9. The memory thief
The owl swooped down over the row of poplars that enclosed the garden from the fields beyond it and headed straight for her window. Hermione followed its progress, curious as to who might want to send a message so soon after dawn. The owl landed gracefully on the window ledge and waited patiently as she opened the window. It hopped over onto the windowsill and stuck out a clawed foot for her to unfasten the message attached there.
The message was from Henoc Lutumba, and addressed to her and Ron. Henoc was friends with Harry and with Caius in particular, not so much with Ron or with her. She had heard Ron speak warmly of this 'fellow Auror', as he had called him, and of his well-known prowess at quidditch. It also helped that Ron had never heard any rumours suggesting that he had had some sort of thing for her.
They were being invited on an impromptu excursion planned for Henoc's last day before he was due to return to Paris. It didn't really come as a surprise that the excursion was to a village supposedly steeped in witchcraft, as Henoc was known for his interest in Muggle accounts of witchcraft. On the walk back to the Burrow, Harry had told her what Henoc's theatre optique had looked like. She had heard Henoc himself talking about how he had a list of places around the world that were particularly rich in stories of witchcraft and magic, and he had made it his business to visit them and 'investigate' them. His interest was not in known wizarding centres like Ottery St Catchpole or Godric's Hollow, but rather in places that Muggles saw as being linked with witchcraft. What he was always trying to find out was whether real magic had been done in those places, or whether they had simply become shrouded in muggle superstition.
The invitation stated that Harry and Ginny would be going. That was normal: she had heard that Henoc had been staying with them for a couple of days. Surprisingly Caius wasn't going to be there; that would probably be an incentive for Ron to want to go. She was sort of curious to go too.
Ron was still asleep, so she went and woke him gently. Once he was sufficiently conscious to understand what it was that she was saying, and had grasped that she was actually willing to go, he sat up in bed and brightly announced that they should accept the invitation straight away, sending her back to answer the owl.
It was just before eleven in the morning when they apparated to the pre-arranged meeting point, by a wizened oak tree on a lane just outside the Herefordshire village of Ladymarsh. Henoc, Harry and Ginny were already waiting under the branches of the oak, sheltering from the surprisingly bright and warm sun. They greeted each other rather stiffly. Henoc was the most enthusiastic: presumably he was in his element. His voice was the most prominent in the conversation, as they walked into the village, explaining something of its history and the witches and ghosts associated with it. The supposed haunting of the village churchyard and old manor house were of less concern to him: his main interest was in the repeated outbreaks of witchcraft in the village over the centuries, and the belief among the local people that a powerful and secretive sorcerer had his lair somewhere near the village. What made it all the more interesting for Henoc was that it appeared that no actual wizard or witch had ever lived in the village, which for as long as records could tell, had only ever been a place inhabited by Muggles.
'It seems that every few centuries they burn some poor Muggle as a witch,' concluded Henoc with a tone almost of amusement. The others listened quietly, subtle glances passing back and forth between them.
The village was ancient in appearance, its main street lined on both sides by leaning, half-timbered buildings standing at crooked angles to the road, interspersed with sturdier Georgian and Victorian houses of stone and brick, and the occasional modern house. The village had a pub at each end, a Norman church, a duck pond and a village shop that sold all manner of witch and ghost-related souvenirs. In the warm sunlight, the village seemed picturesque and innocuous.
They had almost reached the end of the village when Henoc led them onto a narrow, sheltered lane that split off from the main street. Here the houses were more scattered and set back from the roadside, some behind imposing hedges. The road itself was in a state of semi-decay, with grass sprouting from the tarmac and trees hanging over the narrow roadway.
'This is the first place I wanted to visit,' said Henoc, stopping them before a house that had clearly lain abandoned for some time. Oddly, the house was probably one of the most recent in the entire village, a 1930s bungalow that sat in a little hollow, surrounded by an overgrown garden of tall, straggly grass and weeds. Its windows were dark and curtainless, and countless tiles were missing from the roof. Hermione shivered, despite the warmth that enveloped them.
'What is this place?' said Ginny.
'Until a couple of years ago, it was lived in by a man the villagers thought was a wizard,' said Henoc, pushing hard on the rusted metal gate to open it. The gate yielded and Henoc stepped inside, beckoning for the others to follow. One by one they passed through the open gate and began to wade through the tall grass that choked the front garden.
'Let's go around the back,' said Hermione. 'I suppose we're trespassing.'
'If you like,' replied Henoc, who was already peering in through the dirty window, wand in hand.
'Should you be waving that about out here?' said Hermione when she saw the wand.
'Relax,' said Henoc. 'No one's around. Anyway, we will need to go inside if we're to find out anything interesting. I can't gather anything much outside.'
'They probably get people looking around this place all the time,' added Ron. 'Muggles love this sort of stuff.'
'And some of them probably even have fake replica wands,' commented Harry.
They went round to the back of the house, pushing their way through the grass.
The backdoor was boarded up, but a charm soon unlocked it. The kitchen was empty apart from some ancient, dust-covered yellow tiles on the walls, so they passed on into the living room. Scarcely any light penetrated the room, whose windows had also been boarded up, so Ron took out his wand to provide them with light. The living room had been emptied of furniture at some point, apart from a single bed that sat strangely in the middle of the room. As Ron held up his wand, they could make out graffiti daubed on the walls. Some of the marks were simply tags, or names and dates, but elsewhere, unknown intruders had left messages like 'burn the witch house' and 'witches out'. In one corner of the room, the wall was scorched and covered with soot, as if someone had lit a fire there. Henoc walked briskly over and peered down into the dirt. Soon he had his wand out and was muttering an incantation under his breath.
'Come over here,' he said, beckoning to the others to join him.
In the area above where the fire had been started, a series of runes had been daubed on the wall.
'Hermione? What does it say?' asked Ron.
Hermione went up to the wall and examined the runes. After a few moments she turned to the others.
'I don't know what it means, but it says 'Many are warned, few …'
'Few pay heed,' said Henoc, finishing her sentence.
'Yes, that's it,' said Hermione quietly.
'That's the story of this place,' said Henoc. 'The line Many are warned, few pay heed is a kind of motto of the wizards thought to have lived in this area. The first one to be burned as a witch in this village was heard to shout it to the crowd as they burned. After that the stories of a strange figure walking the woods and marshes started. They called this figure, or wizard, as some thought of him, the Many are warned. That's the name associated with the legend. And the man who lived here, he was known to shout it at people in the street, or at children who came too close to his property. No one knows whether he was just doing it to scare people, or whether there was a genuine link between him and the legend. Thing is, there are traces of magic in this house, and I don't mean Ron's wand light. There are faint traces here, by the runes, and over there, by the bed.'
They turned and looked through the half-light at the strange old bed that stood in the middle of the room.
'The magic that was done here, it's not exactly dark magic, or not what we would understand as dark magic. It's something else, but it still feels somehow malevolent,' Henoc continued in a low voice.
'Here are some more runes,' said Hermione, pointing to another dense palimpsest scrawled in a jagged hand, lower down the wall. 'There are two runes written on top of one another. One is the rune for hate and the other is the rune for hunt.'
'Sounds charming,' Ron remarked.
'There's another one,' Hermione continued, pointing at the blur of symbols. She paused for a moment, staring at the writing in silence.
'It says: We know you,' she said in a changed voice. The others looked at each other.
'What does that mean?' said Ginny.
'I don't know,' said Hermione. 'But there's something really unpleasant about it.'
She looked at their faces: only Henoc's seemed to echo the feeling of dread the runes inspired in her. Something nasty happened here. Or someone nasty was here.
'I suppose you have some sort of idea about what happened here,' said Harry, turning to Henoc.
'Not really,' said Henoc. 'It seems that the man who lived here just disappeared without trace one day. But whether he was taken by others or left of his own accord, I don't know. Magic has been done here. Our magic. But that may not be the only kind that was done.'
Hermione felt the eyes of the others on her.
'I'm hungry,' she said suddenly. 'What about that picnic you promised us?'
They were glad to get out of the house and back into the sunshine. The garden behind the house was equally overgrown, but it sloped gently downhill to a flat expanse of marshland. Beyond it, the ground rose again up a low, forested ridge.
'Quite a picturesque spot, I have to admit,' said Ginny, as they made their way down the hill.
'Picturesque maybe, what about that stink?' said Ron, pulling a face. 'Who'd live next to a bog?'
'Someone fairly strange by the look of it,' said Harry, with a glance back up towards the abandoned house.
'So where to next?' asked Hermione with an air of forced vivacity.
Henoc pointed in the direction of the ridge that lay beyond the marsh.
'See that hill over to the left? It's called Warning Hill. The domain of the Many are Warned is supposed to be centred on the hill. It'll be interesting to see if it has the same sort of feeling as the house.'
'How do we get there without going through that?' said Ron, pointing at the bog that stretched out in front of them.
'There's a path that will take us around the marsh and up onto those hills,' replied Henoc.
'And how far is that?' asked Hermione.
'About six miles,' replied Henoc insouciantly. 'It won't take us long to walk.'
'Well, we'd better get started then,' replied Hermione. Despite trying to use as neutral a tone as possible, she drew quizzical glances from Ron, Ginny and Harry in turn.
They began to go around the bog, following a faint track that ran along by the edge of where the marshier ground started. The path was for the most part only wide enough for them to walk in single file, but from time to time it widened, allowing them to walk in pairs. Hermione walked with Ron. He took the opportunity to give her a full account of what had happened in Ostend. From time to time he would call out to Harry, who was walking up ahead with Ginny, for confirmation of a particular detail. Each time Harry would glance around, confirm the information in a jovial manner then look back. At some point Harry's version differed from Ron's, which resulted in Ron striding up to him to clarify the information. Henoc, who had been walking alone at the rear, took the opportunity to catch up with Hermione. Henoc made a few passing references to their time in France, but she wasn't particularly keen to relive them. After a while Henoc drifted into conversation with Ginny, leaving Hermione to walk alone at the back of the group. The ground gradually began to rise again, and the bushes gave way to woods. The afternoon was already well advanced, and their stomachs were empty.
'Wouldn't this be a good spot to stop?' said Ginny, as they came out of the trees onto a low, grassy hill. Everyone was quick to agree with her and began to drop down onto the grass. Henoc slightly grudgingly put down his bag, opened it and produced the picnic lunch that he, Ginny and Harry had prepared that morning. As the others ate quietly, Henoc seemed restless and eager to press on towards their destination, which still lay a few miles away, owing to their detour around the bog. By the time they had finished eating, it was past three. Discussion of how far they were from the final stop on their tour prompted Ron to suggest apparating there. Henoc looked at him with surprise.
'I thought we agreed to walk there and then apparate back,' he said.
'Before you decide whether we're walking all the way there or not,' added Harry, 'don't forget some of us may be getting tired.'
'I'm feeling fine,' retorted Ginny.
'Oh no, I didn't mean you,' he replied hastily. Ginny shot him a strange sort of look then immediately glanced at Hermione.
'I mostly meant me,' he continued, patting his stomach. 'And Ron of course,' he added with a grin, jocularly patting Ron's stomach for good measure.
'Speak for yourself,' protested Ron. 'I'm not past it yet. I didn't suggest apparating there for myself.'
Harry glanced at Hermione. She began to open her mouth, but stopped herself. The idea of apparating to the destination was soon dropped. Harry quickly declared that the rest had revived him.
The sky had begun to fade from blue to grey, and a cooler breeze had whipped up through the trees. As they approached their destination, tiredness seemed to dog their footsteps more and more, and the walk continued in near silence. Even Henoc's head had gone down, his enthusiasm seemingly starting to wane. As they passed under an eroded, overhanging rock, Hermione stopped. Harry turned and came to a halt, followed quickly by Ginny.
'What's wrong?' he said quickly. Hermione glanced over her shoulder at him for a moment then turned back to the rock.
'There's something I don't quite like about this place,' she said, still looking at the rock face.
'The feeling's been creeping up on me for the last half a mile or so.'
Harry glanced around at the rock and the thin forest canopy above them. The place did have a faintly oppressive air about it. He glanced at Ginny. She had a slightly quizzical expression.
'There is something about this place,' said Henoc as he arrived in front of the rock, enthusiasm returning to his voice.
'I think we should have our wands out, just in case,' said Hermione.
'What if we meet some ramblers?' remarked Ron. 'How are we going to explain the fact we're prowling around the wood like a bunch of lunatics with magic wands in our hands?'
'Ever the one to worry about what the Muggles think,' commented Ginny drily.
'Who'd be wandering around here anyway?' said Hermione, a slight tone of revulsion in her voice. 'Apart from other people who are interested in the legend.'
'Look, if the worst comes to the worst, we can alter their memories,' said Henoc impatiently. Harry looked away into the trees, while Ron, Ginny and Hermione simultaneously shot Henoc a series of looks. Henoc looked at them and shrugged rather sheepishly.
'Let's just keep going,' he said.
After some hesitation they all took out their wands and continued through the woods, albeit a little more cautiously. The terrain rose again, and the shadows slowly began to lengthen.
'It won't be far now,' said Henoc. He had barely spoken when a woman's scream shattered the quiet of the afternoon. Everyone froze.
Harry was the first to speak.
'Is this a joke?' he said sharply, turning to Henoc. His pulse was racing, but a thought had occurred to him that this had all been arranged in advance. A little fun for Henoc's send-off.
'Oh you think I was behind that?' Henoc replied. His bulging eyes and shaking hand seemed to suggest that if a hoax was being staged, he wasn't in on it. Harry turned and looked at the others: their faces were equally tense. Hermione took a step towards him.
'Even if it is a joke, we have to take it seriously in case someone really is in trouble,' she said quickly. 'The worst that can happen is that someone will be having a laugh at our expense.'
Harry nodded swiftly in reply.
'It was coming from up ahead,' added Ron. 'It sounded pretty convincing to me.'
'Let's go then,' replied Harry.
They set off along the path as fast as they could move, all tiredness forgotten. They had barely gone a hundred yards before they emerged from under the cover of the trees onto a sparse, grass-covered hillside. A lone, withered and wind-bowed tree stood at its summit. As they started up the hillside, Ginny suddenly stopped in her tracks, catching up Harry by the arm.
'Can you see that?' she said in a low voice. He looked up.
'Yes, I can see it,' he replied grimly, hesitantly holding his wand out.
At the summit of the hill, in place of the wizened tree, a fire was burning from a pile of massed logs, and a human figure all in shadow seemed to writhe within the flames.
'What on earth is that?' said Ron.
'An illusion,' said Hermione firmly. Done using the Circle. 'Pay no attention to it. Look down there, something's moving,' she added, pointing to an area where the slope dropped away again, back into the trees. They looked. A shadowy figure was passing under the trees. They cut across the flank of the hill, bypassing the burning stake at its summit. The figure seemed to linger in the undergrowth, as if it was waiting for them to catch up with it.
'Be on your guard!' shouted Ginny, who was the furthest forward. When they were no more than a few metres away, the figure disappeared into the darker recesses of the wood. Harry fired off a stunning spell, but it rebounded off a tree trunk. They bounded down the slope and into the trees. Here there was no path at all, and they were forced to weave around the trees and push their way through the undergrowth as best they could, stumbling along the way. The shadowy figure moving up ahead was intermittently visible, but it seemed to be clothed in green, making it harder to spot. The lack of any path meant that the five of them had become separated from one another, but they could each hear the others breathing heavily and hacking their way through the wood, in some cases casting enchantments to cut away branches and thickets.
'I think we're gaining on him!' shouted Harry, firing another stunning spell through the trees. Who says it's a he?
As Hermione followed the direction taken by Harry's spell, it appeared to her that the figure seemed to cast a rippling effect as it passed through the trees. Can the others see it? Or am only I supposed to see it? She altered her direction slightly, so that she followed the strange distortion of the trees, which she felt sure was part of the game someone was playing with them. The ground began to drop away again and grew damper and muddier. Suddenly the trees ended and she found herself on the gravelly bank of a stream. She was not alone. A shadowy figure stood on the opposite bank, just a few metres away from her. It was tall, close to two metres high. Even at so small a distance, its outline was indistinct against the trees, seemingly shimmering in the gradually fading light. She could make out no face, only two piercing dark blue eyes emerging from a hooded cloak of green brocaded silk, veiled in shadow. Although it had no mouth, she could sense its amusement.
'You want us to catch you,' she said to the figure. It was only once she had spoken that she realised that she had not opened her mouth.
'I wanted to see you,' replied the figure. 'But you won't catch me.'
'Why did you want to see me?' said Hermione, wondering when the others would catch up. She wanted to shout to them, but found that something was binding her voice.
'I want to take something from you,' said the voice, which spoke with a rasping, oddly androgynous voice inside her head. 'And give you something in return.'
'Who are you?' said Hermione.
'Many are warned, few pay heed,' replied the figure, a trace of laughter in its voice.
'You're not very convincing,' said Hermione. 'I can see through you.'
'Ah, you would,' said the voice mockingly.
'We know each other then,' she continued. 'But you're not Lillian.'
The figure made no response. But she could sense that this was not Lillian Herrick.
'Thank you, Hermione,' said the voice finally.
'What for?' said Hermione.
'I have taken something,' said the voice. 'A memory of yours. I wanted it as a keepsake. And as promised, here's something in return.'
Suddenly she felt the touch of a wand in her free hand. She glanced down for a moment, and instantly she recognised Harry's wand, or at least a very convincing imitation of it. She looked up again, but the figure was gone. She felt sure the figure had invoked the Circle to place the wand in her hand, mocking her by giving her the very evidence that could prove its presence there, if she dared to show the others.
Someone came crashing through the undergrowth behind her. She turned and saw Harry race into the clearing by the water's edge.
'I heard you speaking to someone,' he began in a rushed voice.
'It was there, just on the other side of water,' said Hermione, pointing to the other bank. 'The Many are Warned, or someone impersonating it.'
He looked at the place she was pointing to. Then he saw the wand in her hand. He held up his own hand, which held an identical wand. Before Hermione could explain, there were more movements in the undergrowth, and Ron arrived to find Harry and Hermione looking blankly at one another, each holding one wand only.
'Hermione says she saw the Many are Warned on the other bank,' said Harry. Ron glanced around quickly.
'It's gone?' he exclaimed breathlessly.
Hermione nodded.
'What happened?' he said.
'It stood on the other bank looking at me, then it laughed and disappeared,' said Hermione after a moment's thought. She wasn't sure how to explain the rest. Then she realised that she had almost forgotten the figure's boast that it had taken a memory from her. The replica of Harry's wand had distracted her just the right moment. Now she began to search her thoughts, in an attempt to locate the memory that had been taken, wondering whether it meant that the Many are Warned had stolen a memory altogether or simply glimpsed it as it groped inside her mind. It will have wanted a significant memory, she reflected. Something that would appeal to Lillian. Maybe a memory full of guilt. Probably a memory related to Harry. Hearing footsteps approaching through the bushes, she abandoned the search. How can I find a memory I possibly don't have anymore?
Henoc and Ginny were the last to arrive, and Hermione began her story again for their benefit. Henoc was particularly interested, and asked Hermione if she could draw a sketch of the Many are Warned. Hermione continued to maintain that the figure was an impostor, but did her best to draw the apparition she had seen anyway. Once she was finished, Henoc apparated to the opposite bank, muttering incantations in order to search for traces of magic. He returned quickly, a broad grin on his face.
'Magic has been cast very recently at that spot,' he said, pointing to the area where the strange figure had stood.
'So it was an impostor,' said Hermione.
'Or rather, it was a genuine wizard,' remarked Ginny.
'Yes, a genuine wizard was here, therefore not some supernatural spirit lurking in the woods,' replied Hermione.
'Still, it's not a hoax,' said Henoc.
'Agreed, it's not a Muggle hoax, but why can't it be a wizarding hoax?' retorted Hermione, her eyes flashing.
'Who knows we're here in order to play a practical joke on us?' said Ginny.
'Virtually no one,' Henoc confirmed.
Hermione groped around for an answer, until Ron provided one.
'Caius Hanmer,' he said. 'He told Henoc he couldn't make it.'
'So Caius came down here especially to impersonate the Many are Warned and make us chase him through the woods for nothing?' said Hermione.
'Sounds like his style to me,' replied Ron.
'Maybe in the past, but he's grown up a bit since then,' said Hermione. Ron's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
'Well if it is Caius, wouldn't we be expecting him to jump out of the bushes any minute and laugh at us?' asked Harry quietly. Ron wheeled around to stare at him, and he felt Ginny's eyes on him as well.
'I don't think Caius would do it,' replied Henoc. 'The old Caius might have done, but it's true, he is more serious these days. '
'I haven't seen much sign of it,' remarked Ron snidely.
'I doubt you've been looking very closely,' replied Hermione.
'Oh you have I suppose?' he retorted.
'So what's your conclusion?' said Ginny, interrupting them by turning suddenly to Henoc. 'That the Many are Warned is real?'
Henoc shook his head.
'I don't know exactly. It isn't just Muggle paranoia at work here. Wizards have been here, wizards like us, and maybe there are traces of some other kinds of magic.'
'What other kinds of magic?' said Ginny.
Hermione wanted to speak, but bit her lip instead.
'There are other kinds,' replied Henoc. 'More primitive kinds, which draw on other powers. There was something strange back at the house. It felt stranger even than this place,' he continued, holding up Hermione's drawing. 'I won't be crossing Ladymarsh off my list.'
'Maybe there was something genuinely strange in that house,' said Hermione. 'Oppressive even. But in a way I've never felt before. Still, I'm sure that whoever it was that stood on the opposite bank over there and laughed at me knew who I was. It wasn't some mouldy old legend, it was a modern-day practitioner of magic.'
'How can you be sure?' said Henoc.
Hermione paused for a moment then shrugged her shoulders.
'Just a feeling,' she said finally.
'We'll see,' replied Henoc, almost defiantly.
Hermione stared at him in silence. At the same time she could feel everyone looking at her. She wondered how long the silence would last.
'What was the point of this day out anyway?' said Harry finally, turning to Henoc. 'Was it to solve this mystery or just to have a picnic and go for a walk in the woods? Since we have no way of knowing what really happened here I vote for the latter.'
'Sounds about right to me,' said Ron. 'It's starting to get dark as well. Let's get out of here.'
Henoc shrugged.
'As you wish,' he said. 'But I'll be coming back here at some point.'
Hermione turned away from Henoc and glanced around at the others. Harry was still looking at her quizzically.