The Owlery, smelling horrible and feeling very drafty as usual, was holding many less owls than usual. Harry supposed that most students had taken their owls to New York with them ,and the absence of Pigwidgeon confirmed this. Hedwig, lonely and munching on a dead vole, was sitting on the messy floor. At once, she abandoned her meal to land on a perch, looking important, her leg stuck out. Harry couldn't help but appreciate her eagerness, but when he told her he didn't have a letter yet, she went back to her lunch.
Not wanting to sit on owl droppings, Harry tried a hand at more magic without a wand. At first he tried waving a few fingers but that didn't work. His patience already gone, he bellowed "Move!" at it which made a tawny fall off his perch, painfully peck Harry once one the head then show him a disgruntled tail. But it worked and the spot he was hoping for was now poop-free.
Sitting up against the wall Indian style, the parchment on a book on his legs, he began to write.
Dear Cho,
I don't really know how to say this so I'm just going to say it however it comes. You probably heard about Lucius Malfoy and if you didn't, well, he's dead.
Harry had to stop for a minute because he realized his hand was shaking. She would believe him, wouldn't she, when he said he hadn't done it?
I was there when it happened. Ron, Hermione and I were up in the caves in the back of Hogsmeade when we heard his and dear Draco's voice. Raides got testy during the conversation so I told Ron and Hermione to take her out. Mr. Malfoy told Draco to leave, too, and not a minute had passed when it happened. I don't know how and I don't think I want to but I had one of those strange visions that I had the first summer I found out I had the Mark of Ancients. I'll spare you the details, it wasn't true, but I heard someone saying the words to Light of Faith and when it was gone, Mr. Malfoy was dead, right on the floor there in front of me.
He scribbled the last few words very fast for fear and put the pen down, arching forward and resting his forehead on his palm because he didn't think there was enough blood rushing to his head to stop him from feeling sick. And there wasn't so he just sat there for another good minute to let the feeling pass. Harry had always felt better as he told someone something but whether it was the fact that writing it out wasn't the same as saying it or this particular thing was just very difficult, he couldn't say.
Draco's told the entire school I killed his dad and you can't blame him because Raides threatened to kill Mr. Malfoy. She jumped on him when he insulted her and looked ready to bite his head off. She could have done a clean job of it, too. I'd like to know who would want him dead but it just seems odd that as soon as I have one of those weird dreams again, someone dies. Does that bother you as much as it bothers me? Raides is starting to scare me but the best is yet to come.
I've been banned from that trip to New York. I'm sitting here in the Owlery writing this because I nearly killed Draco with some spell I never knew. The green light from Avada Kedavra shot out the end of my wand but stopped halfway between him and I.
Harry stopped again before getting to write down that he had, for a few very frightening moments, actually wanted to kill Draco Malfoy. He looked up at Hedwig who had just finished eating the vole. She walked along the floor and stopped at Harry's feet, jumping up a few inches to land on his knee. While she was no Fawkes, whose warm weight and eerie phoenix song had come to Harry's rescue many times before, the warmth of something managed to edge out something. That something was a pair of cold eyes that Harry kept seeing in front of him since he started writing, the cold dead ones belonging to Lucius Malfoy.
His thoughts wandered for a moment on Raides who was up in his dormitory, as lifeless as two people had become in under a few months. While he knew full well she wouldn't hurt anyone unless Harry ordered her to, that wasn't very comforting either. Raides was very old and very powerful and would be a great asset should he find himself face to face with Voldemort but the very problem was that she was, in fact, very old and very powerful and swaying her the wrong way, as Harry feared he might soon find out, could be a very bad thing. And what would have happened if he had gone just a few seconds further while he held his hand, rubbing it where his wand had shocked him? Would he have actually let the spell go -- though he had no idea how to or why it had stopped in the first place?
I thought about sneaking into the Gates we're using to get there but I don't really want to upset Dumbledore. He trusts I won't abuse Raides and I don't think sneaking invisible into a Gate wouldn't count as abuse. And you'd think in your right mind Dumbledore would have expelled me right then and there but he didn't. He just sent me up to my room (funny, I never thought I'd get to say that) --
And he stopped again, his head wandering -- though he didn't want to think about that at the moment. Harry then scribbled out what he wrote in parentheses.
He told me to leave Raides with him and he came up eventually. When that conversation ended, I blew up on him, took Raides back, telling her to ignore him and, well there wasn't much in between so here I am writing to you. I don't know what else to say so I'm just going to tell you exactly how I feel.
For starters, given the choice of never finding out I was a wizard and getting stuck safely back in Privet Drive with the Dursleys, I might actually take it. The whole school thinks I killed Mr. Malfoy and they're convinced I meant to kill Dudley, too. Of all people, Ron and Hermione looked scared when I saw them after I nearly killed Draco. I just want to go on that trip to New York to sit in a dormitory in some magnificent school and argue with Ron and Hermione what the next dangerous task that I get to watch someone else do is going to be.
That's great, thought Harry, in the minutes I've been writing, I forgot I also got myself into the tournament.
I have no idea what my clue, that thing called the Explicatrix, does. Its a shape-intention changer. That's a term Hermione and I settled on. Raides can be called that, too. It means something changes shape when an ancient holds it. The Explicatrix was Ravenclaw colors when I first saw it and obviously it changed into Gryffindor colors when I first touched it. I'm no closer to finding out how to work it than I am in finding out what's going on with me and I've spent a lot of time with it. The best I can think to do is throw it. I did that once. It bounced off a window and put a dent in the wall.
All I know about it is what I told you, that being that our good friend Cybele made it. You know, it's funny. I remember Bagman saying one of the clues will be harder to figure out than the rest and I was right in thinking it was going to be mine. Maybe if I just get mad and throw it at the ground it may do something? Who knows. Be nice if it would just tell me what it does but first Professor Trelawney will tell me I'm going to die a happy man with a wife and two kids. If you get any ideas, let me know.
Oh great, now I just realized why Dumbledore didn't expell me. I certainly don't have anywhere to go now and they're all under the impression that if I do go out on my own, I'll end up dead. Not that I don't agree with them, it's just not very comforting knowing that I'm not getting punished for a reason like that.
Harry put his pen down once more but not due to fear or anxienty -- this time it was anger. He had been thinking about this before and it was just as unpleasant doing so now as it was then. For the time being, he still wanted to be safely stuck back in Privet Drive, never knowing he was a wizard, never knowing his parents hadn't died in a car crash and never finding out about Voldemort. Moreover, now he wish he had never found Raides.
I don't know what I'm doing here anymore. I'm losing it and I can't explain any of it. It'd be nice to, er, spend some time together so I can just forget about all this for a while but seeing as how I won't probably be allowed to set foot outside this castle until the second and third task -- if I'm still alive by the third task...
This time Harry didn't put his pen down but he stared blankly at some space to the left of Hedwig as he had been doing whenever he did put it down. He probably shouldn't have written that but the more times he said it to himself, the more scared he became that, of all the things he'd said so far that had come true... He hoped this was one of the ones that wouldn't. It was some of the anxiety he'd been holding since he'd seen the cold, gray eyes of Lucius Malfoy look colder and grayer than he'd ever seen them and it felt strangely good to let someone know how he felt -- however horrorstruck they might be when they read it.
Harry now took the time to look over his letter. It was very long, longer than anything he'd ever written but he felt he needed to get it all out while he was in the mood. He wasn't sure if, in five minutes from now, he'd be able to continue like this, spilling it as it came. With that in mind, he gave his head a shake and continued on, not caring how much more parchment it took. He just hoped the pen wasn't going to run out of ink...
I think I'll stop here because this is already quite long. I really needed someone to talk to just now and don't particularly feel like telling all this to Sirius. I'm just glad you're there if I need you. Oh and I don't suspect I'll have many people to talk to if I did manage to get to New York anyway as I saw Ron and Hermione holding hands as they left the common room this morning and Craig and James were also scared of me. Lastly, are you coming to the second task?
Love,
Harry
Harry checked over his letter once more, dotting all the Is he'd forgotten to dot and crossing all the Ts he'd forgotten to cross. He folded up the one piece of parchment he used (both front and back) and covered it with another so no one else could read it. After stuffing it in an envelope he pulled out of his bag, he tied it all to Hedwig's leg. Walking her over to the window, his stomach felt no less horrible than it had before he started writing as Hedwig soared into the afternoon sky.
With Hedwig gone and a letter off to Cho, Harry had no inclination to start doing more work -- though he didn't have much choice. Professor Figg had given seventh years loads of homework concerning the properties of brimstone; the active ingredient in Belladonna, Alkaloid; nightshade plants in general and why moonstone has no magical properties at all. She had said they would be making a very potent pain killing potion. Hermione said they would using that horrendously-awful smelling potion ingredient they had to get very soon.
It wasn't until dinner that night did Harry find out how many people really stayed behind. When he walked into the Great Hall to eat, the usual four House tables were gone, replaced by a single one positioned against the wall near the entrance. Sitting at it was Dumbledore, three Hogwarts students he didn't recognize, Professor Trelawney (who immediately fixed him with her tragic look) and Argus Filch. Dumbledore beckoned Harry over, whose pace of walking had abruptly slowed when he saw the setting in front of him. He hadn't expected to see anyone at all and wasn't pleased to see the three students recoil at the sight of him. The Hogwarts ghosts were floating in and out but Nearly Headless Nick was sitting -- or rather, floating -- between Dumbledore and Filch.
"Harry!" called Dumbledore brightly as if he forgot what had happened earlier that day. "I thought it silly to use the House tables as there are so few of us. Sibyll here," he went on, nodding towards Professor Trelawney, "has kindly agreed to join us while her -- er -- Inner Eye cannot be clouded in the absence of the normal rustle and bustle of the castle."
Harry saw Professor Trelawney give a subtle look of dissent he suspected that, while Dumbledore had seen, chose to ignore. She was looking at Harry like she expected him to burst any moment but he, too, chose to ignore this. The three students, who were as lazily dressed as Harry, the two girls in pajamas (though one was wearing a very deep red cloak to keep warm) and the boy in jeans and a t-shirt, were eyeing him nervously so he sat down on Dumbledore's side, taking a piece of ham steak.
Because he wanted to make a conversation (and possibly convince the three he wasn't such a bad guy after all), he said, "So why didn't you three go on the trip?"
One of the girls shot him another nervous glance, swallowed, and said slowly, "Did you really k --"
"Can we please not talk about that," said Harry quickly, his voice shaking slightly.
There was a nasty silence.
"Sarah's father didn't want her to go," said the boy.
Harry couldn't see how this could possibly be so he asked, "Why not?"
The girl named Sarah looked between Harry and the boy that spoke and muttered barely audibly, "I don't know, he just said, 'No, and that's final.'"
Something struck him as odd about this story but figured there had to be more people out in the world like the Dursleys. If one set of them existed, there had to, unfortunately, be more...
The boy broke a faint smile and added, "But we stayed behind because she couldn't go."
Harry was forcefully reminded of Ron and Hermione wanting to stay behind because he couldn't go... and his rash decision of forcing the both of them to go. The least it would do, he now thought, would be to give them time alone with each other, which slightly disgusted him... He had been friends with both of them and now he finds out they have a romantic interest in each other... That wouldn't change their friendship, he thought quickly, would it?
"Two of my friends wanted to stay behind, too," said Harry which strangely made Professor Trelawney's eyebrows raise as if that was an omen of his next mis-predicted death.
"Er -- Mr. Weasley and Miss Weasley -- how did they --?" asked Dumbledore uncertainly which Harry found slightly funny but he turned pink around the ears as he answered.
"I lent him them fourty galleons."
"So kind," said Dumbledore fondly which brightened the color around Harry's ears, "paying for them while not able to go yourself."
"I owe the Weasleys a lot -- but they have to pay back every cent of it," Harry added jokingly. "I thought you'd at least be in New York?" he asked Dumbledore.
The three students, who weren't exactly on speaking terms with the Headmaster, sat idly by. Filch as well as Professor Trelawney weren't very interested in speaking.
"I was there this morning to see the Hogwarts students into each of the five dormitory halls," said Dumbledore. "I believe they are Bagatelle, Jericho, Lodi, Nicolls and Sagtikos. Gryffindors have been split between Lodi and Bagatelle, Hufflepuffs are in Lodi and Jericho, Ravenclaws are in Nicolls and Lodi and for Slytherins, Sagtikos and Nicolls. Their newest one is Lodi Hall, which is very nice indeed. There's a heated pool on the top floor with a glass ceiling overlooking Torr Lounge and Taconic Triens. Ingenius how it is set up, with a Gate Center in each building allowing you to travel instantly to any other building -- though you aren't allowed in the Moonstone Complex or Bayonne Complex without a Graduate Charm."
In the brief introduction Dumbledore had given Harry, his head was already spinning, but he still didn't think sneaking out of England to cross the ocean into the United States was such a good idea. If it was Dumbledore's job to stop Harry from going, he wasn't starting off very well; back to his mind came the plot to find a way to Laurence Patrick Hayden's unseen.
Midway through Dumbledore's speech on the Camden Library and how it is the size of Hogwarts' Great Hall, entrance hall and library combined, Nearly Headless Nick broke in about something that had been bothering him.
"Now, it seems," he said gloomily, "the Headless Hunt visited that school. They took in quite a few decapitated ghosts there!" he groaned.
Harry had a sudden vision of the Headless Hunt writing a faked letter to Nearly Headless Nick just to upset him. Six years ago, when the Headless Hunt had come to Hogwarts, they hadn't taken so kindly to him. Then he also had a sudden idea. How far did Raides' magic extend? She couldn't... she wouldn't be able to...
"I wonder if Raides has any sort of magic to, well, make your decapitation complete?" said Harry with a half glance at Dumbledore.
Nick, whose face had been mimicking exactly how Harry had been feeling all day, quickly went into a wide, hopeful grin. Dumbledore fixed Harry with his own light blue stare as though not sure the idea was a very good one. Frankly, neither did Harry for a reason he couldn't put a finger on but felt that if he couldn't bright his own mood, he was, to put it simply, very bored and needed to entertain himself; he had been homeworked-out.
"What's the harm?" asked Nick.
"I suppose," said Dumbledore, his face screwed up in thought.
"I'll have to go get Raides because she's currently sitting up in my dormitory -- er -- deactivated, for lack of a better word," Harry told them all. "Come up after we finish, Nick, and we'll see what she says."
And so after they had finished eating, and Dumbledore was now talking about the combat lesson he had overseen with a sword use instructor, Nick followed Harry up to Gryffindor Tower, occasionally floating into him and sending a cold chill wherever he touched Harry.
Harry immediately grabbed hold of Raides after spotting her on his trunk and she sprang to life.
"Well hello there," she said, her mouth open in a toothy grin and then seeing the not-so-happy look on Harry's face, she frowned and said, "Okay, what dirty something do you want me to do."
"It's not dirty," said Harry. "I just wanted to know if you could, maybe, finish Nick's decapitation?"
Raides asked Harry to hold her up to Nick's partially severed neck and took a full three minutes of staring before coming to the conclusion of yes. And with the three Hogwarts students, Dumbledore, Filch and Professor Trelawney watching, Harry tried it by just thinking about it and hoping that would be enough.
A golden glitter, originating at the scarlet crystal, ran the length of the staff followed by a white glow, the glitter then collecting at the crystal. Both the glitter and glow shot off the crystal right at Nick's head which, when the light show had finished, had fallen off.
Nick didn't say anything, he just gave a strangled cheer and disappeared through the wall, his head in his arms. Harry smiled weakly while Dumbledore, Filch and Professor Trelawney were all goggling at the staff in his hands.
"What," groaned Raides irritably.
A letter signed by both Ron and Hermione had arrived the next morning during breakfast. Harry didn't think any owl would make the trip until Dumbledore told him Laurence Patrick Hayden's bewitches their cross-continent owls with a Haste Charm. It's the job of Graduate students, who are payed to do so, to manage such Charms. Other paid jobs include, Dumbledore mentioned, keeping the Fire Turrets working around Nightfall's Crescent or the school would be attacked by a horde of cave-dwelling beasts.
"They were able to drive out and kill many of the less vicious beasts but the Troglodytes remain persistent," said Dumbledore as if this were no bigger news than rats infesting a restaurant. "They had to dig deep underground with all kinds of spells to fit the school with enough space for Muggle sewer systems without them noticing there's a several-mile-large school just below," he sighed. "Graduate students in the Charms department have a tough time with all the Memory Charms needed to keep it a secret. I think they also employ a distinguished faculty member there, however."
Harry supposed it would be very hot in the school but there were probably big Charms to cool it all off. He finished eating as quick as he could because he had become sick of Dumbledore talking about the school; it just made him more angry that he wasn't allowed to go. Sitting on his four poster and glaring at the Explicatrix for a brief moment, he read the letter.
Dear Harry,
Hermione here. I'm not entirely sure you want to hear this but here it goes anyway. This school is just really neat! You should see the library, there's an entire building devoted to it and it's huge! We got to watch a bunch of Graduate students in the Bayonne Complex have a sword fight and they used a bunch of really nice spells. One of them used a Fire Enchantment on his sword but you obviously couldn't see the flames on it. Of course, being trained with a sword isn't all the school teaches.
They have a program for people who want to become Summoners. We weren't able to see any Summoning magic during the quick demonstration yesterday; all of those students were in their classes. Many of their students go on to be excellent Aurors, though. Someone did mention a study in Dark Arts, Potions Grand Mastery and something about a degree in Divination. But enough of that, here's Ron.
We actually met the Divination teacher and they were keen on giving us a demonstration. Before they could, Professor Trelawney told us to move on then later she went back to Hogwarts all upset. Who knows, who really cares?
They gave us a presentation in Torr Lounge on, of all people, you. The theater is huge, it can fit the entire school in it, five thousand people. Professor Glass, head of the Foreign Research Department, said the point of the study, done by Dark Arts Graduate students, was to find out why you lived but, well, they still don't have a clue. They know all about Raides. Professor Idelle never shut up about how much she wanted to meet her until Dumbledore came along. The good thing is the majority of the students don't believe you killed anyone except for the ones in Sagtikos Hall, the one Draco is in. Nearly everyone in Lodi and Bagatelle wanted to meet you (they wouldn't leave Hermione and I alone until like two in the morning, badgering us with questions, I really wish you could have come). I reckon Lodi and Sagtikos are going to get into a huge fight over this. Someone from Jericho told me it's happened before and about a fourth of the students from Sagtikos got expelled. A bunch of parents were not pleased.
Speaking of which, while it sounds like a better school than Hogwarts, the Undergraduate program isn't all it sounds like it is. The Graduate students do learn more than us but you sort of have to expect that. I mean, I don't think the Ministry of Magic is going to allow sword fights at Hogwarts especially with the Slytherins and Gryffindors hating each other so much. There are only very few schools with Graduate programs, though. But anyway.
Wish you could be here,
Ron and Hermione
Harry didn't know if that made him feel better or worse. He certainly liked hearing as much about Laurence Patrick Hayden's as possible, about the five dormitory halls, the huge library (that Hermione must be enjoying herself in, Harry thought), the entire building dedicated to being a lounge with a big theater inside of it... Though he didn't think five thousand people gaping at his forehead would be a very pleasant experience. Michelle Quirrel, while under a permanent Imperius, had told him the name Harry Potter wasn't known in the United States but, after a second of asking himself why not, he thought it was pretty dumb to believe her.
He suddenly wanted to know where Michelle was, if she had escaped Voldemort for good or if she had gotten killed. Harry hoped she hadn't even though he never really knew her very well... It didn't take him very long to remember her reaction to finding out about him. The letter Sirius had written to him said she was sick with worry.
Then, turning red, Harry suddenly found he didn't care that much anymore and was left with a hole in his stomach that would only go away if he was in New York. He had to get out, he just had to. Fudge telling him he couldn't go just wasn't fair at all. He hadn't done anything wrong!
All of a sudden Hogwarts looked boring and very uninteresting, almost painful to walk around in. There was only one possible way of making this work, he thought to himself as he put Ron and Hermione's letter into his bedside cabinet. Staring at the empty four-posters usually occupied by Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville, he would have to try to, Raides in hand, Disapparate from Hogsmeade to Whitestone Tower.
But how could be possibly fool everyone into thinking he was at Hogwarts and not halfway across the planet in New York? As he went to sleep a few hours later, he hoped that his sleeping mind would work out the details for him because his brain was currently numb and dumbstruck.
Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, was a portly man. And an annoying one. Harry could never understand why he hadn't believed Harry that Voldemort had risen for the first time since his disappearance when Harry was a year old in his fourth year at Hogwarts. Then he remembered that Fudge had been reading -- and believing -- articles in the Daily Prophet written by Rita Skeeter.
That was something -- or rather, someone -- Harry had forgotten about. Rita was going to have a field day with Lucius Malfoy's death. Thankfully, there hadn't been an article in the Daily Prophet about either Dudley or Mr. Malfoy but he didn't want to kill himself over how long it would be until something did turn up.
But he didn't care, putting his glasses on his bedside cabinet and twisting and turning, trying to fall asleep. He wanted to get to New York.