Chapter Seventeen
Into the Serpent
"All clear." Ginny waved on Hermione, Llewellyn, and Rosalind down the hall. The four crept through the corridors without a sound, all the way to Visilio's office on the first floor. Ginny stopped them just before his door and turned to Hermione, who clutched Harry's cloak in her hand. "You ready?" whispered Ginny.
Hermione nodded, and disappeared under the cloak. Ginny hung back in the hall as Llewellyn crept ahead and put her ear to the door. The faint sounds of cheering and a deep-voiced announcer could be hear, and she gave a thumb up to Ginny, Rosalind, and Hermione, wherever she was. Taking a deep breath and standing up straight, Llewellyn knocked the door.
"Who is it?" came Visilio's voice.
"It's Llewellyn and Rosalind. Are you watching the Jarveys-Nogtails game?"
"We're winning!" he replied cheerfully. There was an expectant pause.
"Can we, um...watch?" called Rosalind.
They heard footsteps from inside, and Ginny scurried away to behind a statue a few feet from the offive. Visilio opened the door and held a tiny red radio blaring the sounds of a Finnafunga game in his hand. "There's not much to see, mind you, but if you want to come in and listen, be my guests."
Llewellyn walked in, cursing under her breath that he wasn't watching the game on a television and so could be easily distracted. Rosalind, however, was thinking fast, and waited a few seconds for Hermione to slip inside undetected. She used that time to pantomime to the crouching Ginny the suggestion, "Knock". Taking another second to make sure Hermione was inside, Rosalind stepped in and closed the door.
Visilio was standing next to the window, adjusting the antenna to pick up the signal better. Unfortunately, he stood right next to his desk, where the drawer containing the Long-Distance Floo Powder was.
"You might get a better reception over there," suggested Llewellyn feebly, pointing to the corner by the door.
"No, no, no. You have to be by the window to get anything when you're in an enchanted castle, even if it's magical broadcasting." He fiddled with a purple knob in time to hear that the Jarveys had just gotten twenty points, and he frowned. Llewellyn and Rosalind glanced at each other fearfully.
Suddenly, there came another knock at the door. "Now, who could that be?" Visilio wondered out loud. He put the radio on the table and crossed his office. Quickly, Llewellyn pointed at the correct drawer, and it opened. A disembodied hand lifted up a small black box, and then both disappeared. Rosalind shut the door slowly as Visilio looked out into the hall for the mysterious knocker, who was probably now crouching behind the statue again. Rosalind and Llewellyn looked at each other again and nodded.
"That was strange. I wonder if that was that Peeves -"
"Umm, we suddenly realized we have to go," fibbed Llewellyn badly. She bolted to the door, opened it, and said, with the door ajar, "Thanks for letting us come, though. Tell us how it turns out!"
Visilio looked a little confused, but not suspicious, as they jumped out of the room and closed the door behind them.
"Hermione!" whispered Rosalind.
She appeared, with the cloak in one hand, and the box of Floo Powder in the other. He face was flushed and she was grinning in triumph. "Great work, everybody!" cheered Ginny as she popped out behind the statue again.
The shining moment didn't last, however.
"We just scored a thirty-two!" shouted Visilio happily, bursting out of his office into the hall. Hermione thrust the cloak and box behind her back, and the four girls all tried to look innocent and casual. Visilio looked at them strangely. "Are you gals all right?" he asked slowly and carefully.
"Yeah...." they said, just as slow and careful.
"The...um...exams...shook us up," added Ginny, and the four deliberately and tediously backed up. When Visilio's office was out of sight, they turned and started running.
"But, only one of them even had exams...." said Visilio softly. He shook his head and returned to the game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Your idea better be right," warned Hermione, and she handed the cloak and the box to him. "Did you guys find a room?"
"On the fourth floor," replied Ron.
The now close-knit group, made up of Harry, Cho, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, Llewellyn, Draco, Lawrence, and Rosalind, were all in a dusty, unused classroom close to the portrait of the Fat Lady. They were regrouping there after completing their assignments the Saturday afternoon before the dance.
After Neville's moving speech, and subsequent reports of it to the four not present at the time, they had unanimously agreed to take manners into their own hands. They wanted to go to the Great Serpent Mound, collect as much evidence as they could to prove it as Voldemort's headquarters, and come back before anyone noticed that they were gone.
The two problems that had remained before them were when and how to carry out such a plan. They had come to the agreement that they would do so as soon as possible, and they realized that the best time would be when everyone was occupied, expecially the professors, at the dance.
The how, on the other hand, had given them a fat lot of trouble. They bounced ideas off each other, ranging from super-fast broomsticks to all learning how to Apparate in 24 hours, each one sillier than the last. Finally, Harry seemed to have been hit with a genius thought. The only problems were that it involved stealing from Visilio, finding an unused and hidden classroom with a fireplace, and that he wouldn't tell the others his idea. Obviously, it involved traveling by Floo, but apparently, no one but Harry knew how to get there that way.
So, the group was now going in three different ways to the correct room, so as to not attract attention to themselves. By the time the last four students found it, Harry, who was there first, had already lit a fire in the grate. He then called everyone around the orange and yellow flames.
"Remember how, a few weeks ago, we had that talk with Visilio and Patursa, and Patursa came through the flames from America?" The others nodded. "You'll remember that we accidently left the magical flames burning. And, as some of you probably know, if you leave a magic fire burning, ashwinders, grey snakes that are very hot, and so, very dangerous, will form. Everybody with me so far?" They nodded again. Most of them were there that day they had come out of the fire.
"Now, so far, nothing seems amiss. But then think of how long the fire was burning. It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. Ashwinders take hours to form. So, why did they come out after so short a fire?"
There was silence, except for the regular, crackling fire in the grate.
"Does anyone remember what was said, right before the ashwinders appeared?"
More silence. Harry opened the box, took out a tiny pinch, and tossed it in the fire. The flames turned blue. He took a deep breath.
"Voldemort."
To everyone's surprise - except, of course, Harry's - three small, pallid snakes with glowing, scarlet eyes crept out of the fireplace. In Parseltongue, he quickly told them to return to the flames, and before dousing the blue fire with a simple charm, he pointed to it, looked at everyone solemnly, and said, "That's where the Dark Lord is."
The room was dark, but everyone had the same look on their faces: grim determination and anticipation, mixed with a trace of mortal fear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hermione kept glancing at her watch nervously as the dance night went on. Ron patted her arm consolingly. "It'll be time soon enough," he said. "Just enjoy the evening. People will think you don't want to be here with me or something." He grinned stupidly.
"Oh, Ron!" she replied, sighing. "You know I wouldn't want to be anywhere but with you. I'm just...."
"...Scared?" ventured Ron. Hermione nodded. "I am too. We have to be strong together." He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her hair. They stood that way for nearly half an hour, each with their mind on the impending mission, and never wanting to let each other go.
Finally, Neville and Ginny crept over to them and broke the spell. "It's 8:15," she whispered, holding hands with her boyfriend. The group had decided to divide up the times each couple left the Great Hall by fifteen minutes. Now, only those four remained, and it was Hermione and Ron's time to go.
"Thanks. See you in a little bit," replied Ron softly. He and Hermione looked around the darkened Great Hall, noted that most of the professors were milling around the food table, and then quickly slipped out the doors. Ron then led Hermione through stairs and behind tapestries to the fourth floor room, neither of them wanting to tell the other that their hand was clammy.
Inside the room, it was dark, and Ron could barely make out the other six figures. Actually, he saw only three shapes in the faint light coming from the corridor, because the couples were all holding each other for support.
"That you, Ron?" came Harry's voice. Ron replied in the affirmative, and he and Hermione sat down at one of the dusty desks.
"Where are the professors?" asked Cho.
"We saw most of them at the Great Hall," replied Ron. "Harry, didn't you bring that map?"
Harry nodded, brought it out of a shirt pocket, made the map appear, and squinted at it in the dim light coming from the doorway. "Everyone's in the Great Hall or somewhere else far away. We can light the fire now."
Hermione, who was good at fires, lit one in the fireplace. At first, it was a vivid purple, but soon the magically started fire faded to a normal orange shade. Rosalind brought out the stolen box of Floo from her pocket, opened it, and examined it critically by the fireplace.
"Be careful with that," warned Lawrence, putting his hand beneath the box as a safety net.
"It's more precious than unicorn blood to us now," she said darkly, and replaced the top. "I have some bad news."
"What?" asked Neville. He and Ginny had just entered the classroom, and he closed the door behind her.
"There's only enough Long-Distance Floo Powder here to deliver and bring back eight people, and even then, it's going to be tight." She showed them the box, which was only a sixth full of the extra-strength powder as it could have been. The students looked at each other with uncertainty, and then each seemed to come up with a hundred reasons why they should or shouldn't go. Harry closed his ears to the din, and when it seemed to have settled down, he spoke.
"Each and every one of us has their reasons to go to the Great Serpent Mound, and each and every one of us has their reasons not to go. We're going to have to draw straws or something, but I think we should all pair off as couples. All ten of us have been together with our respective partners for long enough for us to realize what a gift they are." He hugged Cho around her middle and continued. "We should determine who remains behind in terms of couples, because if anything happens in America, both boyfriend and girlfriend should be there to experience and deal with it. Do you agree?"
The others nodded solemnly, and Neville pulled out his belt from his pants. Hermione used a neat Severing charm to divide it into five parts that all looked identical from the top. "The couple who draws the buckle remains behind," she explained, although everyone could already interpret that.
Sitting in back of a desk, she mixed up the belt sections and arranged them so the visible pieces were identical. With a grim air, Cho, Lawrence, Draco, and Ginny all picked up one section and hid it quickly. Hermione took the remaining piece and looked down quickly - it was the end opposite the buckle. She and Ron were going, and she let just one tear slide down her face, glinting in the firelight, before wiping it away and finding out who would stay at Hogwarts.
Harry, Llewellyn, and Neville all held up plain sections of the belt, leaving Rosalind and Lawrence to sigh shakily over their buckled piece. Already, it felt as if they were separate from the eight who were to continue on.
"Good luck," said Lawrence softly.
"We'll...we'll tell the professors," stammered Rosalind.
"Everybody better come back," Lawrence added as a warning.
"We'll try," replied Neville, squeaking just a little.
Hermione shook the box, divided it in half with her finger, and managed to get nearly all of that section of powder into the fire, which was now blue.
"Say it, Harry," whispered Cho.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and gathered his courage. "Voldemort."
The snakes crawled out yet again, but Harry commanded them back.
"Don't think about it. Just go," suggested Ron.
Harry took Cho's hand, and they stepped into the flames.
Into the Serpent
"All clear." Ginny waved on Hermione, Llewellyn, and Rosalind down the hall. The four crept through the corridors without a sound, all the way to Visilio's office on the first floor. Ginny stopped them just before his door and turned to Hermione, who clutched Harry's cloak in her hand. "You ready?" whispered Ginny.
Hermione nodded, and disappeared under the cloak. Ginny hung back in the hall as Llewellyn crept ahead and put her ear to the door. The faint sounds of cheering and a deep-voiced announcer could be hear, and she gave a thumb up to Ginny, Rosalind, and Hermione, wherever she was. Taking a deep breath and standing up straight, Llewellyn knocked the door.
"Who is it?" came Visilio's voice.
"It's Llewellyn and Rosalind. Are you watching the Jarveys-Nogtails game?"
"We're winning!" he replied cheerfully. There was an expectant pause.
"Can we, um...watch?" called Rosalind.
They heard footsteps from inside, and Ginny scurried away to behind a statue a few feet from the offive. Visilio opened the door and held a tiny red radio blaring the sounds of a Finnafunga game in his hand. "There's not much to see, mind you, but if you want to come in and listen, be my guests."
Llewellyn walked in, cursing under her breath that he wasn't watching the game on a television and so could be easily distracted. Rosalind, however, was thinking fast, and waited a few seconds for Hermione to slip inside undetected. She used that time to pantomime to the crouching Ginny the suggestion, "Knock". Taking another second to make sure Hermione was inside, Rosalind stepped in and closed the door.
Visilio was standing next to the window, adjusting the antenna to pick up the signal better. Unfortunately, he stood right next to his desk, where the drawer containing the Long-Distance Floo Powder was.
"You might get a better reception over there," suggested Llewellyn feebly, pointing to the corner by the door.
"No, no, no. You have to be by the window to get anything when you're in an enchanted castle, even if it's magical broadcasting." He fiddled with a purple knob in time to hear that the Jarveys had just gotten twenty points, and he frowned. Llewellyn and Rosalind glanced at each other fearfully.
Suddenly, there came another knock at the door. "Now, who could that be?" Visilio wondered out loud. He put the radio on the table and crossed his office. Quickly, Llewellyn pointed at the correct drawer, and it opened. A disembodied hand lifted up a small black box, and then both disappeared. Rosalind shut the door slowly as Visilio looked out into the hall for the mysterious knocker, who was probably now crouching behind the statue again. Rosalind and Llewellyn looked at each other again and nodded.
"That was strange. I wonder if that was that Peeves -"
"Umm, we suddenly realized we have to go," fibbed Llewellyn badly. She bolted to the door, opened it, and said, with the door ajar, "Thanks for letting us come, though. Tell us how it turns out!"
Visilio looked a little confused, but not suspicious, as they jumped out of the room and closed the door behind them.
"Hermione!" whispered Rosalind.
She appeared, with the cloak in one hand, and the box of Floo Powder in the other. He face was flushed and she was grinning in triumph. "Great work, everybody!" cheered Ginny as she popped out behind the statue again.
The shining moment didn't last, however.
"We just scored a thirty-two!" shouted Visilio happily, bursting out of his office into the hall. Hermione thrust the cloak and box behind her back, and the four girls all tried to look innocent and casual. Visilio looked at them strangely. "Are you gals all right?" he asked slowly and carefully.
"Yeah...." they said, just as slow and careful.
"The...um...exams...shook us up," added Ginny, and the four deliberately and tediously backed up. When Visilio's office was out of sight, they turned and started running.
"But, only one of them even had exams...." said Visilio softly. He shook his head and returned to the game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Your idea better be right," warned Hermione, and she handed the cloak and the box to him. "Did you guys find a room?"
"On the fourth floor," replied Ron.
The now close-knit group, made up of Harry, Cho, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, Llewellyn, Draco, Lawrence, and Rosalind, were all in a dusty, unused classroom close to the portrait of the Fat Lady. They were regrouping there after completing their assignments the Saturday afternoon before the dance.
After Neville's moving speech, and subsequent reports of it to the four not present at the time, they had unanimously agreed to take manners into their own hands. They wanted to go to the Great Serpent Mound, collect as much evidence as they could to prove it as Voldemort's headquarters, and come back before anyone noticed that they were gone.
The two problems that had remained before them were when and how to carry out such a plan. They had come to the agreement that they would do so as soon as possible, and they realized that the best time would be when everyone was occupied, expecially the professors, at the dance.
The how, on the other hand, had given them a fat lot of trouble. They bounced ideas off each other, ranging from super-fast broomsticks to all learning how to Apparate in 24 hours, each one sillier than the last. Finally, Harry seemed to have been hit with a genius thought. The only problems were that it involved stealing from Visilio, finding an unused and hidden classroom with a fireplace, and that he wouldn't tell the others his idea. Obviously, it involved traveling by Floo, but apparently, no one but Harry knew how to get there that way.
So, the group was now going in three different ways to the correct room, so as to not attract attention to themselves. By the time the last four students found it, Harry, who was there first, had already lit a fire in the grate. He then called everyone around the orange and yellow flames.
"Remember how, a few weeks ago, we had that talk with Visilio and Patursa, and Patursa came through the flames from America?" The others nodded. "You'll remember that we accidently left the magical flames burning. And, as some of you probably know, if you leave a magic fire burning, ashwinders, grey snakes that are very hot, and so, very dangerous, will form. Everybody with me so far?" They nodded again. Most of them were there that day they had come out of the fire.
"Now, so far, nothing seems amiss. But then think of how long the fire was burning. It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. Ashwinders take hours to form. So, why did they come out after so short a fire?"
There was silence, except for the regular, crackling fire in the grate.
"Does anyone remember what was said, right before the ashwinders appeared?"
More silence. Harry opened the box, took out a tiny pinch, and tossed it in the fire. The flames turned blue. He took a deep breath.
"Voldemort."
To everyone's surprise - except, of course, Harry's - three small, pallid snakes with glowing, scarlet eyes crept out of the fireplace. In Parseltongue, he quickly told them to return to the flames, and before dousing the blue fire with a simple charm, he pointed to it, looked at everyone solemnly, and said, "That's where the Dark Lord is."
The room was dark, but everyone had the same look on their faces: grim determination and anticipation, mixed with a trace of mortal fear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hermione kept glancing at her watch nervously as the dance night went on. Ron patted her arm consolingly. "It'll be time soon enough," he said. "Just enjoy the evening. People will think you don't want to be here with me or something." He grinned stupidly.
"Oh, Ron!" she replied, sighing. "You know I wouldn't want to be anywhere but with you. I'm just...."
"...Scared?" ventured Ron. Hermione nodded. "I am too. We have to be strong together." He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her hair. They stood that way for nearly half an hour, each with their mind on the impending mission, and never wanting to let each other go.
Finally, Neville and Ginny crept over to them and broke the spell. "It's 8:15," she whispered, holding hands with her boyfriend. The group had decided to divide up the times each couple left the Great Hall by fifteen minutes. Now, only those four remained, and it was Hermione and Ron's time to go.
"Thanks. See you in a little bit," replied Ron softly. He and Hermione looked around the darkened Great Hall, noted that most of the professors were milling around the food table, and then quickly slipped out the doors. Ron then led Hermione through stairs and behind tapestries to the fourth floor room, neither of them wanting to tell the other that their hand was clammy.
Inside the room, it was dark, and Ron could barely make out the other six figures. Actually, he saw only three shapes in the faint light coming from the corridor, because the couples were all holding each other for support.
"That you, Ron?" came Harry's voice. Ron replied in the affirmative, and he and Hermione sat down at one of the dusty desks.
"Where are the professors?" asked Cho.
"We saw most of them at the Great Hall," replied Ron. "Harry, didn't you bring that map?"
Harry nodded, brought it out of a shirt pocket, made the map appear, and squinted at it in the dim light coming from the doorway. "Everyone's in the Great Hall or somewhere else far away. We can light the fire now."
Hermione, who was good at fires, lit one in the fireplace. At first, it was a vivid purple, but soon the magically started fire faded to a normal orange shade. Rosalind brought out the stolen box of Floo from her pocket, opened it, and examined it critically by the fireplace.
"Be careful with that," warned Lawrence, putting his hand beneath the box as a safety net.
"It's more precious than unicorn blood to us now," she said darkly, and replaced the top. "I have some bad news."
"What?" asked Neville. He and Ginny had just entered the classroom, and he closed the door behind her.
"There's only enough Long-Distance Floo Powder here to deliver and bring back eight people, and even then, it's going to be tight." She showed them the box, which was only a sixth full of the extra-strength powder as it could have been. The students looked at each other with uncertainty, and then each seemed to come up with a hundred reasons why they should or shouldn't go. Harry closed his ears to the din, and when it seemed to have settled down, he spoke.
"Each and every one of us has their reasons to go to the Great Serpent Mound, and each and every one of us has their reasons not to go. We're going to have to draw straws or something, but I think we should all pair off as couples. All ten of us have been together with our respective partners for long enough for us to realize what a gift they are." He hugged Cho around her middle and continued. "We should determine who remains behind in terms of couples, because if anything happens in America, both boyfriend and girlfriend should be there to experience and deal with it. Do you agree?"
The others nodded solemnly, and Neville pulled out his belt from his pants. Hermione used a neat Severing charm to divide it into five parts that all looked identical from the top. "The couple who draws the buckle remains behind," she explained, although everyone could already interpret that.
Sitting in back of a desk, she mixed up the belt sections and arranged them so the visible pieces were identical. With a grim air, Cho, Lawrence, Draco, and Ginny all picked up one section and hid it quickly. Hermione took the remaining piece and looked down quickly - it was the end opposite the buckle. She and Ron were going, and she let just one tear slide down her face, glinting in the firelight, before wiping it away and finding out who would stay at Hogwarts.
Harry, Llewellyn, and Neville all held up plain sections of the belt, leaving Rosalind and Lawrence to sigh shakily over their buckled piece. Already, it felt as if they were separate from the eight who were to continue on.
"Good luck," said Lawrence softly.
"We'll...we'll tell the professors," stammered Rosalind.
"Everybody better come back," Lawrence added as a warning.
"We'll try," replied Neville, squeaking just a little.
Hermione shook the box, divided it in half with her finger, and managed to get nearly all of that section of powder into the fire, which was now blue.
"Say it, Harry," whispered Cho.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and gathered his courage. "Voldemort."
The snakes crawled out yet again, but Harry commanded them back.
"Don't think about it. Just go," suggested Ron.
Harry took Cho's hand, and they stepped into the flames.