Chapter 32 – Rowena's Stone

The ability to simply apparate to the outskirts of the school was one for which Harry was deeply grateful. He wouldn't have wanted to risk the loss of his precious cargo which had still not left the iron grip of his right hand. The return journey to Hogwarts would be a more difficult task, as he was now standing out in the open in broad daylight in an invisibility cloak that struggled to cover his feet. The only choice besides chancing the flight across the lake as soon as possible was to wait until nightfall. As far as Harry was concerned, this was no choice at all.

He crept furtively under the cover of the cloak until he reached the edge of the lake, and was about to mount his firebolt once more, when he noticed that a single boat was waiting at the shore nearby. This was distinctly unusual, unless a member of the Order had slipped away in secret. He trod slowly through the long grass towards it and noticed a piece of parchment lying inside. Taking a quick look around, he leant forward, picked it up and opened it. The handwriting inside was instantly recognisable as being that of the Headmistress.

"Dear Mr Potter,

Your presence in my study in the immediate future would be much appreciated. I believe there are certain school rules you may have overlooked.

Professor M McGonagall"

The fact that disciplinary action was of even the slightest concern to him now, was most puzzling. Perhaps it was because he had always had a great affection for Hogwarts that he still had twinges of regret at disappointing the figures of authority within its walls. Perhaps it was also because the castle was now far more of a home to him.

He sighed and pulled off his cloak, climbed into the boat and let it carry him gently carry him across the lake, wondering briefly whether it had been Ron or Hermione who had broken under questioning.

The looks he received from Tonks and Hagrid on his way across to the castle were surprisingly calm and friendly. He could only guess therefore, that they too had been aware of his sudden departure. The rest of the way to Professor McGonagall's study, Harry chose to avoid all eye contact with anyone he passed.

Finding the door wide open, he walked in to see the Headmistress waiting for him with a peaceful smile. Harry couldn't understand this at all.

"Ah, Potter, do sit down," she said brightly, "I see you found my note."

As he accepted her invitation, his face grew evermore suspicious.

"Who told you?" he asked bluntly.

"Potter, I would beg you not to accuse your closest friends of treachery," she said, "They didn't say a word. I just happened to be looking for you last night, regarding an informal assessment of your progress. Mr Weasley and Miss Grainger would have been most convincing in their cover story, had it not been for the fact that I was accompanied by Professor Lockhart."

Everything clicked into place in Harry's head, and he couldn't help despising the precious few gifts in Lockhart's possession.

"You may consider yourself lucky that I was aware of your little adventure," she continued, "for if you had slipped away unnoticed, invisibility cloak or not, the giant squid in the lake would have plucked you out of the air and sent you right back where you came from. Apart from anything else, I know when any witch or wizard crosses the boundaries of Hogwarts. There are more enchantments surrounding us than there have ever been, just as I told you back in July. Potter, I didn't summon you here to reprimand you for your actions. It was a terrible risk on your part, but a perfectly understandable one. I simply wanted to see that you had come back to us safe and sound…erm…could you possibly tell me what you've brought back with you?"

Harry looked down into his lap and noticed that he was still gripping the velvet bag insistently. The apprehension he had felt at Godric's Hollow now returned to him.

"I…don't know if…if I can tell you," he stammered.

She regarded him in silence, as if trying to determine just how serious he really was.

"Might I imagine," she began hesitantly, "that it is not an object with which you are comfortable?"

He gave a shaky nod in reply.

"Very well. I believe you know where Professor Moody can be found. The appropriate members of the Order have been informed."

Her expression changed to deepest concern as she hurried from behind her desk and laid a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Go quickly, Harry. Use your cloak if you have to, but don't stop to talk to anyone for any reason!"

He wasted no more time. Rapidly unfurling the cloak and throwing it around himself, he flew out of the room and down the spiral staircase, all the while hoping desperately that he would see Ginny on his way. If he did, his mission of life or death importance would become nothing more than a trivial errand.

He hurried down stairs and along corridors as quietly as he could, narrowly avoiding a storm of ink-soaked parchment from Peeves, who seemed to have spotted Harry's feet protruding from beneath the cloak. His grip on the bag continued to tighten until he finally reached Mad Eye's study. The Professor looked up suddenly as he heard footsteps approaching. He grinned as he levelled his magic eye at his invisible guest.

"You know, Potter, it would be very worth your while getting one of those in a bigger size if you were lucky enough to find one," he remarked, before Harry had even had a chance to remove the cloak, "Now, where have you come from in such a hurry?"

"Professor…McGonagall…" he gasped, "urgent….can't wait."

It was then that both Moody's eyes fell upon the bag in Harry's hand. He stood up and advanced upon Harry, his curiosity increasing with every step.

"What do you have there, boy?" he demanded abrasively.

Harry took a deep, steadying breath, walked all the way into the room and closed the door behind him. Without a word, he walked straight past Moody to the old oak desk and placed the bag upon it, the Professor watching his every move. Trust had been a shaky subject where Moody was concerned, ever since Harry had discovered that a follower of Voldemort had successfully posed as him and taken a teaching job at Hogwarts for a whole year before being found out. His strongest instinct, however, was that this task could very well be impossible with no one to trust. With this in mind, he reached into the bag and carefully withdrew the seeing stone.

Moody's eyes were now wide open, as he accepted that there could only be one reason Harry had brought this object to him so urgently. He had been told as much as he apparently needed to know by the portrait of Dumbledore before the term had begun, but hadn't the slightest idea when this knowledge would be required. As it was placed upright on the desk, he stared at it in bewilderment. Without looking back at Harry, he spoke again, this time in a far-away voice.

"I'm not a seer, Potter, and I don't need any more ornaments on my shelves. So tell me, what am I looking at here? And how many more such objects can I expect to have laid before me?"

Both of them were now gazing hypnotically into the swirling mist.

"Rowena Ravenclaw..." breathed Harry, "That's all I know for certain."

"Amazing…" Moody replied, even more distantly, "Truly amazing…the Dark Lord…"

He narrowed his eyes and spoke as if he were addressing the stone directly.

"How old were you?...How…did you do this…? Who did you have to kill?"

Shaking his head slightly, he acknowledged Harry's presence once again.

"As a matter of interest, Potter, was it your first impulse to throw it on the ground and smash it open?"

Harry considered. He hadn't really thought about it in those terms.

"I…I suppose it should have been," he replied finally, "but no."

"And why not?" asked Moody, who was now looking back at him.

"I don't know. Just seems too simple…too obvious."

A grin spread across the Professor's face as he gave Harry a pat on the shoulder.

"You really do have the makings of an auror, Potter, and doubtless a better one than the Ministry deserves. Indeed, there's nothing 'simple' about the dark arts, except maybe the intentions behind them. I can undo a lot of dark magic, but I've a feeling that we'll need help if we want the magic to show itself."

Harry's instinct told him that this would prove somewhat more difficult than the desecration of Tom Riddle's diary in his second year.

"There are two Professors I need you to find for me, Harry," Moody continued, "I'll need one to make sure the other is sober."

Finding Professor Trelawney was a fairly simple task. Finding her in a coherent and rational state was a little more difficult. She kept mostly to the tower she had always occupied at Hogwarts, emerging primarily to dispose of empty bottles that once contained various highly intoxicating substances, even some barely fit for human consumption. Since being relieved of her post as a teacher of Divination, she had found alcohol to be a most valued companion.

As Harry ascended the ladder, he grimaced at the noxious cocktail of aromas that wafted down from above his head. He questioned once again why this was necessary. Trelawney was after all, as Hermione had consistently pointed out, a total and utter fraud. She was oblivious to the gift that Dumbledore had recognised in her, and her second sight would have long since been blurred by a drunken haze.

By a matter of chance, the professor herself happened to be making her way down the ladder, and being unaccustomed to finding it occupied, slipped with a yelp of surprise as her foot met one of Harry's hands. Descending the ladder was achieved a lot faster than either of them had planned, and the two landed violently in a heap at the bottom. Harry lay flat on his back, stunned by the impact. Professor Trelawney rolled lazily off him and burst into near hysterical laughter as she struggled to replace her glasses.

"Did you see that?" she slurred through bouts of giggling, "Help me up, let's try it again!"

Ensuring that no permanent damage had been caused to his spine or his wand, Harry dragged himself painfully upright. The professor was sat up with her head lolling this way and that, and her arms outstretched as if waiting for a servant to attend on her.

"Come on then, give me a hand," she demanded, "I'm sure a pair of strapping young lads like you are perfectly capable of helping such a highly respected seer to her feet!"

"There's only me here," he muttered impatiently, utterly unimpressed by her behaviour.

"Right you are," she belched, straightening the glasses that provided a disturbing magnification of her badly focused eyes.

"Just get up," replied Harry, grabbing her arm and hoisting her roughly off the ground, "I need to take you to see Professor Slughorn."

This was the first time he had spoken to a member of staff in such a manner, although technically, Sybil Trelawney hadn't been on the staff for nearly two years. Either way, Harry had no problem treating her like this.

"Slug…horn…" she repeated, rolling the name around inside her head like a marble in a cauldron as she staggered from side to side, "Which one is he then?"

"He's the potions master," said Harry, not wishing to engage the inebriated witch in any more conversation than was absolutely necessary.

She leaned in towards him with a mischievous grin, giving him the full benefit of her psychotic stare and fermented breath, then slapped him playfully on the back.

"I like your thinking, boy!" she proclaimed ecstatically, "Potions…cocktails…see my thinking? Wonderful woman, Rosmerta, but her stock does tend to taste a little stale after a few bottles. Maybe this Professor Bogthorn can pass me something with a little more kick!"

"It's Slughorn," Harry sighed, attempting to steer Professor Trelawney down the corridor and hoping that the potions master would at least give her something to shut her up for a while.

The journey to Slughorn's study was more what Harry would refer to as a journey and a half. Having to all but carry the professor in her drunken stupor and endure her abusive observations of shocked students and staff alike, he could only hope that Mad-Eye had been right about how important she would be to the task in hand.

"Do you think perhaps we could pick up the pace?" she slurred, lurching sideways off Harry's arm and nearly crashing into a portrait of a rather startled highwayman on the wall, "You young people may not place much importance on punctuality, but I'm sure Professor Wormtrough will."

"Slughorn," Harry replied, hissing through his teeth in exasperation and once again forcefully retrieving Professor Trelawney from the floor.

After a great deal more pushing and pulling, he finally delivered his wretched former divination teacher to his potion master's door. Professor Slughorn looked up with a face of sparkling delight as he saw Harry standing in the doorway.

"So there you are, my dear boy!" he exclaimed, "Come in, please! Where the devil have you been hiding? The way our delightful new headmistress tells it, you've scarcely had time to draw breath since you arrived. Thought perhaps you'd been avoiding – "

He stopped short as his nose began to twitch violently.

"Hell's teeth, Potter, what have you been drinking?" he coughed in surprise, "I may be partial to the odd dose of firewater for medicinal purposes, but you smell like the cellars in the Hog's Head!"

Harry looked behind him and realised that Trelawney had slumped down out of view beside the door.

"No, no, that would be my companion here," he said, pulling her to her feet as best he could, while the professor looked on in concern.

She leant on his shoulder and whispered cautiously in his ear.

"Is that…the snail man?"

He quickly grabbed her by the waist to stop her collapsing once more.

"Yes," he replied wearily, "Yes, that's the snail man."

Twenty minutes later, Harry entered Mad-Eye Moody's study behind Professor Slughorn and surprisingly upright Professor Trelawney. Sobriety had been brought to her so rapidly by a potion stimulant that she was still a little perplexed by the reality of her surroundings, and now her vastly magnified eyes were staring about her as if to ensure that she hadn't stumbled into a dream.

"Shut the door, Potter," growled Moody.

As Harry did so, his defence teacher addressed the new arrivals.

"I think it only fair to tell you that there's now a powerful seal charm on the door," he said, with a vaguely maniacal grin on his face, "just in case anyone is seized by a compulsion to leave before I consider the time to be right."

Slughorn was already shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to the other, but it was Trelawney who first gave voice to protest.

"Why do you need me here at all?" she grumbled, her piercing gaze locked on Moody, "Why not just summon the filthy nag? I'm sure you'll find him trotting around the grounds or munching some hay to feed his divine knowledge – "

"I need you here because you have a talent," barked the professor, making her recoil slightly, "and I'm not talking about your ability to sink a bottle of brandy in the space of ten minutes!"

He paused to ensure that he would receive no further interruption for the time being.

"Young Potter here has brought a dark magical object to my attention. Sybil, you're here because of what that object is. Horace, you're here because of what it means."

Moody then turned his back on them and made for the desk, where he covered the object with the velvet bag.

"No need to be so theatrical, old chap," said Professor Slughorn, as breezily as possible, "Can't you just tell us what this is all about?"

Turning slowly around to face them, Moody's expression was both grave and earnest.

"It's all about a certain former pupil of yours," he said darkly, before whipping off the cover and revealing the seeing stone to them, "who just happens to be the mystery guest in the room."

Harry couldn't be sure if Slughorn really didn't understand, or just didn't want to understand. He had, after all, remembered nothing about giving Harry the memory of his conversation with Tom Riddle regarding Horcruxes. One thing he did remember, however, was that Harry had asked him about them. The wheels in his head turned slowly and methodically as his glance shifted between Moody, Harry, and the smoky glass sphere that lay on the desk in front of him. His face gradually entered the realm between anger and apprehension.

"I don't know where you got your information, and I don't know where you got that thing, but I want no part in it!"

He stormed towards the door with his wand drawn, deciding how best to break his way out, when Moody called after him.

"Your part in this began fifty odd years ago, and now, if you don't mind, I believe it should be brought to an end!"

The whole room stood in silence. Even Professor Trelawney, who still hadn't the slightest clue what was going on, turned to look at the now hesitant potions master.

They all watched as his wand arm dropped limply to his side, though it was nearly a full minute before he turned around.

"What do you want from me?" he asked finally, resigned to the fact that he could turn away no longer.

"The soul inside can be destroyed," said Moody, in an attempt to convince himself as well as the assembled company, "but summoning it from the object itself is a different matter. We can't just shatter it and hope for the best. Our valued seer is here to tell us exactly what is held within."

It was again Professor Trelawney's turn to speak up.

"Are you err…quite sure? My inner eye must be given proper time and circumstance to…focus," she said, rather pathetically.

"Oh, I'm perfectly sure," replied Moody, with a reassuring though slightly wicked grin, "In fact I think your inner eye will find it a very sobering experience."

She stepped forward with nervous caution, as if approaching a sleeping dragon. Though she knew much of the theory behind Divination, she had seldom appeared to be a convincing seer to anyone. For the most part, it had been based on guesswork, and she feared that what followed would be yet more humiliation. Moody stepped aside, allowing her to take a seat in front of the bewildering object.

Placing her hands delicately either side of it, she stared into the glass, hoping that an image, a word, or even a strange pattern in the smoke would reveal itself. She looked so hard into the swirling mist that her eyes began to hurt behind the enormous lenses. The minutes ticked by, during which Harry's faith in Professor Moody's judgement steadily diminished. Finally, Professor Trelawney shook her head in acceptance of the cold hard facts.

"I'm sorry, there appears to be nothing in…" she began, "nothing I can…no…sign…I…"

Her words trailed off as a faint light started to glow at the centre of the stone. All of a sudden she became transfixed, her eyes widening to the size of teacups, and a monstrous groan rose into her throat. The other occupants of the room stared at her in amazement as she cried out in what seemed to be three separate voices; her own voice, though slightly deeper, a guttural snarl, and some kind of ghostly wail.

"Be gone! You who meddle are not worthy! The time is not right!"

All three now had their wands drawn on her, though none dared touch her.

"I await the follower who would see me rise again!" she continued, reaching for new tones of urgency.

She shuddered a little as the light slowly dimmed into nothing, released her grip on the glass, and finally slouched in her chair. After a few moments' pause, Professor Slughorn gave her a small prod with his wand, and the three of them jumped back in shock as she suddenly regained full consciousness, her glasses perched at a comical angle on her nose.

"Wha…what is it?" she enquired, "Oh…terribly sorry, I was miles away. Anyway, like I was saying, magnificent instrument and all, but I fear that the eye is still a little out of balance."

Moody covered the seeing stone once again and helped her out of the chair.

"Quite alright, my dear," he said calmly, "Suppose it was worth a try."

He guided her towards the door, breaking the seal charm with a flick of his wand, and ushered her out into the hallway.

"Obliviate," he breathed, stunning her just enough to take her legs out from under her.

She looked up at him with a dazed expression, feeling slightly groggy from the memory charm. Moody grasped her under the arm and gently helped her to her feet.

"Oh Sybil, I really do think you should give the old bottle a rest," he remarked with the deepest sympathy, "Looks like you've been for a wander, though bugger knows how you wound up here in your state! Maybe you'd benefit from having a nice lie down."

"Erm…err yes, I suppose so," she said, still puzzled, "I'll um…be in my room,"

The moment she was out of sight, the professor returned to the study and closed the door behind him.

"Don't think we'll be having any trouble from her," he said, adjusting his magical eye and turning to Professor Slughorn, "but now it's your turn."

Slughorn took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Whatever he knew about Horcruxes, he wished he'd never known. Despite this, as a matter of sheer habit, he had been turning the problem over and over in his head, and hit upon what he hoped might be a solution. His eyes shifted about, as though he were silently working his way through a mathematical equation, then he took a deep breath and replied to the challenge.

"So you just need to drag the little blighter out of there, am I right?"

"Well, to put it mildly, yes," said Moody.

There was still a certain amount of hesitation in the manner of the potions master. This wasn't something he wanted to be involved in. He took pride in his associations with the great and good, and would often go out of his way to assist others in achieving notoriety, but this was a far more dangerous gamble than most. There was something about that boy though, a little voice in his head told him. If this particular gamble paid off, all concerned would be remembered and praised far beyond their own lifetimes. He proceeded cautiously.

"Have either of you ever heard of an Entrapment potion?" he enquired.

Both of them shook their heads.

"Well, it's a little like using cheese to lure a mouse from its hole," he explained, "It produces a powerful essence that is quite irresistible to its intended target, though far more violently than the likes of Amortentia. Imagine a scent that would give a bear the strength to actually break out of his cage in pursuit of it, and the making of it is not without its hazards."

"Would it work on a spirit such as this?" asked Moody.

"To my knowledge, it's never been tried before," came the reply.