Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling or Timothy Zahn.

Dean Thomas paces in his office at Cornwall. Sitting in chairs nearby are Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid.

Dean. [angry] Fifty-one. Fifty-one of my best reconditioned mole miners. Fifty-one. That's almost half my work force. You realize that? Half my work force.

Dean sits, then glances at Hermione.

I'm sorry. I'm neglecting my duties as host, aren't I? Welcome to Cornwall.

Dean kisses Hermione's hand.

So. What do you think of my little enterprise?

Hermione. Impressive. How did you ever come up with the idea for this place?

Dean. Oh, it's been kicking around for years. I found plans for something similar once in the West Ham files, dating back to when Lord Stoddard Withers first built the place. Most of the metal they used came from the nearby region Essex, and even with leprechauns doing the mining they had a devil of a time with it. Withers sketched out an idea for a rolling mining center that could stay permanently out of direct sunlight on Essex's dark side. But nothing ever came of it.

Ron. It wasn't practical. Essex's terrain was too rough for something on wheels to get across easily.

Dean. How do you know about that?

Ron. I spent an afternoon going through the Ministry files once, back when you were trying to talk Millicent Bagnold into helping fund this place, wanted to make sure someone else hadn't already tried it and found out it didn't work.

Dean. Nice of you to go to that kind of trouble. So, what's going on?

Hermione. We should probably wait until Harry gets here to talk about it.

Dean. Where is he, anyway?

Ron. He wanted to catch a fast shower and change. Those Firebolts don't have much in the way of comfort.

Dean. Especially over long trips. I've always thought putting a hyperdrive on something that small was a poor idea.

Ron. I'd better see what's keeping him. You have a transmitter in this room?

Dean. It's over there. Key for central; they'll track him down for you.

Ron. Thanks.

Ron walks over to the transmitter.

Dean. It's bad, isn't it?

Hermione. Bad enough. There's a chance that that Ministry cruiser came here looking for me.

Dean. You came here for help.

Hermione. Yes.

Dean. Well, I'll do what I can, of course.

Hermione. Thank you.

Dean. Sure.

Ron returns with Harry, and together with Hermione, they update Dean on the recent events.

Dean. No. If there was a leak, it didn't come from Cornwall.

Hermione. How can you be sure of that?

Dean. Because there's been no bounty offered for you. We have our fair share of shady people here, but they're all out for profit. None of them would turn you over to the Ministry just for the fun of it. Besides, why would the Ministry steal my mole miners if they were after you?

Ron. Harassment, maybe. I mean, why steal mole miners anyway?

Dean. You got me. Maybe they're trying to put economic pressure on one of my clients, or maybe they just want to disrupt the Wizards' Council's flow of raw materials generally. Anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that they took the mole miners, and they didn't take you.

Harry. How do you know there's been no bounty offer?

Dean. Because I'd have heard about it. Just because I'm respectable doesn't mean I'm out of touch.

Ron. I told you he'd have contacts. Great. So which of these contacts do you trust, Dean?

Dean. Well . . .

A transmitter beeps.

Excuse me. [into transmitter] Yes? . . . What kind of transmitter? . . . All right, I'll take care of it. Continue scanning.

Dean breaks the connection.

That was my communications section. They've picked up a short-range transmitter on a very unusual frequency . . . which appears to be sending from this lounge.

Ron. What kind of transmitter?

Harry retrieves the device he discovered at Mould-in-the-Would.

Harry. This kind, probably. I thought you might be able to identify it for me.

Dean studies the device.

Dean. Interesting. I haven't seen one of these in years. Not this style, anyway. Where'd you get it?

Harry. It was buried in mud in the middle of a swamp. Hedwig was able to pick it up from pretty far away, but he couldn't tell me what it was.

Dean. That's our transmitter, all right. It's amazing that it's still running.

Ron. What exactly is it transmitting?

Dean. Just a carrier signal. And the range is small, well under a regional radius. Nobody used it to follow Harry here, if that's what you were wondering.

Harry. Do you know what it is?

Dean. Sure. It's an old beckon call, pre-Wizarding Wars vintage, from the looks of it.

Harry. A beckon call? You mean like a ship's remote?

Dean. Right. Only a lot more sophisticated. If you had a ship with a full-rig slave system, you could tap in a single command on the call and the ship would come straight to you, automatically maneuvering around any obstacles along the way. Some of them would even fight their way through opposing ships, if necessary, with a reasonable degree of skill, which could be extremely useful at times.

Ron. [snorts] Tell that to the Peverell fleet.

Dean. Well, of course you have to build in some safeguards. But to simply decentralize important ship's functions into dozens or hundreds of droids just creates its own set of problems. The limited jump-slave circuits we use here between transports and broomships are certainly safe enough.

Harry. Did you use jump-slave circuits in West Ham, too? Hedwig said he saw you with one of these right after we got out of there.

Dean. My personal ship was full-rigged. I wanted something I could get at a moment's warning, just in case. Snape's people must have found it and shut it down while they were waiting for you, because it sure didn't come when I called it. You say you found it in a swamp?

Harry. Yes. On Mould-in-the-Would.

Hermione. Mould-in-the-Would? As in the region that Dark wizard from Avalon fled to?

Harry. That's the place. This must have been his.

Dean. It could just as easily have been lost some other time by someone else. Pre-Wizarding Wars calls could run for a century or more on standby.

Harry. No. It was his, all right. The cave where I found it absolutely tingles with the dark side. I think it must have been the place where he died.

Hermione studies Harry, leading Harry to look up sharply.

We were talking about Dean's smuggler contacts.

Ron. Right. I need to know which of your marginally legal friends you can trust.

Dean. Depends on what you need to trust them with.

Ron. Hermione's life.

Hagrid. Rarrghh.

Dean. You're not serious.

Ron. [nods] You saw how close the Ministry is breathing down our necks. We need a place to hide her until Murcus can find out how they're getting their information. She needs to stay in touch with what's happening in London, which means a diplomatic station we can quietly tap into.

Dean. And a diplomatic station means encrypt codes. And quietly tapping into encrypt codes means finding a hacker.

Ron. A hacker you can trust.

Dean. I'm sorry, Ron, but I don't know any hackers I trust that far.

Ron. Do you know any smuggler groups that have one or two on retainer?

Dean. That I trust? Not really. The only one who might even come close is a smuggler chief named Aberforth Dumbledore. Everyone I've talked to says he's extremely honest in his trade dealings.

Harry. Have you ever met him?

Dean. Once. He struck me as a pretty cold fish, calculating and highly mercenary.

Ron. I've heard of Dumbledore. I've been trying for months to contact him, in fact. McLaggen . . . You remember McLaggen? He told me Dumbledore's group was probably the biggest one around these days.

Dean. Could be. Unlike Golgomath, Aberforth doesn't go around flaunting his power and influence. I'm not even sure where his base is, let alone what his loyalties are.

Ron. If he has any loyalties. A lot of them out there don't.

Dean. It's an occupational hazard. I don't know, Ron. I'd offer to put the two of you up here, but we just don't have the defenses to stop a really serious attack . . . unless we do something clever.

Ron. Such as?

Dean. Such as taking a broom and burying it underground. We put it right by the dawn line, and within a few hours you'd be under direct sunlight. The Imperials wouldn't even be able to find you there, let alone get to you.

Ron. [shakes his head] Too risky. If we ran into any problems, there also wouldn't be any way for anyone to get help to us.

Hagrid. Urggh.

Ron glances over at Hagrid, engaging him in a discussion while Dean turns to Hermione.

Dean. It wouldn't be as risky as it looks. We should be able to make the broom itself foolproof. We've done similar things with delicate survey instrument packs without damaging them.

Hermione. How long is Cornwall's rotation?

Dean. Just over ninety standard days.

Hermione. Which means we'd be completely out of touch with London for a minimum of forty-five . . . unless you've got a transmitter that would operate on the sunside.

Dean. [shakes his head] The best we've got would be fried in minutes.

Hermione. In that case, I'm afraid . . .

Ron. [clears his throat] Hagrid has a suggestion.

Hermione. Well?

Ron. He says that if you want, he's willing to take you to Minsk.

Hermione glances at Hagrid.

Hermione. I was under the impression that half-giants discouraged human visitors to their region.

Hagrid. Raarrghh.

Ron. The half-giants were friendly enough to humans before the Ministry came in and started enslaving them. Anyway, it ought to be possible to keep the visit pretty quiet: you, Hagrid, the Wizards' Council rep, and a couple of others.

Hermione. Except that we're back to the Wizards' Council rep knowing about me.

Dean. Yes, but he'll be a half-giant. If he accepts you under his personal protection, he won't betray you. Period.

Hermione. Sounds good. So tell me why you don't like it.

Ron. Minsk isn't exactly the safest place in the galaxy, especially for those who are not half-giant. You'll be living in trees, hundreds of meters above the ground . . .

Hermione. I'll be with Hagrid. You've trusted your own life to him often enough.

Ron. This is different.

Harry. Why don't you go with them? Then she'll be doubly protected.

Ron. Right. I was planning to, except that Hagrid thinks it'll gain us more time if Hermione and I split up. He takes her to Minsk. I fly around in the Anglia, pretending she's still with me . . . somehow.

Dean. Makes sense to me.

Hermione. Hagrid and I will be fine. Don't worry.

Dean. I guess that's settled, then. You can use my ship, of course, Hagrid. In fact, if you want company, Ron, maybe I'll come along with you.

Ron. [shrugs] If you want to, sure.

Dean. Good. We should probably fly out of Cornwall together. I've been planning an out-of-town purchasing trip for a couple of weeks now, so I've got an excuse to leave. Once we're past the broomship depot, Hagrid and Hermione can take my ship and no one will be the wiser.

Harry. And then Ron sends some messages to London pretending Hermione's aboard?

Dean. Actually, I think we can do a little bit better than that. You still have Percy with you?

Hermione. He's helping Hedwig run a damage check on the Anglia. Why?

Dean. You'll see. This will take a little time, but I think it will be worth it. Come on. Let's go talk to my chief programmer.

Exit all.