26 – Closing In
"Friends, I have wonderful news tonight." Kingsley smiled broadly, but Hermione's stomach clenched with nerves. "We're now ready to cast the Fidelius charm. Our headquarters will finally be completely secure again."
What was he thinking? How could he make such an announcement when he knew there was a spy sitting right there among them? Hermione's eyes flickered over to not-Hestia Jones. As usual, usual since the real Hestia had died, the spy was sitting quietly in a corner of the room, staring at her thoroughly bitten fingernails and trying to be inconspicuous.
She really was a terrible spy. Did she even try to act like Hestia had acted? Had she even gone to the trouble of finding out anything about Hestia before she stole her life, slipped into her identity to sell out her friends?
Bill Weasley frowned as he turned to look over his shoulder at Hermione. She flushed and looked down at the blank piece of paper on the table in front of her, absently reaching up to rub her tingling collarbone. Was her tension that obvious to anyone else? "Breathe in, one, two, breathe out, one, two." She forced her breathing to slow, tried to think of something calming. Her mind settled on the lovely lake in the painting in Draco's cottage, bunches of white flowers dripping off of the lone tree. Was that a white wisteria tree? Did such a thing even exist? And why hadn't her strange glowing, tingling blue rings moved lately? They'd been stuck, well, stationary – one just above her collarbones, one just around her midriff. That one sort of tickled.
"Harry, Hermione?" Her head snapped up as Professor McGonagall's voice pulled her out of her reverie. The professor nodded as Hermione made eye contact. "You'll be joining the Weasleys at the Burrow."
What? Hermione glanced over at the note Harry had written himself, on a corner of a cloth napkin no less – "Tues, Wed – to Weasleys while charm cast."
Now they were announcing exactly where everyone would be while they were most unprotected. Fantastic. This time when Bill turned toward her she caught his eye and scowled at him. If her heart was racing it was only because she was having the only reaction a sane person could have to this situation.
The rest of the room was buzzing with excitement. It was so horrible that they had no idea. Would the Death Eaters attack tonight? Or would they need a day to prepare? Once they knew that these were the last two nights where they could catch Harry unprotected by a decent Fidelius, surely they'd move. Now they'd also know that Harry would be at the Burrow. How hard could it be to find someone who knew where the Burrow was? Hermione frowned. Kingsley was no fool. He must have some sort of plan, right?
She looked up and tried to catch his eye, hoping for just a glance of reassurance, but he wouldn't look at her. She sighed and looked back at the blank piece of paper on which she'd taken no notes. She forced herself to pay attention. She'd need to know this stuff.
They were all going to have to stay somewhere else for two nights. She bit back her smile. Tomorrow night wouldn't be a problem, at least for her. She'd be spending the night with Draco, brewing the Wolfsbane Potion. She clenched her eyes and unsuccessfully fought back a blush. Time to grow up and ignore the innuendo in that thought. She tried, once again, to make herself focus on the meeting, but her eyes kept creeping back to the imposter, as though pulled by a magnet. How could she just be sitting here in their midst? Glancing around the room, she wondered if there were any other imposters? Draco was so right about their security.
Towards the end of the meeting, Kingsley went through a quick list of things, including a mention that by the next full moon they should have more Wolfsbane Potion. Hermione kept her head down, not wanting the expression on her face tell the spy that she'd be brewing the potion. Then Shacklebolt mentioned that they had an excellent lead on several sites that had grown Wolfsbane in the past and they would be sending teams to check them. Hermione's head popped up. Fantastic! Percy Weasley's victorious smile caught her eye. He must've had something to do with uncovering the list. She quirked an eyebrow at Ron, wordlessly asking if he knew about it. He was sitting just on the other side of Harry, but he just shrugged.
Shacklebolt adjourned the meeting, and disappeared out the door before Hermione could catch him. She stomped up the stairs to her room, motioning for Harry and Ron to join her. She needed to vent to someone else who knew about the spy, but they had to be safely out of earshot first.
"What is he thinking?" she fumed as soon as she had thoroughly sealed the door behind them.
"Umm, Hermione?" Ron gestured toward her bed. There was a small folded piece of paper there on her pillow.
She picked it up and smiled grimly when she saw that it was, apparently, blank. She touched the tip of her wand to the paper, and letters began to form. Soon she saw Kingsley's distinctive block letter handwriting.
"Miss Granger – Don't be concerned. We are monitoring our friend's movements. Meanwhile, you and Harry will be staying at Mrs. Tonks' home for the next two nights. We have other plans for the Burrow. Forgive me for any anxiety this ruse has caused you. Sincerely – Kingsley."
Hermione flopped down on her bed, feeling loose and relieved, as though the wires of tension which had been holding her up had suddenly been snipped. She looked up to see Ron and Harry's questioning faces. She silently held the note out to Harry, who read it while Ron peered over his shoulder.
"That's good then," said Harry.
"Where's my family supposed to go?" Ron asked, at almost the same time.
Hermione sat up, leaning back on her elbows. "That's strange. He must have some other plan for you."
"Maybe we get to be the ambush." Ron grinned, enjoying that thought a bit too much.
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. "Harry, Ron, please tell me you took notes or . . . something. I didn't hear a thing that whole meeting. I was so worried that Kingsley was . . . ."
"It doesn't matter," Ron interrupted. "Look, that meeting was a waste of time. It was just a cover since none of the important stuff could even be discussed."
"Kingsley's got to deal with the spy soon." Harry said, nodding, as he leaned against the window sill.
"He said he will, as soon as we're done with this Gringott's thing. Baldy has to believe that it's for real."
Ron pulled the chair over from Hermione's desk and sat in it, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "That's the thing, Hermione. I've been thinking about it and that's going to be tricky."
"Why? Bill seems to think that Draco can bully his way into having the goblins play along." She bit her lip, hoping that neither Ron nor Harry had noticed that she accidentally called him 'Draco.' She reached up and rubbed at the tingling skin over her collarbone, then pulled her hand down quickly, hoping that they hadn't noticed that either. They, of course, knew all about the glowing blue under her skin, but when she had it concealed with a glamour they didn't appear to give it much thought, and she didn't want to waste time worrying them about it.
Ron was tapping his wand against his foot, apparently too lost in thought to have caught any of Hermione's concerns. "It's not whether Malfoy can bully the goblins," he said as he stared off into space. The expression on his face was just as intense as the one he wore when playing wizard's chess. "The issue is then what? We want to lure Old Ugly out, but we can't leave something there that says 'Harry's secret weakness' or 'the plan that would finally work against Harry Potter.' It can't be anything obvious like that. No one would do that."
Hermione leaned back and frowned. She hadn't had time to really think about what sort of information they were going to plant. How could they make it seem believable?
"You're right, but we can work with the fake coded documents we planted at the ministry."
"Fine. So you leave the key to the code – something like that – but we still have to figure out what the encoded documents would say."
Hermione pulled her legs up, so that she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, then pressed her forehead into her fingers, trying concentrate.
"Let's go at this backwards," said Harry, who was still by the window. "Say I did have some sort of secret weakness – what would we want to hide? What would we keep in my vault at Gringott's?"
"That's hard to answer without knowing what the secret weakness would be," replied Hermione.
"What if it isn't a secret weakness?" asked Ron, staring at a wall without seeing it. "What if it's the opposite – a secret that makes him strong?"
"That's good, especially if it makes me strong against Snake Nose. He's got to be wondering why things keep falling apart for him."
"That's for real, Harry. There really is something working against him, or for you, or something." Hermione tried to remember what she'd seen in the pensieve, when Neville broke loose from his petrification at St. Mungo's.
"Fine. If we can figure out what's really going on, that's great," interjected Ron. "But we don't have much time before they go into Gringott's. It'll probably be quicker to make something up than to find out the truth."
"So . . . what do we make up then?"
"What sort of things might give special power – a charm, a special magic item, . . .
"I wonder . . . ." Hermione closed her eyes, trying to see back into her own memories. "Harry, do you remember anything on charms, amulets, that sort of thing, in the books we saw at Mad-Eye's?"
Harry turned and leaned back against the window sill. "I don't know. . . . Maybe. It does sound like the sort of thing that he would've had. I know there were a bunch of books on concealment spells. What happened to those memories? Did you give yours to Shacklebolt?"
"Yeah. I remember some on wards, some more on ancient magical items, . . . ."
"That sounds good," interrupted Ron. "Remember, we don't have to actually find any of those things, we just need ideas of what we could create and we'll just need to create a fake."
"But we've got to somehow imbue the fake with magic. Surely, they'll check for the most powerful magical items so it needs to be full of magic."
"Maybe I could talk to Bill about that. He's a curse-breaker. I'm sure he's used to checking for powerful magic. He'd know what sort of things have it, maybe what sort of a spell we could use."
"Tomorrow's Sunday so Bill won't be working. Can you talk to him? See if he has any ideas?"
"Should I tell him what we're up to?"
Hermione paused for a moment, frowning. "Sure . . . he already knows part of what we're doing. We can tell him more, . . . although . . . this is so important. Can you ask him . . . I mean if it works . . . if they take whatever it is and think it's the key to beating Harry . . . can you ask him if we can obliviate him?"
Ron's eyebrows disappeared into his somewhat shaggy hairline. "I can ask . . . but . . . ."
"Bill's used to dealing with high security things. He'll understand."
"And if he says 'no,' . . . ."
"Then we'll think of something else, but we won't give him as much information. It's just too dangerous - to him and to our plans."
Hermione felt a yawn stretching to escape her jaw. She tried to clench it back, then gave up and hid it behind the back of her hand.
Harry gave no sign of seeing her, but maybe the yawn was contagious, since a moment later he gave an enormous yawn, and made no attempt at all to conceal it.
"Let's call it a night. We're all still tired from the other night . . . ." Harry looked up sheepishly at Hermione. They still hadn't really discussed Malfoy's appearance in her room. Harry knew that she'd planned to confront Draco about it, but she hadn't had a chance to tell him how that went. She wasn't actually sure that she wanted to discuss that with him anyway. It was all too tenuous, too new, and she wasn't completely sure how she felt about it. She glanced at Ron. She definitely didn't want to talk about it with him yet.
"We have all day tomorrow to work on this," said Ron, now yawning himself.
"And then I can get the memories from Kingsley and you can talk to Bill," agreed Hermione.
Later though, after the boys had left, when she was lying in bed, one hand against the tingling skin on her torso, the other on her faintly buzzing collarbone, she found that she couldn't sleep as she worried about all they had to get done, and struggled to keep her mind on the Gringott's project, and not on a particular handsome blond and whatever was going on with him.
When Hermione woke the sunlight was already lighting the whole room. It took her a minute for the knocking on her door to fully wake her foggy mind.
"Just a minute," she called as she reached for her watch – 8:45! How could she have slept so late? Even then, she'd been up so much of the night that she didn't feel fully rested. "I'm coming!" she hissed as she pulled on her jeans. The knocking finally stopped. She should've set an alarm. She was usually the first one up and hadn't needed an alarm to wake her for a while.
It wasn't until she'd had most of a cup of hot earl grey tea that she began to feel competent again. She summoned over a pad of paper and began to make a list, while holding a scone in her left hand. The kitchen was busy and as loud as Hogwarts' Great Hall this morning, as various Order members grabbed breakfast and made their plans to vacate Grimmauld Place, at least until the Fidelius was cast. Hermione glanced around, breathing easier when she was sure that the spy wasn't there.
Ginny stepped over the bench and sat in the space next to Hermione. "So – do you want to meet me here before we head over to Hogwarts this afternoon?"
"What? Hogwarts today? I can't. I got so much I have to . . . ."
"I had the feeling you weren't listening yesterday." Ginny shook her head, more amused than anything. "We're supposed to be tutoring some of the students that are still staying there. Didn't you make up the schedule yourself?"
"Oh, my gosh! I forgot all about that. What'll I do?"
"One way or another, you can't stay here. We're all supposed to be out by tea time."
"Okay." She studied her list. She and Harry would need to use the pensieve at Hogwarts anyway, and Mad-Eye's books were all being stored in one of the old library study rooms. Maybe she could find what they needed before noon. If not . . . . "How about if we meet at Hogwarts? What time are we supposed to tutor?"
"One o'clock."
"Can you meet me there by 12:30? We can grab a quick lunch and have time to talk to Professor McGonagall a bit."
" No problem," said Ginny with a smile as she picked up a stray copy of the Daily Prophet.
The morning started out productively. Harry had already talked to Kingsley. It was kind of nice to have someone else be the one up early and getting things started. Just as Hermione was finishing her scone, an owl dropped a small bundle of bottled memories off for them. Ginny and Ron took off for the Burrow where the Weasleys were joining other Order members preparing for a possible battle. Hermione was glad she and Harry would be busy today.
As they stepped out of the fireplace, brushing the floo ash off of themselves, into McGonagall's office Hermione smiled to see that the head mistress had already gotten the pensieve out although she herself was, apparently, not in, but a note in her perfect penmanship stated "I understand that you need the Pensieve today. Help yourselves."
Hopefully, Hermione could ask her later about using the pensieve again another day so that Draco could see some of their memories. He needed to see Snape's death, maybe some of the memories Snape had left for Harry, probably some of Harry's confrontations with Voldemort. The more he knew, the more he could help them find Voldemort's weaknesses, figure out why Voldemort's power seemed to be slipping.
"Hermione?" Harry's voice interrupted her musings. "Are we going to do this together? That'd be quicker."
"Sure. You go right, I'll go left and look for any titles that might be useful planning some sort of supposed secret powers for you. Here – take some parchment to note down the names."
"Is that all? Do we need anything else?"
"I think, given the short time, we should focus on that for . . . ." An idea popped into Hermione's head. Maybe this would be a good time to . . . .
"Hermione? Hello?"
"Oh, sorry, Harry. I just had a thought. What would you think if we got Draco to come meet us here? He could help us with the planning for Gringott's and then, if there's time, you could show him some of your memories."
"My memories? Which ones?" She was glad to see that Harry didn't seem angry, just puzzled.
"He wants to see Snape's death. Snape was his godfather and Snake Eyes told them some lie about how he died. I think . . . I think he should see what really happened." She looked at Harry and he nodded slowly. She thought that would appeal to his sense of justice. "After that . . . I think it might help to let him see . . . either some of your battles with Old Ugly or maybe Dumbledore's comments after. He needs a better idea of what's worked before so he can help us figure out what might work now."
She watched Harry as his face settled into a contemplative frown. At least he was considering her suggestion. She bit into her lip, and tried to give him some time.
"You really trust him, then?"
"Yes. Harry – you know he saved Ginny. He knew those were just birds at the orphanage, but when Ginny went in, he went into her mind to try to find out why she was there. When he saw who she was, he was the one who sent her, her and the one orphan, to that field. If he hadn't . . . she would've been taken."
"I know, I guess I know. I need some time to readjust. You said he was punished?"
"Yes. Of course, Nothing Nose didn't know exactly what he'd done. That would've been unforgiveable. But he did know that they'd failed to bring anyone back alive from their raid. Plus, he was mad about . . . well, how the St. Mungo's raid fell apart. He blasted Draco's hand, absolutely crushed it. Then, . . . he has these rules, they're horrible. He wouldn't let anyone heal him. When I got there it was already infected. It looked . . . so painful. It would've killed him, a slow horrible death."
"And that's how he treats his friends."
"Yeah. So what do you think? Should I send him a message?"
"Do it. If we need to work together to end this . . . then the sooner the better."
Hermione beamed at Harry. Neither of them had mentioned the other factor influencing them – Ron. He wasn't around, at least for the morning. If they were going to all work together it'd be a lot simpler without Ron.
Hermione sent a message, asking him if he could join them, telling him to send her a message when he could and she'd come and bring him back with her.
After she sent it, she looked at Harry. "Let's go ahead and start looking through the books. Who knows how long it'll take for Malfoy to respond."
It was at least an hour later when the two of them pulled themselves out of the pensieve. Hermione checked her coin again. Nothing.
"Done already?" Hermione jumped, startled, and almost dropped the coin.
Harry recovered before she did. "Hello, Professor. Thanks so much for leaving the pensieve out for us."
"It was my pleasure," she said. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yes," hurried Hermione. "At least we think so. Are Mad-Eye's books in the library now?"
It only took a few minutes for Professor McGonagall to explain where the books were, and what counter-charms to use to get into the room. Hermione glanced at her watch. How was it already 11:30? Could she be back in an hour?
As she and Harry entered the study room, Hermione felt a thrill run through her. The books were arrayed around the room, some on bookshelves, some in stacks on tables, with neat parchment notecards that bore the same labels Mad-Eye himself had used to organize his collection. The smell of parchment, ink and very old leather was heavy in the air. Hermione took a deep breath. She almost felt as though she could feel the magic emanating from the books.
As Harry stepped into the room, she reached out instinctively to stop him. "Harry, don't forget what happened at Mad-Eye's. Be careful."
"McGonagall said they've been checked for curses."
"Yes, but . . . just check again, before you open any of them."
"Okay. And you, be careful. Don't get distracted. We're not really doing in-depth research. Just getting enough ideas to figure out what clues to leave in my supposed bank vault."
"Wait, Harry. That gives me an idea. Let's ask McGonagall if we can leave some of these books there, especially anything with a powerful magical signature or that looks . . . intriguing." Her eyes ran over the room, pausing on a scroll in the corner that looked to be hundreds of years old.
"That's a great idea. Let's make a stack of possibilities."
Before long they'd gotten a dozen books into a pile, either from their lists, or just based on their foreboding looks. The scroll had a small pendant with an inscription in runes and a second pendant inscribed in what appeared to be Moody's handwriting. "This must be Mad-Eye's translation," Hermione murmured as she read "The Visions of Zosimos." The scroll was buzzing with so much magic that Hermione levitated it over to the pile.
"That's perfect," agreed Harry.
Besides that there were "Amulets and Talismans," "Agimats to Mezuzahs: Protective Magic from Around the World," and a huge tome covered in a blood-red leather, with gilded letters proclaiming "The Hermetica."
"You just like that one because it sounds like it's about you," joked Harry.
"Maybe a little, but look at it. It looks perfect. Harry, what time is it?"
Harry glanced at his watch. "Wow – it's 12:20. We'd better get back."
A few minutes later, they had resealed the study room, and were hurrying down to the great hall to meet Ginny. Hermione checked her coin yet again. Where was Draco? Could he have been summoned? Had they been careless? Was there any way . . . ? She shook her head and forced herself to stop worrying. He'd be fine. She started when she realized that her hand had reached up to rub her tingling collarbone without any conscious effort at all.
Lunch was wonderful, if a bit too abundant. The house elves seemed to be getting bored without the usual school full of students to cook for. As Hermione took a small piece of the roast chicken, which smelled so good it made her stomach rumble, she looked over to the only others in the hall. Just as professor Dumbledore had done at Christmas, Professor McGonagall had done away with the long house tables and there were now a half dozen smaller round tables. The remaining professors sat at one and there were a few students at a couple of the others. Strangely, while the hall still was large it seemed a bit smaller than Hermione remembered it. Could it have been magically decreased? Or maybe it had been magically enlarged before? Either way it didn't feel too inappropriately large for the smaller group.
Ginny hurried in and greeted both Hermione and Harry with hugs. Soon Hermione was searching through her bag for the schedule that she'd made weeks ago, that tell her who she'd be tutoring on what today: Astoria Greengrass, Charms. Hermione bit down on her quill. She thought that maybe there'd been a Greengrass in her year, but this one must be her younger sister. That shouldn't be too hard. Ginny was going to be working with Jenny Turpin, a Ravenclaw, on Potions.
"I'd better get down to the Dungeons. I wonder if all of the Potions ingredients are dusty. I hope not." Ginny stood, muttering to herself.
Harry gave her a quick kiss and then sat back down with a heavy sigh. Hermione looked up from her schedule. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just . . . I guess I'll just hang out here all afternoon. I can't go back to headquarters, don't think I'm supposed to go to the Burrow."
"Hmm . . . maybe you could drop in on Hagrid."
"Yeah, I'll stop by, but since he never showed for lunch I'm betting he's off in the Forest or something."
"Sorry I can't help you. Ginny and I will be done in a couple of hours. Should we meet you back here?"
"Sure."
Hermione stood to go, then she felt a burning against her leg.
"Oh, no," she said, even before she'd read the coin.
Sure enough it now said "Are you still free to look at those memories?"
Hermione glanced at the stairs up to the Charms classroom where Astoria was probably already waiting for her. She bit her lip.
"What's wrong? It that . . . your contact?" She was grateful that Harry was careful enough not to say Draco's name out loud. She sat back down and leaned into Harry, speaking softly.
"Yes. Maybe Astoria can wait until . . . ."
"Why do you have to be there? You've already seen the memories."
"Yes, I know, but . . . ."
"I can handle him on my own, you know."
"I know you can . . . handle him. I'm more worried about . . . how you'll handle him."
"I won't be a jerk. This is important."
Hermione stopped to think. As strange as it seemed, she couldn't find anything wrong with Harry's reasoning.
"You can't go there. How would he get in?"
"He can apparate to the gate and I'll meet him there. I have my cloak. He can use it."
"Let me check. I don't know if he'd be okay with this."
But he was. Much like Harry, Draco promised that he'd behave.
After a few more messages back and forth through the coins everything was set. Harry turned back to her before he went out the main doors and gave her what he apparently thought was a reassuring wave.
Hermione turned and went up the stairs, trying to ignore the churning in her stomach. Surely, they'd be adult about this, if not . . . . She refused to let her mind go to what they might do to each other.