CHAPTER FIVE: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
As Harry watched Ginny disapparate away, he wondered what he'd done wrong.
He combed the evening over in his mind again, going through every moment he'd had with her. Had he been too quiet afterwards, while they'd been eating? He had been hoping to show her that he didn't want this to be a one-night stand by cooking her food and inviting her to stay longer.
Maybe she really did just have things to do back at home, and her night with him had disrupted them.
He shivered as a cold breeze blew through the street. He wrapped his arms around himself as he walked back up to his flat, determined to get some rest before he had to get to work.
He looked down at his watch as he made his way to bed; it was half-three in the morning. Merlin, no wonder he was knackered.
He noxed all the lights as he lay in bed, suddenly feeling incredibly lonely.
He rolled onto his side and forced himself to sleep.
Harry's alarm went off much sooner than he'd have liked. Six am.
He got ready for work rather robotically, and then decided not to bother with the hair-taming charms he usually attempted. When he arrived at the Ministry, he headed straight up to the coffee percolating in the Auror's breakroom.
While it was still steaming, he took a gulp, nearly cursing as he burnt his tongue. Today just didn't seem to be his day, he thought.
As he sat at his desk across from Longbottom, Harry decided that he would have to get his act together before he met with his confidential informant for lunch.
"How was your night, mate?" Neville asked him, voice gravelly with sleep.
"Wha?" Harry asked, mid-sip.
"Your evening?"
"Oh, it was normal. You know—an evening of loneliness in my flat, and not feeling like there are ever enough hours in the day."
Longbottom raised his eyebrows at Harry in concern, or maybe it was confusion, but did not comment.
"How was your night?" Harry forced himself to reciprocate the pleasantry.
"It was good," Neville said. "Alice slept for almost five hours before she woke us up," he explained. "Of course, by the time I got her back to sleep, it was time for me to get up for work."
Neville hadn't done much sleeping either, it seemed.
Harry almost thought he could feel the circles under his eyes. Ignoring the feeling, he decided to bring up their case.
"So, what are we going to do if we can't turn up any new leads?" he asked his partner. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to point us one way or another?"
"I imagine if we don't turn anything up, it'll go cold and we'll get another case," Neville guessed. "I don't think they can continue to waste Auror resources on anything that doesn't include any dark magic."
"I know that Robards said it was mostly for the press, but I'm surprised they're even wasting the resources to begin with," Harry commented. He went to take another sip of coffee, only to find that he'd already emptied the cup. "Shite. Looks like it's a two-cup day, mate."
Neville laughed, and said, "Oi, get me a cup while you're there!"
Harry nodded as he walked back to the breakroom, still thinking about the case. None of it made sense. Why would the thief leave a rune for them to find? It would take precious time to carve it into the floor, especially that kind of floor, and most thieves needed every second.
Unless, of course, the thief knew a spell that could freeze time, he surmised, thinking of Hermione using it at the crime scene. Hermione, too, knew her runes. No, it couldn't be?
No, he told himself. What would her motive be?
Selling a painting worth millions of dollars. That could help supplement a civil-servant income. It could also help with any causes she supported on the side, like the S.P.E.W., as she called it. What the hell did that stand for, again? Harry wondered before forcing his mind back to the case.
If his suspicions were correct, he'd have to tread very carefully from now on. Should he share his suspicions with Neville? Would Neville even believe him? Or would he be offended that Harry would even suggest such a thing? Neville and Hermione had been in Dumbledore's Army together at Hogwarts, and that seemed to have instilled a sense of camaraderie within the students that had been part of the organization.
He'd have to tell Neville, he decided. Neville was his partner. No matter his war-time allegiances, he had to trust him. It was for the greater good, Harry thought, before shuddering at his own thought. The greater good had been used for many monstrosities.
Determined to tell Neville, he carefully carried the two steaming cups back to their desks.
"Longbottom, I thought of something, and you're not going to like it."
"No, Hermione would never steal art!" Neville maintained.
"I don't want it to be her either, but it makes sense," Harry argued hesitantly. "The rune, the time it would take to carve it into that marble floor! She used a spell at the crime scene that literally froze time!"
Neville frowned. "It can't be true!" He told Harry. "But that is a good point."
"And we didn't get any information from the police reports that Hermione read through. Did you actually read any of it?" He asked Longbottom.
"No…"
"I didn't either. And remember how neat and ready to go she was when we were called into the Ministry earlier this week?"
"That's nothing out of the ordinary," Neville waved a hand dismissively. "We need hard proof before we decide that it's her."
"I wouldn't want it any other way," Harry told him. "Shall we get the reports and read them ourselves?"
Neville heaved a sigh but nodded. They sent a memo to the records department and their records arrived within minutes.
They each took a stack of reports and began to wade through them.
As Harry read, he found that the Muggle investigators had found a strand of long, wavy brown hair at the scene. It was still being tested for DNA, of course, but Harry didn't need any of that. The Wizarding world was, unfortunately, completely ignorant of any science whatsoever.
The hair did seem to be the only thing Hermione had left out when she'd summarized the reports. It wasn't a point in favor of her innocence, he thought. He didn't want Hermione to be the art thief, but so far it made the most sense.
He glanced at the watch that Remus had given him on his seventeenth birthday and discovered it was nearly lunch time. He had to meet with his confidential informant.
"Well, I'm off," he told Neville. "I don't think I'll be back after lunch either. I have a little too much overtime for Robards' liking, and he told me to cut my time elsewhere."
"Well, see you Monday," Neville told him.
"Have a good one," Harry said. "Give Hannah and little Alice my love."
Neville grinned, "I will!"
Harry waved as he headed down to the street exit. It would be best for him to Apparate home, first, and then to the pub. He didn't want to be followed, or his CI discovered.
A few sickening squeezes later found him at the Hogs' Head. It had always been an odd haunt, and it proved to be just as empty and dirty as he'd hoped for this lunchtime meeting. He grabbed a table in a dark corner and took a seat watching the room.
He waited for a few moments, ordering a butterbeer. Finally, his CI walked in just as he was about to give up and order his lunch.
"It took you long enough," he said.
"Well, a sale went a little longer than planned," Cho Chang said.
Cho was a pretty witch, and Harry thought she might be around his age. She dealt in high-end sales, both illegal and legal. He'd accidentally met her a year or two before in another theft case and had saved her from Azkaban by flipping her. He felt badly that he continued to use that, but he had found her useful too often to let her free of his influence.
"That's alright. It's always got to be business as usual," he told her.
Cho nodded. "So, what did you need to ask me about?"
"Earlier this week, a painting called L'année dernière à Capri was stolen, and I was hoping that you'd seen it, or could keep an eye out to see if it turns up."
"Oh, the Raysse painting?" Cho asked. "I'd heard about that. Didn't think you'd be on the case, as it was stolen in France."
"It's the same thief we've been chasing here. It seems that the art in England wasn't enough."
Cho looked thoughtful. "I'll put feelers out, and act like I have an interested buyer," she told him. "I'm not sure it'll turn much up, if I haven't already heard that it's being sold."
Harry nodded. "I thought it might be a lost cause, but I figured that I'd have you check."
"I'm always the best witch for the job," she smirked.
Harry grinned at her despite himself. "You have proven yourself useful a time or two." He handed her a galleon. "If you find anything, give this coin a rub, and we'll meet back up here within an hour."
She took the galleon and nodded. "Protean charm, how clever."
Harry shook his head, draining the remainder of his butterbeer. "I'm going to get going. Have lunch on me." He placed a few sickles on the table, knowing that Cho wasn't exactly hurting for money, but that she'd accept the gesture, nonetheless.
He left the Hogshead and walked through the town, memories of the night before with Ginny clouding his mind.
Merlin, he still wanted her.
He obviously couldn't have her again.
He began to walk towards the school looming over the town. Hogwarts was an impressive looking castle, both somehow like something out of a gothic tale and a fairytale. He imagined what it would have been like to go there when he was a young wizard. Who would he have been close with? Which house would he have joined?
Sirius had always told Harry that he was a Gryffindor through and through, but Harry wasn't sure. It seemed impossible to think he only had traits from one house. Maybe that was why they sorted them at eleven—before they grew to be real, complicated people.
Still, sometimes he wished that he'd been able to be like the other wizards and witches his age. He would have had some marvelous adventures, he guessed.
The walk to the school was quick, and the doors opened to him as soon as he passed into the wards. They had seemed to do so the few times that he had visited since Voldemort had been defeated, for whatever reason.
He headed to the front doors, and then up to the Headmistress' office. The gargoyle stared at Harry unflinching, and he wondered if he should say something.
"Erm, would you let Headmistress McGonagall know that I'd like to see her?" he asked it.
It groaned deeply, and Harry couldn't tell if it was sassing him. Could stone gargoyles sass?
A few silent moments later, it groaned again, and said, "You may enter."
"Gee, thanks," he told it as it moved to the side.
The spiral stairs moved upwards, and he waited patiently until it revealed an office door. He knocked, and heard her say, "Enter."
Minerva McGonagall was sitting at a meticulously organized desk, looking over a page of parchment that seemed quite long.
"Harry," she smiled. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I was wondering if the Quidditch pitch was available for public use today?" he asked.
Headmistress McGonagall raised a single eyebrow, but said, "Let me check our pitch schedule." She opened a drawer and pulled out a parchment marked with dates. "It looks like it's your lucky day," she told Harry. "No one has it booked."
"Oh, thank Merlin. I need a good fly," he told her.
Her eyebrow stayed raised. "Well, you can have it until five. Then, you'll be joining me for dinner here at six."
Harry nodded in agreement, having expected as much. "I'll see you shortly after six," he grinned cheekily. He waved as he left her office and headed to the pitch.
It was a warm autumn day, many students sunning on the lawn or on the shores of the lake. Oh, to be young and carefree, thought Harry, daydreaming the life he'd never had.
There were students studying, students laughing, students playing tag. Harry smiled, glad to live in a world without the fear of Voldemort. This was what Hogwarts should have been like for his peers. These children, he thought, could be children here.
He continued his walk to the Quidditch pitch, excitement mounting at the thought of getting back on his broom. He pulled it out of his pocket and enlarged it to its original size. The Firebolt 360, with all the vintage specs of the original from 1993, but with all new safety and speed features. Harry had spent a long time deciding that the Firebolt 360 was the broom for him when he'd been shopping, and he had to admit it was the one thing about him that could be described as snobbish.
He climbed onto the broom and began to ascend. He started slow, taking a few small practice laps before he picked up speed, testing his limits more and more. Soon he was racing across the pitch, performing tricks, and taking steep dives, playing chicken with himself as the ground got ever-closer.
His heart was racing with joy and adrenaline as he began to head towards the ground again. The sun was beginning to set, he realized. He checked his watch; seventeen-forty-two.
He shrunk his broom and placed it in its travel case inside his pocket, before hurrying off the pitch and to the castle. As it got darker out, he discovered that there were less students about than there had been earlier. It made sense, as supper must have started in the Great Hall.
The sunset's colours reflected in the still surface of the lake and Harry thought of all the time he'd spent on the run, just wishing he was here with the other students, doing normal things. He hadn't known, of course, that some of the students were also fighting for their lives.
He'd been so young, so naive. No one had told him that Voldemort had taken over the Ministry of Magic for over a year, until he'd caught sight of headlines about the Muggle-Born Registration Commission. He'd been happy being ignorant of the pain in the world, trying desperately to find all of the Horcruxes and to train as hard as he could. At the time, what he had really wanted was to be normal—and to have a pretty girlfriend.
Thinking of Hogwarts always made Harry think about his own youth, though he'd spent none of it at the school. Something here made him nostalgic for a life he'd never had, and an alternate reality that never could have existed.
It was for the best, he decided as he reached the entrance hall, that he had grown up with Sirius and Remus. They had been amazing godfathers, and they'd done what any parents should—allowed him to be a child, while preparing him for what was to come.
As he walked through the corridor, he noticed a plaque commemorating Fred Weasley, one of Ginny's brothers. Harry had met him shortly before the final battle and had immediately discovered what a riot he and George were as they pranked him within seconds of meeting him. Chuckling, he continued on his way, glad for the happy memory of Fred.
He finally arrived at Headmistress McGonagall's seventh-floor office, this time having a password to give to the gargoyle. "Ad Astra Per Aspera," he told it. It stepped aside and the stairs began to move.
Knocking on the door, he stepped into her office. "Good fly?" She asked in greeting, lips twitching.
He grinned at her. "You know it always is."
And then, Minerva McGonagall did something incredibly rare. She smiled. "It's about time you came and visited."
It had been too long. He'd last visited at Christmas the year before, when most of the students had been gone, and he had no one else to celebrate the holiday with. Minerva was like an aunt to him and had been since he'd been about ten.
Harry wasn't sure how, but Sirius had somehow managed to convince her of his innocence, and from there she had helped teach him the basics of magic, along with Remus, Sirius, and Hestia Jones, who had been rather talented at potions.
"Will there be treacle tart tonight?" He asked Minerva jokingly.
"You will have to see," she said. "And, of course, eat all your food first."
She ushered him towards another room, where he knew her dining area was. The room was small-sized with a small, round table covered in a tartan tablecloth that matched Minerva's robes. The portrait of Professor Dumbledore hung in this room, along with some ancient looking tapestries with the colours and insignias of the four founders of the school.
"Hello, Harry," Professor Dumbledore's portrait greeted him as they walked in.
A mixture of feelings stirred up within Harry as he looked at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, and none of them were feelings he could name easily. "Hello, sir," he replied.
"I see that the weather is rather windy today," Professor Dumbledore commented.
Self-consciously, Harry's hand found its way to his hair. It was rather messier than normal—flying the way he had done would do that, he supposed. "Erm…" he stuttered.
Professor Dumbledore grinned benignly at him. "Quidditch hair, yes?"
"Yes sir," Harry replied.
"You can call me Albus, Harry. I've never been your teacher."
Harry looked at Minerva. He hadn't been close with Dumbledore growing up—Sirius had kept him away for the most part, besides short interactions before and after smaller Order meetings at the Marauder's Den. "Albus," Minerva started. "Weren't you saying something earlier about meeting with some of the portraits in the library for book club tonight?"
Portraits had book club? Harry wondered, before deciding he'd seen stranger things happen at Hogwarts.
"Oh yes, that is correct," Dumbledore glanced at the clock in the wall of the dining room. "I am quite late. I had better get going—we read something from that American Muggle woman's book club… what was her name? Ah, Oprah!"
Harry stifled a snicker and watched Dumbledore disappear. Minerva tutted and placed her wand to the plates set out on the table. A house-elf appeared by their sides, holding a picnic basket. He had large, green eyes that reminded Harry of tennis balls, and bat-like ears that seemed large, even for a house-elf. The house-elf looked at Harry and squeaked a very high-pitched sound, dropping the picnic basket.
"Harry Potter, sir," he said reverently. "It is an honour to meet you!"
Harry couldn't help but stare, open-mouthed at him. Minerva was giving him a pointed look. "Oh, er, well it's nice to meet you too, er… what's your name?"
"My name?" he squeaked. "No wizard has ever cared to ask Dobby his name before! You are more good than they say!"
"Yes, this is Dobby," Minerva finally intervened. "He's one of our newer elves, that the Ministry gifted to Hogwarts when the Malfoy estate was confiscated."
"They gifted you a living creature?" he asked, taken aback. He'd been working in the Ministry, of course, but hadn't thought that he would need to keep up with what the Ministry did with confiscated property—he certainly hadn't thought that that property would include house-elves.
Dobby burst into tears, and Minerva only shrugged, lips pursed and a look in her eye Harry wasn't sure he'd ever seen.
"Erm, is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" Harry asked. He felt twelve again, confused by the stranger parts of the wizarding world.
Dobby sobbed harder. "No, no sir. Dobby is so grateful to be away from the bad Mr. Malfoy, and it is thanks to you."
Harry felt even more uncomfortable. "I'm glad I could help," he said awkwardly, really wishing that he had a sandwich or something so he could stop talking. He reminded himself to donate to S.P.E.W., forgetting briefly that Hermione Granger was his lead suspect currently.
"Dobby," Minerva said carefully. "Would you be able to get us another basket of food?"
"Of course, Headmistress!" Dobby replied, wiping his tears and snot on his pillowcase. Pillowcase? Harry thought, looking closer. It was indeed a pillowcase that Dobby was wearing.
Dobby disappeared with a large pop, and Harry looked at his aunt. "Er, have you ever thought about freeing the elves?"
Her eyes bugged out of her head. "I had not," she replied primly. "The elves seem to like being here."
"What if you, er, paid them?" he hedged.
"That, I have considered. It's been becoming clearer and clearer with the progress being made within the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that house-elves count more as magical beings than creatures, and therefore shouldn't be enslaved. Unfortunately, I ultimately need the approval of the school governours."
"So, it'll never happen," Harry guessed. She nodded.
A different house-elf appeared with the basket, and a nice bottle of goblin meade. "We are sorry, Headmistress McGonagall, ma'am, for Dobby."
"Think nothing of it, Blinken," Minerva said. "Thank you for dinner."
The house-elf bowed and disappeared; the pop much quieter than Dobby's had been.
"Enough of politics," Minerva said, and a small smile lit up her face. "Have you met anyone, lately?"
