Chapter 9: Magic

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"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." - A Tale of Two Cities

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At one o'clock in the afternoon, the squad of Aurors, experts and Unspeakables - this time, not in disguise, their black cloaks bearing the insignia of a silhouetted Nundu, and hands itching to pull out their wands - arrived at the school. The Aurors were looking incredibly smug - facing down a dragon and a daemon would obviously be a feather in their caps back at the Ministry - and were mainly composed of men.

Two of the Unspeakables, looking a lot more serious and disapproving of the Aurors' reckless 'we can defeat anything, worship us' attitude, were also Wizards, but the third was a Witch, who was the leader. Figg was talking with them, and though she was going only as an expert on daemons, only the Unspeakables (and the other teachers) knew that she was an Unspeakable as well.

There were four experts on dragons, who had been rushed in when the Ministry heard there was a dragon in the Forest - three of them had been helping with the dragons at the Triwizard Tournament the previous year, one of whom was Charlie, who was now travelling from one reserve to the next, collecting information on the dragon populations. The trio spoke to him briefly, before he was rushed away to the group of Aurors, to explain the weak areas of a dragon, and what spells would be best used to subdue it.

The final member of the squad - taking part in what was officially 'Operation: Daemon Capture 06' (but was unofficially nicknamed 'Operation: Kick Daemonic Ass', until the Witch Unspeakable (Doris Bludgeon) caught them at it, and started yelling at them about being professional, and the result of tomfoolery, for twenty minutes) - was Embeller Adoric, the professional Australian daemon hunter, who was apparently quite famous (though more so in Australia) for having captured twenty-four daemons.

At first Harry took one look at his blond hair and thought he was another Gilderoy Lockhart and taking credit for other people's actions, but his eagerness to increase his captures to twenty-five finally convinced Harry that the middle-aged man was serious about his work, and not fame.

The group settled in the Great Hall for half an hour, assigning the order in which they would travel, which side of the Forest they would travel through first, what to do if anyone ran into trouble, and poring over a five-hundred year old map which showed the main paths through the Forest (though by now, most of the paths had disappeared, and trees had grown up or fallen down, thus changing the layout even more.

---

At two o'clock, half the students were hanging around by the windows overlooking the Forest, watching for the group to leave the school, and more than a few cheered in excitement when they disappeared into Forest. Harry, however, just watched grimly out of the Divination classroom window, having abandoned Ron and Hermione on the second floor, and slipped away upstairs, watching for movement in the trees.

'I should have told them that they can't re-trap the daemon,' Harry thought glumly, watching as the final member of the group disappeared. 'This could be the last time anyone ever sees them, and it'll be my fault - and somehow, the fact that no-one will know that I could have stopped it will make it even worse.'

The sweep of the Forest was not expected to take any amount of time - as no- one knew how long it would take to find the daemon or dragon, nor even the layout of the Forest except that from the map five-hundred years ago, they were expected to return at about eleven o'clock (unless they completed their job earlier), and report, before heading out again at midnight to perform another search.

No news, people say, is good news, but for Harry it was bad. The squad didn't return at three o'clock, nor four, nor five, nor six; they weren't back by seven, and as the students trooped down to supper, the worry in Harry's heart began to grow more and more. There were no red sparks seen above the trees, but Harry knew how fast the daemon could go, and how silently it stalked Malfoy; it could come from behind before anyone could even set off a warning.

None of the squad were nearby at eight PM, and when the students went to bed at nine, still no-one had returned, and Harry resigned himself to preparing for the worst, though he kept a flicker of hope inside him, and returned to keep watch out of the Divination tower window, though he knew he was breaking curfew.

At ten o'clock, and outside was completely black, still no-one returned; and when eleven o'clock finally passed and none of the squad had come back, Harry could only imagine the activity that must be taking place in the entrance hall, where the teachers and a few Ministry workers were waiting for reports.

At eleven minutes past ten, though, a motley band of people trudged back up the entrance doors far less jubilantly than they had left. As they appeared closing in on the school, Harry leapt up from where he was practically falling asleep on the ledge and quickly counted the number of them.

Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen. There had been twenty-one people setting out, and now only seventeen of them returned. A nasty feeling grew in the pit of his stomach as he wondered who had been - eaten? Killed? Crushed? The feeling grew as he wondered how they had died; the daemon, an Acromantula, an accident with one of the many predators in the Forest?

He would have to wait until morning for the answers - now, he would have to race to the dormitory before they gave their report, and Filch and Mrs Norris began their rounds.

---

The next day, Monday, Harry learned from the excited and morbid whispers going from table to table that the four who had not returned - no-one seemed fond of using the word 'died', which seemed so wrong on a bright, sunny day, when only the day before they had crowding around the group or admiring from afar - were three of the Aurors, one of whom had been a little too cocky and died as a result, and one of the Unspeakables.

Harry and the others were relieved that Charlie and Professor Figg weren't any of the deceased, but felt quite guilty for being thankful that it was other people who had died.

One of the Aurors had the misfortune to walk into a newly made Acromantula web. Though a fierce fight had resulted between the group and a small nest of about ten Acromantulas, which the squad had won, the fight was merely a distraction while the arachnids - much more intelligent than the average spider, Ernie Macmillan sighed - carried off the unfortunate Auror to another web for eating.

No-one wanted to dwell too long on what had happened to him, and his body hadn't been recovered.

The second and third Aurors had lingered too long at a tree that was apparently covered in ivy, which turned out to be Burningshoot; posing as only a parasite of trees, animals would pass right by it - at which it reveal its deadly nature, and shoot a small dry needle out from where it was hidden under its leaves. This would then boil the target's blood within seconds to fatal temperatures. It roots, hidden underground, but near the surface, would then erupt out of the earth and drag down the animal to feed upon. These bodies had been pulled up, but left with protection spells by the edge of the Forest, so as not to startle the others that had been waiting back at the school.

The Unspeakable - and this was the most interesting of the lot, for its lack of information - had been guarding the back of the group in case the daemon or any other beast attempted to come up from behind, and when the group had paused to investigate a possible hiding place, it was realised that he had disappeared. No-one was sure exactly when he had gone missing, as he had vanished soundlessly, but the different accounts put it at about ten PM.

This was the case the remaining Aurors and Unspeakables were focusing on, as it was most likely that this had been caused by the daemon. Retracing their steps had found no clues as to the whereabouts of the missing member, and the group had been forced to return before all were given up for lost.

Now, the score stood at four-nil to the Forest, and it was time to move onto the second half.

---

Harry whipped through Magical Languages, this time making sure he got his eyes narrowed correctly, which for this lesson was advanced prepositions, and discovered he had a talent for the pitching of the above-water screeches, though he felt a right idiot when he did them.

Defence lessons were rather subdued, as everyone not-very-subtly avoided mentioning the disastrous expedition into the Forest, and when Seamus finally slipped up and asked what colour Burningshoot was, Dean had no choice but to 'accidentally' stick Seamus' mouth shut. This lesson was now focused on self-defence rather than the general learning they had been doing earlier, and Harry wondered whether she knew the daemon was a Volucris.

Charms was the final lesson, when Harry managed to win back ten of the points he had lost from Gryffindor with an excellent Stupefy. All the teachers now seemed to be focusing on defensive spells, as Professor Flitwick announced that next lesson they would be studying basic shielding spells.

After lessons, Ron now took part in the finals of the Gryffindor Chess Tournament (Harry couldn't see what was so exciting about it, but anyway, he wasn't as tactically minded as Ron) and Hermione was sticking annoyingly close to Harry, reciting a few Bulgarian myths she had learned, tutting over how everyone had seemed to have stopped wearing SPEW badges, and even lamenting that she probably wouldn't get to be Head Girl in her seventh year, because the Ravenclaw Prefect was doing such a good job.

Harry didn't think it particularly skilful the way she quite conspicuously didn't mention the daemon, the dragon or last nights events, and though he knew it wasn't wise to prolong the agony, he didn't point it out.

When Harry finally escaped, thanks to Hermione suddenly remembering that she could add an extra four inches of writing onto one of her homework essays, he headed immediately for the dormitory to collect the Inforod and feed Ajax before returning to the disused classroom that he had first met Levina in.

Clasping each end of the cylinder, Harry read the title and author aloud, concentrating on the contents of the tube. Within a second, a jumble of information, feeling like a buzz of tiny bees under his skin, threw itself up the nerves in his hands and up his arms, spinal cord, brain, where it finally settled just a few seconds later.

Now that he had taken in this information, which was the easy part, the only work that needed to be done was to sort it. While Harry was frozen, unable to move his body, and only able to watch as the information revealed itself to him, he felt every 'page' imprinting itself on his memory. First there was a stream of writing, which must have been hundreds of pages long, but which passed in less than a quarter of a minute, and he could recall almost every sentence with perfect clarity. Then followed a series of pictures and sketches, with several paragraphs of explanations under each one. These images were even easier to remember than the words, and Harry found himself acknowledging each one instantly, and almost completely remembering all of them.

In less than half a minute, Harry had read a two-thousand page book, remembered practically the whole thing - and had a particularly nasty headache. He supposed he should have though of that before, though Levina could have at least warned him about it - but then, why would she know? She was an android, the sudden gaining of over two-thousand pages worth of knowledge was probably nothing more than a flicker to her, and the people of Atlantis would be used to used to 'reading' rods, so they would have grown accustomed to it until they didn't notice it. Or perhaps, it hadn't happened then; perhaps there was some genetic mutation which modern people had, that meant the rod would affect them differently than those without it. Who knew?

Sifting through the information more slowly, Harry 'flicked' through the images, glancing at each one and recalling the words underneath each ink- drawn picture.

If these were basic, he didn't want to know what advanced was - and he certainly didn't want to learn more than one type of sword. Harry continued running through the information for another hour, studying the illustrations and text, before returning to Hermione in the library, and then retiring to bed.

---

Tuesday passed without mention, except that the 'Operation: Daemonic Capture' group stayed at Hogwarts, the Aurors in the group a little less egotistical than before, and that Dumbledore announced that two people had come forwards to offer their services as Divination teacher ('Wonder how much he had to offer before they did?' Ron muttered), so the students would be returning to Divination lessons starting the next week.

Wednesday was much more interesting; as people were looking forwards to the fifty-eight days before the Christmas holidays began and the twenty-nine days until Halloween, Dumbledore now had a new announcement to make; that following on from the success of the previous ball a year before, a Holiday ball would be held on Wednesday the twenty-eighth of November (the day before the holidays began), and a Halloween party had been scheduled for the evening of the thirty-first of October, before the feast.

While many were excited at this news, Harry and Ron were just two of quite a few people who wished they had never heard the word 'party' or 'all' in their life. "At least I've got new dress robes for them," Ron sighed, trying to look on the bright side of things. This was true for Harry as well, but he still wouldn't be looking forwards to it.

The newspapers were still going wild with stories on the bungled hunt, posting short biographies of the 'heroic dead', who gave their lives to save the students. Harry didn't think it was particularly heroic - not only did their deaths not achieve anything, but two of them had died quite accidentally rather than in a brave battle, and the other had been disobeying orders and going too far ahead, as well as not paying attention to where he was going when he walked into the web - frankly, Harry thought he'd been asking for it.

A letter from Sirius arrived that day - apparently he was taking on some 'top-secret work' for Dumbledore, and wouldn't be able to write again until December. Deciding to write a reply at lunch, Harry went with the others to History, where they were finishing up theeffects of WWI on the Wizarding world.

---

At nine PM, Harry had to fight a mental struggle. On the one hand, he could skip the training with Levina, thus meaning she would miss any chances to kill him, or control him, or whatever she was trying to do. On the other hand, if he went, than he could confront her and find out why she lied about the daemon being Summoned.

As soon as his logical side pointed this out, Harry knew he had to do it, and as he left detention (chopping up flobberworms in the dungeons) he made his way to the Room of Requirement, rather than Gryffindor Tower.

Filch, Harry knew, was still refusing to let Mrs Norris prowl the corridors on her own, because of the same protective nature that made him attempt to kill Harry when he thought she had been killed. This made it a lot easier (as Fred and George had also found) to sneak out after curfew, as it was a lot easier to hear Filch coming and escape, than to keep listening out for the almost silent footfalls of the cat.

Because of this, Harry made it to the Room safely, even though he wasn't wearing his Cloak as he usually did - Levina was quite surprised by this though, as he didn't have any cloak to disguise himself with. As soon as Harry saw her, his face turned into a nasty scowl. "I talked to Leone a couple of days ago. I accused her of stealing the Myrrh Cage, and Summoning the daemon." he snapped out harshly. "And you know what? She denied it. And when she denied it, I realised I believed her - because she doesn't have any motive, and she knows what it's like to have a family member murdered, so why would she wish it on anyone else? But if she hasn't done anything, and you say she has, that either means you're wrong, or you're lying. But if there was a chance you were wrong, why would you be so definite about it being her? Which means you have to be lying, and I want to know why."

"Simple," replied Levina. "Because I wasn't lying: it's her. I know it is. You can't fake an empathic signature, and it was her signature around the school. It may not have been her who stole the Cage, I admit that, but it was definitely her who Summoned the daemon. I don't care what she says, she did it."

"Why?" Harry raged, "What reason would she have? There's no point to just - just killing people for no good reason! Even the Muggles who kill their classmates have a reason, no matter how small. Isn't every crime meant to have a motive? Because I don't know what hers is meant to be!"

"Maybe she's working for the Dark," Levina barked out. "Maybe she's gone completely insane. Maybe she was being controlled, and she doesn't remember it. I don't know, I don't care, the point is that she did it."

Harry was silent for a moment. "Controlled? You mean like - Imperius or something?"

Levina shrugged. "Melanie is a Possessor - usually she can only possess the bodies of animals, but using enough power, concentration, a few items to help, and a good length of time - it's possible she could put herself in Leon's body for a while. And when she left, Leone would just snap back to normal, unaware of what had been happening. It has been known to occur - and Leone's mind would probably already be weakened by the shock of her sister's murder. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's a possibility."

Harry frowned, calming down. "Shouldn't we talk to her, then? See if - I don't know, she remembers where she put the Myrrh Cage, or something?"

"Right now?"

"Why not? It's past curfew, and the Room will stick doors to anywhere in the castle we need to go - and we need to find out where the Cage is, which we can only do by talking to Leone. Well?"

Levina looked at him. "We could, I suppose. It would be best if I weren't there - she might not talk in front of a complete stranger. You'd need a memory potion; something that could get right into the subconscious, as she wouldn't actively remember anything. And you should probably take her into here, rather than asking her in the dormitory - if any of the girls woke up, you'd have quite a bit of explaining to do."

"Right." Harry agreed, feeling much better. "Sorry for - well, accusing you and all."

The woman waved it aside. "Never mind that. I'll leave, and I'll be back in an hour. Don't forget to get a memory potion." With that, she marched past him and out of the door he had just come in by.

Turning around, Harry spotted a small bottle of crimson liquid, sitting on a table beside a door that had suddenly appeared. Impressed, Harry went closer to study it - it was the same type of memory potion that the Auror had given him after Trelawney. This 'need something and thou shalt receive' thing was great, Harry thought, as he grabbed the bottle and opened the newly appeared door to the girls' dormitory.

---

The fifth-year Gryffindor girls' dormitory was much like the boys, decorated in red and gold, with the same four-poster beds and bedside tables. There were only four beds in here, however - Hermione's, Parvati's, Lavender's and Leone's. Lavender and Parvati's beds were obvious by the posters of sleeping Wizard pop-stars above them, and Hermione's by several books on the child-rearing habits of the Chimaera.

Skipping these and heading directly for a bed that had a picture of Leone and Natasha on the bedside table next to it, Harry gently shook Leone awake. The girl twitched slightly, before waking up and looking quite surprised to see a boy in the dormitory. Before she could say anything, Harry held a finger to his lips, to show he wanted her to be silent. "I need to talk to you," he whispered, suddenly remembering how angry she had been at him before, and wondering whether she'd want to talk to him. "Can you come with me?"

Levina slowly moved upright so that she didn't wake any of the other girls. "Yes," she whispered in reply, "I can come. This may be stupid question but - wasn't there a wall there before?"

Harry looked back to the door. It was ajar, a sliver of light shining through. "That's how I got in here." he explained. "It's - well, I'll explain later. Here, come with me."

He stood back while Levina crept out of bed and pulled on a pair of shoes and a robe over her night-gown. Harry still hadn't changed for bed, having come straight from the dungeons, and he led her through the door, hoping it would have changed to something more comfortable - it probably wouldn't look very good to Leone, leading her into a room full of weaponry hanging on practically every part of the walls.

Unfortunately, it hadn't changed, but all Leone have it was a raised eyebrow, and a long look around the... usually... decorated room. "Right," said Harry, closing the door, though it didn't disappear. "Here's the thing - you see, you know I accused you of well, you know?"

Leone nodded, and but didn't say anything.

"Well," Harry said, wondering how to put it, before he gave up and bit the bullet. "You see, I thought it was you because I know this person who can sense empathic signatures - like magical signatures, except it comes when a lot of willpower is used instead of magic. Summoning daemons leaves an empathic signature instead of a magical one, and can't be faked. Well, my friend traced the signature from the daemon Summoning to you - I don't think you did it," he said hurriedly, as he saw Leone begin to become angry again. "It's just - well, you're descended from an Atlantean right, and you know about the Dark?"

Now Leone looked surprised. "You know as well?"

Harry nodded. "I'm descended from one of the Atlanteans as well," he explained, remembering that Dumbledore had said that Leone didn't know about the breeding program. "Anyway, because Melanie - one of the Dark - can possess people on occasion, not just animals, we think she may have possessed you and made you Summon the daemon while you were possessed." He looked closely at her to see how she was taking it.

Leone had an expression of horror and realisation. "I didn't tell anyone," she said in broken English, "but before lunch on the day of the murder, I was in alone the library, and I thought I fell asleep - I drifted out, and when I woke up, it was time to go in to the Hall, and I felt exhausted. You mean you think that was..."

Harry nodded. "That answers the question then. You were possessed; much easier than the Dark coming to Hogwarts themselves and -" he almost said 'trying to kill me themselves', but managed to stop himself. The less people who knew he was the Phoenix, the better.

"Anyway," he continued. "There's something else - even more important. You see, we can't track down the daemon and re-capture it, without the Myrrh Cage that was originally used to trap it. Because it was your body that Summoned the daemon, the memory is locked away inside you of where you hid the Cage. Do you think, if you took a memory potion, you could tell me where you hid it?"

Leone nodded, determined. "I cannot promise, but I will try." she swore, and Harry felt the heavy feeling on his heart lessen. Things were looking up! Taking the bottle of potion, Harry gave it to Leone. "Just take a swig," he explained. "It tastes fine, and should improve your memory - usually it only work for up to the last forty-eight hours, but as it's a potion that we need, it should go further back, up until the day of the murder."

Leone looked confused at this last sentence, but shrugged and swallowed the potion, tilting her head back so she could drink the entirety of the small bottle.

She stood trembling for a moment as the potion took effect, and gave a small jolt as her memories returned. "I remember!" she breathed. "It was like in a dream - I got up and went to the Divination Tower; Trelawney wasn't there, but I went straight to a ball on her desk. I remember it from the Defence lessons, the Myrrh Cage.

"I took it, and locked the door with a spell. Then I drew a shape on the floor with ash from the fire - a five-pointed star, with the Cage in the centre - and started saying words, ones that I didn't understand, that I'd never heard or read before. I did other things - cast spells, used the incense sticks as candles to put around the star - and then it came." She frowned. "It seems hideous now, frightening, but I wasn't scared then. The incense sticks went out, and a daemon appeared from out of the orb, as mist first, and then becoming solid. We just looked at each other, and then I cast a spell to clean away the ash, and the daemon just waited.

"I cleaned the incense sticks up, as though I'd never been there, and then left. And the strangest thing was that I didn't feel or think anyone during the entire time - I didn't concentrate on anything, I couldn't control myself, I didn't even think of trying to control myself. I was still carrying the Cage, so I took it outside -" (Here, Harry really started listening) "to the hut near the edge of the Forest, and put it up the chimney, out of sight."

"That's it!" Harry crowed in triumph. "That hut belongs to Hagrid, the Gamekeeper, but he's away, so no-one goes in there! And what better place to hide something than right under people's noses! We have to get it, now."

"Both of us? Now? But it's after curfew-"

"And we could save lives!" Harry broke in. "There's going to be another sweep of the Forest tomorrow, and more people could be killed. We won't be able to go out before breakfast, and you're the one who knows exactly where it is - and besides, it'll be safer if both of us are together. Have you got your wand?"

"It's in my robes," she told him, patting one of the pockets. "You're right, we should go now - but what about your friend? The one who can sense signatures? Should they not come with us?"

"It's not as though we're going into the Forest, just into the hut and back," Harry pointed out. "Anyway, she'll not be back for another," he checked his watch, "twelve minutes. We might as well go out and grab the Cage, and then head back. If I set a door up to lead outside, we can be back within a quarter of an hour."

Harry glanced around - yes, the door that led into the girls' dormitory had changed to one with a window that showed the Hogwarts grounds through it. "Perfect," he grinned. "I don't think we can go directly into the hut - it looks like it can only work inside the castle - but that'll do fine. Let's get going." he finished, and he took his wand out and held it ready. "Just in case," he explained, and Leone did the same, before they opened the door and left.

---

Wishing he had gone back to the dormitory to fetch his Winter cloak, Harry shivered in the bitter cold, and lit his wand with a 'Lumos' spell, so that they could see. Remembering Levina's help with the Unicorn, he muttered warming spells for the both of them, and feeling much warmer, looked around.

They were at the correct side of the school - almost directly in front of them was Hagrid's hut, desolate and uninhabited. "Come on," Harry said, leaving the door ajar so they could return, and starting forwards at a jog. "It'll take about ten minutes to get up there if we walk, so we'd better hurry."

Leone did as he said, and they sped up, not feeling the cold any more. They reached the door of the hut within five minutes at their run, to find it locked. "I used an unlocking spell when I hid the Cage," Leone recalled.

"Allow me," Harry said, and tapped the door. "Alohomora."

The lock clicked, and Harry pushed the door open, allowing the two to enter. They faced the chimney, and looked at each other, before shrugging. Kneeling before it, Harry squinted and held his lit wand up the chimney. "I can't see anything," he told the girl, staring up.

"Further to the left, and up some more." Leone remembered. There was a scraping sound of a metallic object somewhere behind him. Harry didn't turn round, but paused. "Did you hear that?" he asked in a whisper.

"Yes," said Leone. "That was the sound of a gullible boy being knocked out by a cooking pot to the head." And with that, the gullible boy was knocked out by a cooking pot to the head. The last thing Harry heard before the darkness claimed him was Leone reflecting, "Surely I wasn't that good an actress?"

---

Darkness. Blackness. Not nothingness, or emptiness, or a vacuum, because there was something: the never-ending gloom of his own head. 'Ow." though Harry, mournfully. 'Well, that's the last time I believe someone's innocence just because of what they say.' It suddenly occurred to him that it might be the last time he did anything, and this led on to the subject of whether or not he was dead.

He decided against that, because when he thought about it hard enough, he could feel his body, and he had a splitting headache - and he was pretty sure that the dead didn't get headaches, because their nerves didn't work.

Feeling slightly relieved by this, he ran through the events leading up to his being knocked unconscious. Firstly, he had been so sure that Leone had been possessed - though in hindsight, that didn't seem like what had happened - that he had not thought of the fact that maybe she was just nuts - which in hindsight, did seem pretty much like what had happened. Then he had foolishly believed every word she had said, even though he knew she wasn't under a truth potion, and - not even following her, but actually leading her into a place where no-one else was, in the dead of night, he had turned his back on her and allowed himself to be beaten down.

If Mad-Eye Moody could have seen him now, he would have had a fit. 'Constant vigilance!' Harry recalled him saying, and felt worse than before.

Trying to figure out where he was, Harry forced his mind back into his body, where the headache was starting to lessen. Keeping his eyes closed, Harry tested his limbs to make sure he could get up if he needed, and found that he could barely move his arms or legs more than a few millimetres. He was tied to something; some type of smooth, upright stone.

Opening his eyes, he looked down. The grey boulder, though tall, appeared to be only a couple of feet thick; four holes had been bored into it. Holding his left hand was a rope the went around the left side of the rock, and back through a hole just to the right of his hand, holding it tightly. The same thing had been done to his right hand, and each of his ankles. It was also obviously morning, which Harry could work out due to the weak sunlight trickling through the small gaps in the canopy, and overhead it was even more obvious - well, he was in a clearing, after all.

"Wonderful," Harry muttered, blowing a bit of hair out of his eyes. The bottom of the rock went underground, so he could hardly dig it out with magic. Harry guessed that it was the Forbidden Forest, as he was pretty sure Leone hadn't been carrying a Portkey on her.

"Do you like this?" her voice suddenly shot out, and Harry looked over to the right. Leone was just coming into view, holding her wand in one hand, and a thick, old-looking book in the other. "My daemon wasn't just running around aimlessly, you know. I ordered it to dig up the biggest rock it could find, and set it here. It took a long time to sort out, and a few smoothing spells to make sure it was flat enough to tie someone to, but it was worth it."

"So in summary, you are nuts." Harry said conversationally, and tried to twist his left hand out of the rope, failing miserably. Leone laughed.

"Perhaps to you I am. And by the way, even if you could escape from the ropes, you'd never make it out of the forest. Not only would you be unarmed, when I have a wand, but there's also my daemon to contend with, all the other dangerous plants and beasts, the fact you don't even know which direction to go in - you wouldn't survive."

Not pointing out that he wasn't likely to survive here, Harry asked, "Where's my wand?"

Leone shrugged. "Just in case you escaped somehow, I didn't want you to get it back, so..." She nodded her head to the ground near one of the trees, and Harry felt like crying. His wand - his beautiful wand, that he'd bought in Diagon Alley, with a tail-feather from Fawkes, that had saved his life against Voldemort - was lying, snapped in half in the grass. The red feather could be seen between the two pieces, earth caking it.

Leone stepped gracefully over to it, and then - with an absence of the previous grace - brought her foot down on the remains, twisting it violently. The wood snapped, breaking again, and Harry almost felt physical pain as he winced and screwed up his eyes so that he couldn't see.

When he looked again, the two pieces were now one large piece, several small pieces, and hundreds of splinters and tiny, jagged parts, littering the ground. Harry swallowed the lump in his throat, and concentrated on what was important at the moment - his life. "What do you want with me?" he demanded, wishing more than anything that some accidental magic would kick in right now, and Apparate him somewhere safe.

Leone snorted. "Want with you? Well, I thought that would be obvious." She stalked over from his broken, shattered wand and stood ten feet away, her face twisted in a snarl. "My sister and I were so happy to be sent over here. We would learn about a different culture, make new friends, and then head home, where we'd grow up and live happily ever after. As you know, it didn't quite turn out like that."

She smiled humourlessly. "The Dark apparently though it would be a great idea to set a couple of spies in Hogwarts, to look for the Phoenix - oh, don't look like that. Yes, we're not meant to know about the breeding program, but we do. The Atlantean I'm descended from was a servant in the royal palace, and she heard the prophecy of the Phoenix; and I set up my own little investigation after my sister was found to have been murdered.

"Anyway, the Dark decided that my sister and some other girl would be good to stick as spies. Unfortunately for them, my sister - and I assume the other girl - wouldn't go along with it willingly, so they murdered them, and stuck their servants into their bodies. All along, I talked with my sister, studied with my sister and joked with my sister, unaware that she was something I didn't know and didn't want to know.

"Then, we arrived at Hogwarts. It was then that 'Natasha' started acting strangely; disappearing off, spending time with a girl she hardly knew, rather than her own twin; and then one day, I was called up to the headmaster's office. I didn't know why, but I went up anyway, and there I was told that my sister had been brutally slaughtered," she screeched, teeth bared in fury, "and that the thing in her body would be taken away for interrogation - which I knew meant torture. My sister, not only killed, but her body didn't even get rest, because it was taken over and then was to be cut open until the Elemental inside it answered the Unspeakables' questions."

Her eyes drove into Harry's own. "And who was it, that was the Phoenix - the reason that my sister 'had' to be murdered? Who was it that heard the Elementals' plots, and informed his superior? None other than Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived. If you hadn't been the Phoenix, the Dark wouldn't have needed a spy at Hogwarts. They wouldn't have killed my sister -"

"Then blame them!" Harry yelled in anger. "I can't help being what I am, who I'm born to! I never asked to be the Phoenix, and I reported your sister because she was planning to kill me! Blame the Dark! They're the ones who killed your sister, and without them, there would be no such thing as the Phoenix!"

Leone replied by punching Harry in the stomach. "Shut up," she seethed as Harry gasped and tried to regain his breath. "Just shut up. I know what I'm doing, and I'm getting revenge. I don't care if the Dark win because you're dead, I don't care if they kill me, I don't care if anyone kills me. All I care about now is seeing you pay."

'She really is crazy,' Harry realised. 'She's blaming me for something I had no control over, just because I'm an easier target than the Dark, and she's refusing to listen to logic. She'll have no qualms about killing me.'

Struggling harder against his bonds, Harry played for as much time as he could. "So what exactly are you going to do to me?" he asked, hoping this question wouldn't provoke her. "I mean, I doubt you kept me alive and explained all this to me just so you can suddenly use Avada Kedavra on me."

Leone laughed unpleasantly. "That's right. I have much bigger plans for you. You see, it wasn't just a few Atlantean people who escaped the sinking of the city. People took things with them - mostly personal belongings, things they could grab in a hurry; and Durmstrang collects as many Dark magic books as it can. Two or three are ones that were rescued from before the island went down, and this is one of them."

She held up the book she was carrying, so that Harry could see the title. 'Black Magic for Illusionists'. "Translated, of course," she said airily. "By one of the escaped Atlanteans, no doubt. There's an awful lot of very interesting spells and rituals in it, and one of them is particularly interesting.

"You almost ruined everything, you know - I was so shocked when you accused me; how could you have known? But I managed to convince you I wasn't, and I hoped that would be that.

"Then you came to me last night, and asked me to come with you. I though you were going to confront me with new evidence, but instead you gave me all I needed to trap you. First you explained your friend could sense empathic signatures - and I knew you had nothing more concrete than that to pin the murder on me; and then you gave me an explanation that I'd been possessed. All I had to do was play along. After that, you invited me to get you alone in a deserted place! It was so easy, I was half expecting a trap.

"But there wasn't one, and it was even easier to get you here with the help of my daemon. You know, it's willing to do practically anything, and all in exchange for me freeing it from the Cage? You won't find the Myrrh Cage, by the way; it's well hidden, and not in that hut.

"After tying you, I went back through that door, and returned to the dormitory, and brought this book back. You see, I don't believe in pointless pain - killing you, torturing you, what would it accomplish? You'd be dead, but so would my sister, and then I'd be sentenced to death back in Bulgaria for murder.

"Instead, I'm going to do something much better. There's more to Forbidden magic than just Summoning daemons, you know, and the Atlanteans were masters of all kinds of magic; Light, Dark, Forbidden, everything. Black magic refers to both Dark and Forbidden magic, and this book contains spells, potions and rituals of both. There's one particular Forbidden spell that caught my attention; a spell that brings out the power of an Animancer."

Harry didn't like the sound of this. "What's an Animancer?"

"Glad you asked," Leone grinned. "If you think of a Necromancer as Dark, than an Animancer is the Light version. Instead of raising the dead as mindless slaves, the Animancer raises them as they were before they died, healing them of fatal wounds and restoring their lives. However, the ability hasn't come around in over a thousand years, and is presumably lost. Now, if you were a natural Animancer, you would be able to raise the dead with just a bit of concentration, and a minute or two chanting.

"Now, this ritual is one based on the abilities of an Animancer, except you don't have to be one to use it. Of course, as I'm not an Animancer, I won't be able to do the 'concentrate and chant' thing; to make up for the lack of ability, I'll need a lot of power to make up for it.

"An atom bomb generates amazing power, because of the power resulting from one half of an atom being split from the other half. However, that power is nothing compared to the amount generated when a soul is split from a body - or more precisely, a sentient being's death. This spell will help me harness that energy to bring someone - my sister - back to life, good as new. And you, Potter, are going to be the important ingredient."

Harry couldn't help it. He shrieked. "You're going to sacrifice me?"

"Wow, you catch on fast," Leone said, rolling her eyes. "Yes, I'm going to sacrifice you. Your death will finish the ritual; it will take about half an hour, but as no-one will be coming to find you, there's no need for me to wor- ah!" she broke off as before their eyes, the daemon entered the clearing, holding a body and breathing hard.

The body was of Natasha Nikastal, sustained by a preserving charm, though she had been dead for goodness knows how long. She was wearing a long, black dress, and Harry realised that she had been buried in it. Her glazed eyes were open, staring at nothing and everything, and her black hair hung limply from her head.

"As you can see, my loyal servant has returned," Leone joked, seeming triumphant. "Natasha wasn't buried yet - diplomatic matter, a foreigner being murdered, so she was being kept preserved around her torture - and healed, I see - at the British Ministry. It was a simple matter for my daemon to get in last night; the security must be terrible; find her, and leave. When my sister returns from the dead, I'm sure she'll be only too happy to help me avenge her murder - and with the help of my daemon, we'll up the stakes a little and get rid of the lot of you self-serving idiots. Dumbledore who sentenced her to be interrogated, the Unspeakables who tortured her body, everyone."

She directed the daemon to place Natasha softly on the ground, and then went behind the rock Harry was tied to, returning with a large box, which she set down and opened, taking out various candles, herbs, vials, a jagged dagger - Harry struggled even more against the ropes, but to no avail.

And then, out of the blue, he remembered - Techno-Magic!

Thanking God that he wouldn't need a wand, Harry searched his mind for a spell that would sever the ropes, but he was distracted by Leone saying something; "Oh - and just so you don't use accidental magic, or attract anyone's attention by screaming," she said coolly, and then held up her wand; "Stupefy."

---

Back at Hogwarts, a full-scale search had broken out. It was now eleven AM, and Harry and Leone had disappeared. The timing was unknown, but they knew Harry had vanished sometime after his detention. As the students were shut safely up in their dormitories, in case the Death Eaters/Daemon/Dark/Unknown creature attempted to take them, the adults met again in the Great Hall.

"We've checked the South wing, but he isn't in there," Doris Bludgeon informed the others.

Embeller Adoric and two of the Aurors had searched the West wing and found nothing, several other Aurors had gone to Hogsmeade in case he had sneaked out during the night, and the others had searched over the rest of the school, the Quidditch pitch, even the Prefect's bathroom.

The portraits were searching from room to room, and one framed picture was being questioned after she swore she had been awake the previous night, and had seen Harry going in the wrong direction, instead of going to Gryffindor Tower. Apart from her, no-one had any idea what had happened to either, and no clues had been found.

The Aurors, though concerned about the Boy-Who-Lived's safety, were more concerned about Leone - there had already been one student sent back home (or so they had been told) because she had been hurt - and if there was a kidnapping, or even possible murder on their hands, it could turn into an international incident.

While downstairs, the adults reorganised to see whether there was anywhere they hadn't searched, up in the Gryffindor Tower, rumours and theories were flung about like hot potatoes.

"It was Death Eaters!" many cried, while others yelled, "The daemon!"

Several clung to the idea that it was someone who had thought Harry had killed Cedric, though everyone pointed out that if that was so, why had Leone been taken as well.

Some said Leona and Harry had eloped - though that idea was almost completely quashed when it was pointed out that Harry seemed pretty angry with Leone a few days ago. Only one person remained believing this story, insisting it was a lover's tiff.

Some said grimly that Harry had been kidnapped, either by Sirius Black, or someone who just wanted to hold him hostage, and that Leone, sneaking out of bed, had witnessed this, and so been silenced.

But there was no proof of any of these ideas, and there was no mention anywhere of scouring the Forest to search for the missing teenagers, and so no chance of them being found.

Even Levina, petting the Unicorn as she stood in Thetford Forest, wondered why Harry had left the Room before she returned, and when she would next see him - though the thought that she would never see him again didn't enter her head.