The All-Seeing Eye
Jess stumbled over and hit the forest floor with her hands outstretched and a barely stifled squeal of panic. Twigs snapped beneath her fingers and splinters penetrated her skin. Her knees scraped against something that felt like a long wooden snake she guessed must have been a thick tree root emerging above the ground.
She clawed her way back to her feet and tried to proceed but hundreds of tiny claws began scratching at her face and arms. They slashed and cut and yanked at her hair and the more she tried to bat them away the more they seemed to tear at her. The sound wasn't of any animal though. She backed away the way she had come and yanked her snagged clothing where it was snared. The scratching stopped. She extended her hand hesitantly and felt a bunch of leaves before her fingers slid along a cable like branch and then jerked her hand back again as it was prickled by several thorns.
She made a small growling sound to herself as she realised that she had just run headlong into a thorn bush.
Where was Ron?
Harry felt his arms in an agonisingly uncomfortable position and tried to move them. That was when he heard laughing and blinked his eyes back into focus to see a darkened room full of hooded figures. They were all crowded around him in a semi circle and one of them, a short frail looking wizard who wasn't wearing his hood up, standing slightly ahead of them all and smiling up at Harry.
"Bet I don't miss you from here boy," he said wickedly as he raised the gun in his hand and pointed it at Harry's chest.
The crowd of what Harry guessed must have been disgruntled Death Eaters sniggered and pulled makeshift weapons from their own robes which they began to wield threateningly.
"Oh I don't know about that," Harry said in a strained voice as he attempted to lower his arms from above him, "for one thing you're holding it the wrong way around!"
The wizard flinched for a moment and turned away from Harry to examine the gun closely before spinning on the young wizard and firing a shot into Harry's shoulder.
"Very funny Potter!" the wizened old man snarled as he cocked the gun again, "I may be ignorant of non magical methods of torture and warfare but that doesn't mean I'm about to turn them on myself quite so easily as you seem to think you can trick me into doing."
Harry wasn't listening to any of this. He was gritting his teeth and pulling at the chains that secured his wrists above his head to the wall behind him. He felt sick and his shoulder burned with pain, numbness and then once again with the slow return of the pain again as the shock of the gunshot subsided.
"Let me show him what a wizard in a magic free zone can do with a rusty hook," one of the Death Eater's said eagerly.
"Fall back!" the ringleader ordered and the Death Eaters murmured their assent, though quite reluctantly.
Harry tried to remember what had happened. He knocked himself out running through the woods in the dark. He had run into a tree and now he was here. His eyes widened with fear. He had been running after Ron and Jess. Quickly Harry scanned the darkened room for the others but couldn't see them anywhere. He wondered if Ron had managed to get Jess into a secure hiding place. He wondered if Ron's head had given out on him again what with the close physical contact he had to make with the seer to keep her safe. Then another sickening thought occurred to Harry. What if the Death Eaters had found Ron in a coma and left him in the woods for dead?
"What's going on?" Harry blurted before he could think about what he was saying, "What do you want from us? Voldemort's dead, is this just about revenge?"
A Death Eater ran forward, swinging a long metal pole behind him and sending it crashing back into Harry's shins. Harry cried out and he lifted his legs, unable to support his own weight on his fractured tibias, which caused his shackles to slice into his wrists and the agony of the bullet in his shoulder to torment him in a whole new way.
"When I say stand back you stand back understand?" the lead Death Eater roared, "too much damage and he'll be no good to us at all. What did we talk about earlier?"
There were several murmurs at the same time, coming from different figures in the semi circle, and Harry would have found the sound of evil wizards sounding like naughty school children quite comical if he wasn't in so much pain right now.
"Not the head under pain of death," was the mumbled response.
"Not the head and do nothing to end the life before we extract what we came for!" the gun toting wizard said with a great deal of annoyance, "I knew I was wrong to involve the dark lord's rejects. All you care about is avenging a long dead master and not thinking clearly about what we can all gain from this."
"Forgive me general, I will not step out of line again," the Death Eater bowed his hooded head low and the 'general' gave a derogatory snort before returning his gaze to Harry.
"We do not need to receive our instructions from one egotistical leader only looking to dominate the power for himself. We can all access the knowledge and the magic, share it between us, and use it to defend Slytherin's ethics. Elimination of the mudbloods, punish the blood traitors and half breeds and keep the muggles in their place."
There was a slight ripple of enthusiasm amongst the ranks at this.
"Free will can achieve the same as servitude to an obsessive dictator and that was what your dark lord was you know? The war was never about righting the balance of magical power and preserving the bloodlines of the few pureblood families that remain. It was about his vendetta against a little boy who bruised his colossal ego. He was as bad as the others. He sent purebloods to their death as if they were expendable in his quest and that stops here!" the wizard roared.
Harry forced himself to take at least a little of his body weight with his injured legs so as to relieve the strain on his arms. He gave a yelp as he did so and the general turned on him and took a step closer to grin into Harry's pain contorted face.
"You have the secrets of the greatest magical mind in history inside you boy and I want then out," the general whispered, "I don't know how you did it and I don't care. The unspeakables at the Department of Mysteries have been trying to break into Rowena Ravenclaw's mind for centuries before you and your silly little friends stumbled into the brain room where they keep her preserved remains and all of a sudden you can perform a locator spell that hasn't been seen since the dark ages. How did you do that boy?"
Harry felt sick and it wasn't just from his injuries. This lot weren't after Harry at all, this wasn't revenge or prophesy or anything he had guessed but a simple case of mistaken identity, they were after Ron.
"Sod off!" Harry hissed as he tried not to convey the panic he was feeling inside for his best friend.
Ron had been attacked by Ravenclaw's brain. Ravenclaw's thoughts, her mind, had burned into his flesh and left something there. Ron carried magical secrets in his skin and that had been why the sapper could hurt him. That had been why Neville had to treat two brain injuries to bring Ron out of his coma. Neville worked out that the invading thoughts were trying to access Ron's brain and that was why Ron's natural defences had shut down. He had closed the door to his mind to keep her out and by doing so locked himself in.
"You've found a way to channel her spells. Don't deny it, I saw that locator spell in action and I saw where it came from."
Harry had been standing so close to Ron when the yellow lightning bolt emerged from him that from a distance it would have looked as if it was coming from either one of them. Who would a stranger guess had such a power; famous Harry Potter, conqueror of Lord Voldemort, or the great victim of the whole final battle Ron Weasley?
"You're seeing things old man," Harry grimaced as he tried to make himself a little more comfortable, "you might want to borrow my glasses."
The wizard fired the gun downwards into Harry's left foot and he screamed an embarrassingly pathetic scream in agony. He couldn't stop the pained whimpering sound he was making, like an animal caught in a trap and slowly bleeding to death.
"These fools were looking in all the wrong places. Telling me it was three forces into one but I knew it had to be you. I knew you had the power and you do, I saw you using it myself and now you are going to share it with me. You are going to share it with all of us. You set part of Ravenclaw's magic free and now it's only a matter of time before you give it up to us."
Harry closed his eyes and preyed that Ron wasn't heading this way on a rescue mission. He hoped that Ron wasn't hurt or incapacitated again. He knew that he could never let these monsters find out they had the wrong man. He would take this torture for Ron.
He owed him that.
Jess listened as hard as she could. She kept getting startled by the sounds of nocturnal animals running from tree to tree and at one point something fell on her from above which caused her to give a squeal and fall into a ditch, twisting her ankle quite badly. It turned out to be nothing more than a horse chestnut falling from a tree.
She realised that she was only getting herself in more of a state by blundering around the woods the way she had been so far and set about crawling along the forest floor on her hands and knees. She found it harder to trip and bump into low hanging branches that way. She wondered if it was safe to call out for Harry and Ron. She didn't want to give herself or them away to whoever it was attacking them earlier on. It was getting chilly now and she really didn't want to have to spend another night out here alone.
She had to find them.
Harry and Ron were probably looking for her right now. She decided that the best thing to do was probably to stop moving around and let them come to her so she settled down against the trunk of a nearby tree and drew her knees up to her chest. She hugged her legs as she waited and tried not to cower every time she heard an owl hooting.
"They're not sending messages, they're just hunting for mice," she told herself aloud before flinching and brushing frantically at her arms in a panic, "Oh Godric mice!"
Something made a crunching sound a little way off and she held her breath and listened. It happened again and the there was a banging. Just once but she recognised it. It sounded exactly like the banging noise Ron had made before to get Harry's attention.
"Ron?" Jess tried to call out but her nerves reduced it to nothing more than a whisper.
There were more crunching sounds, snapping twigs and rustling leaves underfoot it sounded like, and Jess tried to stand to make herself visible but hit her head on a branch directly above her and came crashing down with a cry of pain and annoyance at her own limitations in this situation.
The crunching noises stopped and she listened through the tears of pain that were welling in her sightless eyes as she massaged her sore head. There was nothing to be heard for a moment until a loud nearby snapping made her jump and she clasped her hands to her mouth and hoped it wasn't the attacker from earlier. Then there was a thudding sound and what seemed to be a gasp. Jess swallowed and listened for any giveaway noises, there were none. If this was a person then they were very quiet and who was the quietest person Jess knew?
"Ron is that you?" she whispered into the space ahead of her.
There was no banging sound in response. There was also no attack or answer from Harry. Maybe her ears were deceiving her. Maybe there was a fox or something hunting close by and that was what she was listening to so intently. She felt around her for a stone or a pebble and her hands curled around something smooth and flat. She gripped it and threw it in the direction of the sound. She heard the flat stone landing but she didn't hear scurrying paws or any movement amongst the bushes and trees.
A stone being thrown out of nowhere had obviously not shocked whatever she had been listening to.
"Ron, Harry? Please be one of you or both of you or somebody at all," she begged the eerie breeze that wove through the trees and wafted past her face, blowing what felt like a broken cobweb across her skin.
She sputtered and pawed at her face to remove the gossamer threads and then heard what sounded like a sharp intake of breath.
"Ron that's you isn't it?" she said fearfully as she plucked up the courage to crawl over to the source of the sounds she was hearing.
She reached out to feel her way ahead and her fingertips brushed against what felt like bare skin and her head screamed with voices, colours and searing hot pain. She curled up into a tight ball on the ground and tried to ride the vision out of her system as fast as she could.
The vivid colours flashed before her eyes. Loud noises and many voices and screams of pain that weren't hers made her search the vision for the source of the fear and pain she was experiencing. Then she saw him, Harry, he was chained up and bleeding all over. There were shadowy figures all around him and they wanted something from him that he couldn't give. He was letting them think he could though. He was being tortured in the place of another and he was scared for himself and scared about something else even more so.
Jess's eyes opened and the blackness swallowed up the horrific sights and feelings she had just been plunged into. She was crying and shaking and something was warm around her. It was a person; they were holding her and shushing her in a familiar way.
"Ron?" she ventured shakily.
Something tapped her shoulder as he rocked her back and forth to calm her down. She could hear it again, the sharp intake of breath, and she suddenly realised that she was hurting him again. Swiftly she wriggled out of his grip and shoved him away from her.
"Don't touch me Ron!" she ordered, "I'm killing you. You mustn't come anywhere near me."
She bit her lip and wished that Ron could communicate with her by some other means then touch. Then she felt the discomfort of a long thick twig beneath her body and pulled it free before reaching out with it to feel for Ron's body. She felt the twig being taken at it's other end and knew that they had some kind of connection that wasn't physical now and smiled.
"That's it, hold on and tap the stick, tap me with it for yes and no okay?" she sighed.
She felt the stick tap her on the knee once.
"Are you hurt?" she asked immediately afterwards.
Jess felt the pressure of the stick gently resting upon her head before disappearing again.
"You're head again? That's my fault I'm sorry."
The stick tapped her leg twice.
"Yes it is Ron and we both know it," she said firmly, "So I'm guessing we lost Harry as well as each other then seeing as I just saw him in my vision being tortured."
Again a single tap landed on her knee.
"Well I can't see and you can't talk and we're totally lost so I really don't know what we could do to help him."
Jess felt the stick being pushed into her hand and held there.
"Do you want me to hold on to it?" she asked, there was a small tap on the inside of her palm, she gripped the stick hard, "Okay then, I take it you're leading me out of the non-magical zone so we can get some help."
There were two bangs on the stick that was being carried between them. They weren't going for help?
"Ron we can't find Harry ourselves, not like this and we don't know who it was out there who was trying to hurt us. We need to get some help to search for him properly, an Auror rescue team or something. It looked like Death Eaters to me and they were hurting him."
The twig in Jess' hand pulled her forward and she held on to it tightly and followed Ron's lead.
"Ron where are we going?" she asked fearfully.
Ron had no way of answering, not even by touch if he could, and she knew that she just had to trust him. She did trust him, with her own life, just not to look after himself.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Mad-Eye Moody addressed the gathering of Order of the Phoenix members who had been summoned to the non-magical border by the Auror, "While Tonks takes the poor security wizard to St Mungo's we will mobilise out search within the magic free parameter."
"Wands or no wands?" Charlie Weasley asked.
"Wands of course you prat!" Fred snapped at his brother.
"You can't take them across the border without getting thrown out and magic turning in on you by way of punishment for the breech," Hermione said with no patience for all this time wasting, "just like that age line of Dumbledore's you two thought you were exempt from."
"Indeed," Moody nodded gruffly, "Magic as powerful as this can not be hood winked and we are going to have to go in there without wands.
"What about your eye Alastor?" Arthur said as he realised the true implications of this magic free battle ground they were about to enter.
"Well that'll have to go too I'm afraid, anything magically enhanced at all so all of you leave your wands and any other artefacts with Molly who will be manning the border."
"I'm going in there for my boys!" Molly Weasley declared with incredulity.
"Mum don't cause trouble and do as you're told!" Bill said sternly, causing his mother to flush with rage but be too dumfounded with shock at being spoken to like that to have any kind of argument to throw back at him.
"Granger and Longbottom," Moody turned on them both, "I want you two out here on the border too."
Hermione was about to protest when Moody glared at her while he still possessed two eyes with which to do so and silenced the two young trainee healers before they uttered their first word.
"We need healers on hand at all times and that means not fighting or searching a badger set somewhere! You both set up a treatment site here understand?" Moody growled as if daring Hermione to argue with him.
"I do sir," Neville said as he put his arm around Hermione and gripped her to him tightly.
"From what I've heard Weasley's going to need medical attention no matter how well or badly this rescue mission goes so I expect you to be on hand and ready to perform it," Moody said in an attempt to placate Hermione's anxiety a little more.
"You're right sir," Hermione nodded before pulling herself up into a rigidly strong stance, "just you be quick about finding them."
Moody nodded before extracting his magical eye and tossing it carelessly to Neville, who caught it with some degree of disgust, and then began to assign search teams before waving them through the border.
"Weasley twins and the sensible one," Moody barked.
"Percy sir," Percy said as he stepped up behind his resentful brothers.
"I want you down the valley and to the right. Shaklebolt, dragon Weasley and Lupin are to do the same and head left. I want Bill, and McGonagal with me while Arthur, you lead the rest deep into the woods and separate while staying in sight of each other as best you can, form a chain or something so one of you is always in sight of the other and so on. I don't want anybody else getting lost out there and I want a rapid recall when we need it."
Moody pulled out several cylinders with funny red funnel looking things on the end of them and tossed one to each group.
"These are a muggle air pressure thingies that makes a hell of a noise. When the rapid recall is needed or when reinforcements are imperative we use these, only in those circumstances understand?"
Everybody nodded and Moody led his group into the magic-free zone with a nod.
"Oh Hermione dear they'll get them back in no time you'll see," Molly was saying with an unsteady voice.
"I know they will," Hermione nodded.
Neville said nothing. He just rolled up his sleeves and began to prepare some emergency portkeys back to St Mungo's.
Something was dripping and causing a deep echo. Jess assumed they were hiding in a cave somewhere. She could hear Ron's footsteps as he rushed back and forth doing several things to keep them secure and hidden she guessed before pausing suddenly and being very still for a moment.
"It's your head again isn't it Ron?" Jess said sadly as she guessed Ron's stop and start progress was due to him having to ride out the various waves of pain her presence was causing him.
Ron seemed to make a scraping sound against the cave wall and then a soft bumping sound let her know he was sitting on the floor with her now.
"Look I know you want to leave me here and go off to search for Harry but you're not well enough Ron. If you go marching out of this cave it'll be with me following the sound of your footsteps all the way. I'm not sitting here while you get ambushed," she said with determination.
Jess listened again but heard nothing. She fumbled for the stick so she could make contact with him again but as she leaned in to the place he had last made a sound all she could concentrate on was the rusty smell of fresh blood.
"No," she gasped as she reached all around her for that damn stick, "not again, you can't do this again Ron. I won't be able to help you. Please wake up!"
She listened for the gasps of pain and heard nothing; there wasn't even short panicky breaths or the sound of his feet scraping against the cave floor. Either he was being deliberately still or he was unconscious. Jess had to get help. She didn't care if her yells attracted friends or foes as long as somebody came, somebody who could touch Ron without killing him, anybody but her. He scrambled to her feet and felt along the wall of the cave as she headed back towards the source of the draft on her face. Her foot hit something lying on the ground before her and she fell flat on her face and an explosion of pain tore through her once more as the second vision assaulted her mind.
She screamed.
"Did you hear that?" Percy said as he grabbed George's elbow and pulled him back to peer through the trees.
"Yeah I did," George said fearfully, that sounded like a girl.
"Well come on then!" Fred said as he ran into the woods brandishing a cricket bat as if it was a axe.
The three of them ran through the thicket and wove amongst the trees towards, what they hoped, was their brother, Harry and the seer girl Jess.
"We're coming, hold on!" Fred yelled out as he jumped over a fallen tree and landed heavily on the other side.
George jumped the horizontal trunk with just as much ease and with a slightly better landing than his twin had managed but Percy wasn't really much of an athlete and clambered over it with all the grace of a troll using a salad fork.
The scream sounded again and this time it was louder, they were getting closer. Percy felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest as they reached a rock face covered in undergrowth and not a soul to be seen anywhere.
"Where the hell are they?" Fred said as he spun around on the spot.
"Hiding from Death Eaters of course!" George said as he scanned the surrounding trees for any sign of red hair or round glasses.
"Both of you shut up and listen," Percy ordered and, while glaring at their bossy brother, both twins complied without a word of protest.
Percy thought he heard a sniff and then a bought of coughing. It sounded like a there was an echo just after it too.
"There's a cave, they've hidden the entrance," Percy said as he began to tear at the natural looking growth over the side of the rock face.
Fred soon joined him while George drew the cleaver he had as his weapon and began to hack at the thick vines of ivy that could've been concealing the entrance to any kind of cave from them.
"I've got it!" Fred said as he tore away some loose branches that were covering a narrow crack in the stone, "quick in here."
Percy followed Fred inside with George right behind him and they squinted through the darkness for any sign of anything.
"I can't see a bloody thing," George hissed.
Fred seemed to be fumbling in his pockets and suddenly pulled a device out that clicked and produced a single flame. The cave was very poorly illuminated now but illuminated all the same. Percy was about to enquire where Fred laid his hands on a muggle fire making device when George shoved his way past him and skidded to his knees.
"Oh Merlin Ron!" he said fearfully.
Percy looked at the cave floor where his youngest brother was sputtering and trying to wipe a hell of a lot of blood from his face while on the other side of the cave a terrified looking girl with bushier hair then Hermione's and a stick in her hand sat pressed against the wall in shock.
"Here," Fred offered George a handkerchief to clean Ron's face up with while Percy knelt down before the blind girl and rested his hands gently upon her shoulders.
""Hello there, are you Jess?" he asked in as unthreateningly a tone as he could manage, the girl nodded, "My name is Percy and I'm Ron's brother."
"Is he okay?" she said suddenly as he gripped Percy's shirt like her life depended on it, "I tried not to go near him, I tried not to touch him but I couldn't hear where he was and when I tried to go and call for help I fell over him."
Percy glanced over to the twins who were mopping up what appeared to be a bloody nose and watching Ron signing and then going blank and losing focus and then signing again.
"He's with our brother's Fred and George, he's talking to them okay? Don't worry about anything, just tell us where Harry is."
"Harry's been captured," Fred said grimly, "Ron says she saw it. They've got Harry and they've messed him up pretty badly."
Just as Percy was going to ask for more details Ron rose to his feet and pushed his way past the twins and ran out of the cave.
"No stop him," Percy yelled after their departing brother, "he can't fight anyone in that state!"
"Ron?" Jess was saying fearfully, "Ron don't go please!"
Percy grabbed the blind girl and led her out of the cave after the twins who were trying to get Ron to come back and calm down. Fred was standing in front of Ron and looking completely thrown at what he was seeing.
"Ron mate, I have no idea what half of the stuff your signing means," he pleaded as he tried to physically restrain his little brother.
Percy reached the small group where it had stopped and unceremoniously shoved Jess into George's arms while stepping in and spinning Ron around to look at him.
"Tell me Ron, I know more signs then they do," he said as he watched his brother's nose pouring with a new wave of blood.
"What's that supposed to mean you...?" Fred was snapping but Percy waved a hand to tell his obstinate brother that now was not the time.
Ron was beginning to sign some very complex expressions. He then started to fingerspell in Latin and Percy was about to grab hold of Ron and order him to take a deep breath and start again slowly when the pair of blue eyes he knew so well disappeared into the back of his head and Ron reached out and grabbed Jess by the hair.
The girl screamed and Ron placed a hand on either side of her head and they both went rigid.
Harry felt something incredible inside his own head that he couldn't explain and he winced in pain. The Death Eaters who surrounded him all seemed quite pleased but equally confused at where this fresh torture was coming from.
"It must be her, this must be it," the general said with glee, "He is giving her up to us, prepare to receive the true gift of knowledge boys!"
The old codger stood before Harry with both arms outstretched and waited for what he expected to fly out from Harry into flow forth into him but it never came. Instead Harry's eyes closed and his face contorted in both agony and surprise.
"Ron?" he barely managed to say out loud as the pain of a billion headaches at once seared through his brain followed by the sound of Jess screaming and then the voices of Ron and a strange female voice speaking in unison with perfectly calm authority.
"Open your eyes and let me see," the voices demanded.
Harry did as he was told. He looked around the room, at all the figures within the room, and at every detail of the room itself. Then it seemed as if the walls had fallen away and he could see the whole building surrounding the room. That too disintegrated into nothing and Harry could see the trees and the countryside and the clearing full of various scattered search parties. He was drawn across the clearing and through the trees until eventually he saw Ron with the twins and Percy. Ron was bleeding and holding onto Jess' head and she was still screaming. Ron's eyes were open but all Harry could see were the whites of them until he felt himself physically reach out for his best friend and tell him to let go, that it was too dangerous, let go and run.
Ron's eyes rolled forward again and looked Harry directly in the eye. Then Ron did something that shook Harry to his very core, he spoke.
"I'm coming for you."
There was a blinding flash of white light and Harry was back in the room again and all the Death Eaters were rushing around in a panic.
"She has taken the form of another!" the general said frantically as he pointed the gun at Harry and then at the open door where several Death Eaters were fleeing in terror, "She takes human form and has taken account of us all!"
"We need to return to the magical world general," one of the robed figures said.
Others were yelling and trying to convince the general to kill Harry and end Ravenclaw with him, others were furiously declaring that it had been the three into one after all; the vessel, the key and the bridge.
"The sight shows the mute who passes the knowledge to the one who can speak it without even having heard it and that is how we extract the information you old fool! I told you all along," a Death Eater with his hood flung back and a shiny bald head snarled at the old man.
Several more Death Eaters ran back inside the room yelling warnings of an ambush awaiting them and others drew their weapons and ran for every possible exit from the building. The general turned to glare at Harry and his eyes were alight with a victory that was inevitable but now slightly delayed.
"It was the mute after all then was it? How noble of you to die protecting one who should've been put out of his misery long ago. Well you started the job Potter; I'll gladly finish him off for you. It's just a shame you won't be around to see it," the general raised the gun to Harry's head and pulled the trigger.