Chapter 37
During lunch, Potter – Harry – had caught Draco's eye across the Hall and given him a quick, reassuring smile. Draco assumed that meant his friends had not been too suspicious of his nightly disappearance, and that it was still a secret. Which was, of course, a good thing.
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After lunch he went down to the greenhouses. They had Herbology with the Ravenclaws, which meant the classes were usually good – everyone was focused, most people were prepared for class, there was generally less noise than in any class with Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors in it. Today, however, they were studying weeds, and they had all been given a small Acheronta* – also known as Hell Bramble, which seemed a more appropriate name – that they were supposed to figure out a way to exterminate, so the lesson was a chaos of fearful screams, minor injuries and people volunteering to escort their friends to the hospital wing. Draco was still observing his angrily thrashing specimen from a safe distance, not quite decided upon how he was going to try to kill it, when someone gently bumped into his shoulder. He turned to find Luna Lovegood edging past him.
"Sorry," she said quietly. "I just need to get one of the garden scissors from that table behind you."
He turned and watched her pick up a pair of scissors, examine it closely and then put it down only to pick up another pair that seemed identical to the first.
"Do you think that will work?" he asked her.
"No, you need to use fire to kill it properly. The hard part is getting to the roots without pulling them up, and I don't think scissors would be a big help with that..."
"Then why-"
"I needed an excuse to come over here. Hermione asked me to tell you to meet her up in the room when classes are over."
And then before he could answer, she had taken a pair of scissors with her and gone back to where she was trying to kill her own plant.
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It was only a small cut, really, and the burn wasn't so bad either. That was what Madam Pomfrey had told him when she said he had to wait until after classes before she would have time to fix his hands. He thought it should be considered a valiant show of dedication to the cause that he went to see Granger before heading to the Hospital Wing.
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She sat on the edge of the sofa, her arms resting on her knees and what looked like all of her notes spread out on the table in front of her. A couple of the books lay open too, with the strange one at the centre. He cleared his throat, as she didn't seem to have noticed him coming in. She looked up.
"Good, you made it," she said. "I've been trying to get a hold of you the whole week."
She stood up and picked up the book, upsetting a couple of her notes.
"I found this in the library, it looks promising. If you could just skim through it-"
"I already read it," he interrupted her.
She frowned.
"Really? When?"
"Last night. I couldn't sleep so I came up here and I found your note."
Her frown deepened.
"Last night?"
Right. He had forgotten that Potter- that Harry had probably just told them where he'd slept.
"Yes," he said, catching himself quickly. "I read through it, though to be honest I'm not sure how much of it I understood. Maybe I should have reread it, but I was pretty exhausted so I went back to the dorms."
She nodded.
"Okay, well…"
She didn't get to finish her sentence before the door opened again. Draco turned around to see Lovegood slipping inside and closing it carefully behind her.
"Hello," she said as if they might have been expecting her.
He glanced at Granger, but she looked just as confused as he was.
"Hi, Luna," she said.
"What is it you've found?"
"What?"
"Well, you asked me to tell Draco to meet you up here, so I thought you had probably found something, and I decided to come by and help."
Granger looked slightly embarrassed at that, which for a moment seemed odd to Draco, but then he remembered how dismissive Granger usually was of Lovegood. Lovegood's handwriting had been all over their notes for the last month and a half, and he had dismissed them because she was crazy and he found her slightly unnerving, but Granger had done the same thing, and wasn't that interesting considering that they were supposed to be friends?
Of course the only Ravenclaw in on the mission ought to have been part of their endless library search, but she had kept her distance. He had thought that their group was only divided into heroes and Slytherins, but that might be wrong. He had noticed that Ginny Weasley, Lovegood and Longbottom had become a trio in their own right last year, the obvious challengers of the Carrows, but he supposed he had only thought of them as stand-ins for Granger, Potter and Ronald, had never considered them to be anything in their own right. Yet here they were, still a trio, more reliant on each other than on Potter, close in a way that the golden trio wasn't anymore. And he hadn't noticed because even though Potter's friends had seemed unlikely choices for heroic companions, those three were even less likely heroes. It wasn't just Draco who had been underestimating them, overlooking them, dismissing them: Potter, Granger and Weasley had been doing the same thing.
And Granger and Lovegood didn't like each other.
"Granger has found another book," said Draco. "We think it might be the breakthrough we've been needing."
Granger handed the book to Lovegood.
"This one," she said.
Lovegood took it and went to sit down on the couch. Draco followed her example and claimed one of the chairs. Only Granger remained standing and watched as Lovegood flicked the book open and looked at the title page.
"Oh, Sybill Elphick!" she said.
"You know her?"
Lovegood nodded and began turning the pages.
"Yes. She was an experimental witch, like my mother. We have some of her other books back home, she had some very interesting theories. I didn't know there were any books about her dementor-research."
"But you knew she had studied them?" asked Granger, sounding slightly disappointed.
"It was mentioned briefly in one of my mother's books – she had a very interesting theory that depression was caused by dementor-possession, but-"
"But dementors can't possess people."
Lovegood looked sharply up at her.
"How do you know that?" she asked pointedly. "It's not like anyone else has studied them is it?"
"But someone would have noticed it if they could-"
"She did eventually reject the theory," said Lovegood, talking over Granger. "She found that it was much more likely that it was caused by wrackspurts, sadly she died young before she could publish her work. My mother spent a lot of time assembling her notes."
"Well I was very excited to find that one, but it hasn't really turned out to be as useful as I thought it would… I've tried going over our notes again, but it's all kind of a mess."
"Hm," said Lovegood. "That's good."
She had flipped open the book while Granger spoke and was already immersed in it. A tiny smile played around the corners of her mouth.
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"If there was just some way to get the patronus to attack the dementor, instead of driving it away. It's the only thing that seems to make sense, we don't know any other spell that affects them, not even Elphick mentioned anything else. And she even tried casting riddikulus at them, which was really the direction we had been going in before…"
Lovegood was curled up on the sofa, still reading the book. Draco and Granger were repeating things they already knew at each other, both waiting for someone else to have a good idea.
"But they won't attack," said Draco.
It was the fourth time they discussed this. They had taken turns suggesting and rejecting the idea.
"They are shields, that's all they do."
"There was that poem in there about "the nature of the spell"," said Granger, pointing to the book. "I thought that might help, but it can take years of work to alter a spell, especially one as old as the patronus charm..."
"Did you read about that experiment where she cast the patronus into a person's body?"
"I thought about it, but from what Luna said I suppose that had to do with exorcising a dementor. I think it's too dangerous to try… besides, she said it didn't work."
"Here!" exclaimed Lovegood.
She bolted upright, startling both him and Granger. Draco felt an excited twist in his gut even though he tried to suppress it – this was Lovegood after all, her excitement was bound to be as illogical as everything else about her. She scooted to the edge of the sofa so she could lean over the table with them.
"Remember how we talked about cutting the dementors off?" she said. "How they thrive on misery, so what would happen if you could keep them from feeding on anyone?"
"But the patronus already does that and the dementors don't die-"
"Yes, but remember how we thought maybe it was drawing from a much bigger area than what we normally assume – I drew it somewhere."
She rifled through the papers on the table, upsetting the order, but Granger didn't comment.
Lovegood turned over a piece of parchment to a sketch of a dot labelled dementor, and then different circles sketched around it.
"This one," she said. "Malfoy had that theory that Azkaban was actually affecting all of Britain because the evil had reach, or like a really big radius. And then you wrote down somewhere that Azkaban wasn't built by anyone, or we don't know who built it, it was just found a really long time ago. And here it says that as far as she can tell the number of dementors has increased since wizards started putting prisoners in the tower."
She was speaking fast and excitedly. She had put the book down in front of them next to her sketches of the dementor's possible area of influence,pointing to the pages from which she drew her points.
To say that they had talked about all of this before was something of an overstatement. He vaguely remembered having glimpsed her sketches, but they definitely hadn't pursued any of her ideas.
"So maybe the dementors and the tower are the same sort of thing," she said. "And so the dementors have reach as well. Then, even if a patronus keeps them from feeding on one person, they would still be able to feed on other people who are far away. And the way it goes cold around them could suggest that they are able to suck something out of the air too, maybe magic or something else that's left behind by people, and that's why they feel so empty."
It was the way her voice dropped on that last word that sent a cold, trickling shiver down his spine. You wouldn't say it like that unless you had been attacked by a dementor. Unless you knew exactly what it felt like and knew that empty didn't even come close to covering it.
Draco cleared his throat.
"Well, the… the air in Azkaban is definitely strange. Sound doesn't travel very far."
Lovegood nodded.
"So if we assume that's right then it should just be a matter of keeping them in one place and preventing them from feeding on anything within their reach, and then they would just- because see, here," she flipped to a new page in the book, one of the chapters in verse. "She says here that they become smaller when the patronus is cast, which could just be a stylistic figure of course except"- she skipped another two pages ahead - "here she says that they are also smaller in remote areas."
Draco glanced at Granger who was frowning.
"That sounds… right," she said, pulling the book towards her. "But for that to work – there are hundreds of prisoners in Azkaban. It would be impossible to cast enough patronuses to shield all of them."
Lovegood shook her head and took the book back, flipping it open to another chapter.
"We won't have to."
The illustration showed two beautifully calligraphed runes with no explanation except for a small notation next to them labelling them fig. 1 and fig. 2. He remembered looking at them before. They were from one of the chapters that made no sense at all.
"That chapter made no sense at all," said Granger.
"No," said Lovegood. "I suppose it didn't. But the runes are interesting."
"I don't recognize them," said Granger.
Actually, Draco had meant to ask her about them. As far as he knew, Granger had taken just about every boring subject available at Hogwarts, and he would have thought her unable to stay away from something as dry as ancient runes. He was also a bit surprised to hear her admit so blankly that there was something she didn't know.
Lovegood traced a finger over the lines.
"They aren't like anything we've covered in class," she said. "But I think they might be variations of protection-runes. And this one," she tapped fig. 2, "looks an awful lot like the symbol for chain, doesn't it?"
Granger hesitated.
"Can I see?" she asked, and Lovegood handed her the book for a closer look.
So she probably had taken runes.
Granger made a very quiet "oh"-sound. She looked up at Lovegood.
"Do you think that would work?" she asked.
Lovegood shrugged.
"We could try."
"You've lost me," Draco said.
They both looked at him as if they had forgotten he was there.
"I didn't take runes," he said. "How does that help us?"
"Well, runes can be used for channelling spells," said Granger, standing up. "And runes of protection would probably be compatible with the patronus charm, so if this works, we might be able to create a sort of… web. Right?"
Lovegood nodded.
"Like spreading out our own patronuses."
Granger had pulled out her wand. She held the book in her other hand and carefully recreated the pair of runes on the wall. Then she moved a metre down the wall and did it again. She levelled her wand at the second set. Draco recognized the stance immediately, the way she placed her fingers on her wand, he had done it a thousand times himself by now. But it was very different from watching Potter cast the spell – he did it so effortlessly, made it look so straightforward, like it was just brandishing and shouting. Granger's brow was furrowed in concentration, her hand tense on the wand - she made it look exactly as difficult as it was.
"Expecto patronum," she said forcefully.
And there was a burst of silver, a second where he expected her corporeal patronus to materialize, but instead the light sparked and twisted into loops and threads as they were dragged into the runes as if pulled by a sudden, magnetic force. For a moment the rune just glowed faintly silver, but then it spurted a thin, twisted rope of light that shot along the wall and crashed eagerly into the other rune. And there it stayed, a metre-long band of wavering patronus light along the wall of the room.
All in all, it looked very unimpressive.
There was a rustle of paper, and Draco turned away from the patronus to see Lovegood pulling out the sketch of Azkaban that he had made for Granger for what seemed a hundred years ago. Draco wasn't good at drawing. He apparently wasn't very good at remembering architectural layouts either, and the sketch was pretty lacking. Lovegood took a quill and placed little marks along the wall of his attempt to do a cross section of the building. Draco clenched and unclenched his hands as he watched her.
Was this it, then? Weren't they supposed to say if it was? Weren't they supposed to be more excited?
"So is this something we should tell the others about?" he asked, probing the odd silence.
"Well, there's still the dementor's pit…" said Granger.
"What about it?"
She shrugged. She was looking at her spell with an unimpressed frown.
"You think this would work down there?"
"You think it would work at all?"
She shrugged again. Then nodded.
"I don't see why not."
"So that's a yes - you think that will work on the dementors?" he asked again, not because she hadn't been clear but just because – well, this didn't feel at all like the breakthrough they had been waiting for.
She nodded.
After months of nothing, he had really expected that he would feel some sort of relief. He had thought that when they found the right solution it would feel like the right solution. Like when he had finally managed to cast his patronus – or maybe not as great as that, but he had thought it would be more than this. And now here they were, and it didn't feel wrong exactly, it just felt flat. They were just three teenagers in some odd room in the no-man's hours between classes and dinner. Three teenagers with a couple of books from the school library and an overestimation of their own abilities that probably correlated better with their amount of trauma than their actual achievements. It felt more like they were finishing up on homework than edging closer to the fall-down of some great source of evil.
The anti-climax of their achievement settled in his chest as a tense lump of anticipation. He remembered his thoughts from the other night. As soon as they had even the slightest chance of success, they had to go. So if they thought this might work, if this was the solution they were going with, that meant they were going to Azkaban.
He hadn't noticed when it happened, but Granger's patronus charm was gone. There were only faint traces of the runes on the wall now, like pale scars, and the room had once again become sad afternoon grey around them. Lovegood was humming under her breath.
"Congratulations on the ground-breaking discovery," he said to her. "Solving the mystery of how to kill a dementor at the humble age of 18. Looks like you really do belong in Ravenclaw."
She looked up and flashed him a quick, uncertain smile, as if she didn't know whether or not he was joking. He wasn't really sure either.
"No, I really don't see how it could work in the pit," said Granger, continuing some argument the others hadn't been part of. "Choking the dementors should work, but if the pit is some sort of source, as we have considered it so far, then starving it doesn't make sense."
There was a space of silence.
She was right, of course. It wasn't as simple as just killing off the dementors and they all knew that. But Granger looked very uncomfortable saying it, not like she hadn't liked pointing it out but like she wasn't happy with where the observation was leading her.
"What's your point?" he asked tentatively, to make her go on.
"My point is that maybe we should give it a bit more time. See if we can get closer to a solution for the pit before we tell the other's what we've found out."
"Why shouldn't we tell the others?"
Granger crossed her arms in front of her.
"Well, if we tell Harry he'll just want to go immediately. We've already been holding back on this for a long time and planning isn't really his thing, he'll just want to rush head first into all of this and…"
She trailed off.
Draco glanced at Lovegood. She had put down the quill, but was still looking at the drawings.
"We can't keep putting it off," he said. "We have a responsibility to do this and every day that we don't-"
"We also have a responsibility not to fuck it up by being underprepared," she snapped.
Draco raised an eyebrow in surprise. He didn't think he had ever heard Granger swear before.
"I suppose you're the most experienced…" said Lovegood quietly.
Draco shrugged.
"Alright, we'll wait a bit."
"The thing about rushing in head first, that really goes for Ron and Ginny too…"
"We'll just keep it between the three of us for now."
She nodded.
"Good. I really think it's best that way. Just for now."
Draco shrugged. Granger nodded again more to herself this time.
"Okay, if that's settled then I think I'll head back to Gryffindor. I haven't had time to study at all," she said, putting her wand away and picking up her bag from the sofa.
"Alright," said Draco.
She put her hand on the door and looked quickly back at them.
"So –see you later."
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The door closed behind Granger and he was left alone with Lovegood. They looked at each other and there was a moment where he thought one of them might comment on what had just happened. But that would have been like striking an alliance after Granger had left, that would have been looking for an understanding with the other, so they didn't say anything. Instead she cast her eyes back down to the parchment in front of her and Draco shrugged and looked away.
They were quiet for too long and it was awkward.
"Were you marking where to put the runes?" he asked finally, gesturing to the drawings.
It felt more like underlining the silence than breaking it.
"Yeah," she said, just late enough to give you the sense that she actually lived in her own time and space and conveying words just took slightly longer with her because they had to travel to her realm first.
Sometimes he wondered if she was actually this weird or if she just enjoyed making people uncomfortable.
"They can't be very helpful."
She shrugged.
"I think they're fine for getting a sense of the place when you've never been there."
"I suppose," he said, then added: "If you don't think Granger is right, you should tell her."
It came out harder than he had intended. Again there was that pregnant pause.
"Is that what you think?" she said.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"I don't know."
"Neither do I," she said.
She stood up and gathered her things.