Disclaimer: From what I've read, JK Rowling goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until Harry Potter goes sane again.
A/N: The magical Reichenbach Falls in this chapter are heavily inspired by the version in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I admit I chose the location before I researched what the Falls actually look like.
Also, the bit about Apparition lessons, I simply forgot that was in my outline.
Chapter 34: The Reichenbach Falls
January came and went at Beauxbatons with no more unfiltered news from the school formerly known as Hogwarts, at least not that Harry heard. Apparently, it could take as long as a week to get a message from end to end of the chain that avoided the suspicion of the Death Eaters who were surely screening the post. It seemed like a shoestring operation with a lot of ways to go wrong, but since the Hogwarts end was the only really critical part, he supposed it wasn't too bad.
Once again, Harry was not happy with the situation. Having contacts at Hogwarts who would do his bidding helped (although his sister was less enthusiastic about that), but he still felt like should be doing more. However, Remus, Dumbledore, and his parents all assured him that his advocacy was the most valuable thing he could do.
Not that they had been idle otherwise. For one, over the past term, both Harry and Hermione had been quietly taking Apparition lessons. Hermione was already old enough to get her license, and Harry had been given special permission to take the test over Winter Holidays and had passed. Now, they were both taking Side-Along lessons. The utility of that was variable, of course. Against competent Death Eaters, it was a matter of if you could get out before they put up Anti-Apparition Wards.
And there was one other thing. Harry did approach Malfoy and asked him to try to get some more information out of Silas Crump in Poland—specifically, plans for the next couple of full moons. He didn't know exactly why Remus wanted that information, although Hermione had theories, but it was especially urgent with the next Full Moon being just two days before the first ICW meeting of the year.
"I don't know what you're so worried about, Potter," Malfoy had said. "Crump's not the brightest, but he's not dumb enough to make trouble two days before the big meeting that's capable of passing international werewolf-hunting laws."
"Maybe, but I'm told it's important, Malfoy," Harry said. "We think it has to do with their strategic location, but it could be more than that for all we know."
Malfoy paused, considering that. "I guess I could see that," he admitted. "Might explain what I did find, in fact."
"You found something?" Harry asked.
"I didn't hear anything about plans for attacks, not that they would have told me anyway. They still talk like they're trying to go legit. What I did hear was about political plans. The werewolves want to petition the ICW for recognition and territory."
"Territory?" Harry said.
"That's absurd!" Hermione said. "They're occupying a school. They're not going to get it."
Malfoy scoffed. "Try to keep up, Granger. It's called negotiation. The school's a fair trade for real territory that the ICW will actually respect."
"I don't know if the Polish Ministry will be in the mood to negotiate after what they've been through," Harry pointed out.
"You'd be surprised. Besides, they want to try to get Poland's neighbours on their side. They want to argue that if they get game lands to run in—and maybe farmlands, too—they'll cause less trouble."
"Isn't that extortion?" Hermione asked.
"Call it whatever you like," Malfoy said. "If they say it at the ICW, it's politics."
She crossed her arms. "Fine. Did you at least find out what territory they want?"
Malfoy shrugged. "I don't know what negotiations they're planning, but my contact sent me this." He held out a piece of parchment. Harry took it, and they looked it over. It was a crinkled map of magical Europe—the same one they had learnt in detail in History class, with the equivalent of a scattering of muggle borders from across the first half of the twentieth century. Except this one had a triangle of land shaded in southern Poland, lined up with what on a muggle map would be the Slovak border.
"There, that's what I was talking about, Harry," Hermione said. "They could have drawn it farther west, by Germany, but that border keeps the Czechoslovakian Ministry flanked."
"Yeah, maybe," he said. "Well, thank you, Malfoy. I don't know how much good this will do on its own, but I'll pass it along."
"Don't thank me yet, Potter," he replied. "You'll still get a chance to pay me back."
After last summer, the British Ministry-in-Exile was acutely aware of the dangers of an enemy who had a Seer on call to track people down, and since Harry Potter was in the top five targets of the Death Eaters, who they knew still had agents in France, his security was paramount. Any time Harry was moved in public, he went under close guard, by a route that was chosen on the spot by casting lots. Even that wasn't necessarily enough to evade a Seer, but it helped, countering one divination technique with another.
This move was the most complicated one yet, all the way from Beauxbatons to the ICW Headquarters in Switzerland for the inaugural meeting of their 1997 session. Harry and Hermione were escorted by Madame Maxime to the gates of Beauxbatons personally, where they met their Auror escort, whose identities Maxime verified. Sirius had come with the escort as Harry's magical guardian and also one more wand who was more trusted (or as Mad-Eye Moody would say, slightly less distrusted) not to be under the Imperius Curse. Cho also came out with them to cast the lots, Madam Fan having judged her ready.
"Unfortunate, it's not safe to Apparate, even though you can," Sirius told them, "or at least, not any safer than the other routes from being intercepted. Harry, you still have the Trace on you, and there's almost certain to be moles in the French Ministry. Besides, it's a pretty long jump."
"Yeah, I know," Harry grumbled. "Cho, what have you got for us?"
Cho took a deep breath and held up a silver bowl. She incanted, "Sortior," and tossed a handful of small runestones into the air, catching them in the bowl. Harry felt the slightest twinge of magic in the air, as if a Thing had become Settled. Cho looked the stones over and pronounced, "They say you should take the train."
The Auror escorts groaned. The train was the slowest option, short of hauling over to muggle transporation, and this was tying up Ministry resources, but questioning a divination protocol was a quick way to get sacked.
Cho winced slightly. "Sorry, Harry," she said.
He sighed: "It's fine, Cho. We'll make do."
"Just stay safe out there."
Harry chuckled. "That'll be the day."
Much like the Hogwarts Express, the train from Baton Vert to Paris ran on an "as-needed" basis. It ran more often before magical busses were established, when it was the easiest way for wizards who couldn't Apparate to get across country, but today, it stayed nearly empty outside of the school runs. Today, at the end of January, was no exception, and that suited Harry's entourage just fine. They boarded the train alone and settled in for a long ride.
"How bad was the full moon last night?" Harry asked Sirius. They'd had to cut their schedule close to account for that timing.
"Quiet, for once," Sirius said. "No organised attacks that we know of, at least on the Continent. In fact, random attacks are almost down to peacetime levels—at least for werewolves. It's a little unnerving."
"I say no news is good news, there," one of the Aurors said.
"If it stays that way," Sirius replied. "You probably know already Remus thinks it won't."
"Yes, that's what he told us," Hermione said.
"In fact, we need to talk to Remus when we get back," Harry said. "We have some intel for him."
Sirius glanced around the train car. He could put the pieces together that if Harry wanted to tell it directly to Remus rather than reveal it here, it must be important. "Alright, I'll try to call him when we get to Paris. Merlin, this is a rough schedule…How many people know this information?"
Harry and Hermione looked at each other and thought. "We don't know," Harry decided. "It could be a lot. Ma—er, our contact could've given us information that was already an open secret, but I don't think so. My instincts say it's an edge that our side doesn't know yet."
"Eh, good enough for me. We'll take what we can get these days."
As was usual for the day after a full moon, Remus did not look well. He walked stiffly, like a man twice his age, and he had dark circles around his eyes. Even with Wolfsbane Potion, the transformation took its toll. What did surprise Harry was that he wasn't alone today. There was a young woman with white hair whom Harry thought he had seen before sitting with him—a woman with the same haggard look about her and suspiciously similar facial scars. However, she took her leave before they discussed any serious war business.
"Sorry, are we interrupting a date?" Harry teased him.
Remus groaned: "Not you too. Sirius won't shut up. Chiara's just a friend." However, his blush told a different story.
Hermione smacked Harry on the arm before he could lay into Remus again. "Not now, Harry. This is important," she said.
"Right. Sorry," he said. "We asked around about Crump's werewolves in Poland, like you asked. Lucky for us, Malfoy still has contacts with them. He came through with something."
"Did he? Let's see it."
He handed over Malfoy's map of magical Europe. Remus looked it over for a moment before turning to a larger war map on the wall to compare. There were pushpins marked in the map for werewolf attacks and also suspected Death Eater activity. Some of them had bits of string connecting them. A large pin marked Czarnoksiesto school; it was in the historical heartland of Poland, well outside the shaded region.
"We think this is the werewolves' end goal," Harry told him.
"I don't think it's their end goal, Harry," he said. "It's certainly not Voldemort's, and I'm sure he has agents pulling Crump's strings." He pencilled in some markings on his own map. "Looks like they're aiming at the land between the Vistula and…the San river—and the Czechoslovakian border."
"Which we thought was odd," Hermione said, "because they could have taken the—"
"The lands nearer to Germany? Yes, I'm guessing you're seeing the same thing I am. Before Greyback took the school, he was focusing his attacks west of the Oder. Even without him, they could establish deeper roots there."
"So they want that location for a reason?" Harry asked.
"I think so. And it's probably for the same reason it has been the whole time: quicker access to Budapest for some larger plan that's still in the works."
"Then can you stop them? Get them to move west if they have to give them territory?"
"We'll try," he said with a sigh, "but I suspect Poland will be so happy to get their school back that they won't push too hard."
Harry frowned. That was…well, sort of the opposite of what Malfoy had said, that the werewolves would think it was a fair trade, but sort of the same thing, too. Maybe they did have a deal that would give them what they wanted.
Hermione spoke up again: "Remus, I was looking at the map; that border would given them half of Kraków. Wouldn't that be putting a lot of wizards under their direct control?"
Remus paused and blinked at the map. "I don't know…maybe not. I don't know where the historical magical district is in that city…and I probably don't have a faster way to find out than asking the Polish ambassador tomorrow, damn. Anyway, rivers don't mean a whole lot for wizards, but they're significant barriers for werewolves—in terms of monitoring, I mean. Like I said, they might think it's a fair trade off."
Harry slumped and crossed his arms. "I hate politics."
"Don't we all."
With Professor Trelawney casting the lots, Harry and his family made their way to the ICW the next morning—first, from his family's apartments in Paris to the French Ministry. Then, the certified Portkey from Paris to Meiringen. And then, the most dangerous part, in that there were so few alternative routes, the final switch-backed carriage ride up the mountain, pulled by seemingly mundane horses, to the Unplottable castle overlooking the Reichenbach Falls where the ICW was headquartered. The ICW had its own security that essentially forced everyone to come in the front door. Even brooms had to dismount a fair distance away. That was good for them, he supposed, but that it raised difficulties on the individual level and limited options outside of it.
However, even as they made the trip, the Grangers were more focused on the import of the meeting.
"How likely do you think it is that the ICW will recognise Voldemort's regime as the legitimate Ministry in Britain?" Dan asked amid the clattering of the carriage.
"This early in the war? Ordinarily, I'd say not very," Remus answered. "Not after he already lost the first vote. Not enough has changed. He'd need to establish legitimacy over a couple of years to change the Delegates' minds. The problem is the hold he has on Germany, Scandivania, and their allies through Durmstrang. They have good reason to push for appeasement. And with the growing unrest in Eastern Europe, a lot of the other countries may think they can get Voldemort off their backs temporarily by giving him what he wants and setting him aside to deal with later."
"Isn't that also appeasement?" Emma pointed out.
"More of a temporary truce. Everyone know it's not a permanent solution, but with Inferi running rampant through the Balkans, they're worried about what they think are more pressing concerns."
"That's confirmed, then?" Harry asked. He hadn't even thought to ask about that last night, though he didn't know why he felt surprised.
"Yes, and worse than the papers are saying," Remus said wearily. "The first sightings were in Yugoslavia, but it's getting even worse in Bulgaria. There have even been muggle sightings there. The Bulgarian Ministry is still trying to decide how to handle those."
"Hm…they could blame tainted street drugs," Dan suggested. "We've seen enough of the results of the worst ones of those."
Remus shrugged. "I'll pass it on," he said. "The problem is that if the Ministries in the Balkans can't maintain their infrastructure, and Voldemort will be one step closer to cutting off Western Europe from the Portkey Network."
"If he's trying to cut off Western Europe, should we try to get out before then?" Dan asked.
"We still have connections with Sally-Anne Perks in Canada," Hermione added.
"Probably less of a risk for you," Remus said. "You have passports. You can get out by muggle air if things get too hot. The Statute of Secrecy works in our favour there. Airports are watched so heavily that the Death Eaters have limited ability to interfere, even with Jugashvili helping them. The larger issue is that Harry would still be a target. If you left Europe, Voldemort would follow you, possibly to a country that's not as fortified against attacks. I think, and Dumbledore agrees with me, that it would be better for you, Harry, to stay where you are unless you really need to leave."
That was a sobering thought, that the war would follow him no matter where he went—albeit one that was always in the back of Harry's mind, amid the larger concerns that the war was going nowhere fast—or nowhere good, anyway. He felt like all they had been doing for most of the past year was losing ground. He knew there were phases of past muggle wars that had been like that, but it was agonising to have to wait through it and watch the slow roll of destruction around him.
He was snapped out of his brooding when Hermione spoke up: "I don't understand. Isn't Voldemort obviously behind the Inferi attacks? Why would the Balkans Ministries want to take Britain off the table if it's part of the same crisis?"
Remus shook his head. "It's not that simple, Hermione. The Death Eater Ministry is officially denying it. Jugashvili is claiming responsibility instead. And, hell, for all we know, it might be true. Inferi attacks concentrated in Bulgaria. There's apparently been infighting among the Vampire clans in Transylvania. Rumours of giant activity in Belarus, which is another pressure on Poland…"
Dan put the pieces together. "Warsaw Pact countries?"
"Yes. Harry and Hermione already learnt about this in History class. During the muggle Cold War, Konstantin Jugashvili tried to emulate Grindelwald and harmonise the magical and muggle borders, which in practice meant bringing the magical populace in the Warsaw Pact under his heel. He's been trying to restore his rule ever since they broke up."
"But that doesn't include Serbia—Yugoslavia, as you say."
"Not yet."
That brought the conversation to a halt. Harry wanted to know more—to ask what was being done to try to push back against Voldemort, or even to kill Nagini, but he knew he would get the same answer he had at Christmas—that they were working on several operations, but they were secret. For all the prophecy said it would come down to him and Voldemort, he was still more valuable as a symbol than a fighter, and that was as annoying as ever.
They reached Meiringen Castle (or where the castle was supposed to be) a few minutes later, with two Aurors flanking Harry and Remus particularly to escort them in. But there was no castle visible, even to magical eyes—only an iron gate in front of a hollow in the woods, flanked by four guards.
"Identitäten!" barked one of the guards.
Remus handed over some parchment. "Remus Lupin, Deputy Director of Magical Law Enforcement for War for the British Ministry-in-Exile. Harry Potter…er, Advisor. Guests and security detail."
The papers were checked for curses without touching them, examined by hand, checked for magical concealment, and a few other spells that Harry didn't recognise before being handed back, and only then were they allowed to pass through the gate.
Unlike most Ministries, the major ICW gathering places could not be entered by magical means, or at most only over short distances. Wizards instead had to pass through layers of security on the ground to enter. It was a level of caution that Ministries rarely needed within their own borders unless there was an active civil war. Harry had to admit it also made for a more impressive entrance.
Beyond the gate was either a different location, or it was one the best-executed hidden, bigger-on-the-inside spaces the Grangers had ever seen. Upon passing through, they saw a castle—smaller than Hogwarts, but still sizeable, probably equal to the Hogwarts West Wing. Moreover, the castle straddled a waterfall that was just as high as it looked from the outside, but wider, with considerably more water flowing over it than the Rychenbach could supply.
The Grangers figured this out quickly and looked to Remus with a hint of suspicion, but Remus just said, "Magic."
"You know, at some point, that stops being a real answer," Emma protested.
Harry already knew from the Wizengamot that politics, at least on the floor the assembly, could be a thoroughly dull business. He wasn't expecting to get a lot out of today until the final vote.
His mum had an even lower opinion: "A lot of hot air where everyone knows ninety percent of what's going to be said anyway." Meanwhile, Hermione grumbled something about the average delegate's likely opinion of muggle-borns.
Less familiar, but still not completely foreign to Harry was the feeling of having to look across a political body at a likely war criminal who literally wanted to kill him and not being able to do a damn thing about it. Harry seethed as Walden Macnair walked into the ICW meeting hall with a swagger and was granted a seat—not a prestigious seat as a lowly petitioner, but still a seat.
Macnair seemed to have cleaned up compared with the photos Harry had seen from last year. The hollow, scowling face was the same, but he was clean-shaved; his hair was longer, with a modicum of style applied, and his black "ambassadorial" robes looked fancier. When he sat, his piercing eyes almost immediately found Harry, and Harry could almost feel the hate pouring off of him. Not to be intimidated, Harry sent his best feline glare back at him in return. They glared at each other long enough for others to notice, but he didn't care. Macnair blinked first, though only because his attention was drawn by the actual ICW business.
Worse, however, was when Harry realised there was another Death Eater at the ICW, one with whom he had a much more personal history. Silas Crump was there—he recognised him from the papers—and by his side was Artemis Crouch, the werewolf who had spied on Harry in his third year and helped Fenrir Greyback get into Hogwarts. Seeing her there made him hiss loudly, and he nearly jumped out of his seat to attack her. Remus and Hermione had to hold him back, and he gripped the arms of his chair angrily until they cracked under a discharge of magic, snapping him out of his rage.
"If I ever find her outside this place…" he said darkly.
"Worry about her later," Remus whispered. "We have to show a levelheaded front."
Harry resolved to back off from focusing on the Death Eaters, for his own sanity, instead looking around the meeting hall. The International Confederation of Wizards was, naturally, the most august body of witches and wizards in the world, certainly a step up from the Wizengamot. The entire wizarding world was large enough to be a small country rather than a small town, and while the ICW had nowhere near the power of a Parliament, he could feel the weightiness of it.
He had also never seen so many witches and wizards from different parts of the world in one place before except at the Quidditch World Cup. Dumbledore and Fudge were there beside the Grangers and Remus, representing the British Ministry-in-Exile; today was important enough for the Minister to attend in person rather than David Monroe, and both of them looked fancier than usual. Dumbledore wore his finest purple-and-gold robes, which looked stately rather than garish for once, and Fudge was in a suit of several different shades of green that weirdly seemed to work on him.
Ambassador Grayson stood a few rows over, talking to a much younger woman with his same amber eyes, whom Harry guessed was his granddaughter, Kylie, Remus's counterpart in Australia. Across the hall, Old Coyote, the wandmaker who had been assigned to La Pantera's case, was talking to a man who looked to be a priest.
Harry soon realised he didn't know many others by name, aside from the Supreme Mugwump, Babajide Akingbade of Nigeria, but he could identify many by their countries and start to pick out the major players. He was most interested in the two that would most determine the fate of the werewolves, Poland and Czechoslovakia. He soon spotted them, but he didn't get any insights just from looking.
Akingbade called the meeting to order. As they had been told, the first order of business was the petition from Macnair to seat him in place of the British Ministry-in-Exile for the 1997 session. This was where the "hot air" came in since the lines hadn't changed much since last summer. And Harry had to supply some of that hot air; Fudge and Dumbledore had asked him to read a prepared statement. He supposed it was worth it to try to get across to the politicians just how important the war was, but it still felt small change.
Thus, after being introduced by Fudge and recognised by Akingbade, Harry stood up to read his statement.
"Honorable delegates of the International Confederation of Wizards," he began. "I don't have a lot to say except that I have fought Voldemort, the self-declared 'Chief Warlock' and 'Dark Lord of London,' twice directly—" The details of Riddle's diary weren't public knowledge. "—and several more times through his proxies. Each time, I was lucky to get away with my life. Most recently, I was attacked by his agents in France in broad daylight. And if you weren't aware, I'm only sixteen years old. Voldemort has been trying to kill me from the day I was born—which should already tell you all you need to know about his character.
"But there's more. I may not be a politician like most of the witches and wizards here, but I've had to learn more than I'd like about how Voldemort thinks, just to survive. I do know that he won't stop at the shores of the British Isles, and he won't stop with killing me. He'll always have another enemy—another 'greatest threat' he wants to get rid of. He'll always have more power he wants to seize. He already holds sway over several other countries through the Durmstrang Institute. Hardly anyone here denies it, and he wants more. Also, regardless of its current status, he was involved with the capture of Czarnoksiesto School last year. And I'm finding it difficult personally to believe that he is not involved with the crises in the Balkans." Remus had made sure he chose his words carefully there so as not to risk being called out for them, even if the only thing at stake was credibility.
"Giving in to…" He grumbled. "…Mr. Macnair's demand will not solve the crises we face. Myself, I wouldn't even trust it to give a temporary respite. The ICW would gain nothing by granting the Death Eater regime legitimacy, and it stands to lose quite a bit in the effective prosecution of the war."
He sat down. Remus patted his shoulder and said, "Good job," which his family repeated. After some other, much lengthier speeches, the vote, along nearly the same lines as it had been last summer, remained in favour of Fudge's Ministry-in-Exile. The special law enforcement operation, officially against La Pantera and Kinani Ngeze, but de facto against Voldemort, was still in place and uncompromised, for now. However, several delegates gave Fudge warnings about how their goodwill towards him was limited and could vanish if he became "disruptive" to a "functional" government in the British Isles.
The next order of business was the Inferi attacks in the Balkans and the alleged faction behind them. Here, things were not so much in their favour. Fudge's nominal goal was to convince the assembly of the links between those attacks and Voldemort. However, even if people believe it, the countries most impacted were concerned with the more immediate (and probably real) threat of Konstantin Jugashvili. A man called Yakov who wore a charm that obscured his face, but who had bright red hair and elaborate cultural garb, stood up and gave an impassioned speech denouncing Jugashvili, citing his long history of stealing the cultural magical heritage of indigenous Siberian peoples, using it to oppress wizards throughout Eastern Europe, and various other atrocities, finishing with a call for the ICW to take him down once and for all.
The results of that debate were inconclusive, as far as Harry could tell. It certainly wasn't a prioritisation of resources against Voldemort, but they didn't seem to be ignoring him, either. He was a known user of Inferi, after all. So it was at least a good start.
Next, the disposition of the werewolves in Poland was the most important part of the meeting, if for no other reason than it was the only one that they didn't know what the outcome would be. Yet it was also the most boring. It was filled with long debates about the minutiae of why the werewolves should move to one area of Poland rather than another. (Remus had been right; the old city of Kraków was on the north side of the Vistula, out of the proposed territory in the south.) There were rambling diatribes about the "strategic value" of certain locations, with no one clearly stating what that strategic value was. Point and counterpoint of people who had an obvious goal in mind, but didn't want anyone else to (officially) know they were on to them.
Remus took point on this debate for the British delegation, since he could at least claim to speak from the perspective of werewolf wants and needs, although his life path had been very different from most of them. Silas Crump meandered about in their negotiations, initially asking for a much larger territory and at least claiming reluctance to give up Czarnoksiesto school. Harry noticed Artemis Crouch whispering into Crump's ear at several points.
This went back and forth for a while as it gradually became clear that they were debating between the footprint in southern Poland that Malfoy had first pointed out and a more westerly one of somewhat nebulous dimensions. The latter idea had its detractors. Germany pushed back against having the new werewolf country on their borders, which Harry cynically decided was on Voldemort's orders rather than general prejudice against werewolves. Poland wanted to maintain a river border, which would mean the Oder, which led to debates about the amount of land enclosed and the relative quality of that land. (Harry gathered that the southern footprint was slightly larger, but more mountainous.)
In the end, it may have been the Ukrainian delegate who ultimately tipped the scales by not objecting to the southern footprint. Much like Germany for the western footprint, Ukraine was given special deference because it would share a border with the new werewolf state. But that border was all of twenty miles long, and they were understandably more worried about Jugashvili.
When the votes were counted, the southern footprint won out. Silas Crump was—provisionally—granted territory for the new nation of Wulfheim (which would of course have its own Portkey network), pending signing a treaty with magical Poland. The Polish delegate demanded strong commitments regarding the release of Czarnoksiesto and not interfering with it in any way afterwards, but Crump seemed inclined to agree to a lot if he got his land.
It was a small loss, perhaps (either position had its risks), but it was still a loss, and not a great position to be in for a body that was nominally against Voldemort and his allies. The upside, though, was that Czechoslovakia asked for and was granted additional security guarantees. And at least no one had even suggested new werewolf-hunting laws. So, Harry thought as they trudged out of the castle, it was all kind of a wash.
Harry smelt the attack coming first.
A faint, but putrid stench wafted into the carriage like rotting meat. It wasn't alarming at the outset. To his sensitive feline nose, never completely idle, there could always be a piece of roadkill or a dumpster nearby. But it intensified rapidly—rapidly enough to draw attention to it.
"Do you smell that?" he asked, looking around.
Remus sniffed. "Now that you mention it, there is something—"
"Harry!" Hermione cried.
The next moment came only in flashes. Hermione pointing out the window. A hideous something running out of the trees on the trail, grey and emaciated, with long legs like a human, but running on all fours like a beast. The horses of the carriage in front of them bolting. The thing going under the wheels of the carriage, tipping it.
And then, something hit the side of their own carriage. Their own horses bolted, and the carriage toppled over. The world dissolved into screams as it flipped over, upright, over again, and plunged twenty feet to the next switchback and landed on its side, the lower door smashed in. Harry had the wind knocked out of him as Remus landed top of him.
"Mum! Dad! Mione!" he called, looking around and morphing his eyes to see in the dim carriage. He was relieved to see everyone was still moving, at least. Remus was moving too, but he couldn't seem to get up. Harry heard his arm crack when he tried to lift himself, and he grunted in pain.
Thump! Something landed on the top of the carriage, what had been the other door, with a screech. Everyone froze. The threat was still out there. Harry extended his free hand and pushed his magic as hard as he could with a "Depulso!" With a loud bang, the creature and the carriage door both flew off.
Still pinned under Remus, Harry shifted to cat form to pull himself out. Then, after making sure none of his limbs were about to give out on him, he jumped up to the open door and climbed out onto the top of the carriage.
The first thing he saw, strangely, was an older woman who was also trying to climb on top of the carriage. She was clothed in what might have been a nice dress, but was now in tatters. She also looked deathly pale and was fumbling in her climb as if she had no idea what to do. To say she looked out of place in this mess was an understatement.
"Are you okay?" Harry called to her. "Let me help—" But he stopped short when he noticed several other odd things about her. Her face, gaunt and misshapen. Her eyes completely clouded over milky-white.
Oh, and the fact that she shrieked wordlessly and suddenly lunged over the carriage frame and charged him with claw-like arms outstretched.
"Damn! Protego!" he bit out, barely in time. One claw-hand still reached around his Shield Charm and raked at his throat, and Harry caught an unmistakable whiff of formaldehyde. From a funeral home?
Harry and Hermione and their friends had drilled this mentally. Inferi could only be harmed by fire (although in a pinch, dismemberment was better than nothing). He just never expected to see one that looked so human. It took long enough for the corpse to bounce off his Shield Charm and start to come back at him for him to come to his senses and throw out a wandless "Incendio!"
That might have been even worse. The Inferius reeled back, flailing wildly as the flames licked over it at an unnatural speed. Seeing what looked far too much like an innocent muggle being burnt up and hearing it let out such a nearly-human shriek shook him to his core. He barely had enough presence of mind to shove it off the carriage with another Banishing Charm.
"Harry!" He heard a grunt from below and saw Hermione's hand straining to grab onto the door frame. He quickly pulled her up, and they stood back to back on top of the carriage, wands out.
"Everyone okay?" he asked.
"They will be…if we get out of this…" Hermione said, breathing hard. "Remus can't get up, though."
Now that they looked, there were three other carriages on this stretch of road. One had clearly fallen down the hillside like they had. The other two had run into the railing when the horses bolted and were teetering. The horses were running free, but a couple of them had fallen, too. Wizards were clambering out of the carriages, fighting off the other Inferi on the road. They could hear screams and shouts of spells from up the hill, and they knew it must be worse up there.
"There!" Hermione pointed as on Inferius jumped off the hillside straight at them. Or maybe not jumped, Harry thought. More like flopped. Either way, they pushed it away with combined Fire and Banishing Charms. But it was soon followed by more. Harry felt sick as dozens of them poured over the railing and down the hillside, a tide of corpses drenched in stink and thick enough to be a threat even to a practised group of wizards.
"Apparition?" he asked belatedly.
"No good. Remus tried it."
"Dumble—Incendio! Dumbledore?"
"No idea. Incendio! Did he even take the carriages?"
Harry and Hermione both nearly threw up as Inferi closed in, only getting worse as they came closer. There were so many of them, and they had to have come from many different places. One would be half-rotten, with skin peeling away and filled with maggots, and with a smell so overpowering they could barely see straight. The next would look nearly alive like that first woman, except covered with bloodstains. The next would be a mummy, skin like leather stretched across a skeleton, eyeless, and with ghoulish exposed teeth. They were fast, too; Inferi couldn't really run, but they could speed-walk, certainly faster than movie zombies, and with a group of them, that was dangerous enough. Others with damaged legs scrabbled over the ground like animals. And they could climb. With enough of them, they could climb over each other, and that was what had Harry and Hermione pinned as grasping hands came up around the frame of the carriage on all sides. They were surrounded.
Inferi couldn't properly fight or strategise, even on an animal level. They were effectively puppets on strings. But they could tear and claw with their skeletal hands with a ferocity unfiltered by pain or self-preservation. As stories of mothers lifting cars off their children or drugged-out criminals fighting off four bobbies barehanded could attest, ordinary people could be frighteningly strong when they truly weren't holding back. And as Inferi, they could be charmed to seek out a particular person. That was apparently Harry.
"God, they're everywhere!" Harry yelped as one grabbed his ankle. He slashed the hand off at the wrist and blasted the body it was attached to away before turning to the next one with fire. But he had to keep reminding himself that these weren't movie zombies. The hand remained latched on and squeezed hard enough that he staggered in pain and felt the joint crack. His mind raced. How was he supposed to get it off him without losing his own foot?
In what was probably a stupid move, he jumped at the same time he shifted to cat form, slipping his foot out of the hand's grasp, then changed back before he landed and stomped on it. The way it spasmed under his foot would have been comical in another time and place.
"Where are the Aurors?" Hermione said. She was trying to repel the bodies climbing the carriage with Bluebell Flames to avoid setting the carriage on fire. That worked for the first part, but not the second. The Inferi themselves still burned hot orange.
"Trying to get through, probably," Harry said. "Just keep casting!"
They tried, but a few moments later, Hermione let out a scream that was sharply cut off as an Inferius grabbed her from behind and wrapped its hands around her throat. She tried to pry it off and pushed back with her elbows, but it was too strong, and its rotten teeth pulled toward her head. Harry thought faster than felt like he ever had in his life. He didn't dare cut it away. The arms alone could snap her neck. Fire was too dangerous that close. He used her spell. He pointed with his wand, focusing hard on what he wanted, and thought, Lacarnum Inflammari!
Bluebell Flames races up and down the dead flesh, rapidly intensifying to orange, but giving Hermione just enough time for her to get away without being burnt as the horrible thing began flailing. Even so, her ear was bleeding, and a chunk of hair was ripped out of the side of her head.
Suddenly, Harry felt a searing pain in his arm. Another Inferius had flanked him, grabbed his left forearm, and promptly sank its teeth into him. Roaring in pain, he swung his arm around and, acting on instinct, jabbed his wand into its empty eye socket. A shower of sparks shot out the back of its head like one of Fred and George's fireworks as its head was ripped away. Hermione followed up with Bluebell Flames to get the arms off of him. In between casting more fire, Harry ripped his robes off his arm. He felt faint when he saw the damage. His entire arm was cut up and bleeding profusely, and a bite-shaped chunk of flesh was ripped out of it.
"Ferula," Hermione cast in a hoarse voice, conjuring bandages around it even as Harry blasted another pair of Inferi away from the pair of them. His vision tunnelled, just focused on keeping himself and sister alive—and by extension, their family inside the carriage. He became dimly aware of more spells coming from outside the nightmarish mound of corpses that was climbing up towards them. Finally, the tide of bodies ceased, and he saw the first Auror climbing up over the side of the carriage just before he passed out.
Harry was in a daze for the first couple of hours after the attack. For a while, he wasn't sure of what he saw, or it he had just imagined it. First, there were the regular Healers. Then, they seemed to be replaced by others who looked more like muggle doctors with full scrubs and face masks, but they still used magic. They mended the cuts on his arm, wrapped it in bandages, and gave him what he assumed was a Blood-Replenishing Potion. Then, they left him and Hermione alone, and he must have slept for a while.
When he woke, he was in what seemed to be a hospital room, although it was oddly separated from the outside by two sets of double doors, as he could just see through the windows. In front of the doors was what he eventually determined was the cleaning crew. What he found odd was that they were human, not house elves, and they were wearing hazmat suits.
"Hermione?" he called.
"I'm awake, Harry," his sister said from the bed at the other end of the room. He looked over and saw she was also in a hospital bed. She looked mostly whole, although her ear was bandaged, and she was still noticeably missing a clump of hair. Plus, she still had finger marks around her throat.
"What's going on?"
"I'm not sure. They won't say anything," she said.
Harry quickly looked around and was thankful to find his wand on the beside table. He picked it up first. Then, he addressed the cleaners and called out, "Oi! You lot! What's going on?" When they didn't respond, he took a guess and repeated it in French.
One of them turned to him and said, "I apologise, Monsieur Potter. Only Healers can give out medical information."
"Seriously?" he groaned. He pulled the sheets back and climbed out of bed. A bell dinged repeatedly when he touched the floor.
"Harry…" Hermione warned.
"I'm doing better, sis. I just need to talk to a Healer. This is too weird."
He headed towards the door, but one of the cleaners stepped in front of him. "Monsieur Potter, stop."
"I need to talk to a Healer," he repeated in French. He tried to push around the man, but the cleaner again blocked his path.
"You can't leave," he said more urgently.
Harry's blood ran cold. "Get out of my way. I need to talk to a Healer."
He pushed harder, but the cleaner pushed back. "You can't leave. This is quarantine." Harry wasn't dissuaded. He reached the door and pushed, but as soon as his hand broke the plane of the doorway, the ringing grew to the loud wail of a Caterwauling Charm. The door suddenly snapped back into place so fast that it felt like smacking a solid wall, and he heard several sets of feet running outside. There was a clattering outside, and he raised his wand, either to break through the door or prepare for an attack.
Suddenly, the door burst open and three more figures rushed in with wands drawn in return. All of them also wore hazmat suits.
"Whoa, whoa, Mr. Potter, you need to get back in bed," the lead figure said, in English this time.
"Harry, take it easy," a second one said.
"I need to get out of here!" he shouted. "Talk to a Healer, or better yet Dumbledore."
"Mr. Potter, this is a quarantine ward," the lead figure spoke again.
"Quarantine?" came a voice beside him. Harry suddenly realised that Hermione had got up and was by his side, wand drawn.
Harry himself wasn't in much mood to listen, though. "You can't keep me here," he said at the same time he snapped off a Stunning Hex.
The hex bounced off a Shield Charm, and there was suddenly a lot of shouting. He was sure it was about to turn into a nasty duel, except the second suited figure jumped between them with arms outstretched.
"Harry! Harry, stop! It's okay! It's me, Tonks!"
Harry stopped and finally got a good look through the clear faceplate of the hazmat suit. It did look like Tonks. She morphed her features to match his own and then back again to prove it. He lowered his wand.
"Tonks?" he said in surprise. "What's happening?"
"Sirius called me in. He said you needed security here you can trust not to be Death Eaters in disguise. We've been taking it in shifts. Look, we can explain, but you two need to get back in bed. You set off the alarms, and we need to clear them."
Harry didn't move, nor did Hermione. He eyed the other two…Aurors? And watched the cleaners suspiciously.
Tonks sighed. She pointed at one of the other Aurors and said, "I've got this. You, go get that Healer, what's-her-name, the one they Portkeyed in." She turned back to Harry and Hermione and said, "It'll be fine, trust me. We can clear this up in a bit."
Warily, Harry and Hermione both sat back on their beds. The alarms stopped wailing. A minute later, a Healer came into the room. Or at least, Harry assumed she was a Healer; she looked too young to be one. She wasn't wearing a hazmat suit, and he realised she had been one of the Healers who had worked on him before who wore muggle scrubs and a face mask. She was dark-skinned and wore her hair in what he was fairly sure was an African head wrap of some description. That together with her mask left her face mostly obscured, but her eyes were bright and active. When she spoke, it was with a distinct accent that Harry was not learned enough about the continent to place.
"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger," she said. "My name is Kimpa Muamba. I apologise for alarming you. You must understand, we had to follow the quarantine protocol."
"Quarantine for what?" Harry demanded. "Inferi aren't contagious like zombies."
"What?" Healer Muamba said.
Hermione explained: "In muggle films, if you're bitten by an undead, you get sick and become an undead yourself, like a vampire or werewolf, but faster."
"What? No, no. That is not it," Healer Muamba said. Becoming an Inferius is not contagious. But if the Inferi are freshly-dead victims of Ebola, that is contagious."
Harry froze as he felt his heart drop into his stomach. He turned to Hermione and saw her rapidly paling, her eyes wide. "Ebola?" he gasped. "How—How bad is it?"
"Not as bad as the horror stories you have likely heard," the Healer told them. "You are, quite frankly, privileged to live in a place with the best Healer's care, not like the refugee camps where the disease is spreading. And you are even more privileged to have major powers who are personally interested in your well-being. We also do not know if the Inferius that bit you was infected. We are giving all of the victims at the ICW what magical preventatives we have figured out, plus muggle anti-virals and immune system boosters. I believe you will be fine. But until we know that you are, you must remain in quarantine."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "Why aren't you wearing a suit, then?"
"Because I have already had Ebola. I only need a wash and a change of clothes to decontaminate."
"That's why you Portkeyed in?" Hermione asked. "So you can work with us freely?"
"Yes. I am a Trainee Healer. I came up to help in the refugee camps in the Balkans because I'm familiar with Ebola. It's spreading fast again over there when it had been nearly under control, and we think the Inferi are to blame—infected bodies with a tendency to bite. Jugashvili might not even have intended to do it at first. They were just a convenient source of bodies that would not be missed."
"Voldemort," Harry growled. "It was Voldemort who was behind this. Why else would they come after me? You do realise he tried to kill me a few hours ago? And that he'll probably try to again? I'm don't like how you're doing this quarantine business so far."
Tonks cut in at that: "You're about as safe as you can be outside Beauxbatons, Harry. The ICW isn't taking this lying down. This is a major security operation, and not just for you."
"That's something," Hermione said. "But why would Voldemort do this? Didn't he just have them arguing it was Jugashvili? Isn't this drawing attention to himself?"
"He probably did it because he thought it would work," Tonks said, "and to be honest, it nearly did. Harry could've bled to death before we got to him. You did good out there; don't get me wrong, but you also got lucky."
Harry grimaced. That had been closer than he liked, though any attack was, really. "Will the ICW at least properly go to war with Voldemort, now?" he asked hopefully. "I mean, he hit them directly."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry; it's not that simple, Harry. The truce surrounding the ICW is…"
"Disgraceful?" Healer Muamba offered.
"Yes, that. You see, you were outside the exclusive zone of control of the ICW, especially the anti-broomstick wards. That means technically you could have flown out by broom, and that means technically that part of the path isn't part of the official procession that has diplomatic protection."
"That's horrible!" Hermione shouted. "How could they allow that? No one's going to switch to broomsticks halfway out!"
"Believe me, I'm sure they'll be extending it to cover the entire path now, but that's how it is," she said. "But there is precedent for it. Thimphu, Bhutan, 1931. Running battle in the streets between British Aurors and Grindelwald's Acolytes. After the fact, it was judged to be a local dispute. People didn't want to get involved when they didn't have to. Add to that the fact that the attack was actually pretty closely targeted at the British and French delegations, and the other crises are still there, so there's a resource allocation problem."
"Will they do something?!" Harry yelled, load enough that Tonks was taken aback.
"Yes, I think they will," she said. "On parchment, at least. Probably practically, too. It's just not a panacea. Look, this was a risky move on Voldemort's part, and it backfired on him. Not sure how bad yet, but it backfired. Remember that. This was a win today, even if you're stuck in quarantine for a while."
Harry sighed heavily and flopped back on the bed. "Fine, I can call it a win," he grumbled. "…How long does this quarantine go on for, Healer Muamba?"
"I'm afraid it is three weeks, Mr. Potter."
"Three weeks?! Ugh, there goes our Valentines dates will Luna and Neville then."