Chapter 19: Pandora's Discoveries

The next day right away after breakfast, Harry hurried to tell Hermione and his friends his conclusion that they should come up with an effective way to seek Voldemort's energy. Hermione agreed with his suggestion with a gloomy face and added that she had thought of it herself.

"Harry, but I just want you to know what it means to cast the Locator Spell. It's not just citing a few words. While you're performing the spell, you must constantly think about the object you are looking for and the person who owned it. You see, in our case, our memories and thoughts are especially valuable, since we have absolutely no other objects containing the energy we are searching for. And I hope you understand why I'm not at all happy about the idea that I should constantly focus on the being of that monster," Hermione said with a wince, and Harry remembered what had it done to her a month and a half ago when she had tried to search for the traces of magic left by Voldemort – after the unpleasant search episodes, even in the next day, she still had shaky hands and she was unusually jumpy.

"Maybe you could teach me it?" Harry asked "If I could cast the Locator Spell as well as you do, perhaps I could succeed and then you wouldn't have to concentrate on Voldemort."

"Yes, of course. There's no reason why you couldn't learn it. Only we'll need a while until you'll be ready to perform the spell," Hermione confirmed.

They agreed that now they would do their best to help Harry learn the Locator Spell. "According to the plan of our lesson subjects, Flitwick is going to teach us this spell in January anyway, so you'll just learn this spell a little bit sooner," Hermione said happily to him.

At first, Ginny and Ron also tried to help him actively, while Harry was learning the basics of the spell, but when Hermione started teaching him her own version of the Locator Spell a few days later, this task became very difficult for Ron and Ginny, because the main element that Harry had to work on was how to focus on Voldemort. And it was something that was just in his mind, so his friends could help him very little with it.

So soon came Saturday of the first week of December, which had brought along a thin layer of snow, fine as flour, but the sun drew even a smaller arch in the sky, making the days dark. As usual in the morning, Harry had worked by himself without Hermione, since she had to do her Head Girl duty of patrolling every Saturday.

Harry had accepted Ginny's help this morning, but the girl's company actually wasn't very helpful when he needed to focus on Voldemort's horrific appearance, his depraved and torn soul when it had come out of the Horcurxes part by part. As he looked at his girlfriend, the terrifying breath of the death faded, because her beautiful face was full of life, full of kindness and love, which was something completely and utterly contrary to the essence of the being of Dark Lord.

After struggling for like half an hour, Harry realized that in her company he would not succeed in any of the exercises of Voldemort's soul searching, so he said with a chuckle, "You know what, Ginny? Your presence is very disturbing."

"Disturbing?" she appeared to look surprised at first, but then she smiled mischievously. "I wonder, how can I be disturbing, if I've been standing here like a statue for the last half hour and haven't spoken even a single word? Maybe you're going to say that this blackboard also is very disturbing?" Ginny pointed with her hand to the school's blackboard on the wall as she spoke.

Harry smiled, amused, and didn't even notice that he had already come closer to his girlfriend. Suddenly, he felt his heart beating faster as he stood in front of her looking in her big, chocolate brown eyes – now she seemed even more beautiful. "No, I couldn't care less about the blackboard, but it's completely opposite when considering you. I can't think of anything else but you – especially when we are just the two of us in this room," he said as he stretched out his hand to put a lock of hair behind her ear. At the touch, his amusement changed into desire.

He succumbed to the invisible force and leaned in to her as he slid his hand further behind her neck urging her to move closer to him. Their lips met, and Harry felt a heat wave running through his body as he inhaled a deep breath.

He pulled away from her just for an inch and gazed at her with his large pupils, breathing out, "Gin."

But Ginny didn't let him speak, replying, "I love you too, Harry." Then she put both of her hands behind the back of his neck and ran up her fingers into his hair as she scraped her fingernails against his skin, leaning in and kissing him again. Harry felt butterflies fluttering in his stomach and all his conscious thoughts were once again hastily leaving his mind. Her body responded to the tiniest of his movements and his mind began to flow somewhere out into the space as they tried to get closer to each other until it seemed to them that their thick Hogwarts robes were so intolerably cumbersome and obstructive.

Harry ran his hand down along Ginny's back, kissing her neck; one of his hands began searching for a way to bypass the obnoxious clothing layer of the robes and they both were breathing quite heavily, when suddenly…

Squeak – there opened the classroom door. Harry hardly noticed it, but Ginny froze in an instant. They finally pulled away from each other and turned towards the door where Hermione stood. The girl with brown bushy hair seemed to feel very uncomfortable.

"Um," Harry said awkwardly, running his hand into his black hair, "I thought you'd be away longer."

"We ended our patrolling sooner. I suppose all the Boggarts are already caught and we haven't found any more wands for quite a long time," Hermione replied matter-of-factly. When they had delivered the first wand they had found to the Headmistress, McGonagall had explained that after the Battle, there were dozens of them lying all around here. "Besides, it looks like you two can't be left unattended for long," she added with a smirk. Harry and Ginny just laughed at it.

Ginny ran her hand over her hair as she stepped a few feet away from Harry and said, "Well, since Hermione has come here to help you and my presence is so disturbing, then I think I'll go now. I need to take a look at the training schedule and something like that."

Harry replied with a grin, "Okay." Then she pressed her lips to his cheek quickly and, before leaving the empty classroom, added, "Then I'll see you later."

Hermione seemed to be recovering from the awkward incident and, a moment later when Ginny was gone, she spoke up, "Well, yes, it's obvious why her presence is so disturbing and how exactly she kept you away from concentrating."

"Well, her presence somehow made it extremely hard to force myself thinking of Voldemort," Harry said with a grin, but Hermione turned her gaze away from her friend's face, her cheeks seemingly lightly flushed. "I'm sorry it was so awkward, but you always spend up to two hours with Malfoy in those your patrolling duties; now it hasn't passed a full hour and you're already back," Harry apologized to her.

"I already told you in the morning that I would try to get back sooner, so we could finally find that Diadem," Hermione reminded him.

"Oh, then you just shortened your route?" Harry tried to figure out how she could have saved so much time.

"Um," Hermione averted her gaze, as if feeling uncomfortable, because she didn't want to tell the truth, but she also didn't want to lie to him. "Well, not exactly. We saved time on a completely different thing."

"Look, Hermione, this is starting to sound suspicious," Harry said, unable to imagine why Hermione felt so awkward. Then a completely unbelievable thought popped up in his mind. "Can I make a guess that it sounds like you have started to… like Malfoy?"

Her face flinched lightly as she sneered, "Started to like Malfoy? Oh dear Merlin, no, no, not at all. Alright, I'll tell you, because basically you were the one who put us together, but you have to promise me that you won't say a word to anyone, especially Ron." Of course, Harry promptly promised her that he wouldn't utter even a half-syllable to any living soul.

"Including dead souls, too," Hermione demanded earnestly.

"I'm not going to tell any dead souls either," Harry promised, already being eager to know what Hermione's secret might be.

"Remember, the very beginning of the school year, when Ron made that fuss about Malfoy, when I saw that Boggart in a form of a Basilisk in the Dungeons?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded affirmatively, recalling it well enough how Ron had then thought some very crazy things about Hermione and Malfoy.

"So, the next week after that incident, he had gathered up enough courage to ask me…" Hermione began to tell the whole event from her memory.

Hermione and Draco wandered through the dungeon tunnels for a while, only exchanging short phrases briefly to agree which way to go. Then suddenly Draco, obviously feeling awkward, asked, "Is everything alright with you and that Weasley? He seemed so overly furious last week."

"Yes, yes, of course, everything's alright. He apologized to me even the same day. Why are you asking me this, do you even care?" Hermione replied bluntly.

"Well, not exactly, but I promised Potter that you wouldn't have to suffer due to me. Regardless of the fact that I'm Slytherin, we, Malfoys, usually tend to keep our promises," Draco simply explained.

"Oh, okay," Hermione said equally vaguely. In this hallway, there also was only a cold darkness without a single Boggart or lost Slytherin first-year.

There was a long moment of silence when Draco gathered up his courage to ask another question, "But the fact is that I actually saved you last week, didn't I?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione said as she examined the blond guy in front of her with suspicion as the dim light of their wands and torches shone upon them.

"I'd like to ask you something in return for that," Draco simply stated.

"I wonder what exactly could the great Malfoy need from a Muggleborn witch?" Hermione sneered. Draco frowned, though, replied collectedly and calmly.

"Well, with all that war and all the other… matters… going on my knowledge of Hogwarts subjects, putting it in one word is… a complete disaster. But you are kind of smart, Granger," Draco tried to explain.

"Firstly, those were three words, and secondly, I still don't understand what exactly do you want from me – to falsify your marks, really?" Hermione said, frustrated with a frown.

"Firstly, at the last second, I reconsidered that the phrase 'fucked' could be too harsh on your delicate ears," Draco also spoke angrier as he begun to lose his patience, "secondly, I just wanted to ask you if I could get some private teaching lessons from you? I can handle with Flitwick and Sprout's subjects, but at Slughorn and Switch I'm an absolute zero."

Hermione looked at the young man with her widened eyes, full of surprise. Was he, the great, arrogant Malfoy, who was ready to step over bodies to reach his desires, truly asking for her help? It was something unbelievable.

The very first feeling said to her to tell him to go fry an egg; he had abused her so much in the previous years, but she really couldn't bring herself to say those harsh words. However, somehow that didn't seem right to her. What if he had changed or really did try to change? After all, he hadn't offended her or made her feel awkward in any way this year and, when considering it, Malfoy actually had saved her from the Boggart in the form of a Basilisk.

"Okay, let's make a deal. I'll help you, but you have to be prepared on what exactly do you want to learn and practice, so that we can get to it immediately. I'm not going to waste my time retelling you the same that's already written in the textbooks," Hermione stated her rules. It couldn't be said that she would like to spend any more time with Malfoy than necessary, but if someone was really asking her for help and it was important to this someone, she couldn't just say no even though this someone was Malfoy.

"It's a deal," Draco said as the long-forgotten smirk formed on his lips, "For the next week, I'll get ready for learning Potions in our extra studying session. But, Granger, I would be very grateful if you wouldn't tell anyone about these lessons. Oh, and by the way, be aware that some Slytherins have started nasty jokes about Hufflepuffs like…" – but Hermione was only half listening to Malfoy's further talking as she already started to ponder, how much knowledge should be filled in his quite thick head.

"And so I help him for one hour with his studies every Saturday after our patrolling duties. Today he had prepared for studying Transfiguration, I just gave him advice how to recite the spell incantation and focus on it and told him that this time he'll have to practice the spell on his own, that now I had a little more urgent thing to do," Hermione added, explaining why she had returned so quickly today.

"Oh, then you're just helping him with his studies," Harry said amusedly. "At one point, I was really beginning to suspect you two were pleasantly spending your time together."

"Me with Malfoy? Yuck, Harry!" Hermione said, shivering slightly from such a thought. "I may help him with his studies, but that doesn't mean, even the slightest, that he seems even a little pleasant to me as a person. He is, though, Malfoy, who never stops seeking for opportunities to gain goods, always being ready to turn his cloak over when necessary. You cannot trust such a person at all. You know, I just can't stand at all such people, such jerks. However, you gave him his second chance and it would turn out to be a useless act, if he's not able to deal with it himself, because, I tell you this, I think he doesn't have even the slightest possibility to pass all of the exams successfully and graduate Hogwarts without my help."

"Well, I'm only a bit worried about the fact that you asked me not to tell Ron about this. Do you think he would take it so bad, if you tell him that you help Malfoy? I think he could understand that," Harry added.

"Yeah, you could be right. But – I suppose it's an aftereffect of the war – because, you know, Ron sometimes is so emotional like when he acts too quickly without thinking of any consequences. Remember, we all felt out of sorts during the first few weeks after the war – we had insomnia, nightmares, appetite problems, we were emotionally unstable, we had days when we just wanted to cry for all day – but all of this lessened after some time and we gradually started feeling normal again. Well, but Ron… in addition with his inferiority complexes, his emotions still change too quickly. And he feels especially jealous over any guy who just looks for too long in my direction."

"Well, I remember him making all this fuss about Malfoy. But there hasn't been anything like that again, right?" he asked nonchalantly.

"That's actually not true. It wasn't long time ago, when Terry came to me and asked to borrow a quill and then went away with it, but then Ron glared after him like he would want to curse him in some dark and deserted corridor. And then a moment later he started to ask me all those questions about how often I'm meeting him in the library with an excuse that we need to do our homework together," she told him with a sad smile on her face.

"Usually we're doing our homework all together in our group…" Harry said, sounding a bit perplexed of the facts she just told him.

"I had discussed my Arithmancy homework with Terry only a few times before and it was enough to cause Ron's jealousy…" Hermione explained in a sad voice. "But I understand Ron, because he just hasn't gotten over all the traumatic events we all experienced. I just need to be kind to him and supportive enough, and then he'll recover soon and we all have our good old Ron back. I don't like to keep secrets from him, too, but this really is not the right time to shock him with such a fact. Actually, it's much for him since he isn't objecting to just two of us working together. He just needs more time, so, please, don't tell him anything about Malfoy now – okay, Harry?" Hermione asked him with a heavy sigh.

"Okay, I promise I keep this fact a secret," Harry said grimly, "but for now – could we focus on my private lessons?"

"Yes, sure, sure," Hermione said in agreement, and the two of them started with the unpleasant and tiring practicing to find the piece of Voldemort's soul.

Although they worked hard on practicing, Harry was not ready to start the search even in the beginning of the next week, and Hermione had insisted that one day they had to devote to their homework of the subjects of Hogwarts, so on Tuesday afternoon, they had taken their seats in the library near a window, where there was a lot of light shining through it, and also Neville and Luna had joined their group as they used to do that now and then.

Ron was trying diligently to formulate various amplifying Chants for all four elements of nature in Flitwick's homework; Ginny struggled with her essay for Slughorn on the applications of the Asphodel Extract, while others worked on with Thansfiguration by Switch, who had assigned them to know all about the advanced theory of the Switching spell. In their seventh year, the Transfiguration spells, which basically very often consisted of a rather long string of words, were extended also by the amplifying and fastening chants. In short, the last year N.E.W.T. students really had to work hard. Only Neville had happily forgotten all the spells of Transfiguration, and Potion mixing recipes and since he had already finished the homework assigned by Flitwick, he now read enthusiastically about the plants of Northern Europe.

"I find the theory of Transfiguration being more or less clear to me," Luna stated, "but I always confuse it how I have to wave my wand, when I'm casting the fastening, and when – the amplifying."

"When you're doing the amplifying, try to do more the circling movements with your wand so that the energy doesn't flow away, but the fastening requires more the moving forward so the spell were going to last longer," of course, Hermione immediately explained without taking her eyes off her Transfiguration book.

"I really don't understand, Luna, what you're complaining about," Ron argued, "you have the best marks of all of us for amplifying spells at Flitwick anyway."

"Were you really talking about me, or did you accidentally say it about Hermione? She is always the best in all of the classes," Luna stated, now having a slight tone of shyness in her dreamy voice.

"Oh, the fact that Hermione does everything perfectly is no surprise to anyone anymore, but I meant that you're really good at amplifying spells when considering us, the ordinary people," Ron said, looking knowingly at Luna. Though, tilting her head slightly sideways, Hermione gave Ron an odd gaze.

"Oh, thank you Ron," Luna replied as a faint blush appeared on her cheeks, "I knew you were very funny and witty, but I hadn't noticed that you were also so kind and attentive. I have to say that I can thank my mother for this success."

"Your mom?" Ginny asked, confused. "Didn't she die when you were a little girl, didn't she?"

"Oh, right. I suppose I haven't told you yet it, but do you remember that terrible week when Lestrange attacked Diggory and McGonagall took me with her?" Luna asked her friends in a mundane voice.

"Yes, of course, you said that you helped your dad move to a safer, Auror-protected housing," Harry right away recalled.

"That's right, Harry. Back then, I helped him to arrange all the things he needed to take with him including the Quibbler printing machine. After we had finished packing and transporting all the things, Dad took me down to my mother's lab, where I hadn't entered since that fateful night she died," Luna explained. "Then, we both revised her things together there, and we found notes of her research."

"And what exactly was she researching?" Neville asked. "Before you've said it was something about the spells."

"Yes, I went through her research work. My mom had researched the best ways for the spell amplification. I just tried out some of her suggestions in the Flitwick's class."

"Oh, now I see," Ron said slowly. "Maybe I could ask you to give me her notes, too?"

"Yes, of course," Luna agreed, and right away took a thick volume out of her bag. She pointed to it with her wand and said, "Geminio." Then she muttered a few more words.

"Here you are. The copy should be durable long enough for you to read it." The girl smiled as she handed a wad of papers to the redheaded guy.

"Thank you," he said admirably. "Really, did your dad take the Quibbler printing machine with him? He's weird."

Luna smiled kindly at him, ignoring the insult at all – or maybe she didn't take it as an insult? Sometimes it seemed to Harry that she did not always perceive emotional nuances, but simply analysed the perceived information – likewise this time. She was asked a question, and she answered it in a mundane tone.

"You see, in fact, he wasn't always like that," Luna began. "Dad became obsessed with the Quibbler after my mom's death. If I recall it correctly from my childhood memories of what my parents told me, then my mother, named Pandora, was always fascinated by experimental magic even in her student days at Hogwarts. I have found many of her published articles about charms in older scientific journals. As far as I know, after graduating Hogwarts, Dad took a job in the Communications Department of the Ministry, which is also responsible for making various informative handouts. So when they got married and started living together, Dad decided to help Mom not only publish in scientific journals, but they both wanted Mom's discoveries to be available to everyone. That's why my father founded the Quibbler, where at the beginning, the main rubric was Pandora's Discoveries, later he started to publish other interesting and topical subjects, which had been discovered by other people similar like my mother. I remember when I was very young, they could discuss various details about how to write or formulate something more correctly for long hours in the evenings." Then a grin appeared on Luna's face.

"Once I accidentally found them kissing passionately during their discussion. So you see, Ron, when my mother died, my father became very depressed, so he needs the Quibbler, because he created and maintained it only because of her."

"Oh," Ron said, feeling a bit ashamed. "I – I didn't know." Harry also felt that after Luna's story, there had settled a sad mood over all of them. Xenophilius had definitely loved his Pandora very much. And then he had suddenly lost her in one moment just like that…

Ginny broke the silence, "I'm really sorry, Luna, that you and your dad had to go through something awful like this. And I'm even sorrier about my rude brother who asks such painful questions."

Rom seemed to want to retort something to his sister, but instead he considered it elsewise and just muttered, "I'm sorry," he said with his gaze lowered, but Luna just smiled at him.

Then Hermione shook her head and asked, "Luna, but what was your mom really experimenting with? You said it was something about charms in regard of their fastening and amplification – but what exactly?"

"As far as I understand from her research notes," Luna simply began to answer Hermione's question, "she was trying to produce what wizards of the scientific community have long been aspired for – you see, she was trying to make the perfect Essence of Magic, and as it usually goes for such scientists, she had come up with her own special method."

"The Essence of Magic?" Ron couldn't believe his ears. Actually, they had tried to make it themselves, so he even had an idea of how extremely difficult this task was.

"Of course, Ron, the wizards have been trying to produce the Essence of Magic for a long time. And it's not that difficult to create one that works for a short time." Hermione looked at him knowingly. "However, there are legends that theoretically it is possible to make such the Essence of Magic that's able to amplify its own effects so much that it could practically exist forever. For example, Harry, your Cloak and the other Deathly Hallows could be strengthened with such perfect Essence of Magic. In addition, the Essence of Magic should be able to bind with all four Elements of nature."

"But it went something wrong for your mom?" Harry asked.

Luna looked at him with a sad smile. "Yes, I still remember it clearly. Dad had prepared dinner, so he asked me to go down to my mom's lab and call her to dinner. As I climbed down the stairs, suddenly all the house trembled and I got frightened. I ran down the stairs, but my mother lay on the floor and gasped for breath. I hurried to her and she still managed to tell me, 'My dear, lovely Luna, keep it in mind that wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.' Then she closed her eyes and died." The girl blinked her big blue eyes a few times and looked at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry, Luna," Harry apologized, feeling sad himself. He had at least someone to blame for his parents' death, but Luna's mother had most likely died of an inaccuracy or even of a foolish mistake. "I'm really sorry she died like that without succeeding into her experiments."

"You know, Harry," Luna began again in her dreamy voice, but now it had also a slight hint of pride, "I think you're wrong this time."

Harry looked at the blonde girl in confusion.

"I really can't put it as not succeeding. I understand of her notes that it was the opposite – she just didn't expect everything to finally work out," Luna added.

"You mean she succeeded?" Ron said with his eyes wide.

"That's right – she managed to find a method that allows you to produce the perfect Essence of Magic," the girl concluded lively.