10. Threshold Island

Ron Weasley was prowling the corridors of the Ministry. He was not in the best of moods as he made his way towards Hermione's office; the fact that this was an unannounced visit made him slightly uneasy. Hermione looked visibly shocked when he knocked and came inside: her face was white and her eyes had the look of someone caught in the act. Most of her desk was taken up by two large maps. One was a magical map, showing Hogwarts, Hogsmead, the Dark Forest and the surrounding hills. The other was clearly a muggle map, motionless and covered with a dizzying mass of contour lines. He peered over Hermione's shoulder and she immediately started folding up the muggle map.

'Not Ministry work, I take it,' he said.

'No,' she replied stiffly.

'What are you doing then?' he asked, trying to soften his tone but not quite managing it.

With a flourish of her wand, Hermione caused the magical map to fold itself away.

'Lillian Herrick has set up house not far from Hogwarts. I'm trying to find the exact location.'

She had to be challenged on that.

'Is she planning to throw a housewarming party or something?'

Hermione said nothing.

'Was there a particular reason for you coming to see me?' she asked with exaggerated sweetness.

'I'll be going on a mission,' said Ron. 'Today. It's urgent. The Auror Office is going to interrogate the Citadel people.'

'Really?' said Hermione. The news seemed to interest her. 'I don't know what you'll get out of them.'

'Neither do I.'

'Still, I suppose it has to be done.'

Not exactly a vote of confidence.

'Yeah, I reckon it does.'

'Are you going to Azkaban to speak to them?'

'No, they're going to be brought to somewhere neutral out at sea. An island.'

'I suppose you mean Threshold Island?' said Hermione.

Even with her mind clearly on other things she was disturbingly well-informed.

'That's it,' he said. 'It's going to be me, Kingsley and Harry. We'll be there two days. I just wanted to let you know, in case you were wondering where I was this evening.'

His voice trailed off. She seemed to take his meaning.

'Thanks for telling me,' she replied, a rather sad expression on her face. 'Are you leaving now?'

Ron nodded.

'It'll be hard work,' she added.

'We're expecting it to be,' said Ron. 'Still, maybe Belhaine will finally admit that he knew about the plot. Then he'll have a right to stay in Azkaban.'

She started to say something then stopped. He had expected more of a reaction, but maybe she was trying to keep quiet on the subject of Gondulph Belhaine. He had heard about the incident with Will Gash. Yet another sensitive subject.

'I think you'll find a bit bleak, Threshold Island,' she said at last.

'Oh, with Harry and Kingsley it'll be alright,' said Ron. 'It'll almost be like old times.'

She looked as if she was concentrating on something very far away. In the past he would have expected a barrage of advice. Her advice used to annoy him. Now the lack of any advice annoyed him just as much.

'I'd best be going,' he added, glancing awkwardly around the office. It was more disorganised than he remembered it.

'Ok,' Hermione said in a soft voice. 'Good luck.'

She stood up abruptly and kissed him on the cheek. He looked at her for a moment then made his way out.

Harry and Kingsley were waiting for Ron when he reached Kingsley's.

'Ready?' said Kingsley, rising to his feet and moving out briskly from behind his desk. 'We're leaving right now.'

'Should I have packed anything?' asked Ron, glancing at Harry, who seemed to have nothing with him but his wand.

'Sun cream, swimming trunks, detective novel,' suggested Harry with a smirk, which Ron answered with one of his own.

'The facilities are basic, but they'll have everything we need,' said Kingsley.

'What about veritaserum?' Ron asked.

'I have some just in case,' Kingsley replied, 'but I feel almost certain it won't work. Lashburn will not have been sent on his mission without first taking the necessary dose of the antidote as a pre-emptive measure.'

'That makes sense,' said Harry. 'It's not as if he's likely to have been a lone assassin.'

'Quite,' said Kingsley. 'Now, gentlemen, if you don't mind … This is our portkey.'

He pointed to a cheap-looking plastic replica of the Eiffel Tower sitting unobtrusively on his desk.

The first thing visible to them was the sea, stretching away to the horizon on three sides, beneath a grey sky heavy with clouds. The land beneath their feet was little more than a sandbar rising up out of the water, topped with tall grass and dotted with the occasional stunted tree. At the bottom left-hand corner of the island, a narrow wooden jetty extended out into the water.

'I hope no large waves come this way,' remarked Ron with a shiver.

'Come with me,' said Kingsley, ignoring the remark and beckoning for them to follow him. They turned around and began to wind their way through the grass, which led first upwards before dropping down into a hollow from where the grass had been mostly cleared. Sitting in a small wasteland of pebbles, sand, and the odd clump of dirty grass, was a strange building: it was squat and utilitarian, windowless at ground floor level and with small, porthole-like windows upstairs. The building had two storeys, plus a box-like appendage mounted on the roof, giving it the appearance of a very rudimentary lighthouse. At first glance the building seemed octagonal, but closer inspection revealed it to have nine sides in total and no less than three separate entrances. As they came nearer the facility, they could make out the figure of a man sitting in the structure mounted on the roof. He paid them the slightest sign of acknowledgement, before continuing to survey the horizon with a kind of grim concentration, cramped in his little box like a crane operator.

'Who's that?' Harry asked, pointing at the man in the box.

'That's McPheeters,' replied Kingsley. 'He looks after the facility. He's our only permanent staff member here, on rotation with his French and Belgian counterparts. He's here only four months a year.'

'Lucky him,' Harry remarked.

'Put it this way, it's not a job that anyone could do,' replied Kingsley.

They reached one of the facility's three entrances and waited while Kingsley performed an incantation to open the door. The door promptly swung open, revealing a narrow corridor that ended in another door. They went down the corridor and repeated the procedure. The inner chamber was triangular and lit by an artificial, or perhaps enchanted, light that emanated from no visible source. The room was almost empty: its sole furniture was a rectangular table made of a blackish-green metallic substance and three wooden benches pushed against the three walls. The room contained one other item: a kind of inverse funnel hung from the ceiling, its open end gaping over the table.

'Very … geometrical, this place,' remarked Ron.

'I forgot you haven't been here before,' said Kingsley. 'Everything is in threes because this is neutral territory, shared by the British, French and Belgian wizarding authorities. Somebody thought it would be useful to have a quiet, neutral place where we can meet to discuss matters of importance and share information. The island used to be just a sandbar somewhere between the three countries, but it was made more permanent using magic. Shipping avoids it, which makes it very convenient. That's why it's called Threshold Island. Or L'Île du Seuil. Or Drempel.'

'So how far's Azakan?' said Ron.

'Close enough,' replied Harry.

A noise like a foghorn began to sound above their heads.

'What's that?' said Ron, ducking his head instinctively.

'It means we're right on time,' replied Kingsley. 'The prisoner is about to arrive.'

They followed Kingsley back out of the building and down across the dunes. In the space of just a few minutes, the temperature had dropped and a thick grey fog had begun to swirl around the island.

'It's not …?' Ron began.

'No,' replied Kingsley quickly. 'No Dementors. But when the boat comes back from Azkaban it brings back a reminder of them.'

A pale light shot out over their heads and disappeared into the fog. They looked up and saw that the wizard McPheeters had come out of his cabin and was standing very still on the roof of the building, his wand outstretched and his eye fixed on a distant point. As they followed the line inscribed by the wand light, a thin, narrow ship made of a kind of silvery metal and with a single light burning at its helm glided silently out of the fog and slid up alongside the jetty. They looked up at the ship but saw no movement on deck. Then the wand light faded to nothing and the vessel came to a halt alongside the jetty. McPheeters lowered his wand and went back inside his cabin.

On deck a single figure staggered forward as if in a daze. Kingsley and Harry immediately raised their wands and caught the figure in an enchantment. For a moment he was held stock still, then he began to advance in a jerky, puppet-like manner down a walkway that led to the dock.

'Silas Lashburn,' Ron murmured, watching as the would-be assassin of the Minister of Magic shuffled to a halt in front of them on the dock, silent and glassy-eyed. 'He seems a bit done in,' he remarked.

'Oh, he'll warm up once we get him inside,' replied Kingsley. 'He's still under the effects of the Charon Charm.'

'The Charon Charm?'

'The charm that transports the prisoner here from Azkaban,' said Kingsley. 'It envelops the boat and seals it, freezing anyone on board into a kind of trance, and preventing anyone from gaining access from outside.'

'It's the Azkaban Ferry,' added Harry drily. 'But only prisoners get to ride it.'

'Not exactly a pleasure cruise,' said Ron.

'No, but it's better than Azkaban,' replied Kingsley.

They made their way slowly back up through the grass, the silent figure of Silas Lashburn apparently sleepwalking ahead of them.

'By the way,' said Ron, 'once we're back inside, and he's woken up, what's to stop him trying to assassinate you again?'

'Nothing much,' replied Kingsley. 'Apart from the fact that it'll be just him against three Aurors in a magically sealed room. We should all keep on our guard anyway.'

They re-entered the facility through the same entrance and sat down at the table, Kingsley, Harry and Ron on one side and the still listless Lashburn on the other. He was a thin, wiry man with a shock of black hair, of about Harry and Ron's age, but who looked older. Nevertheless, his time in Azkaban had as yet had no visible effect on him. It was known from his file that although he came from a wizarding family, he had not been educated at Hogwarts. Instead he had attended a muggle private school and received magical training at home, from a privately employed tutor of magic. The practice was rare, but not unheard of. The Ministry even kept a record of such itinerant teachers of magic. The practice had a long history, longer even than the history of Hogwarts, and did not seem to turn out more dark wizards than the schools of witchcraft and wizardry. The actions of Silas Lashburn had triggered a Ministry investigation into the activities of these roving teachers. Some were now calling for them to be banned altogether.

It took a few minutes for Lashburn to come around. When he did, he found three wands trained on him. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and leaned back in his seat, an expression of contempt on his lips.

'I wouldn't bother, I'm not going to try to escape.'

'Azkaban has grown on you, has it?' remarked Ron. Lashburn made no reply.

'With all your colleagues there with you, the atmosphere must be almost jolly,' added Kingsley. 'Or has the feeling of failure soured things?'

This drew a more marked scowl from the prisoner.

'Yes I failed,' he said, with a snarl in his voice. 'But your victory is as hollow as it could possibly be. I hope you enjoy your last days in office, because before long you're going to be the ones being interrogated.'

'And what is it you suggest I do?' asked Kingsley thoughtfully. 'To avoid someone else trying to remove me from office.'

Lashburn looked at him bleakly.

'There's nothing you can do but go back to the Ministry and tell everyone to prepare for war.'

'War against the muggles?' said Harry. 'Should we perhaps start on them first? I reckon Voldemort would have had a use for you.'

Lashburn laughed.

'Whatever you think about Voldemort, at least the division between wizards and muggles would have stayed in place.'

'Stayed in place?' Harry exclaimed. 'The muggles would have fought back once they knew what they were up against.'

'You're right, Harry Potter, in a way,' said Lashburn, leaning closer to his interrogators. 'Given the chance, the muggles will fight us. And we'll see who subjugates whom.'

'We're not here for philosophical discussions,' said Kingsley brusquely. 'We already know what you think relations between wizards and muggles should be. We're here to talk about your orders, and who gave them to you.'

'Oh, it was my idea,' said Lashburn blithely.

'Really,' commented Ron.

'Really,' he replied. 'I had no orders. I went beyond my remit, if you like.'

'Oh well, in that case, we had better let Belhaine and all the others go,' said Ron.

'It's certainly true that attempting to assassinate me didn't help your cause,' remarked Kingsley. 'I would have expected more subtlety from Belhaine.'

'That's true,' said Harry. 'It almost seems like a miscalculation; so maybe it wasn't a miscalculation after all. You seem to like playing at being political prisoners. Maybe you were meant to fail.'

'And what would be the point of that?' replied Lashburn quietly.

'By your logic the Ministry will be overrun by Witchfinders,' replied Harry serenely. 'As political prisoners of the current regime you'd look much more credible to whatever would be left of wizarding society. So you'd be ideally placed to lead the resistance.' I'm having a kind of Hermione moment.

Lashburn's smirk wilted on his lips.

'Sounds almost plausible,' said Lashburn. 'Except for one thing. Who's going to release us from Azkaban? When the Witchfinders arrive they'll most likely throw us in the sea.'

Harry and Lashburn looked at each other in silence. After a few moments, Harry realised that Kingsley and Ron were both staring at him, not at the prisoner.

'Proceedings adjourned,' said Kingsley. The funnel-shaped device above their heads made a faint whirring noise in response.

'I want a breath of fresh air,' said Kingsley, who was already heading for the door. 'Harry, can I have a word?' Harry followed him back down the corridor and out of the facility, while Ron kept his wand trained on Lashburn.

'That's an interesting theory, Harry. How come you never mentioned it before?' said Kingsley when they got outside. A keen breeze was blowing through the grass. The fog had lifted from the island but still seemed to cling to the Azkaban ferry.

'It only just occurred to me,' replied Harry.

Kingsley looked at him thoughtfully.

'And where did you get the idea from?'

Harry returned his gaze, considering what response to give.

'It was a shot in the dark,' he replied, conscious of Kingsley's curious expression.

'We all know that Citadel claims that the Witchfinders are a threat to the wizarding world,' said Kingsley. 'But do they really believe it?'

'Who knows?' replied Harry quickly. 'But judging by the look on his face, Lashburn does.'

'That may be what he's been told,' said Kingsley. He turned back towards the facility. 'Let's go back inside. We can talk about this later.'

The two Aurors went back into the facility. When they re-entered the interrogation room, Lashburn was still sitting at the table. Harry noticed that Ron shot him a strange look as he sat back down at the table. Kingsley muttered an incantation and the funnel-like device whirred again. Once it had fallen silent, Kingsley resumed the questioning.

'So, do you expect someone else to carry on your work, now you're in Azkaban?' he asked.

Lashburn smiled in response.

'If you're expecting me to give you names, you're wasting your time. I don't want to help you and there's nothing you can offer me that would tempt me to talk.'

'Don't you want to save the wizarding world from the muggles?' said Harry. 'Isn't that your mission?'

Lashburn paused for a moment.

'I will save the wizarding world by helping you to capture the rest of our organisation, is that right?' he asked sarcastically.

Harry glanced across at Kingsley, who shook his head in reply.

'The only way that the wizarding world can be saved,' Lashburn continued, 'is if you let us all go and we work together.'

'I've told you before,' replied Kingsley. 'If you have some genuine intelligence that can save us all from this supposed disaster waiting to happen, you should hand it over.'

'You'd better ask our leader,' he replied. 'And you ought to ask him nicely. If it were up to me, I'd tell you to get stuffed, because I really don't care what happens to you. But then again, I'm no one. Expendable.'

With that he folded his arms and sat back in his chair.

'We will be asking him, don't worry,' said Kingsley.

'Well then, good luck,' replied Lashburn. 'By the way, I have nothing else to say. I'm ready to go back.'

'You don't mind going back to Azkaban?' said Ron. 'Sure about that?'

'I don't care,' was the only reply forthcoming.

Daylight was beginning to fade. The Azkaban ferry had drifted away from the jetty and was moving silently into the distance, still enveloped in fog.

'We'll continue the questioning tomorrow,' said Kingsley.

'Do you want to bring him back for more questioning?' asked Ron.

'No, we'll try someone else, someone more reasonable. Someone who's more interested in self-preservation,' replied Kingsley.

'Is there anyone else you want to try apart from Belhaine himself?' Harry asked. 'We could try a family member like Xavier Belhaine or Tobias Destrument, or one of the others.'

'We'll go for Belhaine himself,' replied Kingsley. 'There's no guarantee that the others are any better informed than Lashburn.'

That evening the Aurors ate a frugal dinner prepared by McPheeters. The warden's living quarters consisted in a low-ceilinged kitchen and adjoining sleeping area, located above the interrogation chamber. The upstairs of the facility also contained a further two guest rooms and a bathroom. McPheeters was a tall, well-built, balding man with a thick auburn beard. He said little over dinner and didn't seem eager for news of life in the outside world. But he wasn't an oppressive presence; he seemed quite content with his life on the island. Once McPheeters had retired to his bedroom, the Aurors' conversation drifted inevitably back to the questioning of the prisoners.

'Deliberately getting yourself locked up in Azkaban for public relations purposes is what I'd call a high-risk strategy,' Kingsley remarked over the last mouthfuls of dinner. 'Particularly if you've no way of knowing how long you're going to be staying.'

'Unless you have information that the Ministry is going to fall quickly,' Harry remarked.

'Is it possible they've been promised a place in the new regime?' said Ron, thinking out loud.

'What, you mean they're actually in league with the witchfinders?' said Harry. He wanted to say that Hermione knew some of them, and she would have worked out if they were double agents. But that was just the sort of thing he shouldn't say.

Kingsley shook his head and took a mouthful of tea.

'No, that's going too far. I think Belhaine really believes that wizarding society is under threat from the outside world. But I think you're right, Harry. Rather than be the head of some puppet regime he must want to profit from the chaos that would result from the fall of the Ministry to establish a new order.'

'Do you think we'll get much out of him tomorrow?' asked Ron.

'Depends on whether he thinks he can get something worth having out of us,' replied Kingsley. 'In any case, he'll be shiftier than Lashburn.'

'Does Lashburn know much more than he's letting on?' said Ron.

'Possibly,' said Kingsley. 'But what I really want to know, whether from Lashburn or Belhaine himself, is whether there's some specific intelligence that Witchfinders are a genuine threat to the wizarding world.'

Ask Hermione. That was something else Harry wasn't supposed to say.

'Well, like you said, we all know that that's one of the Citadel's claims,' Harry commented, sitting back in his place and folding his arms.

'They claim a lot of odd things,' remarked Ron, before adding, 'I think it would be worth having a look at this Destrument. He seemed like the most dangerous one in Ostend.'

Harry remembered a particularly nasty curse that had seemed to come out of nowhere that night, barely missing him. It could only really have come from Tobias Destrument. But he was the one who rescued Hermione and Caius and Serena Lynch from the witchfinders.

'Maybe, but the key is getting Belhaine to confess,' said Kingsley. There was a determination about his tone that seemed to lay the subject to rest.

They didn't linger much longer over the remains of their dinner. Kingsley departed to one of the guest rooms, while Harry and Ron took the other. The room was as utilitarian as the rest of the facility, with bare, metallic walls and a small, circular window. The wind was squalling outside the darkened window.

'I thought this place was created using magic,' muttered Ron as he climbed into his bunk. 'They could at least have made it a bit more cheerful.'

'Maybe since it's so close to Azkaban, it can't get any more cheerful than this,' replied Harry from his bunk on the other side of the room. Ron nodded, then looked suspiciously up at the small circular window.

'Are we sure that no Muggle ships are going to crash into us in the night?' he asked.

'Um … I don't know,' was all that Harry could manage as a reply. He too looked up at the window from his pillow. After a few moments he took off his glasses and settled back down.

Ron listened for a while to the wind buffeting the window before drifting into sleep. After a long passage of blackness, he seemed to revive. He was walking the streets of London at dusk. One street of Georgian terraces gave way to another, some smarter, others faded, until he found himself staring up at the entrance to Grimmauld Place. He wondered when he was. Harry had moved out of the house years earlier, handing it over to a wizard charity to use as its headquarters. No Death Eaters loitered in the square and the cars parked on the street were of the present time. As the light faded, a light went on in an upstairs window, but Ron couldn't make out anyone standing there. The moment seemed to be enveloped in a kind of peaceful weariness.

He heard footsteps on the street and looked in their direction: Hermione. She was coming towards him, or towards the house. She didn't seem to see Ron, and he felt that he should make no attempt to draw attention to himself. She was wearing a black trench coat that he realised he hadn't seen her wearing for a few years at least. She looked younger, less underweight and less haunted, but her expression and movements seemed to echo the sense of tiredness he felt about the place. She paused on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place, spoke a silent incantation and the door swung open. While the door remained open, Ron took the opportunity to slip inside. It was not Kreacher standing behind the door, but Harry himself. He too looked younger. Hermione and Harry embraced without words, then stood for a moment, looking at each other in the long, narrow hallway.

'Why are you being so mysterious?' Hermione asked.

'Come upstairs and I'll show you,' said Harry, taking her by the hand and leading her up the stairs. Ron followed silently. He wanted to interrupt them, or signal his presence to them, but he realised that he had no voice and no physical form there. Harry and Hermione made their way quickly to the top floor of the house, to a large room there that Ron remembered Harry using as a kind of repository for the belongings of Sirius Black and his parents, such as he had been able to gather. As far as Ron knew, the room had remained magically locked and outside the terms of the lease with the wizarding charity. But here the room showed every sign of current use: tall workbenches occupied the middle of the room, piled with books and papers and covered with discarded pieces of magical tools and machinery, some glowing haphazardly, apparently leaking magic.

Harry led Hermione a little way into the room and stopped.

'Close your eyes,' he said in a soft but firm voice. Hermione obeyed and straight away the room went dark. Ron reached out a hand that wasn't there, instinctively probing the darkness in an attempt to regain his bearings. Why did it go dark? Because Hermione closed her eyes.

'Open them.' It was Harry's voice again. The room reappeared and Harry was standing in front of Hermione. He pushed what looked like a small suede pouch into her hand. She looked down and slowly began to tug on the pouch's drawstring, seemingly delaying the moment when the package would fall open. At last she pulled a small, silvery object out of the pouch and laid it on the palm of her hand. It was a small bracelet, made of a series of interwoven strands of a material that looked like a kind of molten metal, molten because the strands pulsed and swirled around each other, emitting a pale glow. The silver strands of the bracelet circled each other incessantly, as if they were participants in a perpetual race.

'What's this for?' Hermione asked, her voice so soft it was barely audible. Harry put his hand on hers.

'Do you know what day it is?' he said gently.

'Of course,' she said, looking quickly up at him. 'It's exactly one year since you defeated Voldemort.'

'Since we defeated Voldemort.'

They looked at each other in solemn silence.

'I can never begin to say thank you,' said Harry, still half immersed in his reverie. 'So I won't even try. I just had to give you something. To show you that I haven't forgotten anything, to show you how much you mean …'

'Stop it, Harry,' said Hermione, grasping his hand and squeezing it tightly.

'Will you wear it?' said Harry, his voice hesitant. 'It's my first and only attempt at actually making a magical object.'

'You made this?' she exclaimed. He nodded, trying to smother the grin breaking out on his face.

'It took quite a while to get it right. But it has some special properties. If you put it on, you'll be the only person who'll ever be able to see it. And as long as I'm alive the metal will never set… I know I'm taking liberties…'

Hermione touched his arm.

'You're not taking any liberties,' she said plainly. Then she unclasped the bracelet and closed it around her wrist. The glowing strands of metal continued to circle her wrist, locked in their seemingly endless race.

'Already I can't see it,' said Harry. 'I hope it looks good on your wrist.'

'It does,' replied Hermione in a voice of hushed concentration as she continued to contemplate the bracelet. When she reached out and touched it, it was slightly warm. Then she took a firm step forward and kissed Harry on the cheek, her right hand lightly resting against his arm, her left hand gripping him just above the elbow.

'We won't say anything,' she said, speaking into his ear. 'We'll just know it's there.'

Revulsion, mixed with anger at his helplessness, swelled inside Ron. The image before him fell away. Once again he saw before him the ill-lit room and heard Harry's faint breathing from the bunk across the floor. He was awake, the anger and revulsion still with him. He threw off the sheet and stumbled out of bed. I was dreaming. He crossed the room to Harry's bunk and stood over him, a look of contempt on his face. Only dreams are never that convincing. It was all too believable. The complicity between the two of them made him sick. It's betrayal. Pure and simple.

'What would it take to make you confess?' he said to Harry in a low voice, leaning over him and scrutinising his friend's sleeping form. Then he went back to where his clothes were strewn by his bed and took out his wand. Again he stood over Harry, now with his wand trained on him. But as he ran through curse after curse in his mind, he felt his anger abating. If I wasn't dreaming, what just happened? Any half-decent wizard could invade the mind of someone who was asleep and plant images there. Was it some malicious attempt to sow discord between him and Harry? It wouldn't be the first time someone had tried something like that. The image of Harry giving Hermione the bracelet and her reaction to the gift replayed itself in front of his eyes. But this time he felt more composed, more analytical. The complicity between the two of them used to be on display on a regular basis. But with time it had seemed to fade.

'Maybe she's taken it off,' he remarked snidely to the sleeping Harry, who made no reply.

Or maybe it's a warning?

The sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor outside made Ron startle. He turned to the door, half expecting to see Kingsley walk in. He could already see how weird he looked, standing over a sleeping Harry and talking to himself. The footsteps passed on down the corridor and faded to silence. Ron lowered his wand and went and sat back down on his bed. When he glanced up at the window he could see that the first hints of dawn seemed to be coming on.

Breakfast was as low-key an affair as dinner had been. Nonetheless, McPheeters had prepared a fry-up, which Harry and Kingsley both seemed to wolf down. For once it was Ron who was having trouble getting through his food, a fact that did not escape the others unnoticed.

'I'm just not hungry,' he explained. When he saw McPheeters frowning at him from through his beard, he quickly added 'But it is really good. I just didn't sleep very well.' He redoubled his efforts to finish his plate under McPheeters' piercing stare.

With a chill in the air and fog swirling in, the Azkaban Ferry docked for the second time in successive days. This time, the sole figure on deck was the slight, almost wizened form of Gondulph Belhaine. Once again, Kingsley, Harry and Ron stood by the wooden jetty and guided the prisoner off the ship and into their custody, following exactly the same procedure as the day before. Slumped in the chair on the other side of the table, he seemed fragile, almost decrepit, but as the effects of the Charon Curse wore off, the colour returned to his cheeks and his pale blue eyes began to sparkle. He greeted his interrogators with a languid smile and a slight bow of the head.

'A fine deputation. Our Minister for Magic and his heir apparent.'

'There is no heir apparent,' Kingsley replied curtly.

'You presumably know best, Minister,' Belhaine replied.

He looked at them with an air of vague curiosity.

'How can I help you gentlemen?'

Kingsley put his hands on the table and leaned towards the seated Belhaine.

'We want to ask you how to save the wizarding world.'

There was no trace of irony in Kingsley's voice. For a moment Belhaine seemed surprised. Then he began to smile again.

'You'll forgive me if I'm not quite able to take you seriously,' he said quietly.

'I'm serious,' said Kingsley. 'I want to know what this intelligence is about an imminent threat to the wizarding world.'

Belhaine looked more serious.

'There are plenty of portents, if you care to look.'

'The Ministry can't act on portents, we need facts. However much we study your pamphlets and speeches, we never find anything substantial. It makes it hard to take your threats seriously.'

'And all it took for you to take us seriously were the rash actions of a stupid boy,' Belhaine remarked, half-question, half-statement.

'That's still your version of events, is it?' said Harry. 'That Lashburn acted alone?'

'Perhaps I should have told him to do it after all,' replied Belhaine, the urbane smile back on his lips. 'It seems to have had at least one positive effect.'

Kingsley pulled himself up stiffly, took a few quick steps towards the door then turned back.

'We're giving you one chance to help us,' he said grimly, scrutinising Belhaine. 'After this it's back to Azkaban.'

'Release us all and we'll talk,' Belhaine countered.

'It doesn't work like that.'

'In that case, we'll stay where we are and take our chances the day the security at Azkaban lapses', replied Belhaine, leaning back in his chair and seemingly contemplating a distant point.

'You seem pretty confident about your chances of escape,' said Harry, cutting in.

'I have more confidence in that than in the Ministry's chances of doing anything useful to stop the threat facing us all,' replied Belhaine.

'Well I suppose you don't actually have that much to gain from us releasing you now,' Harry exclaimed, a straining, nervous energy bubbling up inside him. 'And if we did you'd all look like collaborators to your adoring public.' His statement came rushing out in a single breath. For a moment, Belhaine shot him a rather curious look.

'I find it quite interesting listening to you talk,' he remarked serenely. 'Please go on.'

Harry's gaze was unflinching.

'I'll do more than that,' Harry replied. 'I'll even give you a reason to help us. When you escape from Azkaban and announce yourselves as the leaders of the resistance movement, you'll be able to have the satisfaction of telling what's left of the wizarding world that you even told us where to look and we still couldn't do anything about it.'

Belhaine fixed Harry with his gaze. He wasn't the only one staring at him.

'When the Ministry falls,' said Belhaine quietly, not taking his eyes off Harry, 'I hope you survive at least. You've certainly proved pretty indestructible so far. If you do, I will welcome you to the resistance.'

Harry swallowed and said nothing.

'It's true that I have nothing that you would regard as concrete proof,' Belhaine continued, leaning closer to Harry. 'But I have heard a warning, from a source I regard as wholly reliable. So you see, you could keep me in Azkaban for twenty years and I could never tell you anything more, because I don't know more than what I've been told.'

'And what have you been told?' Harry asked.

'Simply this: be ready, because the day is coming. No more than that.'

'And who is this source?'

'I can guarantee that you will never find him: he only ever appears when he wishes.'

'In that case, there's no harm in you telling me his name,' said Harry, scrutinising the face of the prisoner. Belhaine seemed to flinch for a moment.

'Oh, I would come to harm, I'm sure,' said Belhaine in a thin, stretched voice. 'Although he is apparently nowhere, he has ways of seeing and hearing.'

'You could be the saviour of the wizarding world,' said Harry quietly. Belhaine looked at him then shook his head.

'No I couldn't,' he said. 'In any case, my source isn't part of the plot against you. His warning was based on whisperings he himself heard. And he listens in very dark, remote places.'

'What dark, remote places?' Harry asked.

Belhaine's gaze seemed to flicker for a moment then his sickly smile resumed its place on his lips.

'Places that are beyond my reach or comprehension,' he replied. 'Places I have only heard hints of.'

'But in these places,' said Kingsley, 'there are people plotting against the Ministry?'

'You see things in terms of your own narrow interests, Minister,' said Belhaine. 'I should think that the matter of Ministry security is quite insignificant from their perspective.'

'Whose perspective?' Harry insisted. 'Are these people behind the Witchfinders?'

'My impression,' Belhaine replied. 'And it is only an impression, because I know very little and have probably already said too much, is not that they are actively against you, but rather that they are allowing the pieces on the board to move against each other. What their interest is I don't know, only that they love war; they have always loved it.'

'Again, who are they?' said Harry.

A look of fear darted across Belhaine's face.

'I don't know them. And I don't want to know them.'

'This is hopeless,' said Ron from behind Harry's back.

Harry glanced round at him for a moment.

'He's right,' said Belhaine. 'Don't waste your time trying to find my source, just heed his words: be ready, because the day is coming.'