Disclaimer: Recognisable characters etc still belong to JK Rowling and Warner, not me. Oh well. Never mind.

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Chapter 81

Elmsworthy had an invisibility potion. But he hadn't tested it on a human subject yet. Everyone was remembering the smoking twists that were all that was left of the thick iron hinges of the door, so they argued for Stephanie keeping an eye out for them.

"I've got Polyjuice," Elmsworthy offered.

"No thanks."

"Levitation?"

"No, th-…" Harry paused. "Malfoy. We don't have your broom."

"It's out in the broomshed."

"Can you call it?" Hermione asked.

"Best if we do that when we're outside. Bit of a giveaway something's up, my broom whistling through the corridors."

"I can call Milli' with the alert charm and she can get it," Trudi said. She shook her head. "I don't know why I didn't think of that before when you couldn't breathe… She's got access to the broomshed, or she can get Crabbe or Goyle to open it up for her. Shall I meet you by the door from the rose garden?"

"Good idea," said Draco. "Stay hidden, though, okay?"

She smiled. "Not a problem. Comrade Tyrol? Can I have some of your potion?"

Elmsworthy looked around and then stood so the students coming down the corridor couldn't' see her. "Now," Stephanie hissed. Elmsworthy nodded, bottle in hand. He dripped three drops on the back of Trudi's hand. She flickered and then blinked out of sight.

"Still alive there, Trudes?" Draco asked. His wand was in his hand and Harry didn't fancy Elmsworthy's chances if something had gone wrong.

"I'm fine. Tyrol developed this potion two years ago. Daddy let him test it out on our kneazle the other year when the Elmsworthys came and stayed with us in Palau."

Elmsworthy almost smiled. "I had to test it out on jellyfish first."

Trudi laughed. It was eerie; nobody could see her but her quiet chuckle made the passing students turn their heads. They must have decided it was Hermione laughing.

Harry had forgotten how sociable the diplomatic families were.

"And I'm saving it for patent purposes – I want to make some money somehow. Not like you earn that much as a diplomat," Elmsworthy complained as he slid the bottle back into his robes, his glare suggesting that if anyone damaged his chances at filing for a new patent there would be Trouble.

"See you soon," Trudi whispered. "Well… hopefully not too soon. Don't want to get caught, do I." Harry felt her robes brush his leg as she passed him, on her way to find Millicent Bulstrode. Or have Bulstrode find her, if he understood her plan right: there was an emergency charm on the younger Slytherin students that would bring the older ones running if anything went wrong.

Hopefully Bulstrode wouldn't be annoyed about being called out to find a broom.

Students were on their way to and from common rooms and various meeting places as the Hogwarts day came to a close. Dumbledore had stashed them in a room down towards the end of the thin corridor near where Harry had first found the Mirror of Erised, so Harry and Ron had known almost as soon as the door fell down where they were and knew that their best hope was to camouflage themselves by falling in with other students. The five students – now down to three Gryffindors and two Slytherins in company – didn't raise as many eyebrows as they might have only a few months prior as they shadowed a large gaggle of third and fourth years leaving the Library and going down the stairs from the fourth floor. The Slytherin Revolution had helped in at least one respect.

With Stephanie discreetly scouting out the path before them, they made their way back along a second-floor corridor to where they'd met up before Dumbledore had discovered them. Harry was relieved to remember that Hermione had stashed the anti-Voldie potion and the darts with the barrier potions inside them before Dumbledore could Obliviate them. Quick thinking on her part, yet again, had saved the day (or postponed the day of reckoning for another few hours).

"Here we are. Now act casual," Hermione cautioned them, apparently not realising how suspicious such a sentence was, particularly with a passing group of third year Hufflepuffs doing a collective double-take at the odd sight of Slytherins and Gryffindors in each other's company without blood on the floors or walls. Fortunately Hufflepuffs were very trusting of the Prefects, especially Hermione for some reason.

Elmsworthy gave her a sideways, exasperated look, but didn't say anything.

They pretended there was nothing strange about anyone wanting to go into a bathroom, which there wasn't. Not usually. What was strange was that four boys were going into a girls bathroom.

Hermione lifted the lid on the cistern behind one of the toilets. "I remember now – we had a trip-ward on the door, which alerted me to Dumbledore getting close. So – ouch! Blasted thing…" The lid didn't want to budge and pinched her finger. "…So I hid everything before he came in. Here we go, now we can…" She trailed off. Harry pushed forward and went to look over her shoulder.

The cistern was empty. Harry carefully dropped the lid of the toilet and sat down on it, putting his head in his hands. "Well. That's that, then."

"I suppose you're wondering where your contraband has gone," came a sad, hollow voice. "I suppose you think the Headmaster took everything. You must think it's the end of the world… are you really depressed yet?"

"Hello, Myrtle," Hermione said with false brightness. "We weren't looking for anything in particular, just…"

"Just some darts, two stones and two purple bottles?" The ghost poked her head through the wall, smirking. "The Headmaster had a really good look through my bathroom. I don't suppose he was looking for some darts and two purple bottles, was he?"

"Something like that," Harry admitted, not taking his head out of his hands. He didn't need to have his nose rubbed in his defeat. "Let's go," he said to Hermione. She followed him out of the stall, closing the door behind them. Elmsworthy's dour face rivalled Harry's memories of Snape whenever he'd failed to get Harry expelled. Draco looked like he'd just had his birthday cake dropped on the floor. Ron looked angry and nervous and sympathetic all at once – something Ron did uncannily well.

"Harry…" Ron began.

Harry shook his head. "It's over," he said. "We could make up more anti-Voldie potion but we can't work on the barrier-breaking potion. Dumbledore will have that, and isn't that the most important reason to get through the barrier tonight, really?"

"Dumbledore wants to kill the Dark Lord," Draco pointed out. "That's his first priority."

Elmsworthy shook his head. "We need to get the barrier down," he said. "It's killing Hogwarts. I guess he's spent so many years trying to protect Hogwarts he's finally realise there's a bigger world out there – but God knows what's going through that man's head. Maybe we should go and see him – or Flitwick. Flitwick could talk sense into him, surely."

Ron spread his hand. "Face it. We don't know exactly what Dumbledore's plans are. He could be going to break the barrier or kill Voldie or both. In whatever order. He might even plan to give the barrier potion to someone else, someone from the Order, say, who could do it while Voldie's distracted."

"Could would should," came Stephanie's brisk voice. It rang out with an eerie shimmer, like someone running a wet finger around the rim of a crystal glass. Harry looked up and around and saw why: she'd inserted herself into a stained glass window high up on the stone wall. A unicorn sharing it with her sniffed at her sleeve timidly, but didn't run when she patted it. "The bones of the matter is that it's got to be Harry who bumps off Tom and Albus is for once in his life putting sentiment before practicalities. No offence, Harry, but I'm not above letting you put your life on the line for Hogwarts."

"None taken. Even though I know you're putting your faith in the Prophecy."

"As a matter of fact I'm putting my faith in the fact that you were given the Sickle. To the Wild Hunt with prophecies," she told him bluntly. "Myrtle, dear?"

The ghost leaned through the door of a toilet. "You're only here because I'm useful to you," she complained.

"Oh, Myrtle…" the portrait began tiredly, a glassy squeak suggesting she'd rolled her eyes, but Harry, his heart lifting in sudden hope, turned to the ghost.

"Now, you know that's not true," he told Myrtle. "You've been a great friend to me. And to Ron and Hermione."

Draco put on his most winning smirk for Myrtle's benefit. "You know why you're so useful? It's because you're one of the only people in the entire castle we can trust," Draco told her, grey eyes wide. Harry rolled his own eyes: did Draco really think anyone would fall for th-?

Myrtle giggled and twisted a pigtail between her spectral fingers. "I hid everything for you. Well, Stephanie asked, but it was my idea where to hide it before the Headmaster came back and started looking. He looked in the cistern, you know." She pouted. "You didn't tell me the Headmaster was going to get involved when I let you use my bathroom for your secret meeting."

"Sorry. We didn't want to cause trouble for you. It's terribly brave, you know, you hiding the stuff for us," Draco continued earnestly.

"That's true," Ron said. "Very brave. I bet you were a Gryffindor."

"Rubbish. Myrtle's to clever. She had to have been a Slytherin."

Myrtle was all the way through the stall door now. She twirled and then readjusted her thick-lensed glasses, which had slipped. "Actually, I was in Ravenclaw."

"Well, that explains why you've always come across as being so smart," said Ron. "You were a huge help with that basilisk, you know."

"Really?" she squeaked. A faint tinge of pink came into her grey cheeks. Harry had never seen a ghost blush before. (He wasn't used to Myrtle going so long without bursting into tears, too.) "Oh, well, in that case… I moved the package just down the U-bend."

"Which toilet?" Hermione asked.

Myrtle pointed, still twisting one pigtail coyly as she eyes Harry. "It's been ever so long since you visited me, Harry…"

("It's always muggins doing the really dirty work," Hermione's voice grumbled It was given a slight hollow sound suggesting she was bending over a toilet.)

"Er, yeah, I've been trying to defeat Tom Riddle." Come on, Hermione…

("Accio potions!" Hermione's voice came, complete with the very tight reverb generated from the small space of the stall to complement what sounded like a tight-lipped expression.)

"He was the one who killed me, you said," Myrtle sniffed.

"Yeah."

(Sploshing noises and Hermione's tsk of disgust.)

"…Couldn't let him get away with that, could I?" Harry continued.

Myrtle was beginning to tear up. Drops of ectoplasm slid down her translucent cheeks. "Nobody ever thought about me before…"

"We're thinking of you right now, Myrtle…"

"Boy, are we thinking of you," Ron said with barely restrained sarcasm.

It was too late. Myrtle was in full flow. "No-one ever thought of me, and it was me who died!"

She wailed as she turned and sped through Hermione ("Gah! So cold!") and disappeared down the toilet. A small (by Myrtle's standards) wave of water splashed across the floor. Her echoing cries could be heard fading away through the plumbing.

Ron shook his head. 'I've said it once, I'll say it again. Mental."

Hermione dried and sterilised the package with her wand, although the water was probably clean since nobody ever used the toilet. (Or not for its official purpose: summoning basilisks and brewing potions with stolen ingredients probably didn't need to be added to the brief for any architectural plans Hogwarts might ever have had.) She opened the package and nodded in satisfaction. "Looks fine. Here."

She held out the two violet bottles – one each for Harry and Draco, who wrapped them in handkerchiefs (Harry taking smug satisfaction in having a clean hanky, even if it was one of the ones Malfoy had given him) and tucked them in the pockets of their robes, nice and safe, or so they hoped. The darts to break the barrier spell were distributed amongst Ron, Harry and Draco. (Harry tried not to be annoyed that they gave an extra one to him, the implication being that he was a great Seeker but a lousy Chaser.) If all else failed, they knew that there was enough left over for Dumbledore to apply it to the trees should he find a Simonless way through the barrier.

They didn't discuss the possibility of failure.

"Did it matter if those stones got wet?" Draco asked Elmsworthy, who shook his head.

"No. The spell is latent inside the stone. I Transposed some of the barrier-breaking potion into the core of the stones after resetting the focus to narrow it down to each specific tree, but I didn't leave any holes."

"How'd you do that?" Ron asked eyeing the stones in Hermione's hand. "The Twins would love to know how that works…"

"If I told you I'd have to kill you." Elmsworthy frowned when they smiled at what they thought was his joke. "That wasn't a joke," he snapped. "It's a Diplomatic Privilege. It's how documents get passed through hostile checkpoints. I, uh, borrowed one of Dad's pouches once and backchained the spells."

Harry caught Ron's eye. Ron raised an eyebrow.

"That barrier's the ultimate in hostile checkpoints." Draco said.

"Yeah, but the activation is keyed into your fingerprints so you'll be okay. Just keep the stones wrapped until you're ready to use them to locate the trees. As each stone has a thumbprint from each of you you should be safe to use either or. Okay?"

"Yeah. Hermione? Got something to wrap them in?"

"Well, they were wrapped in paper…" She cut some fabric off the bottom or her robes with a severing charm. "Here we go. But next time you have to fish something out of the loo, you can cut up your own robes."

"I'll keep that in mind," Draco said in the airy tones of someone who'd already forgotten about it.

"You sure you don't want some of my Invisibility Potion?" Elmsworthy asked. He looked like he was psyching himself up to try some on himself.

Draco shook his head. "Just in case it reacts with the barrier or any other potions we're using tonight."

Elmsworthy nodded reluctantly. "Fair enough."

"Let's go," said Harry. He was too wound up to look anyone in the eye.

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Stephanie kept lookout for them again. It was easy enough to merge into the students wandering around the castle. Hufflepuff's daughter had other friends amongst the painted: a thin witch with a pointed nose nodded it in the direction of a storeroom as they scurried along one corridor. The five students crowded into the storeroom ("Get off my foot, Ron," Hermione whispered angrily) and waited until what sounded like McGonagall's bootheels disappeared down the corridor. How someone could walk so silently as a cat yet make such a brisk clatter as a human was one of the mysteries of Hogwarts.

They were nearly caught by Hooch, presumably on her way up to Dumbledore's office, from whence it would be onwards to Simon's paddock.

Harry had to snag Draco's sleeve to stop him breaking into a run. The younger Slytherin was beginning to sweat, although even Elmsworthy looked even more sour than normal, suggesting he wasn't as cool as the image he was trying to project.

They moved swiftly down a narrow corridor in a quiet part of the ground floor. There were no other students here for them to hide behind. Ron opened the door and peered around it. "It's empty," he whispered over his shoulder with a sigh of relief. "Come on."

Harry couldn't help wishing he had his Invisibility Cloak as he slipped out of the side door of the castle ("Good luck!" whispered Stephanie from the last painting in the corridor as they went further than she could go), even though it wouldn't have saved him. Running straight into someone was a definite clue of your presence.

Sirius Black grabbed Harry by the wand arm before Harry could draw.

"No need to ask what you lot are doing out here," Sirius growled. He looked like a man who'd never smiled.

"Were you waiting for us?" Harry demanded hotly as Sirius pointed his own (albeit stolen) wand at them.

The garden was thick with shadows. Ron, ears now going scarlet in mortification, couldn't have seen Sirius lurking in the darkness cast by the wall. The gate in the wall Harry had coaxed Simon through only two mornings ago was ajar – their escape so near and yet so far. The heavy attar of early roses hung in the air, catching in Harry's throat. He'd never suspected roses would taste bitter, but perhaps he should have guessed by the way Simon had spat one out yesterday.

"Dumbledore had a feeling you'd use this door if you escaped," the Animagus replied. He looked nervous. "Don't move," he growled at Draco and Elmsworthy, who'd tried to slip back behind the door. His wand moved and the door slammed shut.

"Did you know he was going to do a rough Obliviate on us?" Hermione said, her eyes snapping with outrage.

Sirius moved back half a step. 'Er… not exactly. I –"

He went blue. Or appeared to. In reality, it was because a large bubble had formed around him.

Trudi stood up behind the gate. She held up her wand. "Hello. Whole-body Bubblehead Charm, anyone?"

"Never thought I'd say this, but well done that Slytherin," Ron sniggered. "Er… aren't you supposed to be invisible?"

"It ran out really fast," she complained. "I've had to make do with Slytherin sneakiness. Luckily I saw Milli'. And – oh, here she is."

The square-shouldered silhouette of Millicent Bulstrode loomed behind the diminutive Trudi blocking out the scanty light of the cloudy sky.

"Comrades."

"You've got my broom! Comrade Millicent, you're a brick." Draco took his broom with every sign of relief.

"I hope you lot know what you're doing."

"We've got Elmsworthy on side – don't you think that counts for something?"

Millicent rubbed her jaw. "No." She turned to Trudi. "You shouldn't be mixed up in this. Slytherins in general shouldn't be. And you know why, Drake."

Draco nodded. "Yes. Trudi, this has to be where we leave you."

"But my parents are diplomats. They've got immunity –"

"No-one is immune."

Elmsworthy shrugged. "Mum's a Muggle. And Australian. I've always known what would happen if the fascists got into power." He locked gazes with Draco for a moment.

Draco dropped his eyes first. "Yes," he said shortly. "But others – others will be punished; it doesn't matter who they back."

Millicent nodded. "Which is why you need to go and do whatever it is I'm not interested in knowing about." She held out a hand. "I wish you the best of luck, Draco, but you know why I can't get involved more than bringing you your broom for some night-time Quidditch practice."

Draco inclined his head, not quite formally, but acknowledging what she couldn't say aloud but they all heard behind her words. "I know," he said softly taking her hand and shaking it. "I know."

"Potter."

Harry blinked. Then he remembered his manners and shook hands with her. "Comrade Millicent."

She gave him the barest sliver of a smile. "You're not a complete tosser."

"And you're not just another thuggish Slytherin lackey."

She squeezed his hand just enough to suggest that she could give him a serious amount of pain if she wanted and it was fortunate for him that she didn't want to. Not tonight.

Harry smiled back. It really was a strange night for finding out who your friends were.

Trudi gave Hermione a nod, popped the bubble Sirius was trapped inside, and Hermione deftly Stunned him and picked up his wand. "I'll keep this for now," Hermione said.

"We could leave him here," said Harry. "Although someone might find him."

Draco was tugging at his lower lip. "No. I've got a plan."

"Merlin help us…" grumbled Ron.

"Do we need to know?" Millicent asked, with a significant look at Trudi.

Draco looked up. "Hm? Oh, no. Best not. Thanks for your help and all, but it might be safest if you got back to the Dorm now."

"Draco…"

He shook his head at Trudi. "Please. I'd hate to think of you out in the Forest after dark."

Trudi nodded. Bulstrode laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'll see her and any others safely back to Slytherin."

"And then?"

She smiled, or her mouth did. Her eyes remained flat and expressionless in the meagre light from the corridor. "Then I will wait to see what happens. And I will continue to protect my comrades as I can."

Draco nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Well… This is goodbye, then."

"For now. Come on, Comrade Trudi. Comrade Tyrol? Are you coming, or are you going to do something daft with Comrade Draco and the Gryffindors?"

"Doing something daft."

She smiled again, this time with a spark of warmth.

Trudi suddenly closed the gap between herself and Draco, hugging him tightly. His eyes widened in surprise, but he recovered himself quickly, patting her on the shoulder. "Be careful," she said.

"I always am."

"Like hell you are."

"Well, I've recently learned to be judicious, how's that?"

She stepped back. "It's about as good a lie as I'll get from you, isn't it?"

Draco looked affronted. Then chagrined. "I guess so."

She gave a watery smile. "Another box of chocolates, then?"

"Of course. Milli'? More liquorice?"

Her eyes finally got a sparkle. "Oo, that'd be lovely, ta."

"Consider it done."

"Make sure you come back," Bulstrode said softly over her shoulder as she escorted Trudi through the door into the castle. "I'd hate to have to go hunt out my own liquorice."

"Heaven forfend."

But despite his air of carefree light-heartedness, Draco didn't fool Harry.

As the door closed and the blonde Slytherin sagged slightly, "C'mon," Harry said, putting his hand on Draco's shoulder. "What's this grand plan?"

"Well, Elmsworthy mentioned something he was working on the other day… Granger, how's your Mobilicorpus?"

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