Chapter Nine: Loony Takes a Bow
"That's Tonks," said Harry with a relieved smile.
"Tonks?" cried Ron happily. "What are you doing here?"
"I might ask you the same question," Tonks said, folding her arms. "Why aren't the four of you at school? Mrs. Weasley was in a tearful rage the last I saw her."
The four friends exchanged guilty looks.
"If I could tell you, I would, Tonks," Harry said at last. "But it's a secret mission from Dumbledore."
"Oh," Tonks blinked as if she was about to cry, but said nothing else.
They stood in the gloom of Grimmauld Place, trying in vain not to think of their deceased friends. Then Harry bent as if he'd suddenly remembered and wrenched the silver ring from Bellatrix's finger. He held it to the light slanting through the cracks of the boarded windows.
"The ring of Ravenclaw," he said.
Tonk's mouth dropped open as Harry set the ring on the floor and aimed his wand at it.
"Bombarda!" he yelled.
"What are you doing!" Tonks cried as the ring flew to pieces.
No one answered her. They were all too busy staring at the black esscence rising from the blasted fragments of the ring. It rose in the shape of a skull to the ceiling, where it evaporated in the thin slants of light there.
"Five down," Harry muttered. "Two to go."
"You lot have got ten seconds to tell me what's going on, or I turn into the Bloody Baron," demanded Tonks. "Five . . . four . . ."
"Tonks . . ." moaned Ron.
"I mean it," Tonks said, looking from face to face. "Are you four meddling in things that you shouldn't?"
"No," said Harry sincerely. "For once we're meddling in things that we should. Listen, Tonks, we wondered whether you'd seen Mundungus lately."
Tonks squinted at him suspicously, "What do you want with Dung? I know he took things that belonged to Sirius, Harry, but --"
"It's not of that nature," interrupted Hermione, twisting her fingers. "It's about that locket, the one that cursed Katie Bell last year. It needs to be destroyed."
"And Harry's the one to do it," added Ginny, "On Dumbledore's orders."
This seemed to satisfy Tonks.
"Dung has been keeping his head down since Dumbledore . . . passed . . ." Tonks sniffed and cleared her throat, beaming in a forced sort of way. "The Order hasn't seen hide or hair of him since. Made off and never said a word. I know he was banished from the Hogshead, but that's where they say he's hiding now as it's the last place anyone would look for him. I go in there sometimes as a gent and I fancy I see him pretending to be a hag."
Harry nodded thoughtfully, "Thanks, Tonks."
"Please be careful," Tonks said, looking anxiously from face to face. "If I could, I'd stop all four of you and send you on to Hogwarts on the Knight bus, but as it is . . ." She gave Beallatrix a nasty look. "How about this: we'll all apparate to Hogsmeade together. I've got reinforcements waiting there for me to report. They'll be glad once I've turned in Beallatrix. Ginny, you can sidealong apparate, I suppose."
"Of course," Ginny said, taking Harry's arm.
"Good, good," said Tonks absently, drifting Beallatrix along like a puppet on invisible strings to the front door with her wand.
The others followed.
Number 12 Grimmauld Place squeezed itself back into the ground once they'd reached the street. Tonks glanced left and right, then hussled them into the alley between two muggle houses.
"You lot can apparate fairly well, right?" Tonks asked anxiously.
"I'll take care of Ron," Hermione said, ignoring Ron's scowl.
"On three then," Tonks clutched Beallatrix's arm harder than was necessary and twinkled at them cheerfully, "One . . . two . . ."
Harry felt the queasiness as he and Ginny were turned inside out. His brain was a state of confusion, but he forced it again on his destination. He could feel Ginny beside him, her convulsions as she was twisted unnaturally. Then his feet hit hard pavement and he collapsed, insensate, into nothingness and dreams.
"Harry . . ." sang a voice.
Harry sat up, clutching his head. He was seated on the floor of a dungeon he did not recognize. The room was vast and drafty, the floor hard and cold. A cabinet stood against a far wall looking rather like a wardrobe. There was also a fireplace, before which stood an old divan and an armchair.
"Harry . . ." sang the voice again.
Harry rose to his feet and brushed his jacket off, glancing around uncertainly. He knew the voice belonged to Dumbledore, but the wizard was no where in sight.
"Professor?" Harry called.
"Over here, Harry."
Harry turned to see Dumbledore standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs that lead from the dungeon to an upstairs landing. He lifted one arm and pointed at the cabinet, his long white sleeve draping like a wing.
Harry moved toward the cabinet and paused uncertainly with his hands on its handles. Dumbledore merely twinkled and nodded at him.
"There is no time to hesitate," he said.
Harry nodded firmly and pulled the cabinet doors open wide. It was empty. He looked at Dumbledore again, perplexed, but the old wizard pointed to the cabinet again.
Harry reexamined the cabinet. It was rather old and cracked, full of dust. Yet at the very bottom corner of its lowest shelf, beneath a gray cobweb, was a grubby brown package. Harry glanced at Dumbledore again before he brushed the cobweb aside and plucked the package from its corner. It was very small and fit in his hand almost like the flute Hagrid had carved for him when he was eleven. He barely had time to remark on its hourglass shape before he heard Dumbledore breathe sharply.
"Hurry, Harry, someone's coming!"
"But this is only a dream, isn't it?" asked Harry in confusion.
"Harry!" Dumbledore cried urgently. "The fire! Quick!"
Harry hurried to the fire beside which sat a bowl of Floo Powder. He hastily tossed a handful onto the hearth and stepped inside with the grubby package in his jacket.
"The Three Broomsticks!" Harry called firmly, but he glimsped Snape's glittering eyes on the opposite side of the flames before he was whisked away.
When Harry stumbled out of The Three Broomsticks five minutes later, it was to discover his friends standing in the street and arguing about where he was.
"Ah, there you are!" cried Tonks in relief. "We couldn't understand how Ginny got here when you didn't."
"How the bloody hell did you get in The Three BroomSticks, mate?" demanded Ron, grinning incredulously.
Harry touched his chest and felt the bulge there. He opened his jacket and, sure enough, there was the grubby package in his inside pocket. He looked up at the others breathlessly and shook his head.
"I suppose that could happen to anyone," said Hermione in a rush, noting tactfully that Harry had something in his possession Tonks needn't know about.
"As long as you're all here," Tonks said. She lifted Beallatrix's cursed body with her wand again and twinkled at them. "Catch you lot later. I've got some baggage to dispose of. And . . ." she clapped Harry on the shoulder, "Be careful, won't you?"
Harry assured Tonks breathlessly that he would. She smiled at the others, ruffled Ginny's hair, and marched on down the street with Beallatrix hovering before her like a parade float. People gasped and cleared her path, pointing and whispering about the captured Death Eater.
"Now what, Harry?" asked Ginny, looking up at Harry from under her flop of lustrous red hair.
Harry, whose mind was preoccupied with the package in his pocket, looked around at her in surprise.
"The Hogshead," he said. "Come on."
The Hogshead was as empty as ever. Only two witches sat in a corner playing bridge with large, pentacle-shaped cards. The barman was seated behind the bar on a stool, a paper open and his wand poking for some odd reason over the top.
Harry approached the bar.
"Excuse me?" When the paper didn't lower, he cleared his throat and tried again, "Sir?"
"Is it just me," whispered Ron out of the side of his mouth, "or is that bloke reading the paper upside down?"
Hermione rang the bell on the bar, "Sir? Sir!"
"How about this?" Ginny raised her wand and a jet of noisy red sparks rocketed toward the ceiling.
The two witches in the corner covered their ears and glared at her.
"Well, it worked," Ginny said, ignoring them, for the barman had lowered his newspaper -- except she was no man at all.
"Loony?" croaked Ron.
"Ron!" Hermione cried indignantly.
Luna Lovegood sat behind the counter, her wand behind her ear and large onion-shaped earrings dangling from her earlobes. Her long blonde hair was draped as ever behind her shoulders and her large moon-eyes fell on her peers as dreamily as if she'd never heard Ginny's wand.
"Hello . . ." she said dreamily, "Butterbeers, I suppose?"
"Why didn't you answer?" Hermione demanded.
"You were saying 'sir' not 'maam'," answered Luna as if this was obvious.
"Luna," began Harry, who was still digesting her presence. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh . . ." Luna gazed at the ceiling and windows as if she herself wasn't quite sure and then smiled at Harry and the others. "I took up candy selling as a sort of summer job over at Honeydukes." She paused as if this answer was adequate enough and pulled up four butterbeers.
The others sat at the bar.
" . . . but what are you doing here?" asked Ron with a note of exasperation.
"The people at Honeydukes shut down. For some reason, they decided to go on a long vacation . . ."
"Yeah, for some reason," muttered Ron under his breath. "Couldn't be that You-Know-Who is taking everything over."
"So . . . how is it you're working here now?" asked Hermione, an impatient tick going in her cheek. "I mean, is it even legal?"
"Little umbrellas," said Luna, disappearing behind the bar and reappearing with four tiny umbrellas in her fingers. She began to hand them out.
Ginny giggled.
"Luna . . ." began Harry again.
"My father talked to the barman," Luna said, now slurping her own drink and staring unblinkingly at Harry with her probing eyes. "There seem to be a lot of Snort Googles on the loose ever since the dementors left the Ministry. He thought I'd be safe here where the Order has guards standing around Hogwarts. I do my lessons at home."
She slurped so loudly on her straw that the two witches in the corner gathered their cards and left in a huff.
"We don't get many customers," Luna added unnecessarily as the witches stormed past.
"Must be the Snort Googles," Ron muttered and repressed a smile as he took a swig from his mug.
"Perhaps," agreed Luna, not catching on.
"Luna," asked Harry, "where's the barman now?"
"He stepped out for a bit, said something about lamb. I warned him about the Snort Googles, but he didn't seem to take me seriously . . ."
"I wonder why," Hermione said in an aggrivated undertone, then directly to Luna, "Do you know where we might find him? It's rather important."
"Oh, no, you shouldn't go out there either," Luna said, her large, round eyes growing even larger. "Snort Googles mostly hang about alleys and that's what the back door leads too . . ." She gave another tremendous slurp on her straw and they winced in unison.
Hermione's fingers twitched as if she was itching to snatch Luna's straw and jam it up her nose and the tick in her cheek was going even faster.
"So he's in the alley," confirmed Ginny, trying not to laugh.
Luna nodded slowly, her strange earrings swinging.
"If you're going to go . . ." she disappeared behind the bar again and straightened up, clutching potatoes in her hands. "Here." She dumped them on the bar. "They ward off Snort Googles fairly well. Sometimes you only have to smell like them for it to do the trick. The Minister's home should be Snort Google free," she said matter-o-factly, and Harry and Ron snorted into their drinks.
"Uh, thanks, Luna," Ron said uncomfortably as Luna began to stuff his jacket with the potatoes.
"I'll get those," Hermione said with sarcastic friendliness, and brushed Luna's hands away.
Luna climbed onto her stool again. "See that they're tucked in the crouch as well," she remarked dreamily, unfolding her paper once more.
Harry and Ginny snickered as Hermione went red and dropped several of the potatoes.
"Back door's around there," Luna said from the behind the paper, her finger pointing around its edge.
"Thanks," Harry said, digging in his pockets for coins.
"Don't bother . . . it's on me . . ." came Luna's voice from behind the paper, as if she could see Harry.
"Good-bye, Luna," Ginny said, giggling as the four of them moved toward the corridor Luna had indicated.
At the far end was the door under which streamed a line of light. They had barely reached it, however, when it opened and a tall grumpy-looking wizard with a long, gray beard stomped inside. He stopped short at the sight of the teenagers, then grunted and gestured at Harry to follow him as if he'd been expecting his appeareance all along.
They went back up the corridor and up a flight of stairs. The barman began to fumble with his keys, muttering to himself in an undertone. He stopped at a door maked Room 713 and unlocked it. In the far corner, staring into the fire, was a pale, hook-nosed man with greasy curtains of hair.