14. A Treacherous Trail
It was a beautiful day – high summer – and the small glade was cosier than anything I'd ever imagined I'd find in the Forbidden Forest. Bees hummed and a warm breeze sighed through the high grass. It was enough to turn anyone into a budding poet. Still, the fullness of the swarming forest and the richness of the clear blue sky was counteracted by the ghastly emptiness of the body we had placed at the centre of that peaceful glade. The absence of life in the hooded eyes of Bellatrix Black Lestrange seemed an evil, inverted reflection of the simmering kettle of life wherein we sweated like so many pigs: me, Henry, and the three Aurors who had Apparated onto the scene mere moments after our arrival.
I had to do some very fast talking to keep them from immediately snatching Lestrange from under our noses. I had to convince them that while they were certainly well within their rights to do exactly what we had previously done ('yes, sir, terribly sorry sir'), it would be in their best interest to consider the 'whys' without getting too worked-up about the 'how' ('theft of Ministry property', nasty way to put it).
Ponder, I put it to them, the probability of Potter's absence really being connected to that of the Dementor. Could it not be a case of 'if you find the one, there's the other'? Harry Potter is one big bonus, I suggested. Imagine, I ventured, becoming the new fabulous trio, the one that found and brought back the Boy Who Lived...
I was fairly confident the tactic would work from the moment I first lay eyes on those cocky young males with their shining, prominently placed badges, turning their haughty gazes towards us. The top men are rarely sent on missions that make the front page of the Quibbler but not a single notice in the Prophet. The right person in the right place, like me at the Prophet; I knew that thinking from the inside. And, as is so often the case, the reverse also seems to be true. There was nothing particularly right about those Aurors. Nor anything wrong enough to warrant execution, at least.
During their rather extended moment of indecision, I explained the plan to them, dumbing it down as much as possible. Patroni can track down Dementors. The downside is that they are ephemeral creatures ('short-lived; while there is an awful lot of life, it can't exist on this plane, ehm, well, yes, let's move on'). They seek Dementors out of a desire to inhabit their soulless bodies ('in order to stay, well, here'). Since a Demented person is also, per definition, soulless ('She always was,' offered the slightly podgy Auror self-righteously), they should work just as well. The pure life-force of the Patronus should be able to make a home for itself in Lestrange's body and in that form track down our missing Dementor. Perfectly simple, if it worked.
For such blatantly corrupt men, they were surprisingly reluctant. They raised some valid concerns ('What if it brings Lestrange back to life?', 'When it has a body, why'd it search for another? Waste o' energy, innit?') and would probably have put a stop to the whole thing if Henry hadn't cast his Patronus while we were debating the issue.
There was a sucking noise and Lestrange's body shuddered. She blinked, slowly, several times. Then she smiled, her face radiating innocent incomprehension. It was like looking at a child peering out through the body of a walking corpse. The Aurors backed away as a single entity, which was probably the most coordinated manoeuvre they'd ever managed.
Though I remained where I was, the look on Lestrange's gaunt face made me uncertain of success. She still looked empty, if in a more lively way. But Henry, as always, was utterly confident. He poked the Lestrange-clad Patronus, with his purely cosmetic ornate cane, to attract what could pass for its attention. 'Can you understand me?' he demanded. The body blinked. 'Allow me to rephrase myself,' Henry continued. 'Understand me. Now.' The hint that the Patronus would face a fatal stripping of bodily cover hung in the air like a sword in slowly tearing cobwebs. The body's smile grew. It nodded.
'There is another empty vessel close by. It beckons,' said Henry. 'See it as – insurance.' The meaning of the word could not have been lost even on one who had never heard English in their entire life. Henry was never easily misunderstood when he was in that mood. 'Lead us to it.'
There was another nod and then the Patronus turned and walked into the dense forest. Its pace was slow and we had no problems keeping up, though the walk was certainly more pleasurable for Henry who left it to me to deal with the Aurors' complaints and scepticism. Only once did he support my increasingly desperate arguments. The podgy sceptic had wondered how we could be sure the 'thing' had understood what it was supposed to do. It seemed merely to be taking a wee stroll, he complained with a mixture of impatience and approval. To that, Henry replied that the Patronus was a part of himself, and there were few things he had trouble grasping. The implication that this soundly separated him from the Aurors was impossible to miss and their complaints stilled somewhat after that.
Though I must admit, even I was a bit unsettled by the apparent aimlessness of Lestrange's amblings. She walked in a zigzag pattern. Sometimes she even stopped, often to stoop down and pick something up, sometimes to promptly sit down and play around with what she had previously picked up. Fir cones and ugly little sticks were her preferred building blocks in the forest – flowers, herbs, and grass when we emerged into the blazing hot meadows. Henry recited numerous ingenious reasons for her to get up and keep tracking during these sometimes very long, and very warm, interruptions. It seemed to me like trying to raise a child by handing it an academic dissertation on child rearing. She left when the play was over, never sooner. The Aurors took out their irritation on me, because they wouldn't dare take it out on Henry.
She also had a child's taste for sampling things with her mouth. At one point, this threw Lestrange's body into violent fits that thankfully subsided once she had got some water (from the skinny, permanently parched Auror's water bottle) and had emptied her stomach in the nearest tuft of high grass. There wasn't much to empty out except some acids and a foul smell. After that, she calmed down somewhat and seemed to acquire something of a focus. Her fir cone-clad sceptre, her crown of weeds, and her grass necklace still made our small search party look like something out of Lewis Caroll, with me as the White Rabbit. Oh, dear.
Having Lestrange lead us straight onto the Hogwarts lawn, through its gardens, and up to the castle itself didn't exactly help quell my doubts. Henry merely raised an eyebrow. It shames me to recall that I found his utter composure rather sexy in the vibrating summer heat, where we stood all alone outside the main entrance, due to everyone else's having run off, and in, at the sight of Lestrange, a Demented woman walking.
Her benevolent and befuddled smile was likely the most upsetting thing about her. Albus Dumbledore's similar expression, as he strode out onto the stairs, certainly unsettled me.