FINAL CHAPTER
Chapter 22 – Final
Harry slept until noon the next day, but when he stumbled out to the kitchen table for a cup of tea, Snape slowly shook his head. To Harry, it looked as though the potions master hadn't slept all night. The radio had been off most of the time Harry had been asleep, but there were bulletins every hour concerning the election recount in progress, and there had been no announcement of any new results yet. To help take his mind off the interminable waiting, Harry brought up a subject he had been thinking about since Halloween, but could not solve the mystery of.
"Professor? Where is that stone complex of Voldemort's?"
"I don't know," Snape replied with some annoyance. One of the many things that had upset him during his service as a spy had been the blind apparations in response to Voldemort's summonses.
"How did you know where to apparate?"
"Voldemort's summons carried a kind of homing signal. How did you know how to apparate back there once you had left?"
"Once you brought me there, I just..." Harry shrugged. "I returned to where I had been before, that's all."
"Why do you want to know?"
"It's..." Harry caught himself and considered how best to put what he thought. "I don't know whether the site belongs to someone else, whether it's below some important building, or under a street, or beneath some muggle thing, or what. I've been treating it as my own by virtue of having conquered it. But that probably won't stand up if someone with a valid deed comes along and claims the place."
"A good thought," Severus allowed, in a rare compliment. "It sounds as though you are preparing to describe a plan."
Harry shrugged. "One of those slabs has to have been put into place last. I was going to suggest finding it, pulling it out of position, and digging out."
"Think, Mister Potter," Snape drawled disdainfully. "Do you know how far below ground your complex lies?" Harry admitted that he did not. "So you risk burying yourself in the soil you displace as you attempt to dig out."
"What about transfiguring it?" Harry suggested. At Snape's scowl, he expanded on his theme. "If I turned the dirt to air, it wouldn't bury us."
"Once again, I implore you," Snape pleaded dramatically. "Think. Air - even good, fresh air with a proper combination of elements and a fine, invigorating smell - is a gas. Gas is a fluid. Fluids are not constrained into the rigid crystalline structures that grains of sand and other components of soil are. So soil transfigured into gas will immediately, explosively decompress. Out of doors, in a place open to the sky, this is not much of a problem. There is an entire atmosphere into which your transfigured soil can expand. But underground, in a sealed space, when you transfigure the soil in a tiny, cramped tunnel, you run the risk of blowing yourself out of the tunnel and back against the far wall. If you transfigure enough of the stuff at once, you might blow yourself back sufficiently hard to do permanent damage to yourself."
"And what would you do if you wanted to dig yourself out of that complex?" Harry asked sourly.
"Use a probe," Snape replied as though that were the simplest thought in the world. Send a thin rod up through the soil surrounding your complex. That is, assuming your complex is surrounded by soil. What if the surrounding ground is primarily rock? Or molten magma, held at bay by enchantments on the walls? What if your complex is situated directly under a river? You could drown before you find your way to the surface."
"If I am surrounded by rock, I can transfigure a pencil's width of the stone into gas and run a probe through the resulting hole," Harry said smugly. "If I'm beneath a river, I can always seal the opening magically before too much water gets in."
"It sounds as though you are eager to begin," Snape said. "When in your copious free time do you imagine you might have a chance to go to work?"
"After I'm declared the winner of yesterday's election, and before I'm allowed to take office. I won't be sworn in until January fifth. There's plenty of time to solve the mystery of the complex between now and then."
"One would think," Snape mused. "Let us see what today brings first, though, shall we?"
-
At the stroke of one o'clock in the afternoon, Harry was officially declared the winner of the election to the office of Minister of Magic for all Britain. Fudge announced his series of challenges, but he was disturbed at the attitude with which they were received. Many very powerful, very important people were already treating Cornelius Fudge as a figure of fun. His protests were greeted with laughter in public, and disbelief in his own offices.
Harry knew that, with the announcement of his victory, it was time to show himself. Making sure he looked his best, he apparated to the plaza in front of the Ministry. And there, he met his first great political surprise.
Harry's run for office had been admittedly unusual, but he hadn't really been surprised by most of what had happened. He had been delighted at the high voter turnout, he had been excited by the large numbers of votes cast for him, and he had been disgusted at the various whinings from the current Minister - but he hadn't been surprised. He had appreciated the irony of being unable to vote for himself, he had been irritated at being unable to ask either of his closest supporters to vote for him, and he had been frustrated that his election-day headquarters was far too removed from the public eye to serve any public relations function for him - but he hadn't been surprised.
But when he apparated to the plaza in front of the Ministry's main entrance, he was thoroughly shocked. The plaza was packed with people. The instant he appeared, dozens among the crowd spotted him. Within seconds, people throughout the gathering were pointing toward him, and scores of voices shouted congratulations. In the space of two breaths, Harry saw a crowd of hundreds turn toward him, all with their hands outstretched, each one wanting a touch, a handshake... some personal acknowledgement from the new Minister-elect for their very own. Harry took a step backward, then another. He did not want to have to use magic to control this crowd. But as he attempted to make a third retreating step, his heel encountered brick, and he knew that whatever he had struck, whether low curb or medium height planter or tall brick wall, had stopped his flight, and the crowd was about to trample him as well as one another in their excited surge to reach him. Harry raised his hands high and commanded, "Wait!"
The crowd responded. The entire mass of the huge group settled back into a resting position, each individual on his heels, no longer shoving forward into an impossibly tiny space. Harry felt awful. He fully expected to hear shouts of protest, and complaints of magical assault from those gathered closely. But instead, he heard something quite different.
Starting just behind those people standing closest to him, and repeating throughout the gathering, he heard excited whispers all conveying a similar theme. "Did you feel that? That was him! He held us all. It was like a great hug. It was like relaxing into a huge pillow. He kept us all safe. We could have been trampled had he not done that! We are so lucky to be here... to experience this... to be a part of it all... to see history..." and on and on. Those people who were surrounding Harry most closely were not participating in the general discussion - because they were transfixed, gazing at him in adoration.
Harry chose one of the people closest to him, a young witch who had been pushed so close to him that her forehead almost touched his nose. He met her eyes, and said, "Hello."
Harry had intended to ask her how she had come to be here on the plaza, but he never got the chance. Her eyes rolled back until Harry could not see any of her irises at all, and she fainted into the arms of a man standing behind her. Harry thought about what Narcissa had said, that after the election he would be the 'Great Harry Potter' and women would react to him differently. If this is what she had meant, he wished that she had been wrong. Having a woman faint at 'hello' may have been an ego-boost in some different circumstances, but here it was simply ridiculous. He turned to a middle-aged wizard who had been standing immediately to the fainting witch's right, and tried again. "Hello," he said, as neutrally as he could manage.
The wizard's face split in a broad, beaming grin. His eyes lit with a sparkling light akin to madness. Then they rolled back until only the whites were visible, and he fainted into the arms of those behind him. It took three pairs of hands to keep the man from falling to the ground, and once he had been caught, he proved too heavy to hold up. Those who had caught him laid him gently on the pavement, but they had no room to step away and give him room.
Harry really did not want to cast another spell on this crowd, so he pushed his foot back again, dragged his heel upward until he found the upper limit of the brick, and stepped up and back, raising himself above the crowd onto a low wall. He wanted to yell at these people, to tell them to back off and stop crowding, but he recognized that this would be his first public speech to those people who - apparently - were his supporters. So he started gently. Crossing his fingers and hoping that his third attempt did not go as poorly as his first two, he addressed everyone in a loud, clear voice. "Hello."
The crowd made a sound like a huge creature heaving a contented sigh. Harry saw no one else faint, so he took heart from that and continued. "People up close here can't breathe!" He announced. "Please - everyone - move back so these people can have some air!"
There was some shuffling backward in response to his request, but much more noticibly, there were shouts from various parts of the crowd. People called out 'Harry Potter,' and 'The Boy Who Lived,' and 'The Man Who Saved Us!' A few shouted out 'The Spirit Who Heals,' and Harry was baffled by that last appellation. Were these people all trying to prostletize a new religion to him? Was it some faith revolving around a healing spirit? Whatever else they may have been doing, they were still pressing far too closely. Harry raised his hands again... and paused. As his arms had gone up, the crowd had responded with anticipation, like riders on a roller coaster just before the train crested the first rise to begin its exciting descent. Were these crazy people hoping that he would cast a spell on them? Harry hoped not. Instead, he ordered them more forcefully, "Move back!"
The crowd responded, but as Harry studied their faces he saw that they weren't moving in response to being afraid of him, nor were they moving out of concern for their fellows being smothered at the front of the crowd. Most of their faces showed the kind of taunting excitement seen in a child playing a teasing game. Maybe they did want him to cast another spell on them.
Just as Harry was considering casting a spell that would sweep the crowd away from him, they found a way to cooperate well enough to give him some room, and to allow some space to those who had fainted. Harry lowered his hands slowly and called out, "It's good to see you all here!"
The power of the responding cheer nearly knocked him back off the wall. He made sure of his footing and allowed the roar to continue for a while. It was his first ovation, the first time he had received this kind of acclaim from the crowd. It was exciting, it was gratifying... and after he had stood there smiling and waving for a long while, it began to feel really stupid. He raised his hands again, and some of the tumult died away. "How many of you voted for Harry Potter?" It was what he had intended to say immediately after his greeting. But as the words left his mouth, he felt particularly stupid for asking such an obvious question. A crowd of Fudge supporters wouldn't have cheered him like that. Or would they have? Spread out over the plaza, the crowd looked as though all it was concerned with was yelling as much as possible. Harry pondered the nature of crowds as the cheering rose once again, and the roar turned deafening.
He raised his hands for silence once again, and the thunderous ovation dulled to a heavy rumble. "Thank you all for your support. This is a great victory for..." he gave up as the roar drowned out anything else he might have said.
Standing facing the crowd, isolated by the inability to communicate in the din created by the shouting, Harry was surprised again - this time by how quickly he had tired of the crowd's acclaim. As the cheering went on and on, Harry tried once again to speak to an individual. He shouted to a wizard with an extremely long beard, "Who are you?" The wizard was very impressed at having been chosen for conversation with the Minister-elect, but he could not hear anything Harry had said. He cupped his hand behind his ear. Harry tried again, moving his lips in an exaggerated way to try to allow the man to whom he spoke to read his lips. "Who are you?" The wizard, his panic rising as he realized that he was missing his chance to converse with the Minister-elect, shook his head and held a hand behind each of his ears. But the rest of the crowd had finally seen that Harry was shouting, and the cheering quieted just in time for everyone to hear his bellowed question. "WHO ARE YOU?"
"PILGRIMS!" came the response, shouted by hundreds of voices at once. "Potter's Pilgrims," shouted dozens of others, as though that would explain everything. For Harry, it explained nothing. But then, he heard shouts from throughout the crowd - individuals saying something about 'Longbottoms' and 'Saint Mungo's.' With a start, Harry realized that word of his treatment of Frank and Alice had somehow gotten out into public parlance. And that some people now must believe that he had wondrous healing powers. He felt sick. If these people had elected him to be the "Healing Minister," he would be in big trouble very soon. One thing he could do for a good start was to try to make sure no one got hurt at his victory rally. He motioned to several people who stood close by and asked them to help lift those people who had passed out. The job was particularly easy, as both of those who had fainted began to awaken even as they were being lifted from the ground, and soon Harry was reasonably certain that both of them were standing on their own and were safe from being trampled.
He addressed the crowd once again. "I have never accepted an election victory before," he began, and waited for the laughter and applause to die down. "So I think I had better go inside and confer with the experts..." The crowd gasped. Could their heroic leader possibly be referring to Fudge and his minions? Harry grinned and explained. "... Of course, I mean the clerks who actually get all the work done in there." A round of relieved laughter answered him, and Harry jumped down off of the low wall and strode toward the Ministry entrance. Although the crowd parted for him as he passed through the throng, scores of hands reached out to touch him, even if all they could manage was to brush against his robe.
He entered the building to the sounds of more cheering breaking out behind him, but he was thankful that the crowd had somehow decided to remain outside. The Ministry lobby was busy enough without them, and Harry was immediately confused as to where he should go. Last time he had been there, he was fighting for his life. With a start, he realized that he was actually much less comfortable coming in to the Ministry to accept his election victory than he had been while running for his life through the same place.
A tall, thin, elegantly robed wizard approached him at a businesslike pace, wearing a determined expression. "Mister Potter?" he inquired, though he seemed to be quite sure of exactly who Harry was. "Your Mister Lupin may have mentioned me. We spoke while filing your election paperwork."
"Are you Deckard Constantine?" Harry asked in turn, though it was fairly obvious from Remus' description that this man could be no other.
"I am," Deckard replied dryly. "Come this way. I believe I can save you some time with the various official processes you'll be going through."
Harry followed immediately, grateful that someone knew what he was doing there.
-
"Right, then. Try the spell." Fred was staring closely at the receiver unit that Dumbledore had used in the days leading up to Halloween. Once they had reclaimed their invention from the Headmaster's office, the twins had brought it back to their warehouse and had activated it once again, but they had been able to hear nothing. Which was actually a good sign, because Harry had supposedly cleared all of the Death Eaters out of Voldemort's hiding place, and there really shouldn't have been any conversation to pick up. If there had been voices, it would have been extremely suspicious, and might possibly have been a sign of danger - at least to Harry, and possibly to everyone else as well. But Fred had adjusted the amplification of the device, turning its volume up to levels that would produce truly painful sound should the Ear actually pick up a human voice, and he and George both were pretty sure that they had heard the wispy traces of tiny air currents being transmitted from their Ear. And once they were fairly certain that they still had a connection to the transmitting portion of the system, all that remained was to test the spell Albus had taught them: the one that would reveal the location of the Ear to which the receiver was attuned.
George drew his wand and recited the spell. Both twins gazed into the surface of the magic mirror they had designated to display the results of the locator spell. Both twins read the result. Both twins looked at one another.
"No," George said.
"Can't be," Fred agreed.
"Away over there?" George scoffed.
"Wouldn't be practical," Fred said.
Both twins stared at the mirror, as though they might see some magical flaw that could have given them such a ridiculous reading. The mirror looked fine.
"Cast it again," Fred suggested.
"You cast it this time," George insisted. Fred did. The mirror showed the exact same result.
"Should we tell Harry?" Fred wondered.
"He's busy. We have plenty of time," George assured his brother.
-
The first sighting of Lucius Malfoy's ghost was never confirmed by any scholarly authorities on ghostly behavior. In fact, most spectrologists claimed that the sighting was very likely not reliable, since it occurred mere days after Lucius' death, and most spirits required a longer interval after departing their mortal bodies to manifest a visible form. Privately, many of those who dismissed the sighting conceded that the combination of a strong-willed, powerful wizard and the circumstances of his death - namely, execution - may have contributed to an early return, but even those authorities remained skeptical.
The spectre was first seen in Flourish and Blott's booksellers in Diagon Alley. A clerk called attention to the wraith, at first believing him to be a thief. Several people looked when the clerk called out, however, and all of them agreed that, rather than stealing, the ghost was attempting to place a book into a young girl's bookbag. The girl herself never saw the ghost, but claimed to have felt a cold chill along her spine immediately after the clerk cried out. The girl's parents said they felt a sense that their daughter was in terrible danger, though that may have been due to nothing more than the combination of reasonable parental concern and a warning being shouted by one of the store's employees.
Those who described the ghost reported seeing a remarkably detailed and exceptionally opaque manifestation, more like a living man than most ghostly apparitions. This may have explained why the clerk had at first thought the shade to be a living thief.
It is hard to estimate how much that first report may have fired the imaginations of others, but immediately following it, sightings of Lucius Malfoy's ghost became quite common, especially in London.
-
Another disputed paranormal experience led to one of the more persistent modern legends to have taken root in Slytherin House at Hogwarts. The event occurred soon after the first sighting of the Malfoy Ghost, on a day which had been designated a Hogsmeade holiday for Hogwarts, during which students would be allowed to leave campus and visit the nearby village.
Four students had deliberately become separated from their fellows, had left the clear path leading to the village to hide themselves in a stand of trees, where one of their number had arranged for a case of beer to be left for them. Gregory Goyle, Chas Thrasher, Boyd Reimuth and Jordan Lurker were relaxing in the woods, enjoying their beverages and talking about what had happened since last summer.
"A real cockup," Goyle groused. "We get to go visit the Big Man, but we're never included. Now they say he's gone. That's probably a load of shite. They said he was gone before . But one thing's sure. My Dad's not shown up at home since Halloween."
"Yer lucky," Thrasher growled, tossing back a half-can of Guinness before continuing. "Mine came home totally impotent. Can't summon a damn beer from the cooler. Can't levitate a chair to the dinner table. Worse, he's so ashamed of it, like he did something wrong. I yelled at the old man last I was at home. Before that, I never raised my voice to 'im, ever before. I always said 'Yes, Sir.' But damn the man, I yelled at him last I was home, I did. Said, 'What in Hell you creepin' about for like yer fearful of shadows? Ye lost a fight! So what? Ye lost. So take yer lumps and be a man for it!' I thought he might punch me, might knock me down and tell me what for. But I've never felt worse in my life than right then. Because the old man turns to me and cries! Not all blubbering boo-hoo, but with water from the eyes and a face like an old woman. Disgusting."
The other three boys were uncomfortable hearing such a personal account as that. To break the nervous silence, Reimuth offered, "My Mom and Dad both were in the pile of bodies Potter dropped on the Ministry plaza. Stiff as boards and without even their clothes on to keep 'em decent. Bastard dropped 'em there like cut wood. At least I know where mine are. Sorry, Greg. Jordan! What about you 'n' yours?"
"My dad," Jordan nodded. Then, with a shrug, "Blew up."
"What?" Jordan's three companions demanded as one.
Jordan glanced at each of the other three in turn, then drank some more of his beer. He narrowed his eyes, thinking about what had happened. "Halloween. Dad. Came home, laughed a lot, went to get my Grandfather's wand. When we found him, all that was left was broken bones and... a mess."
"Fuuuuuck," Chas drawled.
"Yeah, fuck," agreed Gregory, gulping more beer.
"Way fuck," nodded Boyd, then slammed his empty beer can against a tree trunk. "And we're fucked as well! Our dads all dead or missing or crippled, my mom gone, the whole future I had planned swept away like it was never there. No Big Man, no Organization, no... no place to go... no nothing! All totally, completely, absolutely fucked, fucked, fucked!"
"Or not," Goyle suggested, icily calm.
Chas was outraged. "What - ha' ye nae heard us all, ye daft git?" As the Guinness took effect, Thrasher's affected accent he used at Hogwarts began to slip away, and the musical sound of his family's speech became more prominent. "Yer father's nae returnin' and e'en if he ware te, you'd have no one te join wi' 'oo 'ad aspirations fer aught."
"He's right," Boyd pointed out despondently. "We would've been lucky to join something like the Organization. We could have taken advantage of their planning and their organization, their power and their experience, and their tradition - which is what gave them the sheer number of loyal followers that were all in on it together. Without them... without the Big Man, sure, but without them all - all of them working together... we might as well be shooting spitwads at the sun as trying to change the world to be more like we want it to be."
"Or not," Gregory repeated, eyes flashing.
"Got something?" Jordan asked calmly.
"Yeah, I've Got Something," Goyle announced. "First, think of this: How many of us are there?"
"Four," Chas responded quickly.
"Not right here, nitwit!" Greg exclaimed with impatience. "I mean, think of how many young men and women have lost their fathers or their mothers or both. Or who have lost... I don't know... the big guy of the family, whether he's an Uncle or a Granddad - or maybe he's not family at all. Maybe he's the first one to have told them about the Organization, and about how much better it was going to be when the plans all started coming together. Think of how many people were at Crabbe's party. Think that all of those people were only a tiny sample of the ones I'm talking about. That whole group was drawn from one year, from one House, from one school, from people Vince knew well enough to invite! There's got to be several times that many at Hogwarts alone! And they're interested. You know they're still interested - we were interested, and we'd still be interested if there was anything to be interested in! So all we have to do is to get these interested people together. Remind them of their losses. Remind them of the dreams they had that got taken away when the first Organization got whacked. Remind them that things have a way of evening out - first one side gets whacked, then it's the other side's turn. Let them know that there has to be someone to carry on the fight. Someone to take revenge. Someone to take Voldemort's place!"
And that is when the legendary event took place. Whether it was, as Chas and Boyd later claimed, because Gregory said the dread name out loud, or whether it was, as Jordan later claimed, because the group of four friends had left themselves in an indefensible place far from witnesses, the reasons hardly mattered at the time. What mattered to the four sixth-year students was that their wands suddenly went flying, tearing themselves out of pockets and right through cloth to make their escape; each of the four suffered a terrible bolt of agony through his entire body; and in the instant following the blast of pain, none of the four could move.
"Boys... boys," came a soothing woman's voice. It was a voice like any of their mothers' voices, though none of them could identify whose voice it was.
"Can I kill one - just to show the others we're serious?" a harsh cackling burst in to interrupt the soothing voice.
"I don't think so," the motherly voice crooned.
"You're soft!" the harsh voice countered. "Look at that one. He'd look so good with his entrails spread out all over the ground. I could cut open his middle and pull. Twice. Maybe three times. And just think of how beautiful it would be."
"He'd die," a third voice spoke, so sweet and clear, so luscious that all four boys strained to turn to see who had spoken, even though they were so thoroughly petrified that none of them could blink, much less turn.
"He might get first aid," the ancient voice whined. "He might get some help. He might live."
"Not the way you pull guts out," the sweet voice countered, giving all the boys a chill.
The three women walked slowly into the boys' view. They all wore long cloaks with hoods. The hoods seemed to be completely empty, darkness filling the space in which a face should have appeared. There was a fat one, a thin one, and one of medium girth. Beyond that, the boys could tell nothing about the three.
"Now boys," the motherly sounding one of the three addressed the group. "You must know that we allowed your departed Dark Lord to be defeated so easily for a reason."
"There was much for which we did not care in his methods," croaked the ancient voice.
"Besides which... he was mean," cooed the luscious voice.
"We usually like to see a good fight," cackled the harsh voice.
"But in this case, there was no point in allowing your one-time hero a chance," the motherly voice said smoothly. "We were determined that he would be destroyed."
"If you go trying to put the old hate network back together," sighed the youngest one.
"We'll have to gut you like fish, and leave your carcasses to feed the flowers," shrieked the oldest of the trio.
"You may call us the Furies, or you may call us the Fates," the motherly voice instructed.
"Or, if you wish to be more favorably considered, you may call upon us as the Kindly Ones," the tantalizingly lovely voice sang.
"But whatever you call us remember that we know what you are doing," croaked the dry voice of the ancient crone.
"We know what you are saying and what you are planning," the motherly voice crooned.
"We know what is in your hearts," the luscious voice teased. "No matter how offensive it might be to us."
"So don't," the motherly one commanded them. "Don't put your network together. Don't organize your contacts. Don't find a secret meeting place. Don't choose a leader. Don't have your compatriots swear allegiance to him. Don't plot the overthrow of the dominant culture. Don't plan assassinations. Don't. All that you've spoken of today. Don't. Especially you, Gregory Goyle. Don't. Do I have to make myself more clear?"
"I could make it clear," the crone rasped. "It would be clearer with each wound he took."
"Or I could kill them all," the sweet one added daintily.
"You will regain the power of movement in a short while, when I decide that you may be trusted with it," the motherly one explained. "Your fate is - for once - in your own hands. You can choose to be suicidally foolish. Or you can decide otherwise. Goodbye, boys."
The three were gone, and almost immediately, the boys could move once again.
The first time Gregory Goyle told that story - in the Slytherin common room, to an audience that included Vincent Crabbe and several other strong boys whose families had been tied to the Death Eaters - he was beaten until his entire torso was covered in bruises. Despite the beatings, he stuck to his story. This - and the fact that the three other witnesses remained equally adamant about what had occurred - impressed his listeners so greatly that the tale became one of Slytherin House's most persistent legends. As the story spread, many who heard it began trying to find a symbolic rather than a literal meaning to the tale. But Goyle wasn't distracted by such foolishness. So far as he was concerned, planning to reconstruct the Death Eater network led to pain and helplessness and the wrath of the Kindly Ones. He applied himself to his studies with a vigor his teachers had never before seen in him. Gregory Goyle resigned himself to a future that would necessarily include gainful employment in the society as it currently stood.
-
Albus Dumbledore wandered through a generously sized, but sparsely furnished hillside cottage, humming tunelessly and reacquainting himself with the property. The Dumbledore family had once been quite extensive, and as their numbers had dwindled over the past several hundred years, the considerable wealth of a number of branches of the family had become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Throughout his lifetime, Albus had inherited quite a lot of property, including dozens of homes. Most he had sold. Some he had given away, cementing important alliances by making the dwellings wedding gifts for his friends' children or congratulatory gifts for particularly powerful wizards on auspicious occasions. A few he had never even visited. But this one had been in the back of his mind for quite some time as a potential retreat once he was ready to leave Hogwarts.
The cottage had many advantages to recommend it. It was unimposing from the outside, and a few glamours could make the structure nearly invisible to any but the most skilled and determined searchers. It was far from neighbors, and quite a long distance from the nearest settlement of any size. It was sturdy, nearly soundproof already, and could be further insulated quite easily against noise as well as the vagaries of weather. It had many rooms, reliable plumbing, a fully finished attic and a well-appointed basement. It had belonged to Dumbledores since it had been built. Powerful magic had been worked there. And it sat immediately above a strong ley line. The soil of the hill was dense and rocky, but many trees had taken root, surrounding the cottage and helping insure its privacy. Anyone who took the trouble to note that Albus had moved to that particular cottage upon leaving his career in academe would be reassured that Dumbledore had retired to an old family property, and would probably presume that the old man would never be heard from again.
That suited Albus Dumbledore perfectly.
As he wandered, he mentally assigned certain functions to the various rooms. Certain rooms were perfect candidates for particular uses: library, research center, practice room, and more. He came upon a large bedroom, nearly bare of furniture except for a workbench that had been permanently bolted to two walls. On the bench were a number of the kitchy kinds of knicknacks he usually displayed in his office. "Should get rid of these stupid shells," he murmured, picking up one of the figures and inspecting its base. Within the delicate porcelain figurine of the shepherd girl was a powerful and sensitive magic detector, which could be attuned to particular magical signatures. When properly adjusted, it could reveal whenever a particular wizard cast a spell. An expert interpreter could reliably determine the type of spell, and even the magical strength that had gone into each particular spell's casting. Dumbledore gently placed the figurine back onto the workbench. He smiled as he inspected the various detectors he had arranged there. There would soon be many more of them arranged on these benches. This room would have a very important function. "Potter monitor," Dumbledore mumbled, and went to inspect the kitchen.
-
Harry used a subtle combination of a summoning spell and a levitation spell to move the huge stone block from its place in the center of one room's wall in the complex he had captured by defeating Voldemort. He felt that he was getting better at blending magical forces and creating useful spells by combining several different magical effects at once. He was certain that he was gaining much more subtle and positive control over his power. He drew the massive stone block out of position centimeter by centimeter, listening carefully for the sounds of collapsing soil from behind the slab, or any liquid sounds that might betray the presence of water or even molten rock beyond the barrier of the wall. He heard nothing but the grinding together of hard surfaces as the stone moved.
Once the wall section had been removed, Harry placed it to one side to allow himself and his friends to inspect what it had covered. To Harry, the exposed surface was simply dirt. Remus shrugged, unable to deduce much more from what he could see. But Snape scowled, looked closely at the packed soil, sniffed carefully, then removed a few grains by dragging his finger across the tightly packed surface and placed the particles onto his tongue to taste them. He looked at Harry, his face showing puzzlement. "Unless we are very far below ground, which I doubt, I don't think we're in England at all."
Harry found this very unlikely. Voldemort, for all his threats that he would dominate the entire world someday, had always operated in the British Isles. His favorite recruits were English. His previous places of retreat had been in England. Harry had been sure that England would be the country in which the Dark Lord would bury his sanctum. But Snape was a very highly educated man. If he said this was not English soil, it probably wasn't. But had some different dirt been specifically chosen for packing around these walls? Harry wanted more information. "Why do you say that?"
"This soil is characteristic of somewhere much warmer and wetter than England," Snape lectured.
"Wetter?" Harry asked skeptically.
"Tropical," Snape declared definitively. "The organic matter especially reveals a tropical origin."
Harry looked at the dirt and could see nothing particularly tropical about it. Then again, he admitted to himself, even with his limited experience as an Herbologist earlier that year, he wasn't exactly an expert on organic material in soil. He would take Snape's word for it. "Move aside. I'll send up the probe," he ordered, and both men immediately obeyed. He was getting much better at giving orders - and expecting them to be carried out. Harry had learned something about how many ways there were to be a bad commander, and he had been forced to admit that he had shared many qualities with some of the worst commanders in history. Becoming comfortable with giving orders smoothly and learning to accept the obedience of others gracefully had required a number of difficult lessons. Harry knew he would be studying the subject of leadership for a long while to come.
Harry scooped a small handful of dirt away from the packed mass and pressed it into an oval shape. Concentrating hard, he transfigured the soil into a solid mass. He had been attempting to turn the soil into something like stainless steel. The iron weight he wound up with was more like a fishing sinker than the glittering ornament he had envisioned, but on reflection he decided that the rough, dull item was probably more appropriate. A shiny one would simply have gotten all scratched up, anyway. Harry scooped some more packed dirt into a large, loose pile on the floor. This would be the material for the most difficult challenge to his transfiguring ability. He placed his iron weight into the pile of dirt, then began to levitate it. As the weight rose, it drew a metallic cable behind it, transfigured from the dirtpile in which it had rested. As the cable was drawn away by the rising weight, more soil was transfigured into cable so the entire construction resembled an iron snake rising from the loose earth on the floor. This operation required Harry to coordinate at least three ongoing spells at once. He was lifting the weight, directing its flight, and transfiguring soil into metal cable all at the same time. And he was about to add a fourth spell to the mix. As a result, the iron snake moved very slowly. But its movements were deliberate and the magic remained coordinated. Pleased with his own efforts, Harry began to work his fourth spell.
As Snape had explained to him days ago, Harry knew that pulling huge amounts of earth out of the packed mass in order to form a tunnel would end up burying him and possibly filling the entire room in which he stood. But pulling a fistful of soil at a time to create a tiny space through which his probe could move would create a much smaller volume of debris. Gently, Harry began to dig at the surface of the packed soil, near the top of the space left by the removal of the stone block. Moving in extremely slow motion in order to keep his many magical efforts under control, Harry directed the iron weight into the cavity he had created. It had soon disappeared from sight, dragging its long cable as it went.
Snape and Remus had little to do but watch and remain alert in case of catastrophe. Snape still suspected that Voldemort had placed his sanctum under a riverbed, and he waited for a sudden flood of water to burst into the room. Remus, by contrast, believed that the Dark Lord would have built his complex in as simple and easily accomplished fashion as possible. He watched for the gleam of sunlight to pour through the opening made for the probe.
Remus shouted first. "It's through!" he called in warning. Harry appreciated the notice. As he had progressed, he had become more and more concentrated on his magic, feeling his way upward as he delicately displaced soil and thrust the probe farther along its way. By the time Remus called out, Harry was not seeing through his eyes at all. He stared blankly forward, receiving his most informative impressions through feedback from the leading edge of his spells, experiencing a sort of 'magic sense' of which he had previously felt only the barest hints, and then only when utilizing his most powerful magic. He had been confused when he had felt resistance to his probe disappear, and it was only when he looked through his eyes once again to see the brilliant sunlight spilling through the probe shaft that he understood that the resistance had disappeared because his probe had broken the surface. Harry checked the cable. "We're a little over thirty feet down... say thirty-five to be safe," he announced.
"So how do you plan to proceed?" Snape asked as though digging out of Voldemort's old throne complex were a classroom assignment.
"Transfigure," Harry shrugged, looking up through the shaft, trying to see some evidence of what awaited them above.
"I presume you are speaking of transfiguring soil into air," Snape sneered. "I thought that I had explained explosive decompression sufficiently well to discourage you from attempting to follow that course," he concluded, clearly disappointed in his student's lack of attention.
"You did," Harry said absently. "That's why I'm not starting the transfiguration down here. I'm transfiguring the soil near the surface, and only around the shaft I've already dug out. The fluid air has plenty of room to expand and move, and we'll hardly feel a breeze around us... Ow!"
"Yawn!" Remus ordered, immediately taking his own suggestion.
Snape was already stretching his mouth in a wide, pressure-equalizing gape. As soon as he had finished, he told Harry, "We will not be feeling any breeze around us. There is no exit through which air might escape and allow a breeze to blow around us. What we will feel is a sudden increase in pressure, which is what hurt your ears." He immediately yawned again.
"Pressure drop, now!" Remus barked. "Yawn again!" Once again, he opened his jaw wide.
Harry imitated the men, stretching his mouth open in an exaggerated, imitation yawn. He felt his ears pop several times and was left with a ringing sound and the beginnings of a headache. "I'll work more slowly," he promised his companions.
As Harry's tunnel began to widen, he could see that it would be a bad idea to dig straight upward for thirty-five feet. If he were to fall from the top of his tunnel, he might be able to gather his wits sufficiently to prevent being badly injured, but he was pretty sure that few others would be able to do so. He had no idea how heavily trafficked was the ground below which he stood, and he did not want to set up a deadly trap for unsuspecting passersby. So he started widening the tunnel at the bottom first. He worked very slowly and took plenty of breaks to keep from suffering another ear-crushing pressure wave. He fashioned steps in the tunnel's side on which to climb, and when his excavation was about eight feet high, he created an offset ledge where he could stand and work his way upward at a place not directly above the lower shaft. He magically reinforced the lowest segment and began working on the next section. It seemed to take forever. Once again, Snape and Remus had little to do except watch, and they were quickly tired of the inactivity. Harry concentrated on finding ways to speed up his labor, and soon, there were four magically-reinforced sections of tunnel leading to a ledge just below the surface, wide enough to accommodate all three companions.
Harry called to Remus and Snape to climb up and join him, then fell silent in order to listen carefully. A grin spread across his face. There were no sounds of motor traffic or of huge crowds, but he could hear sounds of English being spoken among a small group of individuals. Perfect. Wanting to be prepared for whatever he might find above, Harry tried to follow the conversation above him. It was odd - seemingly nonsense.
"There he is. Can you get him? Lit well enough. He won't stop moving. Steady... now. Good. He's interested in something over there. Oh, bugger, there he's gone!"
Remus and Snape were on the ledge by the time Harry heard that last comment, so he reached up and pushed - with his hands and with magic, pushing his way up out of the Earth, accompanied by both men.
"Bloody Hell!" a man's voice shouted, then immediately continued, "We've found them!"
Harry looked around. As Snape had suggested, the land was tropical - moist, dense jungle. There was heavy undergrowth and thick vines hung from many of the trees. The air felt hot and sticky. Harry was sweating and uncomfortable in seconds.
The same voice that had claimed to have found someone turned out to belong to a large blond man who was, at that moment, baring his gleaming front teeth in a broad grin. "By God, you three!" he said, so heartily that he was nearly shouting. "We've been looking all over for you. Merlin's Beard, I never thought that anyone would stoop to burying you in the jungle! Beastly, just beastly. Good job you dragged yourself out of there, lads! I was photographing a beast who stood just where you broke free of the ground, and I never saw any evidence that you had been put there at all. Well! Dumbledore will be happy enough to hear you've been found. And I'll bet that school of yours won't be paying for that rental boat, either, what?"
The man took a breath and realized that his audience had no idea who he was. A bit embarrassing for a great explorer and wildlife photographer not to be recognized, but these three had apparently been through quite a traumatic experience.
"Creevey!" the man announced, holding out his hand to Remus. "Edmund Creevey! Sent to search for you on behalf of your esteemed Headmaster! Honestly, it feels as though we've covered half of Brazil searching for you. Damned glad to see you, lads, damned glad!"
The wildlife photographer was baffled as to why all three of the men he had searched for so diligently laughed hard enough that two fell down, and the third still stood helplessly shaking with mirth several minutes after their laughter had begun.
-
At Hogwarts, the excitement of the election of Harry Potter to Minister of Magic had died down very quickly after the completion of the vote recount. Students promptly returned to their primary concerns: studies and socializing. Ron had sat next to Hermione during dinner for several nights in a row, and on a Friday night, as most of the other students were leaving the Hall after finishing their meals, he asked her, "Who are you going to the Yule Ball with?"
Hermione looked wistfully around the Hall, remembering how it had been decorated for the Ball in years past, and those with whom she had attended. "I don't know," she admitted. With a sigh, she expanded on that answer. "I'd rather not even go if I have to be someone's date."
"What? Go alone?" Ron said, his face twisting in confusion.
"No, that wouldn't work at all. The Yule Ball is a formal dance; you're expected to arrive in couples. What I mean is, I don't want to go with some boy who will buy me a corsage and then expect me to fall in love with him because we were at the Yule Ball together. There are so many expectations put on that dance. It's the romantic event of the year. You're supposed to attend with the love of your life." She snorted contemptuously. "How much sense does that make? Like the entire population of the school is going to synchronize their romantic watches to chime together on the night of the Christmas Dance. It's ridiculous. I'd rather go with a friend and be able to enjoy the event without all the pressure. The dance is always beautiful. It would be fun to enjoy the dancing, the music, the food - and not have to worry about being obligated to your date for... anything."
"Oh," Ron said, not sure whether Hermione had just confirmed or denied his supposition. "I had thought that you might be going with... you know... the Minister-elect."
Hermione took a moment to translate Ron's statement. When she realized what he had meant, her eyes widened and she had to work to keep from laughing. "No... Harry? No."
"What's wrong with Harry?"
"Nothing's wrong with him, Ron. Really, the very things that make him inappropriate as a Yule Ball date are the same things that make him so sweet. If he and I went to the dance together, Harry would feel obligated. He would feel as though he had to take me out at least once more."
"Heavy obligation," Ron muttered sourly.
Hermione cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "Don't be bad. Harry would feel obligated. He would feel like he had to ask me out again, he would feel like he had to treat me all romantically, and he'd be uncomfortable and awkward and it would turn into a big deal, and it might even spoil our friendship. No, I won't be going to the dance with Harry."
"Oh," Ron said again, still not quite sure that he understood correctly. He decided to take the chance of presuming that he did understand. "I know what you mean. And... I agree. I would like to go to the Yule Ball with my best friend."
Hermione looked delightedly scandalized. "Ron! You're asking Harry?"
Ron looked blank for a moment, then looked totally horrified. "No! No, I'm not... Harry? No. Hermione, I mean I'm asking you."
"Ron..." Hermione said warningly.
"No pressure," Ron assured her, holding his hands up as though asking for a truce. "No... uh... expectations. I admit that I want to dance every slow dance with you, but..."
"Ron," Hermione interrupted sternly, "do you even know how to slow dance?"
"No," Ron admitted with a shrug. "But I'll bet you do. And I'll also bet that you could show me something simple enough that even I could learn it before the Ball."
Hermione regarded Ron suspiciously, but there was a smile threatening to break through. "Humility... and dance lessons? I think I am being romanced, Ron."
"Nah. I know how you feel. And I know something else, too. I know that looking up those tax records and flying out to Harry's house together on my broomstick was fun." His earnest plea was interrupted by a sudden realization. "I have to get out there and get my broomstick back. I really miss it."
Hermione laughed. "Classic Ron. Whatever else you're talking about, it's suddenly 'Oh! my stick!'"
Ron blushed a brilliant red but did not drop his eyes. "Sorry," he said tightly. "I just thought of it." Hermione laughed again at his admission of what she had just described. Ron pressed on with grim determination. "What I meant was, When we were doing all that it was like some of our other adventures - Don't laugh, we did have adventures, it's true! Finding the Sorcerer's Stone... well, getting Harry on his way to find the Sorcerer's Stone, anyway - that was an adventure! And sneaking around to help save Buckbeak and..." Ron looked around to make sure no one was listening. "... and all that stuff we did. You know. That was an adventure! And we may have been scared sometimes, but that made it exciting. And finding the Potters' place and going out and seeing..." he glanced around again. "You know what all we did. It was fun. It was fun to work with you and fun to find things out with you and fun to fly with you and..." He shut up, seeing Hermione start to turn defensive at his outpouring of feeling. "What I mean is, you're my best friend. And I think we could go to the Yule Ball and enjoy the... the everything there without... I mean, we could be relaxed and not worry about expectations..."
"Ron," Hermione cut off Ron's rambling. She reached out and covered one of his hands with her own. "That is the absolute worst delivery of an invitation I have ever heard." He looked horrified. "However, the invitation itself was the best. Best friend. I hope so. You're my best friend too. Let's go to the Yule Ball together and just have fun."
"Yes!" Ron agreed enthusiastically, drawing a warning look from Hermione. More calmly, with deliberate restraint, he asked, "When can we practice dancing?"
Hermione stood, lifting his hand to draw him along with her. "What about now?" She led him in a waltz-like dance, twirling smoothly between the tables of the Great Hall. Anyone watching from a distance would have been quite impressed with the students' first real slow dance together, and would probably not have heard Hermione's repeated cries of "Ow" as Ron stepped on her feet.
-
In his plastic blister on his cardboard display, Voldemort bided his time. He did not feel - could not feel - as though he were actually standing in that confining package, or lying in it, or sitting. He hardly had enough points of articulation to even get into a complex position such as 'sitting.' But he did abide, and he was good at that.
It was boring. Horribly dull and boring. Left here in an empty room, there was nothing to watch through the distorting plane of the plastic covering. There was nothing to hear, either, except on two occasions recently: once when the Brat Who Survived came to dig his way out of the buried complex, and once again when the boy had returned to seal the sanctum back up.
Lord Voldemort silently criticized his enemy. 'Digging out was stupid. What did it matter where the Throne Chambers were buried? That's why they had been buried, to keep them out of the way of the ignorant fools who carry on their lives overhead. Of course, the Brat would not have anticipated my genius in burying the complex in the deep jungle, where development would not reach for decades. Perhaps that is why he needed to see for himself where he would emerge when he dug his way out. At least he sealed the chambers once again. That was the only intelligent thing to do - admit that the Dark Lord's plan was pure genius, and adhere to it.'
Voldemort had a number of critiques such as that which he reviewed over and over again as a way to pass the time. He had been in worse situations. He had been completely disembodied for a time. At least now he had a body. And it was a body that was particularly resistant to decay. Bacteria were not interested in consuming the plastic from which his current shell was made. Larger creatures would find no nutrition in him either. He did not smell particularly enticing, and in any event, he was sealed up in the revel room where no large creatures could enter. The Brat had, no doubt inadvertently, created the vessel that was most likely to allow Voldemort to live forever! And the Dark Lord had never been one to allow his time to go to waste. If the Brat could learn wandless magic, there was no reason on Earth why the exceptionally powerful and inventive Voldemort could not do the same.
His first attempts to move his body, to summon his wand, and to break the seal of the package which contained him had all been in vain - but he had nothing but time to work on those abilities. He had attempted apparation repeatedly. That was, in a sense, the most common magical ability that did not directly involve wand use. But he had been unable to apparate, either, and had decided that he was aiming too high for a first attempt at casting a spell as a plastic figurine.
His next realization was that, as an action figure, he was essentially an object with a magical mind more than he was a living creature with magical ability. His very body could be a wand - or at least a crude wand-substitute. What was really required for magic was a mind to drive the spell, and a device to focus it. Once he had decided to accept that as his working theory, he concentrated first on casting Lumos. He would light his plastic body as though he were lighting a wand. If his attempt worked, he should be able to see the reflection of the illumination shining from his head in the plastic wrap before his eyes. He tried and tried, and when he failed, he found that his strongest feeling was that the spell lacked the spoken word that would activate the magic.
He thought for a long while about how to get around that difficulty, and decided that ventriloquism would do the trick. If he could make the word 'Lumos' sound by using a ventriloquism spell, then he could use that sound to trigger the illumination of his own body by casting the Lumos spell as soon as he heard his ventriloquism word. It would be difficult to coordinate, and he suspected that he would have to learn to cast two spells at once in order to have any chance at success.
His first attempts were completely futile, but that was to be expected. He had no natural voice to 'throw' using ventriloquism. And if he could not make the original sound somehow, the spell would not have anything to copy. For all he knew, he had actually been successful at casting the ventriloquism spell, and the spell had dutifully reproduced exactly the sound he had been able to make with his non-existent voice box - which was complete silence. The problem he faced was multilayered and highly confusing, demanding a level of magical thinking he had never before been forced to consider. Such challenges would lead to many failures before allowing any success, but Voldemort could suffer the frustration. He knew how to make the best of his defeats, and he had come back from disaster before this.
And even if he never learned to cast a spell in this form, Voldemort knew that he had one advantage remaining. Someone, someday, would find this complex. Someone, someday, would remove his package from the revel room, and would open it. A child might play with him, placing his wand into his hand. Or a scholar might recognize his name, and transform his plastic form into living material once again. He might thus make his triumphant return to flesh and blood. Or, he might be discovered by some magical tinkerer who could simply return to him the ability to speak and move. But somehow, someday, he would be removed from his plastic prison and set free once again.
And when he was, he would remember so much that would call for revenge. He had been served most barbarously. His vengeance would be terrible, indeed.
THE END
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Many thanks to all of you who contributed reviews for this piece.
If you are among those who have not yet submitted a review, I would appreciate reading your thoughts on this story.
My next project is an original, science-fiction tale involving alien anthropologists on Earth, and a few students who drop out of the program while on a planet far from their own. (Ours, that is.) Watch for Changing Station, coming your way just as soon as I can finish it… and find someone to publish the thing!