Romilda Vane fic, without potion dubcon. Title is from Byron's Mazeppa.
As far as the public knew, Albus Dumbledore passed away from age during the summer. The curse that doomed him remained a secret and only a chosen few knew of the Horcruxes he chased during the end of his life. Magical Britain mourned a great man and went to sleep a little less easily, for fear a resurgent Voldemort.
Yet there was no seizure upon the moment. The funeral was undisturbed by little more than the bawling of Hagrid and a mournful phoenix cry.
Harry Potter was there, as were Hermione and Ron. They had spent the summer making the most of Dumbledore while he was still there: training, preparing, and attempting to get as many leads on the Horcruxes as they possibly could. They thought it likely at least one Horcrux sat within the school's halls, and searching the school over the summer seemed better than sending Harry off to get magical protection that wouldn't even last him through the summer.
Hogwarts, after all, was more secure than some muggle household. The Dursleys had been politely informed, via letter, that they should get the hell out of dodge. Spying seemed to indicate they did.
The lack of any action in Privet Drive was part of a wider trend. There was no massive Death Eater attack, despite their previous showing at the ministry. They hadn't stopped, certainly not, but the impression all of magical Britain had was that they were building their strength, waiting to strike the deathblow. With Dumbledore out of the picture?
Well, there were serious discussions of what was to be done about Hogwarts and whether it should continue to run. The answer was a hesitant yes, dependent on much tighter security. There had to be at least one safe place in magical Britain.
As far as the rest of Hogwarts were concerned, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were in the middle of some sort of special research project. They didn't attend any classes, instead plunging into the library, talking with the teachers at strange hours, or plumbing the castle's depths. It was hard not to wonder what the hell they were up to. Other than occasionally exchanging notes with Neville- who would keep up the fight should anything happen to them in the hunt- they were isolated to the extreme.
Well, barring Potter's legendary public spat with Ginny Weasley. While both of them were smart enough to not shout relevant details, there was some clear animosity regarding Harry's "mission," whatever that happened to be. His "stupid complex" was mentioned several times as well, although that seemed a more personal thing.
Someone less ambitious, less determined, would have seen this as a clear sign and would have realized that Harry was focused on his mysterious project. But Romilda Vane was determined to see it through.
Unfortunately, Harry Potter was damnably hard to track, what with the cloak and the very genuine fear that he could be followed by an agent of Voldemort. Romilda lost track of him more often than not, especially with her classes… (At some points, she had considered skipping. The OWLs loomed, but considering… circumstances, they could get canceled for any number of reasons.)
She knew about the Room, of course, and knew that Harry spent time there… but she couldn't exactly walk in while he was in there. He had probably asked for privacy, which ruined her chances of getting in at any time other than when he did. Rumors said Harry picked up the Summoning Charm really quickly during the Tournament… surely she could do the same with Disillusionment?
It was also just a useful spell to know. For other reasons. Those other reasons just seemed so very far away when she slipped between the closing doors, just barely on Harry's heels. The mystery of whatever room Harry was visiting… It was enough to nearly cause a collision. Teetering stacks of almost anything she could imagine, thick as a forest! How could she not be shocked?
Thankfully, she managed to avoid Harry as he stopped to check… a list? No. He couldn't be trying to inventory the place, could he? It was too big! Way too big! However, he just started marching down one of the long, spindly rows of empty space between the piles, searching.
Searching the whole of Hogwarts, top to bottom, for a Horcrux certainly wasn't easy, but it was what they had to do. The chance of one being there was just too high, considering Tom's love of the castle, and staying there meant access to the professors and their expertise, while in a fortified position. It was a no-brainer. Stay there before going out and roughing it.
Sure, they had prepared for going out at any moment with survival kits, bags stuffed full of useful potions and food to last them a while. Harry and Ron had bags with a less impressive copy of whatever magic Hermione had worked on her own. Space was certainly great, but not unlimited.
As of yet, the bags had gone completely unused, but carrying them everywhere was a reminder: the castle was a short-term solution, and they'd have to leave eventually to bring Voldemort down. When business was done here, they'd leave.
Searching for a Horcrux in the Room of Lost Things was an exercise of vanity, like a needle in a stack of needles, but it was necessary. There was too much potential for something to be hidden away, and he had already worked through a lot of junk. The only drinking vessels that appeared were of the cheap booze variety, certainly not the sort owned by Helga Hufflepuff…
Harry froze as his eyes caught on something. A tiara. Or rather a diadem. Ravenclaw's diadem. Sweet Merlin, it was sitting there the whole time! He snatched it and pulled a basilisk tooth from a (reinforced) pocket, not even hesitating. The thin silver crumpled under the fang, rapidly tarnishing before letting out a long, terrible scream.
"Harry!" He jumped, snapping around and pulling his wand, managing to thwack Romilda Vane on the nose.
"Ow! Shit!" She bent over and put her hands over her nose.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Following you?" She squeaked.
"Following-" Before Harry could really get worked up, he heard the faint sound of wood creaking and froze. Barring one of the great piles collapsing, the Room of Lost Things was fairly quiet…
"Wha-" Harry cast the strongest silencing spell he could and listened. Even Romilda froze when she heard a third person's voice, swiftly answered by a fourth…
"There!" Someone shouted an aisle over, swiftly following it with a shout of "Depulso!" The great bookshelf between the mysterious voice and Harry began to tilt, packets of contraband falling to bounce off their shoulders…
Harry grabbed Romilda's arm and ran. He was smart enough to realize that it wasn't just two. Maybe he could block them at the door…?
A silver deer galloped into the Great Hall, stood in front of the teacher's table, and shouted with the voice of Harry Potter: "Death Eaters invading the castle from a room on the seventh floor!"
The message repeated once before the hall sprung into motion and panicked screaming, spells screaming to and from the Slytherin table. The fight was swift, just by weight of numbers, but the panic and terror, the students fleeing? That took much longer to handle.
It took yet more time to organize the students in the Great Hall into a force of defenders, and longer still to organize any way to get the younger kids out. The castle bought time, through staircases that refused entry and doors that refused to open, but an army swarmed from the seventh floor, trained and prepared for this exact job.
When the Great Hall fell- because with invaders already inside the castle, it was just a matter of time- the defenders were split up, running each and every way. Most were smart enough not to flee in the direction of the dungeons. There was nowhere to escape to, and the Death Eaters were intimately familiar with those damp, dark halls.
Dozens of students fled to the Forbidden Forest or disappeared into hidden passages, the whole student body coming apart piecemeal as a conquering army seized towers and turrets, letting them send a rain of spell fire down on the grounds.
The Death Eaters weren't crazy enough to pull Dementors or the like through the Vanishing Cabinet, but broomsticks were sufficient to sweep the ground, looking for any who tried to flee.
If the castle's magic could be brought to heel, it could probably hold out against a Ministry offensive… but of course, Voldemort didn't plan to let them last that long. This would be a death blow, enough to shatter morale before their seizure of the ministry. That was the excuse given to the rank and file, and there was some truth to it, but there were other reasons they attacked.
Unfortunately for them, the two reasons behind the Hogwarts assault had vanished: the diadem Horcrux and Potter. The Dark Lord's fury was so tremendous he sundered one of the castle's outlying towers, sending ancient stone tumbling into the dark of the lake.
With a crack like a gunshot, Harry and Romilda stumbled into a clearing in a forest, some miles away from where the Gaunt shack was. It was too close to something Voldemort related for him to feel comfortable, but it was out of the way.
Romilda stumbled away from him, swaying on her feet. "That's Apparition? God, how do they do that all the time?"
"You'd better get used to it," Harry said, grabbing her wrist.
"Again?"
"Sorry." Another crack, and they were off.
"Couldn't you have apparated to a grocer's?" Romilda groaned, looking about ready to throw up in the bushes.
"So you could get sick all over the food?" Harry replied, casting a few spells to make sure they wouldn't get taken by surprise or found.
"Oh, so no food's-" She cut herself off by ducking into the bushes, where she proceeded to lose… well, it couldn't have been her lunch, Harry thought. They were at least two meals past that. Last night's dinner?
Speaking of… "Accio twigs!"
A big pile of sticks built up quickly enough, and with a spell, it was aflame. Romilda limped over and sat down as Harry fished a few utensils and packaged sausages out of the bag. With a shaking hand, Romilda reached for them.
"I'll cook," Harry said.
"I can-"
"Honestly, Romilda? I'm not sure if I can trust anything you cook."
She gulped. "Right. What should I do instead?"
"Can you handle the tent?"
"I can try?"
(Romilda Vane, unsurprisingly, could not pitch a tent.)
The tent and the sleeping bag were intended for one. In other circumstances, Romilda would have quite liked the idea of close quarters with Harry Potter… but more than anything else, she felt the urge to cry.
Hogwarts wasn't her second home or anything like that- she loved her parents- but it had been where she spent the majority of the last few years. It was where the vast majority of her friends were. Well, hopefully, they weren't there at the moment.
What a price to pay for some alone time with her crush. God, this was a disaster! Hogwarts had fallen, and the news coming from Harry's radio only made matters worse. The Minister was dead of a mysterious, unknown cause, and loads of students were taken hostage in Hogwarts itself.
"What are we going to do?" Romilda croaked.
Harry sighed. "Romilda, do you think it's safe for you to live with your family?"
"You're going to leave me?"
"Instead of letting you fight in a war? Yeah."
"My family had plans to run if something like this happened," Romilda explained. "They've got to be halfway to Bloemfontein by now."
"They left you?" Harry growled.
"We knew I might be in Hogwarts when it happened," she sniffed. "I told Mum that leaving with my siblings would be best. I'm- I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself…"
And then she started sobbing. For what little it was worth, Harry was there. She wasn't alone. (She did kind of wish that he had bothered to hold her hair back when she was puking her guts out, but…)
Harry made a token attempt to convince her to hop the border to France and work her way down to her family, but she was determined now. Some part of him wondered if it was her romanticizing a literal war, but he couldn't really complain about extra help right now. Harry wasn't sure if he'd be able to find Hermione and Ron, considering that anything that could track them could be used by the Death Eaters as well.
While Hermione was smart enough to keep herself and Ron out of Voldemort's hand, Harry had a bit of a problem, one he didn't realize for a frankly horrifying amount of time. "The Trace."
Romilda's eyes widened. "Shit."
Harry's train of thought sped ahead. "If the trace detects all magic in the presence of kids, wouldn't it pick up accidental stuff?"
"The muggleborns," Romilda's eyes were wide with horror.
They were already considering some hair-brained scheme to go in there and break whatever magic regulated the Trace, even knowing how insane the Ministry would be. Harry would have trouble weaving through the bedlam in his Invisibility Cloak- which, of course, he kept on his person- but it was theoretically possible.
However, to give magical Britain some credit, a brave Ministry employee took a stand and sabotaged the Trace. What followed… well, technically speaking, it wasn't a public execution, because that implied it was the government doing it. It was just a very public, very bloody assassination.
As the Ministry pieced itself together, a warrant was put out and speeches were given about this gross violation of the law, but no one expected anything to come of the investigation, and no one would dare ask why it was taking so long.
For what it was worth, the government would do one useful thing: their wanted posters gave Harry a good idea of who had actually gotten out of Hogwarts in one piece. Ron and Hermione had made it, although the teachers and Neville and Luna…? Unsure. He could only hope they were locked up somewhere.
(Harry's heart ached for the Creeveys. Colin might have been a touch annoying, but they didn't deserve whatever had happened to them.)
It was reassuring to think they weren't entirely alone, and that the Ministry wasn't filled wall to wall with horrific monsters, but things had clearly shifted. The average person, middling or perhaps even a little good was too afraid to act.
For what it was worth, Romilda was taking the whole situation seriously, listening attentively to his recycled Dumbledore's Army lessons and, eventually, his explanation of Horcruxes. He wasn't just going to drag her along without giving her an idea of what she was getting into.
"That was the scream?" She gasped.
"Yeah. Hopefully, it's the last Horcrux in Hogwarts, or we're really up a creek…"
"So there's… Hufflepuff's Cup, the snake, and the locket left?"
"We think."
"And we only have to search all of Britain. Easy."
Romilda had kind of liked those stories of brave resistance during the Second World War, of rebels behind enemy lines and such. She had watched The Great Escape a few summers back, but she certainly didn't expect to end up in a wizarding analog. Well, they weren't imprisoned, but they were hiding out in the countryside, listening to resistance radio, plotting to sabotage the regime…
"And, a final message for a certain Mister Harry Potter from his dear friends, if he is listening to Potterwatch: it's in her vault. The murderess's vault."
Harry froze, his jaw going slack. "Damnit."
"What?" Romilda asked.
"One of the Horcruxes is in Bellatrix's vault. In Gringotts."
Well… shit. Robbing Gringotts wasn't technically impossible, she didn't think- it happened a couple of years before she went to Hogwarts, didn't it?- but it wasn't exactly easy. All those guards clustered around a single entrance to a massive, sprawling underground labyrinth…
She grinned. "Just pull a Krugersdorp."
"Krugersdorp?"
"You know. The bank robbery with the tunnel?"
"What?"
"You know, that bank robbery in South Africa? Where they stole like, several hundred thousand rand by tunneling under?"
"That…" Harry thought for a few moments. "Do you think it would work?"
"The tunnels have to go for miles, right?" She stroked her chin.
"But muggle digging's never hit them."
"Right." She hissed. "Would we have to go from Diagon? Or would a muggle house that's close enough do the trick?"
With some coaching from Romilda, he was able to apply enough appearance-altering charms to himself to look slightly older, like a guy who could feasibly rent an apartment without too many questions asked. Perhaps the disguise wasn't completely necessary when a good Confundus was always an option, but it was probably a good skill to build. Certainly simpler than brewing loads of polyjuice, if less flexible.
From there, they cut a hole in the floor and got to work.
For what it was worth, magic made digging a tunnel significantly easier. Annoying rock or dirt in the way? Make it disappear from existence or transform it into matchboxes or whatever. Reinforcement was simple enough as well, but even with magic, the tunnels were… fairly small. Harry was very glad he wasn't a claustrophobe.
Tight spaces with a girl… it wasn't necessarily the worst thing to ever happen, even if the environment and circumstances had a wonderful ability to kill the mood.
If Harry was grateful for anything, it was that exposure had made Romilda a little less… obsessed. The crush had been crushed, so to speak, and it was hard to get too romantic, considering that they were hiding from an increasingly authoritarian government.
"Evanesco!" The rock disappeared, revealing yet more rock. Harry sighed and took a seat, leaning against the cold stone.
Romilda appeared at the far end of the tunnel, giving a quick wave as she waved her wand, slowly working her way toward him.
"How far are we now?"
"Two hundred meters. We should be well into Diagon now." She sighed. "I hope this wasn't some big waste of time, Harry…"
"I think it was a good idea," Harry said. "Worse comes to worse, it might make a place to hide people from Voldemort."
She nodded. "Yeah. Now let me take a crack at it."
"I'll grab lunch?" Harry suggested.
"Sure. Evanesco!" He had turned away to walk back to the tunnel's entrance. He didn't want to imagine how horrible Apparition sound would be in a closed space like that.
"Lunch can wait!" Romilda cried out. Harry snapped around… to see a hole in the rock. A hole opening to a cave.
"Do you think we should brooms?"
Romilda snorted. "What, you need to shoehorn Quidditch into your bank robbery?"
"It's faster than walking."
She rolled her eyes.
"I think this left turn here is mostly new money," Romilda suggested, gesturing at their map. "I mean, wouldn't it make sense for old families to be closer to the top? There's no reason to start really deep and dig up, right?"
"Maybe it was for security."
"I don't know." She sighed. "It's not like we can ask."
Harry gulped. "Maybe we can?"
"What, are you going to ask them nicely?"
He palmed his wand. "No."
It was a little late to start worrying about breaking the law now, but it still left a bitter taste in Romilda's mouth. The Imperius and memory charms were some of the grossest magic available, just because they pissed all over free will… but it had to be done. Gringotts was too big, too mazelike.
She stopped the cart, doing the literal hijacking, while Harry did the mental hijacking. She nearly puked in front of/on Harry again as the cart shot down the tunnels, but she suffered through it until they reached their destination, the Lestrange vault. At least, she figured as such, considering she was staring at her feet as she desperately fought her roiling stomach.
Then she looked up, saw the dragon, and actually emptied her stomach.
By some miracle, the goblin had brought those clanky anti-dragon cowbell things with him, so they didn't have to backtrack. That could have blown the whole case wide open. (She didn't trust Harry's memory charms, frankly.)
With the dragon retreating, they could approach the vault. The Imperio'd goblin opened the door and kept on ringing the clanker as Romilda and Harry approached. She had never seen that much money in her life, alongside all the other weird wizarding memorabilia.
She managed a shaky grin. "Krugersdorp, eat your heart out."
"We can't take everything," Harry said, scanning the piles of goblets for the one specific one they needed to find.
"Maybe we could just do Fiendfyre and close the door," Romilda suggested. "They don't need the money, right?"
"Ideally, they should never know that we were here."
"Right." She sighed, scanning the room as Harry took a cautious step in… only to shoot back as a cascade of glowing hot coins buried his shoes.
"Accio cup!" She tried. There was nothing.
"There!" Harry cried, pointing at a tiny little cup perched as high up as it could possibly be.
"Some sort of telescoping pole?" Romilda suggested, "Like, a big long stick?"
"Screw it," Harry muttered, casting a spell at the shelf that sent the cup tumbling to the ground, bouncing off the coinage before landing in the leathery folds of some faded green-ish skin. As Romilda tried to catch the skin with a transfigured rod, Harry tried to hammer out an escape plan with the goblin.
"Can you take us back to where we came?" Harry asked.
The goblin shook his head, eyes dull. "There will be carts coming the other way. Security."
"Security?"
"They must know the cart hasn't arrived where it was supposed to be. They're coming."
"Shit!" Harry dashed towards the vault, batting Romilda's stick aside as he waded into the coins and grabbed the cup, gritting his teeth as a deluge of hot metal landed on him.
Faintly, she could hear the sound of carts racing down tracks, echoing through the long tunnel. Out, out, they needed any way out…
She turned her wand towards the ground and blew a hole in the rock, big enough to hide in. "Come on, Harry!"
"They'll just follow us!"
Romilda grinned. "Not if they've got a bigger problem. Relashio! Quietus!" There was a strangely muffled roar as she made them a tunnel, burrowing away… It was just her, though. Harry's hands…
Romilda carefully dabbed some salve on Harry's burns, trying to touch Harry's hands as gently as she could before applying the gauze. She could almost pretend it was something sort of intimate; it was certainly a lot better than carefully pulling away dead skin and muscle, trying to ignore the smell…
(Then there was stabbing the cup, the shrieking agony which echoed in the tiny place they were renting. If she hadn't cast spells to prevent it, the screaming would have attracted everyone in the building, at the very least.)
There was another thing she had to do, from what she vaguely remembered of first aid. She grabbed a cup of water and held it to his lips. "You need to drink. Fluids, you know."
Harry looked at the cup with suspicious eyes but opened his mouth to drink. Not like he had many other options…
"There's a lot more where that came from," Romilda said. "Do you want me to tune into somethign for you? The news?"
"Please."
Between cups of water, she fiddled with the radio. There was muttering about the robbery in the news, so hopefully Hermione and Ron would realize what happened. They needed to direct their energies toward the next Horcrux… it seemed like they'd have to do a lot of the work in the short term. If Harry couldn't hold his own wand, how was he supposed to do anything?
They had to use muggle means of transport to get out of London, because she didn't know how to apparate. Harry might have been able to coach her through it, but risking a splinching now? Harry was already cooked, there was no need to turn him into mincemeat too.
She tried, when possible, to get food from restaurants. Not because she wasn't confident in her own cooking or anything, but… well, the elephant in the room was still there, had been for a year. What had possessed her to think that was possibly a good idea? Why hadn't she gotten the shit she deserved for it?
(Heck, it wasn't like she could get her hands on love potions out here, but she understood why he would feel uncomfortable regardless.)
Still, she couldn't afford to brood, not now.
Potterwatch was on again. "Before we finish tonight, we have another message for Harry Potter. Ahem. 'We hope you've finished the job. We'll handle the next.'"
Romilda adjusted the pan under Harry's watchful eyes. "The locket, right? They can't be gunning for the snake."
"I think."
"Then… then you have to finish the job?"
"Anyone can get the snake. I just have to get him."
Romilda gulped, looking at his gauze-wrapped hands. In a straight fight, could he really…?
"Mind the soup."
"Right!"
With a wave of her wand, the pan rose into the air and settled in front of Harry. Pulling off the lid, she sniffed at it. Not terrible, she thought. And now the part Harry wasn't too fond of…
"Say ahh…"
After Harry was fed and watered and his bandages were reapplied, it was time to settle in for the night. He'd probably have nightmares and horrible sweating during his sleep- he said it was because Voldemort was getting agitated. Paranoid. Sort of a good thing, but not exactly helpful when she was the one who'd be woken up by his thrashing, who would have to help tidy him up in the morning. A year or so back, the idea of getting so personal with him would have been...
It wasn't that exciting now. Part of it was probably just a realization that Harry Potter was a normal boy under all that mythologizing and hero worship. Slightly gross, possessed of a few bad habits, not as healthy as he probably should have been, even before getting burned. No giant tattoo across his chest, no rippling musculature. There was a scar on his arm from the Basilisk, a few smaller ones picked up here and there, and of course, the burns. They rather detracted from any sort of whirlwind romance fantasies. He was a messy human, not some superhero.
Yet she didn't mind looking after him, and not just because it was something she needed to while fighting Voldemort.
She was lost in thought when she felt something brush against her hand. His grip was hesitant, light, but he had taken her hand. She could feel his warmth through the gauze.