DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, only this story, and this computer.
Author's note: I am sorry for having to rush through this story. There are possibly many aspects of things that are expected to happen in year7 which I have left out. But I tried my best and am still trying.
-Chapter Twenty-Eight-
A Busy Month At Headquarters
The plan did not go smoothly. It took Fred and George sometime to get the fake gold ready and in those three weeks, Malfoy had to cough up three hundred galleons from his account. Neville could not get all the needed fertilizers for the jansei from Diagon Alley and they had to be bought by owl order from a store in Japan. They used the quickest owl they could find, but it still took more than two weeks. Malfoy, who was already less than happy about the three hundred galleons he had been forced to pay to Pettigrew did not like what he called Harry's obsession with a fancy herb. Meanwhile, Harry, Ron and Hermione were practicing hard. Harry and Ron had finally mastered the inaudible spells and on Hermione's suggestion they had started practicing the unforgivables on spiders (notwithstanding Ron's protest) and it wasn't proving too easy. And Ginny was becoming increasingly worried about them, and consequently, she began to ask an increasing number of questions, none of which could be answered by them to her satisfaction. Tensions were running high at Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
Two days after Malfoy had paid those three hundred galleons, Harry called him aside after breakfast.
"I think it's time you start planning for Nagini." He told him quietly.
"What is it with you, Potter?" Malfoy asked irritably, "First you discover a sudden love for herbology, and now you want me to plan killing a snake!"
"I thought you had agreed to help me in this?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, I did. I said I would go and kill that…that snake if you can keep the Dark Lord away…but prepare for it? What is there to prepare in killing a snake?"
Harry pondered before replying. Should he tell Malfoy anything about Nagini being more than a snake, and if yes, how much? Dumbledore had expressly told him not to talk about the horcruxes with anyone except Ron and Hermione. But on the other hand, how fair was it on Malfoy to send him to destroy a horcrux without knowing the risks involved?
"What are you daydreaming about, Potter?" Malfoy snapped.
"Malfoy, I believe Voldemort might have given his snake some special powers, so you ought not to take this work lightly, even if he is away. Besides, you might have to fight other deatheaters on guard."
Malfoy gave him a long, puzzled look, and then shrugged.
"As you say, Potter. Have you heard from the joke-shop yet?"
"Yes, Fred says it will be ready by next week."
The money was paid and Pettigrew was off their back. Malfoy was pleased and started taking his preparation seriously, although he was still skeptical and continued to make occasional snide remarks about Harry's green love, but the comments didn't really have much edge to them.
Meanwhile, the jansei were growing and Harry was becoming increasingly nervous. If it didn't work… Neville, however, didn't show any signs of apprehension.
"The jansei in your room is growing best, Harry." He informed them on the third week, when he was doing his routine evening check of all the herbs. "I wonder why the other plants are not growing so well. Did you put something in the soil, Hermione?"
"Wh-what?" asked Hermione, sounding startled, "No, nothing at all, Neville!"
Well, then I guess this goblet is just lucky for the plant!"
Harry's stomach lurched uncomfortably as his eyes strayed towards the rune sign designs Hermione had conjured to cover up the Hufflepuff emblem.
When Neville left, Harry turned to Hermione.
"You didn't do put something in the soil, did you?" he asked her.
"Of course not, Harry. I did think of taking care of this plant on my own at first, I mean I have read something about janseis in a book called-"
"Hermione, what is that one thing about which you have not read something in some book or the other?" Ron asked loudly.
Hermione chose to ignore this, but she didn't finish the name of the book. "But then I thought Neville was so good in this work it would be best not to interfere in this."
"But then why is this plant growing better than the others?" Harry asked feeling puzzled. Wouldn't it have been more natural had it been the other way round, considering this was a cursed goblet?
"I think Hufflepuff's magic still works on this, Harry, " said Hermione thoughtfully, "in spite of the use Voldemort has put it to. At any rate, it's proving to be lucky to us, so we should be happy. The faster the plant grows, the faster we can destroy the you-know-what! And then…"
Hermione didn't complete the sentence, which gave Harry a chance to complete it in his mind. And then what? What was he supposed to do after the goblet was destroyed? This wasn't the last horcrux, there was still the snake left. Malfoy had said the snake always remained inside the Headquarters, so he, Harry, could not kill it himself. He had already asked Malfoy to do it for him. But what if Malfoy failed? He had promised Malfoy he would hold Voldemort to give him the chance to get Nagini unguarded, but that meant he would be also risking Ron's, and Hermione's lives, because he didn't suppose he could evade them and meet Voldemort alone. And he would have no chance of knowing whether Malfoy had succeeded or not, and if he failed, Voldemort would never die. And even with his horcruxes gone, there was no reason to suppose killing Voldemort would be easy. Dumbledore's words came back to him:
"Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged beyond repair, his brain and his magical power remain intact. It will take uncommon skill and power to kill a wizard like Voldemort, even without his Horcruxes."
"Harry, aren't you coming for practice?" he heard Ron asking him.
He looked up and found Ron and Hermione already at the door.
"Come on, Harry." Hermione said, "We need to get the imperio right."
As Harry followed his friends out of the room to make for the library, his eyes involuntarily strayed to the silver goblet on his bedside table. The slender green stem of the jansei was bending a little from its tip. It was now a symbol of both hope and fear to Harry.
"Hermione, this is just crazy. You know we can't put the imperio curse on each other. It can put all of us in Azkaban." Harry tried to reason with her.
"I know it can, but only if we charge ourselves with using the spell. We are not going to complain against each other to the ministry, are we?"
"But, Hermione-" began Ron.
"Harry, Ron, we have learnt to cast this spell on the spiders. But we don't really want to use this on anyone, not even a deatheater if we can help it. But we must now learn to resist it in case someone puts us under the spell and the best way for it to do ourselves. So far only Harry has been able to overthrow it completely. Ron and I need practice."
Harry and Ron glanced at each other, and then Ron shrugged.
"Well, all right, then…but don't ask me to do anything dreadful."
"Right." Said Hermione primly, "Harry, would you like to begin…you could try it on Ron or me."
"Erm…ok, Ron? You first?"
He cleared his throat and tried to concentrate. Clear your mind, he said to himself, and focus on controlling Ron. Your will must be his… "Imperio!"
Something shot out of his wand and hit Ron, and Harry panicked for a second in which he shut his eyes and opened them again on Hermione's nudging. Ron was standing, looking perfectly all right.
"Give him an order…" Hermione whispered to him.
"What? Oh, yes. Ron, I want you to…I mean…conjure a spider." He said the last three words forcefully.
Ron instantly obeyed by producing a snitch-size spider out of his wand tip on their study-table.
"Nice, cuddly things, spiders, aren't they Ron? Say how nice they are." He said, as he watched the creature crawl on the table.
"Yes, they are so wonderful." Ron said breathlessly, "I love spiders, fascinating."
Harry was grinning broadly now. "Lift it up." He ordered.
"Harry!" Hermione whispered indignantly from his side.
Harry revoked the spell. Instantly, there was a horrendous scream as Ron spotted the spider on his palm.
"You moron, what do you think you are playing at?" he asked Harry angrily.
"Well, I thought it would be easier for you to fight the spell if I ordered you to do something which you would hate most." Harry said matter-of-factly.
Ron opened his mouth furiously to say something, but his outbursts were cut short by a loud thumping at the library door.
Hermione did a quick check to see if any book that could lead to uncomfortable questions were lying around, and on seeing there weren't any, flicked her wand towards the door. The lock clicked, and a white-faced Ginny came running in.
"What the hell," she gasped for breath, "who screamed like that?" she demanded, looking at each one of them in turn, as if searching for some terrible injuries.
"Ginny, calm down." Harry said, " It was just a little spider trying to be friendly with your brave brother. Look." He pointed to the table where it was lying still, after Ron had shaken it off his hand in disgust. Ron sent him a death glare, but Harry chose to ignore it.
"Is that all?" Ginny asked suspiciously, "What were you guys doing?"
"Nothing. Just practicing, you know, spells and stuff." He replied hastily.
"And why didn't you call us, the DA, if you were practicing spells?"
"Because, Ginny, " said Hermione, "Harry wants to get the spells right himself before he teaches you. But we are tired now; we should go for tea now, shouldn't we, guys? Go along, Ginny, we are coming."
With one last searching glance at them, Ginny turned back, banging the door loudly behind her.
"Did you really have to scream like that?" Harry asked Ron in an irritated tone, as he stared at the closed door.
"Why did you put that spider up my arm?"
"Ron, Harry, listen." Hermione said in a quiet voice. "Ginny was in her room when we came down here. She couldn't have come so quickly had she remained there when you screamed. And obviously, she was not with the others either, because Neville and Luna did not come to see who had screamed. There is nothing else on this floor except this library. Do you think she's spying on us?"
"What?" Harry was too aghast to say anything else.
"Hermione, what are you saying?" asked Ron.
"Listen, don't get me wrong. But I think Ginny got quite a shock over Harry's arm-injury. We all were very scared, in fact, when Malfoy said it could be fatal. I think she's becoming desperate to find out what we are up to, because she is worried. We have to be more careful around her."
A long silence followed this. Finally, Harry spoke.
"Right." He said, "Next time we are talking, we'll make the door soundproof as well as locking it. And now I think, we really should go down for tea."
They kept practicing the imperio on each other throughout the week. Harry had no problem overcoming it whether it was Ron or Hermione who tried it on him. Ron continued to suffer for successive sessions. Hermione managed to overthrow it on her first attempt, but not before Ron had made her rant for fifteen minutes against the rights of house-elves. She regained controlled on herself halfway through explaining why house-elves should be hanged, and was so furious about it that she immediately cast the spell on Ron, who had to dust some thirty books in the library before Harry managed to convince her to revoke her spell. At the end of that week, however, both of them had learnt to successfully throw off the spell.
Meanwhile, there were other worries. The ministry had arrested a man called Marcus Crabtree for trying to buy a bottle of fire-whisky with fake coins. The man claimed he was a tour operator, not a fraud, and someone else must have given the fake money to him. Since the ministry had failed to prove he had produced those coins, they had to let him go. Now if the man discovered which customer had paid those coins…
Exactly four weeks after he had planted the four saplings, Neville spotted tiny buds in the one in Harry and Ron's room.
"Your plant will be flowering first." He told them beaming. "I've managed to get it right."
"How long do you reckon it will take?" Harry asked, his heart thumping.
"Jansei buds flower pretty fast. It might even be tonight."
P.S: I am updating in spite of having an insane life and no inspiration. Please review? Please?