Chapter 38: The Best Way To Not Feel Hopeless Is To Get Up And Do Something.
But that wasn't it – not at all! Parry's news had been revelatory but also so many things were now clearer.
Two brilliant students, one Fothergill, expert in Charms and Transfiguration and the other, Parry, expert in Potions had combined and used the knowledge from these lost Great Tomes to create whatever they had needed, whatever magical device – whatever suited their purpose. Linked to their natural abilities, the books had given them a great, new advantage – one that Fothergill was certainly happy to exploit. However, something had gone wrong: there was bad blood between Fothergill and Parry.
'So what happened next?' Ron hears himself ask.
'I had to think fast. Broderick was dead; the battle was everywhere but by the time I had stopped dragging Broderick's body, he was dead, poor bastard. What to do? Fothergill clearly hoped I would come back with the bag, intact, no questions asked and I'd be none-the-wiser – so much for Fothergill's so-called regard for me! 'Oh, you're the best potioneer of our generation, you and me, Jacob – we'll make a fortune anywhere in the world!' Twat! Lying, greedy twat – he always was, always had been but I was the bigger idiot, fooling myself he actually had some kind of proper partnership in kind. Nah, crap! I'd known for ages I couldn't really trust him but I just couldn't make myself admit it! When the Dark Lord had won the war, we were going to bugger off around the world, obviously with the psychopath's blessing – Fothergill reckoned it was certain he'd get permission – and as long as we remained loyal and paid a certain percentage over to the new government that would be set up, we could reap whatever rewards we wanted or earned – ha!'
Ron sees the bitterness and feelings of utter betrayal in Parry's face. As he remembers, he sips his coffee slowly. Come on, Ron: think, what was it?
'You seem pissed off, Jacob…' Ron says.
Suddenly Parry is furious and almost brave, Ron thinks. He stares furiously at the other three. 'I know you all think I am a good-for-nothing bastard who'd sell his own mother for a galleon but that's not it at all …'
'Well, what is it?' Dorothy jumps in.
In his mind's eye, Ron can see the man opposite him collect himself to try and unburden some part of him that is perhaps too personal for anyone else.
'You ever known somebody who you just are utterly in step with, yes? It's like that with me and Fothergill. I mean, I have no idea about his other ambitions and that I swear; about that he's always been a secretive shite, there are parts of himself, his – character, he keeps them locked tight away inside and shows them to on-one – he even managed it with the Dark Lord, always appearing the ruthless, smarmy git, willing to do what it takes to get favour with people more powerful than him – but he was always working away, you could just sense it. But him and me – we fitted together like a key and lock. Anywhere else I hated the bastard BUT in a magical laboratory, we were quite literally, magic, creating ideas like a great, magical storm of invention; trying things, experimenting – and not all of it bad before you judge me too harshly: even Fothergill thought my idea for new medical potions was a great one and he helped me tremendously … at least in the early days.' Ron sees Parry pause again. 'As I said, I'd been denying to myself what he was really like; that I did not matter outside of the laboratory – for such a clever bloke, he had all the manner of a complete turd when he wanted to be, completely shitting on the people who helped him – but because he had powerful friends and could be a right nasty bastard when he wanted to be, he got away with it.' Ron sees Parry now look directly at him. 'When I saw what other books were there -I don't know, I just realised this was not for sharing – we weren't a partnership – I would end up, at best, in the end just another underling to the great, fucking Fothergill! It was that thought that made me do what I did next.'
'And what did you do next?' Hermione asks.
'I knew there wouldn't be time for him to check, there was so much shit going on with the battle. So I removed the books carefully, scorched the bag partly with an incendio charm then charmed 'The Book of Affinities' and 'The Great Index' invisible and untraceable, except for me – I, alone, would be able to see them – just as long as he and anyone else believed my story. I made sure the two were hidden n my person and put the other three he'd listed back in the bag and hurried back to headquarters.'
'What did you tell him?' Ron asks.
'That there'd been an explosion – we'd been hit by a blast charm; it killed poor Broderick, and some part of the magic blast had damaged the bag, which luckily managed to protect the books but had been scorched. I could tell he didn't quite believe me – where were the other books? What exactly happened? I argued with him: what other books – there bag had been knocked out of my hand, it's content sprayed everywhere but the bag took the main shock and I'd managed to find the three he'd wanted, in the wreckage of the area and so on. He was furious. I thought for several moments as we argued back and forth that he was going to curse me … or worse. I lost my temper then, mainly to try and distract him: told him to fuck off, called him an ungrateful bastard, told him the other four were dead for the three books and I'd done as he wanted – and no, if he asked me again to go back out and look for something that wasn't there, I would curse him myself. I even pulled my wand on him in return – that's when Yaxley cam into the tent and saw us pointing wands at each other. That stopped the argument; Yaxley was furious, telling us we hadn't got time for this shit and to get out and join the next assault.'
'What happened next?' asks Dorothy.
'Fothergill tells Yaxley to piss off, the Dark Lord has given me and him exemptions, we are to stay away from the assaults and he is to personally help with the blast charm enhancements so the walls can be breached. Yaxley's livid but there is nothing he can do because Thicknesse comes in at this point and asks why the hell Fothergill isn't down with the blast wizards, preparing the charms for the next assault. Well, Fothergill thinks quick, says I have to stay with the books – that has the other two's interest but there's no more time, they have to go there and then, Thicknesse insists. So, they go, leaving me with books.' Ron sees Parry pause. 'And the rest is, as Muggles say, history.'
Ron remembers turning to Dorothy and Hermione. 'This is obviously after he'd left when the Slytherins were evacuated and he'd argued with Jimmy. 'Alright, Jacob. What about the books? What happened to them?'
''Strettoniae's Transfigurations', 'The Charms and Discourses of the Empress Maud', 'Potions and Arrears of Jeremy of Dublin', all three he kept when we escaped the battlefield – we'd arranged to meet up after by the old turnstile way, past Hogwarts – I waited for about half an hour, keeping well hidden and he turned up – I knew we'd lost but I didn't know the Dark Lord was dead. Fothergill was in a right state but he hadn't forgotten about the books so he turns up and I give him the books. I asked if we were going to get lost now and start the business; you know, just go and make the best of a bad situation. He tells me not to be bloody stupid, that he'll be in touch and then he fucks off and apparates right in front of me. I didn't hear sight nor sound of him for years.'
'Why didn't you just bugger off with books, Jacob? He wouldn't have been able to trace you easily,' asks Dorothy. 'and you said you felt he didn't care about you, that he'd betray you for anything he could get, given half a chance?'
'Can anyone here say they really know Fothergill?' Ron sees him pause to let what he's said sink in. 'No, you can't but I can … a little a least. You all know what a shit he is and a Death Eater and a killer – but believe me, I have seen enough to know he's all of that and a whole lot more: he's utterly, utterly ruthless – an absolute classic bullying bastard – sweet Merlin! The times I wanted to kill him, to just end the piece of shit – even when we worked together and it was good couldn't compensate for any of the other stuff. They're all the same, these 'little dark lords' – nasty, cruel fuckers who all want to rule the world … I'd have never escaped him – he'd have tracked me down the world over if necessary, he'd have never, ever let up till he got me … all I ever wanted to do was make great potions … I don't want to hurt people … I don't want to …' Ron hears Parry run out of words as he tries to express … regret? Sadness?
'It's not too late for that, Jacob.' He hears himself say. 'Help me beat him and we can make a deal.' Parry seems unconvinced. 'What did you do then? Fill the gaps in your story: what about the other Great Tomes?'
Ron sees him take a great breath before carrying on. 'I kept them hidden, after I was rehabilitated and working for The Ministry and St. Mungo's; after Fothergill got back in touch and arranged for me to be presumed dead – he's never touched them, I fucking well made sure of that!'
'How so? asks Hermione.
'I had help, accidental-like, from a quite unexpected source …' All three of them are listening keenly.
'Go on,' urges Ron. 'Unexpected? From whom? How?'
'From House Elves.' The simplicity of the answer wrongfoots Ron. What? Even now, in his mind's recollection, he can feel the strength of the surprise around the table.
His eyes flicked open.
That was it.
House Elves. That's what he had to remember.
'I've already told you that I can't help you with the location exactly of his headquarters – there were many things I was not allowed to know – but I knew he was based somewhere around or in Manchester, because he used House Elves from that area: they all had the distinctive Manchester accent and they occasionally let slip things – you know, in that kind of roundabout way Elves do when they are stopped by secrecy charms but still want to bypass them somehow. Well, it was the House Elves who tried to reveal the location of his base to me, but finding they couldn't beat his servitude magic, they gave me clues very carefully and slowly, because they could tell I wanted to escape. You see, I used to see House Elves as just the lowest of servants, doing our biding and being bloody well glad of it but now … well, I can appreciate the error of my ways. I was in some kind of safe house in Cheshire, it turns out. Fothergill gave me a team of House Elves to live with me; on the surface, they were there to assist me, do my chores, cook the dinners, you name it – but really they were there to keep an eye on me and keep me safe and quiet: no bloody way was I ever going to get away.'
Ron's remembers trying to be calm, patient – Parry is building to something crucial: he mustn't interrupt. Both Dorothy and Hermione sense this too, clearly. They say nothing.
'You see, once they'd appeared at the house, Fothergill gave them their orders, told me to get on with whatever he was expecting me to do, warned me about trying to leave – friendly-like, of course – ha! And then when he's piddled off, we just kind've settles down to a working existence: me working in the laboratory in the cellar and the Elves assisting me, doing chores or coming and going as Fothergill needs them. But almost from the very beginning, once he's gone – and he doesn't' visit much, he leaves that to his lackeys to end his messages or the Elves do it, he must have come there, oh, only a handful of times – the Elves seem slightly … well, a little preoccupied, a bit tense, as if they can sense there is something else in the house but they can't quite catch it, you know? Locate it. They will occasionally stop mid-sentence and look lost or as if they are straining to hear something, or there will be a faraway look in their eyes, like they are trying to see something beyond others' sight. Well, this goes on for months then years. till one day, they suddenly confronted me in the laboratory. We always had a morning meeting, around 9 a.m. and they would relay to me Fothergill's instructions for the day, check with me if I had any particular requirements, you know, ingredients and so on and then tell me what they themselves would be doing so there was no confusion. All well and good but when I dismissed them at the end of the meeting, they didn't move. One of them asked the other Elves if it would now be safe to not immediately begin their daily tasks because they had openly discussed them with me – I understood immediately: whatever charms Fothergill had set up to control me and the Elves, they would not be set in motion if we had discussed the tasks first; it was as if by making them spoken we had begun the magical day in the safe house and so any alarms or punishment charms wouldn't be set off because we'd set up a magical mood that would fit with the house's charms. But I imagined it wouldn't leave us long and the Elves obviously thought the same.'
Ron sees Parry take a drink as if to pause and get things in the right order.
'I ain't ashamed to say I was worried, frightened actually – they looked at me with such attention, almost a hunger if Elves can be hungry for anything a wizard has – I hadn't moved a muscle, I was too bloody scared and too bloody curious, if I am being honest, to do that – and then they simply nodded to the one who'd asked the question. He turned to me and then simply pointed at me. Well, I realised he wasn't pointing at me as such, he was pointing at the left pocket of my work smock – and then I realised that he wasn't doing that – it was as if he knew, as if they all knew: the books. The Great Tomes. I'd always kept them on me, hidden with some of the most intricate concealment and invisibility charms I knew or could find – they are simply too precious to hide anywhere else – wherever I was, whatever I was wearing, the books would be hidden, invisible, concealed in as many ways as possible: I wouldn't even know I had them. But the Elves worked it out; it took them a few weeks and when they did, it was a matter of seconds for them before all my charms and wards were gone and down and there were the books before us, on the main laboratory table. How I do not know but it is clear Elvish magic is indeed far greater than wizards have ever really realised or appreciated, because not only that, but I just found myself telling them everything: how I got them, why I had hidden them and why I continued to do so and they said –'
Ron hears Parry suddenly stop. 'Well, go on, Jacob: what happened next?'
'You'll not believe me!' Parry whispers but the power behind his word is almost like a shout.
'Try me,' Ron hears himself say. 'After the day I've had, I'd believe anything, I think.'
Parry looks him dead in the eye. 'They said they'd felt the books calling to them, in particular The Great Index and this could only happen if they were concealed and needed to be found but it would only be revealed if they were in the hands of one who is … pure of spirit…'
He sees Parry look round at all three of them, testing whether his words have struck home. They have – he can certainly they have with Ron by the sceptical lift towards the brow of his left eyebrow.
'The Elves thought you were 'pure of spirit'?
'Yes, otherwise the books would not reveal themselves once concealed nor would they reveal their knowledge – they literally would not open: the books protect themselves, especially from falling into evil hands.'
'Fascinating!' murmurs Hermione but Ron notices Dorothy says nothing – she continues to stare intently at Parry. She is clearly thinking deeply.
'I see,' Ron thinks back. 'And when did you become 'pure of spirit'?' He remembers how he cannot hide the slight sarcasm in his tone. 'Because thinking about our life's record, Jacob, I'd say it's stacked heavily eighty twenty the other way.' And he looks hard at Parry.
'Ron!' Hermione admonishes but Dorothy actually snorts slightly while still focussing on Parry but the serious look soon returns.
'I know, I know,' Parry returns quickly, 'I couldn't believe it myself but I am not lying! The Elves were adamant.'
Dorothy interrupts. 'Alright, Jacob; I'll believe you, even if the Chief Auror here is struggling for a moment or two to join me in that opinion but explain then how they come to be hidden by Fothergill? He's clearly an' evil doer' if ever there was one yet you say he persevered and found these great books including the legendary Great Index and he hides them and charms them – is he too 'pure in spirit'? Umm? What of that?'
'The Elves explained that. Fothergill would've never been able to use the books I have – the other three are all Great Tomes as you understand, some of the greatest books ever written and compiled on their particular subjects but The Book of the Affinities and The Great Index are very, very different. With the other three, if one can work out the correct spells, it's relatively simple to make the books like any other book, it turns them into simple parchment and leather: they can be handled and opened and read. But the two I have, no, this is not the case. The Elves were absolutely clear: not even the Dark Lord could bend those books to his will – their knowledge would remain hidden. They are not made for evil – though the legend is correct: The Book of the Affinities and The Great Index both speak at length about Dark Magic and the Dark Arts and list other great works that we would consider to be evil. I know. I have looked into both.' In his mind's eye, Ron sees almost a certain light come into Parry's eyes, as if he has seen wonderful things but cannot find the words to convey what it is, he feels.
Ron's mind leaps ahead suddenly. 'And this is why Fothergill wants you so badly? He suspects that you have these books?'
'No. Well, at least, I don't think so. He knows I must have used very powerful magic to have escaped and he must suspect the House Elves helped me. Remember this was all explained to me at great speed; they knew it would not be long before their lack of activity would be noticed and the magical alarms would go off, so we decided there and then I would escape, with the books because I am –' Ron finishes that phrase for him, 'Pure of spirit'?' 'That is correct, they managed to channel some great power directly from The Book of the Affinities – Fothergill's charms were all broken as if they never existed and I found myself in London. The Elves suggested I seek help with the Undersecretary here whom they respect greatly and so I did.'
'Where are they now?' asks Dorothy.
'They said they were going to go into hiding; they imagined Fothergill would be slightly pissed off to find I had gone – that I'd buggered off with perhaps them in tow and I was living it up somewhere with the Elves' help. They said they would contact me when the time was right – which to be honest is, I feel, around about now or bloody soon. But I haven't heard a thing – yet. I can't tell you anymore about the books, I am sorry.'
Ron remembers his anger rise slightly in his tone. 'Why?'
'Because they made sure I couldn't. They jinxed me, said it was for my benefit, to protect me – the less I knew now the better.'
'And you still have the books?' asks Hermione, with something a little like awe. 'They are on you now?'
'Yes, but there's a problem there if you want to get at them: they sealed them on me with a concealment fugue – you know that charm, takes hours for a wizard to complete but the Elves did it in mere seconds. And believe me, I can feel how strong it is – it can only be undone by Elvish Magic; I can imagine it would even take a Dumbledore or Grindelwald months to undo it. They gave me a message for you all, especially for you, Mr. Weasley.'
'You never mentioned this before!' exclaims Hermione. 'Not in one of our interviews!'
'They told me I would know the right time, the right moment.'
'Who did?' asks Dorothy.
'The Elves.'
Ron feels himself lean forward in his memory. 'Alright, Jacob; I'll buy it, as muggles say: what's the message?'
'Quite simple; if you want to know how to unlock the books and solve this all then you must do one simple thing.'
'Which is?'
'Ask an elf.'
It was the last part that made his mind up for him. In recalling their conversation, Ron had drained the cafetière; he flicked his wand and it refilled, piping hot, fresh and strong. Another flick and he was making his way to their lounge, very quietly down the parquet-floored central hall, the cafetière, his mug and another cup floating alongside.
At the bottom of the first flight of stairs, he stops momentarily and listened intently; the silencing charms were working – he could hear no warning sounds of Hermione stirring. Better get on. He carried on down to the lounge, through its door, closing that silently after himself and the coffee items.
The cafetière and mugs floated to land smoothly on the central table. Ron still stood just by the closed door.
'Now's as good a time as any. It's worth a try,' he mutters to himself.
Ask an elf.
Alright, he will.
He looked ahead into the darkness of the room. He turned the lights on. He flicked his wand twice more, checking the silencing charms were still on.
He then looked straight ahead, towards the fireplace.
'Sir Stephen? If you would be so kind, can you come here, please?'
