Chapter Three: Tabbies and Stags
3:00 p.m., June 8, 1997
Harry woke with a shout of pain, clutching at his forehead. He'd risen so suddenly from where he'd been resting, on one of the little benches in the back lawn, that he knocked his glasses off of his chest, and fell on them as he rolled off of the bench. Swearing, he inspected the damage. The lenses themselves were fine….
"Harry, mate," Ron Weasley said, jogging over and looking concerned. "What's wrong? Your scar again, is it?"
"Yes," Harry said, wincing. His forehead still throbbed uncomfortably. "I had a dream. The first one since – since Sirius…"
He struggled to recall what he'd seen. He'd seen through Voldemort's eyes again, felt through those long white hands…
He was dragged out of his brief reverie by Hermione's shrill and fearful voice. "Harry? Harry, are you okay? Ron said that you'd had another one of your dreams, and that your scar is hurting again. Can I get you anything? Do you need an aspirin?"
"Hermione, shut up and let me think!" Harry snarled, and Hermione subsided, looking hurt. On the edges of his vision, Harry saw Ron put his arm around the girl.
"I was – I was him again. Looking through his eyes. And it was night, very late at night."
"You were outside?" Ron said excitedly. "Could you see where?"
"No, inside, in some building or something. Only I know it was night because Voldemort said … something about how that evening's meeting shouldn't make her think she was out of favor…"
"Her?" Hermione interrupted again. Harry glared at his friend, and then continued.
"Bellatrix Lestrange. He was talking to Bellatrix about… something. About Snape, it was about Snape!" Harry exclaimed, the full scene coming back to him. "There had just been a huge meeting – all of the Death Eaters – and he was talking to Bellatrix Lestrange because… because he'd done something to make her think she was out of favor. Only he was telling her that it was just a ploy, and that he only wanted people to think that he supported Severus Snape. And that she should spy on him, since they were all living together…"
"Did he say where?" Ron interjected again.
"No, no, that's when I woke up," Harry said, annoyed. "It was weird. Usually when I've woken up before it was because he was thinking of me, he was angry at me, but this time I just – woke. Like the vision ended, and then I woke."
Hermione frowned, puzzled. "And have'nt all your dreams always been in – well, in the present? When you were looking into V- Voldemort's mind? And it's afternoon, now."
"He could be in China or Timbuktu or something," Ron suggested.
"I don't think so," Harry said, shaking his head. "It looked like – like England."
"How do you know?" Hermione asked, quizzically. "You said you didn't know where he was."
"Well, the building, the room wherever he was, it just looked English, I guess. The rugs and things." Harry shrugged. He hadn't really been paying attention to the furniture, but it hadn't felt foreign.
"Okay," Hermione said, still looking doubtful. "But this is weird. This seems different from all the other times, doesn't it, Harry? I think you should talk to –" But she paused, and said no more. In the past, Hermione always would have named Professor Dumbledore.
"There's no-one to talk to about this," Harry said, shrugging. "Except you two, and unless you have any brainwaves about what it means…"
"Well, this is really important, Harry!" Hermione said excitedly. "You-know-who –"
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, all right, Voldemort, he doesn't trust Snape!"
"Who would?" Ron said bitterly. "He's betrayed everybody else, who's he got left to stab in the back."
Hermione opened her mouth, obviously about to contradict Ron as was usual, and then paused. "You know, I think you've got a point, Ron," she said thoughtfully. "I mean, Snape said he was spying on the Death Eaters for the Order, didn't he, when really he was spying on the Order for the Death Eaters, but when it comes down to it, he's a sort of double agent or spy or whatever no matter who he's working for, and I'd be a bit paranoid, too, wouldn't you, Harry? I mean, Voldemort must know he's an Occlumens, and how can he know if Snape's telling the truth?"
Harry shrugged, bad-temperedly. "Well, we all knew he wasn't stupid. Voldemort, I mean. Of course he suspects Snape of double-crossing him, Snape's a traitor as bad as Pettigrew, and Voldemort doesn't trust him, either, does he? I remember, he didn't trust Pettigrew to go to Hogwarts in our fourth year because… what was it, he wanted a servant whose loyalty had never wavered, and Pettigrew's not exactly been faithful to anyone, has he? Same with Snape."
"Well, we have to tell this to somebody," Hermione said, still excited at this new riddle. "I mean, it could be really useful information for the Order."
"I guess so," Harry said.
And then, because it was hot, and they had to pack their bags again as they were leaving for the Burrow that evening, they went inside, Harry first, Ron and Hermione behind, holding hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them to do.
Harry was trying to force his suitcase to close properly by sitting on it when they saw the Patronus. Like a rush of water it bounded through the walls, ethereal as a ghost. Harry, Ron, and Hermione gaped at it, but only for a second: because upon entering the room, the Patronus – a small-boned cat with silvery tabby markings – ran straight toward Harry and leapt inside of him.
It felt as queer as being sat on by a ghost, and not nearly so pleasant; Harry felt a rush of cold run from his toes and fingertips upward, moving toward the center of his body and then into his head. And just as he thought he might die of cold, he heard a voice, distinct and sharp, inside his head.
"Potter," the voice said. "You are to report to Number 12, Grimmauld Place at 9:30 P.M. this evening, for the Order of the Phoenix meets again, and it requires your presence. Do not be late."
And then the voice was gone, and Harry fell back, his ears ringing.
"What was that?" Hermione exclaimed, staring at Harry with huge, shocked eyes. Ron looked equally nonplussed.
"It was a Patronus," Harry said unsteadily.
"Yes, of course," Hermione said impatiently, "but – it leapt inside of you. Patronuses don't do that, do they?"
"It was McGonagall's," Harry said slowly, still blinking to get the world to come back into focus.
"How do you know?" Ron replied, looking confused.
"Well, for one, it was a tabby cat," Harry said drily. "But for another, the thing spoke to me. As in, I had Professor McGonagall speaking to me in my head."
Ron and Hermione exchanged puzzled looks, so Harry said exasperatedly, "It was a message, okay? It, uh, said that there was going to be an Order meeting tonight at 9:30 and that I should be there. Uh."
"I've never heard of Patronuses being used like this before," Hermione said, her eyes shining as she stored away this bit of knowledge. "As messengers."
Harry paused, a flash of memory coming back to him. "I think I have, yeah," he said. "I saw Dumbledore do it once. And Tonks, when I thought her Patronus had changed to Padfoot, when really all along it was Professor Lupin. I didn't know they carried messages, though, I thought they just sort of… signaled, or something."
"What do you think McGonagall wants you for?" Ron asked, a little perplexed. "I mean, you're not in the Order."
"No, I'm not," Harry said. It seemed odd, that he, who would have to face Voldemort in the end, wasn't even a part of the society dedicated to defeating him. "Not right now, anyway."
"Didn't – didn't you inherit the house from Sirius, Harry?" Hermione asked quietly.
"Yeah," Harry said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Well, it probably has something to do with that. I mean, it is your house, after all, and now that Professor Dumbledore's gone… well… things are going to change, I suppose."
"Yeah," Harry said, not able to articulate anything more complex. There was a long silence.
"Well, I guess we'd better get going," Ron said. "To Grimmauld Place."
"Why?" Harry replied. "Message said for 9:30, and it's hardly 4:00."
"Well, yes," Hermione said, "But there's a marvelous library there, and –"
"You're thinking of reading books, after everything that's happened, that's going to happen today?" Harry said incredulously.
"Not reading for fun, Harry," Hermione said irritably. "For research. I'm still looking for RAB, after all."
"You're not going to find him in a book," Harry said. It was a gut feeling. Whoever this wizard was – he thought it was a wizard; it felt like a wizard – he didn't seem like the type to end up in newspaper clippings, somehow.
"I found Eileen Prince," Hermione objected.
Seeing the stubborn look in her face, and the helplessly shrugged shoulders of his best friend, Harry sighed. "Oh, all right then. It's not as if I really wanted to hang around Privet Drive any longer."
So in a bustle of bags and trunks, and a hasty goodbye on Harry's part to his Aunt and Uncle – Dudley was still hiding – they departed. Harry felt an uncomfortable prickle as he left his relations' house. It was weird. He should have been happy, since as far as he knew he was leaving the Dursleys for good, but something still felt wrong about it.
They'd shrunk everything down so that it would just look like normal luggage to anyone watching, but Harry didn't like hanging about. "Apparate?" he said in a low voice to Ron and Hermione. "Or –"
"Knight Bus," Hermione suggested promptly.
"We can't take the Knight Bus to Headquarters!" Ron hissed. "Moody would kill us!"
"Not to Grimmauld Place, Ron," Hermione said with an air of put-upon patience. "To the Leaky Cauldron, and we can Apparate from there. There's so much magic there, they'll never be able to notice that you two are Apparating without licenses, or that Harry's still under-aged."
This was good sense.
It was so odd, Harry thought, how the Muggle neighbors didn't even notice the huge triple-decker bus in front of them, but would spend hours nit-picking over the height of the grass in their lawns.
Riding the bus without Stan Shunpike felt wrong to Harry, and Ernie Prang, the driver, looked visibly depressed. The new conductor, a smart witch with long blonde braids, was cheerful and efficient, but somehow couldn't hold a candle.
"Stan still locked up, then, Ernie?" Harry said uncomfortably, hands shoved in his pockets.
"Yeah," the driver said tersely. "Hang on a minute, you're Harry Potter again, ain't you?" He glanced at Harry with a mixture of puzzlement and suspicion, and for some odd reason, Harry felt a strong urge to flatten his bangs over his scar.
"Er, yes," Harry said.
"Well, why don't you do something about all this?" Ernie said, gesturing expansively while the Knight Bus – now apparently in Kent – drove through several bushes and a mailbox. "This war, and Stan, and all that. They're all saying you're the Chosen One, aren't they? So why aren't you doing anything about it?"
Harry felt his temper rising. It didn't help that he was on his way to do "something", but couldn't exactly tell the driver. "Maybe I am doing something about it," Harry snarled, "But I'm not about to tell the whole bus about it."
Harry noticed that the whole bus had gone rather quiet.
Suddenly, Hermione was at his arm, dragging him away from Ernie and up several flights of stairs, until he was on the very top of the bus.
"Are you crazy?" Hermione hissed at him. "Shouting about all that, in front of all those people? We're not supposed to be advertising our whereabouts, Harry!"
"Oh, let off, why don't you!" Harry shouted back. She was right, and he knew it, but why did she always have to be so – so – "You're not my mother, Hermione, so you can very well stop acting like it!"
Ron, meanwhile, seemed to be intent on playing the peacemaker. "Er, guys, you're still shouting," he said helpfully. "Could we maybe save this for later?"
The three of them staggered off of the bus some thirty minutes later along with an elderly warlock and a young woman dragging several screaming toddlers. They made their way through The Leaky Cauldron, and out into Diagon Alley, looking for somewhere they could Apparate from without being strictly noticed.
Diagon Alley had changed even more from last summer, Harry noticed bleakly. Not only were there signs and posters on self defense everywhere, but the cosmopolitan feel was entirely lost – there were Aurors stationed throughout the Alley, Harry noticed, bright badges on their chests; the street hawkers who had been so omnipresent before were now gone entirely. The place felt like a prison, not England's center of Wizarding commerce and culture.
"Fred and George's," Ron said, and they all nodded, hurrying after him.
Suddenly Hermione stopped, looking at one of the Aurors.
"Tonks!" she exclaimed happily. "Your hair!"
Harry turned around, a little impatient, but looking at Tonks's happy face, he couldn't help but smile a little, too. She was back to a purple as vibrant as the Ministry Safety Signs.
"You like it?" Tonks said. "I know it seems a little too, um, festive, given the circumstances, but –" She cut herself off. "Hang on, what are you three doing here?"
"Going to Fred and George's," Ron said promptly.
"We needed a place to Apparate from," Hermione explained. "Harry being underage and all."
"Er, kids, I am on duty right now," Tonks said helpfully. "As in, I'm an Auror. Thus, you shouldn't be telling me about the laws you're planning to break thirty seconds from now."
"It's for the you-know-what at nine-thirty," Hermione said helpfully.
"Getting there a bit early," Tonks said frowning. "But go on, then, I suppose. None of my business. And I can't stand here talking with you all day – I'm on duty, after all."
They noticed her glance nervously at one of the other Aurors along the street, and, with a quick farewell, set off again.
"I am glad," Hermione said, looking rather more cheerful. "I always liked Professor Lupin."
"I didn't know you knew Tonks that well," Harry said, a little curious.
"Well, not very well," Hermione said. "But she's always been nice to Ginny and me, and I think Ginny really looks up to her, as a sort of role-model. I mean, how may female Aurors are there?"
"I think Tonks is the only one," Ron said. "It was in the news, actually, I think."
"What?" Hermione said, clearly surprised.
"Yeah, she's the first since Alice Longbottom or something. It was in the Prophet when she finished her training in 1994. I think Mum clipped it for Ginny or something, Ginny really wanted to be an Auror when she was thirteen."
Harry was quietly astonished. He'd never thought of Ginny as an Auror before. Him and Ron, sure, and even maybe Hermione, but Ginny? He'd always thought of her as the sort of person that the he – and the Aurors – were supposed to protect.
Fred and George weren't at the register when they walked into the shop, but Verity, their assistant, came up to greet them promptly. "Are Fred and George here?" Ron asked her. "I'm their brother," Ron said helpfully.
"I'd noticed," Verity said with a little laugh. "They're in their office, shall I go tell them you're here?"
Fred and George were happy, if puzzled, to see them.
"What can we do for you?" Fred said cheerfully.
"It's summer holidays, so you can't be needing a snackbox," George said thoughtfully.
"And I don't suppose you're here for our Daydream Charms," Fred replied, "You being serious war-hero sorts of people."
"That's true," George added on. "So I suppose you might be interested in our practical inventions? Shield Cloaks?"
"Shield Gloves? Shield Boots?"
"Decoy Detonators?"
"Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder?"
"Speaking of which!" Ron said angrily. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that stuff – you need to watch who gets their hands on that stuff!"
"We have," Fred said indignantly.
"We haven't sold it to any Death Eaters, we'd have noticed!" George added.
"I mean, it's not as if Lucius Malfoy could just walk in."
"What about Draco Malfoy?" Hermione said suspiciously.
"Yeah, but we didn't know about him before. We just figured him for a regular git," Fred said defensively.
"Well, he's used it, in combat," Harry said severely.
Fred's face looked very ugly for a moment, but he calmed down, and smiled brightly. "Well, we'll just be more careful then, right George?"
"Right, Fred," his twin replied.
"So what can we do for you?"
"We just wanted a place to apparate from, actually," Hermione said a little sheepishly. "Since Harry's underaged. We need to get to Headquarters, you know."
"Ohh," George said. "So McGonagall sent you the notice, too?"
"Yeah," Harry said.
"Jolly good, then," Fred said, clapping his hands together. "Just do it in here, I suppose."
"Thanks," Harry said a little awkwardly. "See you tonight."
And they Apparated.
There was dust thick on the floor again, Harry noticed, thick enough to muffle their footsteps and leave tracks on the stairs. Kreacher's absence had had some effect – or maybe it was more Molly Weasley's – but headquarters was grimmer than it had been before even the place had been decontaminated.
The air was thick with ghosts.
They all shivered a little, and Harry, feeling awkward as it was his house, and then again it wasn't, said, "I suppose we should go park our bags. Same rooms as last time, I guess."
With that done, they trekked down into the long drawing room, with its tall bookshelves. Many of the darkest books Sirius had tried to throw away, but someone had persuaded him to keep the majority, even those of an unsavory character, and the shelves, dusty as everything else in the house, were still bent by the weight of centuries of knowledge.
Hermione gave a little wriggle Harry could only identify as delight, and began to pore over the shelves with total concentration. He and Ron looked at each other, and shrugged.
Harry briefly tried to help, but not knowing quite what Hermione was looking for, and after being snapped at for "getting in her way", he gave up, and wandered over to the tapestry, tracing its lines with his fingers. There were many men named Sirius on the tree, Harry noticed. It had been a family name. And there were little pockmarks here and there, marking some child who'd failed to live up to the family's standards…
It gave Harry the creeps, and, not quite excusing himself, he left the drawing room and went upstairs, to where he and Ron had parked themselves. He flung himself down on the bed, exhausted. A clock on a rickety bedside table read 6:54. Hermione only had a little while longer to look before McGonagall, and all the rest, started to arrive.
"Oh, it's you again," came a tired, drawling voice from out of nowhere. Harry started, but then recognized the archly arrogant tones as those of Phineas Nigellus.
The portrait had somehow remained free of dust, and the old headmaster glared down at Harry as disdainfully as ever. "I'd heard," the portrait began, "that you'd inherited my family's ancient home. And not even a drop of Black blood in you for six generations."
"What?" Harry said, curiously. "You mean, I'm related to Sirius?"
"Well, distantly," Phineas said, with a wave of his hand. "If you look far enough in the Potter family tree, there's sure to be a Black or two. I taught your great-grandmother, you know. Went to school with others among your ancestors and ancestresses. A family with an unfortunate predilection toward Gryffindor."
Harry's heart swelled with pride a little. "What were they like?" he said, more eagerly than he'd wished.
"Your family? Arrogant and pig-headed, though in a different way from we Blacks, of course. Constantly concerned with justice, and terrified of anything other than lily-white magic."
Harry grinned. "So I'm part of a tradition, then," he said.
"Oh, yes, I suppose," Phineas said, trying his best to sound bored. "If that's what you want to call generational intractability."
They grew quiet for a little while. Phineas did not leave, as Harry had expected him to.
"What?" Harry said after a little while, distinctly uncomfortable at being stared at. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"Hogwarts is almost as quiet as this tomb," Phineas replied. "The paint isn't even yet dry on my late colleague's new portrait, and as McGonagall hasn't yet been appointed formally by the Board of Governors, there's been no news for weeks."
"Dumbledore has a portrait?" Harry said, dumbfounded.
"Well of course he does, idiot," Phineas replied airily. "Is he – or rather, was he – not a Headmaster of Hogwarts? His dry wisdom must be preserved, to be regurgitated for the generations yet to come."
Harry's temper flared a little at the insult, but there were more pressing matters. "And he's like you?" Harry said eagerly. "He can talk, and think, and move about?"
Phineas paused. "We portraits are not ghosts, you know," he replied slowly. "We are – only as good as the rendering. My painter was, it's true, especially good, but… he had an eye for charicature."
Harry digested this slowly. "But Dumbledore – he's still Dumbledore, isn't he?"
"I do not yet know," Phineas said. "He'd commissioned the portrait a few weeks before… well. But the painter hadn't quite finished, and had to do the rest from memory, we portraits watched him do it. And the paint is not yet dry."
It was all too much for Harry to digest. But the idea of seeing, and talking, to Dumbledore again – even if only through a portrait – was too wonderful…
"Why didn't Sirius do it?" Harry said in anguish. "Could we do it, now? Have him painted?"
Phineas shook his head sharply. "The painting must be done while the subject is alive. It catches a little of the person's soul, you know, if the paints are stirred correctly. Perserves, more like. Preserves the spirit."
"What?" Harry exclaimed. "The – soul? But isn't that Dark magic?"
"No, of course not," Phineas snapped. "It's a natural thing, and entirely light. It is a leaving-behind voluntarily – oh, you wouldn't understand, you are young."
With a roar of frustration, Harry threw himself back onto the bed, shoving his head into one of the pillows.
There was silence again.
"This used to be your godfather's room, you know," Phineas said after a while. "Yes," he said, seeing Harry look up. "Until he was sixteen, when he ran away."
Harry stared. "You mean, he slept here and – everything?"
"Isn't that what I just said? And then Regulus moved into it, when Sirius left. My grand-daughter Walburga was in such a temper when he left, she tried to destroy everything of his, you know, even his memory. She tried to pretend that Regulus had always been an only child, had always been the first-born."
Harry lay back, stunned. How many times had Sirius talked to his great-grandfather's portrait like this? Stared at this ceiling, and traced with his eyes the patterns of the ceiling tiles?
"He carved his name somewhere in here, I think," Phineas added. "Sirius. In the far left corner."
Harry scrambled off the bed.
Tucked between end table, bed, and thick drapes over the only, small window, were a number of words carved into the rich dark wood. It was too clean to be knife-work, Harry thought. It had been done with a wand.
Far at the bottom were a pair of initials Harry didn't recognize, but a little above that was carved, in the jagged hand Harry recognized as his godfather's, S. R. Black.
"What was his middle name?" Harry whispered, a little awed.
"Rigel, I think," Phineas replied.
There were a number of initials scratched into the wall – C. D. Black, Harry guessed, would be one of the many men named Cygnus in the family… A. L. Black might be Uncle Alphard…
Then his heart froze.
R. A. Black, carved just above Sirius's own initials, in a hand eerily familiar. It flashed into Harry's mind – it was the same script as that on the note in the false locket…
"Phineas," Harry said, his voice hollow, "What was Regulus's middle name?"
"Arcturus," Phineas replied perfunctorily. "Why, did he carve his name down there, too?"
Harry did not answer. Very stiffly, he walked downstairs.
He had every intention of telling Ron and Hermione right away, but then there was a clatter at the door, and in walked Minerva McGonagall, who stared at him with some surprise before saying, "Well, Potter, as it is very properly your house, I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here."