Chapter 4
He's NOT Dead?
Above Harry's prophecy-sphere, Trelawney's voice spoke—
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
Harry said, "Well, bugger."
Hermione said, "Language, Harry." Then she hugged him. Harry flinched.
By this time, Hermione had placed her knapsack on the table and had opened it. From the open knapsack, Hermione removed her ink bottle, quill and a sheet of parchment. She looked at the taller Unspeakable and asked respectfully, "Would you replay Harry's prophecy, please?"
Harry's prophecy was replayed, and Hermione wrote down its words. She asked for the prophecy to be replayed a second time, as she checked her writing for accuracy.
Hermione looked at the Unspeakables and, blushing, asked, "May I ask a stupid question?"
Harry rolled his eyes. He had known Hermione only two months, but already he had figured out that Hermione asking a truly stupid question happened less often than Snape singing a love song to Professor McGonagall.
The shorter Unspeakable gestured Ask your question.
Hermione looked down at the table; to Harry, she seemed embarrassed. "You told Harry and me that white smoke means a prophecy is active, whilst black smoke means the prophecy is fulfilled. So, erm, why is Harry's prophecy-sphere white when he killed Voldemort in 1981? What am I missing?"
"What?" yelled both Unspeakables. They turned to stare at Harry's prophecy-sphere, with horrified expressions; then the taller Unspeakable waved his/her wand. The two Unspeakables began talking to each other, their hands waving about, but all Harry heard was a buzzing sound.
After a minute, the wave of a wand ended the buzzing-sound spell. The shorter Unspeakable hurried to the cupboard, grabbed a blank sheet of parchment, then hurried back to the table. He/she wrote something on the parchment, a message that to Harry looked blurry. Then the shorter Unspeakable folded the parchment into a paper aeroplane, changed the paper aeroplane's colour to alternating red and white diagonal stripes, and threw the paper aeroplane towards the open door.
Meanwhile, the taller Unspeakable waved his/her wand; a ghostly dolphin came out of it. The Unspeakable murmured something to the dolphin, too lowly for Harry to hear, then the ghostly dolphin swam through air up to and through the ceiling.
The taller Unspeakable then looked at Hermione. "To answer your question, what white smoke means for Mr Potter's prophecy is that You-Know-Who isn't dead. Whatever Mr Potter did, or his parents did, back in 1981, did not kill the Dark Lord."
"I don't understand," Harry complained. "I absolutely don't understand how everyone 'knows' I killed Voldemort as a one-year-old, yet he isn't dead now."
The two Unspeakables went into another buzzing-sounds discussion.
Harry, meanwhile, decided to play a hunch. He reached over and grabbed the prophecy-sphere for his(?) prophecy.
"Harry!" Hermione yelled, looking shocked. "That's dangerous!"
Harry held the glass ball for a few seconds—long enough to know he would not go mad—then he put his prophecy-sphere back in its holder.
He grinned at Hermione. "Okay, now I know for sure this prophecy is about me."
Harry's hand moved sideways then, to pick up Hermione's prophecy-sphere. Hermione gasped.
"Mr Potter!" the shorter Unspeakable rebuked him.
As Harry laid Hermione's prophecy-sphere back onto its runes-inscribed holder, he looked at his friend and said, "Hermione, I'll try always to be the 'true friend' your prophecy says I am."
Hermione sputtered, "Harry, what you just did, twice, it was—it was—"
"Stupid? Foolish? Reckless?" Harry shrugged. "Yes. But Hermione, I can't plan the rest of my life round a maybe or an I think. So anyway, what does my prophecy mean?"
At first the conference room was silent. The Unspeakables both were facing Harry and not speaking; Harry guessed that under their masks, they were staring at him in shock.
Then the taller Unspeakable said, "This prophecy was made in March 1980, when your mother was pregnant with you. Your parents fought three battles against You-Know-Who but weren't killed, which is remarkable. You were born on 31st July, the last day of the seventh month. Notice that the prophecy predicted the day of your birth. You-Know-Who, in trying to kill you, gave you the scar on your forehead."
Harry asked, "What is 'the power the Dark Lord knows not'?"
"We don't know, and can't begin to guess."
Before Harry's prophecy could be discussed further, a man walked into the conference room. He was wearing the grey-wool robes of an Unspeakable, but there was no ambiguity in his masculine shape and size. His cowl was pushed back, revealing the face of a man in his fifties with thinning hair. The man looked at Harry and Hermione and said (with a single, masculine voice), "Hello, I'm Saul Croaker, the Director for the Department of Mysteries. I'm told we have a problem here?"
The taller Unspeakable replied, "These Hogwarts students are Hermione Granger, who heard a prophecy two days ago, about herself; and Harry Potter, who is mentioned in a 1980 prophecy. Sixty-Five and I have recorded Miss Granger's prophecy, and Mr Potter confirmed that he is mentioned in both Miss Granger's prophecy and the 1980 prophecy."
Croaker looked confused. "How did Mr Potter confirm he is the subject of two prophecies? Did he cast a spell we don't know?"
"No, just before you walked in, he grasped both prophecy-spheres!"
Croaker looked down at Harry's school robes, then chuckled. "Gryffindor red—why am I not surprised?"
The shorter Unspeakable said, "Director Croaker, Mr Potter's prophecy is active. Somehow the Dark Lord still is alive."
With a gesture, Croaker summoned the other Unspeakables to a corner of the conference room. Again Harry heard buzzing sounds.
After a few seconds of buzzing, Harry asked Hermione, "May I reread my prophecy?"
As Hermione slid the parchment in front of him, she said, "When the time comes, I'm sure you can vanquish the Dark Lord."
"I'm not," Harry said, ten seconds later. His finger stabbed one part of Hermione's handwriting. "Here's why."
Behind Harry, Croaker asked Hermione, "May I copy your parchment?"
"By hand, or do you know a spell for that?" she asked eagerly.
Croaker grinned at her. "The spell is Geminio Aeternum, and the wand-movement is a tick-mark." So saying, Croaker drew his wand, made a copy of the parchment—the copy even was in Hermione's handwriting—and carried the copy to the other side of the table.
Croaker sat down, laying the copied parchment on the table. But he still had his wand in hand. He said, "Mr Potter, before we discuss the contents of the prophecy with you, may I examine your scar?"
Harry shrugged. "Okay." He could not guess why this wizard wanted to see his scar, but at least the man was not acting like a fanboy.
One second later, Harry was hit in the forehead with a yellow-orange spell. His forehead tingled, as if the skin had fallen asleep. Then suddenly—"Gah!"—Harry's forehead burned, as though someone had poured boiling-hot water into his scar.
Croaker looked at the other two Unspeakables and said sombrely, "The bad news is, there is a horcrux in his scar—"
"A horcrux!" the shorter Unspeakable exclaimed.
"—but the good news is, some sort of family-magic spell keeps the horcrux contained. Mr Potter is in no danger of the Dark Lord possessing him."
"What's a horcrux?" Hermione asked.
"A horcrux is a piece of someone's soul that is attached to an object. The Dark Lord has such a piece attached to Mr Potter's scar. We deduce that the Dark Lord has made other horcruxes. Until every one of them is destroyed, killing his body forces him to exist as a wraith but doesn't truly kill him."
Harry asked, "How do we destroy the hor—the soul-thing in my scar?"
"Normally, to destroy a horcrux, you destroy the object to which it is attached—destroy the object so completely that magic can't repair it."
Harry and Hermione both gasped.
Harry said sadly, "The prophecy says, '[F]or neither can live while the other survives.' Now you've told me why: I need to die so the horcrux in my scar will die, then Voldy can be killed by someone else."
Then Harry looked at Hermione and said, "Not that it matters whether I'm alive or not afterwards, if Voldemort and I ever fight a big battle."
"Harry, no, don't say that!" Hermione said, grabbing his arm.
Croaker said, "I'm confident that the prophecy doesn't require you to die when the Dark Lord dies, which tells me that the horcrux can be removed from your scar and you stay alive. My money is on goblin healers to cure you."
"Why the goblins," Hermione asked, "and not Saint Mungo's?"
"Because the goblins, besides doing banking and moneylending, also search for tombs containing treasure. Some of the ancient pharaohs made horcruxes. Ergo, the goblins know more than anyone else about removing horcruxes."
Harry asked, "Why do you say this about the prophecy, that I don't have to die?"
Croaker replied, "Because of logic—"
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating."
Croaker ordered, "Unspeakable Twenty-Two, explain the logic."
The taller Unspeakable looked at Harry and Hermione. "Let's use inductive reasoning, and assume to start that the prophecy means that when the Dark Lord dies, Mr Potter dies at the same time; and when Mr Potter dies, the Dark Lord dies."
"Easy to assume," Harry said, "because the prophecy does mean that."
"The prophecy describes you as having 'the power to vanquish the Dark Lord.' That word vanquish does not merely mean to kill, it means to destroy the Dark Lord so completely they he can never recover. Will the world say he was 'vanquished' by you if you die when he dies? No. Also, the prophecy says about you, '[H]e will have power the Dark Lord knows not.' If you die when the Dark Lord dies, does it matter whether you're a mage who killed the Dark Lord as easily as an elephant stepping on an ant, or you're an inept wizard who cast one lucky spell? No."
The shorter Unspeakable took over: "If the prophecy means that when the Dark Lord dies, you die—'neither can live,' period—then those two other parts of the prophecy are meaningless; they're wastes of breath. But since they're part of the prophecy, this means your fatalistic interpretation is wrong."
Hermione squeezed Harry's arm. "Don't forget my prophecy, Harry. It says that if I marry you, 'the true friend,' I will bathe in joy during my later years. How can I be joyful in my old age if I marry you, then later Voldemort makes me a widow? It seems to me, my prophecy takes for granted that you'll live as long as I will."
Harry smiled. For the first time in ten minutes, since he had heard his prophecy, he felt hope.
Then Hermione looked at Croaker. "My prophecy says in part, 'Beware the whiskered liar. He never speaks truth and he plots the death of your true friend'—that is, Harry."
Croaker said, "The 'plots the death of' part is news to me, but the rest? Definitely Dumbledore."
Hermione said, "I suspect the headmaster's plan is to let Harry hear or read the prophecy, then to tell him, 'You want Voldemort dead, don't you? Of course you do, because he killed your parents. Sorry, Harry my boy, but the only way to kill Voldemort requires that he also kill you.' "
Croaker said sarcastically, "Then, assuming that all the other horcruxes are destroyed by then, after the Dark Lord kills you, Mr Potter, Dumbledore can waltz up to the Dark Lord, then kill You-Know-Who and he'll stay killed. How famous Dumbledore will be then, defeater of Grindelwald and the slayer of the Dark Lord!"
Harry looked at the three Unspeakables. "I'm glad you lot plus Hermione's prophecy set me straight. Otherwise I'd be Dumbledore's sacrificial lamb and I'd believe I was doing the right thing by dying."
A woman's voice asked, "Why is Albus Dumbledore pushing you to die, Mr Potter?"
Standing in the doorway of the conference room was another Unspeakable, along with a grey-haired woman. Sticking-charmed to the front of the woman's robes was a white badge that said "D-DMLE." A second badge, a visitor badge like Harry's and Hermione's, was clipped to the front of the newcomer-woman's robes. She also was wearing a monocle over her left eye.
Croaker said, "Thank you, One Hundred Four, you may return to your duties. Amelia, come in—both Mr Potter and I need to speak with you."
The grey-haired woman with the monocle entered the conference room, whilst her Unspeakable escort walked away. Croaker introduced Harry and Hermione, and the two other Unspeakables, to the woman. Croaker then introduced her to Harry and Hermione: she was Amelia Bones, the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (and also Susan Bones's aunt).
Director Croaker looked at Director Bones and said, "For those of you just joining us, the Dark Lord is not so dead as we thought he was."
"Merlin on a mushroom! How is he alive? Where is he?"
"We don't know yet, where he is. How is he alive? He made horcruxes, in which he chopped up his soul into pieces and attached each soul-piece to an object. Mr Potter has a horcrux in his famous scar, which is why the scar never has healed."
Bones said nothing, but she looked at Harry in sympathy.
Croaker continued, "But I'm confident that the horcrux can be removed from Mr Potter without killing him, even though I don't think this has ever been done before. What else to tell you? A prophecy says only Mr Potter can kill the Dark Lord, but it's not a sure thing; still, I'm confident."
"You're confident that Harry Potter, who is eleven, actually can fight the Dark Lord and win? This sounds..."
Ridiculous, she did not say.
Croaker frowned. "Listen, the prophecy was made for a reason; why make a prophecy that says The outcome that everyone expects to happen, will happen? Finally, Albus Dumbledore plans to kill Mr Potter or to convince Mr Potter to kill himself. Anyway, Amelia, this is why I wanted you here; are there other reasons you've come?"
Rather than answer this, Bones looked at Harry and asked, "Mr Potter, who are your guardians?"
Harry answered, "My mother's sister and her husband, Petunia and Vernon Dursley."
"They're Muggle-borns?"
"No, they're Muggles. I grew up outside of the magical world."
"But you're a wizard child! Your father has magical relatives alive, so why were you left with Muggles?"
Harry shrugged. "You'll have to ask Dumbledore this. He's the one who left me on their doorstep. He left Aunt Petunia a note; she probably still has it to show to you."
"How do they treat you?"
Harry felt panic then. "Erm, okay, they treat me okay. You don't need to worry."
Bones gave Harry a look that said I know you're lying.
Aloud, she said, "Mr Potter, regardless of whom you were living with, you are a wizard orphan; Wizard Child Services should have been visiting you regularly, to report on your care and to remove you from the home if necessary. The Director of WCS is a conscientious woman named Boudicca Grenwick; by now she should have had a file on you at least a half-inch thick. Instead, her file on you is one page."
Director Bones looked at Director Croaker. "What does that one page say? 'The magical guardian for Harry Potter is Albus Dumbledore, by order of the Wizengamot on 1 November 1981.' That's the WCS's total information about Harry Potter."
Croaker said, "After what these two persons of prophecy have told me, I'm not surprised."
Bones looked at Harry. "A few minutes ago, I was told Boudicca had been Compulsioned to thwart all efforts by WCS to do their job when it came to you. The Ministry doesn't even know your home address; please write it down for me, along with the names of your guardians."
As Harry wrote the Dursleys' names and address on a sheet of parchment that Hermione had given him, Croaker said, "Boudicca has been Compulsioned about Harry Potter?"
Bones nodded. "Her son is a Senior Auror, and it was he who discovered this about her. He's taken her to Saint Mungo's to get her brain cleaned out."
"Does he have any suspects?"
"Officially? None. The charm's magical signature is hidden." Then Bones mouthed the name Dumbledore.
Hermione asked, "If Harry's father has relatives, magical relatives, shouldn't Harry have gone to one of them? What do his parents' wills say?"
Bones huffed. "The wills were sealed by order of the Chief Warlock."
Croaker said, "Who was then, and is now, Albus Dumbledore. Suspicious much?"
Harry snarled, "So that's it, game over? Dumbledore can just decide that my parents' will won't be read? He can park my carcass wherever he chooses?"
Bones said, "You can request that the wills be read, Mr Potter, after you go to Gringotts, speak with the Potter account manager and claim the Potter Heir ring. You're eleven now, you can claim the ring. The Potter Heir ring, if it's like most Heir rings and Head of House rings, will shield your mind from mind-magics."
Harry nodded. "Is there any way to shield Hermione's mind?"
"After you claim your Potter Heir ring, declare Miss Granger to be a protectée of House Potter. This will put the Potter crest on the right sleeve of every magical garment she owns, as a warning to others. Also, your Gringotts account manager probably knows about enchanted jewellery in your family vault that Miss Granger can wear, that protects against mind-magics."
"How far a walk is Gringotts from here? Before Hermione and I return to Hogwarts at five o'clock, I want her protected, me protected, and the stuff with the wills nailed down."
Bones said, "Mr Potter, would you mind if I go with you? Back in the day, I dated your father's best friend and I was friendly with your mother. But before today, I believed Dumbledore's pretty words that you were safe and happy. Clearly, you are neither."
Harry felt panic. "That's not true, I'm fine. Everything's fine with me."
"No. You're too short, you're too thin, I see scars on your forearms and hands, and your trainers look like you pulled them from a rubbish bin."
Hermione said, "Under his school robes, the clothes he wears are way too big for him. The day I met him, I had to repair his glasses, which were broken. Who sends their nephew off to school with ill-fitting clothes and broken glasses?"
Harry gave Hermione a glare for revealing his shameful secrets, but could not disagree with her facts.
Harry said, "So how do the three of us get to Gringotts? Walk there? Hire a taxi?"
Bones said, "I could make a Portkey. Or, if Director Croaker permits, you could call a Potter house-elf to come here."
"What's a house-elf?" Harry asked.
"A magical servant," Bones replied. "House Potter, if I recall correctly, has four house-elves."
At this point, Hermione got angry and started to rant, until Croaker said firmly, "Miss Granger, the relationship is symbiotic. A house-elf must be bonded to a wizard or to a House in order to take magic from that wizard. If the house-elf doesn't take that magic, he dies. In turn, the house-elf transforms the magic that he takes, so that he can perform spells that the wizard cannot."
"Oh," said Hermione, who now was red with embarrassment.
Harry looked about the conference room at Croaker and the two other Unspeakables. "Are we done here, or is there something else to talk about before Hermione and I and Director Bones leave?"
Unspeakable Twenty-Two, the taller Unspeakable, said, "Mr Potter, your prophecy doesn't require you to kill the Dark Lord yourself. The prophecy says that he can be killed by your 'hand'—meaning by your own actions, by the actions of someone you command to act, or by someone you explicitly permit to act. This gives you many more tactical options."
Harry laughed. "You think I at age eleven can command anyone to do what I say?" Harry looked at Hermione and said, "Stand up from your chair, then jump up and down on one foot."
Hermione's response was to smack Harry's arm. "Prat."
Harry grinned at Unspeakable Twenty-Two. "Don't worry, I still have two other options."
Unspeakable Sixty-Five, the shorter Unspeakable, said, "The prophecy says '[E]ither must die at the hand of the other.' Meaning, until the prophecy is fulfilled, you must kill the Dark Lord or he must kill you. But in the prophecy's words is good news besides the bad news: Until the prophecy is fulfilled, only the Dark Lord can kill you. If anyone else tries, he'll miss, or somehow his 'fatal' spell won't be fatal. Lady Luck herself will magically shield you."
"Huh," replied Harry. "That's nice to know."
The shorter Unspeakable said, "Mr Potter, know that prophecies can't be thwarted and they can't be herded. Dumbledore is a powerful wizard, both magically and politically, but he can't herd your prophecy so that the only way for you to kill the Dark Lord is for you yourself to die."
Hermione said, "But this is exactly what the headmaster is trying to do, I think. What can we do?"
The shorter Unspeakable replied, "You two are firsties, so there isn't much you can do. But know this, I've seen it happen, Fate gets angry with anyone who tries to control a prophecy—even a Leader of the Light." The Unspeakable laughed evilly.
Croaker asked Harry, "Does the Department of Mysteries have your permission to act as your 'hand' at tracking down and vanquishing the Dark Lord?"
"Huh?" Harry replied.
"Say yes, Harry," said Hermione. "It's quite a helpful offer he's making."
Harry looked at Croaker and said formally, "Yes, the Department of Mysteries can act as my hand. Thank you for offering."
"May act, Harry," Hermione corrected.
Director Croaker looked at Director Bones. "Make the same offer, Amelia. It's the right thing to do, and the prophecy will give protection to your Aurors and hit-wizards."
Bones nodded, then looked at Harry. "Does the Department of Magical Law Enforcement have your permission to act as your 'hand' at tracking down and vanquishing the Dark Lord?"
Harry said formally, "Yes, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement may act as my hand. Thank you for offering."
Hermione asked, looking worried, "Does anyone have the time? Harry and I are supposed to be back at Hogwarts by five o'clock."
Bones did the Tempus spell. "The time is 1:52."
Harry stood up. "If there is nothing else to do here, then Director Bones, please tell me how to call a Potter house-elf to take Hermione and you and me to Gringotts."
Hermione began stowing everything that was in front of her on the table, including her writeup of Harry's prophecy, back inside her knapsack.
Meanwhile, Croaker asked Harry, "Do you mind if Unspeakable Twenty-Two goes with you?"
At Harry's gesture of agreement, Croaker said, "Twenty-Two, find out if the goblins can remove Mr Potter's scar without killing him. I'm pretty sure they can. If the goblins say they can remove the horcrux without killing Mr Potter, ask them if they can put the Dark Lord's soul-piece into something inanimate—a recording-crystal, say."
The taller Unspeakable stood up. "Understood, Director."
Then Bones coached Harry how to call a Potter house-elf. With Croaker's permission, Harry called for "any Potter house-elf" to come to the Hall of Prophecies conference room." Pop.
A waist-high creature appeared. He had greenish skin, a long nose, bat-ears and big eyes. The house-elf was wearing an elf-sized grey tuxedo with a white shirt and a black cummerbund; the left breast of the tuxedo had a black P on it.
As soon as the house-elf saw Harry, he grinned and bowed. "Master Harry Potter calls Greyclay? We Potter elves are so glad to again serve House Potter. This elf am Greyclay, the head Potter house-elf."
Greyclay clearly was overjoyed to see Harry; but his legs were shaking. This meant, so Bones explained to Harry, the house-elf was magically weak. Bones coached Harry how to inject Potter magic into weak Greyclay.
Whilst Harry was recharging Greyclay, Unspeakable Twenty-Two looked at Hermione and said, "When you're a seventh-year, you should apply for a position with us. The Department of Mysteries always is looking for people like you."
Harry saw Hermione smile and blush.
Croaker looked at Harry. "Your mother worked for us, for a time. She did solid research."
Once Greyclay was magically recharged, he elf-popped Harry, Hermione, Bones and the taller Unspeakable to Diagon Alley, just below the bottom step of Gringotts Bank.