Chapter 16

Mind-Reading

To get more information about the potion and the specifics of how it was to be used, Hermione went to the library and checked out a book from the forbidden part of the library. Harry and Ron were somewhat amazed at the fact that she was simply able to go and check the book out, asking the librarian to reverse the charms that would have normally caused the book to scream loudly upon being opened. The reason why she was able to check out a book from the forbidden section of the library was that her reputation as having received more Outsandings on her OWLs than anybody else for the past several decades greatly impressed the librarian.

Harry read over the instructions that it gave for reading somebody's mind when they were under the influence of the potion, and he had to admit that the instructions were exceptionally vague. Basically, what he understood was that once both he and Malfoy had taken the potion, then Harry, aside from having his own thoughts and stream of consciousness, would also be privy to whatever Malfoy happened to be thinking, feeling, and sensing. He himself would appear to others to be unconscious, and would lose all sensory perception from his own body. Once he was receiving Malfoy's stream of conscious, if he wanted to find out anything, all he would have to do would be to ask questions focused towards Malfoy's stream of consciousness. He wasn't exactly sure how he was expected to direct questions toward a stream of consciousness, but he expected that he'd figure it out once he got there. Besides, the potion was already made, it was too late to back out now.

The plan for slipping Malfoy the potion was somewhat more complicated than their plan to get Crabbe and Goyle to take the sleeping draught in their second year. They figured that Malfoy, who was four years older, smarter than Crabbe and Goyle in the first place, and also keenly aware of the fact that he was making enemies within the school at an alarming rate, would be more wary than Crabbe and Goyle had been of eating food that he randomly found in hallways or stairwells.

They had wracked their brains for several hours, while the potion was brewing (they had gone back to their favorite potions-brewing location, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom). Of course, this time, they brought Ginny along with them, and Myrtle seemed somewhat pleased to find out that she was the girl who had been causing the basilisk to attack several years before. She seemed to be excited at the prospect of Ginny being an unwitting hand of the Dark Lord, because she figured it would have caused Ginny no end of guilt, and thus, for at least some amount of time, make her as miserable as Myrtle herself. However, Myrtle was not pleased at all when she found out that Ginny and Harry had started dating. "You can do better than that," Myrtle opined. She seemed to be under the impression that dating a dead, bathroom-haunting girl would be better than dating Ginny. Harry disagreed fervently.

Anyway, they were making no progress coming up with any way to get Malfoy to drink the potion. Finally, Hermione said, "All right, let's think about this logically."

"Erm... that's your strong-suit, really," stated Ron, matter-of-factly.

"Well... if we can't put a drink at a random point in the school and pretend that we lost it... what if we got it into his drinking goblet in the dining hall somehow?" asked Hermione.

"How in the world are we going to do that?" asked Ginny.

"Yeah, that sounds impossible," complained Ron. "I thought you said you were going to be thinking logically."

"Wait..." said Harry, after thinking for awhile, "I think I might know someone who can do that."

Half an hour later, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had made their way down to the kitchen to find an audience with Dobby.

"Dobby," Harry started gravely, once Dobby had stopped what he was working on so as to listen closely to what Harry had to say, "there is a very bad wizard hiding somewhere in this school. And nobody can find him. But we think that we know someone who knows where he is, and we have-" Harry was cut off by Ginny nudging him in the ribs. "What?" Harry asked irritably.

"Hold on," cautioned Ginny. "First of all, we need to make sure he's not going to tell anyone this. Dobby," she continued, "what Harry did here is kind of... breaking the rules. But for a good reason. So you can't tell anybody what Harry did, or he might get in trouble. And if he gets in trouble, and isn't able to do what he's trying to do, then this evil wizard might do something to hurt Harry. So you've got to do what Harry asks you, but not tell anybody about it. Okay?"

Dobby nodded vigorously, "Dobby will be glad to helping Harry fight evil wizards. Harry Potter is being very brave!"

"Okay, good then," said Harry. "We've got a potion that we need Draco Malfoy to drink. He always sits in the same seat at dinner, so all we need you to do when we give you the potion is make it magically appear with the pumpkin juice that always magically appears in the goblets at dinner. Can you do that for us?"

Dobby nodded vigorously again. "Dobby is not liking his old masters very much. Dobby knows they is bad, bad wizards. Dobby is helping to fight the bad wizards."

"Thanks, Dobby," Harry smiled. "And just for this, next time we go to Hogsmeade, I'll buy you some new socks."

Dobby beamed happily.

It was the last Friday evening in November when they opted to put their plan into action. Harry had decided that he should take the potion in his dormitory, so as to be away from prying eyes when he entered into his unconscious state. Ron decided to stay there with him, in case anybody came into the dormitory to find the unconscious Harry. Ginny and a very nervous looking Hermione were to go down to the kitchen to give Dobby the potion.

"Okay," said Hermione in the common room before they left for the kitchen, taking the slightly darker-colored potion, "this is the one for the person who's mind will be read. This means that you will be able to read his mind, but he will not know that you're there. You sure you can do this Harry?" asked Hermione, still concerned.

"Of course," Harry said, sounding more confident than he felt. "I read what the book said to do, and it sounds like it'd be a pretty much natural thing. I just need to mentally ask Malfoy questions to get him to tell me what I want to know."

After the girls left, Harry and Ron went up to their room and made small talk for about 15 minutes. Then, Harry's piece of enchanted parchment, which they had sitting on the bed, read, in Hermione's handwriting, "Malfoy's taken a drink. Let's get this over with, if we must."

Harry braced himself for what he figured would be quite the mental experience, and gulped down the potion. As he drank, Ron was saying something about wishing him luck, but as the potion took effect, Harry's hearing gave out, as did his eye-sight and all other senses. For about two seconds, he was in a state of psychic limbo where his conscious simply existed free from any of his senses.

Then... he... not heard... perceived, a thought that wasn't his own. Pumpkin juice tastes kind of weird tonight. Suddenly, not only did Harry have access to Malfoy's thoughts, but he also could see what he saw, hear what he heard, et cetera. He was sitting at the Slytherin table in the dining hall, across from Crabbe and Goyle, and next to Pansy Parkinson.

Crabbe and Goyle really need to learn some table manners thought Malfoy, for the third time that dinner. And Pansy should wear some deodorant.

As vaguely interesting as it was for Harry to eavesdrop on Malfoy's mental insults toward his housemates, he had a job to do. He tried to focus a question toward Malfoy. Where is wormtail? thought Harry.

That's a good question, where is that git? asked Malfoy mentally to himself, apparently not realizing that the thought was coming from somewhere outside of his own head. Harry supposed he should be feeling triumphant that he was able to succeed in asking Malfoy a question, but he was starting to feel overwhelmed mentally. It was hard juggling his own stream of consciousness with somebody else's, and he felt that he wasn't actually reading all of Malfoy's mind, just sort of, the tip of the consciousness. And even this was exhausting him. Harry somehow sensed that he could not hold on to the connection much longer, and tried to focus as hard as he could to hear Malfoy's stream of consciousness as he tried to answer the question of where Wormtail was.

Harry saw as Malfoy's gaze shifted so that he was looking at the Gryffindor table. His eyes combed the table before coming to rest on one of the tables where Creevey brothers, Neville, and Seamus Finnigan were sitting. Harry didn't understand how this table related to the question that he had just asked about where Wormtail was. He couldn't see a rat hiding under the table or anything. He was trying to focus his mental energy on sending Malfoy another question along these lines, but suddenly, the world went black. For a moment, he was floating in that mental limbo again, in which his mind was floating along by itself, and then even his consciousness decided to take a hiatus. Harry was unconscious.

A/N All right, that was a pretty hard chapter to write, but, I think it turned out... well, hopefully okay in the end. Let me know what you think, as reviews are what keeps me motivated.