Chapter 31:
They had an excellent view of the village of Ottery St. Catchpole from the breezy hillside to which they Apparated to the next morning. From their high vantage point the village looked like a collection of toy houses in the great slanting shafts of sunlight stretching to earth in the breaks between clouds. They stood for a minute or two looking toward the Burrow, their hands shadowing their eyes, but all they could make out were the high hedges and trees of the orchard, which afforded the crooked little house protection from Muggle eyes.
"It's weird, being this near, but not going to visit," said Ron.
"Well, it's not like you haven't just seen them. You were there for Christmas," said Hermione coldly.
"I wasn't at the Burrow!" said Ron with an incredulous laugh. "Do you think I was going to go back there and tell them all I'd walked out on you? Yeah, Fred and George would've been great about it. And Ginny, she'd have been really understanding."
"But where have you been, then?" asked Hermione, surprised.
"Bill and Fleur's new place. Shell Cottage. Bill's always been decent to me. He — he wasn't impressed when he heard what I'd done, but he didn't go on about it. He knew I was really sorry. None of the rest of the family know I was there. Bill told Mum he and Fleur weren't going home for Christmas because they wanted to spend it alone. You know, first holiday after they were married. I don't think Fleur minded. You know how much she hates Celestina Warbeck."
Alicia was first to turn her back on The Burrow and begin walking and the three looked at her slightly surprised.
"She's still upset Fred hasn't contacted her." Hermione realised.
"Well, you gotta admit, if anyone is in contract with us, they're in danger. Maybe it's best?" Ron shrugged
"For him?"
"Us as well, no one can catch Fred talking to us and find us." Harry said "And I think Alicia understands that, deep down below the fact that she's upset about their separation." he shrugged and the three turned after her.
She was looking out over the hills for some sign of a wizard building, but as The Burrow was hidden, she expected so was the Lovegood's house.
"Let's try up here," Ron said from beside her and began leading the way over the top of the hill.
They walked for a few hours, Harry, at Hermione's insistence, hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak. Alicia refused to stay clustered under it with her brother and nothing Hermione could say stopped that. The cluster of low hills appeared to be uninhabited apart from one small cottage, which seemed deserted.
"Do you think it's theirs, and they've gone away for Christmas?" said Hermione, peering through the window at a neat little kitchen with geraniums on the windowsill. Ron snorted.
"Listen, I've got a feeling you'd be able to tell who lived there if you looked through the Lovegoods' window. Let's try the next lot of hills."
"I agree, if you think of Luna and how her father is their place will definitely be interesting." Alicia said.
So they Disapparated a few miles farther north.
"Aha!" shouted Ron, as the wind whipped their hair and clothes. Ron was pointing upward, toward the top of the hill on which they had appeared, where a most strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky. "That's got to be Luna's house, who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!"
"It's nothing like a bird," said Hermione, frowning at the tower. Alicia chuckled at Hermione.
"I was talking about a chess rook," said Ron. "A castle to you."
Ron's legs were the longest and he reached the top of the hill first. When Alicia, Harry and Hermione caught up with him, panting and clutching stitches in their sides, they found him grinning broadly.
"It's theirs," said Ron. "Look."
Three hand-painted signs had been tacked to a broken-down gate. The first read,
THE QUIBBLER. EDITOR: X. LOVEGOOD
the second,
PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE
the third,
KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS
"Dirigible plums?" Alicia said smirking slightly.
The gate creaked as they opened it. The zigzagging path leading to the front door was overgrown with a variety of odd plants, including a bush covered in the orange radish-like fruit Luna sometimes wore as earrings. Two aged crab apple trees, bent with the wind, stripped of leaves but still heavy with berry-sized red fruits and bushy crowns of white-beaded mistletoe, stood sentinel on either side of the front door. A little owl with a slightly flattened, hawklike head peered down at them from one of the branches.
"You'd better take off the Invisibility Cloak, Harry," said Hermione. "It's you Mr. Lovegood wants to help, not us."
He did as she suggested, handing her the Cloak to stow in the beaded bag. She then rapped three times on the thick black door, which was studded with iron nails and bore a knocker shaped like an eagle.
Barely ten seconds passed, then the door was flung open and there stood Xenophilius Lovegood, barefoot and wearing what appeared to be a stained nightshirt. His long white candyfloss hair was dirty and unkempt. Xenophilius had been positively dapper at Bill and Fleur's wedding by comparison.
Alicia looked him over and something about him made her purse her lips. Why was he suddenly so unkept? Was he that busy with the Quibbler that he couldn't afford to simply brush his hair here or there, or wash his nightshirt? Speaking of which, why was he still wearing a nightshirt?
"What? What is it? Who are you? What do you want?" he cried in a high-pitched, querulous voice, looking first at Hermione, then at Ron, and finally at Alicia and Harry, upon which his mouth fell open in a perfect, comical O.
"Hello, Mr. Lovegood," said Harry, holding out his hand. "I'm Harry, Harry Potter."
Xenophilius did not take Harry's hand, although the eye that was not pointing inward at his nose slid straight to the scar on Harry's forehead.
"Would it be okay if we came in?" asked Harry. "There's something we'd like to ask you."
"I… I'm not sure that's advisable," whispered Xenophilius. He swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. "Rather a shock… My word… I… I'm afraid I don't really think I ought to —"
Alicia turned to glance around the hills as though there was something around that had caused Xenophilius worry. She couldn't see anything but that didn't mean there wasn't something there.
"It won't take long," said Harry, slightly disappointed by this less-than-warm welcome.
"I — oh, all right then. Come in, quickly. Quickly!"
They were barely over the threshold when Xenophilius slammed the door shut behind them. Alicia spun around. She felt like she'd just been locked up.
They were standing in the most peculiar kitchen. The room was perfectly circular, so that it felt like being inside a giant pepper pot. Everything was curved to fit the walls — the stove, the sink, and the cupboards — and all of it had been painted with flowers, insects, and birds in bright primary colours. It was easy to recognised Luna's style: The effect, in such an enclosed space, was slightly overwhelming.
In the middle of the floor, a wrought-iron spiral staircase led to the upper levels. There was a great deal of clattering and banging coming from overhead.
"You'd better come up," said Xenophilius, still looking extremely uncomfortable, and he led the way.
The room above seemed to be a combination of living room and workplace, and as such, was even more cluttered than the kitchen. There were piles upon piles of books and papers on every surface. Delicately made models of creatures not generally recognised, all with flapping wings or snapping jaws, hung from the ceiling.
Luna was not there: The thing that was making such a racket was a wooden object covered in magically turning cogs and wheels. It looked like the bizarre offspring of a workbench and a set of old shelves, but was in fact an old-fashioned printing press, due to the fact that it was churning out Quibblers.
"Excuse me," said Xenophilius, and he strode over to the machine, seized a grubby tablecloth from beneath an immense number of books and papers, which all tumbled onto the floor, and threw it over the press, somewhat muffling the loud bangs and clatters. He then faced Harry.
"Why have you come here?"
Before Harry could speak, however, Hermione let out a small cry of shock.
"Mr. Lovegood — what's that?"
She was pointing at an enormous, grey spiral horn, not unlike that of a unicorn, which had been mounted on the wall, protruding several feet into the room. Alicia looked at him before she looked slightly worried, edging slightly away from it.
"It is the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," said Xenophilius.
"No it isn't!" said Hermione and Alicia glanced at her. She didn't blame the girl but considering who they were talking to…
"Hermione," muttered Harry, embarrassed, "now's not the moment —"
"But Harry, it's an Erumpent horn! It's a Class B Tradable Material and it's an extraordinarily dangerous thing to have in a house!"
"How d'you know it's an Erumpent horn?" asked Ron, edging away from the horn as fast as he could, given the extreme clutter of the room.
"There's a description in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! Mr. Lovegood, you need to get rid of it straightaway, don't you know it can explode at the slightest touch?"
"The Crumple-Horned Snorkack," said Xenophilius very clearly, a mulish look upon his face, "is a shy and highly magical creature, and its horn —"
"Mr. Lovegood, I recognise the grooved markings around the base, that's an Erumpent horn and it's incredibly dangerous — I don't know where you got it —"
"I bought it," said Xenophilius dogmatically, "two weeks ago, from a delightful young wizard who knew of my interest in the exquisite Snorkack. A Christmas surprise for my Luna. Now," he said, turning to Harry, "why exactly have you come here, Mr. Potter?"
"We need some help," said Harry, before Hermione could start again.
"Ah," said Xenophilius. "Help. Hmm."
His good eye moved again to Harry's scar. He seemed simultaneously terrified and mesmerised.
"Yes. The thing is… helping Harry Potter… rather dangerous…" Alicia rose an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
"Aren't you the one who keeps telling everyone it's their first duty to help Harry?" said Ron. "In that magazine of yours?"
Xenophilius glanced behind him at the concealed printing press, still banging and clattering beneath the tablecloth.
"Er — yes, I have expressed that view. However —"
"That's for everyone else to do, not you personally?" said Ron.
Xenophilius did not answer. He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between the three of them. It seemed he was undergoing some painful internal struggle.
"Where's Luna?" asked Hermione. "Let's see what she thinks."
Xenophilius gulped. He seemed to be steeling himself. Finally he said in a shaky voice difficult to hear over the noise of the printing press, "Luna is down at the stream, fishing for Freshwater Plimpies. She… she will like to see you. I'll go and call her and then — yes, very well. I shall try to help you."
He disappeared down the spiral staircase and they heard the front door open and close. They looked at each other.
"Cowardly old wart," said Ron. "Luna's got ten times his guts."
"He's probably worried about what'll happen to them if the Death Eaters find out I was here," said Harry.
"Yeah…" Alicia mumbled as she glanced down the stairs. She moved over to the window to try and get a glimpse of the man through it.
"Well, I agree with Ron," said Hermione. "Awful old hypocrite, telling everyone else to help you and trying to worm out of it himself. And for heaven's sake keep away from that horn."
Harry joined Alicia as Hermione spoke. The house was very high up on the hill, a little ways below there was the stream, a thin, glittering ribbon lying far below them at the base of the hill. A bird fluttered past the window and Alicia caught sight of it just before it vanished and she pursed her lips.
"This doesn't feel right to me." she admitted turning to the two behind her. "I don't think we should be here."
"Why not? Just cause he's a coward?" Ron asked
"Cowards make stupid decisions." Alicia admitted carefully.
Harry said nothing but moved across the room.
"Look at this," said Harry. He stood by a peculiar object standing upon the cluttered, curved sideboard: a stone bust of a beautiful but austere-looking witch wearing a most bizarre-looking headdress. Two objects that resembled golden ear trumpets curved out from the sides. A tiny pair of glittering blue wings was stuck to a leather strap that ran over the top of her head, while one of the orange radishes had been stuck to a second strap around her forehead.
"Fetching," said Ron. "Surprised he didn't wear that to the wedding."
They heard the front door close, and a moment later Xenophilius had climbed back up the spiral staircase into the room, his thin legs now encased in Wellington boots, bearing a tray of ill-assorted teacups and a steaming teapot.
"Ah, you have spotted my pet invention," he said, shoving the tray into Hermione's arms and joining Harry at the statue's side. "Modelled, fittingly enough, upon the head of the beautiful Rowena Ravenclaw. 'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure!' "
Alicia smiled slightly. Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure! she liked it.
Xenophilius indicated the objects like ear trumpets.
"These are the Wrackspurt siphons — to remove all sources of distraction from the thinker's immediate area. Here," he pointed out the tiny wings, "a billywig propeller, to induce an elevated frame of mind. Finally," he pointed to the orange radish, "the Dirigible Plum, so as to enhance the ability to accept the extraordinary."
Xenophilius strode back to the tea tray, which Hermione had managed to balance precariously on one of the cluttered side tables.
"May I offer you all an infusion of Gurdyroots?" said Xenophilius. His demeanour had changed since just before. "We make it ourselves." As he started to pour out the drink, which was as deeply purple as beetroot juice, he added, "Luna is down beyond Bottom Bridge, she is most excited that you are here. She ought not to be too long, she has caught nearly enough Plimpies to make soup for all of us. Do sit down and help yourselves to sugar.
"Now," he removed a tottering pile of papers from an armchair and sat down, his Wellingtoned legs crossed, "how may I help you, Mr. Potter?"
"Well," said Harry, glancing at Hermione, who nodded encouragingly, "it's about that symbol you were wearing around your neck at Bill and Fleur's wedding, Mr. Lovegood. We wondered what it meant."
Xenophilius raised his eyebrows.
"Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?"