Chapter 16
Dragomir and Andos
The ride to Arad was quiet and uncomfortably uneventful. Ginny didn't ask him any more questions, and Harry didn't feel like forcing her talk about what had happened. He truly had wanted to tell her everything, but there were too many ways it might turn out badly. She spent most of the trip staring out the window, obviously trying to make sense of everything that had happened that day. Without anything else to do, Harry found himself doing the same thing.
What had happened with Hermione? She had been in the village, he was absolutely certain of that. He'd followed news of them across the country. They'd been at the inn the night before his visit. Why hadn't they gone to the castle? They must have heard the same rumors Harry had. What had stopped them? Even as he asked himself the question, he realized that he'd been thinking about it incorrectly from the very beginning.
There never had been any Death Eaters in the castle. He'd been there watching it well before Hermione arrived. No one had entered or exited the castle, yet somehow the ring had been placed in the cellar. The answers slowly arranged themselves in his head.
The ring and candle had been placed there before he'd arrived, and therefor well before Hermione had arrived. It had been just what he thought: a way to pull him away from Ginny. By making sure that Hermione never went to the castle, the Brotherhood got him to stay there for another day. If he had left a day earlier, he could have kept Ginny away from Tarus; if he'd left a day later, who knows what would have happened to her.
It had been planned out for some time. While all the talismans were identical, the chains they hung upon were not, and Harry easily recognized the one he'd found in that cellar. The last time he'd seen it, it had been hanging around Henri D'Anneau's neck. The message was clear: Tarus was planning to finish what he'd failed to do at Giza. He was trying to convince Ginny to help him.
Something must have happened to make that harder than he thought. His thoughts caught on something Ginny had said earlier: she'd seen the veil. He'd taken her to listen to it. What had she heard or seen? Why hadn't she asked about it?
He was unable to stop thinking about it. Whatever it was, Tarus must not have been prepared for it. He wouldn't have revealed himself so quickly if he had. She would have been easier to convince. So, what did she see? Why had it been different for her? What could that mean? Was the veil just another trick? It hadn't felt like a trick.
When the train finally stopped in Arad, Harry pushed all his thoughts and memories of the veil from his mind, and forced himself to focus on the current task. Ginny silently led him off the train, and they weaved their way through the rest of the Muggles toward the ticket booths.
Harry bought a pair of tickets on a train bound for Innsbruck. As they walked away, Ginny finally broke her self-imposed silence.
"Why that train?" she asked hoarsely. "Why not the one to Vienna in fifteen minutes? Now we'll have to spend an extra two hours here. I thought you said we were in danger?"
"We are," Harry replied in a low voice. "By now, Tarus will know we weren't on the first train to Budapest. While we were on the train, he closed down all connections to the Floo Network and sent every spare wizard to Britain to wait for us."
"Why can't we just Apparate back to Grimmauld Place?"
"Have you ever tried Apparating that far?" he asked her. "I think Grigore would find it pretty amusing if either of us ended up splinching ourselves."
"Well, we wouldn't have to do it in just one go," Ginny replied with a little annoyance.
"That's right, and you're free to give it a try," Harry said coolly. "While your hair might make it harder for us to be found in a crowd, it's not going to stop them from spotting you along the way," he explained, adding, "It's not as though I can really Apparate into whatever pub I want."
Ginny frowned and took a seat on a secluded bench. "Still, I would have thought you'd want to get away a little faster than this."
Harry sat down next to her, saying, "Every hour we wait will make it harder for Grigore to know where we are,"
"Then why don't we just stop off at some small town and wait a few days? If we just slipped off the train, no one could possibly know where we were."
Harry pulled the bottle of water from his bag and handed it to her. "We don't really have time to do that. We need to be back in Britain by tomorrow afternoon."
"Why then?"
"When we don't show up tonight, they're going to know just where to find us."
Ginny stared at him in bewilderment. "Hold on. You just said that the longer we wait, the harder it will be for Tarus to find us. How will he know where we are if we wait until tomorrow?"
Harry let out a long breath and leaned forward, letting his long hair hide his face. "He won't know where we are, but he'll know where we're going."
"Well then, let's go somewhere else," Ginny said as she twisted to try and look at Harry's face.
"Why do you think that Grigore was so friendly to you?" he asked. Ginny took a moment to think, but before she answered, Harry had already continued talking. "I don't understand why he did all of it, but I do know why it started. He wanted to get close to you because of your relationship to me ―or what your relationship to me would be if found out. He knew I couldn't risk telling anyone else while you were so vulnerable. He also knew that you would be able to lure me out of hiding."
Ginny felt a chill run down her spine. Tarus had told her exactly what he was trying to do, though at the time she had completely misunderstood. He'd been talking about trapping Harry the very first time they'd spoken to each other. Ginny was the bait, and she was the reason why Harry couldn't ask for help. He'd used her, and she'd almost cost them both their lives.
"What does that have to do with him finding us?" she asked, trying to ignore her guilt.
"All he needed to do was to capture you. Everything else ―the job, the promotion, the special honors― it just wasn't necessary. Why go through that trouble for bait?" he asked, finally turning to look at Ginny. "You were part of some more elaborate plan, but you ruined it. Whatever happened between you two, it's changed him. In the shop, he was... different. He was rash and impatient. He's not going to work out some other plan. He doesn't have any other plans. He's desperate. He'll find someone else to act as bait, and he won't waste time like he did with you."
"But you know it's a trap, now," Ginny replied. "You know what he's doing. If we just stay hidden, we'll be fine."
Harry gave her a grim smile. "I knew he was using you to set a trap before you had even finished your N.E.W.T.s ―and yes," he said with a nod, confirming the surprised look on Ginny's face, "it started that long ago. I assume the possibility had always been in his mind. He sent a pair of wizards to the Burrow last Christmas. They found me there. One of them escaped, and I expect he'd been planning all this since then. Now that you've proven too difficult to handle, I suspect he'll find someone else."
"Hermione?" Ginny gasped.
"Hermione already knows about the Brotherhood. The Department of Mysteries has talked to them on occasion, though the rest of the Ministry doesn't realize it," Harry explained. "She doesn't know about Grigore, but she knows enough to be wary of him and the rest of the Brotherhood. She would make a risky choice. Grigore would want someone who wasn't quite so well informed."
Ginny's eyes widened in fear as she nearly shouted, "Oh, no! Ron! We have to tell him!"
"That's an excellent idea," Harry replied flatly. "There's a wizarding pub in this station. They keep an owl or two for messages. You could send one off with a message to Ron." Harry already knew it wouldn't work, but he watched Ginny and waited for her to reach the same conclusion.
After a moment of thought, the color drained from her face. "We can't," she said weakly. "He's got a match in Chudley tomorrow. They don't let him get owls the night before a match." She looked as though she were about to be sick. Slowly, she leaned over and buried her face in her hands.
"Tarus is going to be there, isn't he?" she asked. "That's why he knows where we're going to be. That's why we were able to slip out, isn't it? He knows we have to be there to stop him from―" Ginny's voice was cut off, and she quickly sat up. "Why aren't we trying to get there faster? We could stop it. We could―"
"There's nothing we can do," he told her firmly. "The best we could hope to do is hide in some cottage until tomorrow afternoon. If they find us before then, they'll attack us. If there is an attack, they'll cancel the match, and we might never find Ron again. He's safe right now, just like you were safe all these months. Grigore won't attack him because he needs Ron to draw us out. If we wait for the match, we can protect him and take him with us. Hermione too, if we're lucky."
Ginny didn't say anything for some time, and a half hour later the platform began to get too crowded with Muggles to talk about anything she might have been thinking about. The two of them sat in contemplative silence for the train to begin loading.
The more people on the platform, the more anxious Harry got to get off of it. Despite their attempts to fit in, it seemed as if the Muggles around them could sense something odd about the young pair on the bench. If Grigore had searched that first train to Belgrade, he might already know that Harry was taking a less direct route. He might have already given up and began planning for Ron's match tomorrow, or he might have sent out wizards to every major train station in Romania. If any of them searched the platform they were on, Harry knew his disguise wouldn't fool them.
He felt a wave of relief as a uniformed Muggle stepped off a nearby car and shouted over the murmur of the crowd. Slowly, the people flowed toward the doors of the cars, and Harry and Ginny had joined them. Once inside the car, they followed the corridor until they found a small, empty compartment. They stepped inside and Harry tapped the door with his wand, making it blend perfectly into the wall on either side of it.
After another tense twenty minutes, they heard a whistle and the train lurched forward beneath them. After pulling out of the station, Harry slipped his glasses back on his face and watched the countryside race past them as they rolled toward the border.
He felt better knowing that within the hour they would be out of Romania and farther from Grigore Tarus and the Brotherhood. However, any comfort he might have had from that thought was drowned by the worry over Ginny's mood since their escape. Even her panicked argument earlier had been tinged with a melancholy despair that Harry found difficult to deal with. He had begun to fear that Ginny might never speak to him as a friend again, when her voice floated across the compartment.
"It wasn't your fault, you know," she said in a hollow tone.
"Just because I didn't mean to do it, doesn't make me any less responsible," Harry argued. He didn't feel like defending himself any more. He turned to face Ginny, and said, "I could have found a better way, but I didn't think about it. I thought he was far enough away. It was a stupid mistake, but it was my mistake."
"I'm not so sure it was," Ginny replied. She looked up and gave Harry an apologetic look. He paused and wondered just what she had to apologize for.
"I watched it in the Spectrecorder," she explained. "I― I'm almost positive that Charlie was safe. Your curse, it brought down a few chunks of stone, enough to stop him, but they weren't even close to him. After that― something happened. The ceiling caved in. They must not have been inspecting their charms. The charms should have held it in place. The stone over him couldn't take it, and just sort of fell apart. No one could have known it would happen."
"It was still my curse," Harry reminded her.
"I know, Harry. It was your curse, but Tarus put him there. Tarus said that Charlie had been tricked. He meant that Charlie had meant to betray him. Charlie was trying to help you. Tarus knew that. I don't think he's the kind of wizard who would forgive someone for that. If you had given Charlie the wand, Tarus would have killed him and taken it for himself." She turned to look out the window at the setting sun, adding, "You did the right thing, Harry. I don't know what Tarus wants with it. I wish Charlie wasn't dead, but I'm glad Tarus doesn't have the wand."
"Grigore never wanted the wand," Harry replied. "He only wanted it because the Death Eaters wanted it. What he wanted was a way to control the Death Eaters, if only for a little bit."
Ginny turned back toward Harry, and fixed him with an uncertain stare. "You know a lot about what he wants," she stated, rather than questioned. "You know quite a bit about the Brotherhood and how they do things. Why is that, Harry?"
He stared back at her for a moment, then, in a tired voice, he responded, "Why are you asking? You already know that answer."
"Yes, but I want to hear you tell it to me," she replied with a slight edge to her voice. "After everything I've had explained and revealed to me in the last three weeks, I want some of it to come directly from you. I deserve at least that. What reason could you have to keep things from me now?"
Harry leaned back in his seat and stared at his hands. She was right. It was time to tell her everything ―or almost everything. "I know about Grigore and the Brotherhood because I was one of them, once," he told her. "Grigore trained me, and for a while I considered him a friend. We shared ideas and opinions like any friends might. I helped him teach the others. I taught them how to fight. I taught them how to fight me." Ginny remained silent as Harry explained everything he couldn't tell her before, starting with the reason why he hadn't returned to her.
It had started almost immediately after Voldemort's fall. Harry had Apparated to the hill overlooking the Burrow and found Ginny waiting for him. He was exhausted and every bone in his body ached, but when he saw her the pain melted away into nothingness. The moon was shining off her hair and bathing her face in pale, clean light. He was so relieved to see her that he didn't even react when she raised her wand. She had already said "Avada―" before he even thought to be worried.
While he was diving to the ground and fumbling for his wand, there was a much louder voice shouting, followed by a flash of blue light. When he'd looked up again, he found Grigore Tarus standing over Ginny's body. Of course, it wasn't truly Ginny, and Tarus was quick to explain that to Harry.
He had informed Harry that he was still in terrible danger and that he was endangering Ginny and the rest of his friends by being that close to them. After a brief conversation, Harry had agreed to Disapparate to Hogsmeade to discuss it further. They had talked more, and before the sun rose the next day, Harry was in Romania.
Tarus had always been secretive about the danger that Harry himself was in, and he'd always focused on the danger that he would put his friends in if he would return to them. In time, Harry began to believe it, and when they started fighting against the Death Eaters, he became even more convinced that Tarus was trying to help him. Meanwhile, Tarus worked even harder to hide the true nature of the Brotherhood from him.
Harry rose in skill faster than any of the other Brotherhood wizards. Only a month after he'd arrived in Romania he began helping Tarus instruct the other wizards in charms and tactics to use against the Death Eaters. Many of them, it seemed, resented his ascension, but many others readily accepted him and came to him for advice on a wide variety of things.
Slowly, Harry began to accept them as well, and he opened up to them, telling them about his thoughts and memories. He never forgot about Ron and Hermione, and convinced himself that they were safer for now with him far away from them. The Brotherhood became his new friends, and while he never felt quite as comfortable around them, they treated him as an equal, and that was a refreshing feeling for Harry.
When Ginny had gone to King's Cross the day before the start of her final year at Hogwarts, a group of Brotherhood wizards concocted an excuse to get him out of the Castle. While they followed a pair of Death Eaters through the back alleys of Marseilles, he and his partner had Apparated to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and watched Ginny board the train.
They had meant it to be a late birthday present for him, a chance to see just what he was fighting to protect. However, they had thought only of Harry, and not of Ginny. The moment he saw her he could see that something was wrong. She had looked tired and worn down, as if she hadn't slept in a long time. She was smiling and laughing with her friends, but there was an eerie emptiness to it.
It utterly failed at cheering him up, and when he returned to Romania, he was unable to hide the effect seeing her had on him. He avoided Tarus for days, worried about what he think. Soon, the fact that Harry was avoiding him was enough to make Tarus suspicious and he called Harry into his study to talk with him.
Harry had tried lying to him, but it hadn't worked. Somehow Tarus had already known what Harry had done.. Tarus had gotten very upset, but he didn't do anything so condescending as trying to scold or punish him. Instead, he tried to explain to Harry just what they were preparing for. A great war was coming, a war only the Brotherhood was prepared to fight.
That day was the first time he had shared his suspicions of another Dark Lord with Harry. Harry thought he took it fairly well, considering how much pain and suffering the last one had caused him. Tarus had intended it to inspire Harry, and remind him of the danger he posed to his old friends, and for the most part, it had worked.
Harry increased his efforts in training the other wizards. More and more of them were showing up every day, and the newest wizards had quite a bit less knowledge of dueling and hexes than the others. Harry took them and spent hours teaching them every day.
While Tarus and other members insisted that there were no ranks within the Brotherhood, Harry couldn't help but note certain patterns. Tarus spent a few hours every morning teaching advanced magic to Harry and a small number of other wizards. Some of them were quite young, and some of them were older. Later in the day, they would gather groups of the other wizards and train them in offensive and defensive magic, but only rarely reaching the power and complexity that Tarus taught them.
By the start of October, the groups of wizards who would wait to train with Harry had grown so large that other wizards were beginning to grumble about the possibility that Harry was trying to make himself into Tarus's rival.
Tarus responded by calling Harry into personal training sessions in the afternoon. Harry began feeling as if he were being isolated and set aside. He had never wanted to take Tarus's place, and he decided it would be best to simply accept the changes. He spent his mornings reading books, but found that his evenings were no longer relaxing.
Not discouraged by Harry's absence for the afternoon training, groups of wizards were now coming to him at night. They met in the dark hallways deep under the Castle, and he taught them by facing off against them. Harry soon learned that they were being taught dark magic. It was obvious that Harry was no longer being trained the same way the other wizards were. He pushed this aside in his mind, telling himself that Tarus didn't teach him dark magic because he knew Harry would refuse to learn it. Instead, he decided to help them learn how to use dark magic to counter the charms the Death Eaters or other wizards might use against them.
They did not advertise their meetings, and the longer it went on, the more it had felt like Dumbledore's Army all over again. And just like his fifth year at Hogwarts, it was only a matter of time before others found out what had been happening.
A nightly guard patrol had stumbled upon them late in October, and by the next day, the Brotherhood had fractured into a number of different groups. Some of them felt Harry had gone too far and should be removed from the Brotherhood. Others, most of whom had taken part in the extra practice sessions, reminded everyone that no one could ever leave the Brotherhood and that Harry had only been trying to help them.
Tarus forbade any more of the evening practices. He did not disagree with the results, but the restrictive, separative manner in which they were being done upset him. Harry also detected a small hint of fear at the thought of Harry commanding more loyalty than Tarus himself. Tarus sent Harry away, assigning him to follow and check on Henri D'Anneau.
He had been told to return on Halloween, and when he did, he found a completely different Brotherhood waiting for him. No one ever really told him what had happened, and that perhaps was one of the first indications of the magnitude of the changes. Wizards who had previously spent evenings with him doing nothing more than talking and laughing, refused to speak to him, relaying the same advice: speak with Tarus.
That night he went to speak with Tarus, and found him pacing in his study. Like the rest of the Brotherhood, he seemed guarded, as if he were uncertain just how to act around Harry. When Harry confronted him, he had reacted defensively, and began interrogating Harry about his actions over the past month. He knew about his side trip to see Ginny, and he knew about the evening training sessions.
After a few minutes, Tarus had taken Harry deeper into the Castle than he'd ever gone. At the end of all of the flights of stairs was a large round hall with a pair of doors at one end. Through those doors was another large room with a high ceiling and a sunken center. In the middle of the floor below had been the last thing Harry had expected to see there.
"The veil?" Ginny asked.
Harry nodded and continued. Tarus claimed he had brought him there to show him something of the future. Harry had felt immediately wary, but any of his concerns were outweighed by a much more troubling question. He paused as he tried to explain just what it had felt like. Ginny felt herself shiver as Harry related an experience very similar to her own. Like her, he had stepped onto the platform, though he had no help from Tarus. He began to explain the things he heard, but he sounded hesitant and unsure of himself.
Harry paused before continuing, and asked in a quiet voice, "When you looked into the veil, did you... see anything?"
Ginny stared back at him, unsure of what he would think. "I did," she told him. "It was only for an instant, but I'll never forget his face."
"Whose face?" Harry asked suddenly.
"Tom's face," she answered as if it should have been obvious.
"You saw Voldemort? You're certain it was him? You― Was it cloudy or―"
"Yes, Harry, I'm certain," she replied sharply. "After all the times― I mean―" she stammered. She looked out the window, and said, "Yes, I'm certain, Harry. I saw him, too."
Harry looked troubled. "I never saw him that closely. I only saw... I only saw a dark wizard. And he spoke to me in Parseltongue."
Ginny turned back, looking much more interested. "Was that what that was?" she asked. "I couldn't make it out, but at the end, he asked me ―commanded me, really― to come to him. I think he wanted me to walk through the arch and kill myself. I might have if Tarus hadn't stopped it."
Harry appeared confused. "Tarus wouldn't have stopped me. He wanted me to go through the arch. He wanted me to die that night, the same night Voldemort had killed my parents. He told me that nature required it. He said I would be a danger to my friends and every wizard in the world if I didn't."
"That doesn't make any sense. Why would he do it?" Ginny asked. "Why would he spend all that time gaining your trust if he just wanted to kill you? Why didn't he just use the Killing Curse in your sleep?"
"I think he's afraid of me," Harry suggested. "He's afraid that it might not work, or that it would, but that it wouldn't solve anything."
Ginny gave him a bewildered look, and Harry reached for his wand to help him explain. "When I first learned of Voldemort, I thought there were only two types of wizards: good wizards and dark wizards," he said as he used his wand to draw two glowing golden circles in the air.
"When I was older, Sirius told me that the world wasn't that simple. He said most wizards were somewhere in between." As he spoke, Harry drew an arc from one dot to the other. "The day I met Grigore, he told me that a few wizards, like Voldemort, were much darker than normal dark wizards, and a few wizards were much more good than normal good wizards."
"―Like you―" Ginny interjected.
Harry nodded. He took his wand and started extending the lines on either side of the arc he'd drawn. "He said that the difference between the very darkest wizard imaginable and the very best was much less than you might think. Both would be equally disruptive to nature," he said. "In fact, he believed that in the most extreme cases, the two would be indistinguishable." Harry finished extending the lines, closing the glowing circle between the two of them.
"Grigore believes that Voldemort and I were a sign that the wizarding world was becoming unstable. If it wasn't fixed, the imbalance would worsen, creating even more unnatural wizards, until a new sort of wizard appeared." Harry drew in a third circle where the two lines had met. "This wizard wouldn't be good or evil. He'd be a thing of destruction and decay: an enemy of nature itself. The purpose of the Brotherhood is to prevent that, by ensuring that the numbers of good and evil wizards were never far apart."
Ginny stared at the figure Harry had drawn: a glowing circle, connecting three smaller, equally spaced circles. It was the same as the talismans the Brotherhood wore around their necks. She felt the corners of her mouth pulling back into a scowl. Tarus had been telling her all the answers, but there was no way she could have known. He was slowly working on her, trying to convince her to join them. It might have even worked if she hadn't been so stupid as to chase Harry down a darkened alley.
"He probably hoped he would be able to control me," Harry said. "He saw himself in me. He must have believed that I would change as he had."
"No, I don't think so," Ginny replied. "Now that it's explained to me, I think he saw you as a flaw to be removed, not a problem to be corrected. He told me that you were something that Dumbledore should have fixed after Voldemort fell." She swallowed and looked Harry in the eye. "He was trying to balance the scales, and he knew he could never do it with you on them."
"It was more than that," Harry disagreed. "I think― Something happened before Halloween. I... I think he looked behind the veil and whatever he saw made him change his mind. That was when he turned on me, and that was when he started watching you. That's when he started setting the trap."
Ginny remembered Tarus's tale about trapping dragons, and realized that it had always been about Harry. "I think he always meant for you to die," she told him in an emotionless voice. "He just didn't know when to do it ―or how. If he saw something behind the veil, then it scared him into acting before he was ready. He came after me as a way to keep everything quiet. He knew what would happen if the rest of Europe knew that he was trying to kill the Great Harry Potter."
"It worked," Harry commented soberly.
For some time they just sat quietly, contemplating what they had said. Ginny noticed that Harry was worried about something but he was trying to hide it from her. She had a good idea of what it might be, and she was trying to decide if she really wanted answers to her questions. In the end, the silence became more unbearable than her worries, and she spoke up.
"Ron's in real danger isn't he?" she asked.
"Not as much as the two of us," Harry answered, "but quite a bit, yes."
"And what will happen if we refuse to walk into his trap?"
"He'll kill Ron," Harry replied coldly. His expression softened a bit when he saw the fear on Ginny's face. "He won't do it right away. He doesn't see Ron as a threat. He'll wait for us to show up. If we don't, he'll kill Ron before he has a chance to escape." He leaned forward and looked into Ginny's eyes.
"I won't let anything happen to Ron," he told her firmly.
"I know," she said, though she didn't know if it was a lie or not.
When the train came to a halt at Belgrade, Harry pulled the curtains across the windows and gestured for Ginny to remain quiet. Minutes later, they heard a number of people walking down the corridor. A few of them walked past the hidden doorway, and at least one person stopped, but no one made any attempt to enter. Not long after they stopped, the train whistle announced their departure, and the train lurched forward on its way to Vienna.
Feeling quite a bit more relaxed, Ginny was able to get a few hours of sleep while the train climbed through the mountains on its way to Vienna. When she awoke, she found the first rays of dawn reflecting off the steep slope outside her window. Harry was awake and sitting across from her, leaning forward with his hands covering his face. He was mumbling something, though Ginny couldn't quite catch any of it. She held her breath, trying to hear his voice over the rumble of the tracks.
It seemed to be a chant of some sort. Though she couldn't recognize the words at first, he seemed to be repeating it, as if he were trying to make sense of some riddle. Over the rumbling of the train she caught the words "scar" and "emptiness". What could he be talking about? She slowly leaned forward, and caught a third word: blood.
A chill ran down her spine and she jerked upright. Harry noticed the sharp movement and immediately sat up as well, searching the tiny compartment for danger.
"What is it?" he asked after finding nothing threatening.
"You were whispering something," Ginny said.
"Was I?"
"Yes, you were," she assured him. "You said something about a scar and blood."
A look of recognition crossed Harry's face and he turned away from her. "It's nothing. It's... It's just an old dream I've been trying to figure out for a while," he explained.
Ginny frowned at him, not at all appreciating the dismissive response. She didn't believe that it was merely a coincidence that he had chosen to think about it while she was asleep. "Why don't you tell me about it? Maybe I can help."
"No," he replied immediately. "It's really nothing. I was just trying to distract myself."
"Distract yourself from what?"
"From that," Harry said, pointing out the window.
In the growing light, Ginny could see buildings stretching off toward the horizon. They weren't far from Vienna. "Is something wrong? I thought we came here because it would be safe."
"―Because it would be safer," Harry corrected. "There are very few places where we can be safe. The house on Grimmauld Place might be the only place left, but that doesn't really help us, does it?"
Ginny nodded in agreement and stared out the window as the train slithered toward the center of the old city. She felt better than she had for a while, and yet Harry's anxiety was beginning to infect her. He had always been the one who had known what was going on and how to escape. If he was nervous, it was a bad sign.
"What exactly are we going to do when the train stops?" she asked him, hoping for some encouraging answer.
"Nothing at all, I hope," he replied. He didn't turn to see the disappointment on Ginny's face, but he did explain himself. "When we reach the station, we'll let as many people off before us as we can. We can watch from here to see how safe it looks. I doubt Grigore will waste the time to continue looking for us, but he's been acting rather unpredictably lately."
"And if it isn't safe?"
"Then we stay on the train and hope that we can find some other place with a fireplace. If we run out of time, I'll Disapparate and protect Ron. You can stay on the train until I come back for you." Harry rubbed his eyes and looked out the window again. He looked very tired. Ginny wondered if he had slept at all. "It won't matter. We'll be fine," he added as if trying to convince himself as well.
"Then what are you worried about?"
"We've got about four hours until we can show up at the Quidditch match. It might be six or more hours until we can get to someplace with a fireplace that can take us to London. Grigore will know that, and he'll be searching all of Britain for us. We're stuck here until right before the match starts."
"Is that a problem?" she asked.
"It shouldn't be, and yet..." Harry's voice trailed off and he rubbed his forehead, letting his fingers absentminded trace the shape of his scar. It was something Ginny had noticed he would do when he concentrating on some problem. "Something feels wrong," he said. "It doesn't feel like a trap. It's different. I feel like I need to be in Vienna, like I'm missing something and that's where I'll find it. It's not normal. I don't know what it means."
Ginny didn't press him for a better explanation, and he never offered one. Together they looked out the windows and watched as they entered Vienna and approached the train terminal. Ginny felt Harry's discomfort grow as the train squealed to a stop next to the platform. They watched and waited as passengers streamed off the train and toward the gateway to the rest of the terminal at the end of the platform.
There was no sign at all of Grigore Tarus or any of the Brotherhood wizards. No strange people were waiting or milling about and they heard no one come aboard the train searching for other passengers. When most of the passengers had walked off, Harry quickly removed the enchantment from the door and motioned for Ginny to leave the compartment.
Instead of exiting through the closest door, they continued down the corridor, picking an exit much closer to the terminal gateway, yet not the closest one. Harry scanned the thinning crowd of Muggles, then escorted Ginny off the train and onto the platform.
As they walked toward the larch archway, Harry began walking slowly and searching the faces of everyone around them. The slower he walked, the more nervous Ginny got. "What is it, Harry?" she asked.
"I don't―" he started to say before cutting himself off. He blinked his eyes a few times and shook his head. "Maybe I just need sleep. Still, I think I'd feel better if we got off this platform. We need to head to that exit. Not far from it is an old telephone box. It's the doorway to a large underground complex of shops. One of them is the wizarding pub with the fireplace we're looking for."
Harry strode vigorously ahead of Ginny, leading her toward the large arched exit. As they passed through it, they entered a long dim corridor and she was forced to jog in order to keep close enough that she wouldn't lose sight of him in the shadows.
Without any warning, he darted to the left, and Ginny tripped over the feet of a tall man in a grey business suit as she tried to follow him. When she found Harry again, he was standing in a dusty old telephone box in a dark corner and motioning for her to hurry up. She took a deep breath and jogged over to him, only to have him grab her wrist and jerk her through the wall.
It felt rather like the barrier at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. In an instant the dark, cramped box was replaced with an even darker cramped corridor with an arched doorway at the opposite end. Harry walked toward the door and it opened with a wailing creak. After a quick look, Harry grabbed her hand and pulled her through the doorway.
The hall they walked into was immense. It must have been ten times the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. It's huge domed ceiling towered far above the floor, well beyond the glow of the lamps which lit the haphazard net of walkways stretched across the floor.
There were quite a bit more people than she had expected. The perimeter of the hall was lined with shops of all sorts, and the floor ―which was covered with enough dust and dirt to make it feel more like a ground― was cluttered with small carts and covered stands selling such a variety of exotic ingredients that she could not tell if some of them were food or potion ingredients.
Ginny stood for a moment and simply stared in amazement at the small underground city. With the golden lamps bathing the shops and stands with light, it looked much like Diagon Alley on a summer evening. It was wonderful.
Only feet away, Harry was struck with a different feeling altogether. It was something he had tried denying for a long time, but there could be no mistake now. He could feel his scar throbbing lightly. It was far from the worst it had ever hurt, but it wasn't the amount of pain which worried him. The simple fact that he was feeling something from it was enough to terrify him. Hesitantly, he reached a hand to his forehead. When the tip of his finger grazed the surface of his scar, a splitting pain sliced through his skull, making him recoil in shock.
Ginny was still marveling at the sight of the cavernous hall. Though the pain in his forehead was dying down, his concern was not. If his scar hurt, there must be a reason, and it must be nearby. Suddenly the one place he had hoped to use as a refuge had become the last place he wanted to be.
"Come on, Ginny," he said through gritted teeth. "We need to go."
Harry grabbed her hand and pulled her further into the enormous hall. Ginny didn't fight him, but she didn't share his sense of urgency. "Why?" she protested. "We have hours and this place is amazing. Where are we going?"
"I don't know," he replied honestly, "but we need to leave as quickly as we can."
Ginny came to an abrupt halt and waited for Harry to turn around and face her. "We need to leave?" she questioned. "Not twenty minutes ago you told me that we had to stay here until right before the match."
"I was wrong," he replied, tugging her forward.
Ginny tugged back and fixed Harry with a stubborn glare. "What is going on Harry? Why won't you tell me what is happening?"
"Because I don't know," he barked at her. Ginny looked as if he'd slapped her. He felt his scar twinge through the cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. Instinctively, he reached for it, but pulled his hand back, remembering what it felt like the last time he touched it. "Listen to me, Ginny," he said in a softer voice. "Something about this place feels wrong. I know it. I can't explain how. I just do. We've made a horrible mistake. We need to get out of this place."
Ginny's expression switched to one of fear. "What are we supposed to do? You said the Brotherhood would be searching all of Britain for us. Where are we supposed to go?"
"I don't know," Harry answered. "Anywhere but here. We'd be safer spending the next few hours running from the Brotherhood in Britain than waiting here a minute longer than we need to."
Ginny paled at his dire tone. She stepped closer, her eyes focused only on him. "Alright, Harry, then we'll go."
With his heart pounding in his chest, he took Ginny's hand in his and began weaving his way through the swirling crowd of wizards in the hall. He walked as quickly as he could, as if he could run from the heat building in his scar. Finally, after winding their way across the hall, they stopped in front of a large door flanked by a pair of wide, granite columns.
"Wait here a moment," Harry called back over his shoulder. "Let me take a look inside first. If the Brotherhood is here, this is where they'd come to find us." Harry waited for someone to exit the pub and silently slipped inside. After a quick survey of the room, he could see no sign of the Brotherhood and the fireplace in the far corner looked to be in perfect working order. A moment later, he slipped back out.
"There is a large group of old wizards who are making their way to the door," he told Ginny. "When they open the door, slip past them and find a table along the back wall. I'll follow a little while later. Put up your hood and wait for my signal." Harry looked around the column, and through the small window in the door. The bunch of wizards were slowly ambling toward the door.
Behind him, Harry felt Ginny take a step forward, and his arm shot out to stop her. "Not yet," he whispered.
"Harry―"
"Not yet!" he hissed.
"Harry―"
"Keep quiet," he scolded her without taking his eyes off the small window. The group of wizards was almost to the door. A second later, the doorknob turned and the hinges let out a shrill squeal as the door slowly opened.
"Alright, go," he ordered. "Keep to the wall and try not to give anyone a reason to notice you."
The old wizards filed out of the door, but Ginny still hadn't made a move for the door. "Hurry up, Ginny!" he commanded. "There's no time!" He could feel his scar pulsing again, and it was making it difficult to think.
"Harry!" she called out. "I can't go in."
"Why not?" he asked loudly as he whipped around to glare at her. Ginny was standing with her hood down and her chin raised, trying to avoid the wand which was pressing into her throat. Standing behind her and looking over her shoulder was one of the many faces Harry had been hoping to avoid.
His blood went cold as the wizard stepped out from behind Ginny. "Let her go, Dragomir," he said in a strained voice. Slowly, his hand began inching for his wand.
"Relax, Harry," the wizard replied. "Keep your wand where it is. We both know that Grigore would kill me if I gave her so much as a nosebleed."
"Then why pretend that you might?"
Dragomir smiled. "I needed your attention, Harry, not a fight. Can you honestly tell me that if I were standing here in any other posture, you wouldn't have cursed me six times already? I saw what you did to the last wizard who got in your way."
Harry ignored the comment despite it's truth. "Where is Andros?" he asked.
"He's in the pub, sitting at the table nearest the fireplace," Dragomir answered calmly. "He's in local attire so he'd be harder to spot. Of course, he probably didn't even notice you. I ordered him to watch only the fireplace. He doesn't know where I am."
"Alright, what exactly did you want my attention for?"
"I only want to speak with you."
"After months of hunting me, now that you've got me cornered, you want to talk with me?"
"I swear that is all," professed Dragomir.
Harry frowned and glared back. "That might sound more convincing if your wand wasn't pointed at her neck. Or perhaps we could step into the pub, I could jab my wand into Andros's neck and we could talk like civilized wizards?"
"What safety do you think that would give you?" the other wizard asked. "There isn't a single wizard ―or even two or three wizards― in the Brotherhood Tarus wouldn't trade for you. If he were here, we wouldn't be talking. You'd be dead or on your way back to Romania."
"You're saying Tarus doesn't know you're here?" Harry asked skeptically. "He didn't tell you to come here or hint that I might be here?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Harry. It wasn't an impossible mystery. There were only so many trains which left Romania in time to reach a fireplace which could take you to across Europe. We tried to think of the least likely course of action which might still result in you making it to the match. We've been waiting her for an hour or so."
"We?" scoffed Harry. "You're saying that Andros actually had some part in figuring that out? He's good with a wand, but he couldn't find his shadow if you put a lamp in each of his hands."
Dragomir laughed and lowered his wand a little. "Yes, of course not him. There is a third, but he thought you would be less likely to listen to what we were saying if he were here."
"Who is it?" Harry asked sternly.
Dragomir frowned and glanced toward Ginny. "The new lieutenant," he said in a low voice.
"Josef?" Harry said with distaste. "You're bloody daft if you think that there is a secret he knows that he hasn't shared with Grigore."
"Grigore doesn't know about this. That's one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you. He hasn't... been himself lately. He's been missing things, making little mistakes. When we didn't find you on the train to Budapest, he stopped looking. He gave up and sent everyone to England. Andros, me, and twenty-eight other wizards are supposed to show up at that Quidditch match outside Chudley. He didn't even consider anything else. He thought up a simplistic plan, and threw all his weight behind it. You know what he's like Harry. You know how this works. This plan, it's sloppy. He's being reckless. He isn't thinking it through. He's going to kill her brother. He'll kill him whether you show up or not. He hasn't had enough time to plan for anything else."
Harry felt his throat tightening, but he forced himself to speak. "And you and Josef wanted to ―what? Warn me? Help me?"
"Maybe both," Dragomir said. "Will you listen? Can I put my wand away?"
Harry nodded, and once Dragomir had dropped his arm, Harry reached for Ginny and pulled her away from him. With a wary look, he gestured for Dragomir to lead them into the pub.
Ginny tried to keep up with everything they had said, but it was almost too much to simply stand while her legs were still trembling. Whatever was going on, it had caught Harry unprepared. Still, it didn't feel so threatening as she had feared it was at first. She followed the other two wizards into the pub and joined a third who was sitting at a table very near the fireplace.
She remembered hearing the name Dragomir before, the morning she and Harry had fled after she had first found him. She hadn't seen him that day, and now that she did, his appearance felt strange to her. He didn't look as evil as she had imagined him. In age, he looked to fall somewhere between Remus Lupin and her parents. He had an angular, noble face surrounded by a chin-length curtain of dark brown hair.
Had she known nothing else about him, she might have taken him for a perfectly respectable wizard. His mannerisms were direct and refined, leading Ginny to suspect that he was from a wealthy family. The only unnerving thing about him were his occasional glances at her. He seemed to have some curiosity about her, and the idea that he knew something about her that she didn't worried Ginny.
Once they had all made themselves comfortable at the table, Dragomir pushed two small pouches toward Harry and Ginny. "Floo Powder," he explained. "A show of faith. The fireplace is right there. When you want to leave, you can go. However, I would not recommend that until after the players are out and warming up on the pitch."
"Why not?" Harry challenged.
"Because Grigore will be watching the gate until then," the third wizard answered. He was obviously the one named Andros. He had short hair which hung close to his head in dark curls. He was younger than Dragomir, but still older than Harry. "Once Weasley is out in the open, he's not going to take his eyes off him. Grigore lost his other bait―" he said with a nod toward Ginny, "―so he's found something new. He's not even trying to be subtle about it. If you don't return to Romania with him, he'll kill Ron Weasley."
Ginny felt the heat building up in her face. They were sitting across from her, talking about killing Ron as if it were barely worthy of their notice.
"Ron's not going to die," Harry declared, "and I'm not going with Grigore. Of course, any idiot could have guessed that, but they would have had just as easy a time guessing Tarus's plan. You didn't disobey Grigore and risk your lives to tell me something I already knew, so what did you come here to talk to me about?"
Dragomir and Andros paused and looked at each other. "Do you believe you are what Tarus claims you are?"
"Of course I don't," Harry replied immediately.
"Neither do we," Dragomir stated.
"And yet you're still helping him," Harry growled.
"You must understand, Harry. There was a time when I believed him. I have spent much more time with him than you have. I joined the Brotherhood when I was just fourteen. In all that time, I cannot remember Grigore ever lying to me. When he first suggested it to me, I believed him because I could see the honesty in his eyes. He truly believes that you are the wizard we were meant to stop."
"Grigore is old," Harry replied bitterly. "He may not have lied to you, but he's lied to me, and he's lied to himself. He's afraid of dying without some proof that all the killing and manipulation he's done had some greater purpose."
"I think he's already seen that proof, and I think you have seen it, too," Dragomir said pointedly. "If Josef's guess is correct, Miss Weasley has seen it as well. But it's even more than that, Harry. Many of us have started to feel it."
"It isn't real," Harry argued. "It was just a vision, a dream, some trick that Grigore has found to convince you that I am the thing the Brotherhood has spent centuries waiting for. If there is evil in that castle, then Grigore Tarus has put it there, not me."
"You may be right about Grigore, but if you think that this thing doesn't exist then I say it is you who are lying to yourself. Grigore was right, it started the week you came to join us. In the few months you were in the castle, we began fighting amongst ourselves. However, you left us and it hasn't stopped. It's been getting worse. Tiberiu had barely met you. He was the night guard for the Veil Antechamber, but something happened to him. He became... different, and when he saw Ginny in Giza, he tried to kill her against Grigore's expressed orders."
"That's all very interesting," Harry said as he leaned forward, "but it doesn't help me, does it? I'm still being hunted because of something I'm not."
"That's not the point," Andros spoke up, surprising the other three. "Even if you're not this thing, it exists and it is beginning to act."
"The Brotherhood was formed a millenia ago to try and prevent that from happening. The time has come. We need your help. Will you punish the world for Grigore's mistake?"
"Mistake?" Harry replied acidly. "He wants to kill me and you're telling me I should help him?"
"No," Dragomir said in a low voice, "I'm telling you that you should help us."
Ginny stared at the two Brotherhood wizards. Dragomir's meaning was quite clear: he planned to betray Tarus. Harry looked to be deep in thought.
"How many of the others have you convinced?" he asked.
"None," Dragomir answered. "Only I, Andros and Josef have spoken about this."
"Josef is a part of this plan, too?"
"Of course. He was the first to suggest it, and he said that we could not do it without your help."
"I don't trust him," Harry said.
"And rightfully so," Dragomir agreed. "He admits his mistake. He wanted to meet you himself, but he was afraid of that very reaction and he knew we would not get another chance like this one."
"That's touching," Harry sighed. "What exactly do you hope to accomplish with only three wizards and a good luck wish from me?"
"We think we can convince more of them ―quite a few, perhaps," Grigore replied, ignoring Harry's sarcasm. "It simply wasn't worth trying unless you were willing to help us. Quite a few of us still respect you. They would be more likely to turn away from Grigore if they thought you would return."
"I'll never return," Harry announced.
"That's irrelevant," Dragomir replied. "We only need to make it appear that you would. If we can convince enough of them, maybe we can actually force Grigore to see the truth."
"And if you fail, he will kill you all," Harry warned them.
"If we don't try, he might not realize his mistake until it is too late," Dragomir countered. "Either way, we all die. Our only hope is success, and so we must try. Even if we succeed, we will be weakened, and we will not be as prepared as we should be. Can we count on you to help us?"
Harry leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes. Ginny, Dragomir and Andros sat in silence and waited for some response. After a minute of tense waiting, Harry leaned forward again and looked at Dragomir with exhausted eyes. "What precisely will you need me to do?"
Dragomir and Andros shared relieved smiles. "For now, we need you to simply stay alive," Dragomir answered. "That goes for you, too, Miss Weasley. Josef was very specific about that. Grigore feels you have some role to play in all this, and I think Josef is afraid that if anything were to happen to you, Grigore would retaliate against Harry."
"That's easy enough to say," Harry commented, "but there is still a little problem involving Ron. I'm not going to hide in some dark cottage in Norway waiting for you to gather all your little friends while Grigore kills all my friends."
"I said we wanted you to stay alive, not turn into a coward."
Harry flashed him an expectant look. "So... you're going to help me?"
"Help you? No, we can't help you. If Grigore thinks we're helping you, he'll kill us before he realizes just how much we deserved it," Dragomir explained. "I can assure you that we will do everything we can to see that you are not killed, and I will attempt to keep Ronald safe as well. Unfortunately, there is little else we can do for you. Use that Floo Powder if you wish. If you do not trust me, there are a number of stalls outside where it can be found."
"The match starts at one o' clock," Dragomir announced as he stood. Andros mirrored him. "That's two o' clock, here, and the players come out fifteen minutes before then. At that time, Grigore will take his seat in the north tower and the rest of the Brotherhood will begin patrolling the pitch. Do not leave here before then. All of the fireplaces you can get to from here will be watched. However, at one o' clock the Tutshill Tornados are signing brooms in Witherwind's Inn outside Edinburgh. With the simplest of disguises you should be able to show up without anyone noticing. The nearest Disapparation point is just out the front door."
Harry nodded and waved silently. The two Brotherhood wizards bowed gently then turned and stepped toward the fireplace. A minute and two plumes of fire later, Harry and Ginny were sitting alone at the table. There were many questions floating about her head, but by the look in Harry's eyes, she guessed that he had quite a few more. Instead of pressing one of the more confusing questions, she decided to ask something a little easier to answer.
"Why don't you trust Josef?" she asked him. "I think he's one of the more dependable wizards in the Brotherhood."
Harry's head jerked up. "You've met him?"
"Yes, a few times," Ginny told him. "The first was at Giza, but we spoke for some time a week ago. He was the wizard who delivered the request to name me the Liaison to Romania."
"―A request designed to trap you and keep the Brotherhood's war a secret," Harry said in a restrained voice.
"Well, it was better than being interrogated by Reynard."
"Yes, in the same way that being locked in a room with a werewolf is better than being locked in a room with a werewolf and a rabid hedgehog."
"If you're not going to tell me then just say so," Ginny said huffily.
Harry turned away from her to stare into the fire. "The Brotherhood always operates in pairs. It makes it harder for them to be attacked. Two wizards working together cancel out each other's weakness, like Dragomir and Andros. Dragomir has to practice curses and hexes for hours, but Andros picks them up in minutes. Andros is horrible at solving problems and couldn't lie to brick wall, but Dragomir is as clever and any other wizard in the Brotherhood. It's also supposed to make it harder for either of them to betray the rest of the Brotherhood. If one of them disobeys the Brotherhood, the other almost always knows. Usually, the other wizard will cover for their partner, but if they think it's gone too far..."
Suddenly it made sense. "Josef was your partner, wasn't he?" she asked.
"Yes," Harry answered. "It was his even his idea that I go to see you at King's Cross," he added bitterly. "He helped me set up the evening training sessions. He was the one who told the other wizards about them. He was the one who told the patrols where to find us. When I escaped, Grigore named Josef, the one wizard who knew me better than anyone else, as his lieutenant."
"Maybe he's trying to find a way to apologize," Ginny suggested.
"Perhaps," Harry responded. "I think it's more likely he is simply trying to get rid of the last person between him and control of the Brotherhood."
"So are we going to help him?"
"I don't see any other choice," said Harry. "It's hard enough fighting Grigore and the Brotherhood while trying to avoid the Ministry. I can't fight him and Dragomir as well."
"So what are we supposed to do now?"
Harry opened the pouch in front of him and poked at the powder inside suspiciously. "The only thing we can do," he said with a shrug. "We wait."
Author's Notes:
I told you the next chapter would be coming soon, and here it is. You can also feel special because I posted this only minutes after the posting. Normally you have to wait a day or two before the chapters hit understand that this chapter moves quite a bit slower than the last chapter, but this should be one of the last big breaks until we reach the end of the story. It's really not far now. I'm going to guess that the last chapter will be Chapter 21 or 22. Of course, there are two more stories. It's a trilogy, you see. So that is why some questions just aren't going to be answered in this story (such as: "What did Harry see in the arch?") You'll have to wait for the sequel.
I will also admit that this chapter changed a bit from it's original vision. I had a bit of a revelation in the middle of writing it, so there are now a couple of interesting tidbits of information hiding in here.
Please note that this chapter might be a bit rough. I'm shopping for a temporary beta, so I was forced to reread this many times. Despite that, I already have a good chunk of the next chapter done. So, feel free to review or email me. It shouldn't be too long before Chapter 17 "The Chudley Catastrophe" shows up.
