When we last left Harry…..
Looking down into the bowl, Harry saw that the Vale had not gotten any better. During his struggle and recovery, more and more of the elves had fallen ill, and there were nowhere near as many healthy ones to care for the afflicted. His heart sank as he shifted his Sight and saw that the black cloud that was the disease had moved to cover most of the Vale.
Slightly panicked, he tried to locate Eldwyn. He was unsuccessful. The elf must either be deep in a trance, or else—
:Harry:
There came a light, questioning touch on his mind, and he turned his attention to the speaker. It was Llyrithen.
:Harry, is that you:
:Yes: he answered, concern colouring his thoughts. :Where is everyone? Is Eldwyn all right? Has anyone else died? Are you all right?:
:Slow down, child: she admonished, her voice just as worried. :Most everyone else is sick. There are only a few healthy people remaining. We have lost close to a third of the Vale to this disease – Eldwyn fights it as we speak. I can only pray that he will be able to hold it off and return to health.:
Harry sat back a moment, stunned. Nearly a third of the Vale? And Eldwyn was now sick….what was he to do?
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Harry looked back down into the bowl, his eyes studying his view of the Vale.
:Llyrithen, do you think Eldwyn will fight it off?: he asked, mind working furiously.
:I do not know: she replied, her mindvoice tinged with sadness and concern. :He is not doing poorly, but is not faring well, either.:
Harry did not reply for a moment, weighing his options. He had fought off the disease once, and was immune from getting it a second time. His wizarding magic was able to fight it. The logical thing would be for him to go to the Vale and try to help heal the victims. But could he do it alone? Could he do it at all?
He came to a swift decision as he turned back to the bowl.
:Llyrithen, stay there and help fight it as best you can. I will try and think of ways to help you. Do not lose hope…we will find a way to defeat this.:
Amusement was an undercurrent in her mindvoice as she replied.
:Such bold words for one so young. At times it is easy to forget that you are but a child, and I centuries your elder. Pray that we are able to hold our own against this sickness, young one, but do nothing drastic Her voice was almost sharp as she spoke. :We will help our own, and you must keep up your façade. We will come through, somehow.:
Damn, she was good, Harry thought. His skills managed to hide his true intentions from her while they were linked, but she sensed that he was up to something.
:I will behave: he quickly replied. :I must go. I will contact you later. Stay safe.:
:And you do the same: Llyrithen said, and Harry broke the contact between them, gently setting the bowl aside. He knew what he had to do.
Before he left, however, there were a few things he had to take care of. Dumbledore was surely getting suspicious of his absence, and Harry had to figure out some way to make it seem as though he was needed in the mountains with his 'mentor' for a week more, at least. Pulling out a bit of parchment from the desk that stood against the wall, he conjured up a quill and dipped it into the inkstand that sat beside him.
Professor Dumbledore:
I regret to inform you that my master is faring rather poorly. As much as I wish to return to the relative safety of the school, I fear that if I do so now, my master may never recover. I must stay with him at least a week more, perhaps longer. Do not fear for my studies – as you well know, I am more than capable of catching up. I hope I shall not cause you too much worry, for I know what a burden my sudden disappearance, as well as the loss of Adara, has been. Please accept my apologies if I have caused you or yours any distress. Send my best to all of the staff, and to Ron and Hermione as well. If you can contact Sirius, please tell him I'm sorry for disappearing – I know I have not been able to contact him as of yet because of the current circumstances in which he lives, and I do not know how long I will remain away from the castle. Send him my love, and tell him that I look forward to seeing him as soon as possible. Thank you,
Harry.
Looking back over the letter, Harry realized with a start that his language was much more formal than it would have been during his former years at Hogwarts. He sealed the letter with a shrug and a flick of his fingers – Dumbledore would just have to deal with it. Looking around, he figured that he'd better leave a note for Snape as well, thanking him if nothing else.
Taking out another bit of parchment and dipping his quill in ink, he sat down with a sigh and began to write.
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Harry finished his letter to Snape and set it on the corner of the desk in his room, hoping that the man would spot it immediately once he noticed that Harry was missing. Wiping his hands on his robes out of habit, he scowled down at the faint smudges on the fabric once he realised what he had done. Banishing the stains with a wave of his hand, he got to his feet and silently exited Snape's chambers, not noticing when the letter was knocked to the floor in his haste to exit.
Checking to make sure that all of his shrunken belongings were safely in his pocket, he closed his eyes and transformed into a swift, small sparrow, one with an unusual dark grey colour. Hopefully, he would not be seen as he made his way to the tower. All he needed was to gather a few belongings, and then he would be off.
Harry scarcely saw any of the numerous students and teachers that filled the halls as he flew over them. Walls and paintings became a blur as he winged through the twisting corridors, barely avoiding impacting the wall with swift flicks of his wings. His twisting flight finally led him up the final stairway and to a fluttering halt in front of the Fat Lady. With a mental twist, he shut her 'awareness' off for just a second and darted through the opening in the portrait hole as it swung slightly open, then shut again.
Without even pausing to look at the current occupants of the Common Room, Harry flew to the seventh year boys' dorm. Much to his relief, there was no one else present. He landed in the middle of the room and shifted back to his human form, and walked silently over to push the door gently closed. Turning to face his bed, he opened his trunk and pulled out one of his scrying mirrors, a few cloaks, and the various weapons that were cloaked and hidden in the bottom of the trunk. He strapped some of the knives to his arms and legs, and shrunk the rest of the items, which joined the rest in the pocket of his robes.
Turning, he looked about him and set a temporary locking charm on the door. He did not want to be interrupted for this next part of his plan.
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Snape prowled the corridors of the school, his habitual scowl deeper than usual. The Potter boy was gone missing again, and damned if he was going to be the one to tell Dumbledore that he had not only been hiding the boy from him for the past week, but had lost him as well.
He had returned to his chambers and had entered the Potter boy's temporary room, only to find its inhabitant absent. A cursory check of the room had revealed nothing but a few pieces of parchment scattered about, and Snape had immediately set out to find the insufferable boy.
He swept through the corridors at an almost unnatural speed, checking all the usual hiding spots and even throwing out the occasional "Accio invisibility cloak!" All of his efforts proved to be in vain, however, and he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to enter the last place he ever wanted to be.
Gryffindor Tower.
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Hermione Granger paced impatiently in her room, deep in thought. Harry had been missing for over a week, and though the Headmaster assured her that he was fine, something was just a little off. It wasn't like Harry, even the Harry he was now, to just up and leave without informing her or Ron. There had also been a definite change in their Potions professor's mood over the last week – she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she had noticed it right off. He was more irritable, but at the same time, seemed – oddly content?
She couldn't decide if there was a correlation or not. There was definitely something suspicious about the fact that Snape had undergone a change on the same day that Harry had gone missing, but surely the man hadn't kidnapped Harry? For one, she didn't think he was powerful enough. Subtle as it was, Hermione could definitely sense a change in the magnitude of Harry's power.
Sighing, she turned towards the door and started down the stairs. She had to find Harry. Maybe he was still in the castle somewhere, just hidden. Maybe Snape even had a clue where he was. If he was in the castle, Hermione would find him, whether he wanted her to or not.
Hermione screeched to a halt as she entered the Common Room, looking around in confusion as a strange silence fell over the few students who occupied the room. Frowning, Hermione wondered if she'd managed to do something ridiculously embarrassing until her gaze fell upon the man robed in black who had just stepped through the Portrait Hole.
"Professor Snape?" she said tentatively, since no one else seemed at all inclined to say anything. "Is there something you needed?"
He glared at her for a moment, and then stalked towards her. As he drew near her, she saw that he was beckoning her to follow him. She obeyed, bewildered, as he made for the boys' staircase. As they ascended the stairs, she ventured a question.
"Sir? If I may ask, w-what are you looking for?"
"Potter," he spat. "He is somewhere in this castle, I am certain. But I have been unable to locate him thus far. You will accompany me to his dormitory, and perhaps we can find something there to help us find him."
Hermione swallowed and nodded, her suspicions confirmed. So the man did know where Harry was! All she had to do was follow him around and poke through Harry's things a bit – though she would feel rather guilty, she would much rather find Harry and explain that she had searched his belongings than not find him at all.
She hesitantly ascended the staircase first as he stepped out of the way for her, not meeting the eyes of any of the staring occupants of the Common Room.
She heard Snape make impatient noises behind her as she reached the door of the boys' dorms, and found herself unable to open it.
"What is it, girl?" he hissed. "Do you find yourself unable to open a simple door?"
"No, I –" she stumbled over her words, hating herself for feeling like she was going to cry under the harsh scrutiny of the looming professor. "It's locked, sir."
"Move over," he snapped, and she quickly complied, watching as he started muttering a long litany of unlocking spells under his breath, his concentration fully fixed on the door before him.
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Harry gave a small sigh of satisfaction as the last physical component of his spell settled into place, the magical forces tied to it coming together with an almost audible snap, and a feeling like that of a joint popping back into place. His circle of soft Vale sand on the floor was whole, complete with the complex symbols traced in magical fire along the edges. Harry reached deep into his magic, concentrating intently as he called up a Portal and feeling giddy with relief and accomplishment as it too snapped into place. He had never attempted a Portal this far, and he felt rather proud of himself, in a hysterical sort of way.
He stepped closer to it, preparing to make the harrowing leap through the leagues that lay between himself and the Vale.
He never even felt his locking charm dissolving and fading away under the influence of prying magic.
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Hermione suppressed a smile as Snape finally exclaimed, "Aha!" and lowered his wand.
She stepped closer as he reached to open the door, and then felt every hair on the back of her neck and her arms stand on end as a wave of unfamiliar magic raced through her, making her whole body tingle. Snape stiffened, and then rushed into the room. Hermione quickly followed, eyes widening to the size of saucers as she took in the sight before her.
Harry, surrounded by soft blue-green swirls of magic and looking positively exultant, whipped around to face them, equally as shocked as she. Before him stood a shimmering circle that looked to be made of incandescent light, with motes of colour dancing in and out of it.
She took a step forward, and screeched as he turned, evidently to flee. Harry hesitated for a moment longer, but that was enough – time enough for Hermione to reach out and snag the back of his robes with one hand, time enough for Snape to dive after her with a guttural cry of his own. And then she knew nothing but pain, as her whole body seemed to stretch in a million different directions at once before spinning her around at speeds faster than she knew possible. She only caught one more glimpse of Harry's frightened face, staring at her through the impossibly bright light, before she passed out altogether.
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my STUPID QUESTION MARKS! They won't show up at the very tail end of Mindspeech. So it's supposed to be like:Harry, is that you : and it has no question mark. GAH. Any ideas? I ended up going back and manually fixing them on the edit screen...
but GAH! I'm BACK!
I'm sure you all thought that I was dead or something. Sigh.
Truth is, I just had exams and school and a million other excuses….and frankly, I had no time to write and so I lost interest, kind of forgot about it. But for those few who persevered and reviewed and pestered me with emails, I decided to go back and touch up some of the chapters (which you can go reread if you really want, no major plot changes) and FINALLY write another chapter.
So, voila.
Happy?
Hopefully the next update won't be another year in coming……