—CHAPTER FIVE—
Teddy had spent the evening before the battle carefully studying a pair of goblin fingerprints under a magnifying glass, the concave lens expanding a spiralling pattern that looked like a finely drawn hurricane on a weather map. It had taken hours for him to match his thumbprint to the Gringotts goblin that volunteered his chalky fingers. It had taken so much focus and energy that his eyes now twitched in the dark passages, the adrenalin buckling under his exhaustion.
Down deeper into the earth they went, trundling in their rickety carts. He knew that Victoire's mind was working furiously, angry that there had been parts of the plan kept from her. He could feel her breath on his neck. His stomach lurched as they lunged down further, further.
Find the vault, Teddy told himself. By the time you find the vault, Fleur will have returned.
"It's time to flush out these tunnels," Neville said grimly, standing close to the walls surrounding Hogwarts. The statues of the twin winged boar glared down at them all, casting judgement on their tactics.
"Flood or fire?" Professor McGonagall asked grimly.
"Flood, I think," Neville decided. "I suppose its time we head into Hogsmeade."
The group of rebels—some teachers, others Hogsmeade residents—collectively raised their wands to create one large Shielding Charm. Luna was at the very front, leading the group. Ron was at the rear making sure the Charm held from all sides. They waited, eyes on the oldest member of the Order.
Professor McGonagall stood like a general, a series of stationary suits of armour at attention behind her. They gleamed in the early morning light. She raised her wand and brought them to life, their empty helmets snapping to attention.
"Lead the charge," she said primly.
And the soldiers marched ahead, their swords sliding out of their sheaths. A set of pawns to sacrifice easily. The rest of the group, Shield Charm still secure, followed out the front gates.
Neville noticed, just as he was about to join Ron at the rear of the group, a pair of boots creep unattached along the lawn towards the front gates. He raised his eyebrows, hardly fooled, and pretending to look the other way until they were passing the cloud of colour in his periphery.
He lunged out and grabbed hold of the Invisibility Cloak, whipping it off like a muggle magic trick. Harry jumped, his glasses landing askew on the bridge of his nose.
"I thought I told Ginny to hide your Invisibility Cloak."
"She hid my decoy Invisibility Cloak."
"You have a decoy Invisibility Cloak?"
Harry raised his eyebrows and scratched his beard abashedly. "You know, I could help. They're clearly not after me."
Ginny came tearing down the hill, her legs pounding the grass, her expression turning to fury when she saw her husband standing de-Cloaked.
"I hid your Cloak!"
"That's his decoy Cloak," Neville replied.
"Decoy Cloak? Who am I married to, Mad-Eye Moody?"
"Both of you need to stay in the Castle, hidden," Neville said, throwing the Cloak to Ginny. "I better catch up with the others. Stay inside."
Neville left, his jaw set, jogging to catch up with the group as they walked through the gates that swung shut behind them with a clang of finality.
With Teddy steering the cart, his long fingers curled around the steering lever, they passed easily through the Thief's Downfall. The waterfall parted neatly for them, flecking them with drops but nothing more. At least those fingerprints appeared to be working. Teddy understood now why they needed him so desperately.
Fleur, of course, would be overturned in her cart following them. In fact, without a goblin leading her, how would Fleur find them at all? Teddy felt the back of his bald neck prickle at the thought. She had only given him enough instructions to see him through.
He would just need to trust.
"Slow down," Victoire hissed. He eased off the lever. Their cart began creaking to a less dizzying pace. They could hear a hiss up ahead, the snort and flare of nostrils. Then, they were swinging around the corner and were confronted by a dragon.
It was not one of the caged specimens he had become acquainted with in Romania, nor was it the oddly tamed Opaleye that Victoire had charmed like a snake. It was wild and furious and filled the entire space.
And it was not just any dragon. It had been blinded, it's eyes a pearly grey under scarred lids. It was enormous, curled into the cavern, its head snapping in their direction. It snarled, baring its sharp teeth. They heard Dominique whimper in the cart behind them.
"I think that's one of the dragons they stole from us," Victoire said, her voice trembling with either fear or rage—although Teddy was inclined to think rage. "I wouldn't be surprised."
"Well, this is where we get to bludgeon it," Teddy replied, his heart thumping radically in his chest.
They heard a rattle of wheels on the tracks behind them and turned around. A goblin was joining them, Fleur and Charlie standing behind him. A wand was directed at the goblin's dome-like skull and his gaze was vacant.
Fleur, still looking like Hermione Granger, launched out of the cart, directing the goblin to do the same. Charlie followed, strapping on a pair of fire-proof gloves.
"Ready to cull your first dragon, Vic?" he asked. He took hold of her and pulled her out of the cart. "Follow me. The rest of you, stick with Teddy. We won't have long down here."
Things had fallen back into place, the pieces of the plan clicking together again. The part of the plan that terrified Teddy most, where he was needed. He watched his wife sprint after Charlie, her blonde ponytail streaming behind her. He pulled his focus back to the terrified group of rebels before him.
"Vault 717 isn't too much further. We'll go on foot."
"You mean—through the dragon? Shouldn't we wait until they take it out?"
A jet of fire lit up the entire cavern. Teddy pinned his team of four to the far side of the wall.
"No time! Let's go."
The suits of armour had taken down most of the sentries but it hadn't been hard for the goblins to dismantle their empty shells. It was now a proper battle, spells clashing against swords. The Shielding Charm had held long enough to get them to the foothills of Hogsmeade, where the tunnelling began and where the goblins were best fortified.
But they had reached their destination, the mouth of the tunnels. Just the one tunnel, that would no doublt split into a web that tried to wind beneath the Castle's foundations. Tunnels that led to no where, thwarted by the charms Neville had put deep into the ground, charms that turned the base of Hogwarts into impenetrable cement. And all those goblins digging inside of them.
Neville, Ron and Professor McGonagall stood side by side, their wands all aimed at the tunnel entrance, and in unison they produced an Aguamenti Spell.
A tidal wave of water, dense and unrelenting, flowed from their wands. The swell surged in leviathan floods and deep in the network of tunnels, whole armies of goblins would drown and choke, unable to swim in their armour. Unable to do anything but take on water. They would drown like rats in a sewer.
The battle raged around them with the few goblins left above ground, but Hogsmeade had already been won back.
A jet of fire singed the hairs on Victoire's arms. This is how you kill a dragon. A crash course. You need to distract it. This dragon was blind so it had to be distracted through sound. Charlie placed his wand by his throat and roared, his voice bouncing through the tunnel. The dragon threw its head in his direction sending another jet of flames. Charlie had already dived out of the way.
This is how you kill a dragon. You find its soft spots. Its undefended places. Its secret weakness.
You make sure it can't move. This dragon couldn't fly, not in its tomb of earth. But it could trample, claw, maim. Fleur sent thick ropes around its forelegs and Victoire followed suite on its hind limbs. Their wands twirled and arced like rhythmic gymnasts. Charlie was busy trying to get its jaws muzzled. No more flamethrowers to worry about.
With a frantic thrash, Victoire was knocked flat. She hadn't anticipated the tail. She had been too focused on the clawed feet. No spikes at least. But she was winded. Her head throbbed from where it had connected with the stone floor.
She rolled away from the dragon's tail as it whipped past again, taking refuge where its tail couldn't reach. She was under its belly now. Its soft, secret destruct button.
It was not a pleasant thing to do, killing a dragon. She realised why dragon cullers were paid so handsomely. Not just because it required great dexterity, strength and grit. But it required something else too. You either had to be sadistic and heartless, a person who loved killing things. Or you had to be wise enough to know the power this beast had to destroy. You were someone with a duty for preservation.
Still on her back, Victoire raised her wand and ran it down the length of the dragon's soft underbelly. It opened neatly like scissors down silk, blood and innards pouring down over Victoire like a crimson cascade, drenching her from head to toe. The dragon wailed in pain. Victoire rolled out from underneath it, spitting blood from her mouth and wiping it from her eyes. Her head still throbbed from her dizzying collision with the ground. She stayed down, panting in pain with a mouthful of iron, the beast beside her breathing its last few miserable breaths.
Harry, Hermione and Ginny stood in the Astronomy Tower. They had a clear vision of the grounds. Hagrid's hut by the forest. The Quidditch Pitch lined with its rows of vegetables. And further down, quite difficult to descry, the battle beyond the gates of Hogwarts. Somewhere between the road to Hogsmeade, where the tunnels opened up. They couldn't tell what was happening exactly. All the figures looked the same, small as ants.
"If they're not after us but they're trying to get into Hogwarts," Hermione said slowly, "then they're after something else."
"I have a feeling I know what they're after," Harry replied. "And I think they've come to accept that I don't have it. Romnuk must have grown bored of his hammer."
"If we kill Romnuk and Fleur kills Selgrut, then what?" Ginny asked bluntly, looking between her husband and sister-in-law. "Does that mean it's over? Does that mean it just ends?"
Harry rubbed his stubbled jaw once more. "I think it means we start over."
The dragon gave a final howl behind them but Teddy didn't dare turn back. They were sprinting now, vaults passing on either side in a blur.
He felt something fly past him and miss him by inches. He turned in time to see several goblins taking cover behind the doors of half-open vaults, hurling curses thickly with their wands.
"Branch out," Teddy ordered.
The other split into pairs. Rowan and Molly took the goblins on the far left. Fred and Dominique took those on the right. Teddy withdrew his wand and turned to face the nearest cell, vault 713. The vault itself was utterly empty. No gold to see, no treasures hoarded. Maybe wizards had cleared out their vaults when the economy began to crumble, or maybe the goblins had ceased whatever was inside. Either way, it seemed to be a pattern. They were the most well protected vaults in the bank, but there was nothing inside of them.
He disarmed the goblin hiding behind the doors, the short thick wand clattering across the floor. He could see Fleur sprinting to catch up with them now, the dragon's body sagged across the passage. There were less goblins than he expected down here. Molly, Fred, Rowan and Dominique were doing a surprisingly good job.
"Ze vault, Ted-ee!" Fleur shouted, whipping her wand upwards a d sending the ceiling crumbling onto the goblins below.
Rubble doused them, peppering their hair and eyes. He blew it out of his eyes and skidded to a stop in front of Vault 717. It was the last vault in the tunnel, emerging from the cloud of debris before him. He sprinted forward and pressed his thumb into the door, scrapping it down the metal. It melted away.
Teddy wasn't sure why he didn't wait for Victoire. Later, he would claim it was the adrenalin that carried him forward. He slipped into the vault with his wand aloft and almost dropped it in surprise.
Selgrut the Sly was seated inside. It was as if he was waiting for Teddy, his face cold. One hand held a sword, the other was curled around a wand. Short and stubby, mass produced wood, generic core. A wand that probably wouldn't work.
Just like the others, the vault was empty. Selgrut filled the space with his scowl, with his slick sword, with his searing eyes. No glitzy distractions. Just the head of the Ministry's militia, the goblin who stirred up a coup.
"You are not a goblin," Selgrut said slowly. His eyes raked over Teddy's disguise. "A goblin would not hold a wand like that. And a goblin would never agree to break into Gringotts, not unless he was under the control of a Wizard's enchantment."
"How can you not be sure that I was working for the humans all along?" Teddy replied in his flawless Gobbledegook. He progressed slowly forward. He would need to find a way to trap Selgrut, to pin him down. No spell would get through that armour, not from this distance. "Perhaps I turned long ago."
"No," Selgrut replied, drawing his sword. "The humans think they have goblins on their side, but they are mistaken. We are the revolution. We are the avengers. All goblins will soon realise this common cause. But you are either under the Imperius Curse…or you are an imposter."
"How could I be an imposter? No potion could make a wizard look like a goblin."
Best to keep him talking, Teddy thought, as his heart clambered against his ribs. Until Fleur caught up at least. She would know exactly what to do.
"I am not sure of their ways…but there have been leaks. We have killed one such already. A duplicate. A human in goblin skin. Now I will kill another."
Teddy felt something sharp hit his shoulder with incredible force from behind. A blade penetrated the rivets between the metal plates, finding one of the very few weak spots in his armour. The pain was blinding. He saw spots before his eyes and staggered like a drunk, almost dropping his wand. Still he swung around in time to see a goblin raise an axe for a second time—a goblin he immediately recognised.
Welgruk, his old and kooky desk mate from the Ministry of Magic, eyes wild in the light of the torches.
Teddy swapped his wand to his left hand and fired an Impediment Jinx to slow down the movement of the axe. Still, he was cornered now. As he spun, Selgrut slashed his sword in a heavy blow across his chest plate. Teddy wove around him, his right shoulder biting with pain, his left hand clutching his wand with panic in every fingertip.
"Ah, Rook," Welgruk said, shaking off the jinx. He swung the axe once more to pick up speed. "Of course you would be the spy! You never truly enjoyed our cabbage soup."
An arrow spun through the air. Teddy ducked just in time. It planted itself in Welgruk's throat, in the small gap between his armour. Teddy spared a second to look around and saw Fleur entering, wand in hand. She conjured another arrow with an elaborate sweep of her arm and sent it at Selgrut. He deflected it with his sword.
Teddy turned and rounded on Welgruk while Fleur tackled Selgrut. She still looked like Hermione, frizzy hair in its bun, but surely the Potion would wear off soon. Teddy aimed a Sticking Charm at Welgruk's boots, planting him to the spot. He would bleed out before long, the arrowhead broken off in his neck.
"Not the first time you have broken into Gringotts, is it Granger?" Selgrut snarled, slashing his sword. He nicked her cheek.
"Why even hold up Gringotts?" Teddy demanded. Fleur couldn't speak without her accent giving her away. "The bank was already under your control."
"There are goblin articles that must be returned to us," Selgrut replied coldly, panting between his teeth.
"Well, all zese vaults 'ave nothing inside zem," Fleur snapped. She sprang her arm across Teddy's chest and backed him out of the vault. "Except, of course, for you."
She dug into her pocket and threw a phial into the vault. It smashed on the floor and a thick vapour erupted from it, clouding out like a sentient fog. Before either goblin could react, she had pulled Teddy's arm forward—his injured arm, causing him blinding pain—and pressed his hand to the vault's door. The coiling cloud of poison began to move towards them, like a hand reaching out in a greedy grasp. Through the fog he watched as Selgrut's eyes bulged, his face turning a putrid blue as he launched at the door. But it had already sealed shut, the spreading cloud remaining inside along with them.
"Zey will die quickly," Fleur said. He watched as her face began to warp, the skin colour changing from its dark olive to its very pale white. "It iz done. We must leave. Many 'ave been injured."
Teddy did not want to think about the goblins in that vault; the horrible militia leader or his eccentric mentor from the Ministry, soon to have the vault they were trapped in become their tomb. He felt himself shrink away from what had just happen. Instead, he lit his wand and began moving back up the chamber. He grunted through the pain from his shoulder.
"The injured, are they from our group?" he asked through ragged breath.
But before Fleur answered, his wand beam caught the mountainous hide of the dragon. Blood had pooled in the passage. With a start, he saw that Victoire was completely covered in it—her hair, face and front drenched in it. His heart leapt into his mouth.
"No injuries from us," Fleur stated, the words almost a paradox. "We must go."
Victoire ran up and joined him. "Dead?" she said.
Her face gleamed scarlet and wet. She had tried to wipe it from her eyes but had only smeared her forehead further. He nodded, feeling sick from the smell of it all. Death. It clung to the air like some sort of congealed contaminant. He could shut his eyes to it but he could not block out the smell, the vile stench of offal and blood.
They climbed into the cart. Fred was nursing a cut to his upper arm but Rowan was carefully binding it with a bandage. They had all got out without any serious harm. Teddy grasped the lever and their carts gave a stomach-dropping lurch.
Rose woke up to the sound of Albus saying her name. This could not have been possible for she was asleep in her dormitory, but after he said it the third time, she pulled herself out of her bed to investigate. She realised, with a start, that he was using their three-way mirrors for the first time in a while. She had forgotten that the second-hand mirror on her bedside table had any other purpose than checking if she had spots.
She had been up very late training their girls in the common room. It irked her that she had been woken early.
"What's going on?" she asked, taking the mirror into the bathroom and closing the door behind her. She had to stop herself from adding, it better be something good. Because surely, for Albus to be using the mirror when he could have just waited for their first class meant that something was wrong.
"I can't say for certain but Hugo woke me ten minutes ago saying there was a battle this morning down at Hogsmeade."
Rose blinked. She shrugged off her drowsiness like a thick blanket. "What?"
"I dunno details but the Order must have put their plan into action."
"But that was for Gringotts—since when were they going to attack Hogsmeade?"
Her brain was ticking away furiously, but mostly, she was annoyed that she had not been told. "We're supposed to be in the Order now—we're supposed to know these things!"
But really, she was frightened that someone had gotten to Romnuk before her. Perhaps it was a foolish fancy, but she felt deep in her bones that he was somehow marked out for her alone. The idea he may already be dead—
"I'm going to go get Scorpius. Let's meet in the trophy room."
They met in the trophy room some fifteen minutes later. Their reflections glimmered back on all angles, concave and distorted in the silver funhouse mirrors of plaques and trophies.
"On my way here, we heard that classes were cancelled," Scorpius said.
Rose was bitter about how they had come across this piece of information. They had run into Caleb Macmillan, the new Head Boy, who was on his way from his common room in the basement to inform the other prefects.
"I got more information from James. They've taken back Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley."
"Are you certain?"
"Well, I wouldn't make something like that up, would I?" Albus blustered. "We've driven them out."
"And Romnuk?" Rose repeated, the urgency hard to hide. "Did they kill Romnuk?"
"Can't say," Albus frowned. "James didn't mention it. But I imagine if they had, he would've known. That'll have been cause to celebrate."
They were silent for a moment, thinking it over.
"As long as Romnuk's out there, this isn't finished," Rose decided. She was angry now, thoroughly fuming. First they wouldn't allow her to become Head Girl. Then they fail to inform her that they're attacking Hogsmeade. "They're keeping us in the dark. Well, stuff that. We have our own plans."
"Oh, Merlin," Scorpius muttered. He threw his hands up, an uncharacteristically emotive display. The two cousins moved away in surprised. "You're not rabbiting on about the Philosopher's Stone again, are you?"
"It's our ace."
"No, Rose! It's nothing. You haven't even thought it through. This is the reason why the Order won't trust us! You come up with these absolutely mad half-baked plans and then leap into them without thinking. The Stone is nothing. You recruited Bellucci for nothing. The sooner you drop it, the better."
His outburst has taken both cousins by surprise, leaving them speechless for a moment in the wake of his cold indignation.
Albus blinked rapidly. "Well, there's nothing wrong with being prepared—"
"For what? You think it'll be a bargaining tool? Do you think Romnuk is that bloody daft? He'll know it's fake! Look, you two can leave me out of this. Do whatever you like, I can prepare in my own ways."
Albus looked between them both, trying to gauge their mood. After a sullen pause, he gave up. "Well, that was quite the row. Look, we don't know what's going on. We need to prepare for everything. But in the meantime, I think we should carry out mirrors on us at all times. Alright?"
"Fine," Rose said shortly.
"Agreed," Scorpius muttered.
There was no need to share another word.
Teddy's collarbone was properly broken. When he had transformed back into a human, he broke it a second time. The pain was excruciating. Unfortunately, their Healers were too busy attending to those who were mortally wounded. He sat on the steps outside of Gringotts, waiting his turn. Someone had bandaged his shoulder in the meantime, but it did absolutely nothing.
They had won back the bank with minor casualties. Wizards had died. So had goblins. Selgrut and Welgruk's skeletons would lie inside those vaults for a very long time. Teddy had to keep stopping himself from thinking about it.
Victoire dropped onto the marble step beside him. She had syphoned most of the blood off her face and neck. Her hair was red like a Weasley, matted with blood. Her clothes were soaked through. She reeked, the sweet metallic stench clinging to her. He wrinkled his nose.
"I wasn't expecting you to fight like you did," she said.
"I didn't kill anyone," he replied. "Not personally."
"They certainly tried to kill you."
Teddy was silent. He averted his eyes away from the wizards and witches lying on the cobblestones and shifted around to look through into the Gringotts' foyer. The goblins were also strewn in rows along the floor. It was just as jarring to see their bodies so still and immobile, even if they were their enemies. Orlick was walking down the rows of bodies, a clipboard in hand, identifying the goblins that he recognised. His face was set and grim, but otherwise he showed no emotion. These was the same army that would have persecuted him when he stood for Morgana. He must feel some echo of what Teddy was thinking.
"It still makes no sense to me," Teddy sighed. "All those vaults had been emptied. They were the highest security. One of them belonged to the Dumbledore family. The other was a Hogwarts vault. Do you reckon there's something they're looking for in Hogwarts?"
Victoire sat in silence for a moment. Then she glanced up at Teddy quickly. "I know exactly what they're after. They just don't know where it is."
Teddy's eyebrows darted up. "What? What would Romnuk so desperately want?"
"The Sword of Gryffindor," Victoire replied, lowering her voice. "It's bleedingly obvious, isn't it? It's what they've always been after."
"The Sword," Teddy repeated. He shook his head slowly then moaned. He had twinged his neck.
"They searched Gringotts for it. They're trying to get into Hogwarts to find it. They don't know it's being displayed in Gryffindor common room. I would see it every time I had to check the noticeboard under the case."
"But why the Sword?"
"Dunno. But that must be it," she replied, squinting into the street. They had lined up all the bodies of the dead to be identified. People were falling to the cobble stones, crying over corpses. Teddy was refusing to look. He couldn't take it. He couldn't understand how Victoire could.
"After all that time spying on them, I never really understood what Romnuk was planning," he said quietly, thinking of all the blood.
"I think he thought we were just pieces in a very big game of chess that he's playing with the King. I don't think until now he's realised we're actually players too," she replied.
Hannah Longbottom was approaching them, climbing up the stairs. Her honey blonde hair was tied away from her face, exposing all the creased lines around her eyebrows and scowling lips. If she was approaching Teddy, it meant she had either she had finishing healing their injured or they were too far gone for her intervention. Either way, Teddy was dreading what came next.
She heaved a sigh at the top of the stairs. "We didn't just get back Gringotts. I have word from Neville that we've won Hogsmeade back as well."
"Finally, some good news," Teddy replied, smiling wanly.
"Time to reset that shoulder I think."
Teddy groaned, trying to be comical. Victoire offered her hand and he grasped it. "If I could face that dragon again, I would happily," he said.
In the highest tower, where potion fumes congealed in the vestibule of the stone chamber, several failed stones glimmering with a broken promise of eternity were scattered across the floor. Some were a vibrant, glossy scarlet; some so dark they were the colour of dried blood; others shimmery like strawberry jelly; some bleach-bone white or a sickly yellow. Rose stared at them numbly, her temple thumping.
"These look believable."
"They're not right. They're not working."
"We said it could be a counterfeit Stone. It doesn't have to work."
Stella's eyes were as dull as the failed stones, dark and dim. She stared at her failed experiments, lifeless. Rose watched her.
"You thought this would redeem you somehow," Rose said slowly. "That successfully making the Stone would get you out of a trial."
Stella turned her eyes listlessly to the young woman before her.
"We got Hogsmeade back. The goblins were driven out of Gringotts. They'll establish the Ministry again, and when they do, you will be sentenced to a lifetime in Azkaban," Rose said, "and recreating the Elixir of Life won't save you. Let me have those Stones and I'll let you out. You can go on the run."
For about a minute, Stella did not move. Her hollow face turned slowly to the stones on the floor. She picked one up and held it between her fingers.
"Give me one more chance to make it right," she murmured. "I just need some hemlock and foxglove. I can make it right."
Since classes were cancelled, Rose headed out into the open grounds to join the students scattered across the lawn or down by the lake. From a distance, she could see people dismantling the tents. The exiles were already returning to their homes in Hogsmeade.
Scorpius was with the other seventh year boys, sitting near the beach tree. Fleischer and Zabini both had their wands out, practising spells. Scorpius was reading, squinting at the book propped up on his knees.
"Any news?" Rose asked. "Rumours? Gossip?"
"I heard on a particularly reliable grapevine that they didn't get Romnuk," Scorpius said. He turned a page.
They heard someone call out in the distance and Rose looked over her shoulder. Alice and Isabella were scrambling down the slope, their arms linked. Isabella waved.
Rose turned back to Scorpius. "And who was the source?"
"One of your lot," Zabini answered. "Lily, I think."
"How does that girl get her information?"
"Probably spies on her parents."
"Hey," Isabella said, coming to a halt before them. She wasn't in uniform—rather, she was wearing jeans and a button up silk shirt. She extracted her wand. "Want to duel two against two for a little while? Alice and I are bored of practising on each other."
"Malfoy has us duelling every night. Can't we give it a break?" Fleischer sighed. "We just had a huge victory, didn't we?"
"They haven't told us that yet," Alice replied sharply. "Anyway, duelling might take the edge off."
Both boys reluctantly agreed, pairing off with the girls. They moved a little further down to the lake, standing several paces apart. Rose watched them a little while.
"Want to place a bet?" she asked. "Alice and Isabella will win."
"I don't like my odds if I side against that," Scorpius chuckled, bookmarking his page. He turned his grey eyes on Rose, peering into her. "Are you alright?"
"What're you reading?"
He glanced down and tapped the front cover. "Some of those Restricted Section books we picked up from the library. Expanding my mind with some light reading."
"So you think this isn't the end?" Rose confirmed. "Won a battle but could still lose the war?"
"I think you won't want to stop until your hands are around Romnuk's throat," Scorpius replied intently. "And I think the turmoil won't stop until the Goblin King falls."
Rose tugged the book out of Scorpius' lap and flipped to the page he was reading from. Fiendfyre. Corporeal magic similar to a Patronus Charm, a dark extension of the very worst parts of a person. Not the soul's protection, but its predator.
"You're curious about Dark Magic now, are you?"
"Must run in the family," he replied drolly, rolling his eyes.
So it was evident that he had begun preparing in his own ways. Rose gazed at the diagrams, the flickering images of snakes and chimeras with tongues of flames. Down by the lake, Zabini sent Alice toppling backwards into the water.
"About this morning—" Scorpius began ruefully.
"It's fine. If you don't want anything to do with Bellucci, I'll manage it."
"You were right about us training," he said, cutting in across her. "To teach them. I have a feeling we will need to leave soon."
"I have my mother's bag packed."
"If you don't mind, include my potions kit as well. And—you still have the armour?"
"Matchstick sized."
They watched as Isabella was Disarmed. Rose winced, staring down at the girls by the water.
"The boys have been practicing."
"Every night."
So he had been preparing, and with serious intent. In fact, there was something steely in his eyes again. She hadn't seen them so hard in a very long time. Rose tossed his book back in his direction.
"I'll have to step up my game, then," she said.
Once washed and clean, her wet hair slicked back, Victoire stepped out to join Teddy on the other side of the Leaky Cauldron. Charing Cross Road roared with cars and the fumes from exhaust pipes. London crouched inside the walls of its stubborn bricked buildings, cramming in the tourists and businessmen and police officers. Teddy almost tripped over a bright orange road cone and had to grab her arm for support.
"I hate it here," Victoire realised, the sort of way you do when you're in your mid twenties and what was familiar no longer seems palatable. She gazed around then ducked her gaze, picking dragon blood out from under her nails. "Honestly, I've never been one for city life."
Teddy murmured his agreement, flexing his mended shoulder. They chose a pub called The Cambridge next to a muggle money exchange and ordered two beers, before realising too late that they had no muggle money. Victoire surreptitiously Confounded the waiter and deposited a Galleon in the cash register because gold was gold, wasn't it, and there wasn't a Ministry to enforce the Statute of Secrecy.
"I wouldn't mind returning to Romania," Teddy said, as if reading his wife's mind. "Or maybe Portugal or France or Spain."
"All brilliant options," she agreed, sipping her ale.
They gulped at their beers. Teddy studied her for a moment, uncharacteristically serous. Her hair was still wet. She felt a bead of water slide down her neck and drip onto the collar of her shirt.
"You are the most fierce and brave and terrifying person I know," Teddy said, as if remarking about the taste of their beer.
She stared at a muggle newspaper lying on one of the tables, her eyes glazing over as she tried to hold the skirmish of Gringotts at bay in her mind. The front page was ringed where a wet glass had sat, smudging the ink, 'London Bridge Terror Plotter Imprisoned'. She glanced up and noticed the man at the table gazing at her agog. She turned back to Teddy.
"I've lost track of the muggle world," she admitted.
"So have I."
"Let's go back to Romania," Victoire replied and Teddy seemed quite surprised by her finality. "Not forever. But you're right. I don't want to be fighting here unless we have to."
Round table causerie was never Harry's favourite pastime. But this more intimate autopsy of events was a necessity even he wouldn't deny. He had just feasted on the grizzly entrails of his best friend's recount of the battle he had been excluded from.
"They're mostly flushed out. Romnuk's evaded us though," Ron sighed. "I reckon he withdrew into the mountains outside the village, but who knows?"
"I reckon Base Bowfell is next. It's the only place they have left to retreat."
"And you think that's where Romnuk is?"
"I don't doubt it."
They sat in silence for a moment. Hermione dragged her fingers over her face. "James said that's where the map of the Goblin Kingdom is located as well. We can't find the Kingdom without the map."
"So it's the next logical move," Ron agreed.
"Yes, but how do we find that room or that map?" Hermione persisted. "I mean, Orlick and his band of goblins have been rather That with Gringotts' blueprints, but none of them have ever been in Mount Bowfell. The mountain is enormous. It's a maze inside. The only one who knows the way is James and we certainly can't bring him with us."
Harry stared flatly for a moment across the staffroom. He rubbed his eyes and nodded slowly. "But maybe…maybe James can bring us with him."
"Losing his marbles, he is," Ron muttered.
"Not exactly," Harry replied, tweaking a smile. "I just have a massive favour to ask my son."
Over the course of the last few years, particularly as his sons became adult men, Harry found himself thinking back on the influence Dumbledore had left upon him. The older Harry became, the more complex his relationship with Dumbledore seemed to become. The imago of his hero, muddied and then cleansed, was peeled away to reveal a man that was so very much human. A man that Harry had revered then resented and finally recognised in himself.
To ask his children to fight to take part in a war he should have known how to prevent felt fundamentally wrong, and yet it truly seemed like the only available option. While he loved them, he still needed to use them.
The difference was, unlike Albus—and unlike Harry himself—James was not willing. James was not a lamb stepping up to be slaughtered. James was a manic presence, all emotion and no sagacity. Albus would have risked his life to fight whether Harry asked him to or not. For James, there was no such reasoning.
Harry would not ask James to fight. Even if he completely disregarded his son's wellbeing, he still knew it would be impossible to coerce James into it. He had his mother's stubbornness. But he still asked of him a terrible favour, one that a loving father never would.
He asked James to return to the memories of Base Bowell and take Harry with him.
And while James initially refused, as Harry knew he would, he invoked the tactics of manipulation that Dumbledore himself had been too devoted to use on him. But he had to do it. For Harry remembered the consequences of his fifth year at Hogwarts, the death of his godfather and the reign of Voldemort solidifying, all because Dumbledore cared more for his peace of mind than his plan.
It was now time for Harry to care more for their plans than his son's peace of mind.
"So if I don't do this you're saying people will literally die?" James repeated, his eyes burning and bloodshot. He reared back, shaking his head furiously. "No—you can't make me relive those things. For months you've been saying I need to work hard to move on and heal."
"How are you supposed to heal when the people who you love will keep dropping like flies?" Harry demanded. "James, listen to me. You don't have to come with me into the memories if you don't want to. But if you want this war to end—for Romnuk to pay for his crimes, for the Goblin King to fall—then we need you to do this. We have to strike now while they're still scattered and weak."
And because he knew James was just a drop bolder than he was stubborn, and because he knew that his loyalty outweighed his trauma, with resentful reluctance he agreed to use Dumbledore's Pensieve to return Harry to those harrowing memories. He syphoned the memories out of his head like loose silvery shoelaces. And it was under Dumbledore's painted periwinkle stare that Harry entered the memory alone, in the Headmaster's office.
And inside those murky memories, inside a mountain, Harry retraced his son's frantic steps. Winding tunnels and labyrinthine chambers. And the James in the memory bolted down those passages like a hound, head first and sprinting, wand in hand. Bold and reckless. He came to a water mote and a sliver of a ridge to cross. He came to a puzzle that he puzzled out. And finally, Harry not only knew the way inside the mountain, but also has laid his eyes upon the map leading to the Goblin Kingdom.
And perhaps the look that James gave him, furious and cold, the look of someone who had been used, was still worth the knowledge that Harry had attained. It had to be.
Editor's Note - It's Van's birthday today, and yesterday was Halloween so it's a time of great celebration! Van has surrendered her Author's note to me - happiest of birthdays to you, my dear. Over the writing of this chapter, we had many conversations about the nuances of each character over cups of tea and procrastination. I'm loving editing this story - I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and the wondrous person who wrote it.