Chapter 37: Don't Take The Bait.

Darkness.

He swears his eyes are open but that still doesn't dispel the panic riling in his stomach.

He blinks. Twice. Slowly.

Yes, he's awake.

Where is he?

His body's senses now pour in.

You're lying on your back. It's some time in the night, gone midnight - still early but perhaps not that early.

He feels cold and he's definitely naked.

Is that what woke him?

No, it's something else.

What feels like toes have been caressing up and down his left lower leg; he hears some murmured sighs from that direction then silence for a few seconds – then a gentle snore.

Hermione.

He feels his mouth rise into a smile; his leg buzzes where she's touched him, her sleeping sighs sound like caresses too… then he realises why he's so cold: she must be deeply cocooned in their duvet. She always was a duvet-hogger.

Something is very quietly but persistently buzzing by his head. Of course, his phone.

Now he remembers; he'd charmed it to stay on the bed by him, not to be knocked off when he fell asleep. It shows no light. Deliberately.

He'd also charmed it so its alarm would be attuned only to him – he's not going to wake her. Even though it's deeply dark, he feels her presence just across their broad bed. They had made it to the bedroom … in the end. Via the sofa, coffee table, stairs, upstairs' landing bathroom … penultimately the landing … then the bedroom.

He hears her breathing, deep and settled and slow. No, he's not going to wake her. She needs to sleep.

The phone is still buzzing in his mind's ear, its charm quiet yet determined, calling for his attention. For a moment, he lies perfectly still. He denies in his mind it is ringing. He's just going to stay here, for ever. With her.

But he can't.

He takes a deep, deep, profound breath and releases it slowly. Then he reaches over with his left arm for the phone by his right side. It must be around 4.15 a.m. He's set the alarm so he can be up well before the operations begin at seven o'clock.

He holds the phone in his hand and clicks the display button, knowing it will only display for his sight; there will be no tell-tale light to wake her, if possible.

It's not the alarm.

The phone's clock says 3.45 a.m. precisely. They've been asleep for perhaps an hour and a half? Feels like forever.

There's a message. No, it's not the alarm.

Fothergill.

6 a.m. Manchester Art Gallery. Art of the Victorians Wing. Come alone, no little wifey or The-Fucking-Boy-Who-Fucking-Well-Lived or any of your so-called heroes: just you.

So, this is it. At last.

Him and Fothergill. Together.

For an early morning, 'fireside chat'. He's just about to move, to get up from the bed when the display lights up again in his mind's eye.

P.s. No tricks. Understand THAT. Alone. Or people die. See you soon, Chief Auror.

His wand is on the bedside table. He grasps it as he rolls on to his right side and pushes gently off from the bed. With a few practised wand movements, he is washed and dressed in one minute and moving almost silently to the bedroom door. He flicks his wand again, charming for silence, finds the handle.

The room is still in total darkness but he can sense her slumbering several feet away. He feels that familiar wrenching in his gut as he knows he is doing something against her that he doesn't wish to – but he must. He's a fool but there's too much to lose. Perhaps they will win. He reaches out in his mind to that idea, mentally grabs it like a broom flyer holding on for dear life several hundred feet above an uncompromising ground. Yes, perhaps we'll win and she and everybody will be safe.

But she's going to be mightily, mightily pissed off.

He knows he should be more concerned about her reaction but frankly, he's been over this a thousand times in his head: it has to be this way. At least, initially – she can kill him later.

Forcing himself not to look back at the sleeper on the bed, who he cannot see anyway in the darkness, he steels himself for one, last jump into the maelstrom of life, turns the handle, opens the door and exits silently on to the landing.

Ron sipped the espresso carefully, enjoying the sharp, bitter taste – he'd normally take sugar but he wanted to now be firmly awake.

He sat at the breakfast counter, tasting the coffee in his mouth and his attention on trying to work out what was at the back of his mind, worrying him – it just wouldn't piss off. He needed to focus on the day's events, what instructions he was going to send to John McKinnon and all the Section Leaders, what he was going to send to Dorothy and the Minister, how he was going to deal with Parry and Jimmy – and the plan he'd kept hidden to deal with Fothergill, when it came to them being face-to-face.

And what he was going to say to Hermione.

But this worry just kept getting in the way. What the hell was it?

He checked the time by the clock on the kitchen wall: 4 a.m. He wanted to be on the move by 5 a.m. at the latest He really needed to sort those reports on Jimmy's movements yesterday, it could be so useful for John McKinnon to know but … What the bloody hell was it? Something was really bothering him. Something wasn't right.

He took another sip of the strong coffee and then made himself sit still and straight on the kitchen stool.

'Concentrate …' he whispered to himself. He closed his eyes and made himself ask questions in his head: what is it? Come on, think! Something from yesterday, is it?

Yes … but not something – some things. Something someone said and then … something he'd spotted.

One was …? Of course, Parry!

What had Parry said?

'No, Chief Auror, you are wrong. The Book of Affinities isn't wizard-made.'

Hermione asks what he means. Parry seems surprised she doesn't know.

'I thought you'd know this, Undersecretary? You must have read 'Hogwarts: A History'?

Ron remembers he snorts. Had she!? About a thousand times, probably. What is Parry's point, he asks.

'The Undersecretary will remember from the first chapter of that book that the author – a rare thing for a wizard – concedes that much of the early magic created by wizard-kind was in fact stolen – sorry, misappropriated from other magical beings: elves, centaurs and so on. In fact, many of the great tomes that reside in the Hogwarts collection are based on non-wizard magic.'

Dorothy asks how he knows this. Ron remembers how Parry shifts slightly in his seat.

'During the Battle of Hogwarts, I managed to get into the Library – it was terrible, truly frightening – I am not one for fighting …' Ron remembered he coughed nervously. 'Well I … I have loved potions from an early age and I love books dearly – something I share with the Undersecretary, I think.'

Ron recalls he sees Parry smile slightly in Hermione's direction, a smile which soon disappears when he notices the Chief Auror's look which clearly states he doesn't want a bucket of arse-gravy like Jacob Parry having anything to share with his wife. He can see Parry now reddening visibly and looking out at the view of Birmingham. Good. Don't get too at ease, you little shit.

'Erm, well, I was supposed to find certain books and make sure they weren't damaged during the fighting: any copies of major works on Charms, Potions and Transfiguration and so – that bastard, Yaxley sent me - with the blessing of Fothergill.'

Parry certainly has their attention then. Come on, Ron: think! What does he say next? What were you going to double check? Hermione asks how Fothergill could wield so much influence, even with someone like Yaxley.

'Oh, that's simple. He always was one of the Dark Lord's 'pets' – I cannot say how much I hate the fucker but he's a brilliant experimental wizard – with my potions skills and his grasp of Charms and Transfiguration plus his risk taking, you know, let's try an experiment, eh? And if it blows your hand off but gets the results I want and makes the bastards higher up happy, especially the Dark Lord … well, all the better. He could do no wrong, he worked tirelessly for them and he got those results – as you saw when the walls of Hogwarts began to be blasted away? That was one of his. Very effective.'

Hermione and Dorothy had both look at him at that point. They don't need to know what he is thinking.

Fred.

But he hasn't let himself become emotional. He simply prompts Parry to continue.

'Well, if a shite-bag like Fothergill says to Yaxley, we can't risk damaging the Library and Yaxley says tough, he's guaranteeing nothing, well, Fothergill's next idea is can we send someone in to retrieve important items, really important tomes that could be irreplaceable. Yaxley argued no, we hadn't got time for that shit and - at that point the Dark Lord joins the conversation.'

They all see Parry visibly pause and whiten slightly. Hermione says it is alright, Voldemort is dead, he can't hurt Parry now.

'Yes, but Fothergill can.' Parry takes a deep breath. 'Merlin's left teat, he was a frightening bastard but he knows talent when he sees it – Yaxley's just a sophisticated thug but Fothergill's one of the Dark Lord's golden fuckers, can do no wrong. No, that won't do, Mr. Yaxley; when the main breach is made and the first assault goes in, you will send whomever William here deems trustworthy enough to go in and retrieve whatever he needs … or some such bollocks. That's why the Library did receive some bad damage but wasn't completely obliterated like other areas of the Castle, the Dark Lord order the attacks to be aimed away from the Library as much as possible.'

He hears Dorothy ask what happens next.

'Oh, just fan-fucking-tastic! The Dark Lord immediately selects me and four other poor twats to go in for this job. I am shitting myself and I know why he's done it: to keep Fothergill close and safe: for all my skills, I am expendable – he knows full well we are both planning to set up a business after the War is won – we'll make a killing, millions. But the old bastard is saying to Fothergill that no-one is indispensable – so watch your fucking step. Fothergill daren't say no because he's partly got his way but he isn't going to argue, the Dark Lord is in one of those moods – he's quiet and direct – means he's really pissed off.'

Ron hears himself ask the question. 'And what did you save then? Did you get his books for him?'

'Yes, I did. The other four were just poor fuckers being used as cannon-fodder as Muggles say. Their job was to keep me alive; that's what Fothergill told all of them – don't come back without him. They become my insurance. Poor bastards, they all died eventually, last one jumped into a blast spell to save me; dragged him quarter of a mile back towards our camp before I realised, he was stone dead.'

There's a pause. 'What were the books, Jacob?' Dorothy asks gently.

''Strettoniae's Transfigurations', 'The Charms and Discourses of the Empress Maud', 'Potions and Arrears of Jeremy of Dublin'.

Hermione leans forward. 'Those are three of the Great Studies series, they've been lost for decades – people have only had fragments, commentaries. That's not possible.'

Ron adds that they are not on any inventory he's ever seen of the books in the Hogwarts' Library. They are thought to be lost or destroyed years ago; if any copies have survived, they'd almost certainly been destroyed in the Battle of Hogwarts.

'Ah well, they won't, you see because Fothergill had found them during his third year. He'd noticed the comments when he'd looked in the catalogue that they were lost. But he's nothing if not determined; he developed a charm to find lost items, specifically aimed at books with great magical significance – you see, the Library, the charm's idea is simple: Hogwarts' Library has clear spells built into it that mean after a time if books aren't returned they will be 'missed' so-to-speak, by the Library. Fothergill simply used that knowledge to bridge the magical gap and 'connect' to the books. He told me where he'd found them originally and where I could find them again. At the very back of the Library, in the deepest recesses of the Forbidden Section there are secret compartments, sliding doors, spring traps, the lot – it was in one of these he'd found them. He told me the charm to find the compartment, the location and the recognition charm I could use to recognise them, as he said he'd hidden them with charms every time he put them back – it seems he'd been referring to them a lot whilst we were at school. Lying bastard!'

'What do you mean, lying bastard?' asks Ron.

'The three books were there, all bound up in an old velvet bag, sealed by inversion charms but I could recognise that there were two other books in there but each time I tried the charm I got nowhere. I knew he was concealing something but there wasn't time to think then as we were in the middle of a battle. I took the bag, sealed the compartment and the five of us made our way out of all the chaos. Getting in was hard enough but we'd done it; getting out was hell and one after the other the four were killed. It was when the last man, Broderick was his name, dived in front of that blast charm that I discovered what a lying fucker Fothergill was. Some magical effect of the blast must have disrupted his concealment charms because the bag's magic stopped and I was able to open it. There were five books in there, the three he'd named plus two others.'

'The Book of Affinities?' Ron guesses.

'Yes.'

'What was the fifth?' asks Dorothy.

Ron can see that Parry has been holding his hands, tightly together, he thinks, just under the table's edge, just out of his sight, but now, he brings his hands on to the table and they are visibly shaking. He looks at all three of them quickly, one after the other, then looks out again at Birmingham, basking in its city centre afternoon.

It's like he can't suppress the sheer excitement of what he has to say next.

'The Great Index.'

Silence.

No-one says anything.

Finally, Ron is about to break the moment when Parry speaks.

'Yes, you heard me correctly, Mr. Great-Fucking-Chief Auror. The Great Index.' He looks at Ron. 'And I have the only copy.'