CHAPTER 34
Thomas fell down to the ground, trying to catch his breath. He couldn't believe what his mother had just done. She had saved him but at the expenses of herself. He was furious and upset. His father had finally made an appearance and taken his mother. Haley was stunned at his side, he needed to act right at that moment.
Taking his sister up on his arms, Thomas, followed by Mr Crackers, ran all the way to the Great Hall, where he knew Harry had to be finishing supervising the OWLs. As he was getting closer to the doors, more and more students saw him curious and worriedly. Thomas was letting his tears fall down freely through his face.
"Harry! Harry!" he yelled when he entered the Great Hall, without even caring about the students that were doing the exams. It took Harry only one look at the teenage boy and he was in a second in front of him.
"What happened, Thomas? Where's Ginny? What's wrong with Haley?" he asked with urgency. Emma, who was still doing her test, stood up from her seat and run to her brother.
"Tommy, what's wrong?" she asked uneasily. Thomas was trying to calm himself enough to be able to explain to them what happened but every breath took him more than the last one.
Noticing this, Harry took Haley from his arms and Emma made him seat on a chair, while caressing his back in the comfortable way their mother always did. After a few second, Thomas was able to speak again.
"We were all outside, just on the steps in front the main entrance. And Mr Crackers started running away, Haley followed him and then mom and I went after them. We only caught up with them on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Dad appeared out of nowhere and took my wand and then mom's. He grabbed me by the neck, I couldn't breathe nor move, and he stunned Haley. Then he made Mom choose between me and you all and she picked me. But, seconds before the portkey activated, she freed me from Dad by pulling me away and took my place. She went with him." Thomas explained between breaths. He felt so distressed that he couldn't look Harry and Emma on the eyes. The Potters both paled when they heard the news. "I told her to choose you but she didn't! And now she is gone! He is going to kill her! It's my fault! He really wanted to take me with him! And Mom ruined everything!"
"Thomas! Listen to me." Harry took a big breath trying to compose himself. "This is not your fault. You mother did just what any mother would have done. She needed to keep all of you safe. That's the only thing she cared about. I don't think he'll kill her, at least not now, so please calm down, breathe a little. I'll take care of this. I'm going to bring Ginny back even if is the last thing I ever do."
Harry assured the children. Then he threw a 'finite incantatem' at Haley, who continued her desperate cries, now on his arms. Emma and Thomas also let their tears free but trying not to show it much. They didn't want to make things worse for their little sister.
"Potter, what's going on?" Professor McGonagall asked when she entered the Great Hall. "I heard some students talking about Thomas Nott carrying his sister and entering the Hall crying."
"Headmistress, Theodore Nott had just kidnapped Ginny, on the edge of the forbidden forest. I can't continue supervising this exam. I have to go look for her." McGonagall gasped but quickly got her firm expression on.
"Yes, Potter, of course. I'll call another teacher to supervise the test. You go talk with Longbottom, he'll help you. I'll take care of the children." Harry was about to leave when Haley grabbed his hand.
"Mommy gave me this for you." The little girl gave him a piece of parchment and he took it. It was crumpled and the ink seemed to be old. Harry supposed that it had been written months ago, Ginny had been prepare for this moment.
Harry, please take care of my children. I love you.
Harry's eyes watered. It was obvious that Ginny had thought from the start that she would never be free of Theodore. This was a goodbye mini letter. Harry wasn't going to leave it like that.
"I'm going with you, Harry. I want to help." Thomas said putting on a brave face.
"No, Thomas, you stay here." Noticing that the kid was about to controvert him, Harry quickly added. "Take care of your sisters. Haley and Emma need you now."
He didn't waste another second and ran to Neville's office, he knew McGonagall was right, his friend was going to be a big help. Harry opened the door without even knocking it, there wasn't time for formalities.
"Neville! Nott kidnapped Ginny!" He cried anxiously. Neville was startled and quickly took a galleon from his pocket. With a wand movement he wrote something on it.
"I just asked some people for help."
"Was that Dumbledore's Army's galleon?" he asked finding it strange. It had been many years since the war, he didn't think anyone would still have it, and even less, use it.
"Yes. We created some codes that year you, Ron and Hermione were away. The Carrows did terrible things, one of them was kidnapped students to tortured them. The code we used for those occasions was KP, for kidnapped, and the initials of the person's name, in this case G.W. We would all get together at the Room of Requirements and put together a plan to save the students. Let's go there, any minute now people will be arriving." He ended with such a certainty that Harry couldn't do anything more than believe in Neville's words. They both made their way to the old DA's quarters.
They had been waiting for less than ten minutes when the first people started entering the room. They were Harry's ex-classmates, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, both were really surprised to see him there. Then arrived Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, Ernie Macmillan and many others. It was a sombre reunion. Harry wanted to be happy to see his old friends there but, Ginny was all he had on mind.
The last to arrive were Luna and her husband Rolf, behind them, the Weasleys and their wives. Not only Ron, Hermione and George, who had belong to the DA, were there, but also Percy and Audrey, Bill and Fleur, Charlie and Molly and Arthur.
Only when he saw them Harry was stopped walking nervously from one end of the room to the other. He was shocked to see them there. He didn't know why he hadn't thought they would be, they were her family. He knew Ron and Hermione had lost their galleon but George might still have it, so would Angelina, his wife, that wasn't there surely because of her pregnancy.
"What happened, Harry?" Hermione was the first one to approach him.
"Nott kidnapped Ginny at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, he almost took Thomas too but she somehow managed to save him before the portkey activated. I don't know where he could have taken her." He explained with sorrowfully.
Noticing that Harry was too anxious and worry to take the lead of the meeting, Neville took charge. He stood up in front of everybody and explained everything to them. Molly Weasley was openly crying, she had just gotten her daughter back after so many years and in such a short time she had lost her again.
"We need a plan. Seamus, I know that the Aurors have been searching for Nott for many months, do you have any lead?" Neville asked the ex-Gryffindor, who was now an Auror.
"The last news we got where that he had made contact with Blaise Zabini, who works at the Portkey Office in the Ministry's Department of Magical Transportation. It seems that Zabini issued Nott some portkeys. However, this is just an assumption, they were illegally made so there aren't any records about when the portkeys were made or where were they destined to go."
"No clues about the place he might be hiding at?" George asked trying to contain his anger at Nott.
"No, I'm sorry, he is really sneaky, every time we get some lead and go to investigate, he disappears. Every hiding place we investigated has traces of him having been there but never for too long. He is too good at it."
"Did he contact other people?" Ron asked.
"Some dark wizards from Bulgaria, Germany and France, and Gregory Goyle and Pansy Parkinson. They have this criminal network, they do dark objects and illegal potions trafficking. They have been kidnapping wizards, especially muggleborns and testing spells and potions on them. We still don't know much about that stuff since we found only a few wizards and they were all out of their minds, crazy, or dead."
"Ginny told us about a potion that Nott was working on. From what she understood it would be able to take the magical core from the muggleborns, reclaiming like this, the magic we stole from wizards." Hermione ended clearly loathing Nott's idea. An indignant murmured grew between everyone who was there.
"That doesn't matter now!" Harry interrupted in fury, everyone shut up quickly. "Nott has Ginny! Who cares about that stupid potion?! A criminal network?! That doesn't matter now! He has her for revenge, for power! I need to find her! I need to find her, I can't lose her again, I need her, her kids need her." He said in distress, tears running freely on his face. It was an image of a broken and desperate man.
"Harry is right. What is important now is finding Ginny." Luna said putting a hand on Harry's arm, calming him down.
"Does anyone have an idea, a plan?" Neville asked the group of people around.
"Thestrals." A shy voice suggested, it was Rolf Scamander.
"How?" Susan Bones, who was beside him, asked.
"Thestrals have a sense of smell extremely superior than any other magical creature, they can smell things at kilometres of distance, especially if it's blood. Not just that, they, as owls, simply know how to get to different places. The Thestrals that Hogwarts have are tame so we can use them. I think that if we obligate them to smell Ginny's scent, they could easily locate her, particularly with her blood."
"Where would we get Ginny's blood?" Lee Jordan asked a little unbelieving of the magizoologist's idea.
"Of her children, of course. The three have her blood on them, I'm not a healer or have that much knowledge on that kind of scientific matters but, I don't think it would be that difficult to obtain the essence of her blood by taking a sample of each of her children's. And maybe from her parents also."
"That's true… I think we could make that happen." Hannah Abbot, who had experience as a healer, said. "What do you think, Terry? Do you think is doable?"
"I think is possible to do it. We've been doing some test of the kind at St Mungo's and the results were pretty good." Terry Boot, the ex-Ravenclaw, was a healer and was currently working on a research about hereditary diseases.
"Perfect! Hannah, Terry, go do that. Mrs Weasley, could you accompany them and introduce them to the children?" Neville asked the still crying Molly.
"Y-yes, of course."
"They should be with Headmistress McGonagall." Harry informed them while they were leaving the quarters.
"I have one doubt about this plan." Dean Thomas said, capturing the attention of the entire room. "How are the Thestrals going to smell Ginny's blood? Shouldn't she be bleeding for them to catch the scent?"
"I think we can bet that she is bleeding right this instant, Dean." Harry coldy answer, we was trying not to explode in fury again.
With that, they started planning the capture of Nott and saving Ginny. Harry was anxious. Every minute that passed seemed to be an eternity and another moment of suffering for Ginny. He was sure that Nott wasn't going to let her out of her side this time, he was going to make her paid for everything.