Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Seven: Before the Storm
Tracking down Horcruxes was a very, very difficult job. As August wore on, Daphne began to wonder how Dumbledore had even gone about it. He couldn't have simply been asking around for Voldemort or Horcruxes, at least, not without potentially warning Voldemort himself of his endeavors. Of course, being Dumbledore, he would've had a massive network of people, and aside from the Ministry no one would have asked him just what he thought he was doing or why he wanted to know any of the things he was looking for.
Daphne and Ginny, being two teenagers, lacked that sort of network, or the ability to do odd things without people asking questions. Of course, Daphne's family was wealthy, influential, and well-connected, but Mum and Dad weren't allowed to know what Daphne and the others were looking for. Even mentioning they were looking for objects related to the founders of Hogwarts might tip off Voldemort, because why would some teenagers known to be close to Harry Potter be looking for such artefacts at all?
Here, too, Dumbledore wouldn't have faced any issues, because as Headmaster of Hogwarts, it sort of came with the territory to be interested in its history and founders.
Consequently, the going was incredibly slow. In fact, neither Daphne nor Ginny had really been out of Grimmauld Place in days, and Daphne was already beginning to regret even suggesting this plan to begin with. Even though Ministry stakeouts weren't exactly riveting, either, at least they were in service to some kind of goal. Fruitlessly poring through books and old records, on the other hand, simply felt like the kind of dead end that would drive a person mad.
At least both Daphne and Ginny got to weigh in on the infiltration plan, and that would likely be a good thing given how thin the Ministry's pretense of being genuine had gotten since its takeover by Voldemort. They were already rounding up Muggleborns to 'find out how they had obtained their magic', which meant that any infiltration into the Ministry would be made more difficult by the trials going on. Harry had been declared a wanted man once more, under suspicion of being complicit in Dumbledore's death. While no one who knew Harry believed that accusation, it would definitely make their mission harder still.
During one dinner, while Harry, Hermione, and Ron were once again discussing the plan they would use to infiltrate the Ministry, Ginny looked at Daphne and said, "Remember when we were on that date in Hogsmeade last year? How we talked about helping people by teaching them how to defend themselves?"
Daphne nodded. "Yeah?"
"I was thinking we might be able to use that as a kind of cover during our Horcrux hunt. I mean, wizarding villages might be a good place to pick up information and we'd be helping people defend themselves and go into hiding at the same time," Ginny said.
"But if you're recognized the Death Eaters might go after your family," Hermione, who'd clearly been listening, said.
"They're all being tracked already anyway. I doubt anyone believes Ron's got spattergroit and I went to France with Daphne, no matter how well our parents think they can act," Ginny said. "Besides, I never said we'd go there looking like ourselves. We've got boatloads of Polyjuice Potion thanks to you, so I fully intend to use it to go in looking like some random Muggle."
She shook her head. "Honestly, I just want to do something. I think we've learned all we can from books and records. Those Horcruxes aren't going to find themselves and if we can just get a single lead at least we'll know where to start looking once you guys have retrieved the locket."
"If Umbridge has it with her at all," Hermione said. "If she doesn't, we'll need to steal it from her house somehow, and getting in there would be even harder than getting into the Ministry. It'll have all kinds of protections on it for sure."
"Let's worry about that once we've been to the Ministry," Harry said. "I think it'd probably be good to help people out, if we can, regardless of if we can find any leads or not. If more people are capable of defending themselves, Riddle and his Death Eaters will have a much harder job subduing them, which would distract him from what we're doing and it might help people stay alive."
"The biggest issue will be the distance we're able to cover," Daphne said. "I can still only Apparate about fifty miles with any real accuracy. The odds of all the Horcruxes being within that radius are slim. And while I know London and the surrounding area relatively well, we'll probably end up having to scour all of Britain to find anything. I mean, a lot of the pureblood manors aren't in this area, and a lot of wizarding communities are further away than that. I mean, both Godric's Hollow and Ottery St. Catchpole are out of my range for now. We can go there in jumps, of course, but it's going to be hard to do because I don't know those areas all that well."
"A range of fifty miles is plenty for now, isn't it?" Harry asked. "There's surely a few pockets of wizards around the London area, and once our mission at the Ministry is over, we don't necessarily have to return to Grimmauld Place every night. If we need to, we can camp out in the tents, and if we're going to be traveling across the country we probably won't have a choice at some point. Still, as long as we can make it back here, we probably should. The Fidelius Charm is still the strongest defense we have, and it doesn't look like Snape's broken through the Tongue-Tying Curse they set up for him yet."
More like he hasn't tried to break through it, Daphne thought to herself.
She had no doubt that Snape had come up with a reason why he couldn't reveal Grimmauld Place's address to the Death Eaters. Harry's violations of the Taboo had shown the Death Eaters where the house was supposed to be, but as long as the Fidelius held, they wouldn't be able to get in.
Daphne had looked up the Fidelius Charm, to see if they would be able to use it on the go, but the charm was insanely complex and was closer to ritual magic than a regular charm. Worse, a single mistake in the casting would force the process to be started from scratch, and in extreme cases might even prevent the charm from working properly for years after the fact due to lingering magic interfering with any subsequent attempts. Doing it on the fly to protect a place they'd only spend a few days anyway would be overkill. Besides, the protections they'd practiced with the Order would be good enough in most cases, relying on the fact that no one who didn't already know where they were hidden would be able to detect them.
"I think I can come up with an itinerary or something," Daphne said. "Ginny and I will follow it and see what we can learn while the three of you are at the Ministry. You're still going to do it on September first?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah. The longer we postpone it, the more difficult it's going to become. Besides, it seems somehow appropriate that we begin our hunt in earnest at the same time the school year begins."
"How are you going to find any leads, anyway?" Ron asked.
"I might have an idea for that, actually," Daphne said. "You know how the Shrieking Shack has all those legends surrounding it, that it's the most haunted place in Britain and all of that? Well, we know that those legends were just created and encouraged by Dumbledore, and that it was really Remus causing all those noises. Well, what if other wizarding settlements have similar stories? Like an area that's rumored to be cursed, or something?"
"And in your theory, those 'curses' would in fact be defenses Riddle has put on a Horcrux?" Harry asked.
Daphne shrugged. "It's not very likely," she conceded. "From what you told us about the cave, Riddle would've chosen locations that mattered to him. I doubt any of the small groups of witches and wizards in this area were important enough to hide a Horcrux. But the birthplaces of the founders of Hogwarts, including, like I said, Godric's Hollow, are too far for this early mission. In all honesty, Ginny and I will probably just end up helping some people and learning absolutely nothing useful in the process…but hindering Riddle and saving lives are worthy enough in their own right, I think."
She looked at the others. All of them nodded their assent.
"Well, that's decided, then," Harry said. "Two days from now…the Order of the Lightning Bolt will begin the fight back."
Last of the painfully short chapters. Back to regular length tomorrow, and sorry for the slow buildup here. I just want to write the really important scenes with less time pressure than I'm under right now.