Aminah's misery was evident in her slow footsteps as she and Gemma walked in front of Harry, his shield charm still hovering around the three of them. Ahead of the group, the Aurors were arguing about whether they should apparate directly to the ministry with Mr. Khan, Healer Jordan, and Septima, or return Peter and the rest of the residents to the Center first. When their heated argument verged into splitting up into groups, Harry thought they were distracted enough that he could lean in and ask Aminah a question.
"Do you still have your staff?"
"No, I dropped it when we fell into the pit and we couldn't find it."
"Drat."
"Why?"
"Well, mine was broken when I went into the null zone… all my stuff came out of it in the corridor," Harry explained. "I was hoping that you had yours… that maybe with it or something in it we could send a message to Godric or Besel…"
"Right, the emergency feature. I guess it would be working again," Aminah agreed through her sniffles. "You should message Ms. Midgeon. Wasn't she once an Auror. Maybe she could reason with these prats."
"Good idea. What about that talking messenger thing that Healer Jordan does? The patra- patronus charm?"
"Yeah, I can't do that one yet," Aminah said. "Why don't you send a snake with a message? Like you did for us when we were trapped?"
"I was hoping for something faster, but maybe that's the best thing to do," Harry agreed quietly. "Though I think I'll send it to Besel because Nio knows her and it could be that Ms. Midgeon is still trapped."
Harry hoped that he wasn't attracting the attention of the Aurors ahead of them who had stopped arguing and were now walking through the cavern.
"Nio, can you take a message to Besel? Do you remember her? You met her when you first came to the Center."
"Certainly. These leg-walkers reek of arrogance. Besel is the leg-walker who glides like a snake, yes?" Nio asked. "She might be able to soothe their chaos."
"Yes, that's her," Harry said and then he spoke the message for Besel and captured the slip of paper that fluttered by his lips with the message. It fluttered in his fingers like the wings of a snitch. He rolled it up into a tight scroll and held it for Nio to grasp in his mouth, then knelt to transfer the little snake to the ground.
Harry had to end the shield charm so that Nio could leave. As he crouched behind Gemma and Aminah, he hoped that they provided enough cover to allow Nio to get away before the Aurors saw what he was up to.
"Thank you, Little Friend. Be safe," he said as Nio slid away, his progress a whisper over the sandy earth. The spot on his neck where Nio had rested felt exposed and empty.
Harry tried to catch up with Aminah and Gemma, but the terrain required more concentration with the muggle cane; he could hear that he was falling behind.
Harry stumbled over rocks in the path that his cane missed, his steps clumsy from fatigue. The muscles in his thighs and calves ached and his breath was labored. Even the cane felt heavy in his hand and it was an effort to swing it in a full arc. He struggled to respond to the information it gave him about the path in front of him, let alone listening to the progress of the group of Aurors and Gemma and Aminah. Even though it was hard to tell exactly where the groups were because of the echoing in the chamber, he felt a growing panic in his throat at the thought of being left behind.
Harry's mind went to the traps that McCarthy had placed throughout the caverns and beneath the Center.
Are there more? How can I avoid falling into them if the others weren't able to? Even Aminah and Peter got trapped… despite the trap being visual. Maybe they aren't all the same?
He imagined being trapped by himself in a small enclosed space and had to start counting under his breath to keep his airways from closing completely.
One... I have my wand. Two… I know spells. Three… The null vessel is gone. Four… Nio will come back for me. Five… I can call the other snakes. Six... Besel or Ms. Midgeon will come. Seven... Healer Jordan will talk sense into the Aurors. Between the list of reasonable facts and the numbers, he was able to draw breath again and keep one foot moving in front of the other as he concentrated on getting through the cavern.
There was a pop and then a sudden shuffling of gravel under boots. It was the only warning Harry had before a hand clamped around his upper arm, pulling him forward.
"You're falling behind," a gruff voice informed him when Harry yelped. He moved his arm diagonally across his body, but the man hung on, so Harry placed his cane in the crook of his arm, then used his other hand to push the man's hand away. But the man grabbed him with his other hand and twisted him around. Harry cried out and stumbled, trying to keep his footing as the man dragged him along the path at a clipped pace.
Surprise and fatigue caused Harry's legs to tangle and he fell painfully on his knees, only managing to halt a complete face plant by sticking out his cane. The man let go of his arm. The cane broke again, the pieces sounding like glass vials as they hit the ground and rolled away. Harry instinctively followed the sound, his sweeping hands groping for the cane pieces. When he finally found a piece, he flicked out his wand, touched it to the piece, and muttered the repairing charm, then felt the cane as it knitted itself back together.
"Why'd you do that for?" Harry turned and shouted over his shoulder.
"Me!? You fell. I didn't do anything," the man cried, disbelieving. "Why's your stick made of crystal? That seems like a hazard."
There was another apparition pop and someone else was hauling him to his feet. Harry twisted out of their grasp using the Hines technique again that Godric had taught him.
"Leave me be!" he shouted as both men tried to grab his arms again.
"Steady now, boy!" The newer arrival had a smoother, younger voice.
"Don't call me boy!" Harry snarled.
"You know who this is, right, Williamson?" The growly man asked as he shook Harry's arm. "This is Harry Potter. Sirius Black is after him."
"And you leave him alone!' Aminah demanded. Harry could hear Gemma's light footsteps on the path in front of him and he signed toward her that he was unhurt.
"We're just trying to help you," Williamson said with more patience. "You're not safe here."
"Well, just grabbing me out of the blue doesn't help at all. Ask before you touch me. Gah! Ask if I need help! I was doing just fine."
"You were falling behind. I thought you needed someone to show you the way," the gruffer man said, sounding a bit abashed.
"What would help me would be for you lot to listen to Healer Jordan! Mr. Khan saved us. Without him, everyone within the Center might have been drained of their magic!"
"That's right!" Aminah said. "Wait! What? Really? My Abu did that?"
"Yeah, he did," Harry sighed.
"What's the hold-up, Dawlish?" someone yelled from across the cavern.
"Let's just apparate over to them," Auror Williamson said as he grasped Harry's arm and twisted.
Harry was on his knees again, arms trembling as he dry-heaved toward the dusty floor. He had no idea where he was in the cavern now. He wobbled on his knees as he struggled to sit up.
"Stop doing that! I told you!" Harry shouted, his indignant voice bouncing off the nearby cavern wall.
"You said to ask," Auror Williamson said.
"Right. And would it kill you to wait for a response? Gah! I hate apparition!" Harry slammed his palm on the ground, wincing as sharp rocks minced his hand.
"Oi! That's a huge snake!" Auror Williamson shouted. Then there was a crack as a spell ricocheted off nearby rocks and from the sounds Harry realized that they must be by the caves Healer Jordan, Septima, and he had huddled in when they first arrived; where they first met the Adelphi. "Missed him!"
"Don't shoot the snakes!" Harry called out.
"Shoot? What are you talking about? Wait. There are more?"
"Don't blast them. They are with me! They helped us!" Harry yelled.
Harry could hear Aminah shouting from across the cavern and guessed that the other Auror had tried to apparate with Gemma and Aminah, too, but that they had been able to fend him off.
Harry heard the rustling of more snakes and cast a protection charm as he thought about how the space was shaped based on the echoes and how much he wanted to prevent the Aurors from hurting the snakes that had just helped them save the Center.
There were gasps and the sound of spells bouncing off his shield. He could also feel the spells bouncing off it through his wand arm, as if he were tethered to the shield.
"Don't hurt the snakes!" he yelled again.
"How are you even doing that?" Auror Williamson exclaimed. "I thought you couldn't see!"
Harry didn't deign to respond. Instead, he compressed his lips into a tight line as he concentrated on holding the shield. Behind it, he could hear the faint hisses of the Adelphi. His shield was protecting them and he breathed a sigh of relief. Before he cast it, he hadn't given much thought to the possibility of misgauging the shield and harming the snakes in his attempt to protect them.
"Good work shielding us from the snakes," Auror Dawlish said when he approached Harry. "But wouldn't it be better to just to vanish the lot of them?"
"No! Listen to us. You keep attacking the ones who are helping us! You burst in here thinking you know what is going on, thinking you're bloody saving the day, but you're just making it worse!"
"Oi! Settle down and listen. We'll talk about this once we've secured your safety. Right now, we need to mitigate the threats," Auror Dawlish said, stepping closer.
"Do not grab me again," Harry said, sweeping the area around his feet with his cane in an attempt to keep the Auror at bay. He was beginning to shake with the effort of maintaining the shield around the snakes.
"You need to get the Adelphi to safety," Harry spoke in parseltongue to the snakes behind the shield. "These leg-walkers mean to harm you."
"A parselmouth!" Auror Dawlish exclaimed, taking a step back.
Aminah's frustration and anger was reaching a fevered pitch as she and Gemma closed in… to the point where her meaning was clear, but her words were not.
"Oi! You lot. We'll have to put the silencing charm on all of you and take you into custody as well if you don't settle down!" Auror Williamson said as he came closer.
A loud hiss from one of the snakes broke through the commotion and Harry understood that they were safe and he could lower the shield. As he brought his wand arm down, he grabbed the invisibility cloak out of his pocket and muttered the levitating charm so that it billowed in the air around him.
"Gemma, Aminah! Step close to me!" he shouted, hoping that Gemma could read the slips of paper by his lips.
Gemma's warm hand settled on his shoulder and he canceled the levitating charm and flicked his wand back into the holster. She helped him pull the cloak around the three of them as they drew together. Harry whispered the privacy charm so that he could tell Aminah what they were doing without giving away their location and Gemma actions confirmed that she was able to read the messages when she started guiding the two of them toward the alcove that Harry, Septima, and Healer Jordan had hidden in earlier. He could smell the traces of the burned oracle stones in the cave as they entered it. Gemma put her hand on his forehead, warning him of the low entrance and he ducked down, warning Aminah behind him. He folded up his cane and stuck it in his pocket.
"Where'd they go?" the Aurors shouted as they cast revealing spells but the spells bounced off the surface of the cloak without alerting the Aurors to where they were. "They can't just disappear like that! Was that apparition? They are too young to apparate on their own. We have to find them! What if Black is down here?"
Harry shuddered at the thought of the giant hound following their scent, but at the moment the Aurors seemed more of an imminent threat.
"Harry, Gemma! How are we going to convince them that my Abu is innocent if we're hidden from them?" Aminah moaned.
"We had to hide. They were going to bind us up, too, along with Healer Jordan and Septima and your dad. I hope Nio gets my message to Besel soon!"
Gemma placed her hands under Harry's and started signing, "I think they left."
"The Aurors?"
"Yes, they _," Gemma said.
Harry made a feeble attempt to repeat the sign that he didn't understand, drawing his eyebrows together in a question.
"A-P-P-A-R-A-T-E-D," Gemma fingerspelled into his palm and then repeated the sign under his hands.
Harry repeated the sign and Gemma corrected his motions.
"What are you two doing?" Aminah asked, her hands fluttering over Harry's and Gemma's.
"She's teaching me a new sign," Harry explained.
"This isn't the time!" Aminah said, pushing their hands away in exasperation.
"Hey. Aminah. That's like casting the silencing charm on someone. Gemma was telling me that the Aurors had apparated. They left," Harry said, trying to tamp down the flash of anger that erupted in his gut when she pushed their hands away.
Aminah was quiet for a moment.
"Sorry. I wasn't thinking." Grief made her voice thick.
"It's okay. I know. This is hard. We're going to do whatever we can to get justice for your dad," Harry said, finding her hand and squeezing it.
He paused, listening. The cavern did seem eerily silent after all the earlier tumult.
"They gave up that easily?" Aminah whispered.
"It looks like it," Gemma signed to Harry and he repeated for Aminah.
"That doesn't seem right," Aminah sighed.
"I agree. Let's wait a little longer. Maybe Nio will come back."
"I'm really sick of being stuck in these caves," Gemma signed, spelling out "C-A-V-E-S" and teaching Harry the sign. He had to agree.
"I'm so hungry," Aminah moaned and both Harry and Gemma commisserated.
"How long have we been down here?" Harry asked. "Is it still Tuesday even?"
"No idea," Gemma signed. They burst into giggles at that and Harry was thankful that he'd cast the privacy charm over them.
"Sthei cherio kisa, I can smell you… but where are you?" Nio asked from the entrance of the cave, his voice was muffled—he was clearly talking around something in his mouth.
"Nio!" Harry exclaimed, making Aminah jump, while Gemma made the sign for snake under his hand. "I'm over here, under the cloak."
Gemma grabbed the paper by his mouth and signed, "What?"
Nio slid into the cave, sending some small pebbles rolling down the slope.
"Oh, I was talking to Nio," Harry explained. "Does it write out the parseltongue?"
"Yes," Gemma nodded under his hand.
"Sthei, where are you?"
Harry realized that the snake couldn't hear him because of the privacy charm, so he stuck his fingers underneath the edge of the cloak and wiggled them, hoping to attract the snake's attention.
"Oh, there you are. Why aren't you speaking? Is it because of that stinking leg-walker out hiding behind the stalagmite? Funny that he's hiding from you," Nio said as he slid under the cloak and up Harry's offered hand, spitting out a small bit of rolled parchment in Harry's palm.
"Your snake is back?" Aminah asked.
"Yes," Harry said. "He brought a note. And he says that there is an Auror hiding from us, behind a stalagmite."
"What? Where?" Gemma signed under his hand.
"Can you point out where the Auror is to Gemma?" Harry asked the snake, holding him out to Gemma, who took Nio gingerly from Harry. He explained to Gemma that Little Friend was going to point out the Auror. He laid his hand on Gemma's arm so that he could get a sense of where in the cavern the Auror was hiding. He was glad that they had trusted their instincts to remain hidden and silent when the rest of the Aurors had left.
"Sthei cherio kisa, I could also smell a wet dog down here," Little Friend said.
Harry couldn't repress the shudder that shot through him.
"What is it?" Aminah asked, squeezing his shoulder.
"Nio smelled a wet dog," Harry said. Gemma was turned away from him, so he thought she didn't see the words he'd spoken. He pulled on her arm to get her attention and felt her turn toward him and then said it again. Her reaction wasn't quite as alarmed as Aminah's.
"Did you see it? The dog?" Harry asked.
"Footsteps," she signed under his outstretched hand.
"Pawprints?" Harry confirmed. "Where?"
"Along the wall," Gemma said.
"Maybe it's not so terrible that there's still an Auror down here with us. Maybe they noticed, too?" Aminah said in a shaky voice. "Gah! I just want this all to end. I want my Abu! I don't want to be stuck in these bloody tunnels! The air down here stinks like rotten eggs! What are we going to do?"
"Nio, did you find Besel? She sent this message?" Harry asked, rolling the small scroll between his fingers.
"Yes, she took the note. I couldn't understand her words. What did she write on the note?" Nio asked.
"Gemma, what does this say?" Harry said, holding the note out to her.
Gemma took it and unrolled it and then started signing under Harry's hands.
"What does it say?" Aminah and Nio asked at the same time.
"Just a sec," Harry said, first in English and then in Parseltongue.
"Besel says that the Aurors arrived and they are talking. She wants us to return to the Center with the man. Er. The Auror?" Harry stumbled through interpreting Gemma's signs for Aminah and then Nio.
"That there is danger down here? Right? Is that what this means?" Harry repeated the sign he didn't understand.
"Yes, Black."
"Sirius Black, right." Harry said. "Blimey! If Nio could smell us, then no doubt the dog can, too!"