Snape's eyes flashed, and Hermione winced.
"Detention, Potter!" he snapped, then went on, sneering coldly, "Perhaps an honest evening's work cleaning the dungeons with Mr. Filch will go some way to curbing this tendency to set yourself outside of the rules by which everyone else is expected to live."
Harry shifted his head over to tilt it to the other side, and lifted his eyebrows slightly, not looking away from Snape. "Fine," he snapped. "Sure, it'll be fun. I'll send you a postcard."
Snape's eyes slid off him with chill contempt, and fell upon Ginny, still standing close beside Harry.
"As for you, Weasley, if you hope to cut a more successful figure than your idiot brother-" Ron and Harry exchanged expressions of exasperation behind Snape's back, "Then you would do well to consider whether the current standard of your schoolwork is such that you can afford to spend quite so much of your time in such degenerate company." Without waiting for an answer, Snape turned, cloak swirling about himself, and led the way down the steps. "Come," he snapped.
"He's in fine form," Ron murmured to them, as the group followed Snape out on to the gravelled carriage drive.
"You were deliberately trying to annoy him," Hermione scolded Harry, "That's really not a good idea- if we're going to try to make this work in London, we're not going to need Snape to have it in for you even more than usual."
"I know, it's just…" he spread his hands helplessly, and sighed. He really hadn't actually set out to antagonise Snape. He went on, frustrated, "Anything I said was going to be wrong, so why shouldn't I just… sorry. I should have had some breakfast," he admitted.
"Does anyone plan anything in this place?" Hermione sighed. "Am I the only one who thought to conjure - just a simple bowl of cereal to have before we started?" The rest of the group looked at each other slightly embarrassed- and more than a little enviously. In the chill of the morning, the thought of even a little light breakfast seemed rather pleasant. "I hope at least you remembered to bring everything?" Hermione hissed to him in a lower voice, before going on ahead with Ron.
"Yes!" Harry protested. She raised her eyebrows. Beside him, Ginny stifled a giggle. Harry patted his pocket. Then he looked thoughtful for a moment, and felt each of his coat pockets in turn. Then, eyes widening slightly, and slowing down, he felt in each sleeve. Blaise, Luna, and Neville filed past him as he stopped to swing his bag down from his shoulder. Surely, he hadn't left his own wand in Helena's Nest? He'd been carrying a wand around for nearly six years- but keeping track of two of them was hardly second nature. After he'd handed the yew wand over to Dobby last night - had he actually used any magic since then? He tried to remember. Ginny stood by him, watching as he rummaged in the bag. Up ahead, Snape stopped and looked round.
"Get a move on, Potter," he called back, harshly, and, with a slight sigh and a flourish, Ginny pulled a holly wand from her own sleeve, and presented it to him. Harry's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
"Zabini, kindly inform Potter that unless he manages to catch up by the time we reach the gates, his detention will be doubled," Snape bit the words out of the side of his mouth, without slowing his pace, and Blaise, not without a grimace at her head of House's back, turned back to Harry and Ginny, who had resumed walking again.
"We heard," the two chorused. After a moment, Harry glanced at her. "Where was it?"
"Back pocket. I didn't want you to blow your buttocks off," she gave him a sly wink.
"So, that's what you were up to."
"Well, partly," the redheaded girl smiled innocently. "The rest was just…"
"Lateral thinking?"
"Excuse me, Professor Snape?" Hermione had moved forward in line, and was now walking beside Luna, as the little party walked briskly down the long curve of the drive toward the front gates. Whilst the rest were heavily wrapped against the cold in cloaks and their thickest school robes, brims of pointed hats turned downward, Luna appeared to have decided that a trip out of school during term time was synonymous with 'holiday', and Hermione noticed that under her outer cloak, the blonde girl was wearing a rather horrible multi-coloured smock which appeared to be the victim of an explosion in a paint factory, and knee-length flannel shorts in a rather violent shade of pink. Her wizarding hat was adorned with a set of corks, bobbing on strings around the brim, and in place of her school bag, the eccentric Ravenclaw witch carried a bright blue plastic bucket and spade.
"Miss Granger, if you call for someone's attention you should kindly retain the basic manners to wait until it is proffered," Snape interjected on her reverie with a withering sneer. "Lovegood, I will be speaking to Professor Flitwick about your failure to adhere to appropriate school attire. Five points from Ravenclaw."
Behind them, Blaise made both Ron and Neville laugh by idly counting to two on her fingers in a very specific way, in Snape's general direction.
"I was just going to ask…" Hermione paused, keeping up with Snape's long strides with some effort, "Where we were going? Are we walking to Hogsmeade?"
"I shouldn't advise that, Miss Granger," Snape growled drily, "The Portkey is due at Hogsmeade Post Office at exactly eight fifteen this morning. In the circumstances, I do not intend on waiting for stragglers."
"Then how-" She glanced at her watch and then back at the others.
"If we are ever to escape the maze of your eternal questions on matters which you could easily resolve for yourself with the slightest talent for rudimentary observation and deduction, we are going to leave the school grounds on foot," Snape told her. "And then, we shall be Apparating to Hogsmeade. My time, at least, is valuable, unlike some, I do not choose to waste it on pointless self-indulgent exercises in wizarding nostalgia; I agreed to escort your party to this hearing only on the condition that we should travel there by the most efficient manner possible, rather than idling away hours on end on the railway as Mr. Potter appears to find appropriate on his various… peregrinations."
"But Luna and Ginny are too young to Apparate," Hermione protested, "They've not taken their O.W.L.s yet-"
Snape allowed a hiss of air to escape his clenched teeth.
"Don't contradict me, Miss Granger," he told her, in a bored tone, as they drew in sight of Hogwarts great stone gateposts. "Or waste time in specifying the speciously obvious. Miss Lovegood and Miss Weasley will accompany me- Assisted Apparition by a responsible adult wizard is perfectly within the bounds of the law-" he apparently failed to notice Ginny's expression of studied revulsion, "-and if any of the rest of this little collection of persistent underachievers has also failed yet to have passed their Apparition test, this will be an excellent opportunity for them to learn."
Hermione fell silent. She was acutely aware- as, she realised with annoyance, was Snape, that, with she, Ron, and Harry having spent most of the last year living in an Unplottable House, registering to take the Apparition test had been impossible- and Harry, in particular, living for a month or so before that since his birthday with his aunt and uncle, would have had no opportunity to even take lessons from a trained Apparator. She looked hard at the teacher, and her mood was not improved at the sight of the thin smile flickering about his lips.
"Well, well, Mr. Potter," Snape noted, at the gates, when, a few moments later, he himself asked Harry about his ability in the matter, "Something our very special hero and celebrity cannot yet achieve?" Snape stood with his back to the moors where the road led down to Hogsmeade below, facing the castle, and sneered, regarding Harry with beetle-black eyes glittering in triumph.
Harry opened his mouth- then closed it sharply, narrowing his eyes.
"I shall assume that I may take that sullen silence for an answer," the Potions Master observed witheringly. "Very well. Which of you has, in fact, passed their Apparition test?"
As it turned out, Blaise had taken her test the previous summer- and, rather to Harry's surprise, Neville hesitantly raised his hand. Snape's eyebrows arched dangerously.
"Longbottom?" he murmured. "I see. Well, we do not have time this morning to scrape various parts and pieces of you off the local landscape, so I trust that you have studied the matter with greater competence than is your usual wont."
"Well, I've not really practised much-" Neville squirmed slightly, his eyes growing somewhat glassy under Snape's stare, a stare he had been mercifully excused since the final fifth year potions class last July- "I qualified over Christmas- I wanted to after what happened at the Ministry- but I didn't have a wand, and Gran gave me lessons but wouldn't let me take the test till I'd got my own wand to do it with again-"
"I did not ask for the latest instalment of your breathless autobiography, Longbottom, and neither is there time. We are expected in Hogsmeade in exactly ten minutes. Anyone who fails to be there in time for the Portkey will certainly fail to appear before the Wizengamot- and is likely to be charged with contempt of court." Snape's eyes glittered as they swept over the group.
"That's mental!" Ron shouted. "You can't seriously expect us to learn how to apparate in ten minutes…"
"Less than ten minutes," Snape corrected him, icily. Harry wondered whether it was consciousness that they were off school grounds now, or whether Snape was enjoying his hold over them too much, that the thin man did not offer to deduct points from Ron for his outburst. "You have ten minutes to reach the square outside the post office. I would have thought," he went on, "That a group so illustrious, so intent on racing off on heroic wild goose chases at the slightest provocation, would perhaps have made learning this skill a higher priority."
"Well, perhaps you'd like to teach us?" Harry folded his arms. "You've made your point, Professor." He glared at Snape coldly now, his earlier anger calmed. He would not- he resolved again he would not- let Snape dig his way in and break apart Harry's control over his thoughts.
"Have I, Potter? I wonder…" Snape narrowed his eyes in turn, looking Harry in the eye for a long moment. Then, with a curl of his lip at the boy's implacable expression, he turned sharply on his heel and stepped three paces away.
"The charm, which you will find it is necessary to cast wordlessly, is Disapericium." He looked around. "Before we go any further- and you now have eight minutes remaining- you will tell me why the charm should not be spoken aloud."
Hermione- who had at least read the theory paper on Apparition- started to speak.
"Not you, Miss Granger. Whilst you may have ingested most of your textbooks and developed the thoroughly irritating ability to selectively regurgitate them on command, I am asking the question to seek an answer from someone capable of understanding the import of what they have read." As Snape looked dismissively away, Hermione, her knuckles white, caught Ron's hand as he went to draw his wand.
Snape looked slowly from face to face. "Seven minutes," he murmured, apparently with great satisfaction.
"Because when you speak a spell, you're saying something- you're talking- and if you're talking, your mind wants to be in the place you're talking to - while you say it- but you're trying to be somewhere else, so the spell would get mixed up and you'd end up-" Harry said the words all in a rush, as the thought came to him, memories of last Autumn, and the Astronomy Tower, coming back to him in a sudden flash. He flailed for a description, stretching his hands apart and wiggling his fingers.
Snape's eyebrows climbed even higher. He parted his lips disdainfully. "Adequate." He turned again, ignoring Harry's stare of challenge, and with a snap of his fingers his black, tapering wand slipped out of his cuff into his hand. With it, he pointed to an old, withered tree on the edge of the moor, some hundred metres distant. "Think the incantation," he repeated, "and hold in your mind first, the place you wish to be, secondly, yourself- the whole essential of yourself- the alternative, as I expect we shall shortly witness with Longbottom, is grisly in the extreme- and finally yourself, moved from this place, to that place." He swept the wand up under his chin, holding it vertically in front of his face. "Longbottom- begin."
Neville made a most peculiar sound in his throat.
"Immediately, Longbottom, time is pressing," Snape barked.
Neville's eyes flickered from face to face in panic. Harry met his gaze. He tried to put into that look just how much he'd seen Neville change, in the years they'd known one another- from the terrified first year to the boy who had come with him to the Ministry last summer and fought for what he believed to be right.
Something must have come across to the other boy, for Neville swallowed hard, and drew his wand up to his face in the same gesture as Snape had used.
"Right." He screwed his eyes up tight, and swung the wand sharply down to his side. There was a loud crack- and Neville disappeared. One shoe spun wildly on the spot, then settled on the ground. Ginny darted forward and picked it up, at the same moment as, with another, slightly echoing report, there was a crash from within the skeletal branches of the tree, and Neville appeared, clinging to one of the higher branches and kicking his feet frantically.
Snape briefly closed his eyes. Harry wondered if it was exasperation at Neville's predicament, or disappointment that the boy had not - apparently- injured himself as yet. Then that thought was overtaken by another, more alarming one- he had to do the same thing himself, and he found himself not possessed of the slightest conception of how to do it.
Snape turned. "Zabini," he rasped. "Now you will-" Blaise's wand flicked up and snapped down like the crack of a whip, and she appeared next to the tree, almost before the afterimage of her standing beside him had faded from Harry's retina. Luna applauded like a spectator at a Quidditch match. The Potions Master turned. "Excellent, Zabini," he called, crisply, across the intervening space. "You finally demonstrate one talent to call your own," he turned back to the remainder of the group, missing the sight of Blaise swaying, disorientated, and almost falling off her feet as she tried to look up at Neville, swinging from his branch overhead.
"Now…" Snape regarded Harry, Ron, and Hermione coldly, "You three."
Harry measured the distance between the group, and the tree, where Neville had just fallen to the ground with a loud yell, with his eyes, and stepped forward, his eyes hard. "I'll go first." It couldn't be - really- any harder than propelling yourself through the air on a broom, could it? It was just moving molecules about. No different, really… he thought of Animagus theory- of reshaping the body- or in this case holding it together- by instinct. He glanced quickly at Ginny. "Any chance of the tiniest bit of Harry Potter fan club adulation?"
"Just try not to leave behind anything… important," she retorted, with a sly grin which didn't reach her eyes, whose expression was distinctly more alarmed than her tone of voice suggested. She was still holding Neville's shoe, and Harry noticed one hand making quick, twisting, curling gestures over it- feeling the patterns. He tensed.
"Given that you now have three minutes remaining," Snape smiled, a slow, remorseless leer, "I regret, Potter, that there is no further time for practice." Wordlessly, he amplified his voice, so that both Blaise and Neville, who had each now recovered their footing, could hear him. "You will join me in Hogsmeade- or you will not, as the case might be." Ginny started to speak, but before she could say anything, Snape seized her shoulder firmly with his left hand, hooking his right wand arm through Luna's arm as he did so, swept his wand up to his face once more, slashed it down- and the three of them abruptly vanished.
Harry Potter said several things to the place where Snape had been standing. Most of them were precisely four letters long. He, Ron, and Hermione were alone on the moor.
"It's impossible…" Ron stared.
"We've got three minutes…" Hermione looked about her in panic. Two loud cracks sounded from the tree, and Ron looked that way in time to see precisely nothing of their friends.
"Oh, great- you'd have thought Neville might have waited-"
"Snape terrified him, Ron," Hermione told him. "Right- look- it can't be that hard. I mean- all sorts of wizards manage to apparate-"
"After a lot of practice, Hermione!" Ron protested. "It took the twins weeks to be confident at it- and they're brilliant- yeah, I know, they never worked hard- but look at all the stuff they invented- you don't tell me you can do that kind of thing and not-"
"Well, you can't slightly apparate, Ron," Hermione told him shrilly, her nerve fraying. "Everyone has to do it, the first time they do it, or-"
"We might end up anywhere- or everywhere- or-"
"Shut up please." Harry said with a slow, deceptive softness in his voice.
"Well, really-"
"We're going to do it," Harry told them, with a rising thrill of determination, "Because I'm going to wipe that stupid smirk off his greasy face. We're good with travel magic."
"The last time Ron attempted to charm a Portkey, Harry Potter, believe me, if I were a vindictive woman I could have sued him for sexual harassment-"
"I said I'm sorry- I was tired, I was daydreaming a bit-" Ron had turned a rather startling shade of purple which entirely failed to colour coordinate with his hair in a satisfactory way.
"In that case Ronald Weasley, your imagination is decidedly-"
"WANDS OUT!" Harry turned, and bellowed. "NOW!" He was entirely conscious both of the time, every second draining away like sand, and of Snape's sneering smile, seeming to float mockingly on the air for a fraction of a second after he had vanished, like some pale and malnourished echo of a Cheshire cat.
Their wands were in their hands. Harry linked arms with both of them. "You saw how Snape did it for Luna and Ginny," he told them. "Hermione, you know the theory- try to keep us steady and stop anything going wrong. Ron- think of Hogsmeade- think of the post office- think of the square- see us going there, ok?"
Ron nodded a bit dubiously.
"Then- together," Harry told them firmly, bringing his wand up. He looked sharply from one to the other.
"Together." Ron nodded again, doing the same.
"Together." Hermione lifted her wand.
"NOW!"
Their wands swept down together- and Harry felt an instant sensation of incredible pressure- seeming to weigh down on him heavily from every direction, trapping him, pinning him in one place, held fixed upon the turning Earth against the force of the incantation he had cast, setting his will against that same sullen weight of matter that he had felt all his life without knowing it. Growling bestially, he flung all the counterweight of his mind and magic against that barrier, until it felt as if he must be crushed to nothing between the two great powers- and suddenly, as if through the tiniest crack, there was a weakness in the solidity of matter, and he streamed through.
He was a gas, he was a solid. He was air, he was body. He clung to Ron and Hermione and felt themselves lifting along a path declared for them. He could feel the turn of the Earth- feel himself rushing headlong across it- suddenly, without warning, they were solid again- and the sky and the grass were a whirling blurr which they pitched across without warning, tumbling out of control at insane speed with neither broom nor charm to control their flight- Hermione was screaming- the ground was coming at them at a horrendous rate- he closed his eyes-
- His eyes were nothing- gas- the ground was gone- they were swirling smoke and sparks upon the air once more, and the sky leapt across their imagined field of view, the castle seeming to fall away and the valley open before them.
"Fuuuuuuuuu-" Ron's voice rippled sharply into being suddenly- and the three of them were high, high in the air above what was surely Hogsmeade- plummeting like stones as gravity and the laws of physics glanced their way through the ripped skein of their spell and firmly sought to reassert their sway over the three. Harry clenched his teeth- screening out the panic - it was just flying - the lack of a broom is a detail we'll consider in a moment - and remembered the faintest tug upon his senses, as Ginny had been apparated away by Snape. The tiniest echo of their connection- be it through the Oath they had sworn, or simply by the sheer closeness of two minds, two powerful magical fields which had delved together so deep and dark that they knew one another's signatures as few could. Perhaps the only other wizard alive he could have touched in greater intimacy of the soul was Voldemort himself- and Harry decided as the ground grew alarmingly closer that comparing his relationship with Ginny, with his relationship with Voldemort, was not the last thing he wished to go through his mind before the cobbled streets of Hogsmeade did so.
Hermione shrieked into the wind as they fell.
"Severus Snape, you total c-"
Harry seized them both, pulling them tightly in toward him- and pulling himself inward again, diving into the very heart of that pressure, that constraint at the very boundary of matter and energy and plunging through it- following the shining thread of his faint awareness of Ginny, somewhere below him, feeling space twist around them once more-
- His shoulder hit the ground at an angle, and he was rolling in the dust, coughing- suddenly, acutely aware that he had not drawn breath for over one long, rather strenuous minute, and breathing hard. He threw out his hands to stop himself, grazing his knuckles on cobblestones, and came to a sudden halt, on his knees, head swimming and breathing hard.
"Ow." He heard Ron repeating this, several times over. To his other side, Hermione was exhaling rapid, short breaths with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, "T. t-t-t-t-t."
Harry shook his head vigorously, saved his glasses, which were hanging from one ear, and regarded the pair of brown leather boots in front of him. From them emerged a pair of legs he had generally felt to be particularly shapely and worthy of inspection, clad in thick navy blue tights which had a small ladder developing just below one knee, he observed. He checked that he still had his wand, and accepted a hand up to his feet. The owner of the boots looked him over.
"Do I get to do a full physical check-up later?" she asked, lightly.
Harry took half a step forward, and fell rather bodily against her. "I didn't mean starting just yet," Ginny added, supporting him until he'd got his balance. Her eyes were shining, though, and Harry for a moment thought he saw in her something of the same hero worship that they'd both seen rather too much of in recent weeks- but he rearranged his thoughts- it was something much more personal, and something which made him feel taller, somehow, and as if he rather wanted to raise his arms to the sky and shout- she was proud of him. Not the famous Harry Potter- but Harry himself.
He leaned in to kiss her, but she flicked her eyes to one side, warningly, and Harry recollected, turning quickly- but not letting go her hand. Through vision which was still inclined to drift and jump this way and that, and with a rather queasy sensation in his stomach, he realised that they were, indeed, standing in the little square outside Hogsmeade post office- a steady stream of owls of all sizes and types flew in and out of the large, open windows- in the middle of the square, Blaise and Luna were helping Neville down from a tree - a few passing witches were regarding the little party with some amusement- and directly in front of the post office, Snape stood, his lips pinched together, regarding the young couple's reunion with his usual closed, sardonic stare.
"You are twenty seconds late." Snape drew breath testily. "It is most unfortunate that the Ministry owls do not keep greater punctuality, otherwise you would have found the empty street and subsequent legal repercussions a salutary lesson for the future." He paused. Harry reached for his wand with a certain slow resolution. Snape went on.
"You also now know how to Apparate. Your technique is sloppy, your precision pathetic, and your discipline showy, unreliable, and - in my personal view- highly inadequate." Ron and Hermione had now recovered their footing, and, leaning heavily on one another and breathing hard, had come up to stand behind Harry. "However-" Snape went on, "These matters are judged according to a strict set of objective criteria which it is regrettably not within my authority to amend or improve upon, and which in my opinion allow far too much leniency to a first transference and assumption of improvement over time which my own personal experience of your undisciplined approach leads me to consider unrealistic at best- and as such, being a fully qualified Apparition Invigilator myself-" his voice dropped, and he delivered the words with as much venom as a man pronouncing a death sentence- "I must inform you that the three of you have passed your Apparition Test."
Ron's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"
"In spite of the considerable weight of evidence otherwise in your case, Weasley, academic progress and qualification is not a matter for joking, boy," Snape rasped, and turned on his heel, walking in through the door into the post office behind. Harry turned and looked at Ron and Hermione, his eyes wild, not entirely knowing what to think. Neville and Luna were applauding them, and Ginny embraced him.
Blaise smiled laconically. "Well done, Potter," she interjected. "And- well," she nodded to Ron and Hermione. "Bonus points if you'd hit Snape on the head though."
"Gran made sure mine was a surprise too-" Neville was telling Harry. "Sorry- if I'd known that was what Snape was trying to pull I'd have said something, Harry- but-"
"It's supposed to be about how well you can do it right out of the blue when you're not ready for it," Hermione said, still swaying backwards and forwards rather. "If you can do it like that- then the rest comes easier- but I didn't realise- even Snape would be enough of a git to-" she pulled a face, and put a hand to her stomach. "I feel sick."
"You didn't go and splinch yourself or something?" Ron looked anxious, putting his hand on her shoulder again, "You know, when we were up there?" he half-glanced skyward, as if expecting any moment to be struck on the head by his girlfriend's spleen, descending from the heavens upon him in a more than usually literal way. Hermione shook her head.
"I just - really don't like flying very much-" she started, still holding on to him for support- but then Snape re-emerged, stalking out of the post office and holding a brown paper package aloft.
"Pay attention," he hissed, "And if you," his gaze swept coldly across Harry, Hermione, and the two Weasleys, "Could bring yourselves to stop pawing at one another for a few scant minutes, I think we would all appreciate it. Notwithstanding that I am in no particular hurry to experience yet another generation of your wretched families, it is also long past time that you learned to display the dignity and reserve expected of witches and wizards of Hogwarts in public places-"
"Were we supposed to be paying attention to the insult, or were you warming up to something useful?" Harry started in some surprise. It was Ginny who had spoken, in a sweet tone of voice, and he realised that, although she had never concealed her solidarity of opinion with him or her brothers, on the subject of Professor Snape, she had rarely confronted him directly during their time together. Snape smiled, a slow and horrible smile. Harry took a half step forward. Ginny didn't move, but she returned to Snape a smile which was approximately as friendly as a blizzard of flying glass.
"Ten points from Gryffindor-"
"Ok." She nodded brightly, and her eyes glinted. "Worth it. What can I get for twenty?" There were two bright spots of colour in her cheeks, and Harry recognised a flash of the family's temper, but tightly controlled. Even as she said, it her hand gripped his more tightly. He realised with a shock that although she might well be proud of him, and of what he, her brother, and Hermione had just accomplished- nevertheless, being wrenched away from them outside Hogwarts gates, and forced to wait here in Hogsmeade, not knowing whether or not Harry and the others would make it there in time- or safe- had been far from one of Ginny's happiest experiences.
Snape's teeth bared for a moment, and he controlled himself with a visible effort, holding up the package and tearing it open. "All of you, take hold of the Portkey. Quickly- as it is tuned to the Ministry itself, it has only a very brief active window- Zabini, Lovegood, stop pawing at Longbottom, the boy is perfectly intact, the missing brain is a normal feature, I regret to say- get over here- now, Zabini-" he presented them with a large half-brick.
"Now?" Harry protested, feeling his stomach still churning from their tumultuous flight, "Can't we wait a-"
"Do as I say!" Snape thrust the brick forward, and seven hands touched it. He felt a familiar, sickening jerk, and the world began to spin around them once more, twisting and fading into a dancing haze of light and colour.
Harry felt Ginny seize him around the waist with one hand- his own free hand caught hold of Ron's as the boy lost his own grip on the Portkey in his haste to support Hermione- Neville groaned loudly- with a sudden, loud bang the world seemed to turn over and he fell head over heels on a hard, black tiled floor.
"Professor Severus Snape, of Hogwarts, and party," a clipped, efficient voice said.
Harry swayed on his feet as Snape irritably signed several sheafs of paperwork presented by a short little wizard with sticking-out ears and a purple bowler hat. He was aware that his skin was cold and clammy, and his stomach felt as if someone had hit it with a Bludger- right after he'd finished a Hogwarts end of term banquet. Ginny was holding on to him very tightly, but it was hard to tell who was holding whom upright, and her eyes were focusing rather hard on nothing in particular. Luna was standing, juddering slightly back and forth. One by one, the corks hanging from her hat caught fire and burned up to ash before the flame severed the string and they bounced down to leave greasy black cinders and white ash on the tiled floor in a little circle around her. Neville stood stock still, his face pasty pale and his eyes closed, arms held out from his body rigidly, occasionally wincing slightly. Blaise had gone to lean against the wall of the long, wide vestibule to the Ministry of Magic, between one of the - now dark and empty- fireplaces which had, in more routine times, billowed with green flame as wizards bustled in and out of them.
The Ministry was back in operation now- although a considerable majority of those Harry saw were wrapped in the uniforms of Aurors on duty, or the dark grey cloaks and broad-brimmed hats which Ron had identified as Unspeakables- but the hearths remained empty and silent, the Ministry's own Polarising Filter which banned travel by Floo Powder preventing their use. It gave the room a colder, chillier feeling than even on his last waking visit, the night that-
"Oh." Hermione said, suddenly, her face turning green, and wincing. "Oh my-" she doubled up suddenly, and Ron seized Luna's plastic bucket, thrusting it in front of Hermione just in time as she was violently sick. Snape spun around.
"This is no place for such disgusting behaviour," he snarled. "I assure you, Miss Granger, I shall be speaking very clearly to Professor McGonagall regarding your disrespectful attitude, on our return." Hermione looked murderously at him over the rim of Luna's bucket, and Ron appeared to be seriously contemplating emptying it over Snape's head. Snape turned away, and his lip twisted in further annoyance, observing Neville's motionless stance.
"Longbottom, whilst I assure you I fully appreciate that weeding carrots in Herbology is far more within your capabilities than a grasp of even basic potion-making, nevertheless the fact remains that we are in a hurry, and the Ministry of Magic does not have time to waste while you stand around consoling yourself for your inadequacy by pretending to be a tree." He sharply beckoned them onward down the hallway, toward the counter at the end. "It is now twenty-past eight, the hearing is due to start in exactly ten minutes. Come along."
The little wizard fell into step beside them as Snape let them briskly onward, and looked at the suffering group of teenagers closely. His brow furrowed, sending a little ripple of wrinkles up to his purple hat.
"Now, let me see- which are the Weasleys?" he asked, in a hesitant, but kind tone. Then he smiled, his eyes going to first Ginny, then Ron's ginger hair. "Of course," he beamed delightedly, and added in a low voice, "Should have known, like father, like- er, son and daughter, I suppose." He held out a hand and shook Ginny's, gravely. "My dear, I'm so sorry for your loss. I know it must be a terrible wrench coming back here- after what happened that night- " he glanced around the hallway. "Terrible. Horrible and terrible. I was here the next morning and- " he cringed, eyes darting this way and that with a remembered fear, "But you don't want to hear about that." he shook Harry's hand then, forcing a smile. "Mr Potter. Great fan, of course. Wonderful work- never mind what that ghastly woman says- we're thinking of you, you know." Then someone called to him from one of the side passages and, with an apologetic glance and a florid little bow, he scurried away.
Ginny shivered, looking around with fresh eyes, and burrowing into the crook of Harry's arm, biting her lip. "I'd… almost-" she shuddered. "Not forgotten- but, what with all the rush, and Snape being such a rat bastard about everything, I'd not had time to think about-" He held her, fighting the cold feeling that settled about him at the thought.
It seemed to rise all round him, almost like the touch of a Dementor. He remembered Sirius, the smile still etched on his face as he fell through the portal. He remembered Percy, twisted and in flames, screaming in agony. The memories and the horror of this place seemed to rise up in him for a moment, and it was as if all the warmth and comfort he could give her had no real meaning. When first he'd realised that he would have to come to the Ministry to give evidence, he had felt a horror building- but so much else had displaced the thought from his memory, and today- it seemed incredible that less than half an hour ago, they had been standing on the steps of Hogwarts- no time to dwell upon the thought of standing in this place again - now, though, he faltered, his pace slowing, and it seemed that all sense was dulled by the peculiar sluggish, crawling, insistent hollowness of those memories.
Snape had moved back to them, stepping away from the weighing of wands at the counter rather suddenly, and approaching the group with his head low, eyes puckered, peering at Harry like some malignant, dark crab, and Harry jerked his head up sharply, feeling unwilling to show weakness in front of the older man, for all he felt a deep disgust with himself.
He- Harry- had brought Ginny into this place again. What right did he have to try to comfort her? Last year what had happened here had almost destroyed her totally- and Sirius had died because he, Harry, had been a fool. He felt her hesitate in turn, recognising his suddenly slack grip, and looking up at him. Through his peripheral vision, he was aware of Snape peering intently at him, looking him in the eye although he did not look back. Angry at the delay, or gloating at his, Harry's weakness? It no longer seemed to matter.
I shouldn't have brought them here. Ron and Ginny- then he stopped, quite suddenly standing still. His head swung round and he looked hard at Snape, the cruel, mocking, bullying tyrant of a teacher who had seemed to make it his entertainment for the day- or perhaps his revenge, for the uncomfortable prospect of facing Draco Malfoy's enquiry- to set Harry a near-impossible challenge- and Harry had beaten it, shown himself stronger than Snape. Harry's eyes blazed like agates at the Professor, without speaking, and he turned back to Ginny, gently holding her again with more warmth, and murmuring her name. She looked up.
Yes, I should have brought them here, because they are STRONG and they will face this down. We will meet it together.
Harry straightened. He gave her a slight, shy, reassuring smile, and she smiled back, fingers knitting with his and hands clasped tightly. He turned back to face Snape, to meet the endless challenge of his snide stare with a firm resolve of his own- but Snape had already turned away, as soon as he had observed the pallor of despair driven from Harry's face, and moved onwards, curtly beckoning the group further into the labyrinth of the Ministry.
It seemed as if they were whirled through the maze of lifts and passageways, bustled past an endless stream of busy wizards and witches, and led finally along a corridor Harry remembered only too well. Once, Harry caught sight of Arthur Weasley, hurrying along on business. He half called out, but Arthur was out of sight before he had the chance to do so. Finally, they stopped at the door to the courtroom, and the fussy little wizard they had briefly met in the entrance hall greeted them.
"Come in- please be quiet," he raised both hands in emphasis, and whispered himself, "Most of the Wizengamot are already sitting- they'll be bringing the prisoner in in just a moment-"
Harry exchanged a look with his friends. Something about that word, 'prisoner', made a cold knot in his stomach at the thought. Still, there was no time now to dwell on it, as they were hurried into the courtroom.
"Friendly place," Ron muttered. The tiered benches were crowded, and all eyes ranged down on the central space, where the chair in which once Harry had sat before the inquisition stood empty.
"Lovely," Harry responded drily. "One of my all time favourites. Comes right after the Chamber of Secrets-"
Ginny caught his eye. "I don't know, that one had a certain je ne sais quoi…"
"Will you two please not start flirting in Parseltongue," Ron spluttered, as the little wizard let them to their seats on one side of the chamber. "Of all the creepy-"
"That's … that's French," Hermione rolled her eyes in despair, sitting down.
Harry, seated with Ginny at one end of the row to them, and conscious of a number of disapproving stares from the wizards surrounding them, turned to face them, frantically miming a finger to his lips. As he did so, at the far end, Snape turned to face both of them with cold anger in his eyes, making the same gesture. The two regarded one another for a long moment, neither moving a muscle, then sharply, each turned to face the front. The large door at the bottom of the courtroom had opened again, and, a burly Auror's hand clamped down firmly on his shoulder, his head hanging, a thin, bedraggled, miserable looking boy with lank white-blonde hair was being marched on to the floor of the courtroom.
High above them, there was a stir of movement, and Harry glanced upward briefly, tearing his eyes away from the sight of that dejected figure being settled in the chair in the centre of the room. He did not look down, as he heard the manacles on the chair close and lock with a steely rasp. He did not look down, but as he looked up, Harry saw his own disquiet reflected in the eyes of another. The chief elder of the Wizengamot, resplendent in deep purple robes and a rich, cowled hood emblazoned with geometric golden designs, gazed down upon Draco Malfoy, and sighed, a deep and abiding sadness in his eyes.
"This court of enquiry is now in session," declared Albus Dumbledore.
Author's Note: As Ron Weasley might put it… bloody hell. I wonder whether I may, in fact, have achieved some sort of record for the longest gap between updates. Suffice to say that that was not in any way planned- and if any of my old readers and reviewers from… twelve years ago. Twelve years! … are actually still active and around- I can only apologise.
Stuff happened. New job, violently deceased computer taking a) my draft chapters and synopses, and b) more significantly, my actual password and account information for , and any number of life changes which swept the idea of sorting those issues clean out of my head until I'd more or less entirely forgotten about the whole thing.
Until, one night, a few months ago, the story popped back into my head. So- here we are again. The actual plot and general shape of the story will, I think, proceed as it was always going to. I'm not going to say on what timescale, because… well… twelve years, but- the plan is certainly the same, and the plot and general outline as it was, I recall fairly clearly and have built back into shape.
Obviously, it's been a while. I hope that the characters are still roughly the same people they were in Chapter 52- the way I write them may have shifted somewhat, for better or for worse, but it is my hope that who they are will still be the same, and as I grow used to them again, perhaps where they are still slightly out of true, they'll find their way home again. Time will tell. I'll do my best.
