Chapter 12

An almost perfect plan

Harry Potter woke up in the familiar four-poster bed in Gryffindor Tower. He had returned there almost a month ago now and he was glad he was back. The familiar surroundings seemed to ease his mind a lot and as a result he hadn't burned anything in at least two weeks.

The cold, stone floors gave his warm feet a pleasant sensation. He grabbed his glasses and hurried into the bathroom before the other boys woke up.

It was strange that he still awoke so early since he didn't attend to the classes this year. He was so busy making plans for Voldemort's demise that he was given an excuse to not follow his lessons with the other students. Sure he followed school, but then in hours when he got stuck with something.

Harry looked in the mirror. He had changed a lot over the summer. He had grown in length somewhat, but he had developed more muscles then height. The burn that had graced his features since his escape for Voldemort was almost completely gone. His eyes were shining more brightly then before he returned to Hogwarts. The flame inside him had died a little, but his actions hadn't slowed or anything.

His body was still showing many scars, old burns mostly, but Harry felt that they were more apart of his body. The blackness had started to disappear and that was one thing he was grateful of.

After a short shower he dressed himself in his everyday clothes, black shirt and black pants, and decided to grace the people with his company. The boys were slowly waking, Neville was already waiting to take a shower, and they all greeted him with sleepy faces and yawning smiles.

Harry walked down the steps and greeted Hermione, Levender and Parvati, who seemed to have woken up at least half an hour earlier then the boys. It was sort of a tradition to wait for each other and then do down as a group, but the girls seemed to be impatient this morning.

It was then, when Harry wanted to ask what was wrong, when he noticed Ginny sleeping in one of the armchairs by the fire. He frowned and walked towards her. Her face completely relaxed, but something in the way that she sat there told him that something was troubling her.

He kneeled before her and stroked her hair. Ginny responded to the touch, moving her head in the direction of his hand. He smiled softly and shook her awake. "Ginny, wake up. You have to go to class soon."

Her mouth moved in a silent reflex and she moved closer towards him. Harry smiled again and he brought his body towards hers. With great difficulty, trying not to wake her, he picked her up in his arms from the chair. She shifted a little closer to him and Harry planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

Harry turned towards the other girls, who had watched him with smiles on their faces. Harry rolled his eyes to them, but smiled non-the-less. "Hermione, can you give me entrance to the girls dormitories so I can put Ginny to rest?"

Her smile got wider. "I can try but I'm not sure if the stairs will let you."

Harry nodded and shifted Ginny a little. Although he loved holding her, she wasn't the lightest person to hold forever. "I'll talk to it." He walked to the stairs that let to the girls dormitories and spoke: "I have here Ginny Weasley, a residence of your halls. Will you accept me to bring her up to her bed to rest? I'll take Hermione Granger with me, so she can make sure I do not do any harm to your girls."

It was silent for a while before the stairs seemed to think him trustworthy and crack in agreement to let him past. Harry signalled to Hermione to lead the way. "Thank you," he said to the staircase and he followed his best friend up.

Harry had always imagined that the girls dormitories were always much more 'girly', but it actually looked quite the same. Of course instead of soccer and Quidditch poster it had mostly the Harpies and the Weird Sisters. Harry even thought he saw an occasional half naked guy on the wall, but he wasn't there to stop and stare at their posters.

Ginny had four other room… well you can't really call them 'mates' now can you? So she had four other girls to share her room with. One of them was in the bathroom, which had opened for a second, before it was slammed shut when Harry had entered.

"Which one is Ginny's?" Harry asked calmly looking from one to the other.

"It's this one," a girl with brown curly hair said. Her blue eyes were shining with affection and she seemed to want to say the word 'cute' every once in awhile.

Harry smiled his thanks and laid Ginny on the first bed on the right, closest to the door. He waved his wand to clean her and tucked her into the bed. He placed a kiss on her cheek, which earned him a few 'aw's. The girl who had shown Harry the right bed even whispered: "That's so cute", to the other girls.

…………………………………………

Harry, once again, found himself in the library, surrounded by notes and books. Though, this time, only Jack was there to hold him company. The notes were sorted into different categories: animals, object, herbs and locations. On some of them most of the words were already scratched off the list.

"You know," Jack commented lightly, throwing another useless book on the table. "You could just make a crack in time and space and throw him in there."

"That would require a time lord, captain," Harry said throwing Jack an irritated glance. "And I'm sorry to report this to you, but time lords are very much out of reach for us. By the way," he added, taking another thing out off one of the lists. "This is a wizarding war, not a time and space war. I'd rather take care of Voldemort myself then having someone else clean up our mess."

Jack snorted but struggled his shoulders. "Must be a human thing like eavesdropping."

Harry flickered his wand. A yelp was heard from behind one of the shelves and a startled Draco Malfoy jump from behind it. "Ah," Harry said smiling cruelly. "I wondered when he would show up. Was this your own choice Malfoy or was this an order of your father?"

"You still haven't caught Lucius Malfoy?" Jack said in mocked astonishment. He was on his two feet faster then anyone could blink and walked over too Draco, who was now standing next to the bookshelf with a frozen look upon his face.

Harry rolled his eyes. "That guy is better in hiding in the darkness he has created then his master. But then again, maybe his hiding will give us a few advantages." Harry had remained his seating position and studied his young enemy for a while.

"It doesn't matter what you are planning," Draco said in a voice that was meant to be threatening, but it came out a bit broken. "The Dark Lord will prevail!"

Harry raised an eyebrow in amusement and Jack frowned in disappointment. "Tell me Draco," Harry said and Draco seemed to frown when Harry said his name. "How many times were you interested in my friend when I was gone? How many times did you flinch in this entire time when you heard Voldemort's name?"

Draco shot him a glare. "Why would I be interested in your friends?" But he didn't seem to dare say anything about the second question.

Harry didn't know what fifth year Slytherin was thinking, but he could see in those cold eyes that he was thinking hard to come up with a defence. Harry ignored his question. "Do you even know where your father is? Is he at home, with your mother? Or had he fled, like a good old little Slytherin?"

"Don't you dare talk about my father Potter," Draco said his old fury returning and he struggled against the frozen bonds.

"Then don't interfere with our plans," was all Harry said. He released the bonds and went back to work.

Draco hesitated for a minute, but when Jack and Harry ignored him, he stalked out of the library.

……………………………………

"Remember Voldemort's weakness?" Harry said to Jack. The evening had fallen and the library was closing in an hour's time. They had asked for a wastebasket to drop in every useless paper they had. They had six notes left and three books were opened at different pages.

Jack raised his head from where he had rested it on his arms and stared at Harry with glassy eyes. "What chocolate mints?"

Harry laughed. "No you fool," he said and he grabbed one of the useless pieces of paper, made a ball out of it and threw it at Jack. The ball of paper was relatively harmless, but Jack treated the spot where it had hit like a head wound.

"I meant… oh, never mind. Since you are not listening I think I'll find a better audience for my information and leave you out of it completely."

"No, no, no," Jack said hastily. He sat up strait, his hands neatly folded and his arms resting on the table in frond of him, like a schoolboy on the first school day. He looked at Harry with open curiosity on his face, as if trying to decide if the information was worth listening too. "Professor Harry, forgive me for my unintelligence. Please, share with me your discoveries."

"Okay student Jack, I shale tell you. Voldemort's weakness is his power, his inability to trust and to care for those around him. Even his Death Eaters, who speak so highly of him and boast about being in his inner circle, are nowhere near his trust level as they should want."

Jack frowned in worry. "You haven't opened the link again, have you?" he asked with great worry in his voice.

Harry quickly shook his head. "No, I haven't. But from my conversations with Dumbledore and my own sense of mind I think I know how he works. You see, when he was an orphan, well he still is, he always looked after himself. He was rejected because he was different.

When he came to Hogwarts he had found his equals, but he still didn't trust others. It's all to do with the fact that he was always alone. As he child, he had no friends, no brothers or sisters to rely on or play with. The way the others acted towards him angered him. An anger that only grew as he became older. He started manipulating people in doing everything he wanted, because he had the power to do that.

But in his anger he made one mistake. That if you manipulate everyone around you, you will never truly be a ruler. If you take away things that your servants love, then they will turn against you and seek to destroy you."

"Your talking about Snape there, weren't you?" Jack said. He had relaxed himself back in his chair again, absently flipping the pages of one of the books that were lying before him.

Harry nodded. "And that is our advantage. We have Severus Snape, but we could have Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy as well. If I were correct then they would do anything for their son. We will give then a note explaining what we want them to do and give them the choice to do that."

"But what will we have them do?"

"That we still have to work out. We might not even need them if we can perfect the plan.

Now, what is the opposite of a Phoenix?"

"Something with ice and feathers I'm sure. Let me think… an Icebird?"

"I just know you meant that sarcastically Jack, but you're right. The answer was an Icebird. Next question, what sort of object would you use to correct a mistake?"

"I would say an eraser, but I guess that would be to simple." Jack scratched his head in thought. "You could use a backspace button, but we don't have a computer and electricity doesn't seemed to work here. But you said 'correct' so it could mean a red pen or a blank sticker for all I care."

He scratched his neck and taped with his fingertips on his mouth. "Maybe it's the right answer, but that isn't an object, is it? So it must be an erasing potion. Is that an object?"

Harry smiled. "Well, it would eventually become an object, so you're right. It was an erasing potion. Now the herbs aren't that important, because we both can't make a potion even if our lives depended on it. And no, powders and potions aren't the same. But I still need you to get Aconitum."

"Monk's hood? Are you sure?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, I need it powdered in a special flask."

Jack nodded his understanding. "I'll do my best. It won't be easy to find it fresh, but I'm sure professor Snape is willing to share with me some of its locations here."

"Location, location, location," Harry muttered and he smiled. "I think we can find a remote area somewhere."

A/N: I thought that I would write faster since it's vacation here in Holland, but I was wrong. I first locked myself outside, and then I crammed by day so full that I spent only thirty minutes behind the computer and now it's nearly midnight… But I don't want to make excuses for not writing. I have been busy and I hope you can understand that. Love you all. R&R (winks)