Chapter Seventy-Nine: Masks
He awoke in the middle of the night from uneasy dreams that defied the excited, charged atmosphere that had permeated the field when he'd gone to bed. They were only dreams, and not either visions or memories—nothing like as important as what seemed to be happening outside. A charged sense of tension and fear permeated the grounds. Screams and the sounds of destruction filled the air
Harry was dressed in his Hogwarts robes, with their wand holster, in a matter of seconds, pulling them on over his oversized pyjamas despite the summer heat. Nearby, he could hear Ron begin to stir. As Harry had, he rolled out of bed, but he didn't bother with the Hogwarts robes—he had no holster, instead grabbing the unicorn-hair willow wand.
Glancing over in Harry's direction, he was visibly unsurprised to see Harry already awake and dressed. He came over to stand next to Harry, waking Fred and George as he did. Harry noticed them, groggy and slow with sleep, rising to wake the rest of the campsite. All of them seemed to know, almost instinctively, to make as little noise as possible, until they knew what the commotion outside was. They couldn't risk drawing the attention of an unknown opponent. They were an island of calm amidst the chaotic sea that was the grounds of the World Cup campsite.
"The girls," Ron said, with some focus. "They still do not know—"
"They might," Harry corrected him, but he gave a tight smile. "We should leave the campsite. I am better at not being noticed than you. I will retrieve Hermione and Ginny. We'll head into the woods—we'll be harder to find, there."
Ron gave a tight nod of understanding. And Harry slipped silently out of the tent, as Ron went to find his Dad, and older brothers. Sort-of older brothers. Whatever.
He checked for any sort of magic that would hinder his entry into the girls' tent, thinking of Hogwarts's protected stairs leading to the girls dorms. He found none, and slipped silently inside. Ginny was wide-awake, already, and in the process of waking Hermione.
She noticed the slight noise he made as he entered, which was impressive in itself, and whirled to face him, wand pointed in his direction. She saw who it was, and her eyes widened, grip on her wand slackening as her hand began to shake. Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh—oh, Harry! You heard…."
"I heard," Harry agreed, left hand in his pocket. "I don't know what's going on, however. Shall we go? Ron promised to meet us further out, in the forest…if he doesn't catch up first; it is some distance."
Hermione fumbled for her dragon-heartstring-and-vine wand, and once her hand made contact with it, seemed much more awake.
"It sounds awful," she said, after a moment, face ashen. "Are you sure we should be going out there?"
Harry cocked his head, listening, spreading out his seventh sense. He turned to face her, still listening hard. "…Yes. We don't know who it is, but we should go while they're still distant. We don't know what they'll do if they find us. But judging by the screams…I'd rather not be here when they arrive."
Ginny shuddered, hugging herself as if for warmth.
Hermione was equally wide-awake, now, and ready to turn insensate with panic. He frowned at her. "Ginny, can you ensure that Hermione keeps moving?" he asked, and reached for Hermione's arm. She jerked it away from him, scowling.
"I won't freeze up, Harry," she said, eyes narrowed. She looked much as she had during the earlier discussion of house-elf rights. Sure, Harry pitied Winky, but he also understood that society tended to be built in pyramidal structures. House-elves were at the bottom, which made them sort-of building blocks for wizarding society…although, only the rich had them. Why?
It had been a long discussion, and Hermione had been at the verge of tears at the end, before she'd stormed off. Ron had no idea what her problem was; Harry understood, but recognised that he knew too little of wizarding society to take a side: was Dobby an anomaly, and house-elves were genuinely happy being mistreated, as long as they could serve? They weren't human, and he knew full well how dangerous it was to ascribe human mentalities onto even humanoid beings. But then, maybe Dobby was only anomalous in that he'd somehow avoided what Hermione had called house-elf "brainwashing". The entire conversation had been one he'd tried to edge out of, only for Hermione to keep dragging him back in. That she was fixing him with that same glare, now, did not bode well.
He decided to keep a close eye on her, but take his chances. He glanced at Ginny, who shrugged. Her hair was messy and untidy as it had been during the Chamber of Secrets debacle in her first year, and for a moment, his fist clenched tight over the handle of his wand, transported back to a similar dangerous time. But he'd endured then, and he would now.
Of course, he was rather a different person, now.
He led them out of the tent, keeping a wary eye out to see if he could spot the threat. He made the amateur's mistake of not looking up. It was surprisingly easy to forget the casual use of levitation that wizards employed. But Hermione had a mind like a steel trap, and considered all possibilities, or just happened to look up, and spot the grotesque spectacle of the Roberts family, bobbing around, inflated like floats at a parade, held up by several beams of light. They were high up in the air. If those lights disappeared….
Harry wrenched his gaze away. Muggle-baiting. Right. Well, that was Death Eater mentality—although not only they, sadly. Still…the screams, the panic….
He glanced at Hermione, the only muggleborn amongst them, and bit his lip. Suddenly, the forest seemed their only chance.
Ron appeared behind them, muttering something about the Twins, Percy, Bill, and Charlie helping their Dad. Sirius, Remus, and Tonks were located elsewhere in the campsite. Harry silently hoped that they were well and safe, but he'd seen each of them fight, for himself. They were probably alright…. Remus and Sirius had been in the Order of the Phoenix.
Harry thought fast, weighed the merits of using some means of concealing themselves, hiding themselves from sight. He thought first of his Dad's invisibility cloak, dismissing it right away. He thought of the Disillusionment Charm. That was…let's see, a sixth-year spell? Very complex. Probably only he and Hermione knew it. And he knew that they didn't want to hide. Not really. Invisibility and semi-visibility were mixed blessings in such a situation. The purpose of invisibility was to make you harder to see, and therefore more difficult to notice, or to find. The problem was that they did want to be found—it was only the men torturing muggles that they didn't want to notice them. They needed to rendezvous with Fred and George, or Bill and Charlie, or Mr. Weasley, at some point.
But Hermione…if Malfoy had done them one favour, it was to let them know that it wasn't enough for purebloods that someone was a wizard or a witch—they had to be halfblood, at the very least. Hermione was a muggleborn. There was a possibility, however slight, that they might even attempt to harm her. He bit his lip, and turned to her, as Ron and Ginny pulled ahead.
"Hermione, if you know the Disillusionment Charm—and I'm sure you do, if I know it—I think you should use it. As long as you stay close, you should be fine. It's safer than an invisibility cloak, when we're not trying to hide…."
Hermione frowned at him, and seemed to be setting herself up to argue with him, but he grabbed hold of her upper arm, and tugged her towards Ron and Ginny. He remembered that she was the only non-"athlete" of their group. While Ron and even Ginny could keep up with Harry, Hermione would need some help—most of her muscles were dedicated to lugging around heavy textbooks, power and not speed, arms and back, not legs. He ignored her protests, and dragged her to catch up with Ron and Ginny.
She glared at him, and refused to cast the charm. They could all three of them be quite stubborn, even to their own detriment, he mused. He cast the spell on her, instead, and she glared at him. Ron looked between the two of them, clearly at a loss as to the nature of their conflict, which, to be fair, so was Harry. He shrugged.
"Shall we move on, then?" he asked, and Ron blinked, looking slightly alarmed. Oh. Well, that tone of voice sometimes came in useful, but he had probably been better off when he kept his two lives rigidly separated.
The four of them had only made it a short ways before they came across a girl with long brown hair, in tears. Harry noted the sheer, delicate-looking fabric she wore, much unsuitable for traveling through woods. It would be torn to shreds within minutes—that was, unless it were made of something much stronger than it looked. In wizarding society, that was more likely than not.
"Where is Madame Maxime? We have lost her…" she asked, in rapid French. She reached out, clutching at them with her hands outstretched. Harry blinked, several times, surprised that he could understand her.
Then he sighed. It probably made sense that at home they'd had to learn whatever language was the lingua franca on Midgard—on Earth—at any given point of time. He'd missed Greek, and Latin, but French? English? He and Thor both must know those. Not a missing memory, rather knowledge, compressed, unaccessed until now. How frustrating, to know things without knowing that you knew them. He was almost inclined to sulk.
"Who?" he asked, his French managing to sound stilted and rusty, even in that single syllable. He almost shook his head, almost cleared his throat, as if either of those would help. Ron glanced at him, and then glanced away. Hermione scowled at him—or he thought that she did, knowing her. She was still disillusioned, and that made it a bit difficult to tell facial expressions. Ginny's was much easier to read: she looked stumped, and utterly lost. She was probably the only one there who didn't understand any French.
"That's impossible!" the girl said. "How can one not know his headmistress? Ah!" She glanced at Harry's Hogwarts robes in the light of the gibbous moon. "Hogwarts."
Harry glanced back at the excitement behind them. "Well, yes," he said, switching to English, following her lead without paying attention to what he was doing, glancing back at the floating family. Were they headed this way? He was almost sure that they were. He turned back to face her. "Is that a problem?"
"You can't help me find our headmistress if you don't know who she is," the girl said, tilting her head back and assuming a rather haughty pose. "You had best move along. I'll look on my own."
She marched off, parallel to the border of the forest. Well, at least she was moving away from the Death Eaters, or whoever was running the "show" here.
"Beauxbatons," said Hermione, some of her spirit returning to her at the reminder that she could rub her superior knowledge banks in their faces. She led the way, now, towards the woods. They were almost there. "A school on the continent. No one knows where, of course…just as no one knows where Durmstrang or Hogwarts are…."
"Showing off even outside of school, Granger?" asked a familiar drawl, and the group of four turned as one. Someone groaned in frustration. He thought it was Ginny.
Malfoy stood leaning against a tree at the forest's edge, arms folded, head tilted back to watch the muggles floating in the air, with a satisfied smirk. Then he glanced down at them. "Running for cover, are you? Smart. You don't want your mudblood friend to be found here. Not if you don't want her showing her underwear to the world like that muggle woman." His grin was something between predatory and just plain sadistic, and seemed to be full of sharp teeth. There was probably a spell to accomplish just that.
Malfoy seemed in his element, cool and poised, secure in the knowledge that, as he was a pureblood, and his father was a Death Eater, he was safe from anyone making sport of muggles.
"And how do you know that they aren't just levitating anyone who can't defend themselves—like the underage?" asked Harry, cocking his head. "Is your father perhaps down there, wearing a mask and levitating innocent muggles for sport?"
Malfoy's grin widened. "Well, if he were, I'd hardly tell you, would I, Potter?" he asked, knowing he had the upper hand. "If I were you, I'd tell Granger to run, and keep her bushy-haired head down. Anyone with any knowledge can spot a mudblood from a mile off—"
"I would have greater care how I spoke of her, if I were you," Ron growled, rounding on Malfoy, plans to take refuge momentarily forgotten. Harry sighed, and facepalmed. Sometimes, rolling your eyes was just not enough. He narrowed his eyes, directing his glare at Malfoy, who deserved it more.
"Hermione is a witch," he said. "They have no cause to torment her. And if they do…we all know who would be responsible. The only reason that they would come after her would be if you told them where she is…after all, she is hiding."
Hermione did not quite have the nerve to glare at him for this comment.
"You're an evil, nasty little—" Ginny began, but Malfoy cut her off as if she hadn't spoken.
"Just consider it my revenge for stealing my wand, again. I didn't provoke you, this time," he said. Harry paused, cocking his head to the side.
"…Again?" he repeated, glancing over at Ron to try to see if he'd taken the same meaning. "Malfoy, I haven't said two words, nor come within five steps of you. I assumed the match was neutral territory, y'know…not about to try stealing your wand, unless you threaten us, as you just did…."
"Don't lie to me, Potter! I had it in the Top Box, and now it's missing! Who else would have taken it, hmm?"
"Don't make so much noise," Ginny said, eyes wide and wild, as she scanned the grounds. The levitating muggles were coming closer.
"Malfoy, I didn't steal your wand. If you misplaced it, I can hardly be faulted, and either way, Hermione doesn't deserve to suffer. Keep silent, let them pass, and I will help you look for it."
He held out a hand, as if offering something physical. Sirius, Remus, and Tonks were out there, perhaps looking for them. With Ron staying with Hermione and Ginny, they were more than sufficiently protected. If this were a trap, he could hold his own against Malfoy, and he still had the cloak.
"A likely story," Malfoy said, with his trademark sneer. "I suppose you gave it to one of them. Well, I won't—"
"You refuse my offer?" asked Harry, voice very low, painfully aware of how little time they had. He tilted his head to the side. Malfoy was alone and defenceless, but he needed no defence, unlike Hermione. He had all but confessed that his father was one of the masked men puppeteering (he shuddered at the thought). They didn't have time for this nonsense. It was worse than first year, the night they'd broken into the Forbidden Corridor.
Ignoring whatever aborted motions Ron and Ginny were making, whatever their intentions were in his direction, Harry pointed at Malfoy, and said, "stupefy!"
"Harry!" Hermione scolded him, immediately. "He doesn't have any defences, and you just—"
"He doesn't need any, but he could have told the Death Eaters where we were. He's better off out cold. Besides: it's not murder if it's Malfoy," Harry said, coldly. He marched off for the forest, with Ron following close behind, trying to head him off.
Hermione lagged behind, uncertain as to whether they should really leave Malfoy alone, knowing Harry too well to trust his judgement, at least not where Malfoy was concerned.
"Hermione is right. We cannot merely leave Malfoy to fend for himself," Ron protested, reaching out to grab hold of Harry's forearm, forcing him to stop. Going was slower through these trees, anyway. Harry hadn't made it far. Harry tried to dislodge the hand, but Ron had a strong grip, of course. That was most unfair.
Harry glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Hermione knows the countercurse, if she is that concerned," he snapped. "Are you not upset that he threatened her?" he demanded, anger thick in his words.
Ron bowed his head, and let go. "I would prefer that you not do something that you would later regret."
Harry took the opportunity to forge ahead, anger still making his thoughts churn like whitewater rapids. It was not a smart course of action, but the knowledge of this fact only made him angrier. He even felt like kicking or hitting something.
Ginny fell behind, what with how she was human, and all, with no divine background of any kind. He was, if barely, aware of her calling out for him to slow down, as she tried to avoid grasping branches. He did not slow until Ron's hand landed hard on his shoulder, and turned him around to face him.
He could feel a reproach coming, and his conscience twinged—he knew how important it was that they not become separated, and they'd lost Ginny and Hermione both. They would have to backtrack.
"I'm sorry, Ron," he said, bowing his head, looking down at the ground before Ron could scold him. "I shouldn't have let my anger get the best of me—you would think I would know better, with you as an example, but I—"
"You have told me often of the dangers of impulsive action, Brother," Ron said, but his stance was more relaxed now, less aggressive. "We are, perhaps, all rather tenser than we should be,"
Harry straightened up, left arm spread. He'd wondered, occasionally, how it would feel. He was underwhelmed. If he experienced some great sort of metamorphosis, it was lost under his general tight focus on the moment. But he had enough to spare to shoot Ron a rather cold smile.
"And you clearly do not know the Rules of Invocation. They are simple. I will have to teach you sometime…strange, I wondered how it would feel. I confess myself underwhelmed. Another side effect of the dementors, no doubt."
"What are you—?" Ron—Thor—began, but Harry shot him a glare.
"Silence is the order of the hour. Especially for you," he said, glancing through the trees. "Wait here."
It was not usual behaviour for him to enact such a plan, or to go off on his own during one of their inevitable excursions into danger. He knew that, and he was sure Ron must be confused, and have no idea what was going on, what he'd said, what he'd done. That undercurrent of emotion, whatever it was, that underlay Harry's actions, was in no way attached to recent events.
Mother's armour hadn't formed. He hadn't had the opportunity to use it for over a year. That was an odd thought, and likely did not bode well for the coming year. How long could he escape the threats that necessitated its use? Last year was a reprieve, but reprieves never lasted. Discontent, anxiety towards threats in two theatres, too many fronts, perhaps ate away at his tolerance.
Ron did not deserve his ire. Thor did not deserve his ire. But he received it, as the only one present strong enough to take it.
"Have you found Hermione?" he whispered to Ginny, as he finally came across her, again. If she noticed anything strange about his behaviour, she doubtless chalked it up to his usual unpredictability. Ginny was very pale, but hearing his voice, red rushed into her face.
"You! If anything has happened to her, it's your fault! I—"
He clapped a hand over her mouth, reluctant to use more magic than he had to. The Ministry being who they were, he didn't trust them not to lay him out for breaking the International Statute of Secrecy. Even if he was the "Boy-Who-Lived".
"Shh! The idea is not to draw their attention," he said, staring her down. Outwardly, he probably seemed much calmer than usual. His stance was deliberately casual and relaxed. He'd seen Sirius adopt the same casual wariness, and was fairly sure that Ron had noticed some sort of commonality in their behaviour. It was because of their similar backgrounds. The Blacks were practically royalty, in the eyes of Wizarding Britain, and Harry….
He sighed. He withdrew his hand, as if Ginny had needed the reminder, and now that she'd been told to, she would behave.
She should have been suspicious, when he hadn't flinched at her raised voice, in an already tense situation.
"You left Hermione behind, there! How are we going to find her?"
At least she was keeping her voice down.
"Stay here," he ordered her, affecting not to notice the way her eyes narrowed at being ordered. "I shall look for her." He gave her an attempt at a reassuring smile.
Confusion replaced her anger. She uncrossed her arms, rubbing at them as if folding them had bruised them, or something. Her brow furrowed, her lips pursed.
"Are you okay?" she asked, and he turned to stare at her. He would not have been surprised if she'd recoiled at his expression, but she alone among them had suffered anything like what he had. "He has given us something in common", he remembered telling her, an island in the midst of his sea of denial in second year. He gave her a tight, quite insincere, smile.
"I'm fine," he said. She narrowed her eyes in response.
"No, you aren't. You listen to me—"
Reminding himself of the end of first year for the second time in less than an hour, he slipped away as she was speaking to him. He needed light. It would serve as a beacon for Hermione, help her to find him, and help distort the light around her, disrupting the spell slightly.
"Lumos," he whispered, funneling the other magic into the spell to strengthen it. He made for where he thought that they'd left Malfoy.
"You jerk," cried a voice. "I can't believe you left me behind. What were you thinking?"
"Hush, Hermione," he said. His voice was very level, and difficult to hear over the sound of her tirade. She had to cut herself off to hear him. "Follow me. I'll lead you back."
He held out a hand, but she stared at it in overt suspicion.
"Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Potter?" she demanded. She was quite difficult to see, but he was sure that her eyes were narrowed at him. He sighed.
"I am Harry Potter," he said, still in that too-quiet voice. "And I think that you're overreacting a bit. And yes, I left you behind, but I came back for you as soon as I calmed down."
He was not calm. He might sound calm, but he was far from it. But Hermione seemed not to realise this. She didn't see the hard set to his face, the anger that doubtless still sparked in his eyes, belying that external façade of calm.
He reached out, and took hold of her arm, dragging her away, deeper into the forest, before she could formulate a response. A silencio or two would not go amiss, he thought to himself, as he canceled the light-projecting spell. Hermione stumbled along behind him, no match for his pace, but he ignored any requests that he slow down.
"What has gotten into you?" she snapped, as they finally stopped beside Ginny.
"Now is not the time, Hermione," he said, running his left hand, with which he'd been grasping her arm, through his hair. "And you should keep your voice down."
"How can you be so calm?" she snapped. "And…and since when are you such a task-driver? Didn't you hear me say I couldn't keep up with you? Are you listening to me, Harry?"
"Silencio," he said, pointing at Hermione. She glared at him, but she hadn't studied non-verbal magic, which meant that she couldn't cast any spells to undo her silencing. Now she would know to study it, he mused.
Ginny gasped, eyes wide. "What is wrong with you? Why did you just—?"
"Good. Everyone is accounted for," said Ron, appearing as if from nowhere. Harry turned to face him.
"Something's wrong with Harry," said Ginny, instantly. "You have to—"
"Nothing is wrong with me," Harry said, cutting her off. "We should leave. I had to use a lumos spell to find Hermione—"
"—and then you silenced her—" interjected Ginny.
"—which may have called attention to our whereabouts. I could hope that it would be Sirius, Remus, Tonks, or your family who would find us, but since when have we ever been that lucky?" he asked, with a bitter, helpless laugh.
Ron stared at him for a moment, and then looked from Harry to the girls, and back, with something that might have been dawning realisation…or horror.
Or both.
"You—"
"Get down!" Harry snapped, sending out a wave of defensive magic to cancel whatever his seventh sense was warning him was coming. It barely had time to warn him that magic was gathering nearby before its release. Not enough time for Harry's spell—or his words—to make a difference. And if his seventh sense hadn't been wide open, he wouldn't have known at all. He frowned.
Thankfully, the spell was not an attack.
"Morsmordre!" cried an unfamiliar, deep voice. All that happened was that the Dark Mark, which before he'd seen only in textbooks, shot into the sky. His gaze whipped to the source, homing in on the point from which he'd felt the magic build. But before he could do anything—
"Stupefy!" cried a voice, and the four of them, already on edge, ducked, and the spell didn't hit any of them. There was a sharp expulsion of air from the source of the spell, which was a relief, but—
"Stay where you are! Don't move!" cried the voice of Bartemius Crouch.
But, of course, they'd be in trouble, anyway.
At least they weren't in danger, anymore.
