Harry Potter and the Fourth Tower

by The-Nameless90

With Dumbledore gone, Grindelwald's remaining followers are finally able to carry out their plans for "the greater good" and install a Nazi-Germany-like regime. But luckily, the Deathstick found a worthy successor who will oppose them. Based solely on the original 7 books, Harry's story is continued. Realistic, increasingly powerful Harry, no AU. BOOK 1/3.

8. The List

- Chapter Eight -

The List

'Professor...' he sighed into the sparkling blue eyes dancing in front of him.

They were so friendly, so familiar, always carrying the promise of security, a security Harry had lost three years ago.

'Missed!' he replied bluntly in a voice so unlike Albus Dumbledore. Harry opened his eyes.

It was almost unbelievable that he wasn't standing in front of him, they were so similar and yet so different. Harry shook his head like a dog, finally coming back to reality.

'Now, get up!' said Aberforth, pulling him up off the ground. Harry hissed in pain at the sharp pain in his arm.

They were still in the pub of the Hog's Head, the serene light of the rising sun shining through the broken window, illuminating the traces of the destruction inside. Harry and Aberforth looked around in horror; all but themselves had fallen victim to the dementor, lying motionless or staring glassy-eyed, aimless. Harry had never seen what it was like to be kissed by a dementor.

The only thing he felt was horror as he looked at the big man huddled at the bottom of the counter – there was nothing human about him anymore, he was just an object. Harry didn't know what to compare this state to; even the sleeping or comatose showed small signs of consciousness, with the movement of their eyes, the frown on their foreheads. But those who lost their souls did nothing of the sort. Harry realized he was afraid of them.

'Awful, isn't it?' Aberforth's voice cracked in the silence, making Harry wince.

At the other end of the room, under the table, the woman who was screaming before Harry lost consciousness lay with her arms spread wide. Beside her lay her husband, also dead, his wand dangling limply in his hand. Harry moved closer to them. The dementor hadn't kissed them – they'd died before he could do so. The husband killed his wife and then himself before the creature could touch them.

Harry turned around. Two overturned tables marked the dementor's path from the large man to the suicidal couple; he was anxious to catch them in time, but was too late. Their souls he could not get. They were lucky. Harry knew where they went.

'Come on, let's get out of here!' said Aberforth again, and he obeyed in a daze.

When they reached the street, Harry saw the remains of the man who had been pulled out of the window. The sight burned into his memory, he couldn't imagine how someone could do that to someone. It wasn't the creature's motive he didn't understand – he knew better than to look for such a thing; it was just that he couldn't grasp how a once living, breathing human being could ever turned into such a horrible, twisted wreck.

'Thank you very much, Potter!' Aberforth snarled, as Harry averted his eyes from the sea of blood. 'You drop in for a chat, and in half a minute the Blight is put on my pub and all my customers are dead! I can close the shop!'

'What kind of blight?' Harry looked at him, puzzled, and with a pained hiss he pulled the shard of glass from his forearm.

For the first time, the old man showed his despair as he looked back at the Hog's Head. Meanwhile, Harry tended to his wound while Aberforth cursed the heavens. When he had finished cursing and wiped a tear from his eye, he looked at Harry's arm.

'What is a blight?' he asked again.

'The Blight is an ancient curse...' Aberforth began his explanation. 'Whole villages were wiped out with it in the old days...'

He puffed like a wild boar and ran his hand through his hair.

'Damn it... I haven't heard of it for two years and now it's back!'

'For two years?' Harry frowned. 'Did Voldemort use this curse?'

'Voldemort,' the old man replied, 'and many others... It's different from the death curse. For it to really work, you have to kill the victim first. Look!'

Harry looked back through the broken window into the pub. The large husband hunched at the end of the bar began to stir, then stood up.

'We'd better get out of here,' Aberforth suggested. 'They'll make a slaughterhouse of this place in minutes if we don't call the Aurors.'

Harry grabbed the old man's arm, forcing him to stop.

'The Aurors are here,' he said firmly. 'Just tell me what to do!'

Aberforth looked at him searchingly for a moment, as if x-raying him with his blue eyes, and Harry feared for a moment he was about to twist his nose again.

'They must be burned,' he finally replied.

'Let's do it,' said Harry, in as firm a voice as he could muster, and with Aberforth he raised his wand, pointing it at the Hog's Head.

'Incendio!' they shouted the spell at the same time.

There was a thunderous boom as a scorching sheaves of flame shot out from the tips of their wands, into the pub, burning everything. Harry recoiled for a moment from the giant fireball that formed in front of him, but gripped the wand with both hands to keep a steady grip.

The windows burst open, the fiery inferno consumed everything from cellar to attic. They heard no screams or terrified cries for help – the inferi felt nothing.

When they had finished, Harry and Aberforth silently contemplated the results of their destruction.

'Sir...' said Harry, but the old man cut him off.

'Wow!' quipped Aberforth. 'That was a nice fire, Potter! I wouldn't have assumed just by looking at you. My bloody brother taught you well!'

'Sir,' said Harry again, 'I just realised. Ariana... your sister's portrait, burnt, too.'

The grin had disappeared from Aberforth's face. If ever, now he really looked like he was about to punch Harry in the face.

'For Merlin's sake!' he snapped in a rage. 'I hope she got through to her other portrait in time...'

'Does she have one?' Harry chased after him down the street.

'Of course she does,' spat Aberforth in reply. 'That's where I'm going to now.'

'But...'

The former bar owner shushed impatiently. He tucked his wand back into his pocket and flipped back his grey hair, which swung floppy and dirty in the wind.

'I'll drop by the barn tonight and tell you everything...'

'The Burrow!' corrected Harry, offended.

'Whatever,' shrugged Aberforth. 'In the meantime, pack up what you want to bring, and then you'll come with me...'

Harry raised his eyebrows.

'Where to?'

'Where to?!' sputtered the old man. 'Get away from there, what were you thinking of, staying there with Molly and Arthur, waiting until you attack them?'

Harry covered his mouth, thinking that Aberforth must have gone mad.

'What makes you think we would attack them?!' he shouted in his face, who recoiled from the sudden anger.

In response, he grabbed Harry's arm and turned him towards the smoking ruins of the Hog's Head.

'They didn't have much choice either!' he pointed a long finger at the charred stumps.

In the meantime, a small wondering crowd gathered at the ruins, in ponchos and coats over their pyjamas, shivering in the morning chill and wondering what had happened.

Aberforth turned again and went on; Harry realised that the old man did not want to be found here. With a pounding head he tried to digest what he had heard and piece together what had happened. Again he stalked after the old man, who was staggering down the street with his head down; and Harry had to realize that he had just lost his home.

'Mr Dumbledore!' he called after him to stop him. Aberforth paused and sighed wearily.

'What did I tell you, Potter?' he said in a tired voice that sounded so much like his brother's. 'I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone for a while... My home is destroyed, Helga was probably burnt to death...'

'Who is Helga?'

'My goat. Now listen to me!' Aberforth looked at him again, 'Gather your friends who have been cursed and come over to my place. I'll give you the address...'

He rummaged in his waistcoat pocket for a piece of crumpled parchment, smoothed it out in his palm as best he could, then scribbled the address on it with his wand and handed it to Harry.

'Godric's Hollow?' read Harry.

'Yeah,' said the old man, disgustedly, and then he spat contemptuously into the mud. 'Come on over. And bring some food with you, for I have nothing to eat there. I haven't set foot in that house for years...'

He disapparated before Harry could say another word. He was left alone in the muddy street; people were all gathered at the burnt-out pub, cracking noises signalling the apparating ministry officials.

In the distance, from the direction of Hogwarts, there was the sound of wings whistling and creaking. Harry looked in the direction of the sound, and saw no less than four carriages rising into the air, each pulled by a black thestral, and on a fifth a huge figure flying behind them.

Harry wondered: Hagrid had not mentioned to them a word about accompanying Professor McGonagall and the seventh years to Durmstrang. The flying black carriages and its escort soon disappeared over the horizon, and Harry looked up at the castle's sky-scraping towers. For a moment, he was touched by the absence as he stood there in the drizzling rain, the crumpled parchment in his hand, the smouldering pain in his chest.

When he apparated back into the garden of the Burrow, he stepped through the door like a ghost. His mind was a whirl of thoughts, barely noticing the many people waiting anxiously for him.

'Where on earth have you been?' Mrs Weasley called to him with a stern face. Behind her, as if to imitate her, sat Andromeda Tonks at the kitchen table with the same sternness, with little Teddy Lupin in her arms, who flashed Harry a happy smile and turned his hair black.

'Harry, what happened?' stepped forward Mr Weasley, concerned, seeing Harry's confusion.

Harry was trying to gather what to say, and meanwhile three others tried to question him, increasingly frightened by the dumbfounded boy. Fleur and Bill were there, and a swaddled baby was crying in Ginny's arms.

'The Hog's Head has burned down,' Harry said finally, and everyone fell silent. 'Several people were burned to death... Aberforth got away,' he added, when he saw Hermione rise from her chair with a frightened expression.

'How? What happened?' asked several people.

Teddy was giggling merrily, oblivious to the serious atmosphere in the room.

'We set it on fire,' he said. 'The guests were cursed. The... the dementor who was on the quay came. He killed someone... just killed someone. And then he came in and... and he did something with everyone.' Despite his initial cluelessness, the words were pouring out of him now, and no one dared to interrupt. 'I fainted. Aberforth was also unconscious when it happened... When we woke up, everyone was dead. Aberforth said to burn the bodies. They woke up... They were all inferi...'

Mrs Weasley was in tears with her hands over her mouth, and she was not the only one. Hermione was pale as clay, Fleur looked up at her husband in alarm, and Mr Weasley and his two sons stood still with gloomy faces, as if they could not move again. Teddy was still squealing and scrabbling towards Harry.

'We have to get out of here,' he said again.

That broke the ice.

'What...? What do you mean, you have to...?' gasped Mrs Weasley.

'We're leaving,' Harry said with a coldness that was almost frightening. 'Ginny, give Vicky back to Fleur. Ron, Hermione, we're packing.'

Andromeda frowned at him, but she was the only one, as she didn't know Harry as well as the others. Her friends all took the actual command seriously, and with a few moments' delay did as Harry said. Ginny handed the baby, who resembled a blanket topper, to his mum, and Ron and Hermione stood up from the table. One could almost grasp the shattering silence.

'Harry,' Andromeda said slowly, 'if there's something wrong, you can tell us! You know we'll help you if...'

'No. You cannot help. Not you. But Aberforth can. We'll be at his house, the Dumbledore house. If there's trouble, write to him.'

Meanwhile, Ron, Hermione and Ginny ran upstairs, and the pounding footsteps and slamming doors suggested that they were scrambling to pack. Harry, meanwhile, was making his rounds in the small hallway, trying not to look at anyone, as he found their watchful eyes unbearable.

He put his hand in his pocket, but immediately noticed something that was out of place. He paused and pulled the dry, crunchy thing out of his pocket. It was a roll of parchment tied with string. Harry couldn't remember how it had got there. Perhaps the tattooed man sitting next to him had slipped it in before he started shouting? On second thought, that seemed very unlikely...

'Harry, what is that?'

He didn't know who the question was from; he tore the string from the roll, unfolded it and stared at it, mesmerized. His eyes darted back and forth across the rows, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. At first, he understood nothing of it. Nor the second time. On a third reading, a vague possibility began to form in him, one that seemed more and more real, and also mad.

His three friends returned with only one baggage – Hermione's small, beaded bag, which could hold a whole tent and a library of books.

Harry rolled up the scroll and put it back in his inside pocket. He ran a hand through his black hair and smiled faintly for the first time that day when he saw little Teddy doing the same, ruffling his dishevelled hair. Andromeda couldn't resist brushing it back.

'Mrs Weasley,' he said to her, sighing deeply, 'trust me, please! It's for the best. I know what I am doing.'

'But Harry, the minister...'

'Kingsley can't help, but Aberforth can.'

You could tell Bill didn't like the idea.

'Harry, I know you think Ab can help because he's Dumbledore's brother,' he shook his head slowly, 'but believe me, he's no Albus Dumbledore. He was never that brilliant. He's nowhere near...'

His father nodded in agreement.

'Sadly that's true,' he said. 'I know Aberforth, he is a good friend, but I dare say Teddy knows more about magic than he does...' he pointed back at the fidgety little boy, now a red head and spitting saliva.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny didn't bother, didn't try to persuade Harry to stay in the house as they were told, didn't plague him with anxious questions.

'Dumbledore had a very different opinion of his brother's abilities,' Harry said as his friends gathered around him in the hall and began to dress.

Bill gave him a dubious smile, but Harry didn't want to waste any more words.

'Mrs Weasley,' he turned to her again, much more kindly than he had spoken to Bill or Mr Weasley.

'Yes, dear?'

'Could you pack us some food?' he asked politely. 'Aberforth's house will probably be completely empty...'

Mrs Weasley immediately jumped up, rushed to the kitchen and started to take action.

'Sure, it'll be ready in a minute!' she muttered, wringing her hands, wiping the tears of fright from her eyes. 'I'll pack some chicken and pâté... You can also take some bread and a jug or two of pumpkin juice...'

As she packed, Harry looked them over once more; Bill stood with his head shaking, leaning loosely against one of the wooden beams, his wife cradling the baby in her arms with a similar concern in her eyes as Mrs Weasley; Mr Weasley seemed to have accepted their decision – even if he did not agree with it.

Only Andromeda looked truly hostile, but Harry tried to look everywhere but at her – he still saw Bellatrix Lestrange in her, and it seemed almost absurd to think of her being so kind to that little boy in her arms. Harry respected her for that – but he could never like her.

'There you go,' Mrs Weasley handed over the parcel, breaking the silence.

'Thank you very much,' Harry said, and was about to go to the door, when he stopped and turned back to hug her.

Touched, Mrs Weasley sniffed, then smiled and pushed the boy away.

'All right, all right...' she growled. 'I know I can trust you.'

That meant a lot to Harry, she'd never said that to him before.

'Come on, let's go...' he said to his friends, after Mrs Weasley had hugged them too.

He opened the door for Hermione and they said a quick goodbye to the others. In the garden, they held hands and disapparated. At the end of the short, squeezing journey, they came to the bottom of a hill, at the base of a tree covered in yellowing leaves.

'Dumbledore's house will be at the top of the hill,' Harry pointed towards their destination.

Hermione gave a disheartened groan at the sight of the steep slope. As they climbed the hillside, her friends questioned Harry in detail about everything that had happened at Aberforth. They were walking in a line, so Harry could not see the shock on their faces, nor could their voices indicate surprise, for they were panting loudly after only a few metres.

'I sensed something was wrong with that dementor on the quay,' Ginny summed up her opinion. 'As if the patronus didn't really have an effect on it.'

'But you chased it away,' Harry pointed out, and taking her hand, helped her over a large stone. Ginny scowled.

'True...' she said slowly, 'but something was wrong with it. Too... too...'

'Too fast?' her brother finished for her. Ginny nodded.

'Unnaturally fast.'

Harry sighed, his anger giving him renewed strength to make the final climb.

'All dementors are unnatural,' he hissed with hatred. 'If I could, I'd exterminate them all!'

Ron snorted, then stopped, holding his stinging side. The others stopped and took deep breaths.

'Well that's the thing,' Ron remarked with a bitter smile on his face.

Hermione, Ginny and Harry looked at him. Ron wiped his brow before answering.

'You can't kill a dementor. There's no known spell.'

'Are you saying these things are immortal?' Harry asked desperately. Ron and Hermione nodded.

Harry kicked a stone in anger, then strained his thigh muscles and started walking, and soon they were all up on the hill. The stately figure of Dumbledore House loomed before them.

'The tower...' Harry muttered, looking up at the tall building.

The house was at least eight storeys high, and at the top, on the peaked dome, a wide glass window was left, probably for a large telescope. Given that it stood on a hilltop, the top window must have offered a magnificent view of the countryside – and everyone should have been able to see the tower from miles away. Harry was sure that they had charmed the house so that no one else could see it, as it was so unlike the neat, red-brick buildings of Godric's Hollow.

'Here we are,' Ron breathed, leaning on the exhausted Ginny clutching his stabbing side, until she shook him off her shoulder with a snappish movement.

She regretted her sudden haste, for she began to cough, hunched over, much to the alarm of her friends. Ron looked downright shocked to see his sister coughing up soot.

'That's what I was talking about,' Harry explained, after the girl's nausea had subsided. 'We couldn't stay in the Burrow.'

His two friends and Ginny looked at him desperately, not realising that the door to the house had opened, and Aberforth was staring at them from the doorstep.

'Come on in!' he said in a cold voice, and Harry and the others obeyed.

They were greeted by a stench of dust and abandonment. Although it was obvious that Aberforth had been cleaning for the past hour and the linen sheets had been removed from the furniture, the circular living room they had arrived in was still very cool and dark.

Ron swallowed loudly. The walls were neatly panelled with mahogany lacquered panelling, the ceiling was covered with thick beams, with spider webs woven in between them as thickly as if a curtain had been hung from the ceiling. The old man was busy removing them when they arrived, and now he went on with his work, swearing heavily.

'Bloody creatures!' he cursed, as a disgustingly fat, bright yellow spider crawled out of the web that had fallen to the ground after a fine cut of his wand, with red blobs on its abdomen.

'AHHH!'

The next moment, Hermione cringed, but only because something big jumped into her neck. As Harry looked over, he saw that the big thing was none other than Ron, who had previously screamed mightily at the sight of the beast, which dared run towards his feet to escape the old man's next curse.

Hermione sheepishly dropped her boyfriend's arms from around her neck, trying to ignore Harry, Ginny and Aberforth, who were shaking with suppressed laughter.

'Calm down, it can't hurt you, see?' she growled in Ron's ear as Aberforth stomped on the spider, and it burst under his feet with a repulsive crack, coating his boots and the floor in a disgusting yellow juice.

'Let's get out of here...' begged Ron, watching the spider webs with worried eyes, wincing at every rustle and crackle.

'Mr Dumbledore, could we go somewhere else?' Hermione said to their host, then hissed sharply as Ron's nails dug into her forearm. On the wall opposite them, another yellow spider was descending, dragging its large abdomen behind it, pulsating like some bizarre organ.

'Relax, girls, you'll be fine,' the man murmured, giving Ron an unmistakable look. 'Old Ab'll sort them out... Damn these bastards…'

Harry was just about to ask who the former innkeeper was scolding when he noticed something where the spider carrying the ovipositor was crawling on the wall: between two stone candlesticks was a distinguished coat of arms with the familiar starry tower.

Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione walked out the door, because the boy started coughing.

'Nice coat of arms,' Ginny remarked, noticing it as well.

Aberforth glanced at the wall and said nothing for a while, just stared at it as if he hadn't seen it for a long time. Perhaps that was the case.

'It used to be,' he remarked bitterly, 'but now it means nothing. Soon, no dog will remember it.'

'Why wouldn't they remember?' Harry frowned. 'They will always remember your brother.'

Aberforth didn't like the comforting comment.

'Of course they will remember Mr Brain Trust!' he grumbled, trailing his anger down another flawless cobweb.

Harry and Ginny also drew their wands and came to help clean the house. For the most part neither of them said anything during this time, with only a few "watch out, there it goes!" or "get it!" between them. When the work was done, the ceiling was restored to its former glory and the web and spider remains littering the floor were cleared away.

Harry wiped his sweaty brow, and Aberforth took a hipflask from his vest pocket.

'I've seen that coat of arms before,' Harry said, continuing the interrupted conversation. Aberforth seemingly did not like the topic, so he just hummed.

'In Amos Diggory's house,' Harry continued, 'carved into the mantelpiece...'

The old man took a swig from the hipflask, clicked his tongue in satisfaction, and croaked a little from the liquid that was burning his throat.

'Albus has donated many houses to his colleagues,' he said casually.

Harry and Ginny glanced at each other, and the creaking door indicated that their two friends had returned, now that the coast was clear.

'Was Amos Diggory also his colleague?' Harry tried to question the old man further. 'As far as I know, he was working at the Ministry.'

'Yea.'

That was Aberforth's answer, and he put the bottle away. He stood before them, hands clasped, and cleared his throat.

'It's time to figure out how to get you out of this mess,' he announced, as if reciting the day's business. 'Starting with your attacker.'

For the fifth time, the four good friends gave their account of the circumstances of their attack, which Aberforth listened to in detail, without questioning. Harry again felt as if the former headmaster were standing before him, so striking was the resemblance, not only in their appearance but also in their manner.

'Any idea who he might be?' Harry asked him at the end of their report.

'I can't tell who he is, but he could be a demon-possessed human, or something else unearthly that we don't yet know,' Aberforth scratched his head. 'Could be that he is merely a necromancer. Mhh... It's been a while since 'I've heard of one...'

Harry knitted his brows at the word necromancer; he remembered hearing something about them from Flitwick, but couldn't remember what.

'Have you ever seen one? A necromancer?'

'No...' said Aberforth. 'But I knew someone who has.'

'Your brother?' Hermione asked innocently.

In a moment, the old man got visibly upset and he looked like a rude blast-ended skrewt again.

'Why does everyone immediately think that it's always him...?!'

'Was it him though?' Hermione looked at him almost as sternly, her head tilted slightly to one side.

Aberforth fell silent, his face reddened with anger, as if his head was about to explode from the steam that had built up inside him.

'Yes, it was him,' he finally surrendered.

Hermione looked pleased, as if she had drawn something out of the old man that was eating him up inside.

Harry tried to bring the conversation back to the important parts.

'So you think the man with blue skin is a necromancer?'

Aberforth nodded curtly.

'It is possible. Those people tend to have glowing eyes,' the old man pointed to his own eyes. 'You can tell there's something in them which doesn't belong there...'

Harry wasn't the only one who didn't understand any of this; Ginny was scowling at the old man, and Ron was making a funny sound like a squeak.

'What do you mean, "they have something in them that doesn't belong there"?

Exceptionally, Aberforth did not get upset, but readily answered the question. It seemed to him that this no longer fell into the category of a "stupid question".

'Some necromancers are able to capture demons or spirits within themselves, like a dementor. To empower themselves...' he added, looking at the unchanged puzzled faces. Hermione alone seemed to be not entirely new to what she was hearing.

Ron sat down on top of a large round table in the middle of the room and folded his arms.

'Great!' he remarked wistfully. 'And Kingsley has no idea what attacked us?!'

'He must have made it this far, Ron,' Ginny said hopefully, to which neither Harry nor any of the others present agreed, judging by their expressions. 'They must know more than we do at the Ministry...'

This was all ignored; Harry knew what the Ministry was and was not able to do. Or rather, what it wasn't, he thought with annoyance.

Hermione clapped her hands together to get their attention.

'Okay, let's say he's a necromancer,' she said. 'What do we do then?'

Harry saw the moment to break the news. He took the scroll from his inside pocket and held it up. Everyone's eyes were fixed on him as if he had hypnotised them.

'When I went home, I found this in my pocket,' Harry handed over the parchment, 'A list... probably given to me by the dementor while I was unconscious,' he added, as Aberforth and his friends glanced at the page. 'I think it's obvious what's on it...'

He heard Hermione's breath catch and Ron's wondering whispers.

'K. Parker, T. Selwyn, M. Moloh, B. Zabini, T. Sunma, A. Runcor...' Ginny listed the names.

'I don't know half of these people!' Ron and Hermione said at the same time.

'Neither do I,' Harry nodded, 'But the other half are all notorious Death Eaters...'

Aberforth stared at the parchment so seriously that one could be afraid he would set it on fire. Ginny shook her head and Hermione bit her nails as she read the unfamiliar names.

'There are a lot of names crossed off the list here,' she said, after scrolling further down, 'Lestrange, Crouch, Lestrange, Karkaroff, Goyle, Crabbe, Crabbe again, Yaxley, Carrow, Carrow, Lestrange again... We know all these!'

Harry spread his arms wide in puzzlement as they all looked at him.

'I don't understand it either!' he told them. 'It seems chaotic.'

'The dementor could have given an explanation,' Ginny mockingly muttered.

As soon as she said this, Harry remembered something: the dark, greyed, withered face leaned close to him and began to speak in a low, foreign language.

'As a matter of fact, he might have. Hermione, is the Pensieve here?' Harry said to her, out of the blue. The made a small grimace.

'Yes, I brought it,' she said reluctantly. 'Ron convinced me.'

'Good, give it to me, please,' Harry held out his arm, not listening to Hermione's new rant about dangerous dark objects.

After a brief rummage, she fished the bowl out of her bag and set it on the table with a thump. Harry then drew his wand, put it to his own forehead, and concentrated hard on the events he had experienced. Within seconds the bowl was filled with memories, and Harry stirred its surface. The gaseous substance began to flow, and then a face emerged, like a waterhole floating on the surface of a lake. The dementor's voice filled the room, not a peep could be heard otherwise, everyone listened breathlessly.

'What was that?' grimaced Ron, after the face had gone under. Harry explained, to which everyone just gaped.

'Did you understand what he was saying?' he asked. Everyone shook their heads, except Aberforth.

'I have heard such talk... But where? And when?' he frowned, which made his face look even more grim, overshadowing his sparkling blue eyes. 'Wait, I know!' he said suddenly more distinctly and went through his beard. 'Of course. But I haven't heard that language for fifty years...'

'It's certainly not parsel tongue,' Harry interjected, thinking of young Tom Riddle, who had spent his student years at Hogwarts around that time.

Aberforth glared at him.

'I don't mean snake talk, you moron! I know it's not!' he snapped, and Harry suppressed another harsh retort. 'No, this is something Nordic. I don't know exactly what it is, perhaps Finnish or Swedish. I heard it when we went to Durmstrang to fight Grindelwald...'

The two boys snorted.

'A Swedish dementor?' said Ron with half a laugh in his voice. 'Nice!'

Ginny and Hermione maintained their seriousness; Hermione gently touched Aberforth's arm and took the parchment from his hand.

'Maybe we could get someone who understands the language to translate it,' she suggested, and she ran through the long list. 'I'm sure I can find someone in the Ministry's Department of International Magical Cooperation who speaks Swedish.'

The old man held up his long index finger.

'I was just guessing that it was Swedish,' he reminded her, 'It could easily be something entirely different, even a secret language – it's not uncommon among dark creatures...'

Ginny didn't like the idea.

'If it was a secret language, why would he talk to Harry like that? He should have had some sense to speak a different language.'

'Maybe he doesn't know any other language,' Ron shrugged, 'I mean, it's a dementor. I'm sure he doesn't take an intensive language course between two grunts...'

'I think it's a form of help,' Harry said, pointing to the paper. 'What he said and what he gave. I think it contains the names of everyone connected with Voldemort.'

'There couldn't be that many Death Eaters!' Hermione interjected. 'Where were they all during the war?'

Harry shook his head.

'No, not just Death Eaters,' he corrected her, 'Everyone who supported them, who agreed with them. Look towards the middle of the page: it lists almost all the members of the Black family, but Sirius and Andromeda aren't on it.'

His three friends peaked into the parchment, but Aberforth thought it unnecessary; he put his hands in his arms again and stroked his beard. He hummed thoughtfully.

'Hm... one of those buggers knows where the hideout is,' he voiced his opinion, and Harry nodded with a half-smile on his face.

'Snape's name is nowhere to be found,' Ron observed, running over and over the list of names.

Harry thought for a moment.

'That just proves the theory,' he said. 'The blue-skinned man must have known that Snape was an enemy of Voldemort, which is why he isn't on the list.'

None of them spoke for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. One thing was on Harry's mind: where did the blue-skinned man get this extremely detailed list of witches and wizards, not only unknown to him, but also a number of names with a completely foreign sound and an oriental ring. This mysterious sorcerer did not strike him as someone who was a stickler for thorough detective work. Then he wouldn't need Harry's help. Anyone who could compile such a list of names could probably find the house.

The only logical explanation was that it had been given to him, or stolen from someone, or found somewhere. It seemed increasingly likely to Harry: if the black magicians were selling dark objects in droves, trying to get rid of anything that might get them into trouble, such a list could easily turn up on a potential dealer's desk. And the crossed-out names might suggest that those magicians no longer have anything of value to offer.

Harry ran through the list in his mind. Each name crossed out represented a Death Eater who had been captured or killed in the war, their possessions confiscated, their dark objects destroyed or locked away, their Gringotts assets distributed by the Ministry to charitable foundations, it was impossible to get anything from them.

And the blue-skinned man, the mysterious necromancer, might be looking for something big. Perhaps the biggest of them all? A dark object hidden in Voldemort's own lair, something so terrifyingly powerful that neither the opal necklace nor the Elder Wand can reach up to it? In Harry's imagination, strange devices of unknown purpose hovered, promising all kinds of terrible powers to their wielders...

'Hermione!'

A loud cough and a croak brought him back from his reverie to this dusty, dark living room of reality, where Hermione was seized with a severe attack, and to the horror of them all, the soot fell with each cough like snow.

'Hang in there, Hermione,' Ron and Ginny put their arms around the crouching girl from either side.

Aberforth, meanwhile, glided past Harry and crouched down in front of Hermione; Harry had not noticed that the old man had gone out of one of the doors from the living room.

'Here, eat it! Eat it!' said Aberforth to Hermione, holding some wilted leaves to her mouth. 'Come on, you'll feel better from it.'

Hermione took the leaves between two coughs, stuffed them into her mouth with trembling hands and began to chew. Half of it she spat out with the soot, because she was so shaken by the cough. As she persisted chewing, the cough seemed to reduce, and slowly subsided, not as on previous occasions, suddenly, like at a push of a button. The medicine worked.

'Don't get too excited,' their host looked down at them. 'It doesn't take the curse off. It just helps to dampen the effects.'

He cleared his throat loudly, and then with his wand he conjured up a glass of cold water and handed it to Hermione. The girl gave a grateful murmur of thanks and accepted the drink.

'If someone doesn't break the curse on you, by the end of the month you will be finished. Your lungs will burn out, your heart will stop, you'll practically die,' Aberforth threw the words savagely into the shocked faces of the four good friends. 'Your bodies will function, but only at the behest of the sorcerer who cast the curse upon you. Inferus... That Goyle kid you spoke of...' he added finally, 'he was probably hit by the Blight, too.'

'Didn't you say it only works on dead people?' asked Harry.

'It turns dead people into inferi immediately, but if it's put on the living, it takes a month to take effect,' came the answer straight away.

Together, Ron and Ginny helped Hermione off the floor and sat her down at the table.

'We have to think of something!' Harry said, leaning back against the wall.

Everyone was silent, and no one seemed to have anything to say. Only Aberforth opened his mouth to speak when Hermione finally did, and it seemed she had only been silent until now because she had been picking stuck plant fibres out of her teeth.

'I think it's clear what we have to do,' she looked at everyone, her face aflame with determination, 'One of the people on the list can tell us where the hideout is.'

Aberforth shook his head.

'Why are you so sure about that?'

'I'm not,' she replied, 'but it's the only lead we have. If the hideout existed, someone must have known about it. We got this list from the dementor for a reason.'

Harry, Ron, Ginny and the old man thought in silence. Harry, for his part, thought it was a good idea, and in his head he already had the idea of who to interrogate. Whoever was most available...

'All right,' Ron opened his arms. 'Tell us what to do!'

As it turned out, Hermione was thinking the same thing as Harry:

'First of all... Zabini,' she said. 'Ginny should write a letter to Blaise Zabini.'

Harry, who had been about to nod, now changed his mind and stared at Hermione. He wasn't alone: Ginny and Ron were gaping like two fish, Aberforth raised his bushy eyebrows.

'His name is on the list, and out of all of them, he is the only one we know how to locate,' she explained. 'He is the only one who is available to us.'

Ginny didn't seem very enthusiastic, but finally gave in.

'What should I write him?'

'That you'd like to meet him,' Hermione explained, causing another surprise among those present. 'Tell him to meet you tonight at nine o'clock on Diagon Alley, in front of George's shop. If he's really 'into you', he'll come.'

'Why there?' Ginny frowned.

'There's a dark alley next to the shop,' Hermione continued, looking at the two boys, 'Harry and Ron will wait there under the invisibility cloak, and when no one sees, you'll stun him, pull him under the cloak and bring him here.'

With a barely audible hum, Aberforth indicated his attitude that his house was to be used for secret interrogation of a Death Eater.

'And you don't think anyone will see someone just disappearing from Diagon Alley?' Ginny continued to niggle.

'Not if you lure him into the alley,' Hermione said matter-of-factly.

Harry found himself looking at her with increasingly squinted eyes, and clenched his hands so tightly that the sleeves of his coat were almost torn off.

'How?' grimaced Ginny, as if she had never heard of such a thing.

'Well...', Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but she got stuck and just gasped, trying to formulate her thoughts. 'Well, that you… and him…'

Ron snorted heavily, leaning against the table again.

'Simple!' he said mockingly, in a slow, drawling voice. 'You just flutter your eyelashes, undo the top two buttons on your blouse and he's yours.'

For a mad moment, Harry imagined Draco Malfoy's head on Ron's neck and felt a strong urge to slap his friend's face. Ginny also looked at him as if she was about to pounce.

'No!' she cried loudly, ignoring Aberforth laughing next to her, 'I'm not going to behave like a... like a common...'

'Now why not?' Ron feigned incomprehension. 'You're an expert at that, aren't you?'

In an instant Ginny's face was as red as her hair, and she snarled like an enraged lion at her grinning brother.

'Go to...!'

'There's no other way,' Hermione interrupted the girl's angry retort, 'Listen, we don't have time to think of anything else, because we don't have much time left. The month is up in six days! If Zabini still doesn't know where the house is, we'll have to find someone else, and that won't be easy.'

Harry was not thrilled with the idea, nor was Ginny. Throwing her out as bait to Zabini, on top of that she should seduce him and lure him into some dark alley, knowing what the Slytherin boy would expect...

Ginny stood with her arms folded same as Harry did, and Ron stepped between the two of them, his Malfoy grin growing ever more pronounced. He threw his long arms around his friend's and his sister's shoulders, amused at their embarrassment. Hermione at least had a rueful but determined look on her face. They were both clearly waiting to get approval.

'All right, I'll do it,' Ginny gave in, and Harry felt as if he had been hit in the stomach with a heavy stone. The monster of jealousy was stirring inside him again after a long time.

'Thank you,' Hermione sighed contentedly.

'Give me a bloody quill!' Ginny growled angrily, pushing Ron's hand off her shoulder.

As his girlfriend invited their former Slytherin classmate to a night out, Harry stared stubbornly out the dusty window, not looking at either of them. Out of the corner of his eye, he only noticed Ginny glancing at him from time to time as she wrote. He wasn't moved; his mind replayed over and over again the image of Zabini sitting tied to a chair in a dark room, his face illuminated by a blinding light, and a muscular, Hagrid-like figure circling around him, rubbing his fists, shouting difficult questions in his face.

'I finished it,' Ginny said after a few minutes, and she pushed the parchment to Hermione, angrily breaking the quill in two.

'Hey, that was brand new!' Ron snarled, as his sister threw the pieces of feather at his chest. Hermione's lips curled into a smile.

'How beautiful...' she whispered softly. Ron crept up behind her and peered curiously at the letter. Ginny sat down at the table and didn't speak to anyone for a long time.

As they hadn't brought an owl, Ron agreed to apparate on Diagon Alley and mail the letter at the post office. He was back half an hour later and they had lunch together at the big table while they waited. During the afternoon, Aberforth asked for their help in ridding the rest of the house of the overgrown pests. When they finished everything around six in the evening and returned to the living room for refreshments – all four of them had been having frequent coughing attacks during the hard work – a brown owl was waiting for them on the windowsill, with a letter tied to its leg.

'It says to meet me at nine o'clock at the appointed place,' said Ginny, after unfolding and reading the reply.

'Great!' enthused Ron. 'At least we'll pummel Zabini's arse,' he added, after Harry looked at him like he was crazy.

Hermione stepped in front of Ginny, stroked her hair, scowling, and looked at her from tip to toe.

'I think you should start to get ready,' she suggested.

'Thank you very much, but I know what I have to do myself!' Ginny hissed in her face, leaning in dangerously close. Then, with equal contempt, she turned to Ron: 'I am an expert am I not?'

Harry preferred not to say anything.

Ginny strode off to the bathroom, bumping full force into Aberforth's arm on the way, who dared to laugh again. With perfect satisfaction, Hermione moved to the coat hanger, unhooked her robes, and combed her hair in the mirror. Ron, Harry and the old man watched her with interest.

'Where are you going?' asked Aberforth, before the boys could. Hermione was now putting on her shoes, and glanced up at them.

'I'll go to the ministry and find someone who can translate the message of the dementor.'

'But Kingsley has forbidden...'

'I don't care what Kingsley forbids!' retorted Hermione fiercely, eliciting an interesting, 'that's-my-girl' sort of smile from Ron. 'Kingsley wouldn't be minister if it wasn't for us, so I'll go to work whenever I feel like!'

She picked up her bag, went to the fireplace, and took a handful of Floo dust from the wooden box on the mantelpiece. She threw it into the fire and turned back once more.

'Everything is thanks to us,' she said coldly, the green flame casting strange shadows on her face. 'And now we are in trouble, and big time! We are not going to be pushed around! Let's do it like we used to!'