Chapter 15

Smash It, Harry

Unlike Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Evan Harrington, Draco Malfoy did not have the slightest idea how to survive in the muggle world. As the sole heir to the Malfoy name and as pure of blood as a wizard can be, Draco never mingled with muggles. He recalled that on a very few occasions in his younger years, his mother took him to a muggle shopping center, just to look. Much as a muggle mother might take her young child to the zoo. All part of the indoctrination process of a pure blood wizard.

His attempt lasted one day. From the pitch black forest where he abandoned his aunt and the other death eater, Draco first apparated to the outskirts of Hogsmeade, simply because he could think of no other place under the stress of the moment. Obviously, he could not return to Malfoy Manor, and in any event, he knew the mansion sat vacant.

His mother resided in a secured location with other death eaters' wives and children, but at the dark lord's order, the exact location of the safe house remained secret, not disclosed to any but a few death eaters. One death eater checked on the spouses on a daily basis, assuring that their needs were met. The system ensured the loyalty of those spouses who knew that their husbands would be punished severely for any misconduct. Of course, this system worked the other way too, ensuring the loyalty of the death eaters to avoid the punishment of their wives and children.

Draco arrived at the edge of Hogsmeade, just fifty yards from the Shrieking Shack. Late at night, he guessed and hoped that the area would be clear of the village's inhabitants. His father often told Draco that the stories about the haunted nature of the Shrieking Shack were hogwash, and Draco hoped that he told the truth. With Lucius Malfoy, one could never be certain.

Finding himself alone, Draco in fact entered the shack and found it apparently normal, so far as he could tell. He transfigured the torn, shredded mattress on the old bed into a more comfortable version, and lay himself down. He had no intention to sleep, and could not have anyway, given the pounding of his heart in his chest. By abandoning the dark lord, he knew that he had written his death sentence.

Yet he also felt a huge sense of relief. For the first time in his life, he made a decision for himself. Perhaps a fatally stupid decision, but a decision nonetheless. His only hope for the moment rested in his lack of importance. Clearly the name of Draco Malfoy would be added to the dark lord's hit list, but certainly the dark lord must have more pressing matters on the agenda.

Staring up at the bare wooden ceiling, which he could barely see in the darkness, Draco knew that he could not stay long. He needed to melt away for the time being, and that meant immersing himself in the muggle world of which he knew virtually nothing. Never had he stayed in a muggle hotel. Never had he ordered a meal in a muggle restaurant. He did not even know how to use muggle money, not that he had any. His decision appeared worse the more he thought about it, but he knew he could not change his mind now. Even if he returned to the fold, the dark lord could sense betrayal and use legilimency to read his mind. No, Draco would simply have to adapt and hope for the best.

Finally after two or three hours of paralyzed thought, Draco stood and pointed his wand, releasing the transfiguration spell so that the mattress would return to its previous worn and torn state. He intended to leave no tracks. He could think of only one muggle site where he could apparate - the phone booth entrance to the Ministry. Naturally, he no more desired capture by the Ministry than by the dark lord, but he knew that the Ministry knew nothing of his whereabouts and cared little about Draco Malfoy. Though risky, he disappeared and reappeared a few yards from the booth in central London.

Draco thankfully found the dimly lit asphalt lot around the phone booth deserted. Knowing that the seat of the magical government, which would like nothing better than to throw him into Azkaban, rested just a few yards below him, Draco immediately walked down the streets of London, not stopping for an hour and not having the slightest idea where he was.

That day, he tried. He tried not to feel like he walked among filth, for that is how he considered the muggles whose shoulders he rubbed. I'm a pure blood wizard, he argued to himself, Malfoys do not live among muggles. He would not stoop to that level, and by the end of the day, he apparated away, back to the Shrieking Shack, both to sleep and to determine his next move. One thing for sure, however; he would NOT live like a muggle!

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"Not bad."

Hermione waited for Harry to expound on his opinion of William Oglesby's article, which Harry just finished reading. She could have waited all day, for Harry flipped the Daily Prophet on his unmade bed, and apparently gave the matter no further thought.

Unlike the previous evening, this morning Harry remained quiet and detached, only engaging in minimal conversation with his best friend. Hermione still had not accustomed herself to Harry's wild mood swings, so unlike him in the past. Sure, the "real" Harry, as she considered him, could lose his temper, but most of the time he remained pretty level. The "new" Harry could be laughter and silliness one moment, surly and reclusive moments later. Last night he held her hand as they playfully ambled around town; this morning, he barely noticed her presence. Despite her knowledge of all that had occurred to him, she could not help but feel hurt by his distant attitude.

After a lengthy silence, which Hermione felt loathe to break, Harry finally stood and turned towards her.

"Ready?"

She nodded her head, pausing only a moment to stuff the Daily Prophet into her purse, not wanting the muggle maid to find it. Moments later, the two of them disappeared.

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Ron and Ginny walked nervously near the river outside of Ottery St. Catchpole, heading towards town. Ginny, of course, remained deeply confused by Hermione's revelation a few hours earlier about Harry's short-lived romantic liaison of the summer, and she almost wished that Hermione had not told her. On the other hand, she did not wish to be deceived or to live a lie. For the moment, however, she knew that she could not confront Harry or otherwise reveal her feelings. The horcrux mattered much more than the love life of a sixteen year-old girl.

Presumably their Ministry minder followed them under an invisibility cloak or disillusionment charm, but they pretended not to notice or care. A few hundred yards before reaching the edge of town, they navigated a hair-pin turn in a wooded area. They knew that if someone followed them from a distance, he or she would temporarily lose sight of them at this point. The brother and sister stopped, and Ron took a deep breath to calm himself. Though a few weeks earlier he passed his test and now possessed an apparation licence, he apparated without great confidence, and certainly he had never side-along apparated anyone. He nodded at Ginny, who also took a deep breath, and Ron reached out to hold her upper arm. Crack!

They each let out a sigh of relief when they arrived in tact at the apparation area of King's Cross in London. Immediately they pivoted on their feet looking for Harry and Hermione. Standing to their right next to a red brick wall stood Hermione and a fairly tall teenaged boy wearing blue jeans and a red Liverpool F.C. hat and jersey with a large number 10 on it. Ron and Ginny would not have recognized Harry had they not known that he would be awaiting them. Other wizards and witches appeared out of nowhere, while others walked in planning to apparate home.

Following their plan, Hermione approached and hugged both Weasleys while Harry hung back a step, as if he did not know them.

"Ron, Ginny," she announced loudly for all to hear, "I'd like you to meet my friend, Jonathon." Harry stepped forward and reached out a hand.

"Nice to meet you," he responded appropriately, taking Ron's hand, and then Ginny's. They responded in similar fashion, and soon the four friends reached the street to hail a taxi.

Hermione and Harry determined that in order to avoid any chance of the Ministry tracking them, they would arrive at Grimmauld Place by muggle taxi. By apparating to King's Cross, one of the most heavily utilized apparation sites in all of Britain, the Ministry would never be able to track their movements. The four piled into the back seat a large cab.

Intentionally or not, Harry ended up sitting next to Hermione, and Ginny could not help but read significance into that act. Certainly, she believed, if Harry retained feelings for her, he would have arranged to sit next to her in the taxi, even if they intended to continue their little act until reaching the house. Despite all of the efforts to control her emotions, her stomach twisted itself into knots.

Hermione and Ron did most of the talking in the taxi, and in fact Harry did not utter a word during the twenty-minute drive to Grimmauld Place. He kept his red Liverpool hat on the entire trip, pulled down low over his scar. Finally they arrived, and as they approached, the two houses in front of them incredibly shifted noiselessly to the side to permit the emergence of the huge medieval mansion known as Number 12 Grimmauld Place. The two wizards and two witches, however, did not pay the astonishing occurrence a second thought, having witnessed it numerous times in the past. Once they closed the door behind them, Harry removed his hat to reveal his short blond hair, causing deep laughter from his best mate, Ron, and a mild chuckle from Hermione. Ginny's expression did not change.

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"Quite clearly, Mr. Potter has misinterpreted the intention of the Ministry. While it is true that the Ministry of Defense placed a watch on Mr. Potter during the month of July, no sinister motive for such action existed. Given recent events, the Ministry quite reasonably determined that Mr. Potter could be a target for the forces of You Know Who, and we intended both to do our best to protect Mr. Potter while at the same time possibly capturing one or more death eaters. In fact, I have been informed today that nothing unusual occurred until Mr. Potter's sudden and unexpected disappearance a little over two weeks ago."

Minister of Magic Scrimgeour tried his best to force a benevolent frustration into his voice and expression, only partially succeeding. Standing before some two dozen reporters, quills scratching, he attempted to act like a grandfather complaining about "those darned youngsters these days."

"Naturally, we were extremely concerned when Mr. Potter disappeared, and in fact we allocated the limited resources at our disposal to attempt to determine his fate, and I along with the rest of the wizarding population rejoice that Mr. Potter is safe and sound, and that his departure resulted from a mere misunderstanding. As I have expressed to Mr. Potter directly in the past, I would be more than willing to meet with him and to be of service in any way that I can."

The dour faces of the assembled press did not appear to be convinced, but Scrimgeour knew that like it or not, they would have to report his words. Of course, the reporters desired the opportunity to question the Minister, but Scrimgeour would have none of that.

"Now I must take my leave, as I have an extremely busy schedule today and could only carve out but a few short minutes to deal with this misunderstanding. Thank you for your attention." And with that the Minister strode forcefully out of the press briefing room, ignoring the shouted questions.

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Once behind closed doors, the four friends could finally greet each other properly, though doing so half an hour after meeting caused the hugs to feel out of place. Nevertheless, Harry did embrace Ginny briefly, just as Ron embraced Hermione. Ginny forced a smile.

Don't think about it, she instructed herself, Now is not the time.

The dark gloom of the foyer of the ancient mansion placed a further damper on the greetings. As far as they could tell, the house had not been lit in months. The smell of dust and must enveloped them, and they turned up their noses.

"Let's find it," Harry declared abruptly, "We can talk later."

Quietly they passed the portrait of Mrs. Black, which remained covered by a thick grimy drape, and they climbed the stairs to the drawing room, where they all agreed the locket that would not open had last been seen.

Ron glanced at Hermione and then nodded his head towards Harry, who led the way. He immediately noted changes in his best friend, some obvious but others that he felt more than understood. Hermione also nodded her head an inch, indicating her understanding and that she had warned them. When she visited Ron and Ginny the first time after Harry's birthday, she informed them of Dumbledore's letter, and earlier this same morning, she warned them again. Harry was still Harry, but he had become completely unpredictable.

The vacant mansion emitted an almost wild feeling, as if the four of them hiked through a jungle. Ron, Hermione and Ginny walked slowly and warily, but Harry moved ahead with determination, seemingly ignorant of the deteriorating state of the house, which after all belonged to him. He opened the door to the drawing room without hesitation, striding through and waiving his wand to ignite the lamps on the wall.

Even with the lamps lighted, the large room remained dim. Spiders had woven complicated webs, some of them covering the lamps, and soon they could smell the webs smouldering. Hermione sniffed twice and then waved her wand several times to remove the webs.

"I hope Mundungus didn't steal it," Ron mentioned, as he knocked some dust off of a chair. A small-time thief, Mundungus Fletcher "liberated" a number of items of silver from the Black mansion, but nobody ever inventoried the missing artifacts.

"Where did we put it?" asked Ginny, trying her best to be helpful but still feeling out of place, "Wasn't it in that bureau?"

"No, I think we put it back in the drawer of that desk," Hermione answered, pointing at a dusty old three legged table with two small drawers. The three of them began to look around while Harry remained in the middle of the room, eyes closed.

He felt something. The sensation both attracted him and repelled him, and seemed both familiar and strange. To his right he heard a rattling in a drawer and vaguely realized that a boggart must have reclaimed the room as its home.

"Mundungus must have nicked it," Hermione reluctantly concluded after a ten-minute search yielded no results, "unless it's in another room." All the while, Harry remained motionless, often with his eyes closed.

"Why don't you help us, Harry?" Ginny asked, a little perturbed that he let the three of them do all the work. If Harry heard her, he gave no indication.

Instead after a few more seconds, he walked resolutely to the corner of the room, moving a chair our of the way. The other three followed him but saw nothing, as no piece of furniture had been placed there. The outside stone wall of the house met the interior wall, covered with a paneling of some sort, though they could not exactly describe it in the dim, grimy atmosphere.

"It's there," Harry informed them, as if any fool could see. He stooped down and noted a panel that protruded slightly from the rest of the wall, Reaching out his hand, he pulled it back, and sure enough it had been pried open some time ago. Harry lifted it up and out about a foot.

Pulling out his wand, he muttered, "Lumos," using his wand like a flash light. His friends crouched down next to him, and Ron and Hermione added their wand light. The combined light reflected off of a dozen or so items that had been stashed in the wall.

"Kreacher!" Harry sneered. They knew that the Black family's last house elf, inherited by Harry, had protected numerous family heirlooms by spiriting them away to hiding places. Apparently, the elf created more such nooks than they realized. Carefully, Harry reached in and began to remove a few items at a time, narrowing avoiding a bite by an ancient gold watch infused with dark magic. Finally he removed the item that he knew beyond doubt would be there, Slytherin's locket.

The other retrieved items, mostly made of silver, had tarnished by the months or years of neglect, but the heavy gold locket shone brilliantly as if just newly polished. The intricate serpentine S spread across the frontal piece and did not reveal any sign of wear. Harry lifted up the locket by its thick golden chain for all of them to see. The four friends stared mutely.

Previously, when Harry lay in his bed the night before, he tried to deduce how to destroy the horcrux. Only two points of reference existed. Harry himself destroyed the diary in the Chamber of Secrets during his second year. The diary must have been the first horcrux created by Tom Riddle, then Head Boy at Hogwarts. Though Harry knew nothing of horcruxes at the time, he recalled vividly the urge he felt to destroy it, stabbing it over and over again with the basilisk fang. Nothing subtle about it.

Dumbledore destroyed Marvolo Gaunt's ring, though he never provided Harry with an explanation. The headmaster's effort left his arm withered and the black stone of the ring cracked down the middle. That did not strike Harry as especially subtle either. But why did Dumbledore suffer physical damage when Harry remained unaffected? He could not create a hypothesis to explain this, except for one that he preferred not to consider.

"What should we do with it?" Hermione whispered, as if her raised voice might inadvertently release the imprisoned soul. Ron and Ginny observed mutely, not having the slightest idea.

"I need a hammer," Harry informed them.

"What?" Hermione asked with a shudder, "A hammer? Why?"

"Why do you think?" Harry responded sarcastically, then asking more politely, "Could you conjure or transfigure one?" They all knew that Hermione possessed the greatest ability at such magic.

Hermione paused. She felt that they should discuss this, not act so rashly. Smashing the locket did not appear to her to be a likely method to destroy a horcrux, though truthfully she had no more likely solution. On the other hand, she could sense that Harry's mood had swung to an extreme, and frankly she preferred not to annoy him. She decided that transfiguring a dagger from one of the many coats of armor in the mansion would be most effective.

"Ron, can you bring me a dagger from one of the suits of armor?"

Ron nodded and left for a few moments. Harry, Hermione and Ginny continued to stare at the heavy locket.

"Try opening it, Harry," suggested Ginny, and Harry attempted to release the lid of the locket. Again, it would not budge. Ron returned with a thick foot-long blade and handed it to Hermione. She placed it on the table, waved her wand in an intricate fashion, and the dagger transformed into a beautifully polished hammer.

Harry did not appear impressed by Hermione's wand-work, because he desired something with a little more oomph to it. Hermione's hammer, though admirable, had a head designed for pounding nails, not demolishing a large, sturdy locket. Harry had something more destructive in mind.

"Bigger, a lot bigger," Harry ordered.

"I'll do it," Ron declared, wand in hand, for he knew what Harry had in mind. After he waved his wand in a similar manner to Hermione, the beautiful hammer designed by Hermione turned into a less aesthetically pleasing but more functional sledge hammer. The foot-long wooden handle felt rough and unfinished, but the head measured three inches across and must have weighed close to ten pounds. Harry grabbed it.

"Wait a minute, Harry," pleaded Hermione, "Let's think about this first. Do we know what we're doing?"

But Harry did not respond. He moved through the three others to the center of the room, placing Slytherin's locket on the hard tile.

"Move away," he instructed them, and the three took two steps back. Harry fell to his knees, never taking his eyes off of the S on top of the locket. He inhaled deeply and cleared his mind.

Ginny jumped a foot into the air as Harry suddenly raised the hammer and pulled it down with all his strength, right on top of the locket. Hermione's heart skipped a beat too, and the two girls instinctively moved towards each other.

Harry stopped to inspect the locket, which did not display even a scratch. This infuriated him, and with a sneer, he raised the hammer again and let it fall. And then again.

His face contorted in between a grimace and a snarl, and already sweat beaded on his forehead. Ginny froze at the sight of him, a person she knew so well suddenly behaving in a completely unknown manner.

"Harry," yelled Hermione, "Stop! Think what you are doing." Harry responded with another blow.

Ron, on the other hand, felt a fire ignite inside him which burned more strongly with each blow by his best mate. A sneer gradually formed on his face, and he wished he had a hammer himself to join in.

"Smash it, Harry!" he yelled, "Smash the bloody thing into a thousand pieces!"

Harry kept at it, allowing his rage against Lord Voldemort free reign, and after a dozen blows, he inspected the locket again. This time he saw damage, a couple of dents and a hairline crack. Immediately he knew that he could destroy it, and after taking a few deep breaths, he raised the sledge hammer again and again, viciously pounding the locket. His friends could feel his rage.

Ginny had never seen anything like the raw aggression from her former boyfriend, and fear filled her. What had happened to him?

After four more blows, they all heard a muted crack from the locket, and Harry lifted the hammer again and with a guttural growl let go one last mighty sortie. The crack this time echoed throughout the drawing room, and the locket split all the way though. Exhausted, Harry staggered to his feet and grabbed his wand. He knew something would happen now that the locket had been destroyed.

Ron and Hermione immediately followed suit, pointing their wands towards the locket, and a moment later, Ginny's pointed as well. None of them spoke a word for half a minute, and just when they thought that perhaps nothing would happen, they saw the locket emit a mist which gradually formed into a cloud a few feet above. The cloud coalesced slowly and then revolved around itself until it slowly began to assume a form.

Moving next to Harry, Ron whispered, "What is it doing?"

Harry merely answered, "We're about to find out."