In the morning Ron talked to Harry, "I fell asleep a couple minutes after I
came up here. How long was it before you came up?"
"Only.five or ten minutes I think. We were talking. She is strange."
"Yeah I figured."
Harry grinned.
"So what were you guys talking about?"
Harry couldn't tell Ron what Hermione thought of him. "She was telling me about cartoon characters that she thinks are cute."
"Cartoons?"
"I told you she was strange. She chose Peter Pan."
"What?"
"I told you she was strange."
"No kidding."
"Come on let's go eat." They met Renata and Hermione downstairs in the Great Hall.
"So are we looking for the Tower today?"
"That's the plan."
"Harry, you remember where it is right?"
"Yeah, I think so."
They looked at him.
"The Tower isn't on the Marauders' Map and I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking when I found it before."
"This will be a long day. We better start where you know you started Harry. Where did you start?" asked Renata.
"Gryffindor Tower."
Renata sighed. "Yup, a long day. We better eat fast and get going."
Harry led them up to just outside Gryffindor Tower and from there tried to remember which way he had gone. They wandered for nearly two hours.
"My feet hurt."
"I'm doing the best I can! I didn't take a direct route to the Tower you know. I wandered around for a while." They walked for a few more minutes. "This is it! These are the stairs. Come on!" Harry raced up the stairs to the door. "Locked! Alohamora! Still locked."
"Door just needs a little persuasion." Renata knelt by the door handle. "Please. We just want to go into the room. Door, this must be boring. When you're locked no one uses you. Let us in. Abierto, por favor?" She touched the tip of her wand to the door handle and repeated, "Por favor?"
The door swung open.
"Gracias." She stood up and brushed off her knees. "What are you guys waiting for? Come in."
They were all shocked. "How did you know that would work?"
"Last week I found out that you can't use magic in this room. I guess the no magic thing extends as far as the door."
"How did you find that out?" asked Harry. "Oh." Of course, Renata had overheard it in his thoughts. The worst part is he'd been asleep and so he had no clue what she'd heard.
She nodded. "Well there are certain magics that can be done with persuasion of inanimate objects, doors for example. When the persuasion didn't work I remembered that you couldn't use magic here. So I tried to figure out what kind of wood it was. I saw that it was Rosewood. It comes from Central America so I tried speaking to it in a language it knew."
"You never cease to surprise me." Harry shook his head.
"Thanks, Harry. I'll take that as a compliment. Let's all look at the newspapers."
"They're written by Starliner, Featherflyer, Newhope, Bumblebee, and Dreamer," Harry told them.
"Who do you think they are?"
"Starliner has to be my mom. I think Featherflyer is my dad. Two of the others are definitely Dumbledore and Mrs. Figg. I think the other one was your mom, Renata."
"That's interesting."
"Yeah." Hermione sifted through the papers. "Look at this! It's by Newhope.
"What does it say?"
They gathered around Hermione as she read:
We have disturbing news to report as well as wonderful news. Victory
is at last ours! But it only at a great price. Last night we lost two
very important and if you are reading this you likely know special
members of the Order. Lily and James are no longer with us because of
our enemy, Voldemort, and his supporters. Also, we celebrate our
victory. We have found Voldemort's sole nemesis: the Potters' young
son. Harry shall forever in the wizarding world remain a mark of
Voldemort's downfall. We in this group know his destiny but are sworn
to reveal it to none. We mourn for Lily and James but know they did
what was right. When the time comes we can only hope that the next to
face Voldemort shall be as brave. He is not truly gone yet, only
delayed, but let the others celebrate and for this time we shall ease
their hearts. Remember, a time will come when the Order shall be
called together again. Be ready when the time comes but do not pause
your life to wait for it-Newhope'
"Look at the date," Harry said quietly "November 1, 1981." The day after his parents' murder. "We better start going through the rest of these papers." They all sat down and got to work, they scanned the papers and set aside ones that looked to be of particular importance.
It was about midday when at last, exhausted they stumbled upon something useful. Hermione had just finished with a large stack of papers.
"What's this?" She picked up a small notebook that had been under the last paper. "These look like notes." Indeed the page was covered with notes written in two different handwritings.
Don't you think Snape was being a bit mean to Peter?
Yes, he was, but you didn't have to let Sirius curse him like that. Now Severus is in the hospital and Sirius has detention.
Lily, Snape will be fine. Madam Keratine will keep him in the hospital tonight; give him some medicine and his greasy hair will all be back on his head by morning.
James! It's not nice to talk that way, even about him.
Lily you know he hangs with the wrong crowd. He'll end up in trouble one of these days.
I know but I can't stop thinking that there just possibly might be some hope for him.
You sound just like Dumbledore. Have you finished that article for Dumbledore yet?
It's almost done, James. It, well it just feels like it is missing something.
Don't worry you'll figure it out. Look out Professor Binns is coming over here!
Following this evident written conversation of note passing was several pages of uninteresting notes in Lily's handwriting about the dwarfish mines in Greenland. After that appeared a paragraph that seemed to be thoroughly edited and corrected.
There seems to be a new lead found in our efforts to stop Voldemort and his expanding powers. We seem to have found one the several bases used by Voldemort and his followers. We will not divulge release the location here in the paper but should you care to join our struggling efforts please contact the useful officials, you know who they are so their names and locations shall not be printed here. I leave you with this small note of comfort. At least five Death Eaters have been identified and two were caught and handed over to the Ministry last night. We shall soon be able to tell whether or not the rest of our toil has amounted to achieve what we have hoped for. Until next week I remain your faithful correspondent,
-Starliner
"Well, Harry, now we know for sure that your mom was writing for this paper."
"I wonder if my mom had anymore of these notebooks," remarked Harry thoughtfully as he pocketed it.
"Aren't you going to check more pages for writing?"
Harry pulled it out of his pocket again and opened to the page after the one he had left off with. More notes continued about various boring witches and wizards throughout the ages. Then at last there was a letter.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I hope you are well. Things are going fine here. I know you're
worried but just don't worry about me, I'll be just fine. You know I
don't go looking for trouble, although I can see how you and the
teachers disagree with me on that. I'll be fine here. I'll see you
when the summer holidays start.
Your loving daughter,
Lily
"Why didn't she ever send the letter?"
"Look there's a big ink stain on the bottom."
"She must have rewritten the letter when she finally sent it."
"The next page has a letter too!"
Petunia,
You always seem mad at me whenever I come home for the holidays
anymore. That's why I didn't visit you this Christmas. If there's
something on your mind talk to me. Well, I won't be home again for a
while yet, so write to me. I really want you to be happy again.
Please, write back to me. I thought we were friends. You are my big
sister, what would I do without you?
Your concerned sister,
Lily
"Is it just me or does it sound like my mom and my aunt used to get along?"
"I dunno, Harry," Ron said. "My family gets along pretty well. Well except the twins and Percy but mum usually keeps anything serious from happening. That is, anything short of rearranging limbs."
"I think we should take the notebook back to the Tower or at least somewhere else where we can think clearer. Its stuffy in here," Renata fanned herself with a newspaper.
"Grab any papers that looked like they might be helpful and we'll leave." Harry, as well as the others grabbed the papers they had set aside and they moved toward the door. It was locked.
"Renata.?"
"I'll take care of it." She moved nearer to the door. "Abierteo, por favor?" The locked clicked. "Gracias."
"How'd you know what to say?"
"I went to a Muggle school for a while when I was younger and I took Spanish as my foreign language. My mom and the parents of a couple of the kids I ended up at my magic school with thought it would be good for us to get a Muggle education too. Let's go down to the kitchen I'm hungry. Gotta have brain food if my mind wants to work right."
"Brain food?"
"Sure. Donuts, brownies, ice cream. Great brain food," she grinned and started down the steps.
Ron muttered, "Strange."
She turned, "Thank you. I'll add that to the list of my other favorite titles: weird and unique are at the top of the list with eccentric and bizarre. I knew I was missing one. Strange. Got it. I'll have to add it later." She continued on her way.
They followed close behind her.
By the time they got back to the Tower it was mid-afternoon. They continued to study Lily's notebook but their findings were few.
Notes from several different classes followed the next few pages broken only once by a written conversation.
Lil, what was transfiguration homework?
Jen, its page 327 questions 1-4 in essay form.
Oops. I didn't do it yet.
Well, you better finish before our next class.
Can I borrow your book? I left mine in the Tower.
Okay. But don't let Prof. Flitwick see you writing. I don't want him to take my book away. I'll need it in the next class.
Thanks, Lil.
"Well this isn't much help."
"What have we learned?"
"Judging by the label on the back this notebook is from a Muggle store. And from that letter for Petunia, it means your mom, Harry, used to be friends with her. I know they were sisters but the letter means at one point they used to get along. What I can't figure out is the letter or conversation note-passing thing between James and Lily. The one between my mom and her is easy. My mom obviously didn't like to do her homework. I wonder why she didn't send that letter," Renata mused.
"Maybe she sent it but just recopied it to another sheet."
"I don't think so. I think we should take that letter out of the book and send it to your Aunt Petunia, Harry."
"Are you crazy, Renata? Back there I'm in trouble for even saying anything that has to do with magic! Do you know how much trouble I got in the last time I said Hogwarts? Or how purple my uncle's face turned when I started to say broomstick? Besides, I'm not giving up this book."
"Well at least let me make a copy of it to send."
"You aren't getting this letter."
"Okay. It was just a thought, but I don't see why we don't send this letter. Read it again. It's sisterly. It has got nothing to do with magic."
Hermione interrupted her. "It's Harry's choice. He doesn't want to send the letter and he doesn't want to have you copy it so just leave him alone."
" 'Kay. I'll stop. So what are we going to do? I know, we won't do anything with Petunia. So what are we going to do now? These papers we brought up won't read themselves. We've got to start taking notes."
They sat taking notes on important events that took place in the time of Voldemort's rising powers.
At one point Ron spoke, "I don't see the point in this."
Renata, still reading the page she had been occupied with and taking copious notes, briskly replied: "Well if you want to do something right the best way to do it is to study history and figure out where other people made mistakes so that you don't make the same ones."
"And to figure out what it was they did right when they succeeded."
"Exactly."
They all went back to their note taking. An hour or so later they stopped.
"We've gone through all of these papers twice, we've taken notes, my hands hurt. I think I'm done for a while." Renata stood to leave.
"Harry, I think we could all use a break."
"We have been working for hours."
Harry began to stand up, but fell back, clutching his head.
It was brief, but it was the scar pain that he knew all to well. It was gone as quickly as it had come.
Ron was at his side in an instant. "Are you okay Harry?"
Renata and Hermione were there too.
Ron's face was pale under his freckles. "It was your scar, wasn't it?"
Harry didn't answer.
"He can't be here, can he?"
"I don't think so, but Dumbledore thinks sometimes my scar hurts when Voldemort is feeling really murderous."
"Come, let's see if Madam Pomfrey will have anything for you. We'll just say it's a really bad headache."
"No, I'm fine, now." They didn't seem to believe him. "Honestly. My scar doesn't hurt. I'm fine. It's nearly dinner let's go downstairs."
As they left Renata whispered to Harry. "You are a bad liar. Your scar may not be hurting but you aren't fine. Worry is all over your face."
He made no reply.
The rest of the night Harry remained in this gloomy mood. ******************************************************************
The next day Harry woke up early to go for a walk. He walked around the Lake for a while and then just wandered about. He was nearing the forest when he heard a voice.
"Harry!"
He turned there was a young centaur galloping toward him. "Amicari! What are doing here?"
"Oh, I was bored. I'm not supposed to leave the forest but I was so bored I snuck off and then I saw you here so I came over. Why are you over here?"
"I decided to go for a walk. I was a little bored myself."
"But how could you be? You have friends."
"They aren't awake yet."
"Oh. When do you think they'll be up?"
"Not for a little while. I woke up early today even though it was a weekend."
Amicari's face lit up. "I found a really nice cave in the Forest. Do you want to come see it?"
"Er.okay."
"Great, come on!" He started galloping back toward the Forest.
"Wait!"
Amicari stopped as Harry caught up to him.
"I've only got two legs I don't run as fast as you."
"Okay." When they resumed, Amicari's gait slowed but Harry still had to walk briskly to keep up. As they traveled Amicari kept up a mild stream of conversation. He pointed out unfamiliar plants to Harry and talked about some of the different types of animals in the Forest.
"There's a really weird animal here too. I've never ever seen it but I hear people talk about it. It growls loudly and it's a turquoise metal thing. It's really strange, you know."
It took Harry a while to figure out but Harry recognized the description as the flying car that he and Ron had crashed just outside the forest in their second year. But by the time Harry realized that Amicari's chatter was now regarding the giant spiders he and Ron had met in the forest in their second year.
"I heard the spiders are huge! At least six feet tall. And they talk!"
"They do," replied Harry.
"How do you know?"
"I met some, and they tried to eat me and my friend."
"How did you escape?"
"The car-er- the big, loud turquoise thing you talked about earlier came to save us."
"Wow." He pointed forward. "Look we're almost there. See that big rock?"
Harry looked to where he indicated and he nodded.
"The cave is right over there. I couldn't get in it all the way but it was weird." They had reached the cave. Or rather, it was a hole in the ground with an extremely large rock covering part of it. "I could really only stick my head in it but it was too dark to see anything. You might fit. Will you go down there?"
A dark unexplored cave was waiting in a dangerous forest for him to climb in. Harry had his wand and would be able to see down there and protect himself. But did he really want to risk it? "Okay, but help me move the rock some more so I can fit more easily."
Harry had always been rather slight for his age and he would have managed through the cave entrance quite easily enough but the larger the entrance, the less likely he was to be caught unawares.
Together the two of them managed to completely remove the large stone from the cave and see the opening. It was larger than they had expected and there was a set of stone stairs lead down.
"Wow," gasped Amicari.
Harry lit the end of his wand and started down the steps. Now, without the rock covering part of the entrance Amicari could fit as well and he followed closely.
When they reached the bottom of the steps and emerged in a large chamber. There were benches, tables, empty beakers, a dusty book or two, and a door. On the far side of the room was a large door.
Harry went to it. It was locked. He tried a spell and still the door refused to budge. Harry left the door and wandered over to where Amicari was looking over one of the books.
The cover had no title; merely a picture of some red and yellow birds, quite dusty too. Harry picked up the book and used his sleeve to wipe dust off the cover.
When he was done he no longer saw a dusty red and yellow bird. It was a gorgeous scarlet and golden Phoenix. Harry suddenly remembered that he had been gone for some time now and he looked down at his watch. He had been out all morning. It was quarter past twelve. He pointed this out to Amicari.
"They others will be looking for me by now Harry! Farewell!" He began up the stairs.
"Amicari, I don't know which way it is back to the castle. We have to put this rock back in place too."
The centaur slowed down and came back. Harry had taken the book with him. Together they moved the stone back to its original position and Amicari led the way swiftly back to the edge of the Forest. "I must go now. The other centaurs will have noticed my absence by now." He fled swiftly through the trees. Harry suddenly aware that his own absence may have been detected he made his way swiftly back to the school with the book the under his arm. Racing up the steps he ran into someone, quite literally.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to hit you I was in a hurry," Harry said, quickly tucking the book back under his arm. He reached out his other arm to help the other person.
"That's okay." The girl scrambled up the steps quite easily.
"Sorry."
"Its okay, Harry, I'm fine."
"How do you know my name?"
"Ginny talks about you all the time. I'm her friend Clare."
"Oh."
"Bye, Harry. I'll let Ginny know you said hi."
"Bye-er-Clare," Harry replied. He continued up the stairs without another thought. It was probably this that caused him to bump into several more people. Each time he muttered sorry and continued on his way. He was just inside the door when he bumped into someone else.
"Slow down, Harry."
"You'll hurt yourself if you aren't careful, you know."
"Where've you been?"
Harry looked and found Ron, Hermione, and Renata.
"I went for a walk."
"For this long?"
"It's a nice day out."
"Not that nice. What gives?"
"Centaurs again."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Let's go back in, I need to show you this."
"But it's so nice out."
"Didn't you just tell me it wasn't that nice out?"
"It's nice enough to read under a tree by the Lake but not nice enough to be walking around for hours. What's the book about?"
"Phoenixes. I think it may help us with what we've been looking for." Harry turned to go down the steps and he saw Draco Malfoy.
He had a rather unpleasant smirk on his face. How much had he heard? When he saw that Harry had seen him he swaggered away.
Harry and the others went over to the Lake and sat beneath the tree.
"So what happened?"
"I got up early to go for a walk and when I was out here that younger centaur Amicari. He told me he found a cave and he wanted me to come see it. It turned out that the entrance was blocked. So we moved the big rock and went down there. There were some steps and they led down to this big chamber. There were benches, chairs, glass beakers, and this book. There was a door too but I couldn't get it open."
"Let's look at the book."
"The Phoenix on the cover is beautiful."
They opened the pages to find that they were unexpectedly clean, though undoubtedly worn. The first page in the book was a warning.
WARNING:
To all who seek within these pages, beware of the information
concealed,
for it holds its own dangers.
Be careful with the information you will gain and let it not fall into
the wrong hands.
Godric Gryffindor
Hermione gasped. "Godric Gryffindor wrote this book!"
"Or at least he signed the warning to it."
"Let's keep reading." They turned the page and found, rather to their surprise, a table of contents. There was a list of everyone who had the original Phoenixes and who had them now. Then the book went on to tell the story about how the Phoenixes first came rising out of the sun to act as guardian angels over those who would need them the most. From there it continued on the Phoenxial rebirth from the flames. Then there were several chapters on caring for a Phoenix and on wild Phoenixes. The final chapter was brief but detailed it was the only way to kill a Phoenix permanently.
Now, this was the information the received from the table of contents because with each chapter title there was a one-paragraph summary.
First they viewed the chart. The book was obviously magical and able to update itself. There were five columns for each of the five hundred Phoenixes. There was the Phoenix's original owner; the name the Phoenix during its first owner; the current owner of the Phoenix; the current name of the Phoenix; when the Phoenix finally died for the last time. Also there was a list of wild Phoenixes in place of their name was a symbol.
They looked for Kennilworthy Whisp's Phoenix. Firebolt was dead.
As they searched Ron discovered that Fawkes's original name was Helios and the owner was Graham Granules. None of them knew who Graham Granules was but Hermione had a recollection of Helios. She informed them that the Sun God of the Greeks had been known as Helios.
"It's really rather interesting."
When they turned to the next page it had only a few words on it "Speak the first name of the Phoenix you wish to have more information on then speak what you would like to know."
They had all decided to take turns holding and reading from the book. Renata presently had it. "I want to know all the owners of Helios."
A long list appeared. The list contained a hundred seventy-three names. Among those names were Alexander the Great, Godric Gryffindor, Guy Fawkes, and Albus Dumbledore.
"Wait a second. Dumbledore's name is twice."
"Renata, what do you mean his name is twice?"
"I mean what I say. It says here Albus Dumbledore, James Potter, Albus Dumbledore."
"What?"
"Here Harry look for yourself." She handed the book over.
Sure enough there it was. Albus Dumbledore, then for less than a year it said James Potter, then it said Albus Dumbledore again.
"This is strange."
"Yeah it is."
"Let's keep reading." They turned the page and read the story of how the Phoenixes first came into being. It talked about how when the world was greatly troubled the Phoenixes came down from the sky out of the sun to watch over anyone who needed them. It went on to say that no one really owns a Phoenix. If anything it's the other way around. But more than anything the Phoenix is just there as a guardian angel.
There were several chapters after that about caring for Phoenixes to keep them healthy, ways they get ill, ways of healing them, what they liked to eat.
As they read on they discovered more about the Phoenixial fire death and then they went on to the final chapter: the only way to permanently kill a Phoenix.
By the time they were all done they had been reading for hours and they had a lot on their minds.
"Whoever has this book can kill Fawkes."
"We don't know who had this book last. Or who knows the information in the book."
They saw her point.
"We need to find that cave and go back."
"How are we supposed to find it? I was only there once. Amicari was leading."
"Well we've got to get there, one way or another. We need to find out as much as we can as soon as we can. Otherwise.well things won't be good. Harry do you remember if there was a lot of dust around there?"
"How am I supposed to remember that, Renata? The cover of the book I brought back was certainly dusty. The cover just looked like dull red and yellow."
"But as we can plainly see now the cover has a brilliant scarlet and gold Phoenix on it and the sleeve of your robe is covered with dust."
"Really?" He replied to her. "I hadn't noticed."
"Get real Harry this is no time to be sarcastic. We should really be looking for that centaur friend of yours."
"Shouldn't we put the book somewhere safe first?"
Hermione's question reminded Harry of something. "When we were talking on the steps I looked over and saw Malfoy listening. I don't know how much he heard."
"Then we better stow this book double quick." Renata sprang up and began pacing. "But where to put it and how do we guard it. Now there is that is the real dilemma. We need it somewhere safe, but unlikely. Easy enough for us to remember where it is but not likely to be found by anyone else."
Ron shrugged, "Maybe we could transfigure it into something before we hid it in case anyone did find it."
"Yes, that might work, but what?"
"If we're going to transfigure it I think we should keep it a book but make it look old and dull," proposed Hermione.
Ron mumbled, "How about we transfigure it into Hogwarts, a History."
At the same time Renata and Hermione replied, "That's a very interesting book!"
They smiled. "How about, Caring for Flobberworms?"
"I don't think we can really do a book because we would have to change every page in this book in case someone did open it."
"I suppose so."
"Well, a rock then and I'll put it at the bottom of my trunk. With spells on the trunk of course."
"Why your trunk?"
"Well," replied Harry, "I found it."
"That's not a good reason."
"Why not?"
"Because its not."
"Well that isn't a good reason either."
"So?"
"You're impossible."
Renata smiled sweetly. "Of course I am. Okay so what spells will we use?"
"I think we should check our Defense Against the Dark Arts books. There should be something useful in there."
They spent the rest of the afternoon researching possible spells to use to guard the book. It was evening by the time they had found sufficient spells to protect the book. Then, in a corner of the common room Hermione performed the transfiguration causing the book to take the form of a small stone. Harry and Ron then took the stone up to their room and put it in Harry's trunk and carried out the necessary charms. They met Renata and Hermione downstairs. The girls would have preferred to set the charms themselves but Harry and Ron refused to allow them to; partly because they didn't want them upstairs and partly because they wanted to try the charms themselves.
Now the only thing left to do was to decide how and when to find the cave.
Renata wanted to go down to the Forest right away and look for the cave themselves, if they found Amicari along the way, so much better for them.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione pointed out that dangerous as the Forest was by day, it was even worse at night. They also pointed out they had no idea where the cave was and no way of finding the centaurs.
At last they convinced Renata not to go into the forest and they all went down to dinner. After that the night was spent doing homework, deciding they would have to wait until the upcoming weekend to look for the cave.
At first Renata protested, "What if it's too late by then? Then where does that leave us?"
They explained gently but firmly that they would not allow her to go down to the Forest. She seemed to accept it well enough. Then they all went to bed.
"Only.five or ten minutes I think. We were talking. She is strange."
"Yeah I figured."
Harry grinned.
"So what were you guys talking about?"
Harry couldn't tell Ron what Hermione thought of him. "She was telling me about cartoon characters that she thinks are cute."
"Cartoons?"
"I told you she was strange. She chose Peter Pan."
"What?"
"I told you she was strange."
"No kidding."
"Come on let's go eat." They met Renata and Hermione downstairs in the Great Hall.
"So are we looking for the Tower today?"
"That's the plan."
"Harry, you remember where it is right?"
"Yeah, I think so."
They looked at him.
"The Tower isn't on the Marauders' Map and I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking when I found it before."
"This will be a long day. We better start where you know you started Harry. Where did you start?" asked Renata.
"Gryffindor Tower."
Renata sighed. "Yup, a long day. We better eat fast and get going."
Harry led them up to just outside Gryffindor Tower and from there tried to remember which way he had gone. They wandered for nearly two hours.
"My feet hurt."
"I'm doing the best I can! I didn't take a direct route to the Tower you know. I wandered around for a while." They walked for a few more minutes. "This is it! These are the stairs. Come on!" Harry raced up the stairs to the door. "Locked! Alohamora! Still locked."
"Door just needs a little persuasion." Renata knelt by the door handle. "Please. We just want to go into the room. Door, this must be boring. When you're locked no one uses you. Let us in. Abierto, por favor?" She touched the tip of her wand to the door handle and repeated, "Por favor?"
The door swung open.
"Gracias." She stood up and brushed off her knees. "What are you guys waiting for? Come in."
They were all shocked. "How did you know that would work?"
"Last week I found out that you can't use magic in this room. I guess the no magic thing extends as far as the door."
"How did you find that out?" asked Harry. "Oh." Of course, Renata had overheard it in his thoughts. The worst part is he'd been asleep and so he had no clue what she'd heard.
She nodded. "Well there are certain magics that can be done with persuasion of inanimate objects, doors for example. When the persuasion didn't work I remembered that you couldn't use magic here. So I tried to figure out what kind of wood it was. I saw that it was Rosewood. It comes from Central America so I tried speaking to it in a language it knew."
"You never cease to surprise me." Harry shook his head.
"Thanks, Harry. I'll take that as a compliment. Let's all look at the newspapers."
"They're written by Starliner, Featherflyer, Newhope, Bumblebee, and Dreamer," Harry told them.
"Who do you think they are?"
"Starliner has to be my mom. I think Featherflyer is my dad. Two of the others are definitely Dumbledore and Mrs. Figg. I think the other one was your mom, Renata."
"That's interesting."
"Yeah." Hermione sifted through the papers. "Look at this! It's by Newhope.
"What does it say?"
They gathered around Hermione as she read:
We have disturbing news to report as well as wonderful news. Victory
is at last ours! But it only at a great price. Last night we lost two
very important and if you are reading this you likely know special
members of the Order. Lily and James are no longer with us because of
our enemy, Voldemort, and his supporters. Also, we celebrate our
victory. We have found Voldemort's sole nemesis: the Potters' young
son. Harry shall forever in the wizarding world remain a mark of
Voldemort's downfall. We in this group know his destiny but are sworn
to reveal it to none. We mourn for Lily and James but know they did
what was right. When the time comes we can only hope that the next to
face Voldemort shall be as brave. He is not truly gone yet, only
delayed, but let the others celebrate and for this time we shall ease
their hearts. Remember, a time will come when the Order shall be
called together again. Be ready when the time comes but do not pause
your life to wait for it-Newhope'
"Look at the date," Harry said quietly "November 1, 1981." The day after his parents' murder. "We better start going through the rest of these papers." They all sat down and got to work, they scanned the papers and set aside ones that looked to be of particular importance.
It was about midday when at last, exhausted they stumbled upon something useful. Hermione had just finished with a large stack of papers.
"What's this?" She picked up a small notebook that had been under the last paper. "These look like notes." Indeed the page was covered with notes written in two different handwritings.
Don't you think Snape was being a bit mean to Peter?
Yes, he was, but you didn't have to let Sirius curse him like that. Now Severus is in the hospital and Sirius has detention.
Lily, Snape will be fine. Madam Keratine will keep him in the hospital tonight; give him some medicine and his greasy hair will all be back on his head by morning.
James! It's not nice to talk that way, even about him.
Lily you know he hangs with the wrong crowd. He'll end up in trouble one of these days.
I know but I can't stop thinking that there just possibly might be some hope for him.
You sound just like Dumbledore. Have you finished that article for Dumbledore yet?
It's almost done, James. It, well it just feels like it is missing something.
Don't worry you'll figure it out. Look out Professor Binns is coming over here!
Following this evident written conversation of note passing was several pages of uninteresting notes in Lily's handwriting about the dwarfish mines in Greenland. After that appeared a paragraph that seemed to be thoroughly edited and corrected.
There seems to be a new lead found in our efforts to stop Voldemort and his expanding powers. We seem to have found one the several bases used by Voldemort and his followers. We will not divulge release the location here in the paper but should you care to join our struggling efforts please contact the useful officials, you know who they are so their names and locations shall not be printed here. I leave you with this small note of comfort. At least five Death Eaters have been identified and two were caught and handed over to the Ministry last night. We shall soon be able to tell whether or not the rest of our toil has amounted to achieve what we have hoped for. Until next week I remain your faithful correspondent,
-Starliner
"Well, Harry, now we know for sure that your mom was writing for this paper."
"I wonder if my mom had anymore of these notebooks," remarked Harry thoughtfully as he pocketed it.
"Aren't you going to check more pages for writing?"
Harry pulled it out of his pocket again and opened to the page after the one he had left off with. More notes continued about various boring witches and wizards throughout the ages. Then at last there was a letter.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I hope you are well. Things are going fine here. I know you're
worried but just don't worry about me, I'll be just fine. You know I
don't go looking for trouble, although I can see how you and the
teachers disagree with me on that. I'll be fine here. I'll see you
when the summer holidays start.
Your loving daughter,
Lily
"Why didn't she ever send the letter?"
"Look there's a big ink stain on the bottom."
"She must have rewritten the letter when she finally sent it."
"The next page has a letter too!"
Petunia,
You always seem mad at me whenever I come home for the holidays
anymore. That's why I didn't visit you this Christmas. If there's
something on your mind talk to me. Well, I won't be home again for a
while yet, so write to me. I really want you to be happy again.
Please, write back to me. I thought we were friends. You are my big
sister, what would I do without you?
Your concerned sister,
Lily
"Is it just me or does it sound like my mom and my aunt used to get along?"
"I dunno, Harry," Ron said. "My family gets along pretty well. Well except the twins and Percy but mum usually keeps anything serious from happening. That is, anything short of rearranging limbs."
"I think we should take the notebook back to the Tower or at least somewhere else where we can think clearer. Its stuffy in here," Renata fanned herself with a newspaper.
"Grab any papers that looked like they might be helpful and we'll leave." Harry, as well as the others grabbed the papers they had set aside and they moved toward the door. It was locked.
"Renata.?"
"I'll take care of it." She moved nearer to the door. "Abierteo, por favor?" The locked clicked. "Gracias."
"How'd you know what to say?"
"I went to a Muggle school for a while when I was younger and I took Spanish as my foreign language. My mom and the parents of a couple of the kids I ended up at my magic school with thought it would be good for us to get a Muggle education too. Let's go down to the kitchen I'm hungry. Gotta have brain food if my mind wants to work right."
"Brain food?"
"Sure. Donuts, brownies, ice cream. Great brain food," she grinned and started down the steps.
Ron muttered, "Strange."
She turned, "Thank you. I'll add that to the list of my other favorite titles: weird and unique are at the top of the list with eccentric and bizarre. I knew I was missing one. Strange. Got it. I'll have to add it later." She continued on her way.
They followed close behind her.
By the time they got back to the Tower it was mid-afternoon. They continued to study Lily's notebook but their findings were few.
Notes from several different classes followed the next few pages broken only once by a written conversation.
Lil, what was transfiguration homework?
Jen, its page 327 questions 1-4 in essay form.
Oops. I didn't do it yet.
Well, you better finish before our next class.
Can I borrow your book? I left mine in the Tower.
Okay. But don't let Prof. Flitwick see you writing. I don't want him to take my book away. I'll need it in the next class.
Thanks, Lil.
"Well this isn't much help."
"What have we learned?"
"Judging by the label on the back this notebook is from a Muggle store. And from that letter for Petunia, it means your mom, Harry, used to be friends with her. I know they were sisters but the letter means at one point they used to get along. What I can't figure out is the letter or conversation note-passing thing between James and Lily. The one between my mom and her is easy. My mom obviously didn't like to do her homework. I wonder why she didn't send that letter," Renata mused.
"Maybe she sent it but just recopied it to another sheet."
"I don't think so. I think we should take that letter out of the book and send it to your Aunt Petunia, Harry."
"Are you crazy, Renata? Back there I'm in trouble for even saying anything that has to do with magic! Do you know how much trouble I got in the last time I said Hogwarts? Or how purple my uncle's face turned when I started to say broomstick? Besides, I'm not giving up this book."
"Well at least let me make a copy of it to send."
"You aren't getting this letter."
"Okay. It was just a thought, but I don't see why we don't send this letter. Read it again. It's sisterly. It has got nothing to do with magic."
Hermione interrupted her. "It's Harry's choice. He doesn't want to send the letter and he doesn't want to have you copy it so just leave him alone."
" 'Kay. I'll stop. So what are we going to do? I know, we won't do anything with Petunia. So what are we going to do now? These papers we brought up won't read themselves. We've got to start taking notes."
They sat taking notes on important events that took place in the time of Voldemort's rising powers.
At one point Ron spoke, "I don't see the point in this."
Renata, still reading the page she had been occupied with and taking copious notes, briskly replied: "Well if you want to do something right the best way to do it is to study history and figure out where other people made mistakes so that you don't make the same ones."
"And to figure out what it was they did right when they succeeded."
"Exactly."
They all went back to their note taking. An hour or so later they stopped.
"We've gone through all of these papers twice, we've taken notes, my hands hurt. I think I'm done for a while." Renata stood to leave.
"Harry, I think we could all use a break."
"We have been working for hours."
Harry began to stand up, but fell back, clutching his head.
It was brief, but it was the scar pain that he knew all to well. It was gone as quickly as it had come.
Ron was at his side in an instant. "Are you okay Harry?"
Renata and Hermione were there too.
Ron's face was pale under his freckles. "It was your scar, wasn't it?"
Harry didn't answer.
"He can't be here, can he?"
"I don't think so, but Dumbledore thinks sometimes my scar hurts when Voldemort is feeling really murderous."
"Come, let's see if Madam Pomfrey will have anything for you. We'll just say it's a really bad headache."
"No, I'm fine, now." They didn't seem to believe him. "Honestly. My scar doesn't hurt. I'm fine. It's nearly dinner let's go downstairs."
As they left Renata whispered to Harry. "You are a bad liar. Your scar may not be hurting but you aren't fine. Worry is all over your face."
He made no reply.
The rest of the night Harry remained in this gloomy mood. ******************************************************************
The next day Harry woke up early to go for a walk. He walked around the Lake for a while and then just wandered about. He was nearing the forest when he heard a voice.
"Harry!"
He turned there was a young centaur galloping toward him. "Amicari! What are doing here?"
"Oh, I was bored. I'm not supposed to leave the forest but I was so bored I snuck off and then I saw you here so I came over. Why are you over here?"
"I decided to go for a walk. I was a little bored myself."
"But how could you be? You have friends."
"They aren't awake yet."
"Oh. When do you think they'll be up?"
"Not for a little while. I woke up early today even though it was a weekend."
Amicari's face lit up. "I found a really nice cave in the Forest. Do you want to come see it?"
"Er.okay."
"Great, come on!" He started galloping back toward the Forest.
"Wait!"
Amicari stopped as Harry caught up to him.
"I've only got two legs I don't run as fast as you."
"Okay." When they resumed, Amicari's gait slowed but Harry still had to walk briskly to keep up. As they traveled Amicari kept up a mild stream of conversation. He pointed out unfamiliar plants to Harry and talked about some of the different types of animals in the Forest.
"There's a really weird animal here too. I've never ever seen it but I hear people talk about it. It growls loudly and it's a turquoise metal thing. It's really strange, you know."
It took Harry a while to figure out but Harry recognized the description as the flying car that he and Ron had crashed just outside the forest in their second year. But by the time Harry realized that Amicari's chatter was now regarding the giant spiders he and Ron had met in the forest in their second year.
"I heard the spiders are huge! At least six feet tall. And they talk!"
"They do," replied Harry.
"How do you know?"
"I met some, and they tried to eat me and my friend."
"How did you escape?"
"The car-er- the big, loud turquoise thing you talked about earlier came to save us."
"Wow." He pointed forward. "Look we're almost there. See that big rock?"
Harry looked to where he indicated and he nodded.
"The cave is right over there. I couldn't get in it all the way but it was weird." They had reached the cave. Or rather, it was a hole in the ground with an extremely large rock covering part of it. "I could really only stick my head in it but it was too dark to see anything. You might fit. Will you go down there?"
A dark unexplored cave was waiting in a dangerous forest for him to climb in. Harry had his wand and would be able to see down there and protect himself. But did he really want to risk it? "Okay, but help me move the rock some more so I can fit more easily."
Harry had always been rather slight for his age and he would have managed through the cave entrance quite easily enough but the larger the entrance, the less likely he was to be caught unawares.
Together the two of them managed to completely remove the large stone from the cave and see the opening. It was larger than they had expected and there was a set of stone stairs lead down.
"Wow," gasped Amicari.
Harry lit the end of his wand and started down the steps. Now, without the rock covering part of the entrance Amicari could fit as well and he followed closely.
When they reached the bottom of the steps and emerged in a large chamber. There were benches, tables, empty beakers, a dusty book or two, and a door. On the far side of the room was a large door.
Harry went to it. It was locked. He tried a spell and still the door refused to budge. Harry left the door and wandered over to where Amicari was looking over one of the books.
The cover had no title; merely a picture of some red and yellow birds, quite dusty too. Harry picked up the book and used his sleeve to wipe dust off the cover.
When he was done he no longer saw a dusty red and yellow bird. It was a gorgeous scarlet and golden Phoenix. Harry suddenly remembered that he had been gone for some time now and he looked down at his watch. He had been out all morning. It was quarter past twelve. He pointed this out to Amicari.
"They others will be looking for me by now Harry! Farewell!" He began up the stairs.
"Amicari, I don't know which way it is back to the castle. We have to put this rock back in place too."
The centaur slowed down and came back. Harry had taken the book with him. Together they moved the stone back to its original position and Amicari led the way swiftly back to the edge of the Forest. "I must go now. The other centaurs will have noticed my absence by now." He fled swiftly through the trees. Harry suddenly aware that his own absence may have been detected he made his way swiftly back to the school with the book the under his arm. Racing up the steps he ran into someone, quite literally.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to hit you I was in a hurry," Harry said, quickly tucking the book back under his arm. He reached out his other arm to help the other person.
"That's okay." The girl scrambled up the steps quite easily.
"Sorry."
"Its okay, Harry, I'm fine."
"How do you know my name?"
"Ginny talks about you all the time. I'm her friend Clare."
"Oh."
"Bye, Harry. I'll let Ginny know you said hi."
"Bye-er-Clare," Harry replied. He continued up the stairs without another thought. It was probably this that caused him to bump into several more people. Each time he muttered sorry and continued on his way. He was just inside the door when he bumped into someone else.
"Slow down, Harry."
"You'll hurt yourself if you aren't careful, you know."
"Where've you been?"
Harry looked and found Ron, Hermione, and Renata.
"I went for a walk."
"For this long?"
"It's a nice day out."
"Not that nice. What gives?"
"Centaurs again."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Let's go back in, I need to show you this."
"But it's so nice out."
"Didn't you just tell me it wasn't that nice out?"
"It's nice enough to read under a tree by the Lake but not nice enough to be walking around for hours. What's the book about?"
"Phoenixes. I think it may help us with what we've been looking for." Harry turned to go down the steps and he saw Draco Malfoy.
He had a rather unpleasant smirk on his face. How much had he heard? When he saw that Harry had seen him he swaggered away.
Harry and the others went over to the Lake and sat beneath the tree.
"So what happened?"
"I got up early to go for a walk and when I was out here that younger centaur Amicari. He told me he found a cave and he wanted me to come see it. It turned out that the entrance was blocked. So we moved the big rock and went down there. There were some steps and they led down to this big chamber. There were benches, chairs, glass beakers, and this book. There was a door too but I couldn't get it open."
"Let's look at the book."
"The Phoenix on the cover is beautiful."
They opened the pages to find that they were unexpectedly clean, though undoubtedly worn. The first page in the book was a warning.
WARNING:
To all who seek within these pages, beware of the information
concealed,
for it holds its own dangers.
Be careful with the information you will gain and let it not fall into
the wrong hands.
Godric Gryffindor
Hermione gasped. "Godric Gryffindor wrote this book!"
"Or at least he signed the warning to it."
"Let's keep reading." They turned the page and found, rather to their surprise, a table of contents. There was a list of everyone who had the original Phoenixes and who had them now. Then the book went on to tell the story about how the Phoenixes first came rising out of the sun to act as guardian angels over those who would need them the most. From there it continued on the Phoenxial rebirth from the flames. Then there were several chapters on caring for a Phoenix and on wild Phoenixes. The final chapter was brief but detailed it was the only way to kill a Phoenix permanently.
Now, this was the information the received from the table of contents because with each chapter title there was a one-paragraph summary.
First they viewed the chart. The book was obviously magical and able to update itself. There were five columns for each of the five hundred Phoenixes. There was the Phoenix's original owner; the name the Phoenix during its first owner; the current owner of the Phoenix; the current name of the Phoenix; when the Phoenix finally died for the last time. Also there was a list of wild Phoenixes in place of their name was a symbol.
They looked for Kennilworthy Whisp's Phoenix. Firebolt was dead.
As they searched Ron discovered that Fawkes's original name was Helios and the owner was Graham Granules. None of them knew who Graham Granules was but Hermione had a recollection of Helios. She informed them that the Sun God of the Greeks had been known as Helios.
"It's really rather interesting."
When they turned to the next page it had only a few words on it "Speak the first name of the Phoenix you wish to have more information on then speak what you would like to know."
They had all decided to take turns holding and reading from the book. Renata presently had it. "I want to know all the owners of Helios."
A long list appeared. The list contained a hundred seventy-three names. Among those names were Alexander the Great, Godric Gryffindor, Guy Fawkes, and Albus Dumbledore.
"Wait a second. Dumbledore's name is twice."
"Renata, what do you mean his name is twice?"
"I mean what I say. It says here Albus Dumbledore, James Potter, Albus Dumbledore."
"What?"
"Here Harry look for yourself." She handed the book over.
Sure enough there it was. Albus Dumbledore, then for less than a year it said James Potter, then it said Albus Dumbledore again.
"This is strange."
"Yeah it is."
"Let's keep reading." They turned the page and read the story of how the Phoenixes first came into being. It talked about how when the world was greatly troubled the Phoenixes came down from the sky out of the sun to watch over anyone who needed them. It went on to say that no one really owns a Phoenix. If anything it's the other way around. But more than anything the Phoenix is just there as a guardian angel.
There were several chapters after that about caring for Phoenixes to keep them healthy, ways they get ill, ways of healing them, what they liked to eat.
As they read on they discovered more about the Phoenixial fire death and then they went on to the final chapter: the only way to permanently kill a Phoenix.
By the time they were all done they had been reading for hours and they had a lot on their minds.
"Whoever has this book can kill Fawkes."
"We don't know who had this book last. Or who knows the information in the book."
They saw her point.
"We need to find that cave and go back."
"How are we supposed to find it? I was only there once. Amicari was leading."
"Well we've got to get there, one way or another. We need to find out as much as we can as soon as we can. Otherwise.well things won't be good. Harry do you remember if there was a lot of dust around there?"
"How am I supposed to remember that, Renata? The cover of the book I brought back was certainly dusty. The cover just looked like dull red and yellow."
"But as we can plainly see now the cover has a brilliant scarlet and gold Phoenix on it and the sleeve of your robe is covered with dust."
"Really?" He replied to her. "I hadn't noticed."
"Get real Harry this is no time to be sarcastic. We should really be looking for that centaur friend of yours."
"Shouldn't we put the book somewhere safe first?"
Hermione's question reminded Harry of something. "When we were talking on the steps I looked over and saw Malfoy listening. I don't know how much he heard."
"Then we better stow this book double quick." Renata sprang up and began pacing. "But where to put it and how do we guard it. Now there is that is the real dilemma. We need it somewhere safe, but unlikely. Easy enough for us to remember where it is but not likely to be found by anyone else."
Ron shrugged, "Maybe we could transfigure it into something before we hid it in case anyone did find it."
"Yes, that might work, but what?"
"If we're going to transfigure it I think we should keep it a book but make it look old and dull," proposed Hermione.
Ron mumbled, "How about we transfigure it into Hogwarts, a History."
At the same time Renata and Hermione replied, "That's a very interesting book!"
They smiled. "How about, Caring for Flobberworms?"
"I don't think we can really do a book because we would have to change every page in this book in case someone did open it."
"I suppose so."
"Well, a rock then and I'll put it at the bottom of my trunk. With spells on the trunk of course."
"Why your trunk?"
"Well," replied Harry, "I found it."
"That's not a good reason."
"Why not?"
"Because its not."
"Well that isn't a good reason either."
"So?"
"You're impossible."
Renata smiled sweetly. "Of course I am. Okay so what spells will we use?"
"I think we should check our Defense Against the Dark Arts books. There should be something useful in there."
They spent the rest of the afternoon researching possible spells to use to guard the book. It was evening by the time they had found sufficient spells to protect the book. Then, in a corner of the common room Hermione performed the transfiguration causing the book to take the form of a small stone. Harry and Ron then took the stone up to their room and put it in Harry's trunk and carried out the necessary charms. They met Renata and Hermione downstairs. The girls would have preferred to set the charms themselves but Harry and Ron refused to allow them to; partly because they didn't want them upstairs and partly because they wanted to try the charms themselves.
Now the only thing left to do was to decide how and when to find the cave.
Renata wanted to go down to the Forest right away and look for the cave themselves, if they found Amicari along the way, so much better for them.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione pointed out that dangerous as the Forest was by day, it was even worse at night. They also pointed out they had no idea where the cave was and no way of finding the centaurs.
At last they convinced Renata not to go into the forest and they all went down to dinner. After that the night was spent doing homework, deciding they would have to wait until the upcoming weekend to look for the cave.
At first Renata protested, "What if it's too late by then? Then where does that leave us?"
They explained gently but firmly that they would not allow her to go down to the Forest. She seemed to accept it well enough. Then they all went to bed.