Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but I fixed my bright yellow headphones so I own them again:D
Quinky Dink: Hey, it's great to hear from you again. I'm sorry that I missed your review last chapter, but it takes awhile to get through, so I had already updated when I finally got it, but thanks for reviewing!
Melanie: I'm glad that you like it.
NMS: Thank you very much for your review, and I am glad that you like it so much, here's another chapter.
dbi: Thanks for the review, and I'm glad that you liked the rule. Here's another.
As Always, thanks to my beta!
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Chapter Eleven
Rule number nine: Patience always pays off.
There was a new code on the board on Tuesday. Draco translated it in his head as Bill began a new dialect. It didn't say much, just 'One is here in school. Someone smuggled it in' and that was that. Draco wondered what 'it' was but didn't have time to ask Bill about it, so he waited until Thursday after class.
"So I read your message on Tuesday," said Draco as he copied the runes they were trying to translate on the board. Bill was watching his progress as the number one mistake that amateur translators made was to standardize the runes into a more writeable form. Normally at this stage, magic could be used to transfer the glyphs from the notebook page onto the board, but in the first stage of transferring, which would be from the ruins of the dig, no magic could be used for fear of bringing down a curse. Bill was teaching him the entire process of translation.
"Is that so," said Bill, noncommittally. "Watch it right there on that glyph, you're squaring the form out."
"It should be square," said Draco, "to be uniform with the other glyphs."
"We would like to think that it is uniform," said Bill, "but we can't make assumptions on our part. Go back and fix it."
Draco rolled his eyes, but did as he was told.
"Good," said Bill. "Now erase it and do it again."
"What?" said Draco.
"You made a mistake and I'm making sure you don't make one again. This copying has to be exact."
Draco sighed and erased the rather large and complex glyph and began re-drawing it, knowing that Bill had a point even though he rarely ever made the same mistake twice.
"So, I read your message," he tried again while drawing part of the glyph that was somewhat reminiscent of an eagle.
"So you said," said Bill, purposefully avoiding the topic.
Draco put the chalk down and turned around. "What's hidden in the school?" he asked.
"Frankly, it's none of your business," said Bill, putting down the notebook and staring right back at him.
"I go to this school," said Draco. "I think it is my business."
"Maybe," said Bill, "but it's nothing you should involve yourself with. You have school work to concentrate on."
"It's nothing really to concentrate on," said Draco, shrugging. "I'm supposing that this thing is of consequence to the Dark Lord?"
"Yes," said Bill, "which is exactly why you shouldn't concern yourself with it. Other people are handling it."
"Like they handled the attack on Beauxbatons?" asked Draco. "That was so well planned that it took a week before word got out that the school was even attacked. Weren't your 'other people' supposed to be in charge of that as well?"
It was true. Beauxbatons had been thoroughly destroyed and although there were few casualties, it took a week before the French Ministry was notified. Later it turned out that the school was attacked as a demand to free the few Death Eaters that had been captured by the French Aurors. The Ministry of Magic in that country had then dropped all charges and released the prisoners in fear of another attack.
"Touché," said Bill. "But you won't change my mind. I would rather that you stay out of it, if only to keep you safe."
"I'm the son of a Death Eater," said Draco. "How safe do you think I am?"
"As of now, your position as an unMarked student is keeping you safe from the Order and your position as Lucius Malfoy's son will keep you safe from the Death Eaters. I would say that you are one of the safest students here, and I would like to keep you that way, if only so that you can decipher this language for me."
Bill shot Draco a grin, and Draco was tempted to return it, but instead turned back to the board.
"Does the Golden Trio know what 'it' is?" he asked. "I know that Granger is in the Order."
"Members of the Order are privy to all of the information I bring," said Bill, not really answering the question.
"But they don't know that you are spying," said Draco.
"What makes you say that?" asked Bill.
"Well, if they knew, they would be hounding you for all sorts of information," said Draco.
"True," said Bill.
Draco finished the glyph and walked over to the notebook Bill was holding, limping slightly. Although his leg was mostly healed, by the end of the day it became rather sore and stiff. He took the notebook from Bill to memorize the next rune then returned to the board and began writing again.
"You haven't been sleeping," he said over his shoulder, not making it a question.
There was silence for a moment, then Bill spoke up. "Are you always this perceptive? I was sure that I had fooled even Dumbledore."
"You haven't yawned or stretched today," said Draco. "Usually in class after getting up you stretch and most people do yawn every now and then. That makes me figure that you haven't been sleeping but don't want anyone to know, so you're hiding all signs of sleepiness."
"Guilty as charged," said Bill, smiling grimly.
"It's the meetings, isn't it?" asked Draco. "Was it a particularly bad one?"
"No," said Bill. "It's just all finally catching up to me. I've never really been one to stomach the sight of blood very well."
"For a spy, you are surprisingly open about your weaknesses," said Draco.
"I'm an open person," said Bill. "Always have been, always will be. I can keep secrets for other people, but never my own. Put me in a room with a person for ten minutes, and they will know my life story."
"Why do you do it?" asked Draco, facing him again and favoring his left leg.
"Do what?" asked Bill.
"Talk so much," said Draco.
"I've always been friendly," said Bill, putting the notebook down and looking rather thoughtful, "even as a child. I've also noticed that most people think that they have to keep certain things back about themselves to be liked better."
"Like fears, or evil deeds," said Draco.
"Yes," said Bill, "but also personality quirks, or opinions they have. I have always thought it a great flaw in people to hide who they really are, so I go out of my way to be completely and brutally honest with most people so that they don't have to be so insecure. That way, I can know the true them and it also helps me figure out my own feelings on subjects."
Draco cocked his head to the side, his fingers tapping out their pattern in double time. "It's refreshing," he said after awhile. "I come from a society where most people are hidden by masks and disguises, so it's rare to come across a true moment of honesty."
"You are hidden by a disguise as well," said Bill. "I think you are hidden even more so than others. You are a true deceiver."
"As a Slytherin, I thank you," said Draco, and Bill laughed.
The session ended a few minutes later once Draco had successfully transferred all of the runes to Bill's high standard, and Draco went to the library in hopes of discovering the Golden Trio. He figured that if Granger knew what was hidden in the school then she would tell the others and most likely she would be researching the topic, but he had no such luck.
He did, however, overhear them the next day in Potions. Granger was reprimanding both the boys for not taking 'it' seriously and that they needed to meet at the library. When the boys protested that it was a Friday evening, she hushed them with a glare, and that was that.
Draco smirked to himself, told Professor Snape that his leg was hurting again and so he could not retrieve the dragonfly wings in front of the class, and Snape sent Weasley to get them.
Once classes were done for the day, Draco staked out the library. He pretended to be cramming information for the long Transfiguration essay due early next week, even though the essay was finished and in his desk drawer. He waited even after the students and librarian left for supper, but he didn't move, and not ten minutes later Granger, Potter, and Weasley made an entrance.
Rule number nine: Patience always pays off.
Draco made sure that his head was down and that he appeared to be concentrating on the assignment, not even aware of their presence. He looked at them through his peripheral vision, watching as Granger took a large book from the restricted section with a spell while Potter and Weasley stood guard to make sure no one saw the illicit act.
Draco was inwardly surprised at Granger for figuring that out, and he was slightly impressed as he never thought that she would have the guts to pull that off, even though she was smart enough. He watched as she opened the book to a page somewhere in the middle and the three began whispering, too quietly for him to listen in.
He mentally swore, but watched to see if they were looking up something else, but they seemed to be concentrating on that one page. Well, that was all he needed to know and he closed the books on the table and left them there for the librarian to put away. Merlin knew how crazed that woman got when the students put away the books on their own. He put the rest of his things in his bag and left for his room.
He was back five hours later wearing the camouflaging charm that wasn't as good as an invisibility cloak, but still served its purpose. He knew where Granger had taken the book out, and so went straight for that shelf, spotting the large black book.
The charms on the restricted section were not perfect. Granger had gotten the book off by casting a silencing spell on the entire shelf, but there was another way. Just like in Muggle computers and networks, there was always a back door for administrators to go in, or in this case, Mr. Filch.
Filch was in charge of cleaning the library, and to do so, he needed to get into the restricted section to dust now and then. Because Filch was a Squib, he needed a non-magical way to gain access. Draco ran his fingers under the second shelf, and slid the tiny switch he felt there to the left. He then took the book, and everything was silent, the alarm on the entire bookcase being disabled. It really was too easy to get in, but then again, usually the librarian got the restricted books for the student in need, and so very few people wandered down those aisles.
He moved over to the nearest table and set the book on its spine, holding it there with his right hand, while his left lightly tapped the pages with his wand. The book slammed open, the pages flipping wildly by some unseen force until they came to a halt.
Draco grinned; he had thought it was such a book. Books that dealt in Dark Magic, such as this one, usually had a charm that allowed the user to flip to the last page read as a guarantee that no one would go snooping through it, or at least so that the next person who read it (which was usually the owner) could see what had been the last page looked at. In this case, the book turned to the page that the Golden Trio had been studying. Draco peered down at the page, then stared at it in shock.
'Horcruxes', the page read 'the act of splitting one's soul and hiding a piece in an object, whether inanimate, or living. The splitting of a soul requires murder and the horcrux insures that the spirit lives even after the body is destroyed.'
The book did not go into further detail, but is really wasn't necessary. Draco could figure out what this meant; the Dark Lord had split his soul. The only thing that was a slight bit worrying was that Bill's code had read 'One is here in school', not 'it'. The book talked of having only one horcrux, and Draco was led to believe from Bill's message that there was more than one.
He put the book back on the shelf and re-activated the alarm, then went back to his room, took off the camouflage charm, and lay on his bed, staring into the dark. He wondered how many there were. He wondered what would happen if the Dark Lord got them all back. He wondered mostly what he would do on that night after school.
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Bill sat in the Headmasters office Friday afternoon with a teacup in his hand.
"No one mentioned the bat attack," he said to the Headmaster. "The Dark Lord wasn't even gloating about it, which makes me think that he didn't plan it."
"Does it now?" asked the Headmaster thoughtfully, sucking on a lemon drop.
"The paper only mentioned the fact that there was a vampire bat, nothing about the Dark Mark, and so I don't think Voldemort was even aware of it."
"An interesting proposition," said Dumbledore. "How then do you think it got there?"
"Perhaps it wasn't of Voldemort's bidding, but a Death Eater who planned it. Look at the World Cup two years ago. That was for show and planned by Death Eaters rather than Voldemort."
"An interesting spin on such events," said Dumbledore. "I suppose the only way we will find out if this is true is if we release the information that the bat did have the Dark Mark burned onto its chest."
"And yet if we do that we are sure to incite mass riot," said Bill. "I'll just have to be sure to pay even closer attention during the meetings to see if any one mentions it."
Bill sipped his tea, then spoke up again. "Stevick gave a lesson on wards right before the attack," he said. "Do you think he had anything to do with it?"
"He could," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "But all we have is circumstantial evidence. Just watch yourself around him."
"Will do, Headmaster," said Bill. "Will do."
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So, it's one of my shorter chapters, but I promise to update soon. If you liked it, or are looking forward to the next chapter, please review!
