Chapter 14: Debriefing

The Prime Minister's fireplace flared, and the other minister came though. Rufus Scrimgeour brushed his robes off, greeted the Prime Minister, and sat down. A minute or so later the bells of Big Ben chimed ten and there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," called the Prime Minister.

Kingsley Shacklebolt entered the room, nodded at both ministers, and waved his wand around.

"We're secure, there are no listening spells, Ministers."

"Proceed Mr. Shacklebolt," the Prime Minister ordered.

"Yes, sir. This afternoon around three-fifteen we detected magic from the records building. Magical forensics thinks that the first thing that happened was a variation of the Colloportus spell was used to lock up the whole building. No one had ever heard of doing it to a whole building before..."

"That's a door sealing charm, Minister," Scrimgeour said, answering the PM's confused look.

"You-Know-Who appears to have entered in the basement in one of the record rooms. He killed a half dozen people he saw around, started a fire, and Apparated to the top floor. He put up an anti-Apparation ward. Then he started killing anyone he saw. He must have cast forty or fifty spells over the next 8 minutes, mostly death curses, but a few to torture someone before he killed them. Meanwhile Aurors were Apparating into the area, and discovering that the building was inaccessible.

"Inside the people were panicking. Someone set off the fire alarm. The sprinkler system actually was handling the fire in the basement, but the alarm sent the people trying to escape. The ground floor quickly became wall to wall people.

"About five minutes into the attack two unknown witches got the attention of one of the Aurors trying to get into the building. They informed him that it was You-Know-Who inside, and that the door would have to be destroyed to get the people out. They also came up with the terrorist attack cover story, and a way to keep the Secrecy Law intact while using a blasting charm on the door. However, they themselves had somehow caused a part of the wall to become porous, and let about sixty people actually walk through the wall to escape.

"The police had already started clearing the street when the door was blasted. After about half the people were out of the building, You-Know-Who reached the lobby, and got into a firefight with the Aurors. The Aurors tried to keep him occupied while the the people escaped, but he killed a lot of escaping people, including two Aurors and seven Muggle police. The Apparition wards then fell, and he disappeared. But less than a minute later the building collapsed. He seems to have gone back to the basement, took out a number of support columns with Reducto curses, and left.

"The Obliviators have been very busy since then. The hardest to find were the ones who went through the wall. We don't know how many there were, nor could we keep track of them at that time.

"The Obliviators have been to all the known employees who were in the building, and anyone they can remember talking to shortly before the attack. Luckily it was over so fast, no one seems to have recorded it.

"There were probably over a hundred civilians killed in the attack. The whole thing took about twelve to fifteen minutes."

"What was the goal of this all? You say he's not a terrorist in the normal sense. He wants to take over the Wizarding world. Why attack here? What records would he want to destroy?"

Shacklebolt shook his head. "I can't say, sir."

The Minister of Magic seemed to be thinking of something, though. Both the undercover Auror and the Prime Minister looked at him.

"Potter told me that You-Know-Who grew up in a Muggle orphanage. Was he trying to hide that information? Could someone in his ranks have been asking questions that he didn't want answered?"

The Prime Minister couldn't answer those questions, but did pose one of his own. "What about those witches? Could they have brought You-Know-Who there? They escaped, were they working with him? Or working against him? Could they be among his followers who are asking questions? Are there cracks in his ranks?"

"I don't know, Prime Minister, but I intend to find out. But for now we can attribute this to another terrorist attack, and the Secrecy remains unbroken, for the most part. Shaklebolt, good job. Keep me informed of any more developments. Prime Minister, good day."

After Scrimgeour left, the Prime Minister wanted a written, magic-free version of the day's events for his cabinet meeting the next day. Shaklebolt told him it would be ready by morning, and took his leave, too.

The Prime Minister sat in his office and put his head in his hands. He was fighting some sort of supernatural monster, and he had no weapons. Nothing he had heard tonight gave him any confidence that these wizards could deal with the problem.

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A few hours before the meeting between the ministers, the Weasleys and Harry returned to the Burrow. Harry had slept a few hours and woke with a headache that was only partially soothed by the potions he was given. He refused to say what happened, and was examined by numerous healers before his insistence that he was "fine" was accepted. Actually, it never was, but his entreaties to Mrs. Weasley to take him home finally bore fruit.

They got back to the Burrow around eight to find Hermione sleeping on the couch in the living room. The witch was startled that it was so late, and didn't know when she had fallen asleep. She raced upstairs to check on Luna.

Shortly thereafter everyone gathered around the table and shared stories. At first all Harry would say was that his pain was caused by Voldemort. Hermione related the events at the records building, and deduced that Voldemort's killing curses were the cause of Harry's pain. Harry only nodded.

Mrs. Weasley fed everyone. She insisted that Luna stay the night after what happened. She also contacted Professor McGonagall and Mad Eye, and they soon showed up at the house. Molly and Hermione filled the two Order members in on what happened that day. Neither Harry nor Luna wanted to talk about it. The two adults left after hearing the story. Soon everyone was in bed except Harry, Hermione, and Luna. They sat quietly in the living room, listening to the frogs peeping and the insects buzzing outside the screens of the open windows.

Luna broke the silence. "Harry, how are you really? I know the Cruciatus curse hurts. And obviously the killing curse does, too. But Voldemort must use them a lot more often than we've seen you affected by them. Are there times when they don't hurt?"

"No, but this is the first time that I know of that he's used the killing curse, since the link became stronger under Snape's 'instructionsand his possession of me. I think he usually lets his Death Eaters do the killing these days. He still uses the Cruciatus, but less often, now, I think. I don't know if he's getting tired of it, or. . . ." His voice dropped off. The girls looked at him, but didn't interrupt. He began talking again. "During the day, if I remember to practice my Occlumency, the pain is lessened. I think I'm getting better with it, because the pain is very mild now, and sometimes doesn't even wake me up if I'm sleeping. I still end up with a killer headache, though."

"Did you forget to use Occlumency today?" Luna asked.

"No, I did the exercises. But the killing curse seems to have broken right though my defenses. And the more he cast, the more open the connection between us got. I got the impression he was among the Muggles. But the other thing I think I noticed was that he might have been feeling the pain he was causing me, to a lesser extent. He certainly wasn't writhing on the floor in pain, but he could definitely feel it. And I'm pretty sure his pain increased as the link became more open. So even though I was in pain, I was trying to block my mind. I think I succeeded. I don't think he knew it was me that was hurting him."

Eventually the rest of the household went to bed. Luna and Harry stayed up watching the fire. It was a warm night, but Harry found the flames relaxing, and assumed that Luna did too. They talked a little about her day, and Harry praised her for saving so many people. After a while the fire started dying, and Luna stood up.

"Thank you for sitting with me, Harry. You were a great help."

"All I did was sit here and listen when you talked."

"That's what I needed. Good night. You should get some rest, too."

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Voldemort sat alone in the room. He wished to see no one. This should have been a triumphant day for him. He walked among the Muggles like a god, killing with impunity. But something went wrong. Something was seriously wrong.

It started as a mild headache with the first death. He loved inflicting pain, hated being in pain, and had a high pain threshold. But with each killing curse he cast, he had to admit that the pain got worse.

He was a Slytherin, of course, in blood as well as temperament. The sorting hat, those many years ago, had offered to put him in Ravenclaw, though. But being intelligent didn't mean you couldn't be stupid. In fact he was falling to the trap that many successful people fall into: he had reached his position with correct choices, so much so that he no longer considered the fact that he might be wrong. The practical upshot was that he couldn't face the fact that his curses were hurting him.

"Get me Snape," he ordered. The unlucky Death Eater bowed and rushed from the room.

Later, when he punished Snape for making him wait so long for the potion master to show up and for coming up with the Azkaban plan without informing him, he would use the pain curse for the shortest time Snape had even known him to do so.

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The next morning the Burrow was a quiet place. Harry had had a restless sleep. His Occlumency shields had mostly protected him from Voldemort expressing disappointment with Snape for not being available when he was called. Luna had spent the night, and seemed better, if quiet, the next morning. Hermione was puzzling over the fact that there seemed to no way to find the orphanage. Ron was trying to be attentive to Hermione after her brush with danger yesterday. And Ginny was being sullen about Harry's refusal to be her boyfriend. They were mostly through breakfast when Harry spoke up.

"Tomorrow is Neville's birthday. I need to go shopping to get him something later. Anyone else need to get him a present?"

Mrs. Weasley tried to veto the idea, but Hermione and Ron played the adult card, Harry refused to give in, and Luna wasn't hers to order around. The only person she could command was Ginny. Harry did placate her by agreeing to stay well away from Diagon Alley. Mrs Weasley relented on Ginny, but insisted that Ginny meet with her at St. Mungo's by two thirty in the afternoon. After breakfast they floo-ed to Neville's for their training.

After lunch the group (minus Neville, but including Remus) floo-ed to Headquarters, and entered Muggle London that way. After shopping for about an hour, Ginny had to go to St. Mungo's. Luna invited Harry back to her house because she wanted to talk to him -- more research into the "power he knows not." Harry agreed (purposefully ignoring the look Ginny gave him) and Ron and Hermione decided to go with Ginny to sit with Arthur and Fred. Remus headed back to Neville's.

Harry spent the next several hours answering Luna's questions about his "adventures." He objected to the term, because they certainly didn't seem fun and adventurous to him when he was going through them. From her questions, Harry knew that she was quite familiar with his activities. She concentrated on his meetings with Voldemort, or the memory of Voldemort in the Chamber of Secrets. After talking for a long time, Harry had a question of his own.

"So, have you figured out what the "power the Dark Lord knows not" is?"

Luna gave a sigh, and looked away from him.

"The first year, besides having friends who helped you through a lot of the puzzles, you defeated him with your blood protection -- the fact that he couldn't touch you with out hurting himself. Second year you had help from Hermione so you knew what Slytherin's monster was; I think you would have been petrified or killed if you didn't know that you shouldn't look at the monster. And Ron helped you get past Lockhart, admittedly with a lot of luck. And once in the fight with the snake you were helped by Fawkes. But you make the killing blow on both the basilisk and the diary.

"Fourth year you fought the resurrected Voldemort. You beat him with a combination of luck, skill, and assistance from the shades of your parents.

"In your fifth year I was with you, but only part of the time, as we fought the Death Eaters. I have to say we beat them with the skills you taught us in the DA, and a good helping of luck. If your friends in the Order. . . ." She stopped mid sentence, and seemed to stare off in space.

"What? What's wrong?" Harry asked, anxiously.

"Harry, there are two things that keep coming up in your fights with Voldemort. Did you notice it?"

Harry thought about her summary of his battles. "Uh, I see that luck is one. I mean, if Dobby hadn't tried to stop me from going to Hogwarts, then Ron and I wouldn't have taken his father's car, who luckily had enchanted it so it could get us there, and Ron wouldn't have broken his wand, which backfired when Lockhart tried to stop us. And we wouldn't have crashed, and the car "ran" away, only to rescue us from the spiders later. That is such an unlikely set of coincidences, I find it hard to believe, and it happened to me!

"And fifth year, if we hadn't met, at least in the DA, you wouldn't have been with us when I broke into Umbridge's office and got captured, and you got us to the Ministry by noticing the Thestrals, and kept Ron and Ginny alive, and helped keep the Death Eaters busy until the Order did arrive. Another unbelievable set of coincidences. Are you saying that it's my luck that the power Voldemort knows not?"

She shook her head. "No. If you look at any event in your life, the way you got there is filled with such specific actions, choices, and random occurrences, that when you think about it, it seems totally unbelievable that all the necessary events took place, or else that we're the playthings of luck or whoever throws the cosmic dice. Luck is great, but there's another common factor in all your encounters. Of course you might as well say that stubbornness is the power; your incredible refusal to give give up even while facing the Dark Lord! But I still think it's something else."

Harry thought for a moment, then shook his head. "What?" he asked.

"I'm tempted to say Ron and Hermione, but that's not quite true. You didn't get through any of these events without help from your friends and loved ones. And if you accept that "friendship" is a form of "love" then you can say that "love" is the power that the Dark Lord knows not; but it's not a power that can be "used." That was always my problem with Dumbledore's statement that it's "love." It can't be used, it can only be given. We gave ourselves to help you. You helped train us, true, so it is an exchange of love, but it's not a commercial transaction. You freely gave your knowledge and time to us, and we freely gave our support when you went to the Ministry. And your friends from the Order freely gave their help. Nobody was used! It was love!"

"What about in the graveyard?"

"You had magical, one could almost say supernatural, help there. Your parents helped. Of course, I wouldn't count on that sort of thing happening again."

Harry stared at her for a moment, and then turned away, shaking his head.

"What's the matter, Harry?"

"Ron -- attacked by the brain monsters, almost Obliviated, knocked out by a giant chess set; Hermione -- petrified, sliced by that spell; you -- knocked out; Neville -- with a broken nose; Cedric -- dead! Sirius -- dead! Dumbledore -- dead! I don't want to lose anyone else! I don't want any of you hurt!

"And you're telling me that I need to lead you into danger again? That my friends are the unknown power? I can't accept that!"

"We're already in danger. And we don't want you facing danger any more than you want us to. And not by yourself -- not if we can help! Accept us. We're going to try to help you anyway. And with the training we're getting, we're not going to be helpless. Accept us graciously. If it helps, think of our assistance as just another lucky coincidence that would make a bad story," she finished with a smile.

Harry chuckled.

"What's funny?"

"Hermione would get bossy telling me that. Ron would badger me, insisting over and over that I had to have help. You smile. I like your way of persuasion better."

She smiled bigger, and invited him to dinner.

"Only if you let me ask you questions," he responded.

"What would you want to ask me?"

"Tell me about your travels. Until a few weeks ago I had never been anywhere except Surrey, London, and around Hogwarts. You went to Sweden, and have been other places. Tell me about them."

She laughed, and started talking. She spoke a little about the failed search for the elusive Crumpled-Horned Snorkacks, but mostly about the country and people they met. She talked about a trip to Greece she took with her parents when she met a hamadryad. She laughed at the good natured fight her parents had, because her father couldn't keep his eyes from wandering over the naked nymph. She sighed.

"That was the summer before my mum died."

"I'm sorry, Luna. I didn't mean to make you sad."

"It's alright, Harry. I still miss her, but I do like to remember the happy times. Even as she was dying, she gave me this necklace to help remember the happy times. She told me to always keep it safe."

She held her infamous butterbeer cork necklace up, and she did smile, although it was a sad smile.

She gave Harry a real smile, and said, "I wouldn't be the witch I am today if she hadn't been who she was. It's sad we had so little time, but I'm happy for the time we did have."

As they were finishing up dinner, Harry asked, "How is your other research going?"

Luna lost the smile that had graced her most of the dinner. "Slow. I was able to go through all The Quibbler's issues of the 70's and early 80's, but that's just a once a week newspaper. It's taking a lot longer looking through The Prophet, as it is printed every day. The best possibilities I've found are Robert Anton "Bookie" Bolan who was rumored to be a Death Eater, but he was also rumored to have been killed when he didn't pay some goblins that he owed money to. Then there was Rose Amy Benson, who was a Muggle, and was Obliviated in 1973. She had somehow made her way into Diagon Alley and was asking questions that got her discovered by the Aurors. . . ."

"Wait a minute. If she was a Muggle, how could she be R. A. B?"

"Amy Benson was the girl from the orphanage that Riddle tortured. I know it's not very likely, but her initials did fit, and she would know where the cave was."

"Oh. I never thought of her. Anyone else?"

"Your godfather's brother, Regulus Black."

Harry stared at her, wide eyed. "I don't believe it!" he whispered, excitedly.

"It is rather hard to believe, from what you've told me about Sirius Black. That's why I'm still looking."

"No, I mean I don't believe that we've been in the house where he probably hid the locket and never knew it! We have to check it out!"

"You spent half of the summer before fifth year there. Did you see the locket?"

That calmed Harry. "Uh, no. But it's a big house, and there are lots of rooms that I don't think we. . . ." Luna waited patiently for Harry to continue.

"I did see it. I don't believe it! We had it in our hands and I have no idea what we did with it, but someone does! Thank you, Luna! Thank you!"

Harry grabbed Luna in a hug, kissed her on the cheek, and hurried to the fireplace. He called out "The Burrow" and disappeared.

Once there he tossed some floo powder into the fire, and yelled out, "Remus Lupin, at Longbottom Manor!" He turned and yelled at the rest of the house, "Ron! Ginny! Hermione! Mrs. Weasley!" Turning back to the fireplace, he saw the burning head of Remus.

"What's up, Harry?" he asked.

"Remus, get to headquarters right away. I'll meet you there with the Weasleys. I think I know where one of the you-know-whats is."

"Good, I was afraid something was wrong. I'll see you there."

Weasleys were entering the room.

"Mrs. Weasley! Two summers ago, we were cleaning out Headquarters. We were getting rid of cursed treasures, and I seem to recall a golden locket that we couldn't open. Do you know what happened to it?"

Molly stared at him, as if he were speaking another language. Harry noticed Ginny and Hermione -- they were crying. Ron didn't look too good, either.

"What happened? What's wrong?" he asked.

"Harry," Hermione said in a low voice. "Mr. Weasley died this afternoon."

Harry felt awful. "Oh. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I. . . ." He didn't seem to be able to say anything else.

"Thank you, Harry," Molly answered. "If you don't mind, I'm going to bed." She turned around and headed towards the stairs.

"I'm sorry, Ron, Ginny. I didn't know."

Ron answered, "It's all right, Harry. It's not like it was unexpected."

"Do you want anything, Harry? Something to eat or anything?" Ginny asked.

"No. No, thank you. I'm fine. Um, I'm going to Grimmauld Place to talk to Remus. He's waiting for me there."

Hermione asked, "Shall we go with you, Harry? Will you need any help?"

"No. I'm just going to talk. It shouldn't be dangerous or exciting. We won't even leave the house."

"You said something about the locket?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, it might be right under our nose at headquarters. Don't worry about it. If we can't find it, you'll help with the search tomorrow. We definitely won't do anything to it tonight if we do find it."

"OK, Harry. We'll see you tomorrow."

Hermione and Ron went towards the parlor. Ginny looked at him, and said, "Can I come?"

"Yes, soon as I let Ron know where you'll be."

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Wormtail slipped past the guards and on to the boat again. He had had to leave to get something to eat. Another day doing nothing but waiting. This was getting ridiculous. Didn't the Aurors ever catch anyone and lock them up in Azkaban any more? He hid in the bilge and settled in for another uncomfortable night. What would happen if he just ran away? Just then, his artificial paw sent a bolt of pain through him. He nodded. It did that every time he thought about running away. He cursed his undisciplined mind for letting such thoughts wander through it.

He had been alone for quite a while now. Snape had been summoned that first day, and Wormtail was later told that Voldemort had been informed of the plan, and it was to go ahead. Snape had been punished for not keeping his master up to date on his plans, but Voldemort had allowed the plan to go forward.

There was nothing else to do but curl up and try to get some sleep. If he ran away--OW!

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Ron told Harry not to keep Ginny out too late which got Ron a surprised look from Hermione. Harry went back to the kitchen and floo-ed to Grimmauld place, followed by Ginny. They came out in the basement kitchen of the house. The room was deserted. They headed upstairs while Harry called out for Remus.

"Up here, Harry!" the werewolf yelled back.

"Remus! We think one of the Horcruxes was in the house when Sirius was cleaning it out."

Harry and Ginny came into the dining room to see Remus and Luna sitting at a table with a small stack of parchment before each of them.

"What are you doing here?" Ginny asked, no warmth in her voice.

"Hullo. Was this a private party? I was just helping Remus try to find the locket," she answered while she continued reading a parchment.

"After we collected all the dark objects we were in a bit of a quandary about what to do with them. We couldn't just throw them out -- many were intrinsically valuable, being made of gold or silver, or objects of art. Anyone coming across them would try to take them, and then we have a Muggle-object incident. We couldn't just sell them -- we would have to declare the spells on them, and we didn't know that. And that would just advertise what they were for the sort of people who bought dark objects.

"So we came to a deal with Gringotts. For a base fee, they would disenchant them, and sell the objects for part of the profit. They came out ahead; the fee was big enough to cover their cost of the curse-breaker, and the percentage of the sales was just icing on the cake, so to speak.

"These," he indicated the papers on the table, "are the inventory of objects, the spells on them, and the sale price. The locket should be listed here. Somewhere."

Harry sat down, followed a moment later by Ginny. They were each handed some parchments, and the "already done" pile was pointed out to them. Harry started reading.

The list was fascinating and horrifying at the same time. There was a crystal wine gobblet that would turn the wine poison when activated; a knife that would put the victim under the Imperius and cause them to murder women, cutting out vital organs; the music box that put people to sleep -- it would never wind down so the victims would die of hunger and thirst because they would never awake. But eventually the papers ran out.

"No locket," Harry said as he put the last of his parchments on the pile. Remus and Luna had already finished, and had been taking papers from Harry and Ginny's piles, and now only Ginny had the one she was currently reading left.

"No locket listed here, either. What happened to it?" she asked.

"There's one more possibility," Remus said. " Kreacher was often around taking things he wanted to keep. Perhaps he took it?"

"Let's find out," Harry replied. "Kreacher!" he yelled.

There was a pop, and the ancient house elf appeared.

"What does mu. . ." and he started gasping, then seemed to gain control of himself and continued, "half-blood master want with Kreacher?"

"Kreacher, where are the objects that you rescued from Sirius and the other's cleaning?"

Kreacher seemed to fight with himself for control for a moment, then answered, "In my sleeping room."

"Take us there."

Kreacher took them to a basement closet where they found clothes and pictures all over the place.

"Ha, ha. Master has his little joke. Master has already taken all the gold from Kreacher." He continued under his breath, cursing Harry and the other members of the Order.

"Kreacher, did you take a heavy locket that wouldn't open?"

The house elf reluctantly acknowledged that he had.

"Then what happened to it? Who took it?"

"Probably the smelly one. Stupid peasant. Nothing more than a thief. Not worthy to be wizard," Kreacher muttered.

"Smelly one?" Luna asked.

"Mundungus!" Harry and Remus answered together.

"Kreacher! Go back to Hogwarts and be a useful and obedient house elf there."

"ARRGGG!" the elf screamed, right before popping away.

Harry grumbled, "This is getting as bad as a hunt for the ones that Voldemort hid. Two steps forward and one back! Now we have to talk to Dung! Can we even do that?"

Remus answered, "I don't know if they allow visitors, but somehow we'll have to get in. Well, there's nothing more to do here. You better get home and get some rest. We'll still have some practice tomorrow before Neville's party."

They said their goodnights and floo-ed to their respective homes.

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On the outskirts of the city Scarborough in North Yorkshire the Goodes were relaxing in the parlor watching the tele and talking insultingly about the going on in the show they were watching. Mrs. Goode noticed it first, a cold feeling that seemed to have nothing to do with the warm night. Mr. Goode noticed her shudder, and felt it too. He realized first what was happening. It had been on the tele and the radio for days now, and he was frightened. He picked up the phone and called the police.

"Yes. This is Mr. Goode at 17 Cherry Lane, and I think that terrorist gang is gassing the neighborhood. Yes, right now. Yes, thank you." He looked at his wife, and said, "I'll call Margaret and George, and then we're out of here, get the keys, and wait by the door."

The phone rang before he finished talking. "Hello. Hi, Margaret! Yes, we felt it, too. I'm going to call George the other way, and then go. Thanks. Get out of there."

He called his other neighbor, and let it ring a few times, then hung up. He raced to the door, and he and his wife ran to the car. They got in, noticing a lot of other cars racing along the street. They pulled out, feelings of coldness diminishing as they drove. Obviously they were getting out of the area that the terrorists were gassing. Suddenly, in his headlights, he noticed a figure in dark robes with a hood, and some sort of white mask.

"There's one of the bastards now! Gas us, will you?" he shouted. Ignoring the screams of his wife, he swerved, and hit the figure. His wife grabbed his arm in fear, as he snarled, "There's one Death Eater that won't terrorize anyone else!" They drove on, and would return to their home the next day.

A few minutes earlier their call had been the first to the police, but soon there were dozens. After the second, the desk sergeant called the number they had been given, and gave the information. The Muggle office where that call was received was bare, except for a bank of phones, a lounge area, and a very large map of Britain on a table. The person taking the call from Scarborough ran to the table while waving one of the waiting Aurors over. She put a pin in the map in the western part of Scarborough and the Auror nodded. He Apparated away to a waiting room full of Aurors. Giving them the information, they all headed for the western suburbs of Scarborough. Breaking out brooms, they mounted up and spread out in teams of five. Several teams got into firefights with Death Eaters, and the Aurors weren't using Stunners. The problem with herding Dementors was that you had to surround them everywhere except where you wanted them to go, which meant you needed a lot of herdsmen, but they were wide-spread and more importantly -- alone. As the Aurors flew around the area, they quickly discerned where the edge of the Dementor group was, and from that they could concentrate on spotting the Death Eaters. Once found, they were usually easy to subdue with five to one odds against them. Once the Death Eaters were down, the groups began hunting the Dementors. They were getting very good at this. After a few hours they gave up, no new Dementors had been seen in over half an hour. Their tally was eight Death Eaters captured or killed, and twenty-two Dementors destroyed. There were no Auror casualties. Come the morning, however, the Muggle authorities would find that fifteen people were overcome by the "terrorists' nerve gas," and one terrorist killed by a car.

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Luna woke up in the middle of the night. She knew that she had missed something, and now she remembered. Getting out of bed, she pulled on a bathrobe, and slipped her feet into some slippers, and headed down to the fireplace. She wondered if her father was home? He sometimes stayed at the office all night. If he had tried to call her after dinner, she wasn't there, so she really wasn't worried. She lit a fire, tossed in some floo-powder and announced, "The Burrow."

If times were normal, most people would shut their fireplaces down when they slept. These days, they were mostly restricted, allowing only specified people in at all times. The Order, Luna, and Neville, and various other Weasley friends and family were keyed to have access at any time. Luna's form spun to a stop, and she stepped out of the fireplace. She rushed up the steps to the top level, entering Ron's room. With a "lumos" she turned on the light and went to Harry's bed. She shook him.

"Five more minutes. It can't be time for breakfast yet!" he muttered.

"Harry, wake up. It's not breakfast time, but wake up."

Harry rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and slipped on his glasses. "Luna? What are you doing here? What time is it?"

"It's the middle of the night, and I'm here because of what you told me. You said that when you looked at the diary you knew it was a Muggle diary. How did you know? What didn't you tell me?"

"Is that all? I knew because it had the name of the store and the address on the back. Someplace in London, I think."

"Some place like near where the orphanage is hidden?"

Harry's eyes widened. "Yes! Someplace like where we could start the search! But bloody, hell! I can't remember!"

"That's alright. There are ways around that."

"There are?"

"Of course. Lots of ways. Memory potions, recall charms, Pensieve, or easiest of all, just look at the book. You said Mr. Malfoy dropped it after freeing Dobby and before leaving the school."

"Oh, yeah. I gave it back to Dumbledore. I wonder what he did with it."

"Well, we can find it tomorrow. I just knew I couldn't sleep until I had an answer. Thank you." And with that, she got up to leave.

"Luna," Harry began, but he didn't have a chance to finish. He clutched his head and groaned. A small yell escaped him before he clamped his mouth shut. Luna rushed to him and tried to comfort him. He was breathing rapidly through his mouth though his teeth were clenched. Luna moved his hand away from the scar, and put her hand on it. It was very hot. She could only leave her hand on it a moment. Casting a levitation charm on the pitcher of water, she looked around for something to wet. Not wanting to use any of the dirty clothes around her, she shrugged off her bathrobe, bunched some of it up, and poured water over it. She pressed it to his forehead.

Ron was waking up with the activity. He blinked, and looked at Harry and Luna.

"Huh? Harry? Luna? What are you doing?"

"It's Voldemort, Ronald," Luna answered, pressing the cool, damp cloth against Harry's forehead. He was breathing easier.

"It's a trap," he gasped out. "Have to warn them. Next time will be a trap."

"Relax, Harry. It's not happening now, is it? Tonight? Tomorrow?" Luna asked. He shook is head to each question, and she leaned back from him. "Then the best thing would be to go back to bed and take care of it tomorrow. Better now?"

"Yes," he croaked. "Thank you Luna."

"You're welcome." She smiled, stood up, tossed her wet bathrobe over her shoulder, looked around dramatically, and said, "My work here is done." She started walking out of the room.

"Uh, Luna," Ron asked, turning red. "Shouldn't you put on your robe?" The thin nightgown she wore was rather short, and showed that she had long, pale legs.

"Oh, Ronald! You wouldn't want me to put on a wet bathrobe, would you? Good night."

Harry stared at her as she walked out of sight.

"Hello, Harry! Harry! You there?"

"What? Uh, she's rather pretty isn't she? Oh, and she's right. There's no immediate danger. But this will be good! We finally got some something useful from this damn scar! Oh, this is good!"

"What? What's going on?"

"I'll tell you and everyone tomorrow at Neville's. I'm going back to bed. Morning will come pretty early."

He wouldn't answer any of Ron's questions, and soon the red head gave up and extinguished the lights. Harry ordered his mind with his Occlumency exercises, and considered what to do with the information he had received from his connection with the Dark Lord. The next few days were going to be busy, he knew.

As he fell asleep, he thought to himself, "The tide turns. . . ."