- CHAPTER FOURTEEN -
The Enemy Within
The first few weeks of term were rather exhausting. Hermione went into predictable pre-exam overdrive, even though the teachers reiterated that this first early round of NEWT mocks was simply to test how much they already knew and get them used to the types of questions to expect. Harry made the mistake of taking them at their word and made rather a hash of Transfiguration, but he rallied around to do decently in Charms, extremely well in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and hopefully avoid failing miserably in Potions. At least he had less subjects to juggle now, even if the workload was getting larger and the questions harder.
Fortunately, with only such a small amount of the syllabus yet covered, the practical tests were easier to prepare for. Whatever had been interfering with everybody's spellcasting was still in effect, and while the everyday charms and spells that he'd never had much flair for were generally still working for him, he was struggling mightily in Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. It almost gave him some sympathetic insight into why Hermione got so het up over a few dropped points in exams - to wobble even a little at something you knew you ought to be brilliant at was maddening.
With the mocks and subsequent increase in homework assignments that greeted the less than stellar general performance, it was hard to find time for anything non-academic, and what little they had was usually spent frustratedly going over the rhyme from the Hufflepuff common room. The trouble with the poetic clues was that you appeared to need to solve the beginning before the rest began to make any sense, and beyond the assumption that they were supposed to start at the trophy room, they were simply just plain stuck.
Harry frequently found himself keyed up and unable to sleep. He'd been having horrible dreams ever since Christmas; not Voldemort-induced, just nasty, tense, mashed-together nightmares in which he was always seeing horrible disasters take place thanks to his inability to remember things or work out solutions.
Facing up to yet another night of sweaty, tangled insomnia, Harry decided to turn to an activity that always left him exhausted when he was living with the Dursleys: doing his homework in bed. There it was a necessity; his aunt and uncle would have flown into a towering rage if they'd caught him doing anything that related to the wizarding world. Now, it might just serve the twin purposes of tiring him out enough to sleep, and making a dent in his intimidating workload.
He groped for the Transfiguration text he recalled having dropped under the bed at some point, reluctant to disturb his roommates by waving a lit wand outside the drapes. The first book he grabbed was completely the wrong size, the second turned out to be the comic he'd bought when he was out with Remus... he found a third, and closed the drapes to light his wand and examine it.
It turned out to be Maximise Your Mastery of Magic. Harry grimaced at the sparkly cover, and was about to toss it back when it occurred to him that now was as good a time to take a look at it as ever.
Neville would surely not have recommended the book if the concentration and focusing exercises it suggested were not of some use. The trouble was that they were buried in pages and pages of inspiring messages and stories apparently designed to build the reader's confidence. As opposed to making the reader gag at the trite, saccharine sweetness of it all.
Harry grimaced as he flicked past pages of 'Inspiring Tales'. Well, at least this was threatening to make him nod off. The Squib and the Unicorn. Damien's Duel. Malcolm and the Merpeople. The Tale of Durand and Bertram-
Harry stopped, and carefully flicked back a few pages. Yes, he had read that title right. Suddenly wider awake than ever, he started to read.
Bertram and Durand Adroganter were brothers, from an old and well established family. While Bertram excelled at everything he put his hand to, his younger brother struggled mightily to perform the simplest of spells. They grew apart as they grew older, as Bertram made a success of himself as a teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and found his brother's failure more and more embarrassing.
The boys' mother, on her death bed, sought to end their feud by making Bertram give an oath to look out for his younger brother. Bertram still wanted nothing to do with his less talented sibling, but was reluctant to break his word to his mother. He went to the Headmaster of Hogwarts and asked that Durand be given a job as the school caretaker, a task that even a lowly Squib could do.
For thirty years, the brothers worked side by side, but barely exchanged a single word. Bertram grew more and more famous and successful, while Durand scrubbed floors and cleaned windows, without even the simplest of charms to assist him.
But while Bertram's easy success had made him lazy, Durand had been accustomed all his life to working hard. Every single day for those three decades, he would go to the Hogwarts library, and read, and learn, and practise what he had learned. And finally, on the day that Bertram was appointed Headmaster of Hogwarts, he unveiled his masterpiece.
For thirty years, Durand had been working on but a single enchantment - a spell that would envelop the entire school, and transport it to another world. He created it as a challenge to his brother; an enchantment that could not be broken with strong magic, but only by careful thought, and hard work, and cooperation with others.
Bertram was a proud and arrogant man, but he truly loved all his pupils and his school, and he rose to the challenge as best he could. He learned once more to think for himself, and to work hard, and to reach out to those he had once considered beneath him. But all his efforts were in vain, and as the allotted time drew to an end, Bertram had not managed to fully solve the puzzle.
All would have been lost... but Durand, who loved his brother and saw how he had changed, took pity upon him, and lifted the enchantment. Bertram swore that he would never again underestimate those who worked hard for their successes instead of taking them for granted, and from that day forth, the brothers ran the school side by side.
Harry contemplated the story with a pensive frown. Clearly, moralistic fairytale though the story seemed, it had some kind of basic in fact. There had been a real Durand, he truly had created an enchantment that covered the whole castle - and somebody had discovered it, and recreated it.
Another world... He felt a sudden chill. He had thought that the illusion they'd been led through after arriving on the Hogwarts Express had been simply covering a hole in the mysterious hedge maze - but what if it was something more than that? The hedges must have been still growing while the teachers kept the dome up. Which begged the question of what, exactly, they might have seen outside if it had been lowered any earlier...
His first instinct was to rush off to find Hermione, but of course it was the middle of the night, and he could hardly go charging into the girls' dorms. He considered shaking Ron awake, but he knew it wouldn't be fair. The news would keep until he could speak to both together in the morning, and he would only be passing on his own insomnia.
Despite his churning thoughts, he did, eventually, manage to fall asleep.
When he did, he dreamed of Sirius, dressed in Professor Snape's forbidding robes and giving a lecture. 'The Curse of Durand' was chalked in bold letters at the top of the board, but everything else on it was gibberish, as unreadable as Hermione's Arithmancy homework.
"Come on, Harry, you're the only one left," his godfather said sternly. "How are you going to get your NEWT in Heroically Charging to the Rescue if you don't keep up with the coursework? You were supposed to set aside five minutes to read the questions over carefully before you started the exam. Every decision you make in the next two years will count towards your final grade."
Harry tossed and turned, and whimpered in his sleep.
He explained what he'd found out to Ron and Hermione in Charms the next day. "Someone must have found the old spell, and set it off to seal us all inside - for good, this time."
"They'd have to be crazy," said Ron, with a frown. "If we can't break the spell, they'll be trapped in here forever too!"
"Voldemort's never had trouble recruiting crazy people before," Harry said darkly.
"He has to have somebody on the inside," Hermione said. "Not Snape," she added with a sharp look, before Ron had got past framing the 'Sn'. "For a start, Ron, he's on our side, and anyway, they'd want somebody like Barty Crouch - somebody so fanatical about the cause that they won't even care if they never escape their own trap."
"Take your pick of the Slytherins, then," said Ron. Harry frowned.
"I don't know, actually. I mean, take Malfoy - he might be right alongside Voldemort when it comes to all the stuff he's preaching, but he wouldn't take part if it meant he'd chip a nail. There's no way Draco Malfoy's sacrificing his life for the cause."
"What about Crabbe and Goyle, then?" Ron wondered. "Their dads are Death Eaters too."
"Too dumb."
"Even if somebody managed to find a full description of exactly what Durand did to enchant the castle, you'd have to be able to replicate the whole thing without the slightest mistake to pull it off," Hermione agreed.
Ron grunted. "Not Crabbe and Goyle, then. They can't even tie their shoelaces best out of three."
Harry considered. "What about that Ferus bloke in the fifth year? He seems like a nasty enough piece of work."
"He's not exactly friendly with Malfoy," Hermione pointed out. "I think Malfoy thinks he's a threat to his authority."
"What authority?" Harry wondered with a snort.
"Well, remember what Crouch was like when he was pretending to be Mad-Eye Moody," Ron put in. "He really hated all the Death Eaters who weren't quite as fanatical as he was. Maybe Ferus doesn't like Malfoy because he's a selfish little tit who cares more about his own skin than anything else."
"There's no point guessing about it," Hermione said sensibly. "The important thing is to make sure that we solve all the clues as fast as possible, before the Death Eaters' agent on the inside can beat us to it. Harry, you need to tell us everything you remember about the place where you found the shield. It might give us a clue to what we're looking for with the other three items."
"Well..." he hesitated guiltily, and then was extremely grateful to see Flitwick coming across the classroom towards them. "I'll tell you after class."
Charms ended much too soon for his comfort, and they clustered together in a deserted corner of the library. "Come on, Harry," Hermione urged. "Describe everything you saw when you went down the secret passage."
"Well... I counted the pictures of monsters with tails, like I told you, until I got to a picture of a lion. I put out the light in my wand, and there was this glowing outline of a doorway. So I opened it with the Muggle magic word-"
"'Please'." Hermione shook her head at herself. "I can't believe I didn't think of that."
Ron leaned forward. "Anyway - what did you see when the secret door opened?"
This was the part where Harry squirmed awkwardly. "Er, it was... a sort of... study. With a big desk and red and gold carpet. I think it might have been... Godric Gryffindor's."
"What?" Ron's eyebrows shot up, as did the volume of his voice. "You found Godric Gryffindor's private study, and you didn't tell us?"
"It might not have been his!" he retorted defensively.
"Harry, why didn't you say?" Hermione demanded, looking hurt. "I assumed you'd just found it hanging on the wall or something, you didn't tell us it was in a secret place of Gryffindor's. It might be important!"
"I just wanted to keep it to myself for a while, all right?" Harry said hotly.
Now Ron looked hurt, and angry too. "Oh, what, you decided that you were going to keep all the clues to yourself, even though we're trying to solve this just as much as you are?"
"I just wanted to have a place where I could be by myself for a while!"
"Without us, you mean?"
Hermione snagged Ron's sleeve to calm him down. "Harry," she said, with a soft sympathy that he found even more infuriating than the angry accusations. "You know, you have this thing about trying to do everything all by yourself-"
He shot out of his chair. "Oh, yeah, I just love doing things by myself. I like being completely alone with all these responsibilities that no one else can do anything about. I just love it when the people who are supposed to care about me all go away so I can make a mess of things all by myself. That's why I got Sirius killed, because I just love doing things on my own so much!"
He stormed out of the library, leaving a rather stunned looking Hermione in his wake.
It was, surprisingly, Ron who came and found him up in the Owlery several hours later.
"Listen, Hermione's really upset about earlier," he said awkwardly.
"Good," said Harry bitterly, although he didn't really mean it. Ron came over and stood next to him, staring out at the winter sky.
"Look, I know I don't... I know we're not always good at saying anything about what you're going through," he said after a while. "I know I don't really understand any of it, and I probably never will, I just..." He broke off for a long moment. "I wanted to- I don't know if I ever thanked you properly for what you did last Christmas. You saved my dad's life. I don't know what we would have... well, if you hadn't-"
"If it hadn't been for me, he'd have never been in danger," Harry said darkly. He remembered with a shudder the horribly vivid dream in which he'd been the snake that had nearly brutally murdered Arthur Weasley.
"You don't know that! And anyway, you've done tons of other stuff. You helped rescue Ginny when she was trapped in the Chamber of Secrets-"
"I don't want to be anyone's hero!" Harry snapped irritably.
"We don't want you to be our hero!" Ron roared. He quieted down, and looked very serious. "We just want you to be our friend, Harry. That's all we want."
"Oh." Harry scuffed his toe awkwardly against the floor of the Owlery, feeling like an idiot. He was always lashing out at the people who were trying to help him the most. Why couldn't he control himself? "You are a really good friend, Ron," he said sincerely. "You and Hermione both. You're the best friends I could ever ask for."
There was a moment of warm but slightly embarrassed silence. Then Ron hastily blinked his suspiciously watery eyes, and thrust his hands into his pockets in a suitably manly way. "Anyway. I'll, er- I'll tell Hermione you said that, if you want."
"All right." It would be a great relief not to go through this with the considerably more emotional third member of their trio. "Thanks, Ron."
"No problem, mate." They relaxed into a slightly more companionable silence, as Ron found Pig in the mess of owls and gave the excitable little bird one of Harry's owl treats.
Harry glanced at him sideways, and grinned. "She was really impressed with you solving that bit of the clue," he said.
"Nah." Ron attempted to look casual, but the tips of his ears were pink.
"Really impressed. She looked at you as if you were a seven-volume history of wizard law. With appendices."
"She did not!" Ron looked uncertain whether to be enthralled or horrified by this version of events. Harry laughed, and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
"Come on. Let's go down and find Hermione."
She turned out to be waiting for them both outside the library. As soon as she saw Harry she launched herself at him, and promptly burst into tears. He patted her shoulder nervously. "Er... It's all right, Hermione, really." He looked to Ron for help, but he just stood back and made 'she's mental' gestures in the background.
"Oh, Harry, I know we shouldn't snap at you, and you're under so much pressure, and it's not fair that you have to go through all of this completely by yourself-"
She went on in this vein for quite some time, while Harry made vaguely soothing noises and wondered if there was some magic key to stopping this sort of thing that he should have figured out right now. Hermione was just beginning to calm down and stop babbling when Snape stalked past, and gave them all a suspicious glare.
"Five points from Gryffindor for public displays of affection," he said icily, and disappeared into the library. Ron choked in outrage, and Hermione straightened up and pulled away from Harry.
"He didn't say a thing when Millicent Bulstrode's sister was kissing her boyfriend in front of everybody outside Potions," she noted, drying her eyes. Harry wondered how it was that girls always seemed to have useful, practical things like tissues secreted away in their robes for every occasion.
"Who'd want to snog Veronica Bulstrode?"
"I don't know," Ron said reflectively. "She might have a face like a troll, but she does have a nice pair of-"
"Ron!" Hermione shot him a glare that appeared to include Harry simply on the basis that he was male and standing in the same general area. "Really. Are you always going to be this immature?" She brushed down her wrinkled robe and tossed her hair. "Come on, Harry. Let's go and look at this study you found."
Ron hung back to walk with Harry, and shook his head. "I don't know why she's so upset. It's not like she even likes Veronica Bulstrode-"
"Ron?"
"Yeah?"
"Now would be a good time to shut up."
"I know."
It was vaguely comforting, Harry reflected, to know that there was still somebody in this world who was even more clueless around girls than he was.
Harry was beginning to feel vaguely disquieted as he led the way into the secret passage under the Owlery, but he convinced himself that it was nothing more than nervousness that Hermione would find some vital clue and it would be all his fault that nobody had seen it until now. When he reached the mosaic of the lion, though, he saw that despite the fact that his wand was still lit, the outline of the doorway was clearly visible. It looked like somebody had been trying to prise at the edges, chipping all the tiles around the doorway.
"Did it look like that before, Harry?" Hermione asked nervously. He shook his head.
"It looks like somebody's been trying to get in." He extinguished his wand with a whisper. "Nox. Open, please."
The doorway grumbled open, but the study beyond was in darkness. Though the magical fire had sometimes burned down when he'd fallen asleep in there, it had always been there to greet him when he'd arrived before. Harry stepped inside nervously, wand at the ready.
To his relief, a fire once more sprung up in the hearth, and the study looked as welcoming as ever. Nothing was damaged or strewn around the room - but Harry could tell, from all the subtle changes in position, that someone other than him had been going through the study. "I think the room's been searched," he said.
The other two looked at him anxiously. "Does it look like anything's been taken?" Hermione asked. He shook his head.
"I don't think so. There wasn't much to take."
"It's just as well you found that shield when you did, Harry," Ron said solemnly.
"Yeah." He relaxed a little. "But it looks like somebody else is following the clues just like we are."
"Could it be the teachers?" Hermione suggested hesitantly. Harry frowned.
"We can't take that chance. It could be somebody else trying to solve the mystery too - but it could just as easily be one of the Death Eaters trying to stop us from solving it. After all, if the teachers knew when or where to look for the clues, wouldn't they have uncovered the one in the Gryffindor common room by now?"
They all shifted slightly guiltily. Harry wondered if they should have told the staff immediately, instead of trying to solve the clues themselves. But they'd solved the first one, hadn't they? And if the teachers had just taken it out of their hands and refused to let them help, the Death Eater in the castle might have found the Gryffindor shield instead of Harry.
"Well, even if You- Voldemort has someone trying to solve the clues too, at least we're in the lead," Ron said, perhaps following the same train of thought as Harry. But Hermione looked up, face serious.
"No we're not, Ron. Because we have to find all four of them to escape. They only have to find one of the items and stop us getting it to leave us trapped in here forever. We have to solve the second clue - and quickly."