Chapter 34: Polyjuice Potion
Harry had not been particularly happy stuck in Little Whingeing; though at least his cousin's support was a comfort and stopped him climbing the walls in frustration. They ran together just the two of them before Dudley set off for his prestigious private day school with its pseudo-historical and ridiculous uniform. Uncle Vernon kept asking why Harry was at home for these holidays, when he was going back and whether he had actually been expelled from THAT PLACE.
"Do you really think I can concentrate on work so soon after Professor Dumbledore's funeral?" Harry took refuge in that excuse, but Vernon still grumbled until a visit by Kingsley Shacklebolt made him keep his views to himself. Kingsley actually impressed Vernon; he was fairly normal to look at, having the task of taking care of the muggle Prime Minister, as he explained to the Dursleys. Once they had seen him on TV, Harry's aunt and uncle were quite amenable to Kinglsley's suggestions!
Krait picked the early morning to visit with the plan.
"What's going on?" demanded Harry "Kingsley won't tell me anything!"
"Oh the Order!" Krait rolled her eyes. "Listen, are you up to teach Defence against the Dark arts semi officially?"
"I thought a deatheater had been appointed" said Harry.
"Yep. Never heard of Polyjuice Potion?" grinned Krait.
Harry stared then gave a short bark of laughter.
"Oh yes! What is that phrase – hoist with their own petard!"
"I keep telling you, Shakespeare's a hack… but in this case true as we shall be using explosives" said Krait. "If you're there we can keep an eye on you too, make sure you're not getting dreams without telling us and so-on."
"You'd know"
"Yes; but it's nice to share, isn't it? Besides, if any of us DO die, we would actually like to spend time together as comrades."
Harry nodded.
"We'd better pack I guess" said Dudley.
They turned and looked at him.
"We?" said Krait.
Dudley's big pink face flushed dull red.
"I can fight too" he said "I can't do the – you know, the magic; but I can fire a gun. I've been learning with you lot. I'm a good shot."
"He is too" said Harry.
Krait bit her lip.
"We're supposed to be protecting muggles" she said.
"Harry saved me from them dementor things. If I can shoot things that'll stay dead I can help him, can't I" demanded Dudley.
Krait looked at him with approval.
"You can at that" she said. "Although I OUGHT to ask your parents' permission….you are a minor."
"I shan't tell them" said Dudley.
"You can't leave without telling them something" said Krait "It's unfair."
"Why don't we leave a note to say we've gone together to enlist in the army because we're both sick of school?" suggested Harry "In a way it's true; we're enlisting in the Hogwarts Army, Dumbledore's Army."
Dudley brightened.
"Yeah!" he agreed.
Krait nodded.
Vernon would shout and turn purple and Petunia would cry; but she could not turn down so heartfelt a desire to help.
"Then your help is readily accepted, Dudley" she said "And honoured more because you're as scared as the rest of us."
"You're scared?"
"Only the insane would not be" said Krait dryly. "Those most in danger will be Harry, Draco, Severus and me; I want you to work with young Fraser and lead the youngsters that will be shooting. You're big enough to hide being scared and project calm efficiency at them; and as Harry's cousin and a big boy they'll repose a lot of trust in you. Keeping them calm – and if need be getting them away – will be your responsibility."
Dudley seemed to grow.
"Where'll I take them to get them away?"
"Through the loo network….Fraser and the Malfoy twins will take some, it'll piss off your parents, but you can bring some out here. They'll be fugitives if you have to run; but someone will find them and help. I HOPE it won't come to that."
Dudley nodded seriously.
"If it does, Mum and Dad will just have to put up with it; I can make them" he said seriously. Krait thought that he could probably bring Petunia around his little finger; and hoped his faith in his ability to handle his father was not too misplaced. It should not need to happen anyway.
"All right; pack this evening and come through at midnight" she said "I'll be waiting for you."
-/-
Alecto and Amycus Carrow were as charmless a pair of siblings as one might ever meet. As Krait told Severus, they looked like gorillas, spoke like gorillas and even smelled like gorillas but without the charm of being furry.
McGonagall was tight lipped and disapproving; but then, the Carrows would have expected her to be. Until such time as they could be immobilised and their places taken the Kindred had to be careful; and hide all the children. They went into the Room of Requirements with the muggle born and some muggle parents.
Amycus issued the order that all discipline would henceforth be carried out by him and his sister; and that the DADA seniors should start practising the Cruciatus Curse to use on those who had earned detention.
"It wasn't even that bad at Durmstrang" Erich Snape confided to his fellows "The discipline was harsh, but not usually the Cruciatus Curse! And of course it was Dark Arts we learned, not defence against it, but there are Dark Arts and there are beyond Dark like these ones."
He was using the Muffliatus spell to have this conversation; even Hermione had conceded that it was the only way for those who were in the open to have any kind of speech safely. Erich, as it happened, was fairly safe; the Carrows were somewhat afraid of Severus with his sarcastic clever tongue, and the fact that he was in the Dark Lord's favour and even – so it seemed – boffing Lord Voldemort's daughter, as they crudely described it to each other. They were equally nervous of Krait, because word of what she had done to Bellatrix Lestrange – and lived to stay in her father's favour despite that – had got about. Krait had only to let her eyes go red and either one of the Carrows would cave in to her.
-/-
Once Harry arrived it would be a signal to move in on the siblings. Hermione had been brewing polyjuice potion in the Room of Requirements; she had also taken charge of the supply of Felix Felicis and the brew of Unicorn Blood and dittany that Krait and Severus had also prepared from Krait's transfigured blood. It had worked so well on Neville's parents that it seemed like a good idea to have a supply. The Longbottoms, alerted by Aberforth, had moved out of their quiet temporary retirement in the muggle village of Camburnath to the Room of Requirements together with Tonks and Lupin. Neville was both delighted to be working alongside his parents and afraid of letting them down. He preached open defiance towards the Carrows; and earned himself cuts from Alecto's knife for his outspoken words. Severus reminded them not to hurt the few pure bloods there were too much if they pleased; and that was obviously an instruction that tallied with Voldemort's, for they were circumspect about using magic to hurt Neville. They did have time to ask other deatheaters to attack Neveille's gran and make her a hostage; but they had underestimated the calibre of old Madam Augusta Longbottom.
Dawlish ended up in St Mungo's; and several other deatheaters took a while to recover from the indomitable old lady's jinxes. Krait grinned in delight at the spirit of her namesake; and sent Sirri to find the old lady – who had gone on the run – and recruit her firmly. After all, as Sirri was blooded to Neville she could feel his blood and so any relative of his, even as any enslaved elf blood bonded to a family could find any member.
And the fear still grew in the wizarding community.
The Daily Prophet only reported what the controlled Ministry wanted them to report; which was more and more to the detriment of Harry and his friends and less and less truth. Xenophilus Lovegood carried on writing as he had always done in the Quibbler; but as Krait said to Voldemort when reporting, since half of what he said was palpable crap and the rest at best dubious, any attempt to shut him up would have nothing but the opposite effect since nobody in their right mind used his rag for anything more than a cheap laugh before putting it in the loo for supplemental paper. Only the Wizarding Wireless remained independent, disappearing underground and broadcasting regular seditious messages.
Harry and Dudley arrived at midnight after school – with its somewhat reduced number of pupils – had been going for almost a week. Krait met them in Myrtle's loo.
"Good" she said "Hermione's on her way down; all we need now is our final ingredient. Stand by to stupefy before either of the little gits can get to their dark mark to summon him; if you turn up they have orders to touch it."
Harry nodded.
"We've been practising wandless wordless magic for a year now" he said "I think I'm fast enough."
"Better be sure you are, laddie; or we lose all our advantage of picking time" said Krait.
Harry nodded.
"I have the cloak; if I wear it I can use the spell from under it. No dishonour in that with those two."
Krait grinned.
"Good, common sense! Dudley, you stay here and chat up Myrtle; I'll send someone to find you a bed presently. We have business to attend to and it may get unpleasant."
Dudley nodded.
"YOUR line of work" he said trying to sound confident.
"Yeah" said Krait.
-/-
Amycus was prowling the corridors looking for miscreants and those responsible for the graffiti along the lines of 'Harry Potter will defeat evil' and "Screw Voldemort". Krait had surveyed this one critically and twitched her wand to add 'not even with combat pay' under it. Amycus was busy trying to remove the enchanted words.
"Ah, Amycus" said Krait.
The spell from Harry was silent and perfectly cast; the deatheater went down without a word. Krait absently cast bindings around his whole body.
"Chuck the cloak on him" she said "And hack off a chunk of hair. You can take it to the Room of Requirements for your dose; I'll deal with him. I'll see to Alecto."
Alecto caused Krait no trouble; and she summoned Beloc and sent him to take the evil witch's hair to Hermione while she levitated both bound bodies and took them to the dungeons to chain up. She absently cast Alohamora on the locks of the shackles of young Jasmine Spikenard who was incarcerated there.
"Thanks Krait" said Jasmine, who was the granddaughter of Madam Spikenard.
"What were you here for?" asked Krait mildly
"I had a, er, trance and predicted doom, doom, and death for the Carrows" said Jasmine "I thought if I frothed at the mouth, as my gran's an accredited diviner I might get away with it, but I fear someone did a medical apparation on their sense of humour."
"Stay out of this" said Krait "Keep your mouth shut and your nose clean; and that goes for all you first years."
"Oh but now you've captured them, isn't the MSHG going to start killing Deatheaters?" said Jasmine cheerfully "The rest of us thought we would be."
"You little ones are supposed to be staying out of trouble."
"Huh, if HARRY had stayed out of trouble the basilisk would have et more people" said Jasmine.
"Oh, she's free!" a voice at the door said.
It was, as Krait described them later, the usual suspects; Colin Weasley, Jasper Crouch-Jones, Ed Dinalt, Hayley Betts, Emerald Lenoir, Pris Lockhard, Cleonie Puckeridge and a boy called Eustace who had not hitherto joined the MSHG being so interested in the world of academe Krait had been surprised he was a Gryffindor. Hayley addressed him as 'Scrubb' but Krait did not think that was his actual surname but more a CS Lewis reference.
"Go back to bed" she said "And take Jasmine along with you, you Gryffs."
"YES Krait!" they chorused happily.
"Krait, we were going to use Alohamora, would it have worked?" asked Hayley "It was Scrubb's idea."
"It was a good one; I used it myself" said Krait. "Delashio undoes some bonds – and can work on strangling fingers too – and if you're very careful Diffindo cuts things. It cuts people too, so make sure and aim carefully" she added.
The first years nodded and turned to go.
"Oh and I'll have six inches from each of you as to the detriments of young bodies being up half the night; and if you get caught you can tell the Professor involved you've already been given detention" said Krait.
"Prefects can't…" started young Eustace
"Shut it, Benton you fool" said Pris "She means if we do a light punishment for her we shan't get whatever McGonagall is likely to throw at us if SHE catches us.
"Oh, right. Sorry" said Eustace Benton.
"Scrubbishness of Scrubbishness" muttered Hayley.
"And he almost deserved it" said Krait, delighting the younger girl that someone recognised the reference!
-/-
Harry and Hermione were greeted with an ovation by the MSHG next morning; and drilling and casting practice, postponed while the Carrows were prowling about, was resumed. Dudley was assigned a group of fourth years as his troupe to his pride; among them now Martin Umbridge, keen now to fight bullies. He made himself Dudley's lieutenant, for Dudley had no preconceived wariness against him, and the boy was undoubtedly the most talented of his age.
"I'll watch your back with defensive spells, Big D because I'm not much of a shot" admitted Martin "And make sure our troupe is covered."
Dudley nodded.
"Yeah, that'll work" he said.
A/N CS Lewis reference; in the Narnia Chronicles Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole were pupils together at a school before participating in 'The Silver Chair' and 'the Final Battle'.