Early the next morning, Harry supposed he should have spent more time with the Explicatrix to see if he couldn't figure out what it does. He was quickly distracted from it when Ron threw his cloak at him, telling him to get dressed so they could get to Diagon Alley and the bank, Gringott's.
Dumbledore had all the students that needed to visit their vault go down to Hogsmeade where Harry would use Raides to Disapparate everyone. It was quite a hefty Disapparation; several hundred students needed to go and when they arrived in Diagon Alley, one student had accidently been splinched. Harry quickly resolved the situation with a charm. That was the limit, perhaps, of the staff's power. Fifty people, sure, Hermione suggested, but not five hundred. They would be Disapparating back in groups...
When Ron caught sight of the sheer amount of golden Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts still in Harry's vault, Hermione put a hand behind him to stop him from hitting the ground as he fainted ("Oh, honestly," she said).
"I told you I don't have a problem paying for the both of us," said Harry, grinning and counting out sixty galleons to add to his money pouch. Harry would be paying for Ginny as well.
They visited Hermione's vault and while it had more than Ron's, it had far less than Harry's. When they went to visit Sirius' vault, Ron fainted again.
A few short days after, Professor Flitwick took seventh years down to Hogsmeade to practice Disapparating. Double Potions had been changed into a Potions and Charms. Harry, Ron and Hermione were particularly nervous, especially Harry who had found himself splinched once and didn't want it to happen again. Neville was to go first and Harry was clutching Raides tightly in his hand, ready to burst out with the charm to put Neville right should something go wrong.
But for the entire time tiny little Professor Flitwick had devoted to him, he couldn't do a thing. Harry suspected Neville wasn't trying very hard but he couldn't blame him; the second year that had been splinched let everyone know she was now never going to try to Disapparate and made Harry take her back to Hogsmeade alone.
Ron was extremely anxious to try it on his own and successfully Disapparated -- but was twenty feet from his destination and found himself on top of a building. He didn't dare want to try Disapparating off and had Harry come and get him with Raides.
During Hermione's turn, she had Disapparated exactly six feet away from her destination and was missing all but one strand of her hair. Technically, Professor Flitwick cut in, she had splinched herself but had done so in a very lucky fashion.
At Harry's go, Raides insisted Harry try again without a wand. Against his better judgement, he agreed.
"Deliquesco!" he bellowed like an elephant, hoping for dear life to not get --
"Splinched again!" screeched Ron, his voice drowned out completely by Harry's screaming.
Harry, feeling nothing but a sharp pain along his right leg, which was two feet away from him, heard Raides screaming at him inside his head, "You can fix it yourself, you know, you don't need me."
But Harry screamed back at her "HOW?"
"I don't know how but you can, I know you can."
"THAT HELPS!"
At this point, Professor Flitwick picked up Harry's severed leg and fainted. Harry closed his eyes, trying his best to concentrate on fixing it himself while the class stared horrorstruck. Whether it was to stem the pain or really to concentrate was anyone's guess -- he was clutching his stump of a leg and rolling on the ground. Suddenly, a sting that reminded him of what Raides had done before now entered his hand and the next moment, his leg was rushing along the ground on its own and reattached itself. Staring, Harry completely forgot that just a second ago he had been feeling something not unlike the effects of the Cruciatus Curse.
Hermione revived Professor Flitwick to tell him what happened and he immediately gave Gryffindor twenty-five points for Harry's troubles. Harry himself had to talk about this with Ron and Hermione later.
"I don't have any ideas, Harry, honestly," said Hermione while they were trying to do their Potions homework. Raides was up in Gryffindor Tower, lifeless, as the Staff. Harry made her go lifeless the second she had finished eating her dinner.
"She said I could break out of the Cruciatus Curse, too," said Harry, having a hard time trying to write about how to make the very complicated Pain Stopper Potion.
"You can fight off the Imperius Curse, Harry," said Hermione cautiously, "but I don't know about Cruciatus."
Ron looked up from his Potions notes and said curiously, staring some place to the left of Ginny, a faraway look on his face, "Wonder if that has anything to do with Harry not getting killed by Avada Kedavra," and then he went back to his notes.
Harry glared at his flaming red hair. But at the same time, he couldn't stop himself. Did it? He didn't exactly know how he could fight the Imperius Curse; all he knew was that a voice spoke in the back of his head each and every time he had been hit by it and eventually, he broke out of it entirely. The Cruciatus Curse, on the other hand, would require a lot more force of mind and Harry had absolutely no clues where to start on how to fight off the Killing Curse...
Dumbledore announced that the trip to the United States was ready to go and they would be leaving Hogwarts on the twenty-fourth, to arrive in the magnificent dormitories of Laurence Patrick Hayden's wizard school. There was a proper Hogsmeade visit that same week. All classes had been canceled from Tuesday on to provide for the trip and many students' parents had turned up, especially the younger students. Lucius Malfoy, one of Harry's least favorite people, among them. He was accompanying his dear son on the Hogsmeade trip that day and Harry, Ron and Hermione were very successful in avoiding the pair of them. As he promised Sirius, everywhere Harry went, he was carrying the Staff of Cybele in his hand, conveniently hanging bags from Raides' tail.
They went to go visit Fred and George who were very upset that they couldn't partake on Hogwarts' trip. They did have words of comfort, though, saying that the school regularly held wizarding duels and Quidditch games complete with an indoor, or rather, underground, stadium. They said that Hogwarts was going to travel by means of ancient magic: Gates. Raides would be involved.
"Gates?" said Harry blankly. "I'm going to have to conjure a Gate?"
"What do they look like?" said Ron excitedly. "We've never had that mentioned in class."
"I heard some old bloke and his wife talking about it one afternoon," Fred explained. "There are many more ways to travel long distances, though. Disapparation is a relatively new thing. The old way of doing it is simply Teleportation. Much flashier but a lot harder. Someone tried to do it a few years ago, I read, but he died trying to do it. I'm not even sure the ancients had a handle on it."
Hermione gave a look of deep interest and Harry had a feeling she was going to go read up on it.
"Gates, on the other hand," said George excitedly, "don't have a color. It's just sort of like a window to where you're going to end up floating in midair. Hayden's school has them set up all over the campus because it's so big and there's no way you're going to travel around in a place like that by walking. They used to use magic carpets, you know, but someone once thought it would be nice to bring one of them home. Her Muggle husband, thinking it was an old rug, sold it and you can guess from there. They also used to use high speed broomsticks but they costed too much to keep replacing after they wore out. Besides, Gates are instant and brooms, no matter how fast, aren't. It's not like Hayden's doesn't have the wizards and witches to support the Gates."
"And they're much cooler," Fred agreed.
"Oh, one more thing," said George in a more serious voice, breaking the silence while everyone was thinking about Gates, "you know why they're doing it? The reason they're having this trip?"
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged curious looks.
"Get everyone's mind off You-Know-Who," said George dramatically. Neither Fred nor George still managed to say Voldemort yet... Harry didn't bother asking Ron if they looked up to him for saying the name. "Dumbledore and friends got the idea over the summer. He was talking to Professor McGonagall about it in here one day."
"He was buying some fake wands," smiled Fred.
"Can't blame them," said Hermione. "I mean, you saw those two people running out," she went on, looking between Ron and Harry. "One girl fainted. Someone got a letter a few weeks back saying their parents had been killed," she told Fred and George and glanced shortly at Harry who was looking indifferent. "The Dark Mark had been over their house when a Muggle saw it."
"Someone had better stop him for good before the Muggles notice everything," said Fred and this time all of them glanced shortly at Harry who was trying his best to still look indifferent.
Harry, saying he wanted to go visit Honeyduke's so he could get a minute alone, stepped out of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. But the second he stepped out, Ron and Hermione joined him. The entire time, people had been curiously looking at Harry. He supposed that, while the students and teachers at Hogwarts were over Dudley, they were not. Some were looks of deepest loathing, others were of concern and others were big smiles. It was creepy to say the very least and he certainly hoped they still didn't suspect him of doing it on purpose -- though that witch carrying the eyes of newt and staring daggers at him wasn't comforting.
Harry started to think that going to Hogsmeade wasn't such a good idea for his conscience.
"Wanna go up to the mountains where we met Sirius that time?" suggested Hermione, taking note of the various looks being given to Harry. "You know, get away from..."
"Sure," said Harry.
And on they walked up High Street towards the mountains in the back of Hogsmeade where Sirius, before his name had been cleared, was hiding out.
"All these people staring at me," said Harry as they climbed over the stile at the end of the street and began the trek up the mountains, the sun bearing down on their necks but not making them hot thanks to the cool breeze, "you'd think I did it on purpose."
"Did what on purpose?" Ron asked.
"Dudley," said Harry in a small voice.
"Are you still on about that?" said Hermione instantly.
"Of course!" said Harry, feeling generally upset. He hated Dudley, sure, but how many people could really think Harry would want to kill him? "Why else is everyone staring at me? I think next Hogsmeade visit I'm going to either go invisible or not at all."
"It's good to get away from the castle, Harry," said Hermione thoughtfully. "What good's it going to do moping around inside of it?"
"I guess."
Though it had ended on a good note, they didn't talk for the next twenty minutes as they climbed through the rocky mountains, higher and higher, getting slightly winded. Harry kept going over what could possibly happen next that could be so terrible when his thoughts had stopped wandering because they finished climbing and saw a familiar fissure in a rock. Crawling through it, they found themselves inside another familiar place -- a dimly lit cave.
"I wonder whatever happened to Buckbeak," said Ron.
"Weren't you listening to Sirius during the Yule Ball? Sirius said he let Buckbeak go in the forbidden forest," Harry reminded Ron.
"And that was when he asked if you and Cho had any marriage plans," said Ron, smiling broadly.
"What about you two?" said Harry, smiling broadly himself which put an end to Ron's smile. "It was funny, you know," he went on, sitting down on the rocky wall, putting Raides down and watching her transform into the great golden and scarlet lion, "knowing you two for six years and all along you've had a crush on each other. How long, anyway?" he asked, looking up at the two of them, still smiling.
Harry did notice that both Ron and Hermione had been holding hands since they left the castle and they'd been much more talkative since the Yule Ball. Ron, particularly, since he had barely been able to get a word out to Hermione during the day before the Ball...
Then -- and Harry didn't expect it but he was laughing to himself the entire time -- the two of them went on talking about the finer points of how one or the other of them had been starting to like the other but was too shy to admit it. Ron confessed that he had been nervous around her their entire fourth year. Likewise, Hermione confessed that she went to the first Yule Ball with Viktor Krum to make Ron jealous because he hadn't asked her up untill it was almost too late.
Just as Hermione was getting to their sixth year, she stopped dead at the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer. And then a cold, drawling voice echoed in the cave.
"And who might we find here, Draco?" said Lucius Malfoy.
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged glances then turned their heads towards the opening in the rock.
"How did they know we were up here?" Hermione hissed.
"Followed us?" Ron whispered back. Both of them were hoping they wouldn't be heard.
"Well, well, well," said Mr. Malfoy as he stepped inside the cave. He looked quite like his son, both of them having whitish blonde hair and pale, pointed faces.
Raides gave him one nasty look that Mr. Malfoy apparently wasn't afraid of, then leapt into the air, getting consumed by misty gray smoke and emerging as the grand Staff of Cybele, falling right into Harry's hand.
"Such a powerful staff," sneered Mr. Malfoy coldly, the corner of his upper lip curling with delight.
"What's it to you?" asked Harry, staring uncertainly up at Mr. Malfoy and clutching Raides firmly in his hand. "What are you doing up here?"
Neither he nor Ron or Hermione knew what to expect. They hadn't, thankfully, spoken to Malfoy's father in quite some time and hoped to not have another unpleasant experience like it again.
"Oh, nothing, Potter, nothing at all," replied Mr. Malfoy, now wearing a cold stare. His son was behind him, clearly enjoying the moment. "I do say, have you and that Mudblood lover Dumbledore found out why -- what's her name again, Raides? -- was hidden for such a long, long time?"
Raides was showing her contempt towards Mr. Malfoy very outwardly by staring daggers at him, quite like how that witch had been at Harry. Mr. Malfoy seemed to ignore it, though Harry was sure he shot a scared eye at her. But his flicker of fright flicked right back to pure venom as his eyes ran over Harry again.
"Some magic she held, some 'magic so forbidden' that she's capable of," said Hermione, not taking her eyes off the pale wizard now walking towards Harry. She knew Mr. Malfoy had a certain hatred towards her -- a very strong one at that -- being Muggle-born but she didn't seem to care any more about that than the rancorous gaze of hatred being given to her by Draco. The Malfoys hated anyone born of pure Muggle descent and Harry knew very well that, as purebloods, they considered themselves above everyone else. "And we don't know what it is," she said fiercely.
"And we don't care to use, either," said Ron.
There was a good minute of painful silence while Mr. Malfoy gazed Harry up and down. Harry himself stood up, now clutching Raides for comfort and walking towards Ron and Hermione.
"Well?" he said blankly and loudly. "Why are you here? What d'you want?"
"Ah, Potter, yes," Mr. Malfoy said lazily. "I recently caught word of your Mudblood cousin's death. Trust me, there's no loss there and you probably agree, don't you?" Mr. Malfoy was wearing quite a disgusting, to Harry, smile. "I just had to see for myself if the rumors were true?"
"What rumors?"
"That you killed him, of course!"
Harry, who had been staring like Raides for the past few minutes, now dropped his eyes to the floor and looked around, a dull twinkle in his eye. When it came to the truth, he did kill Dudley, but it wasn't on purpose. All he wanted to know was what Mr. Malfoy going to reply to the answer with.
"I did," he said sheepishly, "but it wasn't on purpose!" he added loudly, his voice echoing slightly in the cave.
"As you might have noticed, quite a few of Hogsmeade's inhabitants don't -- really -- believe that," said Mr. Malfoy in a very oily voice, his cold grin firmly in place.
"He didn't," said Hermione to Harry's defense, "and it's their problem if they don't believe the truth!"
"You sure it wasn't on accident, Potter? Slip of the finger, an act of the unconscious? Really wanted to but trying to make yourself believe you didn't? You have heard the rumors of that staff of yours being cursed and leading its users towards Dark tendencies? Not that we'd take you, Potter," he added quietly.
At once, the crystal disappeared from Raides' mouth.
"I AM -- NOT -- CURSED!" thundered Raides in an extremely terrifying growl which made everyone clamp their hands over their ears and sending a shiver down even Harry's spine.
"Are you sure, staff of Cybele? You've been gone such a long time! And you had your memory wiped. Surely you would have remembered your 'magic so forbidden' if you can remember you aren't cursed?"
Harry sat back down and threw Raides into the air like a spear. She transformed into the great golden and scarlet lion. This time, both Malfoys recoiled involuntarily and she walked up to them threateningly, her scarlet tail held high in the air in a dignified fashion.
"I have an excellent memory," she growled, "far better than any mere human," she said scathingly, "and my master" -- Harry felt very strange as she called him her master -- "is acting no different then when he first released me."
"If your memory is so top notch," said Mr. Malfoy, probably more bravely than he was feeling, "then how come you can't remember a damn thing?"
Raides growled so loudly that Harry clamped his hands over his ears again. She then launched her front paws upon Mr. Malfoy, knocking him down and roared, "DON'T YOU EVER SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!"
Harry, Ron and Hermione all looked at each other and then at the lion bearing down on Mr. Malfoy, her powerful jaw inches from his face. She may not be able to use magic but with a set of teeth like that, Harry didn't think she would need it.
"She can be so nice," said Hermione in a voice quiet enough because she really didn't want Raides to hear her, "but she can be so vile." At this point, she was even frightening Harry.
"R-Raides I think you ought to go," said Harry, though he knew Raides would never hurt him, Ron or Hermione. "Ron, Hermione, take her outside and let me deal with Malfoy."
"You should kill him, young ancient," said Raides, tearing her evil eyes away from Mr. Malfoy to Harry and receeding back to her mysterious self. "He is not worth the ground he walks on. Cybele would have done away with him long ago," she said coldly. "I suggest Light of Faith."
"Raides," said Harry pointedly as he repeated to himself that she would never hurt him. Her look resembled how Harry envisioned her when he first saw her transform into the great lion: a very frightening one. "Listen to them until I see you again."
With a meaningful nod to Harry, both Ron and Hermione called Raides over to them and exited through the fissure in the rock.
Mr. Malfoy got to his feet, straightened his robes and, with Raides gone, now looked as venomous as ever. At least Harry now knew all he needed to do was threaten him with Raides to get him to behave. Score one for the ancient wizards, he thought to himself...
"Draco, perhaps you ought to leave us as well," said Mr. Malfoy, glancing over at his son. "Perhaps you ought to go study to make up for the F you're getting in Potions or tell your mother why you messed up your dress robes." Draco tried to say something but Mr. Malfoy just said, "Leave!" When his son was gone, he then said to Harry, "Loyal to you, is she? Make you feel uncomfortable, doesn't she?"
"She does a lot of things but the best one has --" but Harry suddenly stopped speaking, for his eyes had shut all on their own and Mr. Malfoy recoiled slightly on the words Harry began to hear next.
"Fides in flamma, fides in ipse," a voice began to chant and Harry, who would have been paying more attention to them, would have recognized it as the words to Light of Faith but currently Harry was reliving a terrifying experience.
The blackness before his eyes had made his legs give way though he wasn't sure why. It all died away as a swirl of color swam before him, forming into a picture of Ron and Hermione, Raides at their side with Draco right behind them. They couldn't hear him, he couldn't help them. Malfoy had his wand pointed right at Ron's head and was chanting the words to a spell Harry couldn't make out. Draco's skin glowed a perfect white, the white of the Mark of Ancients and the blue haze of Clades Ultimus erupted in the path of Ron, Hermione and Raides. The blue haze grew larger and larger, so large it engulfed nearby buildings, exploding them like a huge bomb had gone off inside of them. The horrific spray of blood and guts that followed its contact with Ron, Hermione and Raides made Harry nearly give his breakfast up.
"Accio caeles intus venia," the voice continued to chant.
Malfoy was laughing and he walked over to Ron's head, kicking it down High Street. He threw his wand down and his skin returned to normal. A green light tore across Harry's vision and he saw for a split second a terrified look on Mr. Malfoy's face before his vision died out again, plunging him into total blindness.
"Ambio iaculor in comae exsuscito ad aborior absolvere!" the voice finished chanting and Harry's eyes opened again to see what had become of Mr. Malfoy.
Three pearly white balls, all parallel to the floor, appeared around Mr. Malfoy's head at shoulder width, forming a circle. Each of them was about as big as his head and they began to slowly spin. A wind kicked up, blowing down and sending the pearly white balls down with it. As they crashed into the ground, they exploded upon contact, sending thousands of other similar balls in every which direction, passing through stone and Harry alike. A bright light erupted from the middle of Mr. Malfoy and as he gave one long, earsplitting scream, he fell to the floor. He was dead.
Harry got to his feet, wand now clutched in his hand and his other firmly wrapped around the Order of Merlin plaque. His stomach dropped out of him. He was dumbstruck. He was beyond horrified. He had absolutely no clue what to do, where to go or what to think. Mr. Malfoy had died right in front of him and he had just had one of the dreams he'd had under the influence of the start of a permanent Imperius.
How! he cried in his head, I don't have the Mark of Ancients!
He felt like disappearing, like grabbing onto Raides and Disapparating himself straight to Privet Drive... and then he remembered that Dudley had died not more than a month back and any hopes -- if they could be called that -- of finding safety in Privet Drive, were gone along with his marbles. Harry took a hard long look at the cold and dead eyes of the wizard splayed on the dank cave floor in front of him, at the blonde hair, the frightened expression on his face and the wand laying just out of reach of his hand. Mr. Malfoy had clearly tried to defend himself. But against who? Or, more nastily, what?
But now panic was well beyond setting in and Harry couldn't stay there forever. His knees were weak, his arms were heavy and his breath was hard and fast.
"Raides," he muttered to himself, choking on the words, and then, "RAIDES!" he roared to himself inside his head.
"Harry?" he heard Raides inside his head.
"Raides take Ron and Hermione and... a-and come back here," he said weakly (even inside his head), "NOW!"
Raides didn't respond, probably sensing that Harry urgently needed her. Harry closed his eyes and put his hands over them, wishing, but not believing, that if he couldn't see it, it wasn't really true. Two people dead in two months and he had been directly responsible for the first one. Would Ron and Hermione believe he hadn't done it? He knew Raides would believe him, no questions asked, but what good was her word, the word of an ancient staff that would listen to anything Harry said, true or not?
Taking his hands off his eyes and looking down at himself, his pants had been torn at the knees and both of his hands were bleeding where he caught his fall. He clasped his hands together, letting the Phoenix Bracelet on his wrist heal the wounds before doing the same to his knees and then performing the Sewing Charm on his pants. While it looked like he hadn't been hurt physically anymore, there was a lot of emotional pain coming on...
Harry took a seat up against the cave wall again, impatiently awaiting the return of Ron, Hermione and Raides.
When they could see him from the break in the rock, they took one look at him and Hermione said, very curiously, "Harry, what's wrong?"
Harry couldn't even say it and so he pointed a trembling finger at the spread-eagle figure of Mr. Malfoy. Hermione, Ron and Raides took one look at him.
Hermione screamed, clapping her hands to her mouth, her eyes expanding to the size of golf balls. Ron's reaction was to simply take a breath so deep Harry thought his lungs might explode, clapping a fist to his mouth and turning away. Raides, Harry was unhappy to see, was simply grinning mischievously.
"Harry," said Hermione weakly, "Harry you didn't -- you wouldn't --?"
Harry closed his eyes again, buried his face in his hands and could do nothing more than shake his head. Hermione then turned to Ron, burying her own face in his shoulder and proceeded to cry her eyes out. Ron, overcome by shock, let himself back into the cave wall (next to Harry), Hermione going with him, and put both of his arms around her.
"Harry, you killed someone!" Hermione screeched loudly.
"I DIDN'T -- KILL HIM!" Harry bellowed but then his throat got caught up with his heart beating in it and he couldn't elaborate, very much wanting to tell them about how it happened.
"But he's dead! There was no one else here but the two of you! Harry, oh what are we going to do?"
"Harry," said Raides softly and calmly, walking up to him and resting her golden head on his knees, "what happened?"
She picked up the plaque around his neck with her tail and dropped it on top of his hands. He found he could speak again, though it was hard and told them about the haunting vision.
"You're joking, no, you're kidding," said Ron flatly once he'd finished. "That's not true."
"You think I'm lying?" said Harry angrily. "D'you really think I want to go through this again? GOD, RON, IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WHEN IT WAS ALL IN MY HEAD BUT LOOK AT HIM, HE'S DEAD!"
Harry let out a groan that was a lot like the one he had let out after he'd found out he drank unicorn blood, the same one of self-torment.
"Why do they put him through this!" said Ron loudly. "Why don't they just kill him?"
"RON!" screeched Hermione indignantly.
"WHAT D'YOU WANT ME TO SAY?" Ron shouted back.
"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP?" Harry roared. He banged a fist against his head, hoping that if he hit hard enough, he'd be able to knock some sense into himself. "Look, he's dead. There's nothing we can do about it. What are we going to do with him? Leave him here? Say he died up here by himself? Someone probably saw him and us coming up here! Where's dear old Draco?"
"He left for Honeyduke's when we said we were going back," said Ron. "You're worried that it's going to look suspicious that he was up alone with you when he died?"
"OF COURSE I AM!" Harry bellowed, losing his head again. "I dunno what to do," he then said sheepishly.
"Where's Dumbledore?" said Hermione, doing her very best to stem her tears.
"I can't believe this is happening," Harry muttered darkly to himself.
"Back at the castle," said Ron, making a feeble attempt at calming himself down. "A fat lot of help he is. One of us is going to have to stay here. We can't just all go, it's going to look suspicious."
"And then Draco's going to ask where his dad is," said Harry.
"Speaking of which, Potter, where is my --"
Malfoy had walked in but he took no more than one step, looking in the direction of Raides' grinning, golden face to catch sight of the dead image of his father. He took a look at Harry then Raides, and doubled back out of the cave at top speed, tripping on a rock.
"That's just what we need," said Harry miserably. "He's going to tell everyone that I did it."
"Forget Draco!" shouted Hermione, flapping her arms helplessly. "Him! What are we going to do with him!" said Hermione, pointing -- but not looking -- at the body.
"You can't still possess him, can you?" suggested Ron timidly. Harry did nothing but glare at him. "I was thinking maybe you could walk him to Hogwarts -- oh forget it."
"Yes, Ron," said Hermione sharply, "forget it."
"I'll -- I'll stay here," said Harry dully, but --
"No, Harry, we'll stay," said Hermione. "You can get back to the castle faster. Use that Haste Charm on yourself again."
"Why can't he just use Foresight?" Ron asked.
"I'm not using that, no way," said Harry firmly. "This looks bad enough and I don't need Dumbledore to think I'm abusing Raides again."
Hermione pulled herself away from Ron's shoulder and pulled Harry to his feet. Harry took a deep breath, still clutching the Order of Merlin plaque. Looking up at Ron and Hermione, he wished Cho was there.
"All right then," he said, his voice uncontrollably shaky, "you two stay here. D'you want Raides? Just -- I don't know -- just in case? I'll -- I'll be fine on my own."
Hermione had let herself slide down against the cave wall again, cringing, next to Ron.
"We are in so much trouble," she said, tears leaking out of her eyes again.
"You are not in any trouble!" said Harry loudly and sighing. "Forget it. Raides?"
He held his hand out and she leapt into it as the staff. Harry simply pointed the crystal at his feet, waving it around a little bit until the familiar red light shot out of it and at his feet. Raides transformed back into the great golden and scarlet lion.
"Stay here, Raides, and listen to everything they say until I get back, okay? If they," Harry said softly, hardly daring to believe they might need Raides for this, "if they tell you to attack someone, do it."
Raides merely nodded as did Ron and Hermione. It hadn't exactly hit them yet -- but it sure did hit Harry -- that whoever killed Mr. Malfoy was probably lurking about.
"All right," said Harry, "I'm going. Just stay close to Raides."
Ron and Hermione nodded again while Raides stood a little taller, sticking her scarlet tail in the air again, putting on one mean face and going near Ron and Hermione.
With one last look at the pair of them, Harry ran as fast as his legs would take him which, with the Haste Charm, was quite fast. He had reached the lawn of Hogwarts in just a few minutes, suddenly feeling very tired as he had been after chasing the unicorn but he had to keep going. When Harry reached the castle doors, he climbed stair after stair, not stopping until he reached the floor where Dumbledore's office was. Staring at the ugly stone gargoyle before the staircase, Harry realized that he had no idea what the password was and didn't have Raides to force the gargoyle to open up.
And then Harry was met with a very scary idea. Could he possess the gargoyle to make it open up? He didn't like the idea, but he really needed to get inside Dumbledore's office. Concentrating as hard as he possibly could on it, he felt his body fall to the effects of possession and when he awoke, he was staring at the unconscious figure of himself. As the stone gargoyle, Harry moved aside and then tried his best to get himself back into his own body... and it worked.
Feeling very strange and very guilty, Harry stepped onto the rising staircase and when he was at the top, then banged frantically on the oak door leading into the office with the brass knocker.
A voice inside Harry recognized as Dumbledore's called, "Yes? Who's there?"
"Professor," Harry said, trying to sound calm but not knowing how well his effort sounded, "it's Harry. This is -- sort of urgent."
The oak door opened and inside the office, was Professor Dumbledore, looking as old and weary as ever. For a split second, Dumbledore was smiling but then he caught the grave expression on Harry's face and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I don't think I can explain it too well so I'll just show you," said Harry, his effort failing him and his voice becoming shaky again. "It's up in the mountains in the back of Hogsmeade. Ron, Hermione and Raides are waiting."
Harry expected Dumbledore to ask him a slight explanation but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he pulled out his wand from inside his robes, pointed it at Harry and shouted, "Remedium impluo!" and he immediately felt much less tired.
Harry then pulled out his own wand, casting the Haste Charm on both himself and Dumbledore. He started running but Dumbledore hadn't moved an inch.
"WELL," Harry shouted, but then caught himself and said more quietly, "Well, come on. It really is urgent."
"Harry," said Dumbledore, staring at Harry like he had grown a third eye, "that Charm is well beyond ordinary wizarding level. I myself have trouble with it."
"Lucius Malfoy just died," said Harry flatly, feeling that he needed to set Dumbledore's priorities straight. This caused Dumbledore to go as white as his beard. "I think you ought to see this for yourself."
Without another word, Dumbledore followed Harry at top speed out of the castle, over the sloping lawns of Hogwarts, into Hogsmeade and up the mountains, the wind whipping their robes as they ran flat out. Dumbledore stepped through the fissure after Harry and was able to say nothing more than, "Please explain."
Harry went through the same explanation to Dumbledore as he did to Ron and Hermione. He told Dumbledore how Mr. Malfoy had insulted Raides and she had threatened him right back then how he and Mr. Malfoy had told everyone else to leave. Harry went on about how he had gone through a dream, telling him what he saw in it and that he knew right away it wasn't true and when he was out of it, someone had casted Light of Faith
When Harry finished, Dumbledore said, "Harry, are you positively sure that you cannot make the Mark of Ancients glitter?"
"I TRIED!" Harry shouted, not caring that he was yelling at Dumbledore, who thankfully didn't seem remotely offended. "We all thought the same thing when I blew up on several people a few weeks ago! I don't have any ideas. I'm going through the same mood swings I was two years ago, I'm using magic that's supposed to be way beyond me and even without a wand! I had that same sort of dream when Mr. Malfoy was attacked. I just don't have any idea," Harry finished miserably, turning to the cave wall and banging the bottom of a fist painfully on it.
Dumbledore surveyed Harry through his half-moon spectacles just as he had done when Harry had first seen the Explicatrix, from the top of his untidy black hair down to the black shoes on his feet. It was a searching look -- not the least bit comforting -- but Harry couldn't see this as his back was to Dumbledore.
"Harry, I must say I do believe you would never intentionally hurt someone," Dumbledore assured him, "except perhaps Voldemort," he said, smiling grimly for a brief moment. "I also do believe that you would not, unless severely provoked, abuse Raides though I cannot deny my -- uncomfortableness, shall I say -- towards this last belief given the scenario with -- however..."
Harry took note that Dumbledore stopped himself from mentioning the incident with his dad's Invisibility Cloak. He took his fist off the wall and turned around, facing Dumbledore. Dumbledore was wearing his grave expression, the bridge of his half-moon spectacles on the middle of his long, crooked nose, giving Harry a piercing stare like he was seeing through him, not at him. Harry then put his hands in the pockets of his cloak and looked up at the aged face looking back at him.
In the silence, Hermione turned her head to look at Mr. Malfoy but then jerked her head quickly away from it, like the thought disgusted her. Harry didn't know whether it was because he wasn't moving or beause it was Mr. Malfoy -- both were pretty convincing reasons. There were many times where Harry might have liked to see Mr. Malfoy drop dead but now that it actually happened, the thought wasn't at all appealing anymore.
"What's going to happen now?" Ron asked.
"I believe I will be floating Mr. Malfoy's body back up to the castle and there will be lots of questioning," said Dumbledore. "Are you sure you did not see anyone? Perhaps know where they were when you heard them speak?"
Harry shook his head. Dumbledore sighed.
"I cannot deny that I am deeply confused myself," he informed the four of them. "Much blame, I am afraid, is going to be placed on you, Harry, but you are to give the truth should you be dragged into the case with the Ministry. I will try to keep you out of this, seeing as how there is not much reason to drag you into it and I daresay, you've had enough. Several of the school governors highly disagreed with our decision to not have a harsh punishment for -- but your work is going smoothly, is it not?"
Harry nodded, having been given the assignment in the Dark arts a week ago. It was very boring work and he had found out nothing about his family's past so far.
"Has Draco Malfoy seen this yet?" Dumbledore asked. "I believe he was accompanied by his father today." This time, all four of them nodded. "Very well then. I will take it from here but I suggest the four of you head back to the castle. And Harry," said Dumbledore as they all proceeded towards the fissure in the rock, "I do strongly suggest that you watch your back. With the mood swings from the Mark of Ancients and now being accompanied by the dreams, I do not know yet what is going on but I do not need to point out that someone is trying their very best," he finished on a grave note.
"Yes sir," Harry muttered, as Raides guessed correctly, leaping into his hand as the grand Staff of Cybele.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Raides didn't speak to one another during the entire trip back to the Gryffindor common room. Harry himself felt like every shadow was hiding a Death Eater, like every corner he turned he was going to see Voldemort with his wand pointed at him.
Who had done it? Who wanted Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eater, dead, but who couldn't kill Harry when Harry was so much within their grasp, staff-less, wand-less and doubled up on the floor, unable to respond to someone screaming in his ear? Or were they just going to take a second shot at driving him bonkers? They might very well succeed this time...
Voldemort had been trying time and time again to kill Harry, and all for a reason he doesn't even know -- or at least thought he knew, but it was completely untrue. Voldemort wanted Harry dead and he knew this very well, though he certainly dreaded the day, should it ever finally come true. Or perhaps they really were just trying to drive him insane again and that would make him turn on his friends, who refuse to believe him and in the process, get the entire wizarding world to fear him? It all spun around in his head.
All he needed now was for Raides, an ancient artifact more powerful than anything to ever exist, to fall into the hands of Voldemort, the Darkest wizard to ever walk the Earth. Yes, that was all he needed.
It was a very scary thought.