Dumbledore did not invite Harry to another meeting in the next few days, so Harry made sure to write down his tarot reading, though he did so in the most general terms possible since making notes with the Dark Lord's name on them seemed like a bad idea.
It was just as well that he did not have to see the headmaster any time soon, as he was imminently about to commit crimes. Eight out of twelve of his marbles had turned into proper resurrection stones by now, which was a decent enough success rate, according to Deepeste Risinges. Now it was Harry's turn to keep his side of the bargain.
The Hufflepuff-Slytherin match was scheduled for next week, the last Saturday before the Easter holiday, and Harry still didn't know how he was going to get the gates open.
No unlocking charm was likely to work. He spent all of Saturday morning poring over books about magical security. There were plenty of ways to protect a place if you didn't need to let people enter or leave, but otherwise passphrases and enchanted keys were considered the most practical solutions. As such, Hogwarts, which was helpfully a case study in one of the books, was secured by a set of literal keys, held by the Keeper of the Keys.
That would be the decrepit Mr Ogg, whom Harry thought he could probably get past, only apparently one could not simply steal the keys—the Keeper was the only one who could make use of them. The most obvious answer was the imperius curse, and also out of the question. Harry had already earned himself a theoretical life in Azkaban using it on Lockhart, but it had been part of the Dark Lord's plan and it had almost been a given that he wouldn't get caught. He wasn't about to risk his life over some stupid keys.
Another option was to somehow ferry the dementors over the wall without actually opening the gates. Harry had been dismayed to learn that they couldn't fly unsupported, despite appearances. To gain extra altitude, they had to climb nearby vertical surfaces. Presumably, since they hadn't come over the walls themselves, there was some kind of anti-climbing jinx on them.
Harry sat up straight as he thought of a third possibility. What if the dementors came in under the walls instead of over them? The secret passageway they'd discovered behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy went out pretty far. It had to exit somewhere, even if he, Hannah, and Neville hadn't had time to explore the whole thing. Could it extend out past the edge of the grounds?
Remembering the events that had led to their exploring it in the first place, Harry returned the books on magical security, trading them for a xylomancy reference. The interpretation guide quickly proved to be way too complicated, however, and he finally just took his sticks out of his pocket, threw them on the table, and contented himself with a general idea of whether what he was doing was a good idea.
It was a good idea, and also a very bad idea at the same time. Harry stewed over this in some consternation, attempted the xylomancy book again, which said nothing that contradicted his interpretation, and finally decided that he might as well go explore the passage.
He had half a mind to rush off immediately, but forced himself to wait until after lunch. He, Hannah, and Neville had been in the passage at least half an hour last time and hadn't seen any sign of an exit, so it would be best to head out with a full stomach.
After lunch, he took a detour up to the common room to grab his invisibility cloak, in case the tunnel emerged somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, and set off. The first part of the tunnel and the subsequent stairs seemed the same as the last time he'd been there, which was a relief. Harry slowed as he reached the bottom of the steps and began traversing new territory. The tunnel grew extremely cramped at points, almost too small for even his slight form to slip through, and he worried that it might simply shrink to nothing. It continued ever onward, however, finally widening back up for a long stretch.
"Time?" Harry whispered to his wand. His lighting charm went out, but the time flashed in front of his eyes nonetheless—half past one, so he'd been walking for over thirty minutes already. A jolt of excitement ran up his spine. He had to be outside the Hogwarts grounds by now.
Then he turned a corner, and the tunnel ended in a flat wall. Disappointment crashed into him like a tidal wave at the sight, but he recovered his wits and looked up at the ceiling for some kind of trap door. All he saw was rough stone.
"Revelio," he tried. Nothing happened. Then he tried structure sight and was almost blinded as the entire tunnel flared up with a shimmering lattice of spellwork. Now ill at ease, Harry drew back from the walls, working to decipher what the magic did. It was mostly yellow, and very regimented, probably all related to keeping the tunnel from collapsing.
There was something above him, though, something different. A conditional charm, waiting for him to do something—but what? Was there a password?
He cancelled structure sight and pointed his wand at the ceiling. "Alohamora."
There was an ominous rumble, and a few crumbs of dirt rained down from above. Harry thought he saw a circular crack appear for a moment. He supposed he wasn't exactly trying to unlock something. Perhaps there was a door of some sort that just needed to be pulled open?
He bit his lip, trying to remember the spell that Petri sometimes used to pull down the ladder inside his trunk. It was probably a bad idea to cast a spell he barely knew in a context where it might not even be appropriate, but he really did not want to walk all the way back just to dig something up from the Compendium.
Standing back and hoping that he didn't accidentally bring down the whole ceiling, he waved his wand in a distinct downward motion and shouted, "Descendo!"
A round slab dropped from the ceiling with a deafening scraping sound, sending Harry stumbling into the wall in shock. The dust cleared to reveal a tight spiral staircase. A weak beam of sunlight splattered across the steps. Heart thumping in his chest, Harry threw on his invisibility cloak and hastened up the open shaft, popping out of the ground in the middle of the forest.
There was nothing but towering trees in every direction. A muffled grinding sound came from beneath him, and when he whirled around, he saw that the passageway had closed without a trace. He cursed under his breath, wondering what he was supposed to do now.
"Descendo," he tried, pointing his wand at the dirt, but the ground remained stubbornly motionless. His heart leapt into his throat and his mind filled with white noise for a moment. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. This was fine. He knew which way he'd come from, so he would just go in that direction until he got back to the castle. Just in case, he used the flame-drawing charm to score markings in the trees he passed, so that he could retrace his steps if necessary.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before he found the sudden end of the forest, twenty metres from Hogwarts' walls. The walls were at least three times his height, however, and when Harry tried to grasp a protruding stone, his hand slipped right off, confirming that they were jinxed to prevent anyone from climbing them.
Harry moved in the direction of the gates, shivering as the air thickened with freezing mist. A dementor drifted into view, and he felt an involuntary moment of fear before he managed to clear his mind. He stood very still, but the dementor had long noticed him and floated nearer.
Getting an idea, Harry licked his lips and said, "Hey. On the day of the next quidditch match, wait for me in the forest."
He tried to convey the concept of quidditch, as well as the journey he had taken. The dementor sucked in a rattling breath, then exhaled in agreement. It drifted past him and disappeared into the mist.
Harry sighed in relief and hurried towards the gate. As he approached, he saw with surprise that it stood open. Then he remembered that the older students were allowed to visit the village on some weekends, and that today must be one of those days. He grinned, incredulous at his luck.
The gate wasn't unguarded, as it might have been the previous year. Filch and Ogg were each standing under the shadow of a winged boar. Ogg had his wand out. Silvery light streamed from it, feeding into a translucent dome that kept the nearest dementors at bay. Filch was wielding a clunky secrecy sensor that resembled a spatula glued to a fishing rod, a pinched expression on his face.
Stepping carefully, Harry passed between the two men, holding his breath. That was when everything went wrong. Filch's secrecy sensor glowed red and began to beep shrilly. He responded by sweeping it violently through the air, catching Harry in the shoulder and sending him careening to the ground.
"Intruder!" Filch screamed, bringing the rod down repeatedly on Harry's exposed legs. Yelping, Harry tried to scramble away, but felt his limbs lock together as Ogg yelled out the full body-bind curse.
"Wait, Argus, it's a student," croaked the old man. Filch gave Harry a last solid whack before desisting.
"A troublemaker, no doubt," he muttered, seizing the invisibility cloak and ripping it away.
"A first year?" Ogg asked.
"Sneaking out of the castle without permission," Filch concluded. "Pockets probably stuffed full of contraband!"
"Finite," said Ogg. "On your feet now, lad."
Harry wasted no time in doing so, an involuntary pang of horror hitting him as his eyes darted to his cloak bunched up in Filch's arms. He had a feeling he wasn't getting it back.
"Turn out your pockets," commanded Filch. Harry panicked for a moment, wondering if it was even possible to turn out expanded pockets. Still, he reached inside, swept as much debris into the deepest corners as he could, and grabbed a handful of fabric to pull out.
Filch waved the secrecy sensor at him, jabbing him in the side. It whinged.
"My office," Filch hissed. He handed the secrecy sensor to Ogg and put a rough hand on Harry's shoulder, pushing him along. Harry felt his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach.
Filch's office was on the ground floor, not far from the entrance to the castle. Harry had never had occasion to even approach it, let alone go inside. They went up to a rickety door that was papered over with lists of prohibited items.
As the door creaked open, Filch shot Harry a dark look. "If it were up to me, we'd string up troublemakers like you. A few days hanging upside down from the ceiling would set you straight."
He pushed Harry inside his dingy office, gesturing meaningfully to an extensive collection of well-oiled manacles hanging behind his desk. Though small, the room was uncluttered, not a stray piece of parchment in sight. Everything was probably locked up in the many large wooden filing cabinets lining the walls.
Filch clambered around his desk and rapped his knuckles on its surface.
"Pockets," he said, sneering. "I know all the tricks. Expansion charms, double pouches, don't think you'll get away with any of it!"
Reluctantly, Harry reached into his pockets and began emptying out his honestly rather impressive inventory. First came his somewhat crumpled charms club membership sheet—he was definitely missing the meeting today. Then his remembrall, which he had embarrassingly forgotten about and which promptly turned scarlet, a wide variety of parchment scraps and notes, three quills, a half-congealed inkwell, a packet of rue leaves wrapped in an old Daily Prophet, the bundle of chopsticks he'd transfigured for xylomancy, a handful of sickles and knuts, and his tarot deck. Lastly he extracted several empty vials, and then, bracing himself, he produced his remaining emergency vial of blood, silently thanking his past self for having at least hidden his highly illegal resurrection stones under his bed.
"What's that, then?" Filch demanded. "Love potion?" He eyed Harry's Ravenclaw patch. "Brain elixir?"
"It's medicine," Harry said, which wasn't even a lie. "You can ask Madam Pomfrey, sir."
Filch squinted suspiciously at him. "Medicine, eh? Then you won't mind taking a sip?"
Harry shrugged, uncorked the vial, and drank a mouthful of blood. It took all his focus to pull away and replace the cork nonchalantly, rather than greedily suck the rest down, which he figured might give Filch the wrong idea.
The caretaker harrumphed and glowered at the collection of junk on his desk, and then at the exposed interior of Harry's pockets, which trailed all the way down to the floor. After a long moment, he waved a hand.
"Fine. Put it all back," he said, pulling out a drawer in his desk and extracting a large roll of parchment. Spreading it out on his desk, he reached for a quill and dipped it with surgical precision into his inkpot.
"Name… Harry Potter. Crime… sneaking off the castle grounds without permission… Suggested sentence… twenty house points and one month of detention."
"One month?" Harry could help demanding, pausing from stuffing his things back into his pockets. Filch eyed him nastily, baring his teeth.
"It's a shame Dumbledore's taken caning off the list of punishments," he muttered.
Harry rather agreed—he'd rather take a beating or five than waste an hour every evening scrubbing floors or polishing trophies without magic.
Fortunately, the punishment had to get approved by Professor Flitwick, who took him aside that evening for a talk.
"I didn't mean to sneak out," Harry said, deciding that honesty was the best policy. "I was just exploring the castle, and there was an underground corridor that kept going, and when it came up it was outside the walls and wouldn't let me back in."
"While making use of secret passageways isn't against the school rules per se, they can lead to very unexpected places," Professor Flitwick said, nodding sympathetically. "Curiosity is always encouraged in Ravenclaw, but you must take care to temper it with caution, Mr Potter! Now, detention every day for a month seems harsh… let's make that Saturday and Sunday mornings at eleven, and you can reflect on acting with more prudence in the future."
"Thank you, sir," said Harry, relieved at the commuted sentence. "Mr Filch also took my invisibility cloak, but it's not on the list of prohibited items."
"I shall see to it that you get it back at the end of the year," said Professor Flitwick, putting on a stern expression.
Harry pressed his lips together in disappointment, but decided not to push his luck.
He was forced to tell Hannah and Neville about his detentions, since Sunday mornings had previously been prime homework time, and he now had to leave an hour earlier.
"I can't believe you went back into the secret passage without us," Hannah muttered disapprovingly.
"I really wanted to know where it led," Harry said. He hoped they had no reason to suspect that he had intended on finding a way to leave the castle.
Neville bit his lip. "So it goes all the way outside? Doesn't that mean intruders could use it to get in?"
Harry had to lock the muscles in his jaw to keep it from twitching. "They couldn't," he said quickly. "The entrance sealed up after I left and I couldn't get it open from outside. That's why I had to sneak back in through the front."
"Did you get to go to Hogsmeade, at least?" asked Hannah. Harry shook his head, and she sighed. "Are you going to have detention during the holiday too?"
"I don't know, actually," Harry said.
"And the quidditch game, next week?" Hannah pressed.
Harry winced inwardly. He would have to sneak the dementors in before the game, since it was scheduled to start at eleven. Hopefully, they would be able to follow directions and hide in the forest beforehand.
"I'll probably miss it," he said. Now that he thought about it, he ought to warn Hannah and Neville not to attend the game. "Are you going?"
"Probably," said Hannah.
She seemed unenthusiastic, so Harry said, "I don't think you should. I did some divination earlier and I think something bad's going to happen."
Hannah groaned. "Yeah, Hufflepuff's going to lose miserably. That's what's going to happen. No magic necessary to predict that."
Harry tried to keep a grave face. "I'm serious, though. I really think you should sit this one out. Both of you."
"I can't just ditch Susan and Ernie," Hannah said.
Harry frowned. "Tell them not to go, either. You said it yourself, Hufflepuff's probably going to lose."
"Hey! Fine. I'll talk to them. You and your divination," she muttered.
Harry looked expectantly at Neville, who shrugged. "I wasn't really planning on going, anyway."
A weight lifted from Harry's shoulders at this confirmation. He was probably being overly cautious—if he could stand daily contact with the dementors, his friends could survive their presence for five minutes until Dumbledore drove them off. Still, there was always the chance that something would go horribly wrong.
He wasn't lying, anyway. His nightly tarot consultation really had been giving him poor signs for the past few days. It wasn't bad enough to dissuade him from going forward with his plan, however, especially as breaking his word to the dementors was not exactly an option with a long life expectancy.
On the day of the quidditch game, Harry woke up extremely early, full of restless energy. He felt like he'd just downed a vial of blood, even though he'd abstained for the past week, having finally been able to get some uninterrupted sleep now that he'd cut back on dementor exposure. After lying uselessly in bed for a few interminable minutes, he decided to just get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Without his invisibility cloak, he had to be more careful about who saw him sneaking around, and at least there would be fewer people walking the halls this early on a Saturday.
He popped down to breakfast first, deciding to drink the blood from the black pitcher today after all. More attention to detail could not hurt.
Harry took his time going down the passage, casting structure sight on himself when he reached the long stretch of underground tunnel and staring up at the ceiling as he walked.
And there it was—as he had suspected, there was another exit earlier on in the passage, one that was somewhere inside the walls. He let out a shaky breath. That was one less concern, for he wouldn't have to somehow sneak the dementors inside the castle itself and then back outside. Indeed, he even found three more exits at even intervals.
This time, when he reached the end of the passage, he made sure not to leave entirely, only poking his head up cautiously. The forest was bright and airy, no mist in sight. He frowned. He was early, certainly, but he knew by now that dementors were not very good with time.
Taking a gamble, he muttered, "Expecto patronum!"
He shuddered as the silver euphoria enveloped him. Hopefully the dementors received his signal and arrived soon. If he missed his detention, or worse, the entire game, that would be a disaster. He giggled at the thought.
Frost crept across the nearby foliage, and Harry breathed out a giddy sigh of relief as a heavy weight came down to counteract the buoyant light. He stepped backwards down the stairs, and soon the daylight was blotted out by a mass of black shrouds.
"This way," he called unnecessarily, running back down the tunnel. He skipped the first exit, uncertain which side of the walls it was on, and opened up the next, letting his patronus charm dissipate.
The dementors streamed up the stairs with incredible alacrity, the entire queue disappearing from view in seconds. Harry breathed out slowly as the staircase twisted back into the ceiling and the temperature in the tunnel returned to normal. That was his side of the bargain finished. Now he just had to get back and get through detention.
Professor Flitwick had assigned his detentions to Professor Lockhart. Harry still hadn't decided whether this was mercy or cruel and unusual punishment. On the one hand, it was easy work writing up stock responses to fanmail from a template. On the other hand, he had to listen to Lockhart natter on and on about how difficult it was to maintain one's fame and fortune, and give dubious advice about managing one's fanbase.
He did have a direct view of the quidditch pitch through the window, however, and couldn't stop himself from looking up to check for a black cloud of dementors every few minutes.
"Trying to sneak a peak at the game, Harry?" Lockhart murmured, waggling a finger. "Understandable, but you're here for a reason. You should have taken more care not to get caught making trouble. Reputation is everything for a public figure, you know. It's important for you to realise that you'll be held to a higher standard than your peers."
Harry nodded, biting back an irritated sigh as he wrenched his eyes away from the window, returning to copying out thank you notes. He had started off seriously attempting to emulate Lockhart's elegant cursive, but his handwriting devolved after it became clear that Lockhart barely looked at what he was signing.
A bright flash drew both their eyes towards the window, where an enormous silver deer had just burst through the glass and stone like a ghost.
The deer opened its mouth and Professor Snape's voice, urgent and breathless, poured out: "Dementors attacking the quidditch pitch—hundreds of them—get over here at once."
Message delivered, the patronus winked out, leaving the sunlit office somehow darkened. Harry got up and threw himself up against the window, gasping as he saw the quidditch stands consumed in impenetrable fog.
"Where's Dumbledore?" he blurted.
"In Bern, at an ICW meeting," said Professor Lockhart unexpectedly. Harry jumped, his stomach sinking, and whirled around. Lockhart hadn't moved.
"Aren't you going to go help?" Harry demanded, pointing outside.
"Now now, I'm sure the other professors will be fine without me. It's true that I could save the day with little effort, but we're not even halfway through these responses. You won't be getting out of detention that easily," said Lockhart, tutting. Harry stared at him in bewilderment, each explanation flying through his head less likely than the last.
"Shouldn't you at least send a patronus?" he finally said, figuring that it was the imperius curse acting up. "It'll look suspicious if you don't do anything."
Lockhart seemed to consider his words. "I've changed my mind," he said. "You stay right here, Harry, and finish up that stack."
Harry had no intention of copying another word without Lockhart around to supervise. He pressed himself back against the window and tried to see what was going on, tapping his spectacles. The image before him telescoped at dizzying speed, before coming back into focus. From where he stood, he could see straight into the Slytherin stands, though they were draped in dark mist that made the image flicker sinisterly.
Rather than pandemonium, as he'd expected, everyone was deathly still. The benches were crowded with students slumped in their seats. Harry stared into the open, unseeing eyes of a pasty, freckled girl whom he thought he recognised from broom racing. Her chest rose and fell almost frantically, so she wasn't dead, but she didn't seem conscious, either. Harry spent several solid seconds staring at her lips—chapped and bloodless but not frostbitten—before he convinced himself that she hadn't been kissed. Dementors were milling about amongst the prone bodies, their shrouds fluttering as if caught in a strong wind, but Harry didn't see them seizing any of the students.
They probably wouldn't kiss anyone, Harry told himself. Dementors preferred to skim off the top when there were many victims around, to glut themselves on happiness and excitement without having to deal with the less digestible bits.
A four-legged patronus crashed into the dementors near the front at full gallop, sending them flying over the edge and down onto the pitch. The players! Had they fallen out of the sky earlier? Harry had forgotten about them. He craned his neck with a thrill of dangerous anticipation, but the ground was lost beneath a sea of opaque mist, and when he tried to look through it there was only sand. He glanced back up to where the patronus had originated and found Professor Snape standing defensively in front of a small huddle of still-conscious sixth or seventh years at the top of the stands. They all had their wands out and some of them seemed to be trying spells, to no apparent effect. Snape had three copies of his patronus weaving around the stands and an expression of intense concentration on his face.
A stab of pain shot through Harry's temples, and he had to wrench his gaze away, tapping blindly at his glasses until they went back to normal. Blinking away the ache in his eyes, he glanced out the window again. Now he spotted a handful of silver streaks speeding down the hill towards the pitch, followed by two familiar forms in green robes and pointed hats. Professors McGonagall and Flitwick, he thought, relaxing somewhat as the patronuses darted into the mist, which thinned dramatically in their wake.
Moments later, a black stream poured out of the stands like infection from a wound, fleeing before a menagerie of silver animals. The dementors knew when they were outmatched. Harry breathed a sigh of relief, turning away. Everything would be all right. He sat down, feeling strangely boneless, and halfheartedly wrote another thank you note in case Lockhart was coming back.
Then Professor McGonagall's voice rang out, loud enough that it must have been audible throughout the castle.
"All students to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."
Harry dropped his quill and sprang to his feet, wasting no time in escaping Lockhart's office. When he arrived back at Ravenclaw Tower, he saw that the seventh year prefects, Violet and Linnaeus, were holding open the door. Linnaeus wrote down Harry's name as he was ushered inside.
Harry, spotting some others in his year across the room, hurried over to join them. Mandy stood to pull up a chair for him, and everybody scooted over to make some room around their tiny, book-laden table. They'd obviously been in the middle of homework.
"Any idea what's happening?" Stephen asked as Harry approached.
"Dementors attacked the quidditch game," he reported, eliciting gasps.
"Again?" Morag demanded.
"Are the others all right?" asked Sue.
Harry shrugged. "I was in detention, and I saw some of it from the window, so I don't know. I hope so."
Everybody's eyes ended up fixed to the common room entrance. More people entered sporadically, but they were all older students. After a tense few minutes, a whole deluge of arrivals crowded onto the landing—the quidditch spectators, at last.
Harry waved for Terry and Anthony to join them. They came over, each with a chocolate bar in hand, and Terry immediately began to fill everyone in on the details.
"Dementors again. It was really awful, way worse than last time. They actually came up into the stands," he said, shuddering. "Merlin, I felt like I'd never be happy again. It was like when you wake up after a nightmare but your body hasn't got the message and you can't move."
As he spoke, Harry saw Lisa, Michael, and Oliver enter the common room as well. He let some of the tension seep from his shoulders. Everybody seemed to be all right.
Once the prefects had confirmed that all of Ravenclaw was accounted for, they shut the common room door and clapped loudly for attention.
Linnaeus cleared his throat. "Everyone, first, thanks for coming back in a timely fashion and making our jobs infinitely easier. You've all probably heard about what happened by now, but just in case you haven't: the quidditch game this morning was attacked by dementors. Everybody's to stay in the house dorms until the teachers have had a chance to make sure the threat is dealt with. You're probably all hungry for lunch—Merlin knows I'm starving. There will be some food sent up right about… now."
On cue, platters piled high with assorted sandwiches appeared on every table, blossoming at odd angles in the gaps between books and scrolls of parchment. A carafe of pumpkin juice materialised atop the stack of books in front of Stephen, teetering dangerously. He dove forward to rescue it.
"What do they mean, until the threat is dealt with?" Sue asked. "This didn't happen last time."
"Well, the dementors weren't supposed to be on the grounds at all after last time, right?" said Morag, leaning forward with an unpleasantly conspiratorial mien. "Do you think maybe they've gone rogue?"
"Don't say things like that," Lisa muttered, drawing back.
"It's happened before," Terry said. "Back in nineteen seventy-seven, they left Azkaban and joined up with You-Know-Who."
"But there's no You-Know-Who any more," Lisa hissed.
Harry suddenly had a very bad feeling that manifested as a persistent lump in his throat. He tried to force it down with a ham sandwich and some pumpkin juice, to no avail. Then he made himself do some neglected history homework, in the hopes that he could bore himself into a stupor.
Shortly before dinner, there came another school-wide announcement:
"All students, please proceed to the Great Hall. The castle has been secured, but under no circumstances is anyone to go outside. I repeat, no one is to exit the castle for any reason."
"All right everyone, queue up," Linnaeus called. "We'll go by year. Seventh years first."
Terry, who had stood up eagerly, groaned and fell back into his chair. "This is going to take forever."
It didn't actually take that long for their turn to come. The real hold up happened at the grand stair, where the Ravenclaw queue collided with a haphazard flow of Gryffindors and devolved into chaos.
When everybody had finally taken their seats at the house tables, Professor McGonagall stood to make an announcement, her face solemn and drawn. Professor Dumbledore was still nowhere to be found.
"Students, if I may have your attention," she began, her voice hoarse but amplified by charmwork. "It is my duty to inform you that two of our number lost their souls in today's horrific dementor attack. Gabriel Truman was an exemplary member of Hufflepuff House, kind and loyal to his friends. He risked his soul to help many of his housemates to safety."
Professor Sprout began crying openly. Harry's breath stalled in his lungs.
Professor McGonagall's voice hitched. "Ginny Weasley was beloved by all who knew her, a true quidditch enthusiast…"
Harry instantly felt his stomach his cramp, and was left staring queasily at the reflection of the candlelight in his silver plate. Ginny. He hadn't even thought to warn her.
Sundered forever.
He should have known that something was wrong, that her fate had not yet been fulfilled by Percy's death alone.
But then again, it had been her fate. Who was to say that his interference would not have made it worse? He was hard-pressed to think of how, but that meant only that his imagination had its limits. Things could always be worse. But they could also be better—that was undeniable.
"… let us please honour them with a moment of silence."
Professor McGonagall stopped speaking, and it was like all the air had drained out of the room.
The silence dragged on. Eventually, Professor McGonagall sat down, and the food appeared, disgusting in all its usual lavish glory. Harry stared desperately at Professor Dumbledore's empty throne. Would things have been different, had he been there? Unquestionably yes.
At length, the clinking of silverware and the murmur of conversation started up tentatively. Harry reluctantly spooned some peas onto his plate. Nobody else seemed very hungry either, but most people were making an attempt to eat.
"Some protection, huh?" Terry muttered, picking at his carrots. "Weren't the dementors supposed to keep us safe from the escaped convicts? But they're way more dangerous."
"They're not more dangerous," Lisa said, though the protest was half-hearted. "Dark wizards can do a lot worse than kill two people."
"It's worse than death," Terry objected, at the same time that Anthony said, "It could've been more. It could've been us."
"It couldn't—it shouldn't have been more," Harry said, swallowing. It shouldn't have been any. "Dementors rarely kiss people because it's too much for them at once. Like if you ate a whole chocolate cake in one go."
This was perhaps a poor metaphor—everybody looked queasy.
"There must've been hundreds of them," Anthony protested.
Harry shook his head. "They're all one thing. That's why you can't really kill them. They're just mouths on the same creature."
Even more horrified looks all around. Harry supposed it wasn't common knowledge.
"They can't be thinking of keeping them around after this, can they?" asked Terry.
"Like I said, they must've gone rogue," Morag said.
There was silence after that. Nobody much wanted to acknowledge or dispute the possibility.
The next morning, it was on the front page of the Daily Prophet, anyway. Morag had been exactly right. The attack on Hogwarts had coincided with a mass exodus of dementors from Azkaban. They had spread out all over the mainland, and aurors and hitwizards were working to track and contain them. In the meantime, the Ministry recommended that people stay indoors when possible and especially avoid outdoor gatherings with more than twenty people.
Also, Headmaster Dumbledore had been sacked by the Board of Governors.
"This is horrible," said Terry, spreading the newspaper across the table. Bacon grease percolated through Dumbledore's conical, white hat and part of his beard. "Listen to this: 'As Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, Dumbledore must put his duties as a public servant before his duties as school headmaster, and rightly so. However, this is cold comfort to the grieving families of the victims of yesterday's catastrophic dementor attack…' and so on, you get the idea. They're saying he's got too much to do so he can't be at Hogwarts all the time, and their solution to that is to get rid of him entirely? How does that make any sense?"
The quote in the article was from Lucius Malfoy, who was apparently a member of the Board of Governors. Harry glanced over to the Slytherin table, where Draco and those around him looked altogether too pleased amidst the otherwise grim atmosphere.
"It doesn't make any sense," Lisa agreed, for once.
"Professor McGonagall is going to be the new headmistress. Didn't they literally just say that Professor Dumbledore had too many responsibilities? And Professor McGonagall doesn't? Who's going to teach Transfiguration?" Terry demanded, spewing eggs everywhere in indignation.
Lisa made a face and batted halfheartedly at him, but didn't comment on his lack of manners. "They'll find someone else soon, right? And at least she'll be at the school no matter what."
"Don't try to argue that this is a good move," said Terry, pointing his fork at her.
"It seems bad in the short term, but it could be good in the long term," said Morag, to everyone's surprise. "Look, Dumbledore's a politician, right? And he's been running Hogwarts with a Legitimist slant for years. McGonagall hasn't really got strong political leanings, as far as I know."
"How can you run a school with a slant?" Terry demanded, rolling his eyes. "What, they're teaching transfiguration in a way that secretly gives muggle-borns a leg up? I don't think they've changed the curriculum since my granddad's time."
"Dumbledore's probably been at the school since before your granddad's time," Morag said seriously. Terry frowned.
"If anything, before Dumbledore, the school was probably run by Fusts," Lisa argued. "The entire Board of Governers is pure-blood and Hogwarts didn't accept muggle-borns for a long time, until nineteen something."
"Nineteen twenty-five," Terry supplied, while Anthony protested that only a minority of pure-bloods were Fusts.
"What's a Fust?" Oliver asked, saving Harry from the embarrassment.
"It's a political faction," Terry explained. "They're strict on the statue of secrecy and, um, sometimes blood purity. They don't really like muggle-borns. Sorry. But don't worry, none of our families are Fusts! I don't think."
He glanced around the table, but nobody spoke up to contradict him.
"If Hogwarts didn't used to accept muggleborns, then what exactly happened with us?" Oliver asked slowly.
"I'm not sure," Terry admitted. "I suppose you couldn't really be home-schooled. I think there are correspondence courses, though."
"Muggle-borns wouldn't even know about magic to do courses like that," Harry pointed out. "They'd probably just go on living as muggles. If you don't start doing a lot of magic when you're around our age, you lose it. I think that's what happens to muggle-borns on the continent, since Durmstrang doesn't take them."
"Really? That's awful!" said Terry.
At the same time, Oliver said, "Oh, that's not so bad." When everybody turned to stare at him, he shrugged. "Magic is amazing and everything, but, well, muggles haven't got to deal anything as scary as dementors."
The table went quiet for a beat, and Oliver paled.
"And also, I did used to want to be an astronaut when I grew up, and I don't think wizards have astronauts," he added hastily.
"What's an astronaut?" Terry asked, jumping on the new topic.
"They're people who go to space," Oliver said.
Terry leaned forward with genuine interest now. "What, space? Are you pulling my leg?"
Oliver shook his head, explaining that muggles had been sending things and people up into space for years, and had even gone to the moon.
"Wasn't there a bloke who tried to apparate to the moon once?" Lisa asked.
"Yeah, I think he splinched into like, a million pieces," said Terry.
"Could you make it to space if you flew a broom high enough?" Harry wondered.
"I looked into that," Oliver said, "but it seems like people tried it and found out that magic doesn't work right when you get too high up, like in the stratosphere."
"Even if it did, the stars are super far away, right?" Terry pointed out. "Long-distance brooms can barely get across the ocean to the Americas, so it wouldn't work."
"Hang on, but muggle aeroplanes go really high up, don't they? My mum definitely did some magic while we were up there, and it worked fine," Anthony said.
Nobody seemed to have an answer to that. There was a brief lull, and then conversation turned to the upcoming Easter holiday.
"Anybody going home?" Morag asked, and when everybody shook their heads, she said, "Sue told me she is, and her parents might not let her come back. I think they've got the right idea."
Sue, who was only two seats down, turned at the sound of her name and scowled at Morag, but didn't say anything to contradict her.
"I reckon sixth and seventh years could just leave school, but that's not exactly an option for us," said Terry. "Leaving school before OWLs would be a terrible idea. Hogwarts students do so much better than home-schooled people."
"Yeah, but at least you won't get eaten by dementors at home," Morag pointed out, instantly sucking the remaining cheer from the table. She looked unapologetic for bringing up the subject once more.
It turned out that Morag had been thinking along the right lines, again. After breakfast, Professor McGonagall stood up to make another heavy announcement: Hogwarts would be closing. Not permanently, she assured everybody, but just until a safe learning environment could be re-established, which could take a few weeks or months. Everybody would be sent home for Easter and stay there until the school reopened. All four tables erupted into chaos at the announcement.
"What about exams?" Harry heard somewhere down the Ravenclaw table.
"I can't go home right now. My parents are on holiday!"
"Will we have to make up lessons next year?"
"Are we even going to be safe at home?"
"Silence!" hissed Professor Snape, standing up.
Silence reigned. Professor McGonagall coughed. "Thank you, Severus. I'm sure you are all bursting with questions. There is more detailed information posted on the bulletin board outside the hall, as well as a box where you may submit additional questions and concerns. We will endeavour to answer all of them in writing. If any of you have concerns of a more personal nature, please make an appointment to see your head of house. Gryffindors—that will still be me for the time being."
Professor McGonagall sat back down stiffly. She hadn't taken Professor Dumbledore's throne-like chair, but remained in her usual seat on its right. Harry eyed the empty space uneasily, his gaze flickering to a dour Snape on its other side, and then to Professor Sprout, who was nursing a teacup with bloodshot eyes.
Dumbledore was gone. Was it just bad luck, a confluence of adverse events? Somehow, Harry did not think so. The dementors had kissed two people in short succession, despite having plenty of positive emotions to feast on in a more comfortable manner. Hogwarts had been deemed unsafe, which meant that they hadn't fled the grounds, but remained behind, perhaps in the forest. Neither of these actions seemed obviously advantageous to the dementors themselves, and Harry couldn't help remembering what Terry had said yesterday. The last time the dementors had left Azkaban, it had been for the Dark Lord.
Everything made sense, if it was all the Dark Lord's doing. Even the two victims no longer appeared random. Harry was pretty sure that Gabriel had been muggle-born, and the Weasleys were considered blood-traitors. Enemies of the Dark Lord.
Harry had been the one to let the dementors in, though, even if they had had orders from the Dark Lord. He was sure he had not acted because of the imperius curse. The resurrection stones had been Harry's personal project, and the agreement with the dementors his own idea. The Dark Lord must have found out the plan either from the dementors, or from Harry himself. After all, if Harry saw through the Dark Lord's eyes each night, what was to say that the Dark Lord did not also see through his?
So the Dark Lord had simply capitalised on the circumstances, which were still Harry's fault. Harry had caused the death of two classmates. Two friends. Late last night, when everybody else had gone to sleep, he had stood in the bathroom and stared long and hard into the mirror, trying to find guilt or regret.
"Ginny and Gabriel are dead because of me," he had repeated to himself, like a mantra, and he had known it to be true, known it to the bottom of his heart. So if he searched hard enough, there had to be guilt somewhere inside, right? What if Hannah had been one of the ones kissed? How would he feel then? Something had twisted in his chest at the thought, but it had been overshadowed by relief, by the indelible primacy of reality.
Hannah couldn't have been kissed, because he had made sure that she wouldn't be there. He'd known beforehand that he had to protect his friends, that he would be putting everybody else in potential danger. Gabriel, he couldn't have helped. But he had had advance warning about Ginny, had felt that there was something wrong with her fate, a feeling that he had known better than to ignore. He had perhaps had the opportunity to save her. But he hadn't bothered.