Chapter 47: Enlisting Assistance
When Harry awoke on the morning of his and Hermione's return to school, it was to the surprisingly disappointing sensation of an empty bed; that tactile sensation was then immediately supplemented by an auditory one: Next to the cupboard, Hermione was noisily rummaging through what looked like her backpack. As Harry shot her a look, the young witch smiled back abashedly.
"Sorry, did I wake you up?" she asked silently, immediately perking up as soon as she saw the grin and shake of the head her boyfriend gave. "I'm just rechecking I have everything I wanted to take back with me," Hermione continued, now a bit more loudly. "All those books from the Black library looked so interesting… disturbing, but also interesting."
Harry very much agreed with her on that; the books Sirius had brought with him on the Gwyneth, after they had been thoroughly checked by a group of highly skilled and even more highly priced curse-breakers, were indeed quite fascinating. Most of them dealt with rather horrific magic, none of which any of them were keen to try out. Not because it was supposedly dark or anything (although many people would certainly ascribe that moniker to many of these books), but because it was just utterly unnecessary. Why waste your time, energy and very humanity on an Entrail-Expelling-Curse if the focused application of a different spell could take out an enemy just as well? Dealing as much pain as possible was definitely not a worthwhile goal, as far as Harry and Hermione were concerned.
Eventually, it all boiled down to the fact that neither of them was prepared to sink to the level of the Death Eaters, just for the minor tactical advantage of striking fear into their adversaries. And that was discounting what some of these adversaries were wont to do, if they ever felt backed into a corner.
Yet, even just knowing about the kind of magic employed by their enemies was sure to benefit them greatly, both in their training and in their efforts at creating defences. Additionally, there was a book on magical theory and spell creation that Hermione had started devouring the minute she had set eyes on it.
A few hours, and a lot of checking and rechecking on Hermione's part later, the two of them were ready for their return trip by house-elf apparition. Due to the distance involved, they each were assigned one of the elves travelling on the Gwyneth; that assignment had included the heated race of all the available elves to grab either one of their hands, and the first two had been awarded the honour. Harry was not exactly comfortable with it, but he did not have the heart to stop it, either. Because everyone who travelled had to be taken by an elf each, Sirius (under protests) was not accompanying them.
Now, with each of them having their hand taken by a very eager elf, Harry gave a short wink to Hermione, and with a 'poof', he was gone.
OOOOOOOO
Xavier Greengrass was getting increasingly worrisome to watch; at least that was the conclusion his daughter drew from doing exactly that. It was the day the Hogwarts students would be returning to school after their Easter Break, not that Astoria knew what the holiday was about, and the morosely-skittish mood her father had been in over the last few weeks had changed. After something important had happened the day before, the girl did not really know what it had been, he had first been creepily-excited, then disappointed and subdued.
However, none of these moods had held a candle to how he had been after returning from King's Cross, where he had gone 'to facilitate some connections'. No, when he had returned, Astoria's father had been livid, cruel, vindictive, and all the other things she sometimes found scary in him.
OOOOOOOO
Platform 9 ¾ was the usual ruckus of students, parents and pets that that Hermione had learned to expect, even if the whole thing was somewhat toned down by no one having large trunks and the fact that a good portion of the school's population had decided to simply stay put in Scotland. Still, among the many faces, she could see a good number of familiar ones; there was Augusta Longbottom, who gave a curt, friendly nod of acknowledgement at seeing them, there were Susan and her parents, and Tracey with her father and mother. Oddly enough, Xavier Greengrass was standing next to the Davis family.
"Harry, Hermione," she just managed to make out before she was being hugged by an unusually enthusiastic Tracey Davis. While her friend quickly moved on to her boyfriend, Hermione kept a keen eye on the Lord Greengrass; the way in which he was looking at her and Harry was disconcerting, to say the least.
"How was Iceland?" Tracey asked loudly, prompting an almost comical widening of Mr. Greengrass' eyes. To her big disappointment, Hermione was unable to dwell on what she had seen on account of the soon-to-be leaving Hogwarts Express. One thing was clear though: Xavier Greengrass would warrant watching.
OOOOOOOO
The very man Hermione had been worried about was sitting in his office after returning from the platform, silently fuming while staring at the tracking map he had procured at great cost to both his purse and the favours he was owed all over the wizarding world.
Iceland, Reykjavik. That was where, just the day before, a trace of Daphne, or rather her magical signature had appeared. At first, he had simply assumed the map was faulty, had even been prepared to demand back what he could of the price. Yet, with what that annoying half-blood friend of his daughter had blurted out (somehow, he just knew she had been part of the plot to take his daughter away), things suddenly made a lot more sense.
It seemed like Potter, probably with his mudblood's help, were indeed the ones who had taken Daphne away. With all of his efforts at tracking her failing, she probably was being held behind a Fidelius, so they had to be working with an older, more experienced wizard. Still, somehow, she had managed to escape, even if only for a short time.
Xavier was all too aware that, to have any chance of success, he would need allies, and strong ones at that. Considering Dumbledore might well have been the one to erect the Fidelius charm in the first place, after all the old man had always enjoyed playing puppeteer, pickings were slim. With a groan, he kneeled in front of the newly redirected floo, threw in a pinch of the sparkling powder and called, "Malfoy Manor." What followed was the familiar, yet still extremely disconcerting sensation a floo-call tended to cause; one part of the body being whisked away, while the rest stayed still. Just about managing not to cough up copious amounts of soot and ash, thereby cementing the humiliation the usual position one had to take for these calls entailed, he peered into the room before him.
What greeted him was the image of a deeply curtseying house-elf, dressed in a filthy pillowcase.
"Go and get your master, elf!" he barked at the snivelling creature, prompting it to quickly dash out of the room; they did train their servants well, these Malfoys, he had to admit.
"Xavier, a pleasure to see you," greeted the liquid voice of the Malfoy patriarch as the man entered the room, his elven servant on his heel. "Why don't you come through, I'm sure it is important." What was left unsaid, yet was also very well understood was the implied, "It better be."
"And you," Lucius turned to the elf, "Bring us tea and biscuits. Then you will go and punish yourself for not inviting Lord Greengrass through immediately."
Xavier just managed to make out the servile little creature's quivering nod, before he pulled his head out of the fire to proceed with navigating his whole body through.
"Lucius," he returned the greeting from earlier after dusting off. "I see you still run a tight ship with your servants." The man he had addressed just nodded genially.
"Good help is so hard to find, these days," he lamented. "Our old servant has recently been taken from us, and I'm afraid the new one is rather subpar. Still, what would you expect with people like Dumbledore in charge…" Xavier 'Mmmd' and 'Hmmd' at the appropriate times, the time-honoured tactics of the Wizengamot to express polite interest while not actually caring one iota being in good stead in this situation as well. "Yet, I have to assume you have not come to discuss the decline in house-elf quality, have you?" Lucius asked, startling Xavier from his thoughts.
"Indeed, I have not," he answered in earnest. "I have information on my daughter's whereabouts. She's being held by Potter, hidden away behind a Fidelius charm; Potter's mudblood is probably involved, too, Dumbledore might be as well."
His pale face taking on a contemplative expression, Lucius put his fingertips against each other and looked past them at the man opposite him. "What exactly do you expect me to do here, Xavier?" he asked, a sort of disinterested curiosity expressed in his countenance. "Cleaning up your family's mess is hardly my task; I will see our contract fulfilled, one way or another."
Knowing that 'another way' meant his other daughter, coupled with the expression now showing on his counterpart's face, Xavier could not help but shudder a little, at least internally. Lucius Malfoy might not have been a member of the Wizengamot himself, but it was an open secret that the influence of his gold reached far and included several people who were. No, running afoul of a Malfoy tended to be a bad idea.
"You are right, of course," he scampered a little, even though it made him sick to his stomach. "But as much as it pains me to admit, my younger daughter is a bit of a wild child; she might yet grow out of it, or she might not. In the end, I don't think it is a risk you'll be happy to take."
The Malfoy patriarch, who had been silently watching Xavier talk, had obviously arrived at something he liked, for he raised his hand for the Lord Greengrass to stop. "Assuming they've actually hidden her behind a Fidelius charm with the old muggle-lover's help, we have to either turn their secretkeeper, or we will have to drive a bargain." Looking at the wizard opposite him there was now a cruel fire burning in Lucius' eyes. "Listen closely, Xavier, and we might just achieve what you wish for."
OOOOOOOO
"We'll have to keep an eye on Xavier Greengrass," Hermione whispered, just loud enough so that Harry could hear it. "When Tracey started shouting about Iceland, he was suddenly very interested."
Harry nodded an acknowledgement with the implied addition that they would talk more about it when they were not seated at the dinner table. Despite not being able to talk about it, a myriad of possible safety measures started going through Harry's mind.
Considering most of their time was spent either at Hogwarts or behind some other, powerful wards, the biggest window of opportunity for any kind of attack was also the most inconvenient one. Either an outing to Diagon Alley, or the platform of the Hogwarts Express came to mind, and since the latter even had a reliable timetable, it was the perfect place for an ambush. MacGregor had taken an entire two-hour period out of their training to talk about ambushes, and it seemed these lessons were going to become relevant much earlier than anyone had expected.
With these decidedly unhappy thoughts going on in his head, Harry was an admittedly poor conversational partner that evening, but with Hermione in a contemplative mood as well, he hoped it would just be ascribed to them missing Iceland.
Still, even with all that thinking, Harry continued to hit the same, never-changing impasse: How would they be able to balance the very diverse issues of defending themselves, keeping innocents out of harm's way, not doing anything overtly illegal and not showing the entire world how much they could actually do?
As it turned out, Hermione had indeed been pondering the same issues, and come up just as empty.
"Portkeys," she offered, audibly not inherently convinced of her own idea.
"Illegal; we could probably get away with it for the moment, but it might become a problem later on," Harry countered. "We could just pick him off…"
"I don't think Xavier Greengrass would come alone, if he's even there himself. That man certainly has enough money to hire some goons to do the dirty work. That would make the whole thing an extended fight, and we're not ready for the whole wizarding world to know how good we actually are with our wands," Hermione rebutted. "Elves?"
As surprised as he was at Hermione coming up with that particular idea, Harry was still ready with an answer. "Would you rally want to endanger the elves?" he asked, very much aware what the answer would be, had he waited for it. "Also, every scenario in which we just leave might risk this thing evolving into a full-blown hostage situation; with all those kids around, we can't risk it."
For a whole, they both sat there, contemplating the situation. "Is it possible we're overreacting here?" Harry finally asked, out of a weird need to maybe, just maybe, have a way out of the conundrum.
Hermione shrugged in reply, a gesture she had adapted from her boyfriend, he now noticed. "Possible," she admitted. "I just saw him looking very interested, nothing less, but also nothing more." With an exasperated sigh, she continued, "However, we do have to keep in mind the price of being wrong in our assumptions, in either directions. On the one hand, if we wrongly assume Xavier Greengrass will try to pull something, the worst that happens is us coming up with possible ways to avoid an attack like this; on the other hand, if we wrongly assume he won't try something, we don't even know the consequences."
Again, they both fell silent for a while, mulling ideas over in their heads. It was Hermione who eventually broke that silence. "If we assume the worst, it would probably be either an attempt to abduct either one of us, possibly even both," she analysed, much more calmly than Harry felt. "I think we've grown too accustomed to Riddle's weirdly blunt style. Why exactly should someone attack the platform with a squad of goons when just sticking a portkey to someone is so much more subtle? It's not as if the illegal creation of a portkey is going to factor all that much, if it is used for abduction."
Seeing the wisdom of her assessment, Harry just nodded gravely, as he began contemplating the disturbing possibilities arising from his girlfriend's astute observation.
Honestly," Hermione smiled, obviously trying to bring just that small bit of levity into their conversation. "Even when he tried being subtle, it included four dragons, a large, silver cup, and an impersonated teacher."
OOOOOOOO
"Do you actually think he has a chance at this?" Narcissa asked her husband, whose face morphed into an ugly scowl at what she guessed was her audacity to dare and question him. "I know Draco was enthusiastic about the Greengrass girl…"
Lucius interrupted her with a scoff. "Don't come yammering to me about that useless boy; he has the entirety of my name and fortune behind him, and what does he squander it one? A petty, ridiculous feud with that little blood-traitor, Weasley. I want the Greengrass title for my family, and I will get it, whether through the older or the younger daughter is of no consequence."
The utter greed and anger visible on her husband's face were something Narcissa had by now grown accustomed to, but there was something else, too; the fear she had seen during their master's attack on their home.
"To be brutally honest," he continued, now looking directly at her instead of at the tumbler of Rosmerta's Finest, "I also don't much care, whether that idiot Greengrass is successful. If he is, I have Potter in my grasp without ever having lifted a finger; imagine handing the boy over to the Dark Lord. All he thinks we did wrong would be forgiven, we would be rewarded beyond measure. The Dark Lord showing up with Potter's corpse, that would be something the Ministry would never recover from."
A cruel smile now affixed on his pale face, Lucius added, almost as if as an afterthought. "Of course, that won't happen. Greengrass will fail, and then he will need somewhere to go. Think how grateful the Dark Lord will be for a gifted potioneer that we can send to help in his exile."
OOOOOOOO
The whirring a few steps away from Daphne was picking up again, telling her that her training session was far from over. The strange machine that had been placed, or rather bolted down, on the aft deck of the Gwyneth was something Maria had said the muggles use for an activity called clay pigeon shooting. For the life of her, the dark-haired witch had no idea what the little clay discs had to do with pigeons, but the shooting part seemed understandable in its naming, and the exercise was always interesting; wickedly hard, too, especially when the motion of the seas was a bit more… vigorous at any given time.
"Reducto," she incanted, as the first of the targets went flying, and it promptly erupted into a satisfying cloud of dust. Not bad, if she did say so herself; she seldomly hit the first one. For a few minutes, she did exactly that. Trying to hit the small discs was certainly challenging, and more often than not, her curse would go wide, if just by a few centimetres, but that only made the times she did hit all the more satisfying.
"Enough," she was interrupted by Sirius, the man who had taken over her education since Christmas and, after being pushed by her a little, had also started instructing her in what martial magic he knew. He pointed his wand at the small machine still spouting 'pigeons', halting the enchantments powering the thing and ending the whirring; now, the only sound left was the crashing of the waves.
"You're almost getting better," the man commented, grinning wickedly. "I will have to pull you away from gleefully ripping poor pigeons apart, though. The first recruit should arrive soon."
"I'll put on the glamours," Daphne replied, without having to be told to. She had insisted on being involved in as much as possible, Sirius had been adamant her identity be kept secret until the applicants had signed the proper and, more importantly, absolutely binding magical contracts. Therefore, within the minute, in Daphne's place stood an older teen with honey-blonde hair and blue eyes, her distinctive nose a bit broader, the skin gone from pale white to a much healthier-looking tan.
Within another minute, the two were joined by a middle-aged woman, the lime-green of her healer's robes violently clashing with the vibrant red of her hair, yet oddly complementing the freckled face.
"Please, excuse the delay, Mr. Black," she said, after thoroughly righting herself against both the after-effects of long-distance elf-apparition, as well as the rising sea. "I had a procedure, after which I had to change my attire."
With a simple shrug, Sirius dismissed the apology, instead choosing to hold out his hand in greeting. "No problem, we were here anyway," he joked, as she took his hand and gave it a shake.
"Linda Wright," the healer introduced herself. "Senior Healer on the ward for Dramatic and Traumatic Injuries, Dian Cecht Hospital."
Having shaken Sirius' hand, she moved over to Daphne. "Marie Anderson," the girl introduced herself with the fake-name she had thought of. "shall we go somewhere less… exposed?"
Receiving a nod from their guest, Daphne turned to lead the way, closely followed by Linda Wright, with Sirius traipsing in the back. "We will be sitting down in the ship's mess," she relayed their destination. "I am sure you are aware security is a big concern for us, so thank you for agreeing to meet under our conditions, extreme as they might have seemed."
Having reached the mess, the group sat down at one of the smaller tables, Daphne and Sirius opposite their visitor. "Healer Wright," Sirius began, "being aware that leaving here would entail being either obliviated or having signed a binding magical contract, what exactly convinced you to agree to this meeting?"
The woman on the opposite side of their table seemed to ponder her answer for a few moments, before she started talking with a sigh. "When Voldemort started really being aggressive the last time, I was just done with Hogwarts and had started my training as a healer. It was a scary time to be a muggleborn." She shrugged. "I have neither the skills nor the courage to be a fighter, but if he's still alive, something I have no doubt about, I want to help the only way I know I can."
To Daphne, everything she had said seemed genuine, meaning their guest was either a phenomenal liar, something that in and of itself would be respectable, as far as Daphne was concerned, or it was the truth. However, her instincts were tingling in a way that told the girl there was more to it than that, and it seemed she was not the only one to think so.
"You are aware, though," Sirius interceded, "that we can't provide much beyond room and board. Even the most idiotic Ministry bureaucrat would notice something was off, if we started pouring vast amounts of money into what would seem like a complete void."
The implied question of, "What exactly do you hope to gain?" was plainly detectable.
Apparently, the healer thought so as well, as she began talking more in that instant. "I once refused to bow in my healer's assessment to the pressures of a very wealthy donor," Wright told them. "They applied pressure at the right points, and I was perpetually screwed. I am grateful to my bosses for not firing me, mind you, but I am also stuck in a dead-end. There are not enough magical hospitals in Britain for someone holding a grudge to be unable to influence them all and getting your healer's certification accepted in other countries is next to impossible. But the things your company makes and sells, Mr. Black, seem to be both inventive and selling extremely well; so, after all this is done, and you have seen me at work, I want to work with Black Enterprises, and I want to invent things that make people's lives better."
It seemed Wright was not a gifted liar; either that, or she was such a gifted liar, that she would pretend to be a bad one in order to hide that she was a good one…
Regardless, Daphne approved of the excellent identification and then securing of an opportunity.
"I can't tell you anything definitive, obviously," Sirius replied, "for that I would have to talk to some other people, as well, but if you're as good as advertised, there should not be a problem with at least giving you a chance."
The newest member of… well, whatever they were, looked happy at that. "As for the formal part, this is the magical contract our recruits are expected to sign, to both our, as well as their safety. I assume Maria has informed you of the contents?"
"I have been told," came the solemn reply, before Linda was given a Black Inker to sign her name.
"Good then," Sirius declared joyfully. "How is your occlumency?"
"Non-existent," Wright admitted. "Is that a problem?"
"Somewhat," Daphne commented. "Until you are able to competently protect your knowledge from incursion, we can't risk you leaving the ship alone, if we want to be able to tell you everything you have to know."
The somewhat overwhelmed woman just nodded in acquiescence, looking like it was finally sinking in what exactly she had gotten involved with. "Whatever is necessary," she stated with conviction. "When can I begin to learn?"
"We'll need someone else here for that," the girl explained. "For now, let us show you around."
And that was exactly what they did; from the helm to the hangar, from the broom-deck to the sickbay they went.
"This will be your infirmary," Sirius informed their new healer. "We've left it completely bare, to be furnished by your instruction. There is also a potions lab on the lower decks. Anything we forgot?" The last part had been aimed at Daphne, along with a small wink.
"Oh yes," she sniggered back. "Let me reintroduce myself; Daphne Greengrass, pleased to meet you. Finite."
Now, they had finally managed to make the newbie speechless.
OOOOOOOO
AN: Hi all,
Hope you enjoy the latest chapter; I'm busily writing during the time I am staying inside for security purposes and have a few chapters almost ready to publish. Nonetheless, I will not shorten my publishing intervals, so I can build up a bit of a buffer for times, where I may be unable to write as much.
As always, leave a review, enjoy your day and stay healthy,
alexandertheII
