Chapter 17

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"In the meantime, Ellery had hacked the births deaths and marriages registry to identify all Colin Creeveys born in the two years after Harry. There were more than a dozen but having written a program to search school records in the area their births' were registered to find the students who dropped out of main stream schooling after turning eleven he was able to find and eliminate most of them. As a side benefit it was a good chance to test the program he'd written to attempt to identify muggleborn witches and wizards.

"It would help if we had a picture of the child but I think I've found him, a Colin Creevey completed grade five at St Martha's Primary last year but wasn't enrolled in grade six there or at any other school in the neighbourhood, even though his younger brother Dennis and sister Rebecca still attend the school. He was eleven in August," Ellery said. "Oh, he's a cancer survivor. His parents must be so worried."

"Well at least we have some good news to give them, this is definitely not a reoccurrence of his cancer," James said positively.

"The Creevey's were incredibly relieved to receive reassurance that what had happened to Colin had nothing to do with his cancer reoccurring and that he wasn't being punished for troublemaking. Unfortunately, neither of them had been able to see 'The Leaky Cauldron' without Colin touching their hands when they took him school shopping over the summer, which meant that they weren't able to visit Hogwarts themselves, but Ariadne and Peter Finch-Fletchley had seen Colin and were able to describe how the two boys looked.

"It was a truly odd, they looked frozen, with a fine layer of frost about them and Justin felt like stone. If I didn't know they were real children I would have questioned why they'd put school uniforms on a statue and kept it in a freezer, though they were more realistic than anything Madam Tussaud's could produce. Madam Pomfrey, who runs the hospital wing said that they can't see or hear anything. They're not suffering, time is literally not passing for them and that they'll wake up when the potion's administered with no side effects at all as if no time had passed," Ariadne said.

"There must be a way for us to visit him. This is cruel telling me that he's been attacked and still not letting me into the hospital wing to see for myself how he's doing," Maeve Creevey exclaimed.

"I'm afraid that I don't know of one. My aunt Rolanda said the wards will keep away anyone who can't see magic and even if you could get in you'd see the unoccupied ruins of a castle long destroyed," James replied.

"I don't care, I'd climb over ruins to see Colin," Maeve said.

"Unfortunately the illusion is so strong that you wouldn't see your son in the ruins, they would appear unoccupied," James said regretfully.

Ellery frowned, he believed that there must be a way around those wards no matter what the professors said. After all they'd lied about the school being a safe place for all students. Harry had told them that the bigotry was even more evident at Hogwarts than it had been on Diagon Alley, even some of the professors openly despised the muggleborn students. What Harry had said the professors' reaction to the satellite phone once they'd realized what it was, was also telling. Harry said he could see that they were just looking for one more fight over one for a reason to ban them, but didn't know how to explain that they'd given the okay for Harry having one before they knew what it was or that it actually did work inside the castle and now wanted to ban everyone else from having one.

"You said that your cousin went to Hogwarts last year, why would a graduate even be interested enough in what was going on at Hogwarts this year to know the names of the students affected, and to search for their parents rather than just sending us an owl?" Peter Finch-Fletchley asked.

"Harry knew Justin, he was a first year last year with him but decided that he'd rather attend his old school and receive magical tutoring to enable him to keep his wand rights. We couldn't send you an owl without knowing your names and your son's roommates didn't know them," Ellery replied.

"I didn't know that was possible," Maeve Creevey exclaimed.

"We weren't told either," Ariadne Finch-Fletchley agreed irritation showing through her normally perfect manners.

"Nor were we, until Harry announced his intention not to return to Hogwarts even if it meant giving up magic entirely and we approached the London school of magic to ask about enrolling him part time," Ellery replied. "The professor who visited us made it sound like Hogwarts was the only way to receive a quality wizarding education. Harry understands that he may not learn as much magic as he would at Hogwarts but he wants to be a computer programmer and it's impossible for him to even receive online tutoring to develop those skills at Hogwarts."

"We weren't told about the London School of Magic either. Is it cheaper than Hogwarts? Is it close to a train line? What's the transport like from our place?," Maeve said frowning.

"We asked, Harry didn't want to leave home. Professor McGonagall made it sound like the difference between Eton and a local comprehensive and Harry's parents had enrolled him in Hogwarts at birth, and both gone to Hogwarts themselves so we persuaded Harry to give it a try," Ellery said. "Even at Christmas he was ambivalent about returning so James helped me look into other options and he chose the tutoring."

"We couldn't afford a private tutor but if the London School of Magic is a day school that would be much better than Hogwarts as long as it's close enough to get to by public transport," Jack said.

"They use magical transport options, it's called a portkey and it takes students directly to and from school when they tap it with their wands," Ellery replied. "The journey is only a second or two from one side of London to the other."

"Then why on earth couldn't they use the same method to send the children home from Hogwarts each day?" Ariadne Finch-Fletchley asked.

"The greater the distance the longer the trip it would take nearly five minutes to get from London to Hogwarts which is a long time when you feel like you're being spun around in the air by a hook through your belly button. Not to mention the security risk to Hogwarts if every house with school aged children had a portkey through their wards," Ellery replied.

"How can it be a bigger threat to Hogwarts than it is to the London School of Magic?" Jack asked.

"The London School of magic is in a populated area, they have a warehouse just outside their wards that students portkey into and pass through a security gate, the wards around Hogwarts extend all the way to the edge of Hogsmeade village. It's a five mile steep uphill walk and it would be through deep snow in the dark for at least four months of the year, the sun rises late in the valleys of the Scottish highlands," James replied.

"Okay so it's not practical for every day but weekends would be possible for much of the year," Maeve argued.

"There's no reason that students couldn't go home via floo to Diagon Alley and portkey home from here in the winter like you just did to visit Justin, if their homes don't have a floo connection," Ellery agreed. "I don't know why they choose not to allow them home during term, or at least to have a telephone line put in so all the children can call their parents. It's as if they're deliberately cutting down the influence that families have on their children."

Peter Finch-Fletchley looked slightly alarmed. "They're deliberately cutting muggleborn children off from the world they were born into. Justin learns nothing of mathematics, sciences, computers, politics or current events at school. Their newspapers don't even print the news from outside their own little world. When he came home for the summer we noticed that he seemed disconnected from his old friends and his cousins, he didn't understand so many of the things they were talking about," he said.

"I don't know how deliberate it is when it comes to our children, it seems that the majority of witches and wizarding families live entirely in the magical world. Harry spent the last ten days of the summer staying with a friend from a magical family. The plan was that they'd bring him to Kings Cross when they put their children on the Hogwarts Express and he'd make his way home from there. They insisted on accompanying him but Harry said they knew nothing about how to use an Oyster card, vending machine, catch a train, use a pedestrian crossing or a lift. They were terrified by a journey on the underground and a short walk from the station that Harry thought was routine and uneventful and wanted to walk up nine flights of stairs rather than use the lift. They have no knowledge about our world at all, and given that we outnumber them by more than 1,000 to 1, I think that has to be a deliberate choice to avoid knowledge of anything nonmagical," Ellery said.

"But why?" Peter asked baffled.

"Harry tells me the statute of secrecy, one of their strictest laws is that muggles must not find out about magic, except for the immediate families of the muggleborn. I think this is why they avoid our world, the less time they spend in it the less likely someone who isn't in the know will see them performing magic. Separating the muggleborn children from their muggle friends also makes that easier for them to avoid accidentally letting the secret slip out, bit the children probably wouldn't choose to drop their friends, which is I think why students were traditionally educated at boarding schools where the students don't get to speak to their muggle friends and compare classes during the year," Ellery replied.

"But there is a day school in London," Jack said.

"It's only opened in the past 40 years, and they do still take boarders as well," James replied. "From what we saw of the syllabus they spend a lot more time teaching students how to navigate the nonmagical world and avoid using magic in public rather than isolating their students as much as they can."

"So the wizards act all superior but their most important international law is to hide magic from the rest of us?" Maeve asked.

"Yes, it doesn't make a lot of sense when you put it that way but Harry has been researching it as part of his magical history course. There isn't a lot of reliable information, the statute has been in place since 1692 and all of the texts he can find that mention that were written the past 100 years. I doubt anyone actually remembers why they instigated it, but I doubt it was because they felt so superior to the nonmagical world. It was not long after the peak of witch burning in England, and just over 200 years after guns were introduced when they were starting to become more reliable and more common," Ellery replied.

"You're right, hiding is the act of cowards who know they'd be defeated in a fair fight, but this isn't hiding an army or guerrilla warfare, they hid their entire society and it seems they stayed hidden happy to coexist peacefully as long as the world as a whole knows nothing about them," Peter replied.

"We don't know that they co-exist peacefully, their weapons aren't like our weapons. Would we even recognise a magical attack?" James said. "How many of our unexplained or accidental deaths could actually have been an attack by a witch or wizard.

"We can't think like that, we will never know the truth for certain but if we start questioning whether every natural disaster or death from seemingly natural causes could actually be magically induced then we'll send ourselves mad with paranoia," Ellery refuted. "From everything you have said and Harry has said the wizarding world is relatively small and they keep themselves separate to the rest of the world. That's not to say that there isn't magical accidents occurring but I doubt they're common."

"I'd say we should be trying to recruit one of them to work for us but I'm not sure whether we could trust them," Peter Finch-Fletchley said.

"Not a pureblood and not someone from Hogwarts, but I'll have a chat with Harry's tutor. He's a London school of Magic graduate and he's helped us out with a few things. Perhaps there's someone who's returned to the muggle world and joined the army or the police force, that might be useful," Ellery suggested.

-o0o-

The next time Harry rang, Hermione was willing enough to talk about her theories behind what was happening, she and Ron believed that Malfoy was behind it all, and had a crazy plan to brew Polyjuice potion to find out his secrets.

Harry asked his tutor about Polyjuice because the idea that someone could turn into the spitting image of someone else intrigued him. He knew it would be very useful for James if it worked on Muggles, or Squibs since he suspected that was what James was even if he didn't call himself that. He didn't now whether to be relieved or disappointed to find out it was so difficult to brew that it was considered well beyond NEWT level and took an entire month. On one hand, he was glad that there weren't likely to be gallons of the stuff in use around the school and Diagon alley and on the other, he knew it would have been useful to help James and the other 00's infiltrate dangerous places or to be able to get away cleanly.

His tutor informed him quite clearly that his school friend was crazy to attempt brewing Polyjuice and made him write an essay on all the ways that brewing could go wrong and what the signs of the errors and what the side effects if it had been missed would be. He graded it and gave Harry an Outstanding mark then added a few other effects of more subtle mistakes in timing and made Harry send it to both Ron and Hermione. Harry also sent it to Neville and Dean, along with the news that Hermione was talking about attempting to brew it, hoping that it would at least be enough to stop them from being pressured into joining Hermione's shenanigans even if he couldn't stop her or Ron.

-o0o-

Dean kept in contact with Harry more or less regularly, mostly by hastily written notes with small drawings of Harry's former classmates, but when two more students had been petrified. Hermione and another muggleborn, he knew that Harry would want to know immediately, even though this time neither Ron, Dean or Seamus knew any details to give them about the fifth year Ravenclaw other than their name and the fact she was a prefect.

Harry took the information sadly and promised that he or his cousin would let Hermione's parents know what was really happening in case the Professors decided not to again, and that his cousin would try to hunt down the Clearwaters as well but asked Dean to ask the Gryffindor prefects if they knew anything about Penny's home town or parents' names or occupations.

-o0o-

"Hi this is Harry," Harry answered his satellite phone curiously. His Parkgate friends didn't know he had one and the only people other than Ellery and Auntie Dahlia who had the number were a couple of friends from Hogwarts.

"Hi Harry it's Dean Thomas," Dean said. He didn't have his own phone but he'd borrowed a friend's.

"Hi Dean, has someone else been petrified?" Harry asked in dread. Hermione had been a statue version of herself for several weeks now and he couldn't imagine who else Dean would be sounding so upset about.

"No, it's worse than that, Harry. The Heir wrote another message on the wall 'Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever', and Ron's sister Ginny is missing. The school's going to be closed for search teams to go through it and to be rewarded but I can see from the professors' expressions when they handed out our homework for the rest of term and the summer, that they're not sure that we'll be coming back," Dean said.

"What's being done to find Ginny?" Harry asked.

"I don't know. Nobody has said they're doing anything until after the train leaves tomorrow. No-one knows where the chamber is so how are they going to find her?" Dean replied. "I just thought you ought to know because you were friends with Ron and the twins."

"Yeah! Thanks mate," Harry said shaken.

"What's wrong Harry?" Dahlia asked.

"I think my friend Ron's little sister has been kidnapped," Harry replied. "Can I call Ellery and ask him and James to visit tonight?"

Ellery hadn't officially moved in with his boyfriend but the two of them did spend the majority of the time that James was in London in James' flat downstairs and while Harry knew he was always welcome to knock on their door and visit his cousin, their work hours were increasingly unpredictable.

"You may, invite them to come for dinner if they can get here by seven," Dahlia replied.

"Thanks Auntie," Harry said giving her a hug. "I'll call Ell now then help with the dinner."

"You're a good boy, Harry," Dahlia said returning the hug.

-o0o-

"Hi Mum, hi Harry," Ellery said hugging each of them.

"Hello Dahlia, hi kid," James said.

"Dinner will be another twenty minutes, do you want to tell the boys what's going on at Hogwarts?" Dahlia said.

"Dean rang me again. He said that Ron's little sister Ginny has been kidnapped," Harry said.

"Was there a ransom note?" Ellery asked.

"Maybe, kind of. Dean said there was writing in blood on the wall again saying something like her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever," Harry replied.

"So, whoever took her is claiming that she's still in the school, just in the hidden 'Chamber of Secrets' that everyone's talked about looking for all year and nobody has found?"

"That sounds more like a death threat than a ransom request, there were no demands or conditions for her return?" James said. "Was it written in her blood?"

"Dean didn't say. Just the words I already told you," Harry replied.

"Maybe the ransom demand will come later once her parents are in the castle. I assume they've been called?" Ellery suggested. "Or there has been a ransom letter and the student haven't been told."

"Yeah but Dean shares a dorm with Ron and he said her brothers haven't heard anything either," Harry said.

"I assume they're a wizarding family?" James asked.

"Yes the Weasley's are purebloods, and Dean said Ron, Percy and the twins were waiting for their parents in McGonagall's office," Harry reported.

"So we don't need to contact the family. What did you want us to do?" Ellery asked.

"I don't know. Dean said the school is closing early and they're coming home tomorrow. But it doesn't sound like they're even looking for her," Harry said sadly.

"I understand your distress Harry, particularly since you stayed with them over the summer but I don't think that there's anything we can do. Harry," James said gently. "Other than contact the Grangers, Finch-Fletchleys, and the Creeveys, to make sure they're informed what arrangements are being made to cure or transfer their children. I wish we'd been able to find the Clearwaters."

"What should I do?" Harry asked.

"Perhaps telephone or write to your friends, and let them know you're thinking of them and sorry for their loss. Did you know the girl well?" James asked.

"No don't say sorry for their loss unless her body is found. They won't want to give up hoping for her safe return or to be reminded that other people think she's dead, just let them know you're thinking of them and offer any assistance they think you could provide. It's a bit of an empty offer but there's really nothing you can do for them," Dahlia interjected urgently.

"I hardly knew her at all, to be honest. I met her when I stayed with them over the summer but she barely said anything to me, just stared and blushed until I said I wasn't going back to Hogwarts and then she got really angry with me for no reason. The twins said she'd had a crush on me for years. She had a whole pile of those stupid The-Boy-Who-Lived books," Harry said exasperated.

"So she wasn't a friend, you only feel bad because her disappearance will hurt your friend Ron and because it happened at Hogwarts and you think that you should have prevented it after being warned of the dangers but you have no reason to feel guilty. We passed on the warning to the school and to the Weasleys' parents themselves, even though there was no reason to suppose one of their children would be targeted. There's no reason to suppose that you being there would have changed anything," Ellery said. "Reach out to your friend so he knows you're thinking of him but don't be surprised if he doesn't answer for a while. His whole life is in turmoil at the moment."

"Thanks Ell," Harry said hugging his cousin.

Dahlia joined the hug then the timer went off in the kitchen. "That's dinner, can someone lift the dishes out of the oven for me."

James moved to help her ruffling Harry's and Ellery's hair as he passed them.

-o0o-

"Hello this is Dahlia," Dahlia answered the house phone.

"Oh hello, may I speak to Harry?" Hermione asked.

"He's out at the moment, I expect him home soon, can I give him a message," Dahlia asked.

"Tell him to call Hermione," Hermione replied.

There was silence at the other end of the line. At first Hermione thought his aunt must be writing down the message and then she realized her lack of manners.

"Please," she added.

"I will tell him you called," Dahlia replied diplomatically.

"Thank you, Ma'am," Hermione said disconnecting.

"Your friend Hermione rang demanding that you call her, she sounded quite annoyed about something," Dahlia told Harry as he came in.

"Oh, I guess her parents followed through on their threat to remove her from Hogwarts even if it does reopen. I'm sorry if she was rude to you," Harry said anxiously. "May I call her now?"

"This is Hermione," Hermione said.

"Hi Hermione, it's Harry, I got your message to call," Harry replied.

"What did you say to my parents?" Hermione demanded.

"I've never spoken to your parents, except to ask for you on the phone last summer and at Christmas and to greet them when I was shopping with the Weasleys in August," Harry replied. "Why?"

"My parents know all about me being petrified. They have pulled me out of Hogwarts and have enrolled me in summer school full time. They say that if I get at least a 'B' in every subject then I can choose to go to the London School of Magic next year and attend summer school every summer until I've passed my GCSEs, otherwise they're going to put me in a muggle school," Hermione said sullenly.

"Hermione, I won't apologise for thinking that's a good idea, you've nearly died both years at Hogwarts, but I promise I did not tell your parents about you neing petrified," Harry said. "Besides Dean said that Hogwarts is being closed. Unless they can find whatever or whoever is petrifying and killing students then it won't reopen and all your friends will have to change schools. A lot of them will probably end up at the London School of Magic."

"Yes you did. My parents described you, they said 'a young man with messy almost black hair and green eyes and glasses' came to the house and told them all about me being petrified, even helped Daddy come to Hogwarts and see me for himself. You told them that the professors had no idea who had done it, and that he didn't know why the school were refusing to spend money on speeding up the cure. Why are you lying to me?" Hermione retorted.

"It wasn't me," Harry replied. "I told my cousin Ellery about you, Justin and Colin and the others, he tracked down and spoke to Justin's and Colin's families but Justin's father took over tracking them down and providing support and information after that since he was the one who'd been to Hogwarts and seen his son. Ellery might have spoken to your parents because we were friends but I had nothing to do with it."

"I don't believe you!" Hermione yelled.

"I am not a liar. You know that. Ask your parents, they should be able to tell the difference between a 12 year old and a 30 year old," Harry said coldly, handing up the phone without saying goodbye.

Hermione was still fuming when her parents arrived home. Expecting to be ignored or ranted at for their decision again they ignored her while preparing dinner then called her down.

"I'm not hungry," Hermione declared.

"You will come and sit at the table with us while we eat whether you are hungry or not. I've had enough of your tantrums, if you won't accept the compromise we offered you then you can spend the summer in your room and attend the local comprehensive next year. You'll find it difficult to keep up with your classmates without the two years of normal education they received while you were off at that school of yours so they'll probably drop you back a grade but that is your choice," Daniel Granger stated calmly.

"Stop winding yourself up and try to calm down. I know that you're upset about the situation but that school is far too dangerous and the bigotry towards those without magical parents seems far too widespread. I'm sure it will also extend to hiring practices and not just in the ministry for magic. You're going to need a normal education if you're ever going to get a decent job," Emma said.

"Harry lied to me," Hermione said, poking at her dinner.

"Harry, your friend that went to Hogwarts but left after first year. I wasn't aware the two of you were still in contact," Emma said calmly.

"He said that he didn't tell you about what happened at school," Hermione said.

"Hermione, your father and I haven't seen Harry since we did your school shopping last summer and he was with that family that got into the brawl in the bookshop. We were informed of your condition by members of Her Majesty's government," Emma replied.

"But you described him exactly," Hermione said angrily.

"We can't have, I guarantee that neither of the men we spoke to was anywhere near your age," Daniel said confused.

"You said he was 'a young man with messy almost black hair and green eyes and glasses'," Hermione retorted.

"Yes, I would have said he was about 25, but he definitely wasn't twelve or thirteen. I don't recall his name, Edward or Elliot perhaps," Emma agreed.

"Ellery, he's Harry's cousin so I guess they could look alike," Hermione said sighing.

"Sounds like you owe your friend an apology," Daniel said quietly.

"His cousin only got involved because of Harry," Hermione said stubbornly.

"Hermione, we got a letter from the school informing us that you were fine but unable to write to us, and even that was only after I wrote to Professor McGonagall with our concerns that we hadn't heard from you. It was a shock to find out what actually happened but even the fact that you were somehow prevented from contacting us and the school didn't let us know was enough for us to start trying to find an alternative source of magical education before this Ellery explained what was actually happening. In fact, we were going to ask you to invite your friend Harry and his guardian's over to talk about it since they went through this last summer," Emma stated.

"That was different. Harry didn't want to go back to Hogwarts. He got homesick, " Hermione stated.

"His cousin also removed him out of concern for his safety, especially after they got a warning that the school would be even more dangerous for him this year," Daniel said. "The discussion is closed Hermione you are not returning to Hogwarts, do well in summer school and you can choose whether we enroll you in the London School of Magic and you continue to do a mix of home schooling and summer school for your normal subjects or we can try to get you into a decent nonmagical private school and you can be privately tutored for the other like Harry is. Do well enough and we might even approach this Ellery chap, to see if you can be tutored with Harry."

Hermione didn't know if she wanted to be tutored with Harry. It would be good to see him again if he forgave her for calling him a liar but from his description of his lessons they were very different to the Hogwarts curriculum. She also didn't know if she wanted to go back to a mainstream school. She was uneasily aware that no matter how hard she worked, a single summer of summer school wouldn't come close to making up for the two years of schooling she'd missed. For the first time she regretted not taking Harry's lead and trying to keep up with a few muggle subjects by correspondence.

She had to admit that she'd been lonely at Hogwarts with Harry gone, she had had made few friends in first year other than Ron and Harry. Ron was still a friend of course though he'd pulled away from her at the start of the year and not been much of a friend at all until they had a new mystery to solve and she had barely seen him or heard from him since his sister's disappearance, and he withdrew even more when everyone accepted that it looked increasingly like 'The-Heir-of- Slytherin' had written the truth and Ginny had died in the chamber and her body would not be found. Neville tolerated her company in return for help with his homework but they'd never quite managed to make the jump from friendly to actual friends, and her room mates were civil but not friendly which was more than she'd had in elementary school but still not a decent substitute for being around people who cared for her.

Maybe living at home and going to a day school would be good for her, though she wasn't ready to admit that yet. She'd liked the almost complete separation of her magical and nonmagical life and the independence that boarding school gave her and there was something truly magical about Hogwarts castle, she would miss that atmosphere, and the library. Hogwarts library was said to be one of the best magical libraries in the world, she was sure London school of magic didn't have one that could compete with that. She wondered what would happen to that library if the school was to close. It would be a tragic waste to have the books locked away without anyone to read them.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited or gave Kudos to this story for your support.