Ch. 6 — Dagger of the Mind
They held one last meeting on the bridge, Friday night. It was a very impressive place to be in now — just below them floated Jupiter. Not the Jupiter they were used to seeing through their telescopes and in pictures. Instead, the horizon of the great gas giant gently arced across the windows, showing a mere fraction of the planet while still being an immensely powerful sight.
"When we come back, I think we need to move," Cho had said when they'd finally managed to put the ship into orbit. "I didn't think it would affect us this bad, but Jupiter's atmospheric drag, even at this altitude, is a bit too much. And the higher orbital speed required by Juptier's gravity isn't helping. We're using a lot of power maintaining orbit. Neptune or Uranus would be a much better place for this."
"Can the ship stay here during the holidays?" Harry cautiously asked.
"Oh, it can, absolutely. I've put in a program to maintain our orbit. It just uses a lot of power," Cho shrugged.
"With automated continuous refuelling, though, that's not really an issue. We won't run out," Lee added. "Which basically means that the ship is constantly replenishing its supply. It's just that it's more than a bit wasteful — and we're still using oxygen and hydrogen. But for now, it works."
Besides continuously replenishing its fuel, the ship was also collecting other gases. Aside from the vital Helium-three tanks, Hermione and Lee had replicated about twenty other tanks to fill with the different gases. Helium-three wasn't all they needed, it had turned out. They also needed deuterium, and a few other isotopes. Naturally, all were available on Jupiter, and necessary for helium-three-based nuclear fusion.
"How do you even know all of this stuff?" Harry said, bewildered. "I've never even heard of it."
"I try to keep up with sci-fi stuff. And my mum sends me a lot of muggle science journals and new sci-fi books," Lee shrugged. He suddenly grinned, "And I might have asked my mom to send me a few books on the topic."
"And I try to keep up with my schooling in the muggle world," Hermione said, primly. "I might've not known about nuclear fusion and whatnot, but I know enough about chemistry and atoms to catch up. Still, a lot of this stuff is available in the ship's library — it'll give you all the answers if you go looking for them."
"In ancient runes," Harry said slowly, dreading the thought of more schoolwork. He was barely keeping up as it was.
"You really should start learning them," Hermione said plainly, giving him a stern look. "Everyone else is."
Their last meeting of the term was short and succinct. "I've got just two orders for those who stay behind," Harry said. "No tinkering with the piloting consoles," he continued, firmly. "And keep an eye out for Umbridge." He gave them a sweeping look. "She and her goons, primarily the Slytherins — and a lot of them — will be staying in Hogwarts over the hols. You can bet your last galleon that they'll be trying to hunt down the Room's location. So, be careful!" He made sure to catch the eyes of the ones he knew were staying. "Be. Careful!"
There was a moment of silence.
A hand shot up. "Captain, can we use the conjurator?" Terry Boot asked.
Harry frowned. There'd been a bit of a ban on conjuring and all conjuring projects now had to go through Hermione and Lee, who could assess the usage of materials and power. Neither of them were staying in Hogwarts. "Do you have something specific in mind?" he said curiously, and tilted his head slightly.
"Actually, yes," Terry stated. "I've been thinking about the whole problem of keeping the Room secret, and Umbridge trying to hunt us. I might have a sort-of solution for it. But I really need to play around with the conjurator to see if I can actually make my idea work."
"And this solution is?" Harry prompted.
"I'd rather not say," Terry hedged, "not until I can actually make it work."
Harry frowned as he considered it, and then nodded. "Hermione, Lee, can you make come up with some sort of reasonable conjurator limit on material and energy usage per person?"
"Like a balance?" Hermione asked and folded her arms. "Yeah, I suppose we could. We'd need to come up with a system to monitor how much each person uses, though. That . . . might be tricky."
"We could use a sort of credit system," Lee said excitedly. "Each person has a certain amount of credits and the credits translate into how much power and materials they can use with the conjurator."
"That will take time to figure out and set up, though," Hermione said, but she did perk up at the idea. "For now, we can set up a limit on the conjurator itself, after which it couldn't be used manually. It would be a general limit to everyone who stays behind, though," she warned.
"I'm sure we can keep track of how much everyone uses," Terry said, as he glanced at the others who were staying behind. They all nodded in agreement.
"Let's do that, then." Harry nodded happily. "Any other requests?" He looked around, but no one said anything. He smiled and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gently rocking back and forth on his feet. "Well then, Lee, if you would?"
Lee grinned and nodded, then turned to a nearby console. He took the command stone that most of the D.A. Members had taken to wearing on the chest of their robes while they were on the ship, and put it on the console. He moved it around a bit. A moment later, there was a flash of white light in the centre of the bridge, and a neat stack of gold bars appeared on a table — each bar not bigger than a hand. They were far heavier than anyone expected.
"Oh my god," someone whispered.
"Hermione tells me they're about two and a quarter pounds." He frowned slightly, "A kilogram, I think? Anyway, two bars per member." Harry said, motioning them to take theirs. "We didn't make them into Galleons because that would be counterfeiting and the Goblins would skewer us." He smirked. "But I'm sure you can figure out something to do with these. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas." He held his arms up, wide-spread.
Cho was the last to leave. "No, you go on," he heard her say to Marietta. His heart gave a jolt. She came over to him and just stared at him for a moment as he stared back. His mouth was suddenly very dry. "Thank you," she said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "For everything."
He stared after her, stunned, as she walked off. He rubbed his cheek lightly. Did she like him? He felt his face get hot as he blushed.
██:::::██:::::██
They boarded the Hogwarts Express the next day, to the normal jeers and taunts of the Slytherins, and then watched Hogwarts disappear behind them around a mountain curve. Harry felt more than a little uneasy leaving the ship behind. Although, technically, he wasn't. The ship wasn't actually in Hogwarts, it was orbiting Jupiter. Still, Hogwarts was how they got there. Anything might happen to the Room while they weren't there.
Plus, Angel and her team had yet to find a way for them to move back and forth to the ship that wasn't through the Room of Requirement. So, yeah, he was a bit anxious.
He wasn't unhappy going to Grimmauld Place and seeing Sirius and the others. It was just . . . the Requirement had become a home for him. He slept almost all his nights there, and only an occasional all-nighter in his dorm room. His room on the ship was just perfect. Not too big, not bigger than his Dorm room, but not too small, either. And the view was mind-boggling. It wasn't exactly homey — he didn't have anything to personalize it with — but it was safe in a way only a home could be. More so than Hogwarts was, right now at least.
Maybe someday he would again look forward to staying at Hogwarts. But not today. Or tomorrow. Or even next month.
"You know," Ron said, turning one of his gold bars in his hand. "I'm pretty sure that ship is the best thing to ever happen to me."
"Yeah," Harry agreed morosely, and rubbed at his forehead. It had started to hurt, again. The pain potion must have worn off, because his hand started hurting, too.
"I wish I'd had more time before we left," Hermione said wistfully. "I would've loved to turn some of this gold into jewellery for mum. She would've loved it."
"So, we're rich now," Ron said, "And we're going home, seeing family and loved ones." He pointed a thumb at Harry. "Why the gloom?"
"Captain doesn't like leaving his ship behind," Hermione said mischievously, and nudged Harry's shoulder. "Come on, Captain," she said teasingly, "A bit of shore-leave should do us good."
Harry just sighed.
The D.A. members said their goodbyes on the train, with liberal use of the notice-me-not charm — they didn't want any Slytherin spies putting clues together. With a few detection charms on the side to make sure the brighter Slytherins hadn't cottoned on to that trick, yet.
So, it was the regular group of close friends who disembarked from the train, and were ignored by everyone else. Hermione headed off with her parents, while Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, and Harry were met by Tonks and Lupin almost as soon as their feet touched the platform. "Let's be quick about this," Tonks said, with a guarded look around the station. "The less time we spend out in the open, the better."
Grimmauld Place hadn't changed much since the last time he had seen it. It was a bit cleaner, now, it was a bit brighter, but it still had a dusty, gloomy atmosphere. Which was all the moreso apparent when compared to the airy, open spaces of the Requirement with its overwhelming views of the cosmos.
Still, it was good to see Sirius again, the only adult who seemed to care for him unreservedly — and who greeted Harry with a tight hug right at the doorsteps of Grimmauld Place.
Then they heard about Mr. Weasley.*
"Listen, your dad's been hurt while on duty for the Order of the Phoenix," Sirius said earnestly to the Weasleys. They were in the dining room, after they had moved inside the house and past the portrait. Which had screamed at them after Tonks tripped over the Troll-leg umbrella-stand, again. "It happened very early Thursday morning. He's in St. Mungo's and the healers have been working on him non-stop. And still are. No one has said if they knew when he will recover." He licked his lips and looked uncertain. "Only Dumbledore knows what happened, and it's all very hush-hush."
"What?" Ginny whispered, shocked. Her brothers echoed her.
"We didn't tell you earlier because we didn't want to alarm you at school — you have enemies who would have been delighted to taunt you until you attacked them, and then you would have been punished . . . or even held there over the hols," Sirius said consolingly. "So, we didn't send word. As it is, we don't know much, yet.
"Now, I'm sure it will be alright," Sirius hurried to say. "Your mother's with him, and they're doing all they can to help. Now, how about we get you settled . . .."
"We've got to go to St. Mungo's," said Ginny urgently. She looked at her brothers.
"Hang on," Sirius said, alarmed. "You can't go tearing off to St. Mungo's!"
" 'Course we can go to St. Mungo's if we want," said Fred, with a mulish expression, "he's our dad!"
Sirius sighed, "Look, it's late," he said firmly. "The healers wouldn't even let you in to see him this late in the day. We'll go tomorrow. Visiting hours start after lunch."
Harry wasn't sure what was worse — that they hadn't been told that Mr. Weasley was hurt, or that Sirius and the others refused to tell them how it had happened. And the Order of the Phoenix was involved. Harry had been happy to forget all about that while on the Requirement. The lack of communication over this by Sirius and the others was oddly jarring. But what was really jarring was the sudden and intense anger and indignation he felt over it.
The calm he'd found on the ship was gone, and he felt vaguely sick at the loss.
"They should've told us. They should've told us," Fred muttered. "It's our dad and they just . . . you just ignored us," he said accusingly to Sirius, and pointed a finger at him.
"Just because of this dumb Order . . .," George muttered darkly.
"Your father was injured in the line of duty," Sirius answered quickly. "He knew . . . he knows there are things that are worth dying for. Something you haven't learned yet."
"Easy for you to say!" bellowed Fred. "I don't see you risking your neck!"
The little colour remaining in Sirius's face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm. "I know it's hard, but you'll just have to wait until tomorrow. Getting mad at me won't help things one bit. So . . . calm down. Let's all have a drink while we're waiting. Accio Butterbeer!"
He raised his wand as he spoke and half a dozen bottles came flying toward them out of the kitchen.
Harry listened to them for a while, as Ron and Ginny demanded to see somebody who would actually give them answers. Their brothers mumbled and grumbled in the background. After a moment, he realized he couldn't deal with it anymore. He stalked away from the argument . . . discussion . . . just to keep himself from shouting at all of them. He found a nice quiet, empty corner in the drawing room. His scar hurt, his hand hurt, his eyes were blurry, and he was just . . . so . . . angry all of a sudden.
Angry at the Order, angry at Mr. Weasley being hurt, angry at Mr. Weasley for getting hurt, angry at Sirius for not telling him, angry at the possibility other people might be hurt, angry that Sirius might be hurt. Angry at Voldemort, whom he hadn't even thought of for a long while now. Just . . . angry at everything.
"Wotcher, Harry," a familiar voice said. "You okay, there?"
"I'm fine," Harry answered automatically. He rubbed at his forehead and glanced back at Tonks who watched him worriedly. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "When will we know more about Mr. Weasley?" he asked, and tried to calm down with another deep breath.
"Later this evening, we hope," she said. She still looked at him worriedly. "What's that on your chest? Looks . . . wicked."
Harry glanced down. It was a communication-command stone from the Requirement. He had forgotten to put it in his pocket when they left the train. Now that he thought about it, maybe they should see about putting targeted notice-me-not spells on them. They all wore one, these days. They were much easier to communicate through than Hermione's fake D.A. Galleons. "Just a pin," Harry answered. He touched the stone and wished that he was still at Hogwarts, on the Requirement, where things were easy and cool and soothing.
Mrs. Weasley came back to Grimmauld Place just before dinner and simply stared at them blankly for several moments. They were in the kitchen with their butterbeers. Harry was just playing with his bottle, for something to do with his hands while they waited. It helped distract him from the pain in his scar.
She had an exhausted, hopeless look on her face. "They've . . . managed to stabilise him, somewhat," she said tiredly. She wiped her eyes and tried to look as if she hadn't been crying. But her blotchy face ruined her attempt. "He's . . . he's in a coma. It's the best they could do."
"But what happened?" Fred said desperately.
"What happened to him?" George begged anxiously.
"It's Order business," she explained said tiredly. "Please . . . please don't ask." She refused to answer any more questions about the subject. It made for a very tense, unhappy, and angry meal that sat like lead in Harry's stomach.
And that was all they got. Everyone arriving for the meeting gently, but firmly, pushed the children aside and kept them at a distance. It was for their own protection, supposedly. Snape's blank look as he came in and complete disregard of their presence drove the Weasleys nearly mad. If the Headmaster had not been there, the twins surely would have cursed him.
Harry exhaustedly watched as George, Fred, Ron and Ginny all raged in the drawing room about the situation, trying to come up with ways to spy on the Order meeting.
He sighed, finally. "There is a way," he said wearily. "A very easy way. If you really want to know what they're talking about."
"We really do want to know," they angrily hissed at him in concert, peering at the door into the kitchen below.
With a shake of his head, he tapped his communications stone. "Put one somewhere where they won't find it," he said simply. "And you can listen in all you want." He paused. "Here, take mine." He popped it off his robes and held it out to Fred.
"Don't you want to know what they're talking about?" Ginny demanded.
"Don't you care?" Ron asked.
"I do," Harry in a low tone. "I really, really do. It's just . . . my head is pounding." He sighed. "I don't know what it is about this place, but I've felt sick ever since we arrived."
"You feel sick, Captain?" a voice came from the stone. He was surprised, and gratified, to hear it was Cho Chang. Maybe she did like him. In any event, she had drastically improved since the beginning of school, this term. She no longer looked as if she were about to burst into tears at the slightest excuse — at the sight of him. That kiss just the other day proved it.
"Where are you that's making you sick?" Ernie McMillan said.
"And why do you guys need to spy on someone?" Lee Jordan interjected. "Who are you spying on?"
"Oh. I guess I activated the general communications," Harry murmured, and eyed the stone blearily. "Sorry about that."
Ginny, Fred and George exchanged looks while Ron looked at Harry closely. "You look terrible, Harry," he said.
"Gee, Thanks," Harry grunted, and rubbed his forehead. Even his eyeballs ached, now.
"Why does he look terrible?" Hermione's alarmed voice came from the stone. "What happened? Harry, are you alright?"
The concern in their voices made Harry feel a little better — but not by much. Soon, everyone in the D.A. had chimed with questions and well wishes. Unfortunately, the voices made his headache worse.
"Where does it hurt, Captain?" came a soft voice. Harry tried to concentrate on it.
"The scar, mostly," Harry said, and everyone quieted down. The Weasleys eyed Harry worriedly.
"When did it begin, Captain?" the voice asked. It was Luna Lovegood.
"When we got here," Harry answered. Then he frowned, despite the new ache that started. "No, that's not right. It started when we left Hogwarts, it got worse here. Much worse here."
"You know what?" Ginny said angrily. "Screw this — Dad's in a coma and I wanna know why. I'm sorry, Captain, but . . .." And she marched off as she pulled off her own stone and tinkered with it as she went, mumbling. Harry figured she was changing the settings to one-way on a private channel.
Fred and George quickly followed her, changing their own communicators. Ron looked between Harry and them, obviously conflicted. "Go, go," Harry said and waved him on. "Your dad is far more important than me."
"Sorry," Ron said earnestly. He squeezed Harry's shoulder tightly and then followed his siblings
Harry was alone, except for the rest of the D.A. who were now tuned in.
They listened as Luna talked Harry through his headache. A few offered suggestions such as getting a cold cloth for his forehead, going into a dark room, and silencing himself so that he couldn't hear anything, things like that. Harry tried lying down with an icy wet towel on his forehead in a dark room. And it helped, some. But not entirely.
"You get headaches from You-Know-Who, though, don't you?" Cho asked softly.
"He does," Hermione said when Harry just sighed.
"Could You-Know-Who be near him?"
"I doubt it," Harry answered. "This place is secure. Not as secure as the ship, but pretty bloody secure. That's why we can't tell you where we are."
There was a moment of thoughtful silence. "I get that you can't tell us where you are," Zacharias said slowly. "Security reasons or whatever. But maybe there's something there that's affecting you? If it got worse there, then logically, it's something to do with that place."
"Or Voldemort is really, really mad about something," Harry mumbled.
"Is he?" Luna asked calmly.
Harry sighed. "I don't know."
"Well, did you feel that bad before you went there?" Zacharias asked. "Did you feel that bad on the train, on the platform?"
". . . No." Harry said slowly. "Not really." It was so hard to think, at the moment.
"Then there's something there that's making you sick," Zachary said. "You need to find it, and do something about it," he concluded with finality.
"Do you think you can do that?" Hermione asked worriedly.
"I don't know . . . how would I be able to find it?" Harry asked, and rubbed his forehead through the towel.
"Can you do spells there without alerting the ministry?" Lee asked. "Or can an adult do spells for you? If yes, then try a modified point-me charm. Who knows — it might work."
Harry considered it, and then forced himself up. "I'll try it," he said tiredly. With the house under a fidelius, he probably could do spells with impunity. At that moment, his head hurt so much that he really didn't care if he did piss the Ministry off or not. "I'll get back to you later. Harry out."
"Good luck, Captain," Luna said, just as Harry turned the communicator off. Harry eyed the stone for a long moment and then sighed. He really, really wished he was still on the ship.
He balanced his wand on his palm. "Point-me what's causing my scar to ache," he said firmly.
Magic was weird — it was mostly about intent, not the actual words, as accidental and wordless casting proved. If it was the words and wand only, then the accidental magic that pre-Hogwarts children did would be impossible. Plus, everyone in the world would speak a bastardized version of Latin, even the natives in the remote north of the Americas and the natives deep in Australia's centre who had never heard of the language. But that didn't happen. Instead, each country had their own versions of magical words. And many didn't use wands, Hermione had once told him. The Western part of the world did because they made magic easier.
The wand tilted and twisted and finally pushed his hand until it could point down. He sighed. It was in the kitchen, and that was right out as long as the Order was in there. He rubbed his scar and stared dully at the wand. But then he realized that it pointed towards the far back of the house, and the kitchen didn't go that far. Back there was storage, or so Sirius had told them last summer.
He slowly walked to the drawing room door, the wand twisting to keep a single direction.
Definitely the very back of the house. He headed towards the tiny servants' stairs hidden in the now empty dining room. They led him to the hallway in the basement at back of the kitchens. It was lined with shelves on both sides, interspaced with doors to tiny rooms and cupboards — the old, muggle servants' rooms, and storage.
His wand led him to one cupboard door in particular. He opened it to a rat's nest of torn pillows, raggedy blankets, and junk he recognized from the previous summer that he had thought they had thrown out. It was obviously Kreacher's cupboard. The smell was atrocious.
His wand pointed at one thing in particular. It was a large, oval locket of heavy gold, with a serpentine "S" in green jewels, hanging by its chain on the wall. He recognized it as one of the things they had thrown out last summer. Kreacher must have retrieved it. He reached out to touch it and he knew, this was the thing causing his misery — it had something to do with Voldemort. Why it hadn't affected him like this during the summer hols, he didn't know. Maybe Voldemort was doing something that had activated it?
He sighed. Well, now he knew. He closed the door and stood in the hall. He glanced at the door to the kitchen area, proper, but it was closed. And tightly sealed, he expected.
He went back upstairs, to put as much distance between himself and the locket as he could. The attic would do. And then tell the others what he had found.
██:::::██:::::██
Harry received a very large package later that very same evening. It arrived via Dobby Express. How he did that with the fidelius, Harry didn't know. Perhaps Dumbledore had revealed the secret to him in order for the elf to fetch something when the Headmaster couldn't do it himself? Or maybe the house-elves could home in on their family without needing to know where they were in relation to the rest of the world? Or, maybe, he could come because his master, Harry, knew the secret?
In any case, it was addressed, "To Whom It Concerns," and it appeared full of about half a hundred hand-sewn stuffed toys when Harry opened it in the hall outside the room he shared with Ron. They were all identical, right down to the slightly shoddy stitches here and there, and the mismatched eyes.
Someone had been using the conjurator.
"Oh, this is very cute," Harry said dryly, and rubbed his scar. "Who came up with the stuffed toys?"
"Mine, Captain," came Lavender Brown's voice from the communication stone. "I figured that since Mr. Weasley is in hospital, you might be visiting this Christmas. The toys will make a good gift — and any spies watching," she coughed and mumbled, "Umbridge," before continuing in a normal tone, "would be less likely to dig into a box full of toys at Christmas, should it be noticed in transit."
"Is it there?" Terry Boot interrupted urgently.
Buried in the middle of all the furry toys, wrapped in paper, was a silver metal box — each side only about as big as his hand from wrist to fingertip. Aside from the fact that the sides were made from solid silver, it was pretty simple. No carvings or patterns, just blank surfaces and rounded edges. There were hinges on one side and a two overlapping rings for a padlock on the other — one ring on the lid and the other on the base. The lid and base edges were ridged for an almost air-tight fit that couldn't be accidentally shifted — the seam was invisible when the box was closed. The inside was barely big enough to hold his fist.
The paper, he discovered had a featherlight charm on it, and removing that made the box very heavy. He rewrapped the base section for easy manipulation.
"It's here," Harry said as he studied the box. It might not be very artistic, but considering it hadn't existed four hours ago and now he held it, millions of miles from its point of manufacture, it was little short of amazing. "Do you really think this will do the trick, guys?"
"Silver has a natural resistance of magic," Zach said. "Especially to dark magic — that's why most dark creatures can't stand it — it's like acid to the magic inside them. If it doesn't do the trick, I'll be very surprised." There was a brief pause. "In fact, now that I think of it, most all the electronics in the ship have a silver layer built into their containers. Perhaps that's why we can cast magic so freely?"
"But why would they put a magic-resistant silver layer around their electronics when they don't seem to use magic?" Colin said.
"Well," Lee said, "silver is also a very good protector against an EMP — Electro-Magnetic Pulse — so maybe they don't want the ship to become useless if something goes wrong?"
"Wouldn't copper be better? I mean for an EMP, against magic it's pretty useless, I know," responded Colin.
"How about gold?" Justin suggested.
"Copper and gold work, but they're too malleable to use as cases without something else strengthening them . . .."
"If silver doesn't work, we'll try a lead box next. Malleability is not something we need to be concerned with," Hermione said sternly, stopping the EMP discussion. "And if that doesn't work, then we'll send you a container of acid."
"Right. I'm going to try it. Stand by, guys." He quietly opened the bedroom door and retrieved his invisibility cloak — he didn't trust his disillusion charm to be good enough. He had already silenced his movements.
The rest of Grimmauld Place was asleep — except for whoever had gotten stuck with night-watch duty. Tonight, it was Professor Lupin. Harry cast a scent-hiding charm.
Harry waited until Lupin was in the drawing room before he silenced the stairs with a whispered charm. He waited to make sure he had not been heard, then ghosted his way down the steps. He paused, again. Then made his way to the dining room.
Harry was relieved to see, when he peeked into the drawing room as he passed it, that the professor was seated comfortably, facing the floo, and reading a book.
Quietly, he snuck to the servant's door and slipped through it, after silencing the entire thing to prevent a suddenly squeaky hinge or door knob from being heard. That would be just his luck, too. A moment later, he was outside Kreacher's cupboard. He waited patiently for several minutes, to see if the despicable elf was awake or asleep. The soft snores continued at a steady pace. Another whispered silencing charm. Then he opened the door a tiny crack, just enough to slip a stupefy charm through.
He stared at the locket hanging so innocently above the house-elf. He carefully opened the box and stared at the locket. He really didn't want to touch it. He wanted as much distance as possible between himself and that thing. He looked around the cupboard. Then checked back in the hall. In a worn box in another cupboard, he found an old, tapered knife-sharpener.
Using that, he reached out behind the chain and levered the locket out over the open box he held under it. It seemed to take forever, and his scar hurt to the point where he could feel it bleeding, which it hadn't done in ages. His head felt like it was about to split into pieces. His hands shook and the long sharpener felt impossibly heavy. The box seemed almost immovable as he lifted it. Then, with a clatter of metal that seemed to echo into infinity, he had the locket in the box. A moment later, he had the chain off its nail and pooled around the locket. It took all of Harry's fragile concentration not to drop the sharpener and slam the box closed.
He carefully closed the box. Abruptly, as if cut by a knife, the pressure on his head eased.
By the time he got out of the cupboard, the door closed, and the knife-sharpener back in its box with the other rusty kitchen utensils, his palms were sweating and he was shivering in reaction. But the worst was definitely over. The pain was still there, but it was quickly fading into a dull, distant throb.
"I did it," he breathed. "It worked. Oh, thank Merlin, it worked!" he said, relieved far more than he could ever explain. He heard someone cheer from the communicator. "Hush" he harshly whispered. "Wait until I get back upstairs."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," came the whispered response.
He started back to the servant stairs.
"Do you have a lock for the box?" Hermione whispered through the stone.
"No, but I'll figure something out," Harry whispered back, and snuck upstairs to the attic so that he could thank his crew for their hard work and ingenuity. He never would've thought of a silver box without Zach, and thank Merlin someone had stayed behind on the ship, too, to actually conjure the box.
He sealed the box as well as he could, rewrapped it in the paper, then wrapped that in spell-o-tape, and wrapped it in his invisibility cloak just in case. He planned to bury it at the very bottom of his trunk when he got back into his shared room. "I really need a more secure trunk," he murmured as he held the bundled box, and thought of the recent broom and cloak incident. His trunk had a lock on it, but it was a lock even a below-average first year could open without difficulty. Whatever the bloody locket was, he would've felt far better if it was behind something more robust than a school trunk lock.
"I think something can be arranged, Captain," Terry Boot answered thoughtfully.
It was the first peaceful rest Harry had hard outside the spaceship in a very long time. Not even Voldemort disturbed his dreams about Cho.
██:::::██:::::██ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈
A.N. * Because Harry's been sleeping on-board the ship, he's had no visions from Tom Riddle, so no snake-based vision to alert anyone of Mr. Weasley's plight.