As Hermione turned the key in the ignition, Harry just stood there, staring at the vehicle as if it might suddenly disappear, or at least helpfully transfigure itself into a broomstick. "Come on. We'll lose them if we wait much longer."
They had watched mere moments ago as Atlas Filch managed to squeeze himself into Elmira Pinnix's compact car and the two of them drove away, presumably to commit nefarious deeds in a graveyard. Harry knew that he needed to follow them; to find out what they were doing and stop them. Still, given the Dursleys' near fanatical obsession with not letting Harry do anything that might be even remotely enjoyable, he had no experience as a motorist. He really didn't want his first driving lesson to be at night in a place that was unfamiliar to him, especially when they needed to be somewhere fast.
Still, Gryffindor bravery and all. Harry mounted the moped and felt Hermione's arms go around his waist. He tried desperately not to blush. "Don't worry, Harry," she assured him. "I'll show you what to do. Just drive."
Given the circumstances, Harry's first driving experience went pretty smoothly. There were some curbs hit a little too hard, one or two pedestrians who might end up with serious heart problems from how close they came to being hit and an incident with the Knight Bus that neither Harry nor Hermione would ever speak of again, but eventually they arrived at their destination: Oak Lawn Cemetary. "Frank Nichten-Teach was buried here less than a year ago," Hermione explained. "According to his obituary he was entombed, so we won't be looking through headstones."
Harry looked at Hermione quizzically. "If you knew where he was buried, why did we have to follow Filch so closely?"
Hermione returned his gaze with an incredulous one of her own. "I didn't know how to get here. I'm not a walking font of information, you know." She stole a quick glance at the front gate of Oak Lawn. It would look to anyone else as though it had been pried open, although Harry could tell magic had been used. Hermione removed the green helmet from over her bushy head of hair and then looked expectantly at Harry. Wishing for a moment that he could take his helmet off, too (although it unfortunately was attached to the rest of his armour), he removed the invisibility cloak from his knapsack once more, this time throwing it over the both of them. Ducking slightly so that the difference in their heights wasn't a problem, Harry led the way through the unlocked gate and into Oak Lawn Cemetary.
Remembering his fantasy of walking with Hermione under the invisibility cloak at night while searching for bad guys, Harry decided that this would only be romantic in his imagination. In real life it was awkward and uncomfortable. Of course, the fact that this was one of the hottest nights of the summer and the suit of armour that seemed to raise his body temperature twenty degrees didn't help matters much. It was also very dark, almost too dark to see. Why hadn't they brought a lantern, or at least a flashlight? Harry repeatedy stumbled over his own feet and a few times he knew he stepped on Hermione's toes, although she said nothing about it. In fact, she said nothing at all until they had meandered halfway through the graveyard.
"There it is," Hermione declared in a hushed voice, her finger pointing at a nearby tomb through the invisibility cloak. The name 'Nichten-Teach' was engraved above the entrance, leaving little doubt that this was the place. A pale light emanated from it, indicating that someone was inside. Harry steeled himself mentally. If Atlas Filch was any kind of a dark wizard, Death Eater or no, they could be in for a fight.
Harry and Hermione shared a knowing look before proceeding. With danger so clearly in front of them, it became slightly easier to ignore his attraction to Hermione, even as he remained painfully close to her underneath the invisibility cloak. But he still felt a strong sense of pride in her abilities as a witch and a feeling of appreciation that she was here with him, in the face of what could be mortal danger, nearly overwhelmed him. Harry would trust her to face this threat with him, face it and more than hold her own. He stole one last fleeting glance at Hermione, her wand drawn as his was, ready for battle. Whatever was in there, Harry was sure that the two of them could handle it.
Which was why it came as such a great surprise when they hit an invisible barrier and were knocked forcibly to the ground. As his body hit the earth below him with a metallic clang, everything went dark. For a moment, Harry wondered if he had been knocked unconscious, but the fact that he was actually thinking about whether he was conscious or not kind of disproved it. After a moment, he realized what was wrong. "Harry," Hermione whispered in a voice that conveyed massive amounts of worry, "your visor's stuck again."
Both of their fingers fumbled together, attempting to dislodge the visor from the helmet. "There must be wards around this tomb, keeping certain unwanted visitors out," Hermione explained as she pushed the piece of metallic headgear with all of her might. "I've read about some of them," she grunted, "but they're usually very tricky to break when they've been set up to only let specific people in. I don't think I can undo what..." And suddenly, with a mighty heave, the visor flew to the top of his helmet, allowing him to see again.
And what he saw was pretty amazing. Hermione had lost the hat in her ensemble at some point and all you could see now was just her ordinarily bushy hair pulled back in a clip. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat and her face was dangerously close to his. Brown eyes stared down at him as if he might suddenly vanish and as though she desperately didn't want him to. Her hands remained gingerly placed on his helmet, almost protectively. She leaned down and he sat up slightly at the same time, making their noses touch. "Harry..." she breathed somewhat hesitantly, but he wasn't going to let this be another 'almost kiss'. He put his hands around her head and pulled her closer, their lips finding each other at long last.
To Harry's great relief, she didn't immediately pull away in disgust. The only coherent thought that ran through his brain as they kissed was that he had been right. She did feel something for him, something beyond friendship. Even if it was just attraction, maybe it was something he could work with, something that they could build on. Because he really wasn't sure that he could give this up and become just friends again. It would kill him before Voldemort ever got the chance to.
Eventually the two of them broke apart, their eyes searching each other for something, some almost imperceptible clue about what this meant, how it would change things, how the other felt. Harry wasn't sure if he found anything, but he wouldn't have traded that moment for the world. "Harry," Hermione said again, this time in an almost reverent whisper.
"What?" he answered her hoarsely. Harry was leaning forward slightly, his elbows slipping a little against the invisibility cloak that still covered them both. They were close enough to start kissing again, if that was what she wanted.
Hermione looked past Harry and then met his eyes again, giving him a look that he couldn't read. "We're surrounded by dementors."
Forgetting all about the invisibility cloak as he sprang to his feet, Harry held his wand out and looked around him frantically only to discover what he already knew: Hermione was telling the truth. The former Azkaban guards hovered around them, their spectre-like forms made all the more ominous by the enfolding darkness of the cemetary. They swooped closer as they got a good look at Harry, seemingly drawn in by his presence. Moving between the nearest group of dementors and Hermione, Harry pointed his wand at half a dozen of them, his mind buzzing with so many pleasant memories and thoughts that he was sure he could take out every one here plus a hundred more. "Expecto patronum!" he bellowed, visualizing Prongs in his mind as he willed his patronus to strike each dementor in turn.
Harry's wand sputtered with a small silvery glow and then let out a puff of smoke. Once it cleared away, Harry realized to his horror that his wand had transformed itself into a rubber chicken. Thinking he had done something terribly wrong for only the briefest of moments, he examined the wand, er, chicken closely, finding a note tied around its neck.
"Harry- If you're reading this, you've been doing magic away from school again. Naughty, naughty. You know our dear departed Professor Umbridge wouldn't approve. Which is all the more reason to do it, really. But seriously, Mum made us promise we'd talk to you about being more careful and remembering the prohibition of underage magic statute this summer, but we thought this would be more fun. Love and feathers, Fred and George. P.S. Ron will give you your real wand back on the train to Hogwarts, honest."
Well, that was it then. He would die here, in this graveyard, because Fred and George Weasley had replaced his wand with one of the gag gifts from their shop. He was starting to regret giving them the galleons to start Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes as much as he already regretted going to the Burrow on his birthday. Maybe they could carve "Thanks a bunch, Fred and George," as an epitaph on his tombstone. At least they wouldn't have to go very far to bury him...
Stuffing the rubber chicken in his pocket for a reason he didn't really know, Harry tried to size up the situation as best he could. Although things looked bleak, there had to be a way out of this. Shooting panicked glances in every direction, Harry realized that there could be no escape. Hermione hadn't been exaggerating before, they were surrounded. Wait a minute, Hermione! She had a wand! Maybe he could use hers to conjure a patronus. He wasn't sure if that would work exactly, given the personal nature of both wands and patroni, but Hermione certainly didn't seem to be using it for anything; she was just standing there muttering something about "expecto patronum".
Harry nearly smacked his forehead in frustration, but then decided that that part of his body had gone through enough pain for one year. Hermione could do the patronus charm; in fact she was the only one in the D.A. who had been able to conjure a corporeal patronus. Why hadn't he thought of this before? As Hermione repeated the words "expecto patronum," her voice low and her tone defeated, only wisps of silvery white mist emerged from her wand. Harry wondered what was wrong, but then remembered that this was her first time conjuring a patronus away from Hogwarts. It was much easier to do under controlled circumstances than when actually facing a dementor, much less a swarm of them, as he had found out in third year.
Harry took her free hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You can do this, Hermione," he told her, their eyes locking on each other as he spoke. "Just think of something happy, a really powerful memory or thought. Can you do that?" Hermione nodded quickly and turned back to face a dementor just as it flew by them, its face lingering near Harry's.
Before Harry knew it, he was down on his knees, the memory of his mother's cry as she begged Voldemort for her infant son's life once again fresh in his mind. His fingers were still intertwined with Hermione's however and when he looked up he noticed she was watching him, concern etched on her face. "Don't worry about me! Just conjure the patronus, Hermione. Now!"
Hermione turned herself around and faced a row of dementors with a look of fierce determination in her eye. "Expecto patronum!" she yelled and a glowing otter took shape in front of her, flinging itself towards the soul-sucking fiends with a happy, playful expression in its eyes. Within minutes, it had driven them all off, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in the graveyard. Harry rose to his feet slowly, Hermione offering him a hand up only a moment too late. As he stood shakily, her ragged breathing filled his ears as his senses seemed to be on overload.
Wandless and dazed, Harry took a look at an exhausted Hermione with a grim expression on his face. He knew he shouldn't want to kiss her again at this moment, but he did anyway. Harry repressed his instincts with difficulty. "What now?"
"We have to find a way to get around the wards," Hermione opined, although she did not offer any immediate suggestions as to how they would do this.
Harry took a brief moment to realize that their conventional roles were now reversed, as Hermione was now the one who would be able to fight 'the fight' while he could only offer helpful suggestions from the sidelines. "They have to know we're out here by now. That dementor attack wasn't an unhappy coincidence. If they keep ignoring us, they must not think us much of a threat to whatever it is they're doing."
Hermione nodded quickly. "Either that or they expected the dementors to finish us off." She chewed her bottom lip fiercely. The fact that dementors had shown up made Voldemort's involvement in 'Auburn Summer' more than just an idea, but cold, hard reality. Neither of them knew what kind of threat they might be facing next. "They nearly did, too. Maybe...maybe we're in over our heads, Harry. This seems more like a job for a team of Aurors than two Hogwarts students not even old enough to apparate."
Harry frowned. "How would we get them here? I didn't exactly bring Hedwig along." His eyes searched the cemetary, as if looking for dementors again. "Knowing Dumbledore, I'm probably being followed by Order members right now. If we get into too much trouble, I'm sure they'll..." But his words trailed off as he heard a cry of pain from inside the tomb. "Crucio!" a distinctly female voice shrieked. The low moan of agony that followed was eerily haunting and Harry couldn't stop a shiver from running up his spine as it continued for a very long moment.
Hermione stretched her hand out to touch the invisible barrier again only to have it pass through effortlessly. "Come on," she called to Harry. He hesitated for a moment, thinking what a good idea getting Aurors involved seemed all of a sudden before he felt compelled to follow Hermione into the tomb.
The faint light that had been emanating from the mausoleum since their arrival was now gone and the interior was plunged into darkness. Harry felt naked without his wand, but Hermione muttered a quick "lumos" and soon it was bright enough to see. What they saw was the large frame of Atlas Filch on the ground, groaning in pain. "Potter," he growled, his right arm extending weakly as his hand shook violently while pointing to an object across the room. "Have to get to..."
Harry moved between Filch and an ornately designed vase that had seemingly captured his attention. "You won't be getting anything," Harry declared with much more certainty than he actually felt.
Hermione had her wand pointed threateningly at Atlas Filch, but her features betrayed a softness which Harry suspected meant she still didn't believe him guilty. "Tell us what you were doing here."
"Pinnix," he croaked, his breathing belabored and his normally stony face contorted into a grimace of pain. "Had me under the Imperius Curse...been under it for nearly a month now...had to use me to get past the wards in the tomb...kept sending you messages, hoped you'd figure it out..."
"We don't believe you," Harry insisted angrily. "You're behind Auburn Summer, you're the one who killed my grandparents! It had to be you!"
Atlas Filch started to laugh weakly, but he ended up coughing violently. "I'm not an innocent man, Potter, but I haven't killed anyone...not yet anyway..."
"Elmira Pinnix," Hermione interrupted impatiently. "What did she take from here? Who wants it? Where did she go?"
"Lot of questions there," Atlas Filch replied with a bitter smile.
"And you're going to answer them," Harry growled.
"A set of runes Frank Nichten-Teach was buried with," he answered mechanically. "Death Eaters and...someone I can't name. Pinnix apparated back to the Serpent's Tooth."
Harry and Hermione shared a look of disbelief. A thoughtful expression then emerged on Hermione's face. "Veritaserum," she declared with mild astonishment. "What do you think of Harry?" Hermione asked before Harry could stop her.
"He's a meddlesome brat who doesn't know how lucky he's been so far," Atlas Filch replied in the same tone as before. "He needs a haircut, but otherwise is somewhat handsome. Also, that knight outfit looks hideous."
Hermione turned to Harry with an expression on her face that said 'See?'. "If someone used veritaserum and the Imperius curse on him, they wanted a secret out of him. Badly." She turned to face Atlas Filch again. "My guess is they didn't get it."
"You'd be right," Atlas rasped. He had been laying on his side as he spoke, his full head of curly hair slipping off his head slightly (Harry guessed it was a wig) but now with a groan of pain he flopped onto his back.
"We have to get back to the Serpent's Tooth, Harry," Hermione said with a sense of urgency in her voice.
"Vase is a portkey," Atlas Filch informed them, his voice quieter now. "It'll take you straight there. You haven't time to lose."
"No way," Harry exclaimed, seemingly finding his voice for the first time in ages. "We've got the moped, we'll take it back to the Serpent's Tooth."
Hermione's eyes seemed to fixate on Frank Nichten-Teach's sarcophagus, as if she were discovering something important. Harry saw nothing of interest, however, just his birth and death date and a bit of old poetry. "He's right, Harry. We have to get there now." Harry looked ready to argue until he saw the look of determination in her eyes. "Get your invisibility cloak from outside. We might need it."
Harry felt obliging and trudged outside into the dark to look for his invisibility cloak. Luckily, it was visible when not in use and Harry retrieved it from the ground with ease. Returning to the tomb, he saw that Hermione was standing over the vase. "Ready?" she asked.
"Remember one thing," Atlas Filch said from behind them, startling them both just a little. "Frank Nichten-Teach was a good man. You mustn't blame him for any of this. Hate me if you must, but...don't blame him. He was a good man."
Neither Harry nor Hermione seemed to know what to make of his remarks as they both grabbed onto the portkey. Harry felt the familiar tug at his navel and the two of them disappeared. The first thing they saw on the other side was Lloyd Moseby, his wand pointed menacingly at Violet Mogle's throat.