Gulo Gulo
Chapter Two
A Fight's a Fight
Updated October 21, 2011
"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan. I can find no way to return you to your home."
I growled involuntarily, and the man sitting across from me moved back apprehensively. "Hey," I said, holding up a reassuring hand. "Don't mind me. I just don't take bad news very good."
The other people in the room with me relaxed. Well, more or less; I could still smell the apprehension, the fear, my very presence here generated in these people. The man across from me, Remus Lupin, was the most magically capable person in the room, and he'd just told me I was never going home again, barring someone from back there coming to get me.
But it had been almost two months now and nobody from my Earth — not Doctor Strange, not even the other X-Men, had come looking for me. Did they think I was dead or something? I couldn't help but wonder, with some bitterness, if they would have given up on Jean Grey so quickly.
"Look, bub, I took care of your Dark Lord problem," I said "I thought you could get me home!"
"Magic got you here," Lupin agreed. "Or so you said, at least — it should be able to get you back home. But this 'Doctor Strange' you told us of must be capable of much greater magic than I or any wizard here can perform."
"Maybe so," I said, shifting on the wooden bench I was seated on.
"How are you feeling?" Molly Weasley, the red-headed woman I'd met when I first arrived here six weeks ago, asked with real concern in her voice.
"Okay," I grunted. "Most of the pain is gone, at least." I still wasn't one hundred percent, but I wasn't going to advertise that fact, even to these people. It had been a little over a month since I woke up in Shell Cottage, the home of Bill and Fleur Weasley, the son and daughter-in-law of Molly and Arthur Weasley, who was sitting next to his wife here in the kitchen of their home, the Burrow. Whatever had happened to me when I cut off Voldemort's head, I'd awakened with my entire body hurting, something I wasn't used to feeling without some major trauma happening to me.
Normally, my body heals minor wounds in seconds. The blow that put me out for two days, a cut on my arm from a blade called the Sword of Gryffindor, should have healed in a minute or two. My adamantium-covered bones had kept the blow from cutting off my arm, but something on the blade — Lupin had called it "basilisk venom" — had done a number on my healing factor.
"But that ain't important — what's important is finding a way to get me home," I insisted.
"We've tried everything, Mr. Logan," Arthur Weasley protested. "Remus has been pouring over Dumbledore's private library for weeks now, looking for something that will enable you to return home, but —"
"But — nothing," I rumbled. "Yeah, I get it, Artie. I'm stuck here." I shrugged. "Well, at least it's been interesting."
For a week I had been Man of the Century in Wizarding Britain, the Voldemort Killer that somebody called the "Chosen One," or alternatively the "Boy-Who-Lived," should have been. The Weasleys took me from Shell Cottage into London, to a small pub I was barely able to notice except by using my nose to find the odor of beer and tobacco, where it seemed like the entire population of Wizarding Britain showed up to shake my hand and thank me for taking care of "You-Know-Who" once again.
Doddering old wizards and hunched-over witches, men and women missing hands, arms, or legs, young people with wide, fearful expressions, all of them nodded and took my hand, many of them only touching it briefly, lest I somehow bring about their end as well. It was pretty uncomfortable, and I told the Weasleys so afterwards. They were apologetic, but insisted that it had to be done, so that everyone knew that Voldie was dead and they knew who did it.
The only people I didn't see during all this time was that Potter kid and his two friends, Ron and Hermione. And that didn't make sense — if their job was making sure Snake-Boy was dead, why weren't they there as well, at least taking credit for their part in this. I might not even be here if it hadn't been for Harry Potter coming back to the Malfoy mansion to get me.
It hadn't taken long to figure out why they weren't there.
"So where's Harry and his friends?" I asked Lupin and the Weasleys. "What're they off doing now?"
Lupin looked quickly at the other two, with a barely perceptible shake of his head. But I caught it, of course. "Um, we don't know," Arthur spoke up. He was lying, I could hear it in his voice and the changes in his heartbeat.
"Come on," I told him, in a tone that said I knew he wasn't being truthful. "If Voldie —" Lupin and the Weasleys winced "— was really dead, Potter'd be home with his mommy and daddy."
"Don't say that! Harry is an orphan," Molly Weasley said, reprovingly. "His parents were killed by — by You-Know-Who, when he was only a year old. Arthur and I asked to take him in, but…" her voice trailed off unsteadily.
"But Dumbledore had other plans for him," Arthur finished. "He might have stayed with his godfather, Sirius Black, but Sirius was put in Azkaban Prison for killing Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles on the streets of London. Wrongfully, I might add."
"We didn't learn the truth until thirteen years later," Lupin took up the story. "Pettigrew didn't die — he used the duel with Sirius to frame him for murder, both his and the Muggles, and went into hiding because he feared being discovered as the real traitor, not Black. Sirius told me after he was out of Azkaban that Peter had been responsible for keeping the secret of the Potters' whereabouts, not him, because no one would suspect Peter of that much bravery."
"Okay," I said, impatiently. "But you're evading my question — is Voldie really dead?" I frowned as everyone in the room but me winced.
There was silence for some time. None of them would meet my eyes. I was beginning to think they believed I could know whether they were telling the truth by looking at them eye-to-eye; they didn't realize I could tell by changes in their smell, breathing or heartbeat whether they were being truthful or not.
"We're — not sure," Lupin said at last. I didn't even need to listen to his heart or breathing — the looks on the faces of Arthur and Molly Weasley told me everything I needed to know.
"So where're that Potter kid and his friends?" I wanted to know. "What happened to them after I woke up?"
"Do you remember Griphook?" Lupin asked. When I didn't respond he added, "The goblin, the one that was at Malfoy Manor when you rescued Harry and the others?"
"I didn't rescue them," I pointed out. "Potter and his red-headed friend did that on their own, with the help of that other little person, Dobby."
"Right," Molly agreed, looking at her husband. "But you provided the distraction that let them escape with Hermione, and Dobby also rescued the other people trapped there — Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas and Mr. Ollivander — as well."
"The day before you woke up," Arthur went on. "Griphook suddenly left Shell Cottage. We don't know where he went, but Harry said they had to find him. He didn't tell us why, but he didn't seem convinced that You-Know-Who was dead."
"He told me I took his head off," I said. "Just as he said something like 'Abracadabra' and I blacked out…" I trailed off, as all three of them were looking at me in shock.
"He hit you with the Avada Kedavra and you survived?" Lupin said, in wonderment. "Harry didn't tell us that! We knew you were resistant to magic, but —"
"Yeah," I agreed. "The Potter kid seemed surprised about that as well. Just like he hadn't seemed convinced Voldie was moldy by now. So how could a guy survive having his head lopped off? And would you please stop wincing every time I say 'Voldie'? I'm not saying the name, like you asked!"
"Sorry," Arthur said. "It's just that you can't say that name. Please."
I was beginning to wonder why they were so afraid of the name "Voldemort," but I had to know what was going on with this unkillable creep. "So what's up with What's-His-Name coming back after I whacked him, then?"
Lupin's face was grim. "Very, very Dark magic," he said. "The type of magic Professor Dumbledore would never allow to be taught at Hogwarts." Molly and Arthur were looking at one another, confused, as if they'd never heard of such magic. Evidently, however, Lupin had.
"So what's the straight dope, Lupin?" I asked, leaning forward to look him in the eye. "Inquiring minds want to know."
"I…think…Horcruxes," Lupin said, slowly, and at the last word Molly let out a short scream, and Arthur gasped and held her. It must have been a pretty bad word, to have that sort of effect on them.
"What are they?" I asked. "How would they keep Snake-Boy alive?"
"A Horcrux is an object that holds a part of a wizard's soul," Lupin explained. "It is enchanted so it is nearly indestructible — the only known things that can destroy them are basilisk venom and a Dark spell called Fiendfyre. Harry destroyed the first Horcrux four years ago, during his second year, when he stabbed Tom Riddle's diary with the basilisk fang that nearly killed him. Only Fawke's tears were able to save him."
"And what is Fawkes?" I asked.
"He was Dumbledore's phoenix," Lupin answered. "He disappeared after the professor was killed…" Lupin stopped, for my eyes had grown distant at the mention of the word "phoenix."
…Jean… I still missed her, and all of the chances she and I never took to be together… She had left Earth too, and though the Phoenix force had sometimes manifested itself on my Earth from time to time since then, Jean had never returned. Otherwise I'd be spending all my time here trying to send her a message, even from this universe to hers, wherever it was, trying to get her to come for me.
"Are…you alright, Logan?" Molly Weasley had reached out to me, not quite touching my arm as she did so.
I came back from wherever I'd gone, turning away from her so she couldn't see my face. "I'm fine," I said, roughly. "Nothing's wrong."
Molly looked at Arthur, who shook his head slightly, as if telling her not to press. She withdrew her hand, but gave me a concerned look, as if she knew I was lying but could do nothing to help me.
"I need to find Potter," I said suddenly, standing up. "I gotta talk to him about this Horcrux thing."
"That may not be advisable," Lupin said quickly, standing as well. "We're not completely sure they know about them, and it is vital that this information be kept as secret as possible."
"What about this Dumbledore character you keep talking about?" I asked. "Did he know about them?"
"He did," Lupin nodded. "Once I figured out how You-Know-Who might have survived, I questioned him about it. He didn't exactly confirm my suspicions, but he didn't deny them, either. He just told me not to mention what I knew about them to anyone, not even Harry."
"Which might imply Potter didn't know," I muttered. "Or, you might have inferred it, incorrectly."
Lupin stiffened. "I suppose," he admitted, reluctantly. "Harry was the Chosen One — it's possible Dumbledore gave that information to him as well. If that's so, he must have had proof that You-Know-Who had created a Horcrux. If Harry, Ron and Hermione are still out there it must mean —" he stopped for a moment, as if unwilling to go on, but finally continued, "It must mean there is more than one Horcrux."
Arthur and Molly were staring up at Lupin in horror. He turned to them, his face a mask of weariness and misery. "I'm sorry," Lupin said. "I couldn't tell you — couldn't tell anyone! Dumbledore considered Horcruxes to be too great an evil for anyone to know about, even if they would never create one." He turned back to me. "A Horcrux can only be created using a fragment of your soul, and the only way to sever a part of your soul is to commit an act of murder. Dumbledore feared that if knowledge of Horcruxes became widespread once more, people might try to cheat death by creating them, even those who might be repelled by the thought of doing murder. And it would have to be murder — you couldn't just arrange to be present when someone died. It would have to be the deliberate taking of an unwilling victim."
Lupin sat down slowly, hunched over the table, his head held up by one hand. "I don't know where Harry is," he said without looking at me. "It's been weeks since anyone's heard from them. Don't know what to make of that."
"I got an idea," I said, shortly. "I need you to send me back to Malfoy Manor. That's where I'll start looking for them."
=ooo=
Malfoy Manor, again.
This time, though, I wasn't getting the same vibe from the place that I had the last time. There were people inside, like last time, but not nearly as many, though I couldn't tell how many, but at least the place wasn't radiating that Run away! Run away! sensation I'd gotten here before.
I was interested in finding out why.
This time I just walked right up to the big iron gates, wondering if they'd twist around like I'd seen them do before into some kind of guardian, and challenge me for trying to enter. But nothing happened as I approached, and as I neared the gates I saw that they were unlocked. I pushed one gate open and walked up to the mansion's steps. This is where I'd watched as Fenrir Greyback and his flunkies showed Harry Potter and his friends to Narcissa Malfoy, the lady of the house, and she'd let them in. Nothing happened as I strode up the steps and carefully opened the front door, letting myself inside.
I found myself in the long hallway that led through the center of the mansion, the walls still lined with portraits of the Malfoy family. My nose was telling me more now: three people were in here, somewhere — one of them was Potter; I knew his scent. The other two scents were familiar as well — I placed them as Ron and Hermione, who'd been with him when he visited me at Shell Cottage. The only question that needed answering now was why were they still here?
My first guess had been that they'd start here, at "the scene of the crime," so to speak, to try and figure out what happened to Voldie. I'd left quite a mess when Potter 'ported me out of here — I'd whacked off the sword arm of that black-haired Lestrange woman, and had gutted Greyback when we fought for the last time. I could smell blood here still, but not decomposition. There was no sound of motion within the house — it was almost like everything froze the moment I entered the place. Guess I should expect that, with magic and all; Potter and the others probably knew someone had entered the house. So what was next —
That question was suddenly answered as I felt myself yanked into the air by my ankle and suspended upside down. Again. Son of a bitch, I hated that spell! "Potter!" I called out. "It's me, Logan!"
Potter appeared from one of the doors further down the hallway, as did two other familiar faces, his buddy Ron, the red-head, and the young woman, Hermione, from two other doors. All three of them had their wands trained on me.
"Logan?" Potter said, peering carefully at me as I hung by my ankle in thin air. "How did you find us?"
"Wasn't that hard," I said, curtly. "But I thought you'd be long gone from here by now. Are you gonna let me down or what?"
Potter looked at his two companions. "How do we know you're the real Logan?" he asked.
"Kid, who the hell else would I be," I growled, exasperated. "With these?" I popped my claws, showing them to him.
"They could be fakes," the red-head said, warningly.
"No they couldn't, Ron!" the girl disagreed, suddenly. She looked at me. "Those are made from something you called adamantium, right?" she asked.
"Yeah," I answered, a bit baffled by the question.
Hermione turned to her friends. "Polyjuice Potion duplicates a person's body, even down to missing limbs, but it cannot create anything artificial inside them. Like Mad-Eye's eye, Harry, remember? We found that metal inside the Logan who was at Shell Cottage." She waved her wand at me. "It's the same elemental metal that inside this Logan, a metal that's never been found anywhere on this Earth. This is the same Logan that was at Shell Cottage!"
Adamantium wasn't exactly an element, not the way she was thinking of elements, anyway; in its stable form the compound gleamed like highly polished metal, but I wasn't going to muddy the waters by launching into a chemistry lesson. It wasn't something they needed to know anyway.
"Okay," Potter said, convinced. My ankle was suddenly released, and I caught myself, landing on my hands and rolling to my feet in one fluid motion.
"Let's go in here," Potter pointed to a nearby door, the room I had first snuck into when I infiltrated the place several weeks ago. Once the door was closed behind us, and some of the lamps in the room were lit, I surveyed the walls. No pictures in here, good. The girl was casting several spells as I continued to scope out the room, probably spells to hide our presence here in the house, if anyone else should come in. I nodded approvingly at her caution. Finally she finished and turned back to join Potter and the red-head.
"Thanks," I said at last, though I really felt more like yelling at them for hanging me up by my ankle. "So what's been going on here? You figure out what happened to Voldie yet?" Ron winced as I said that. What, him too? What was it with that name?
"We've been here for about a week," Potter replied. "When we first got here, the Ministry — that is, his people at the Ministry — were going over this place like crazy. Eventually they all left, though, and we were able to get inside. They removed all the enchantments protecting the manor — probably so they wouldn't have to deal with them again if they returned."
"We couldn't figure out why they were here in the first place," Hermione spoke up. "If he was running the Ministry, they should have known what had happened to him. We thought they might have taken him somewhere else, to reattach his head somehow, and revive him."
"So you didn't really think he was dead," I pointed out, "when you told me I took him out." I hadn't detected any lie then, I suppose, because I was distracted with the pain my body was suffering from.
"Yes," Potter nodded, his voice flat. "We knew he wasn't dead."
"Why not?" I asked.
Potter glanced at his companions. "We can't really say…"
"You mean you can't talk about Horcuxes?" I said, forestalling any prevarication on his part. All three of them had leaned back in shock at my pronouncement of the word.
"How did you —" Ron began, his voice a hiss of shock and surprise.
"Ron!" Hermione cut him off, probably realizing that the red-head was about to give away what they knew.
"Just hold it," Harry said, stopping them both. He looked back at me. "What do you know about them?"
"Lupin told me," I said. I repeated what the werewolf had told me about Horcruxes, ending with, "He said Voldie —" Ron winced again "— could have created more than one.
Harry was nodding slowly. "He did." Hearing that I'd gotten the information from Lupin seemed to mean something to him. "He probably created six Horcruxes, to split his soul seven ways, seven being the most magically powerful number."
"Lupin said you already destroyed one, some diary," I continued. "Have you destroyed any more?"
"Dumbledore found a ring that belonged to Marvolo Gaunt, that he took from his son Morfin to create one," Harry replied. "He may have created that Horcrux even before he left Hogwarts. The professor destroyed the ring, but there was a curse on it that caused his hand to wither. Before it could kill him, though, he was murdered by Severus Snape, on the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts."
"That's two, then," I said. "Are there any others?"
Harry nodded. "We found a locket that had belonged to Salazar Slytherin, which he'd used to create one, but for a long time we didn't have a way to destroy it. When we — Ron, actually — recovered the Sword of Gryffindor from a pool in the Forest of Dean, he was able to use it to destroy the locket.
"We made a deal with Griphook," Harry said. "To get us into Gringotts, into the Lestrange vault, because we suspected there were other Horcruxes stored there. The deal was that Griphook would get the sword after we got out of there. We found Hufflepuff's Cup — he'd stolen it from a woman named Hepzibah Smith — but Griphook betrayed us to the other goblins and stole the Sword."
"But we were going to betray him as well, and not give him the Sword until we were done with it," Hermione interjected, in a clearly disapproving tone.
"Whatever," Ron snapped. "He betrayed us first!"
"Anyway," Harry said loudly, and the other two kids shut up. "Anyway," he continued, in a normal voice. "That leaves only two other Horcruxes. We think one is something Rowena Ravenclaw owned. The other may be the snake Nagini, but we don't know for sure."
"What have you found out here?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest. They'd been here several days already; what had they been doing, having a camp-out or something?
"We've been trying to reconstruct what happened here after we escaped," Hermione spoke up. She seemed to have overcome most of her apprehension about me, I noticed. "The Ministry people weren't very thorough — we found some things they missed."
"Such as," I prompted.
"Such as — this," she said, retrieving a beaded bag from beneath her robes and pulling out an object that seemed too large to have fit inside it. It was a canister, which Hermione opened, showing him —
Heh. I almost cracked a smile at what was inside. It was a section of a woman's arm, about an inch thick. I knew exactly what it was — it had come from the arm of Bellatrix Lestrange, from when I took off her arm above the elbow as she brandished the Sword of Gryffindor at me. She'd been lucky — I'd been aiming for her chest.
"We found this under the sofa in the drawing room," Hermione explained. There were no other parts of Bellatrix's arm, or of the body of Fenrir Greyback." She glanced toward me, with a little self-conscious gulp of apprehension. "Harry said that you had…that you'd…"
"I killed him," I said simply. "It was him or me, and I don't lay down and die that easily."
"But without any witnesses," the red-head said, "we're working in the dark here. We don't have any way of finding out what went on after we skived out of here."
I gave the kid a stern look. Hell, none of them seemed to realize— "I'd say you got a whole passel of witnesses here, if you'd just think about it for a second."
They all looked blankly at me, then Hermione suddenly slapped herself on the side of her head. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "How stupid of me!"
"What?" the red-head looked completely confused. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I guessed. At that same moment Harry suddenly cursed under his breath.
"The portraits!" Harry said, loudly. "Dammit! We've been hiding from them for so long we forgot they could tell us what went on here!" The lights were just coming on in Ron's eyes, I could see.
But he caught up pretty fast. "But how're we gonna get them to tell us anything?" he asked. "They'll be loyal to the Malfoys — they aren't going to give us anything!"
"So, threaten them," I said, holding up a hand. Snikt. I'm sure they'll cooperate if there's something in it for them. Like staying in one piece."
"No," Hermione said. "We won't have to go that far. I know a few things we can do to persuade them to talk." She actually smiled at me. "Thank you, Mr. Logan, this is an excellent idea!"
"I have my moments," I rumbled.
=ooo=
The portrait of Salazar Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's great-grandfather, glared haughtily at us, though it kept one eye on Hermione's wand, waiting to see when she would bring it to bear again. He'd already had a taste of Hermione's information extraction technique. I was pretty sure he didn't want to experience it again.
When the three had entered the Malfoy mansion a week ago, the first thing Hermione had done was cast a Blindfold Hex and a Muffliato spell on each of the portraits in the main hallway. According to her, it was pretty disconcerting for a picture to have its main means of communicating with the world outside of portraits suddenly cut off. A few of them, the ones that had portraits hung elsewhere, might have been able to go to one of those, to call for help, but Hermione had also cast a Binding Hex on each picture, so that every one of them was bound, blinded, and deaf in their frames.
"This will avail you nothing," Salazar Malfoy was saying. "None of us will tell you anything — none of us! And once Lucius learns you are here, he will stop at nothing to destroy you!"
"Maybe you haven't heard," Ron drawled. "But Lucius lost his wand a long time ago — oh, he never told you?" Ron was grinning at the look of surprised dismay on the portrait's face.
"You're lying," Salazar said at last, his eyes narrowed in calculated anger. "No one but the Dark Lord would dare —"
"Who do you think took it from him," Harry interrupted. "He wanted a wand that wouldn't interact with mine. He thought another wizard's wand would fill the bill. He was wrong. Lucius Malfoy's wand was destroyed when he tried to use it against me.
"Malfoy and his family have had to leave this home once he arrived here but was unable to keep me from escaping," Harry went on, dispassionately. "They will not be back anytime soon to rescue you. It's in your best interest to tell us everything you know about what happened after I and my friends escaped. Otherwise, we'll have no choice but to leave you bound, blindfolded, and all sound eliminated, for the foreseeable future. The choice is up to you."
I listened to Potter with growing approval. While I appreciated the kid coming back for me when Voldie had me helpless in Malfoy Manor, his frontal assault was not the best-laid plan. Now he was showing some knowledge of psychological manipulation, although I wasn't sure how effective it would be on a moving portrait.
"Ridiculous!" the portrait was saying. "The house-elves will —"
Harry was shaking his head. "They're all gone, too. You're all alone here, you and the other portraits here, and once we're done with you, none of you will even be able to talk to one another, let alone visit."
"Poppycock!" Salazar snapped, but there was a worried frown on his forehead.
"Well, let's move on, shall we?" Hermione said, recasting a Binding Hex on the portrait, who sputtered indignantly until a Quieting Charm was cast on it, along with the Blindfold Hex and Muffliato. We moved down to the next picture, one Cerinthus Malfoy, a younger brother of Abraxas Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's father. The man looked quite similar to Lucius and almost nothing like his older brother; it made me wonder who Lucius Malfoy's real father was. Hermione finished removing the blindfold and other bindings on the picture, and it stared at us apprehensively.
"What do you want?" the picture drawled, in a voice that was also similar to Lucius's.
"Information," Harry replied. "We want to know what went on here after Fenrir Greyback and his Snatchers brought Harry Potter and his friends to Malfoy Manor."
"How would I know about that?" Cerinthus asked, blandly. "That happened elsewhere in the manor. I have no direct knowledge of what went on in that room."
"You have a picture frame in the drawing room," Hermione pointed out. "You could have seen what happened. In fact, it seems likely that you would have, since that's what you portraits do — you watch the comings and goings of the people who live here, in case that information should prove useful."
"It seems that information might prove useful, to you — if you can make it worth my while to tell you," the picture suggested, with a sneer.
This was the tenth picture we'd questioned, and only the second one that was also in the drawing room. I was getting impatient for results. I stepped up beside Hermione, showing the picture my fist. "I can think of a way to make it worth your while, bub," I said. Snikt. Three adamantium blades gleamed in the dim lamplight of the hallway. All the portraits in the hallway had Permanent Sticking Charms on them, but that wouldn't stop me from slashing the canvas to shreds. "I suggest you start talking unless you want to end up like confetti."
Cerinthus eyed my claws fearfully. "I'm sure some accommodation can be made," he said quickly. "What is it you wish to know?"
"What happened after the prisoners escaped?" Harry demanded.
"It was absolute bedlam," Cerinthus exclaimed. "Sheer bedlam! The Lestrange woman was shrieking in pain, telling the mistress and the master they had to get the Dark Lord somewhere safe, so she could be healed and the Dark Lord revived. The house-elves gathered their things and brought the master the werewolf's wand. He Vanished the body of the werewolf and the unconscious Snatchers, and they departed through a Floo connection."
Harry, Ron and Hermione were looking at one another worriedly. "How'd Bellatrix know that You-Know-Who could be revived?" Ron asked, of no one in particular.
"I have no idea," Cerinthus spoke up, unexpectedly. "He certainly looked dead."
"So you did see him," I growled. "I thought you said you didn't."
"Well — I certainly saw him when they carried him into the hallway," Cerinthus replied quickly. "To bring him to the Floo fireplace, I mean."
"But there's a fireplace in the drawing room!" Hermione said, shaking her head at the portrait. "It's large enough for a Floo connection!"
Harry pointed at the portrait. "Bind him," he said to Hermione. After that was accomplished, he led us back into the drawing room, up to the huge stone fireplace with the ornate marble mantelpiece, then turned to her once again. "Is there any way we can figure out where they Floo'ed to?"
Hermione looked deep in thought for several seconds. "None I can think of," she said at last, in a disappointed tone. "Other than hoping the Malfoys had a 'Re-Floo' enchantment on their Floo connection."
"What's that?" Ron appeared baffled by the term.
"It was a new feature the Ministry was adding to the Floo Network," Hermione explained. It sends you to the last connection Floo'ed. It was in the Prophet a few years ago, just before Minister Fudge was sacked and the Ministry began clamping down on Floo connections. If you read the paper more, Ron, you'd know that."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Okay," he said, with what I could tell was false bravado. "So who's gonna try it out?"
"We don't even know if the Malfoy's fireplace has this —" Hermione began.
"I'll go," I said. They all looked at me.
"Um," Harry said. "Mr. Logan, don't take this wrong, but if we find the Malfoys or Bellatrix Lestrange, I'd like to be able to question them. I want to go through first."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why?" Harry repeated, puzzlement in his voice. "To find out what they know."
"What do you think they know?" I pressed.
"What happened to Vo— uh, him!" Harry replied, hotly.
Alright, enough is enough. None of these kids had yet said the name "Voldemort" in front of me, just like Lupin and the Weasleys.
"What is it with this creep's name?" I demanded. "Why won't anybody say the name —"
"Don't say it!" Ron jerked forward, hand extended to stop me.
"Why not?" I asked.
"There's a Taboo curse on the name," Hermione said. "We found out when Harry said the name while we were listening to Potterwatch — that's when those men, the Snatchers, found and captured us and took us to Malfoy Manor, where…" she broke off, looking shaken.
"What do you think is going to happen when you show up wherever that whatever-it-is-connection takes you?" I asked, pointing at the fireplace. "If they took Snake-Boy through there, they either severed the connection or they're waiting for someone else to come through, to trap them!"
"Amazingly enough, I already figured that out," Harry retorted, dryly. "I know the risks."
"Do you, kid?" I snorted. "I've been doing this a hell of a lot longer than you have, so I really doubt that." I turned to the girl. "What happens if we try this 'Re-Floo' thing and they've disconnected it somehow?"
Hermione blinked, then seemed to be looking at something with her mind's eye. "If you name a destination that's no longer on the Floo Network, the fire will flash blue for a moment, so you can either step out or try another one."
"Can the connections be changed so that another destination is substituted for the original one?" I persisted.
"It could," Hermione nodded, after a moment, "but the Re-Floo wouldn't work then — you'd have to name the destination again, even if it used the same name as the old one."
"Who controls access to a connection," I went on. "Is it at the destination, or with whoever controls the network?"
"Both," Hermione said. "Most fireplaces have a Floo vent. When it's closed, it severs the connection to the network, making it unavailable. The Floo Regulation Panel can also turn off the connection." She looked at Harry. "You remember telling me that Mr. Weasley, Fred, George and Ron came to get you for the Quidditch World Cup through your aunt and uncle's fireplace?"
Harry nodded, with a wide smile. "Yeah," he said. "Except my uncle had boarded up the fireplace, and was using an electric one in its place." He glanced at Ron, grinning, who returned it in equal measure. "Then there was the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident," Harry added, in a tone of fond reminiscence.
I wasn't sure what a "Ton-Tongue Toffee" was, but we were getting off-track. "What I'm getting at," I interjected loudly, "is that you have no idea what will happen if you step through that fireplace."
"Well, neither do you," Harry retorted, in a defiant tone. "Plus, you're not even a wizard."
"I survived a Killing Curse," I growled. "Can you say the same?"
"I can, actually," Harry answered.
"Harry…" Hermione said warningly. "It's not the same. Mr. Logan is a lot more resistant to magic than we are, for some reason."
"That's right," I said. "That's why I need to be the first one through that fireplace." I couldn't believe I was really saying this. Three weeks ago I was fighting Sentinels with Doc Strange and some of the other X-Men, and now here I was, playing Dungeons and Dragons in some weird magical alternate universe. But what the hell — a fight's a fight.
"I can't allow you to put yourself in danger for me —" Harry began, but I cut him off with a harsh laugh.
"Kid, you don't know the half of what I've been through," I told him. "I've been shredded nearly to bits by getting the metal inside me ripped outta me all at once, I've been torn in half, I've had most of the flesh blasted from my body, an' you'll notice I'm still kickin'." Just for emphasis, I popped one claw and moved my hand so it was up against his neck before he could blink. The girl and the red-head both drew their wands, pointing them at me, but Harry held up a hand signaling to put them away. "You'll notice," I continued, "That one flick of my wrist could finish you in a second. So I think I can handle whatever I happen to find on the other end of that fireplace better than you can."
Harry was silent. After several seconds Ron spoke. "Harry, he did survive a Killing Curse, you know."
"Yeah," Harry said, still looking like he wanted to argue more. But — "I guess you made your point, Mr. Logan. You can go through first."
I nodded and my claw retracted back into my hand; I then turned to Hermione, who was clearly the smartest one of the three. "So how's this 'Floo' thingie work, anyway?"
She pointed to a bowl on the marble fireplace mantel. "You take a pinch of Floo powder and throw it into the — oh! I guess we'll need a fire." She took out her wand and pointed it into the fireplace. "Incendio!" A fire immediately started up, yellow flames crackling over the unburned wood. She took a pinch of the powder in the bowl and tossed it into the flames. They turned green and swirled up even higher than before.
"Don't get out at the wrong grate," Ron warned. "And keep your arms tucked in."
"Oh shush, Ron!" Hermione told him, severely. "There are probably only a few Floo connections nowadays — Mr. Logan, if you end up in Ministry headquarters or someplace where you think retreat is best, try to come back here if you can, and we'll shut off the connection. We'll only have a few seconds to get away before someone Apparates into the area, so…"
She was thinking of these things just now? Maybe I overestimated her intelligence…
"Now, you step into the flames and say 'Re-Floo' very clearly," Hermione finished. I gave her a skeptical look. Step into the flames? But even if they burned me, which I doubted would happen, I could heal in a few minutes.
"Okay," I said. "Here goes nothing!" I stepped into the green flames. They felt like a warm breeze, not hot at all. "Re-Floo!" I said loudly, and it was like I had fallen in a hole — I was suddenly falling and spinning at the same time.
Hermione had been right — I saw only one or two grate-shaped lights flash by before I began slowing as one came into view. The next thing I knew I was standing hearth of a fireplace, covered in soot. The soot was interfering with my senses — I couldn't smell anyone at all.
But the room I was in seemed to be empty, at least. I looked around. It was some kind of study, I saw; there were shelves and shelves of books along the walls, all old, leather-bound volumes that might be centuries old. The only furniture in the room was a reading chair with a lamp on a reading table beside it, and a box I recognized as a Wizard Wireless Network receiver, similar to the one at the Burrow. There was an ordinary wooden door across from the fireplace.
Striding over, I tried the door. Locked. I couldn't tell if it was normally locked or locked with magic somehow, but at the moment it didn't much matter. Popping a claw, I pushed it into the wood above the doorknob and drew a semicircle around it. The doorknob fell out, dropping on the floor with a clattering sound that seemed very loud to my quiet-accustomed ears. Well, that should attract someone, if there was anyone else in the house.
I didn't hear any footsteps approaching. I snorted, trying to blow the stink of smoke out of my nose, so I could take a sniff and see if I smelled anyone. Moving through the door, I entered a long hallway with doors on one side of the hall. Maybe this house wasn't big enough for a central hallway, like the Malfoy mansion.
Moving cautiously down the hall, I took a few more experimental sniffs. My nose was getting clearer, but I still mostly smelled smoke. There was a hint of something familiar, though…
I tried the first door I came to. It was open. I stepped inside, only to be surrounded by a darkness so deep it completely blocked my vision. What the hell? I wondered. More magic?
A screech of fury was the only thing that alerted me, I backed away the moment I heard it, and something swooshed past my face, so close I felt a bare breeze from its passage touch my face.
Snikt. Two could play that game. Even though I couldn't see a thing, I could estimate where a person holding a sword would be to take that swing. My claws shot forward, and I felt them puncture flesh — but just barely. There was a yelp of pain and the darkness dissipated.
She stood facing me, her sword arm restored, though I could tell it was a little over an inch shorter than her other arm. "I wondered if we would see you again, little man," she said, her eyes gleaming with bloodlust. I hadn't paid attention before, but she was tall for a woman, six or seven inches taller than me. Like that was going to make a difference to me.
I held up my claws; the tips were stained with her blood, and I could see the puncture holes in her black dress where blood was seeping through. "Did you wonder whether you'd feel these again, girlie?"
She laughed, the sound harsh in my ears. "Do you think I am not prepared for you now? Do you see this sword?" She flipped the tip upward, almost like a salute. "I recovered this from the goblins just yesterday, in partial payment for the ransacking of my vault by Potter, the blood traitor, the mudblood, and their pet goblin."
She hefted the sword, grinning maniacally at me. "This sword has an interesting property, the goblins told me — it imbibes only that which strengthens it. When the sword cut your arm, it became nearly indestructible. It can cut through anything now — including you!"
My surprise didn't reach my face, but why didn't Potter or the others tell me about this? Did they not know that the sword acted this way?
"If you can hit me with it," I reminded her, coldly. I held my hands forward, claws still extended. "But I'll stack my six blades against your one, any day."
Lestrange took the sword in both hands, holding it in front of her. "Let's see what made of, then," she said. "And I mean it, too — I'm going to find out what color your guts are, little man."