A History of Magic
Disclaimer:The following is a work of fiction created by and for readers of the Harry Potter books for no profit. No copyright or trademark infringement was intended, and all of the characters, situations et c. belong to, though aren't limited to, JK Rowling.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed, and those of you who have favourited the story. This fic has been betaed by the lovely RaeWhit: thank you.
Part Six
-H-
There are some ingredients that I am unable to procure simply by living in the heart of the wilderness, amongst forests and dragons. Given that these ingredients are for an experiment unrelated to work, I have had to venture out myself, and am pleased to note that my face garners little reaction. My trial has smoothed more ruffled feathers than I had guessed.
There is a queue in the apothecary. I join it, my basket nicely heavy on the crook of my elbow. I shuffle forward as one patron after another is attended to. I forgot that today is Saturday, but I am in no rush after all.
There is a scuffle of sound behind me. I glare over my shoulder, assuming that someone has tried to push ahead in line. Instead, I see someone in a desperate hurry to leave.
"I'm sorry, sir, let me help," a man is saying, gathering up dropped shopping for someone who must be half his age.
"No, no, it's fine, please." The boy is speaking low, as though to avoid attention. Given we are all waiting to be served and have nothing better to do, we stare regardless. It is curious enough to hold our attention, that someone elder should be so deferent.
But then the older wizard moves and I understand. Harry Potter is kneeling, collecting his shopping by hand and shooting worried glances around himself.
He is pale, his hair greasy enough to rival mine at its worst. He has gained muscle but lost weight and it does not suit him.
His eyes dart up and catch mine. He freezes.
This stalemate bears down on me, daring me to be the first to act. I can feel it, a tangible, brittle weight between us. The effort of maintaining it is exhausting.
I raise an eyebrow.
He flushes. He has the rest of his scattered belongings in his arms in an instant. He is on his feet and his eyes are shining. He backs through the door, thanking the man who helped him (and who presumably knocked his bags to the ground to begin with), and vanishes.
That really was curious. I turn away, surprised to see the queue has barely diminished. Several customers are watching me, fascination written across their faces as plainly as if scrawled in ink. I look pointedly at the shop assistant, who immediately busies himself weighing a bowl of rat's bowels. Eventually, the interest focused on me drifts elsewhere.
With my purchases paid for, I gladly quit the apothecary; I am not comfortable under the burden of their stares.
Potter, for all that he has worn his heart on his sleeve since the day he was born, makes absolutely no sense to me.
-H-
Harry could not seriously be considering this. There was no way it would work. It simply wasn't possible.
But possible or not, he was walking down the Atrium in the Ministry of Magic, a borrowed wand in his pocket and his Library Identification fixed to his lapel.
His heart pounded in his chest while he waited for them to scan his borrowed wand. The noise of it would surely give him away. He used 'borrowed' very loosely to describe how he'd come by it; whomever it had belonged to had no need for it now, Harry was sure of that at least.
"Name?" a dispassionate voice asked.
"Thomas Jones. I'm with the National Library of Magical Reference."
"Right."
The witch made a note of something, then thrust the wand back to him. Harry stared, mouth slightly agape. His heart had ceased pounding, ceased beating altogether. Surely he hadn't –
"Next!" the witch called, pointedly glaring at Harry until he hurried past.
He had. He was in.
He walked slowly to the lift, half expecting a security team to rush out at him before he could make it past the golden grilles, but no one came. The lift jerked into motion. The other wizard sharing it with him didn't say a word the whole time they sank lower and lower. Harry closed his eyes, forcing away memories of the last time he'd taken this lift.
The doors opened for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Harry stumbled out. The office was hectic, wizards and witches rushing to calm owls that flew in frantic circles over their heads, a series of Floos along one wall manned by friendly-looking witches. As Harry watched, a head appeared in the fire. The man was screaming.
"You've reached the Emergency Auror Floo Service. Please step back, keep the connection open, and we'll send help immediately."
A red-robed figure marched grimly forward, hand streaming green powder. She tossed it into the flames and followed.
Making his way along the wall, keeping as far out of the way as he could, Harry finally arrived at a door bearing the plaque, 'Criminal Records'.
He knocked uncertainly.
The door opened immediately, so suddenly that Harry almost fell forward into the room. There was a young wizard on the other side, looking so utterly bored that Harry understood why he had been so quick to answer his knock.
"Uh, hi. I'm here to do a bit of research."
The wizard looked unimpressed.
"I'm with the National Library of Magical Reference." He nodded his chin to the badge he was wearing. "This isn't strictly business, but I came across a criminal who used a rather arcane Dark spell, and given its historic precedence, I was hoping to investigate the effects further. Normally a spell of this kind will produce a marked effect on its caster, and I would like very much to see what his records say, and whether there are further crimes indicating that the spell might have –"
Harry cut himself off, biting his cheek to hold in a grin when the wizard simply stepped back, making his way over to a desk bearing a worn magazine.
"Help yourself," he said.
His speech had been based on one part Severus and two parts Hermione. All around mind-numbing enough so that no one could possibly remain interested.
Harry stared at the cabinets snaking around the room. He did not know if the reports were filed chronologically or alphabetically or by crime. But as far as he'd got, he could hardly let this be the barrier that stopped him.
He rolled up his sleeves and dug in. Eventually he would come across the report sentencing Bellatrix Lestrange to Azkaban, and when he did he could only hope the report would say what had become of her Gringotts vault key.
-S-
It was several hours later. Harry could hear the faint rumble of snoring from the wizard who was supposed to be supervising him. Dust marked Harry's elbows, blanketed his hair, tickled his throat. He held in his hands Lestrange's file.
The file did not say where her Gringotts key could be found, but Harry's search had not been fruitless by a long shot.
The key was stuck to the file.
It was held to the parchment with a spell so strong Harry would swear he could hear it humming softly. There was no chance of Harry breaking the enchantments and taking the key, but it was possible he didn't need to. He tested the parchment, the key, and the buzzing wards, noting his discoveries hastily on Muggle paper. If he could find out what this spell was, he might be able to find a way to circumvent it without breaking it; he was sure that breaking it would immediately alert the Ministry to the key's theft.
Harry glanced over his shoulder. He could no longer hear snores. He carefully slotted the file back into place, glancing around to make a mental picture of where it was. He then walked a little to the left, noisily withdrawing a random file and letting out a sound of satisfaction. He made a show of writing out a roll of notes, barely absorbing a single word on the parchment before him.
When he had finished, he shoved the file back into place. Anyone watching would presume that this was what he'd come looking for, not the other file he'd looked at for five minutes.
He walked to the door, a roll of parchment trailing from his arms.
"I'll be back tomorrow," he said, injecting false cheer into his voice.
"Sure," the wizard said dully, not looking up from his magazine.
-S-
Harry's heart pounded harder on his second trip. He wasn't sure whether this was because he was certain that he must have given himself away, or because of the illegal poison stashed in his robe pocket, or because of the Horcruxes he could feel pulsing at his back.
If he pulled this off today, he wanted the Horcruxes immediately destroyed. It had been foolish to keep two in the flat he shared with Severus; he would not take a third back there. Whatever happened, he would see the locket and the diadem destroyed by the day's end.
The wizard on the way in looked at Harry curiously.
"Your wand's never been registered."
"Uh, should it have been?" Harry said, his lungs struggling to pull in air.
"Hogwarts usually registers wands for first years. S'not too unusual for people as didn't go to Hogwarts to have an unregistered wand."
"Oh, right. Well, I never went. Ah, home-schooled."
The wizard nodded, handing Harry his wand back. "You'll want the forms, so you can do it yourself. Not everyone bothers, but it's dead useful."
"Excellent, thank you!" Harry said, hoping he sounded as though he were actually considering filling the forms in. He accepted the roll of parchment, shoving it in his rucksack.
He found Lestrange's file quickly enough. He kept his pace slow, and his gaze wandering, as though not quite sure where he'd found the file he was after.
He knew what spell kept the key to the parchment, and there was no way to circumvent it (Harry had been imagining an Indiana Jones style scenario where he deftly traded the key for something identical in size and weight). However, there was a way the spell's reactions could be slowed. The least amount of time Harry would gain was two hours. The optimum was six.
Harry hoped two would be enough.
He was shielded from sight by a tower of filing cabinets. He muttered Muffliato to avoid being overheard. The spell that he was about to cast would be much more suspicious than a sound-proofing one.
It took ten minutes to complete the spell. Harry lifted the key, feeling the resistance as the spell protecting it clung to it still. He stowed the key away in his robes, sliding it into a pouch and then a pocket. His hands fumbled as he returned the file to its shelf.
He stalked from the record room, mumbling vaguely about having forgotten something.
He glanced at his watch. One hour, fifty-eight minutes.
He sped up.
Harry had never before wished so strongly that he could Apparate. The tube ride to the Leaky Cauldron was almost painfully slow. An ache settled in Harry's stomach as the train raced through its serpentine lair.
With the bank in sight, Harry glanced at his watch again. One hour, twenty-four minutes.
Harry looked straight ahead as he walked inside, gaze avoiding the warnings engraved at the entrance. He could hear Hagrid telling him that you'd have to be mad to try to rob it.
Maybe he was mad.
He presented the goblin with the key. Harry leaned against the counter as he waited, trying not to betray his fear.
But the goblin did not question Harry's right to use this key; he merely beckoned for a hairy-eared goblin from the nearest door.
"Vault sixty-six, Gristbite."
The hairy-eared goblin nodded, leading Harry through a door and towards a cart. The journey took much longer than any other occasion when Harry had visited Gringotts, and he had to restrain himself from checking his watch again.
They sank deeper and deeper into the bowels of London, finally arriving at a vault hidden in part by a slumbering dragon.
Harry eyed the dragon nervously.
"We have means of subduing her," Gristbite said. He stretched out a hand, resting his palm against the vault's door. A keyhole appeared. Gristbite held the key in long fingers, settling it in the lock and turning.
The door vanished.
Harry stepped inside the vault, eyes sweeping the cavernous room. He saw the cup. Glancing back at the goblin, who was watching him with narrowed eyes, Harry lifted his wand and tried to Summon it.
The goblin laughed, a dry, hacking sound that set Harry's teeth on edge.
Shoving his wand into his pocket, Harry climbed a mound of gold, losing his footing more than once as coins shifted, until he could reach the cup. With it in hand, he turned his back on Gristbite and murmured, "Gemino."
With the replica safely replaced, and the Horcrux stowed in his bag, Harry descended and stood next to the goblin.
"Your business is complete?"
"Yes," Harry said.
They clambered back into the cart, whizzing away from vault sixty-six; Harry felt as though his stomach had been left behind.
It had been too easy. The goblins were shrewd; surely it could not be so simple to trick them, to access a vault not his own?
Gringotts keys were notoriously hard to lose, or steal, Harry knew. The power afforded to him by means of this tiny scrap of metal seemed unreal. The Ministry should probably look into protecting them better.
The cart stopped abruptly, and Harry all but fell out. Gristbite watched him, wearing a nasty smirk.
"Few wizards find the carts to be comfortable," he said.
Harry did not ask why they used the carts; he knew how little the goblins cared for wizards' comfort.
On shaky legs, Harry made his way out of the building. As he reached the door, a swarm of red-robed wizards pushed past him.
Harry dropped the key from his hand.
He heard an Auror demand to a goblin that they exercise more caution than usual over security following "an incident in the Ministry archives".
The goblin bristled, his reply intentionally provocative.
Harry heard nothing beyond that.
He forced himself to walk away from Gringotts rather than run.
He waited until he had made it into Muggle London before finally giving in to his instincts. He sprinted to the nearest tube station, riding the train one stop before getting off and changing. He did this three times before he felt sure that he wouldn't be easily followed.
The cold dread of three Horcruxes shadowed Harry.
He needed to get out of London. Harry had worked out a way to destroy the Horcruxes, but for it he would need privacy. More, he would need to be somewhere people weren't. God knew what damage it would do if this went awry.
He rushed into Victoria station and bought a ticket for the first train out.
The train was waiting at the platform. The doors slid shut moments after Harry had found a seat.
He stared out of the window as they pulled away, half-expecting wizards to Apparate into the station. But he knew they had no way of tracing him; he hadn't used a single spell since Gringotts, and he was never going to use the wand they'd linked to him again anyway.
In fact...
Harry stood, rattling down the train until he got to the toilet. With the door locked behind him, he snapped the wand he'd stolen from Grimmauld Place with a resounding crack. He was sure that those outside the cubicle must be wondering what the hell he was doing in here, but it hardly mattered.
The wand's core was all but bare by the time Harry had finished. He gathered the splinters and flushed them.
Harry stayed on the train until there were more trees than houses.
He spared a glance for the station's name on his way out. Redhill.
Harry was sure that he was out of London. He tailed the crowds from the station and just followed the first road he came across. He'd been walking for fifteen minutes when he saw an area populated by enough trees to provide cover. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans before hopping the fence.
He walked in a straight line. Loath as he was to leave a trail, he didn't want to lose himself, so he carved a small triangle into a tree every thirty feet or so. Finally he felt safe enough to stop.
Harry sat himself cross-legged on the forest floor, his bag in front of him. From it, he extracted a black stone. His Transfiguration skills had improved somewhat since he'd left Hogwarts, but his spell still lasted longer if the material was the same.
With the image firmly fixed in his mind, Harry waved his wand. The stone lifted, expanding, its rough edges becoming smooth and angular. The heavy box dropped to the ground with a thud, sending clouds of dirt up.
Harry dropped the three Horcruxes into the box then thought better of it. He reached for the locket again, holding it to his mouth and quietly hissing in Parseltongue, "Open up."
The locket sprang open.
He threw it back into the stone box.
From his robes, Harry drew a small vial of undiluted basilisk venom. As a potions ingredient, it was nearly impossible to procure, but luckily Harry knew just the place to find some.
Going back to Hogwarts was awkward. He'd had to fly, a Disillusioned robe nowhere near warm enough to make up for the moisture of the clouds bathing him.
Harry hadn't flown much since coming here; he didn't have time.
But he'd flown from London to Hogwarts, following a train-track invisible to Muggle eyes, evading birds, planes, and storms.
He'd never flown so hard in his life.
Once on the grounds, Harry had hidden the broom, and slid under his Cloak.
Slinking through the corridors, dodging students, Harry hadn't dared to breathe.
Somewhere in this castle was Severus – Severus who had kissed him – Severus whom he had kissed back – Severus whom he wanted to kiss again.
When he'd left, Harry had pelted into the sky as though devils were nipping at his heels. He was back in London by dusk.
"Harry."
His mother was calling him.
He pulled the stopper from the vial.
"Harry, no! Please!"
He'd heard his mother begging before. He stared at the locket, heart pounding. What was her picture doing in there?
He reached for it again, drawing it out of the box with one hand, the vial still held aloft in his other. He settled the locket on his leg.
"Mum?" he whispered. His voice melded with the hush of leaves in the wind.
"Harry! Oh, my Harry, you're making a mistake."
Harry frowned. He put the vial down next to him.
"What mistake?"
The picture of his mother looked up at him, her smile painful to look at. For a second, he thought her eyes flashed scarlet.
"You mustn't destroy me. You mustn't destroy any of these things."
Harry's eyes hardened.
"I have to, Mum. You don't know what they are."
Like a Veela, she ceased being beautiful. "You'll kill me."
"You're already dead, Mum," Harry said, his throat tightening.
He brushed his thumb over her picture.
Agony. The metal of the locket seared through his jeans. He fell back, pain like he'd never known lancing through him from where the locket touched his thigh. He stared in horror as the portrait transformed, his mother's hair receding, her skin whitening and hugging her skull ever more tightly, her nose disintegrating.
Voldemort stared out at him, his red eyes glinting malevolently. He was laughing.
Harry grabbed the chain and pulled. The Horcrux would not come away from his leg. He pulled harder, biting back a scream. It was like trying to pull off a finger.
He tore a strip off his shirt and wadded it into a ball, forcing it between his teeth. One hand groped for his rucksack, fumbling through it until he found his knife.
He clumsily pushed his jeans to his knees. Harry gritted his teeth in his cloth gag, sucked in a fortifying breath, and then another, and then touched the blade to his leg.
He sawed.
His eyes watered until he was nearly blind. He could feel the knife handle grow slippery with blood. The portrait was howling.
The locket fell. Harry swept his hand across his eyes, wiping away the tears. He flung the locket into the box with the other two Horcruxes and emptied the vial over them.
He shuffled away as they hissed and screamed. Paint ran from the locket like blood. He tore his eyes away and ripped a second strip from his shirt. He wrapped it hastily around his leg to stem the bleeding. His eyes darted to the stone box as he zipped up his jeans. Its contents were utterly destroyed, the stone itself beginning to crumble.
He dug a deep hole and kicked the box and its contents inside. They were worthless, harmless now. Little more than dust.
Harry knelt by the hole, sweeping dirt into it with both hands.
When he was finished, a small mound stood: an unmarked grave for three pieces of Voldemort's soul.
Harry was covered in filth and sweat and blood. Through the hole singed in his jeans, the bloody strip of fabric could be seen, surrounded by blackening flesh. His tattered shirt exposed his stomach to the elements, a September chill embracing him.
He could not get the train back.
Harry closed his eyes.
Deliberation, destination, determination.
He turned, opening his eyes and taking in his room. He fell to the bed, shock seizing him.
Severus stood in the doorway watching, a newspaper tucked under his arm.
"Welcome home," he said.
-H-