- Chapter Six -
The Strangled Cat
'There is no rational explanation for this, it's impossible!' repeated Harry to himself as he tried to process what he had seen. Ginny was finding the encounter with the hooded stranger even harder than he was, she was literally obsessed with it. She spent her spare moments collecting any book that mentioned Pensieves, hoping to find an answer to this 'anomaly'. That's what she called it, because her only idea was that the Pensieve had been put together wrongly by the repairing spell, and as they entered the memories, somehow their own thoughts got mixed up with it.
'There's nothing wrong with the Pensieve,' protested Harry, 'and I didn't expect him to shout at us or wipe our memories, anyway. Did you?'
'No,' Ginny replied, dropping the pile of books she had borrowed from Hermione. 'But that's still not right.'
'The entire vision is not right!' Harry said vehemently, and jumped up from the bed he had been sitting on, leafing through one of the many books Dawlish had prescribed. 'These dreams again! I could understand why I'd seen inside Voldemort's head, but this... It doesn't make sense!'
Harry paused and looked at Ginny.
'Have I seen the future? Am I a Seer...?'
To his surprise, Ginny laughed.
'Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves!' she said. 'Seers don't remember their own predictions, they're in a state of unconsciousness. I looked it up in this book...' she added, seeing Harry's questioning look. She picked out one of the many books and held up the old, worn-out Unfogging the Future, then threw it back into the pile with the same gesture.
'But Draco is alive,' Harry shook his head, 'I saw him myself this week. But he was killed in my dream...'
Ginny plopped down in Harry's seat and frowned, humming.
'Mhh... are you sure you saw him die?' she asked him. 'Did you see him collapse?'
Harry thought for a moment.
'No, I didn't see that... But the death curse was pronounced and I heard it hit the target,' he spread his arms wide in bewilderment. 'What does that prove but that it hasn't happened yet? And then why did everything change? I don't understand anything...'
'Perhaps the Pensieve is cursed,' Ginny snapped, then searched the pile for another book. Harry glanced at the page as she pulled it out in front of him: The Fundaments of Evil: Dark Objects in the Course of Magic History.
'Does it say anything about Hallows?' Harry asked casually.
'Not entirely, only about the Elder Wand' replied the girl. 'But I found the opal necklace in it that nearly killed Katie Bell. So, it's been written about these objects that most of them were made to order, by a company or group that specialised in exactly this kind of an enterprise...'
'The inner circle?' Harry asked. Ginny looked up from her book.
'The what?'
'You've never heard of it?'
The girl shook her head. Harry took a deep breath and told her everything he had heard from Mr Diggory and Ron. Ginny listened with interest.
'Great,' she said, grimly, at the end of the report. 'Mum didn't even want to talk about Voldemort at first... We mustn't say anything to innocent little Ginny, she's still growing!' she imitated her mother's voice.
Harry laughed.
'So, do you think the Pensieve is a dark object?' he finally asked. Ginny nodded.
'I don't know if it was meant for you or if it just came to you by accident, but you might want to find the old man you bought it from and...' Ginny lowered her voice here, 'question him a little bit.'
Harry thought so too, but then another problem hit him:
'That still doesn't explain my dream in the first place.'
Ginny took a deep breath, but then shrugged and shook her head in puzzlement. Harry had no other ideas, forced to put the problem of the dream aside and concentrate on what he might find an answer to – the faulty Pensieve. As much as he doubted it at first, the more he liked the idea. After all, as Ron had said, people were trying to get rid of dark objects as to not to get into trouble during a razzia of the Ministry.
And there were quite a lot of razzias. The following week, Harry and Ron had to accompany Dawlish and Proudfoot on a search of the home of a family of Purebloods, formerly known as Voldemort's followers. The Selwyns' house was hidden in a small dusty Welsh village under a myriad of protective charms, but the Selwyns themselves were nowhere to be found. The house's sole occupant was a young house-elf, whose owners forbade her to reveal the reason and purpose of their departure.
They turned the place upside down from the cellar to the attic, listening to the house-elf's cries, but the only clue to black magic was a broken mirror that bewitched whoever looked into it. Ron had to smash the mirror to bits to make it release Dawlish.
After they left the Ministry, Harry shook Ron off on the grounds that he was buying the rest of the books that were missing from Dawlish's list, and immediately apparated on Diagon Alley, right in front of the shop where he bought the Pensieve. But he was disappointed: the shop, full of all sorts of antiques and seemingly valuable magical items, was now ringing with emptiness, with only a 'For Sale' sign hanging on the door.
Later that night, he told Ginny about the failure, who, quickly forgetting her initial surprise, wanted to share another idea with Harry.
'There's another book we could look into...' she began carefully, biting her lower lip. Harry looked at her with interest; he could tell she was having trouble telling him what she was thinking.
'Tell me!' encouraged Harry. She took a deep breath.
'In the Horcrux book,' she finally said, 'Secrets of Darkest Art', or whatever it's called... (Harry was sure she knew very well what it was called).
Ginny must have been a little startled by the look on Harry's face, because he flinched in front of her. He had been pacing up and down her room between the bed and the window.
'We burned that one,' Harry said, in a slightly colder tone than he intended. Ginny nodded quickly, as if she had already taken back what she had just said.
Harry was a little embarrassed about this, so he struck a kinder note.
'Ginny, believe me, you wouldn't have found anything about cursed objects in that. We've been through that book and the others Hermione took out of Dumbledore's office and there's nothing in there about any of that... no visions, no Pensieve... no cursed objects.'
Ginny nodded nervously and bit her nails. Harry rarely saw her like this.
'Did you really burn it?' she blinked at him nervously.
'Yes. That evening, when...' replied Harry, but he was momentarily stuck. 'After that... after Fred's funeral. In the Forbidden Forest. We lit a fire and burned all those books. Even the ones that were left at Hogwarts...' Harry sighed heavily. 'We thought that's the best way. We don't need another Voldemort.'
Ginny didn't dare bring up the subject again, seeing how Harry reacted, but she had put an idea into his head. Indeed, what he had told Ginny was not entirely true. They had read in those books about cursed objects, dark things that had terrible powers. Only they always skipped over those parts and only read in detail stuff concerning horcruxes. Harry, however, knew that Hermione would remember everything she read once, only he was in the same dilemma as Ginny: should he dare ask her? He wasn't worried that Hermione would scold him for asking such a thing – they knew each other better than that – just that she would pick out every little detail of his vision and the Pensieve incident.
The day after the razzia, they had a terribly boring task: learning how to fill in suspects' data forms correctly. Harry, however, kept thinking about the Pensieve case, which finally led him to his decision. He got up and, leaving everything behind, took the lift down one floor.
'Level Four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, Pest Advisory Bureau and House-elf Assistance Bureau,' the monotone voice informed.
Harry had never been to the MCR, which looked a lot like the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The same drab corridor, enchanted windows and thick oak doors. Doors opening left and right from the corridor opened into offices or rooms similar to a veterinary surgery.
Harry dodged people, ghosts and goblins, though once he accidentally walked over a floating ghost which felt like he had been doused with ice water. The goblins, in keeping with their kind's inveterate distrust, eyed him with piercing eyes, while the humans either moved out of his way in surprise or stopped to shake his hand.
In one of the vet's rooms, there was a huge commotion: tiny purple and orange lizards were running around and spitting fire at everything. One of the MCR witches was tearing her hair out in anger.
'It was brought in before noon, and since then it has been spreading!' she complained to her old colleague.
'Have you tried the Degeminio spell...?'
Harry moved on and following the signs, turned right at the next corner, heading for the House-elf Assistance Bureau. He passed a broom cupboard and a warehouse-like room with cages full of bizarre animals, turned through an arched doorway with a pungent stable smell in the air, and behind an iron closed door some huge creature howled plaintively, and finally arrived in a small corridor with no enchanted windows. It reminded Harry of Mr Weasley's former workplace.
At the far end of the corridor was a seemingly newly built office, with soft music playing from behind its wide open door. A gold plaque on the door read Hermione J. Granger - House-elf Assistance Bureau.
'Are you busy?' Harry peeked through the door, startling his friend.
Hermione's office was cramped but tidy, everything was neat and clean. Facing an enchanted window was her desk, on which stood a potted flower and a family photo, and another picture of the three of them from their second year. Apart from that, official papers were piled everywhere, and a magic radio was perched on top of the cupboard, broadcasting an issue of Celestina Maggica.
'Hi Harry,' she smiled happily, obviously pleased to have a visitor. 'Thanks for sending down the Selwyn elf's papers, we've already found a new place for her.'
'That's great,' Harry replied, not paying the slightest attention to what he was replying to. 'Do you have a few minutes?'
'Of course! Have a seat.'
She conjured a chair for him and Harry sat down on it, trying to gather his thoughts on how to present what he had to say. Finally, he cleared his throat and started.
'Remember Secrets of Darkest Art?' he waited for Hermione to nod, then continued. 'Didn't it say something about certain cursed objects? You know, like that opal stone necklace from Borgin & Burke's, or a... a...'
'A Pensieve,' Hermione cut him off, her eyes wide.
Harry banged on the table angrily, making the spoon in the coffee cup rattle.
'I hate it when you use Legilimency on me!' Harry was outraged.
'You're so lousy at Occlumency, I don't need to be a Legilimens!' she defended herself calmly. Harry was forced to agree with her. 'I told you that Pensieve was no good, didn't I? What did it do while you were in there?'
'Nothing,' Harry grumbled stubbornly. He was determined not to get the secret out of him now.
Hermione, meanwhile, stood up calmly, took another coffee cup from the cupboard and tapped it with her wand.
'I thought you came here for help,' she sang, setting the steaming coffee down in front of him.
Harry cursed under his breath for a while longer, folding his arms in front of him, putting on a scowl. Hermione, meanwhile, sipped her coffee with relish, making a face as if there were no finer drink in the world. Harry was so annoyed that he finally got tired of his stubbornness.
'One memory... changed, as I re-watched it.'
Hermione raised an eyebrow in interest, but remained silent. Harry realised he would have to tell her more if he was to get her to help. He didn't want to talk about the dream in any way, so he decided to change things up a bit.
'I looked at a memory of one of Snape's classes...' he shrugged casually, stirring his steaming coffee. 'Then suddenly he looked at me. I mean Snape... Me, not the me in the memory. And he snapped at me, wondering what I was doing here. How could that be possible?'
Hermione wondered for a moment, then began to think so feverishly that Harry could almost hear the gears turning in her head.
'That's interesting...' she muttered to herself. 'I can only think that the Pensieve somehow sensed your thoughts and was confused by the memory. Maybe you wanted him to speak to you, and that's why it happened.'
Harry protested before she had finished her thoughts.
'We can rule that out,' he said. 'I know what I was thinking, and nothing like that.'
Hermione sighed heavily, then sipped her coffee and put the cup down.
'Then I have no idea, Harry. Maybe the object is cursed. You'd better stop using it.'
'One thousand five hundred galleons...'
'... which is worth much, much less than your life. Or your common sense. Maybe it's cursed to slowly drive you mad. Take my advice and throw that thing away.'
Harry had no intention of throwing the Pensieve out, but he preferred not to tell Hermione that. After all, he had come to her to ask for advice and there was always the possibility that she would give him advice he didn't feel like taking. She was an expert at spoiling his mood. He didn't want it to be the Pensieve's fault. He had such a hard time finding one on Diagon Alley!
'Parvati Patil wrote,' Hermione noted to divert the conversation. 'A DA meeting is being organised for tonight.'
Harry looked up in surprise.
'Really? And where?'
Hermione made a small grimace.
'That's the thing!' she grumbled, and then said, reluctantly, 'In The Strangled Cat.'
'I don't understand why you hate that place,' Harry opened his arms, who always had a good time when they went there for fun. Hermione didn't share his opinion.
'It's a dive bar' she said with a pleading face. 'I can't stand it... It's so dirty... and, and dangerous! All kinds of people go there.'
'Yes, including some of the people you are trying to help,' Harry poked at the pile of parchments beside her, about a bill to ensure equal opportunities for werewolves.
Hermione was ashamed, and it was obvious that she regretted bringing up Parvati's letter.
'Don't be silly, we have to go!' Harry persuaded her, when she remarked that she didn't feel well enough to get drunk in the evening, or to support Ron all night.
Harry was eager to meet up with the old group again, as Luna, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Ernie Macmillan and the rest of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws would surely be there. The months after the war ended were a time of mourning, but the last school year's Hogsmeade weekends, Christmas and spring break, provided a great opportunity for parties and get-togethers, which Harry and his friends could not miss even if they wanted to.
'Have you read today's paper?' Hermione asked, misunderstanding why Harry was staring at the Daily Prophet.
'No, I just had a quick glance at it. Why?'
Hermione lifted the page and pointed at the article on the Triwizard Tournament that took up the front page.
'I think you'll be interested in this,' she said. 'Did you know that the Tournament will be held this year again?'
Harry shook his head, then thanked Hermione for the coffee and went out the office door. He felt that she was just looking for more reasons to keep him to interrogate him.
'Harry!' said Hermione after him. Harry stopped on the doorstep, angry with himself. 'Please, think of all the times Ron and I helped you out of trouble, when you were having nightmares, when you didn't know why that was happening to you. If you're going to lie to my face, at least take the time to come up with a decent lie. All right?'
They stared at each other for a moment, and Harry felt himself blushing. He nodded shyly, then closed the door behind him and hurried back to Auror Headquarters.
Harry and Ron were off at 4pm, but Hermione worked late as usual, and sent a letter with Pigwidgeon saying she wouldn't be home until 7pm. They had decided to go to the Strangled Cat, where a meeting with the DA members had been arranged for nine o'clock.
Hermione was of course late, well over an hour, while Ron went bonkers in his nervousness and Harry and Ginny tried to calm him down. Ron had got it into his head that Hermione wanted to stall until they would cancel. When she finally arrived home, she and Ginny spent another hour getting ready, and Harry and Ron started playing chess at quarter to nine to kill the seemingly endless time. They managed to finish two games of chess before the door to the room finally opened and the girls came down the stairs.
Harry's jaw dropped.
The two girls wore identical, tight, sparkling dresses, only Hermione's was royal blue, Ginny's was deep green. Their hair was pinned up in the same way, and their high heels were the same, which made Hermione taller than Harry in height, but she still had to look up to Ron.
Fully aware that the two boys had been taken aback, Ginny and Hermione slowly stepped up to them and closed Harry and Ron's gaping mouths in a coordinated motion. Harry tried to utter a meaningful compliment, but only a hoarse 'wow' escaped his lips.
'Really? You look good too,' Ginny fluttered her eyelashes, then laughed and, taking a slightly more relaxed approach, took Harry's hand.
'We'd better get going, we're going to be late,' Hermione said, glancing at Ron's watch.
Harry would normally have expected some sort of snide remark from his friend about who was the reason they were late, but Ron seemed in no mood to provoke Hermione at the moment.
They said their goodbyes to Mr and Mrs Weasley, then went out into the back garden, apparated, and a moment later arrived at their destination: a deserted, dark quay on the banks of the Thames. Harry immediately felt the autumn chill, and was glad he had brought his thicker coat, unlike the girls, who had only put on a light robe over their dress. It was the end of September, and the evenings were already quite cold, while at dawn it was hard to see through the mist.
The Strangled Cat was a big nightclub in one of the most neglected, run-down parts of London – officially for witches and wizards only. Despite this, the Strangled Cat was not only frequented by humans, but also by many vampires, werewolves and other creatures, giving the place a rather bad reputation.
A dark, dingy warehouse loomed before them, not unlike any other warehouse around it, except that a rather oddly dressed man waited outside its rusty iron door. He wore cowboy boots with his suit trousers, and a baggy basketball shirt that stretched so tight across his broad chest that it was ready to burst at any moment. He sat on a small three-legged chair, his thick arms crossed.
'Hi Dennis!' said Ron cheerfully.
'Good evening, chaps,' Dennis said with a smile and immediately opened the iron door for them with a wave of his short wand, which he had been holding under his arm.
Harry and the others were immediately struck by the heat, the smell of smoke and alcohol, the thunderous music. One by one they went through a door that led into a small hall. There were more wizard guards – now in simple robes – and in a small booth a witch with lots of make-up was selling tickets. Harry fumbled in his pocket for his purse, but Ron took his arm.
'Leave it, I'll do it,' he said, and proudly stepped up to the cash register. 'Four tickets, please.'
'You don't need it,' came the reply from behind the glass. 'It's written there. Didn't you see it?'
She tapped the glass of her cubicle above Ron's head with her long, black fingernails. Below the price of the tickets was a handwritten parchment:
FREE ENTRY FOR DA MEMBERS!
Ron looked disappointed as he put his purse away. Hermione thanked her on behalf of the four of them for the kindness. They pressed through between two wardrobe-sized security wizards and through a curtained door to the cloakroom, where they were required to surrender their coats and hand over their wands for inspection as per Ministry regulations. This practice had been introduced during the war and remained even after the war ended, but now it was only a source of annoyance to the people.
They entered the huge, crowded room through the door from the cloakroom. One could barely walk through the crowd who almost filled the huge warehouse, which did not look like a warehouse from the inside. The walls were covered with long black drapes, even the windows. The lighting was provided by floating glass spheres, like those in St. Mungo's hospital, but these were constantly changing colour, pulsing, flashing, throbbing to the beat of the music.
Opposite the entrance, at the other end of the hall, was a stage where leather-clad musicians with long hair and white-painted faces played a heavy metal song to which the crowd went wild. Next to the stage hung a black cat the size of a human, hanging upside down. Harry once asked one of the bar girls if it was a real cat or just a stuffed puppet. She just smiled darkly at him and bared her long canine teeth. Harry thought it best not to ask any more questions and vowed never to try the local specialty, the Cat's Blood Cocktail.
Harry couldn't understand what Hermione didn't like about this place. It was the huge crowds and loud music that he liked best in the Strangled Cat. Ron, for his part, preferred the wide choice of drinks and the barmaids.
It took no time at all to find the company – everyone was seated at a large round table near the entrance, where a couple of extra chairs had to be conjured. They were greeted by everyone who was there: Neville, Luna and Dean, Harry's other old roommate Seamus Finnigan, the Patil twins, Padma and Parvati, Susan Bones, who also worked at the Ministry, and Cho, who sat next to her in a slightly too posh silk dress. There was also Ernie Macmillan, Michael Corner, Lee Jordan, Alicia Spinett and Angelina Johnson, the old Chaser crew of the Gryffindor Quidditch team – the only one missing was Katie Bell, and Harry had a guess as to where she was at the moment. Dennis Creevy and Justin Finch-Fletchley sat between the Ravenclaws Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot, with the ever-so-scowling Zacharias Smith a little further away, and round the table Hannah Abott, who for some strange reason was holding Neville's hand.
The strange reason came to light immediately after the greetings, before Harry and the others had even sat down at the table, and Neville took a deep breath, as if to announce the Queen of England.
'Guess what...'
'We have big news!' interrupted Hannah, who had apparently not noticed Neville's efforts. With her mouth agape, she thrust her hand under Harry's nose.
For a moment Harry thought she was expecting a kiss on the hand, when he noticed the shiny stone on her ring finger.
'We are engaged!' she said in a tone as if she expected the whole world to turn yellow with envy.
The four good friends looked at each other and congratulated them in turn. Harry, meanwhile, had the strange feeling that Luna had quickly disappeared into the crowd, grabbing some stranger by the arm.
'Where is your brother, George?' Neville asked Ron.
Harry saw him shrug and pretend to be relaxed, but he couldn't hide his reddening ears.
'Er... he had a lot of work to do in the shop,' he replied, conspicuously avoiding Lee Jordan's gaze, 'He told me to tell you he was sorry but he couldn't be here...'
Harry was sure that George had said nothing of the sort to Ron.
The four good friends took a seat in the space between Zacharias Smith and Terry Boot, and waited for the Patil twins, who had organised the whole meeting, to order drinks. Meanwhile, Harry kept his eyes on Luna – as did Dean across the table – until Ron nudged him in the side with his elbow.
'Look who's there!' he pointed to the crowd.
Not far from them, a brown-skinned boy with almond-shaped eyes danced with a pretty girl with black hair. Hermione squeezed in between Harry and Ron to get a look at the dancers.
'Wow, Zabini and Parkinson?!' she looked at them wide-eyed.
They looked at each other and laughed out loud, not even really knowing why. It didn't take long, and the slightest thing was enough to get Ron banging the table and Harry wiping tears from his eyes – the mood lightened, and they reminisced about the good old days, starting with all the fun details of their plot against Umbridge. Slowly, as the evening wore on and the band finished the concert, the more boisterous, wild numbers were replaced by slow hits. At the same time, the table remembered the dead, drank to Fred and Colin Creevy, told anecdotes – then Dean asked Harry a question from across the table:
'Will you go to Durmstrang, Harry?'
Harry was sipping on his drink and coughed, a little surprised by the question.
'Why on earth would I go there?' he asked, after he had stopped coughing.
'Because of the Tournament!' Seamus enlightened him. 'They'll probably invite the former champion...' but seeing Harry's surprised face, he added: 'Haven't you read today's paper?'
Harry remembered something, as if Hermione had told him earlier that morning, that the Daily Prophet had written about Tournament.
'Somehow... I forgot about that,' Harry answered looking at Hermione, who preferred to say nothing, just shake her head and sip her whisky.
'So, what did the Prophet write?' Harry looked around at everyone.
'Nothing special, just that they're expecting students from all the schools in October,' Dean explained after Neville had brought another round of drinks. 'It'll be like five years ago all over again.'
Ginny cleared her throat.
'Let's hope that not everything will be like back then...'
No one said anything, they just drank in silence until Harry broke the silence again.
'So the Tournament will be at Durmstrang?'
Neville nodded. Meanwhile, Harry vowed not to set foot in there for any money.
'For a while, it was supposed to be at the Beauxbatons,' Parvati said, a straw in her teeth.
'Yeah,' nodded her twin. 'Durmstrang did not want to organise the Tournament.'
Ron and Harry looked at each other in interest.
'And why?' asked Ron.
The girls shrugged, but Dean responded – the boy was in a better mood after Luna joined them back at the table, leaving her dance partner in the lurch.
'The new headmaster has stirred things up. You know, Karkaroff's successor. Supposedly a real arsehole...'
'Bigger than Karkaroff?' Cho raised her eyebrows.
After that, for minutes, it was all about Karkaroff and the Death Eaters, including Malfoy and Goyle, who did not go to Azkaban, and the other Slytherins. They talked loudly about Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini, who were dancing to a slow number not far away from them, and laughed loudly when they saw Pansy burst into tears, slap her dance partner and run out the door.
When they got bored of the subject, they talked about their old classmates. It was then that Harry noticed that there was another member of the DA missing.
'How is Lavender? How come she didn't come?'
Everyone looked at him for a moment. Hermione kicked his leg under the table, and Harry jumped. Ginny drained the rest of her whisky in one gulp and grabbed Harry by the arm.
'Let's dance!'
Harry had no intention of resisting, they moved into the crowd, into the middle of the huge dance floor. Harry pulled Ginny tightly to him, one hand on her back and the other on her bottom, and they began to slow dance to the music. Harry felt happy and relaxed, as he had for the past few months, which only the incident with vision interrupted. He pushed these thoughts away, not wanting to think of anything but the girl in his arms. He found himself softly breathing in the delicate scent of flowers that wafted from Ginny's hair.
Others followed suit, with Neville clinging to his fiancée, Seamus to the two Patil girls, Lee Jordan to Angelina Johnson, and Dean persuading Luna to agree to a dance. Some slowly said their goodbyes and wandered home, like Cho and the other Ravenclaws, while Ron and Hermione hid in a dark corner.
It was long past midnight, but the four good friends could not bring themselves to leave until around four in the morning, and they too said goodbye to everyone.
'Why was it wrong to ask how Lavender was doing?' Harry turned to Hermione when they were out again in the cold night. Heated by butterbeer and flaming whisky, he couldn't help but wonder how cold the air had cooled down.
Hermione sighed heavily, trying to hold Ron, who was clutching her shoulder with one hand and swinging a butterbeer bottle with the other.
'Harry, Lavender doesn't really go out anymore...' she shook her head. Then, seeing Harry's puzzled face, she added. 'You didn't hear what happened to her? Greyback attacked her when the battle was going on. Her face was... completely...'
Harry didn't want to hear more about it. He waved his hand in front of her nose, as if to brush away an annoying fly, and scurried forward. He rarely drank, so he wasn't really used to his current state. Ginny ran after him and jumped on his back like a cat on a mouse. They could hear Ron vomiting behind them, Hermione scolding him with increasing glee.
For a while they just walked around the quay, Harry almost drifted into the river twice, only to be saved by Ginny. Eventually, Hermione grew tired of the two boys' miserable state and, holding her wand to their foreheads, muttered an incantation. Harry was surprised to find that his vision had cleared and his gait had returned to normal.
'Can you feel how cold it is? No Indian summer this year either,' Ginny remarked, shivering, and wrapped her arms around herself. Harry put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him.
'You sleep with two blankets even in summer!' Ron snapped at his sister's statement.
'I-I-I can't help it if I'm c-c-cold...' she fidgeted, snuggling up to Harry. He could feel how shivery she was from the cold, and as he glanced at her fingers, he saw that they were slightly blue. He wasn't that shaky yet, he thought, and drew his wand to blow some warm air on her.
'It is really cold,' Hermione said, and Harry heard Ron's teeth chattering, despite his previous statement.
'Let's apparate home quickly,' Ginny suggested, over-shouting an overturned bin that startled them all. 'I don't feel like free-freezing to death during a walk, no matter how pretty the stars are.'
'All right, let's get out of here... Anyways there is not a single star in the...'
'DEMENTOR!' shouted Harry, and at that moment he waved his wand.
Ginny, Hermione and Ron were just trying to comprehend what was happening when a horrific nightmare-like figure, wrapped in a black shroud, with decaying hands, floated out of the alleyway next to them, breathing in a wheezing voice.
The stag patronus sprang with a graceful leap from the cloud of silver smoke that burst from Harry's wand, and aimed its is antlers at the dementor where its heart might be. The black creature darted nimbly past the patronus, bunging trash cans and cardboard boxes with his strength, and was now behind Harry, directly in front of his three friends.
Ron was in no condition to pull out his wand in a flash, so for lack of a better idea he threw the butterbeer bottle at the dementor. The bottle struck the creature in the chest, and it disappeared through the shutters of the dark shroud as if it had been sucked in by a black hole.
'Ron, look out!' cried Hermione, terrified. By this time, she and Ginny both had wands in their hands and were trying to summon their patronuses, but it didn't work very well – Ginny only produced a billowing cloud of silver while Hermione's spell was completely ineffective.
'Get away from it!' Harry shouted, and beckoned to the stag, which turned and aimed again.
The glittering patronus galloped past Harry at lightning speed, antlers to the dementor, but the dark creature disappeared into the black night, so that Harry saw it one moment and then no longer saw it the next.
He has never seen anything like it. For a dementor to move so quickly in the presence of a patronus, seemingly without any effect on him, filled him with icy fear, and he was just beginning to feel the desperation-spreading power of the dementor.
Then it struck again. Apparently skirting around them behind the warehouses, silently, its path marked only by the scattered rubbish, it appeared behind Harry. It towered over him like some horrible, frozen giant, grabbed Harry's jaw with its rotting hand and stretched his head upwards, its mouth gaping like a black void...
'Expecto Patronum!' cried Ginny, and a graceful horse with a shiny mane sprang from the end of her wand just as Harry's stag faded away.
The horse galloped up, its front legs scraping menacingly towards the dementor, which immediately let go of Harry, and then it took off again, this time towards the old harbour crane. Harry fell to the ground, his ankle badly sore, but he ignored it, reaching for his wand, which he had dropped from his hand.
'Harry, Harry!' called Hermione and Ginny, who ran to him and helped him to his feet.
'I'm fine...' he muttered, peering into the darkness. 'What about Ron?'
'I am here!' came the reply before the two girls could answer. 'Did you see that? What the hell was that? I've never seen such a dementor...'
Ron crawled out of the pile of rubbish he had fallen into. Hermione now helped him up, and Harry and Ginny joined them. The four of them glanced in four different directions, their glowing wands scanning the frozen quayside, watching for any movement.
'I say we get out of here before it's too late,' Ron suggested, and Harry was forced to agree. 'Let's apparate, now!'
'All right, hold my hand,' Hermione's trembling voice said from behind Harry.
They reached back with their free hands and clung together, then waited. They were almost letting go of each other in fright when the old, rusty crane, with an ear-splitting squeak and clatter, shuddered, twisted and fell into the water with a terrible crash, crushing the jetty and a small fishing boat.
'Oh my God!' squeaked Hermione. 'Was that him?'
'For sure, but what are we waiting for?!' Harry snapped at her, for all three of them expected her to lead them at apparition, considering that she was the most sober of them.
'I'm trying, but I can't!' Hermione cried, squeezing their hands again, but again nothing happened.
In the distance, there was a shout – the crane's destruction was noticed by others. Harry hoped that the hundreds of wizards in the Strangled Cat had rushed out to the noise.
The dementor appeared in front of the crane wreckage, hovering inches above the ground, not rushing at them, just frozen motionless. Then the snow began to fall in great flakes, and as Harry looked up at the starless sky, he saw dark clouds high above.
'Try harder,' Ginny said shakily, and swallowed hard.
Her words were suddenly interrupted by a strange, evil laugh, which made all four of them shudder in fear.
'That won't work...' a deep, hoarse voice whispered in the cold night.
Instinctively, Harry and the others turned towards the voice, wands pointed in one direction, oblivious to the dementor. From the shadows of the nearest warehouse, a tall figure emerged, pointing a wand at Harry and his friends.
'An anti-disapparition jinx,' Hermione muttered, understanding the reason for their failure.
'Indeed, Granger,' he replied, hearing her whisper, which even Harry could barely understand. The stranger, meanwhile, walked slowly towards them. The light from the only street lamp left on started flickering, then dimmed as the wizard passed beneath it. Now the only source of light was the glow of their four wands and something else... some bluish glow that seemed to emanate from the man's head.
Ron cleared his throat.
'Who are you?' he shouted at the man in a confident tone that didn't quite manage to convince. 'Why did you attack us?'
He snatched the words from Harry's lips – it seemed obvious that the dementor had been released on them by the stranger, and was still waiting behind them, patiently, because it had been ordered to.
'Who I am doesn't matter,' came the answer, and with it the man came closer.
Hermione's wand was shaking in her hand, Harry squinted at the wizard. Something was wrong with his face. His eyes, he thought. His eyes were so strange, so bluish...
'Only what I am here to ask from you,' the stranger added. He was only a few steps away when he stopped.
'Well, you chose a strange way to...'
The words froze in Ron's mouth. The light from the wands illuminated the man, and they could see every detail of his face. His hair was long, straight to his waist, and as black as Harry's. It framed his face like a curtain, the most incredible expression they had ever seen. He was a handsome young man, not more than twenty-five or thirty years of age, judging by his long features, but it was difficult to tell, for his skin was a uniform deep blue all over. Only his teeth were white, and his two canines were long, protruding from his lips.
But the eyes were the most horrifying.
They were glowing like two stars in the summer sky, so bright, so blazing, literally hypnotising. The whites of the eyes, the irises, the pupils were all gone, the whole thing burned like a lantern. There was a supernatural power in those eyes that made the hair stand up on the back of Harry's neck and gave him goosebumps on his arms. There was only one person who made him feel that way before, but his eyes were red...
'What the...?' moaned Ron. Harry and the girls couldn't say a word in shock for the moment. The blue-skinned man turned to Ron, with an interested look on his face.
'What the...'
'Excuse me?'
Ron swallowed.
'What the hell are you?' he finally said.
The demonic figure raised his left hand and waved his index finger in disapproval.
'I heard you're not known for your politeness, Ronald Weasley, but I would have expected a bit more respect after I saved your life.'
Ron was utterly baffled and momentarily speechless, and also Harry and Hermione were at a loss for words.
'You saved his life?' Ginny laughed. 'What are you talking about?!'
The blue-skinned man apparently didn't want to waste any more words on this, because he turned away from Ron and looked at the two girls.
'That is why I require your services in a hunt,' he announced in a perfectly natural tone, as if to say he was inviting them over to dinner.
'What do you want from us?' Harry asked matter-of-factly, raising his wand slightly higher in the blue man's face. The latter only gave a darting gaze to indicate that he had noticed the movement.
'A year and a half ago, you killed someone called Voldemort,' the wizard began, holding his wand loosely in front of him. Harry and Hermione looked at each other.
'His servants fell with him. Some of them are still alive...' the blue-skinned man continued. 'I want to know where they are. Where they fled to. But for this I need to know something else...'
The four of them listened with nerves on edge.
'I need to find out where Voldemort's hideout is.'
'I can easily tell you that,' Harry said, relieved, expecting the wizard to ask them to do something much harder. 'Voldemort was hiding in his Muggle father's house when he returned...'
'No, no,' the man cut him off, 'I don't need that house where he vegetated, weakened, half-dead... where he hid like a coward, like a rat...' his voice now almost shone with anger and rage as he spoke of Voldemort. He stopped pacing and ran his blazing eyes over the four young adults.
'I'm looking for the house that he considered his home. A place where he lived, slept, ate during the war. His home...'
Hermione shook her head as the blue-skinned man looked at her. It made her jump a little, and her voice rang with fear again:
'Vo-Voldemort didn't have one,' she snarled. 'He was always at oth-other people's homes. They always had their meetings somewhere else.'
'Yes,' Harry agreed, forgetting for a moment the situation. 'They had met several times at the Malfoy estate.'
'No,' the wizard protested calmly, and took a step towards them. Hermione instinctively moved closer to Ron. 'I've been to the Malfoy house, and what I'm looking for isn't there. He had a house. A hidden house that no one could reveal. I want you to find me this place.'
'Why don't you look for it yourself?' asked Ginny bravely. To their surprise, the blue-skinned man laughed.
'Are you serious, Weasley?' he sneered. 'You're telling me to walk into the Ministry of Magic and interrogate captured Death Eaters? I'm sure they'll be helpful... No, that will be your job.'
The two girls were not thrilled.
'Forget it!' snapped Hermione, before Harry or Ron could say anything. Harry was planning to agree and help the blue-skinned man, who didn't seem to like the Dark Lord very much. 'We've stopped doing these kinds of things!'
'We are not your servants!' added Ginny angrily.
'Ginny...' said Ron carefully. The blue-skinned man laughed again.
'I'm not really giving you a choice, my darlings,' he whispered viciously. 'But perhaps a little motivation wouldn't hurt...'
The four of them pointed their wands straight at his face, lest he should have a chance to curse them, but the wizard did not move, only grinned. His vampire-like teeth flashed menacingly in the wandlight.
Then another sound echoed in the night. The rumbling of the dementor, the faraway noise of cars, the distant shouting of people and the sound of beating water were joined by something else: a slow, shuffling sound.
Glancing over the blue-skinned man's shoulder, Harry caught sight of two more approaching figures from the shadows of the same warehouse where the wizard had stepped out from. From far away they were recognizable by their sickly movements, their staggering, and the pervasive smell of corpses that surrounded them.
'I-inferi...!' whispered Ginny in horror.
Hermione immediately flicked her wand, the end of which ignited a menacing tongue of flame. The wizard laughed at her.
They felt the icy cold creeping closer to them, like some kind of preying beast, and as fear crept up his spine, Harry understood and spun. The dementor was barely a step away, towering over them, breathing thunderously. The fire on Hermione's wand went out. The inferi, who had flinched at the sight of the fire, now obeyed their master's command again and shuffled closer.
'You don't have to be afraid of them,' said the blue-skinned man, 'If you do as I say, they'll leave you alone.'
The two inferi stopped beside him, and now their faces were visible.
'Holy…!', exclaimed Hermione with her hands over her mouth.
Harry felt sick when he recognised one of the undead.
'Goyle...' Ron groaned, shaking his head in disbelief. 'What did you do to him?'
Their former classmate was in a terrible state: his eyes were white, he stared blankly into space, his skin was decaying, his hair hung in clumps from his head.
'He was a Death Eater, and if my memory serves me right, he wanted to kill you. He deserved no mercy. He does now what he did before: he serves like a dog. That's what he's for, isn't it?'
Harry shuddered at the cruel words. He could say that he was not afraid of death, but this way of dying still gave him the creeps whenever he thought of Voldemort's cave lake and the dead bodies that lived in it.
'You are insane!' he spat the words angrily, forgetting his earlier determination to find Voldemort's house.
For the first time, the blue-skinned face lost its serene cheerfulness and gave way to aggressive anger. His bright blue eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched into a snarl.
'Fine!' he said. 'You can thank yourselves!'
He hadn't even finished the sentence, but his wand-holding hand rose in a flash and struck. A purple fire burst from the end of the wand, splitting into four long tongues of flame that found four targets.
'Protego!' shouted Harry, and the flame dissipated in the shield around him and Ginny, but he couldn't protect Ron and Hermione.
His friends were not fast enough, and the flames reached them, enveloping their bodies, from head to toe, in long rings of fire. For a few moments, they stood there, shaken, then slowly rose from the ground. Harry and Ginny watched helplessly as the rings of flame flowed around Ron and Hermione.
'Let them go!' Ginny shouted in the blue man's face, but he charged at them instead.
'Expelliarmus!' they both cried, but the wizard easily warded off both curses, and before they knew it they were both hit by a beam of light.
Harry felt a fierce force sweep him far away, and he fell onto a pile of crates. He cried out in pain, and for a moment all he saw were stars.
'Gin... Ginny!' he cried, lying on his back on the floor, startled when he heard the second bang and the sound of the fire.
He couldn't help but wonder what had happened to Ron, Hermione and Ginny. His wand must have fallen far away, but he didn't feel the strength to look for it. Then he saw it, the tongue purple of flame spiralling towards him, enveloping him and lifting him slightly off the ground. He felt no pain, not even when the fire disappeared in his chest, only the release of the force as he fell back onto the crushed remains of the crates. When he was able to open his eyes again, he saw the blue-skinned man towering before him.
'I'll give you a month,' he said to Harry. His face was cloaked in shadow, only his demonic blue eyes shining. 'I didn't choose you without a reason. You can find the place.'
Suddenly he crouched down to Harry, who couldn't move because of the pain throbbing in his back.
'I know you want to find that house too, Harry Potter,' he continued. 'You want the same thing I want... for them all to get what they deserve. That's what you've always wanted, isn't it? That's what you want...'
You can keep saying it, but it won't make it true, Harry thought to himself.
'Remember, one month and your time is up... But one month will be enough for you!' he said confidently, stood up and turned around. 'We will soon meet again. One way or another. You'd better hurry. Your time is ticking.'
By the time Harry had gathered all his strength and pushed himself up into a sitting position, all he could hear was the cracking sound, and the blue-skinned man and the inferi were gone, and the dementor was swallowed up in darkness. The cold receded.
At the same time, as if a bubble had burst that had been hiding them from prying eyes, a crowd of shouting people suddenly appeared on the quay around the collapsed crane. One or two conscientious sorcerers set to work to repair the structure.
'Look, there!' someone shouted.
'Ginny...!' moaned Harry, straining his strength, and stood up, but he already regretted it, for a burning pain was searing into his chest, like a fiery handful of something squeezing his heart and lungs.
'Somebody call the aurors! Quick, what are you waiting for?' he heard Neville's frightened shout through the din of the crowd.
Harry staggered over to Ginny and helped her up, and together they staggered to Hermione, who was unconscious.
'Please tell me you saw that we were attacked by a blue-skinned guy?' Ron asked them, lying on his back and staring at the sky in a daze.
The answer was an affirmative humming and a pained groan. Ron sighed, then slowly got up on all fours and vomited.
'Ugh... So it wasn't the booze after all...'