Disclaimer: The which of you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, JK Rowling's toil shall strive to mend.
A/N: Sorry, uploaded the wrong Chapter 14!
Credit to uvarunr47 for pointing out that I need to deal with the catnip issue.
I'm still here. My writer's block has still been giving me trouble, and I realised I set up another chapter that honestly doesn't advance the plot all that much (though maybe you'll disagree). I don't know how I managed to stretch out first year to 28 chapters. But I'm on vacation this week, so I actually have time to get ahead a bit, and I really didn't want to let this go another week. If all goes well, I will still have a new chapter on Saturday, too.
Chapter 14: Valentine
Harry and Hermione were surprised to be called up to Professor Dumbledore's office. They weren't expecting any updates on their particular issues anytime soon. They hoped there wasn't a problem with their friends or family, but they should have been able to reach them directly faster with their enchanted mirrors.
When they entered the Head's Office, they were even more surprised to see Cho already sitting there, looking sullen.
"Good evening, Professor," Harry greeted Dumbledore. "Is something wrong?"
"Not immediately, Harry," he replied. "However, the signs are very concerning. Please, have a seat, both of you." They sat, and he explained: "Our three Seers have recently made several predictions that would seem likely to impact Hogwarts in the near future. Since all prophecies that appear to relate to the war are catalogued at top priority by the Ministry, you can see how this would be of great concern there as well."
"Hogwarts?" Hermione said worriedly. "You mean the war is going to come here, Professor?"
Dumbledore turned to Cho. "Miss Chang?" he asked.
Cho wrapped her arms around herself nervously. "At the last Quidditch match, I, er…I spaced out for a minute, I guess. And…I had a vision. It wasn't a prophecy—not a normal one anyway—but Madam Fan says it's rare to have a vision that clear."
"What happened?" Harry said.
"I was in the same spot, hovering over the Quidditch pitch, but suddenly, it was nighttime. The stands were on fire—like, all over. And I saw a bunch of people running across the lawn like they were trying to escape. That's all there was, but…well, that was enough!"
As Harry and Hermione stared, Dumbledore continued, "Miss Chang consented to probing her vision with Legilimency, which gave me a little more information. There were sounds of distant spellfire and explosions, suggesting a major attack. It was difficult to see through the fire, but from the state of the trees, it appeared that the attack came in late spring or early summer. And many of the escaping students were in their pyjamas, so it was likely very late at night, and they were taken by surprise."
"An attack on Hogwarts?" Harry said. "Bad enough to send everyone running from their beds?"
"But that hasn't happened since…" Hermione struggled, failing to find an example.
"Not since the medieval days when warring dark lords could still roam the land with impunity," Dumbledore confirmed. "When Hogwarts was still constructed as a functional castle, and the East Wing was only a bailey filled with out-buildings."
"But how?"
"Ah, if only we knew." He turned to Cho again.
"We did some stuff to try to call up a prophecy associated with the vision," Cho said. "And it worked. I made a prophecy, but…" She pulled a scrap of parchment from her robes. "Fire will fall on Hogwarts before summer reaches its height. The Dark Lord's servants are moving. Even now they draw their plans against Hogwarts. The serpent and the eagle will stand again her, and they will rain death down upon her. Fire will fall on Hogwarts before summer's height."
"The serpent and the eagle?" Harry said, even more alert than before. "Does that mean there's a threat coming from Slytherin and Ravenclaw?"
She shook her head, but she said, "I don't know. I told Professor Flitwick, and I personally checked some of our sixth- and seventh-years for the Dark Mark—"
"No, no, if Voledemort's smart, any followers he has in Hogwarts aren't going to be Marked except maybe one or two," Harry interrupted. "Too easy to find."
"Maybe, but it doesn't really even matter, Harry. I know these people. None of them seem like Death Eaters, and most of them don't seem like sympathisers. I've heard stories—in the first war—the people who became Death Eaters, you could tell. They were attacking muggle-borns and everything. This—now—it doesn't feel right."
"Though we are continuing to be vigilant," Dumbledore said. "It is likely that Voldemort will have supporters outside Slytherin House. Unfortunately, this prophecy only tells us that the attack will come before summer solstice, which happens to be the last day of term this year. Still, the least we can do is prepare."
"Of course, sir…Cho, there's something I don't understand," Hermione said. "Tre—er, the other prophecies we know about were pretty clear, and no offence, but yours…"
Cho sighed: "I know. And yes, Professor Dumbledore allowed me to hear Professor Trelawney's prophecies. But it's harder than it sounds. More isn't always better. Madam Fan says there's only so much true prophecy to be had. With one Seer, and—sorry, but not a very good one, the prophecies come through loud and clear, but rarely. With three Seers working together, we can get more information, but each of us only gets a piece of it, and we have to put it together like a puzzle."
"What else have you heard, then?"
"Everyone heard Madam Fan's prophecy. Don't tell anyone, but we think it's related to mine. We just don't know how. She hasn't said anything useful since then."
"What about Professor Trelawney?" Hermione asked.
"She hasn't made any more prophecies at all," Cho said. "Even with Madam Fan's training. Her visions are getting clearer, but she's still not telling us much we don't already know."
"Professor Trelawney has made two prophecies to date," Dumbledore added. "The first predicted Voldemort's ultimate downfall, and the second his return to power. Given her weak Sight, though she has made admirable improvements, I suspect that we will hear little else from her that is not similarly momentous."
Harry jerked slightly. "Professor!" he said. "I've just remembered. Madam Fan's prophecy. The shadow of the Three Brothers over Hogwarts or some such. I wanted to ask—Luna was really worried about it. She thinks it means Voldemort's going to get his hands on the Deathly Hallows—if they're real, that is." He didn't believe everything Luna said, even if the Hallows had some historical support, but it sounded serious.
Dumbledore smiled slightly. "I suppose I should have expected that given the eccentricities of Miss Lovegood's father," he said. "I did consider that possibility. I will not go into detail." A subtle glance at Cho. "Perhaps another time, but I have good reason to believe that prophecy was not about the Deathly Hallows."
Harry and Hermione were silent. That was a surprise to them. If the "three brothers of death" didn't mean the Deathly Hallows, what could it be? Presumably something about the attack, but what?
For lack of other ideas, Harry asked, "And our…other project, sir?"
"Sadly nothing on that front at the moment, Harry," the Headmaster replied.
Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff in the next Quidditch match. With Cedric gone, the new Hufflepuff Seeker really had no hope of beating Harry. The next day was a special Sunday Hogsmeade visit. Since it was the last weekend before Valentine's Day and the Valentine's Ball, the teachers wanted to given everyone a chance to do some last-minute shopping.
But while Harry and Luna, among others, were on a pleasant date, three Slytherin boys were busy with a very different endeavour. A Hogsmeade visit was the perfect time to meet up with students from other houses without attracting too much attention. Their mark today was not a Slytherin, unlike most of their recruits, nor was he a Ravenclaw. He was a sixth-year Hufflepuff.
Pucey, Montague, and Warrington were being especially cautious about recruiting from Hufflepuff, for obvious reasons, but there were old pureblood families in Hufflepuff, just like the other houses, and most of the old pureblood families still held some prejudice they could leverage. Zacharias Smith would have been perfect recruiting material if he weren't an obvious coward. Wallace Selwyn, however, seemed like a good balance—probably the best they were going to find in Hufflepuff House.
The didn't risk the Hog's Head. That was where a lot of seedy business was done, but anyone who was paying attention knew that the owner was Dumbledore's brother. Nor did they trust a private room at the Three Broomsticks. Their conversation would be safely hidden, but their comings and goings wouldn't. Instead, they met at the Shrieking Shack. By February, there weren't many students gawking there, and unlike Potter, they were careful about privacy charms.
"So, you said you had a proposition for me?" Selwyn said. "Besides the obvious of course."
"First, the contract," Montague told him and held out a scroll to him. He took it and read it carefully. It was a binding magical contract—all the proper forms, but it was a short one. It just said that he would not tell anyone what they discussed at this particular meeting, and the penalties were clearly spelt out. They were about as severe as you could make them in parchment and ink, but there was no trickery. He signed it.
"So now what?" he asked.
Pucey smiled at him as pleasantly as he could manage: "Don't worry; the Dark Lord doesn't need any more Marked in Hogwarts, Mr. Selwyn. It would only hinder his plans. In fact, he doesn't need that many Marked, period."
"But this is about You-Know-Who, is it?" he replied. "And how do I know you're not just making this up?"
Pucey pulled back his left sleeve and showed his arm. It was bare. But then, the lines faded into view, dark red, swiftly tracing out the intricate shape: a skull with a snake crawling from its mouth, showing crystal-clear.
Selwyn turned a few shades paler. He didn't doubt the other two boys also bore the Mark. He wondered if it would be worth it to report them and accept the penalty. Though he had no desire to now, he might keep it in his back pocket. "Okay, then…That's new."
"Some concessions had to be made to avoid detection. I assure you its very real."
"Oh, I'm sure. There's no way you're fool enough to fake something like that. But if you don't need Death Eaters—" He nearly tripped on the words. "—what's all this about? And why me?"
"There are other ways of helping the cause," Pucey said, "and as for why you, we listen. You said you don't like the way our world is going, didn't you?"
He had. More than once. It was a matter of survival and common decency, in his opinion. At the time of the Statute of Secrecy, the wizards had virtually expelled the witch-burning religion from the magical world. But by allowing mudbloods to roam unchecked, it had trickled back in, generation after generation, until now, half the wizards in the country professed the very faith that had once slaughtered them. And it had only grown worse in the past century as mudbloods brought in more and more dangerous ideas about integration. First, it was the Hogwarts Express, then the Wizarding Wireless, then the Knight Bus. Each risked exposure more than previous methods had even without the mudbloods agitating directly.
"If you want change, you gotta do something about it," Warrington told him.
"Maybe," he hedged. "I feel like there's not much middle ground with You-Know-Who, though. Not to mention he killed Diggory."
"A werewolf," the taller boy scoffed.
"A good wizard, Warrington," Selwyn snapped. "I knew him before he was a werewolf. Saw him trying to protect us from Greyback. It changes your perspective a bit. A lot of us Hufflepuffs didn't take it well when he died. Besides the fact that we looked up to him, all that work, and the whole Tournament turned out to be a sham. Not only do we have to share the win with Potter, but we lost our champion and would-be Head Boy for no good reason."
"The Dark Lord's motives are not for you to—!" Montague started, but Pucey waved him off.
"There weren't meant to be any witnesses that night," he said. "I don't know the details, but I gather it was a freak accident that there were—and that Diggory was there in the first place. Contrary to what Dumbledore's people may tell you, the Dark Lord does not revel in spilling magical blood. We've lost too many already. Diggory was—or should've been—an unfortunate, but necessary martyr to the cause."
"Funny, that means both sides are gonna make him a martyr," Selwyn said. The Slytherins didn't say anything. "You won't find many allies in Hufflepuff. What do you even want?"
"Help us win without spilling magical blood. We're going to win; have no doubt about that. The Dark Lord's forces are powerful. But it doesn't have to be a massacre."
A chill gripped him. If this was going where he thought it was, he had an even more serious choice to make than he thought. "Is that…Do you…Are you talking about in general or at Hogwarts?"
"Hogwarts, obviously. There's going to be an attack. It's going to get bloody if it has to, but it doesn't have to if we can soften Hogwarts up from the inside."
"Don't need to kill anyone," Montague said. "Just stun 'em. Slow 'em down. Keep them from fighting back; that's all we need."
"That's…" Selwyn struggled for the words. "That is all kinds of a bad idea," he decided. "It's not just Dumbledore here, now, it's Grayson and that Coyote guy. What about them?"
"Let the Dark Lord worry about them."
He shivered again. This was serious. He wondered again about the contract. The penalty was bad, but, he realised with deepening horror, the real penalty was that they would know who told on them. They'd come after him or his family after the fact, and getting the tip off might not even help.
On the other hand, that was just his visceral reaction to You-Know-Who being involved. His family had generally agreed with his sentiments, though not his methods, and if helping the Death Eaters would save lives… "And that's really all?" he asked. "I don't have to torture a mudblood to prove myself or something?"
"No. Just the opposite, in fact," Pucey said. "That's the most important thing. Don't do anything that would attract attention until the time is right. Don't go hexing mudbloods behind the teachers' back, or even start calling them mudbloods, for that matter. This only works if they suspect nothing. Just wait for the signal. When it's over, we'll remember who helped us."
Selwyn thought a minute longer, then held out his hand.
Draco Malfoy did go to the Three Broomsticks for his meeting. It was perhaps a little odd for Lucius not to be there, but no one would raise an eyebrow at him meeting his mother for a private lunch. He hugged her before they sat down to their meal.
"Thank you for coming, Mother," he said.
"I'm always happy to see you, Draco," she replied.
They spoke of pleasantries for a while, his friends and classes and so forth. They didn't touch closer on the war than the latest developments in Father's animal breeding work, which he now knew was partially for exotic potions ingredients. But before long, they had exhausted the requisite conventional topics, and Draco got to the heart of the matter. "Pucey told me about the Plan," he said.
Mother's eyes widened. "Should you be telling me this?"
"He didn't make me sign the contract. He didn't tell me much anyway, but he seemed to think I'm trustworthy because of Father."
"Ah. Interesting. Your father hasn't told me all of it himself, but I can guess the boys are meant to be using their own judgement. Did you say you'd help them?"
"I said I would," he replied.
The look that passed between them said everything.
"What do you think, then?" she said at last.
Draco sighed. "I don't know, Mother. I want to believe it'll all work out, but…the last war didn't so much, did it? I know I shouldn't be saying that even here, now."
"But needs must," she agreed. "You know this much already."
"It's not like I'm getting cold feet about the ideas," he said indignantly, though it might have been more indignant with himself than her. "I want to get rid of the mudbloods, but not at the expense of the family. We've managed with mudbloods mucking around for three hundred years after Secrecy…" He didn't finish the thought.
"What's really worrying you, Draco?"
The answer spilt out of him: "I'm either going to have to help take down Hogwarts from the inside or wash my hands of the whole thing and get out of there. Or play dumb and keep out of it entirely, but that'd probably still make things worse for me."
His mother nodded. "It would at least get you branded a coward. Being a deserter would be worse, but you could at least get out of…well, their reach."
"Whatever way you cut it, I don't like my options. Sooner or later, I'm going to be asked to do something I can't go back on."
Mother sighed, seemingly collecting her thoughts. "You're wise to want to keep your options open," she said, "but at some point, the leader of a family must make a decision and stick to it. Now, I've gone to great lengths to ensure your father only made that decision for himself, not for all of us, but the decision still must be made. Heaven knows I don't like it any more than you do, but you're going to have to choose a side—without a sure guess of which choice might get you killed. That is the kind of choice you're going to have to face as a future Lord Malfoy."
Draco sat in silence. He didn't know what to do. His whole life's training told him there was an obvious answer, but his instincts were telling him different. He was going to have to decide whether to trust them.
Valentine's Day was usually the biggest post day at Hogwarts. Owls flocked in the Great Hall, delivering cards and packages. Harry seemed to get more every year. Though there were fewer this year since he now had a steady girlfriend, he still had quite a few. Luna sat beside him at breakfast and was happy the owls were mostly leaving her alone this year aside from Harry's gift. Being Harry Potter's girlfriend had attracted a lot of attention to her last year.
Harry quickly opened his cards, separating courtesy cards from family members from those that came from his adoring fans. He blushed as he saw the notes contained within seemed to be more risque than before. With one card, his eyebrows shot up, and he snapped it shut as soon as he opened it. Hermione looked up at him enquiringly, and slowly, he slid it across to her. "Maybe you should return that one to her," he said. "She doesn't need anyone else getting hold of that."
Hermione took the card and cracked it open, then sighed and closed it again. "Well, I suppose it could be worse," she said.
Luna giggled at Harry's embarrassment and patted him on the arm. "We knew you were very popular, Harry. What's that one?" she said, pointing to a phial of some kind of yellowish liquid.
Hermione tilted her head, staring at it. "Is that cologne?"
Harry examined the gift. "I…I think it is," he said. "Huh, the card's not signed. He took the cap off and sniffed it. "That's weird. Luna, it smells like your shampoo."
"Really?" she said.
Hermione sputtered. "What? Harry, you don't just say that."
"Hey, you'd understand too if your boyfriend were eight inches shorter than you," he teased. Hermione and Neville turned and looked at each other, then blushed heavily. "I'm serious. Here, Luna. It smells like your shampoo…" He sniffed again. "…and…maybe a hint of catnip?"
Luna sniffed the cologne, and her eyes widened, but then, she furrowed her brow. "I don't think so, Harry," she said. "It smells like Mum's chocolate-dirigible plum parfait. Very tasty, but not something I'd use as a shampoo."
Harry gave her a sceptical glance and sniffed it again. "No, I don't smell chocolate at all."
"Are you having one over on us?" Hermione demanded.
"No, I mean it. Here." He handed it to her, and she cautiously smelled it: "That's weird. I smell new parchment and freshly-mown grass…" Her eyes widened, and she clacked the phial down on the table at arm's length. "Oh, damn! It's Amortentia!"
There was an uproar at the table. Their friends recoiled—the boys more than the girls, but no one wanted to mess with a love potion that strong. "Who would do that?" Dean Thomas protested.
"Who wouldn't? It's Harry," Hermione groaned. "Amortentia's meant to be drunk, but I'll bet if you wore it, you'd start noticing whoever sent it to you. It's the kind of thing that's not exactly illegal, but it's definitely against school rules."
"It should be illegal," Harry hissed.
"It is if anything bad comes of it. If you want to change it, you're the one on the Wizengamot, but that's beside the point. We need to tell Professor McGonagall about this."
Professor McGonagall was livid. She swore she would get to the bottom of it and said she would pass along the cologne to Professor Snape, whom she assured them hated love potions and would swiftly find out who sent it. Harry and Hermione believed it. Professor Dumbledore belatedly reminded everyone at dinner than love potions were against school rules and would be punished severely if they wound up hurting anyone.
Unfortunately, Harry couldn't catch a break. After lunch, he was approached in the corridor by a seventh-year Hufflepuff girl he barely knew.
"Hi there, Harry," she said, stepping in front of him.
"Uh, hi," Harry said. He glanced around, already a bit alert. "It's, uh, Emily, right?"
"Yes. I'm sorry I've never really been able to talk to you before. I just wanted to say…" She appeared to collect herself. "I've heard a lot about how you worked together with Cedric last year and tried to help him out with the Tournament. He was a friend, so I just wanted to say thanks for that."
"Um, okay? It was only fair. I wasn't supposed to be in it."
"Er, yeah…" She looked like she wanted to say more, but instead, she lunged forward and hugged him.
Harry froze. He could kind of understand her hugging him, even if was weird that she waited until this late in the year to talk to him, but what raised his hackles instantly was the scent that reached his nostrils. He couldn't mistake it this time. That was definitely the smell of catnip. He already felt light-headed.
"Scourgify!"
He didn't even reach for his wand. It was a pain in the arse to learn a fourth-year spell wandlessly, but he'd drilled it until he could do it on the first try after that Quidditch match. Emily yelped and jumped back like she'd been slapped as the spell scrubbed her hair and face clean. The catnip smell vanished.
"Ahh! What they hell was that?" she demanded.
"Catnip perfume?" he shouted. "What did you think was gonna happen? I'm not gonna let anyone get that one past me again. I mean, you've seen how it affects me. It makes me go crazy and—" He froze. "—kiss people." He didn't say anything more. Emily looked up at him with an embarrassed, shamefaced look. Using Cedric to try to pull that? He didn't even know how to react. He just stared at her with a disappointed look for a minute and then turned around and walked away.
"Harry?" she called after him.
"Just be thankful Luna's nice," he called without turning around. "I'll let her decide what to do about this."
Luna graciously agreed to speak to Emily, and she revealed that she'd pulled that prank as a result of a bet with her year mates. Which, honestly, was maybe even weirder. The love potion was traced to one of Cho's roommates who unfortunately seemed to be completely sincere, but at least it wasn't Romilda Vane this time. The girl was given a protracted detention with Snape that Harry wasn't sure he wished even on her.
He was worried the school would go crazy again on Saturday with the Valentine's Ball, but they seemed to have worked it out of their system on Valentine's Day proper. Ron cynically said it was because the girls were busy getting ready for the ball all day, which Harry couldn't personally refute.
In any case, with all on the attention focused on the ball, Harry's spirits were lifted. At seven o'clock, he descended the stairs to meet Luna in the Entrance Hall. His heart nearly stopped when he saw her. He was expecting Luna to be dressed in silver spangles or snowflakes or something, but she wasn't. She was wearing a daring, bright red, knee-length dress and matching shoes that looked like something out of the 1940s. Harry walked up to her, put on a bad American accent, and said, "Here's lookin' at you, kid."
Luna giggled.
"You look stunning, Luna," he said. "I feel like I need a fedora or something."
She ruffled his hair. "I think you look better without one, Harry." He kissed her, and then they walked arm and arm into the Great Hall.
Harry was thankful not to be the centre of attention this time. He could just join his friends at one of the little round tables and leave it at that. The Great Hall was decorated, not as a winter wonderland as with the Yule Ball, but also not in garish hot pink like Lockhart had tried, or Madam Puddifoot in Hogsmeade. They kept it to tasteful streamers of pink, white, and red, plus some unnaturally large roses from the greenhouses. It was also a bit less crowded, since it was a dance more for couples, and fewer of the younger students were interested in showing up.
The dance was pleasantly uneventful, which might have been the best part. It was probably the first time since Christmas that the school could really relax and forget about the war for a while. Harry found that after he'd got her to come out of her shell a bit last year, Luna was a really fun dance partner, and she picked up the swing steps he (okay, mostly Hermione) showed her very quickly.
The one exception to this merriment was when a Ravenclaw Prefect who was supposed to be patrolling broom cupboards for overly amorous students met two Slytherin boys in one of said broom cupboards. The meeting was not amorous.
"We don't need you to hurt anyone," Pucey told her. "Just slow down the defenders. We need a clear path to get into the school. Do that, and you'll be helping the cause more than you know, and you'll be rewarded afterwards."
The girl watched the two Slytherins carefully. She really ought to report them and hang the contract and her personal opinions. She already had an idea about wasn't good. An attack on Hogwarts would be a bridge too far for most of Britain. It was almost sacrilege to besiege a venerable institution of learning like that, and it could very well hurt the purebloods more than it helped.
Not that she was going to tell them that. Any misgivings about the attack would be suspicious, and it wasn't like she could change You-Know-Who's mind if she tried.
"That's not what I expected," she said. "I thought you were going a more political direction this time around."
"We are," Montague said. "But to do that, we have to get in a position where we have political influence, and Death Eaters aren't exactly welcome in the Ministry these days."
That figured. She felt foolish now for thinking it could be otherwise.
"Not that we're heedless of the Ministry, of course," Pucey said. "Your mother works in the Floo Office, doesn't she?"
"Yes. So?" she asked cautiously.
"So, that's a valuable position to have at a critical time. If you could connect us with her, that could be an ever greater service."
"I don't think Mum would appreciate that much." And the less Mum knew about this, the better. Although, they'd probably have to modify the contract for that. Could that be a loophole? No, they were too smart for that. The best way for her to get around the contract would be to try to get Cho to divine it from her. She was pretty sure that was possible. It was a fair plan.
"Look, it's not like I'm not sympathetic to the cause, but I can't stab my friends in the back like that," she told them. And that was true; she might disagree with Cho politically, but she knew how important her help was to her. And more to the point, she didn't want another war any more than Cho did. "I'll stay out of your way when it happens, but if someone is hurt and needs help, I'll help them," she hedged.
"Ah," Pucey said. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Edgecombe, but I can respect it."
He raised his wand, and she realised her mistake.
"Obliviate!"
A/N: I feel like the Valentine's Ball was kind of shoehorned in. I included it because I remembered that I'd put dress robes on the supply list back at the beginning of the year, but I didn't remember why I actually wanted to include it. I hope this wasn't glossing over it too much.
