Author's note: Thank you so much to the people who reached out to me with ideas for how to get unstuck... it really worked!
[break]
Harry didn't have a chance to answer Nio because the lot of them spilt out on top of Harry, so that he was at the bottom of a pile of knees and elbows until his shield shoved them all away. They yelped in surprise and then started laughing.
"That was brilliant, Harry!" Ron's shout was muffled by the bubble around Harry. "Like bouncing off a pigmy puff!"
"I was trying to get away from you!" he growled, though he felt less irritated.
Nio constricted around his neck and hissed against his ear, "The air in there was foul."
Harry agreed and ran his fingers over the snake's smooth scales.
He put his head on his knees and sighed, drawing in a deep breath. Clouds made the light tolerable and he didn't have to shut his eyes.
I thought this birthday would be different.
He had imagined a day playing a pick-up game of Quidditch, eating Mrs. Weasley's scrumptious concoctions until he was bursting at the seams, gut-wrenching laughter with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins. Not this. Not dark wixen pursuing him, not the ministry mucking things up again, not being pushed and pulled and knocked and bruised by everyone.
Harry said the incantation to end his shield and slowly got to his feet. The wind had picked up since they were inside, the temperature dropped as well and brought with it the smell of rain. He pushed the urge to hop on his broom away… though he was tempted to stalk off to the Quidditch field and stew for a while, but gulped more of the damp air and turned to his friends.
"Listen, you have to stop pulling me around," he pleaded. "Just ask first, please."
"Right, sorry, Harry," Fred said. "I'll work on it."
"Me, too," George said. They both sounded uncharacteristically contrite enough for Harry to relax a bit.
Hermione let out an exasperated huff and Harry could imagine the look she was giving the twins. It made him smile weakly.
Something caught his attention… a slight high-pitched whine coming from the house at his back, near the ground. He turned his ear toward it trying to hear it better and made the sign for quiet.
"What's that mean?" Ginny asked.
"Shh! I hear something," Harry said, though he couldn't help but repeat the sign.
"Is it Scabbers?" Ron said hopefully.
"No, it's like air whistling through a pipe," Harry said. "Don't you hear it?"
Everyone got quiet as they listened for the noise, the wind blowing through the branches made it harder to hear.
"Nope, don't hear it," George muttered.
"Oh, I hear it now," Ginny said. "But how did you hear it at all? It's so faint."
Harry shrugged and shook out his staff, wacking at the tall grasses (many of which had been flattened by all their tromping around) as he followed the sound to the side of the Burrow, further along the wall than where they had entered the secret room. The silver tip on his staff tinged against the wall, ringing distinctively against wood, mortar, and stone and giving Harry a sense of the pattern of the wall.
He had to stop a number of times to listen carefully as everyone was making a racket following behind him, even though he could tell they were trying to walk quietly through the grasses and garden gnome dens. He heard a few of the Gernumblies squealing when his staff got stuck in a hole.
"Careful, Sthei," Nio warned. "Don't fall into the gnome's lair. They have sharp teeth."
"Don't I know it?" Harry muttered in Parseltongue remembering the gnome bite he got thanks to Luna Lovegood just a few weeks ago. He wondered if it had enhanced his creativity as she claimed it would. Or if the bite had anything to do with his recent forays into underground tunnels.
But then he realized that he had found the source of the whistling. He could feel the breeze coming through the wall now and it was rank. He turned his face away.
"Here it is. Why does it smell so bad?" he asked, almost gagging.
"Oh, that is foul!" Hermione said, steadying herself on his arm as she lurched, presumably after stepping in a gnome den.
"There are so many gnome holes here," Ginny commented. "Mum's going to have us rooting them out before bedtime."
"Ugh! She can't do that on Harry's birthday!" Ron protested.
Harry agreed.
"Its like the secret room, but worse," Fred said.
"Hard to imagine worse," George coughed.
"This is worse. What is that smell?" Harry wondered, holding his hand over his mouth and nose. He hadn't smelt anything like it before. It was like a combination of mucky wet leaves, over-ripe apples, slug slim and a hint of something long dead. Nio had buried his head under the collar of Harry's T-shirt and his whispering tongue was tickling Harry's collarbone.
Harry angled his head trying to hear exactly where the whistling was coming from. He collapsed his staff and flicked it back into his holster as he was closer now. He had expected it to be from a pipe near the ground, but now it seemed to be coming from higher up on the wall. He put his hand out to feel for the breeze.
"What are you doing?" Ron asked.
"Trying to find where the noise is coming from," Harry said as he waved his hands in front of him. He imagined he did look kinda silly.
"You can feel noise?" Ron asked, bewildered and a bit awed.
"It sounds like wind going through a pipe," Harry explained.
"Oh, right," Ron said. "Did you do something to magically enhance your hearing or something?"
"Naw," Harry said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes, but continuing to search for the source of the whistling noise. He was lightly running his hands over the timber, wattle, and brick texture of the uneven wall when his right hand went off into a space he wasn't expecting. He pushed into the space, thinking that it was just the catawampous construction of the Burrow and stepping toward the empty space. He couldn't hear or feel the wind whipping around a corner and his sense of where he was along the side of the house didn't match up with this opening.
"Harry!" Ron yelled, pulling him back so that Harry staggered against him. The others crowded around them.
"What is it?" Harry asked as he righted himself. "The wall disappeared."
"No, the wall stayed and you disappeared… or most of you," Ron said, sounding shaken.
"How's that?" Harry asked, knitting his brows together. He hadn't noticed any magical thrumming like passing through an Egress or felt any difference in the atmosphere around him like when a shield sprung up around him.
"I think it is an illusion charm," Hermione said, her voice bouncing off the wall back to Harry like she was standing nose to wall.
He pulled away from Ron who was still clinging to him and walked toward Hermione, trodding on someone's toes in the process.
"Ow! Careful mate," one of the twins protested.
"Sorry," Harry muttered.
"Well, it's not a very good one, is it?" Ginny said.
"Why's that?" Harry asked.
"You just walked right through it," Hermione said. "I'm surprised you all haven't found this before now."
"It's not like we go around feeling our house," George grumbled.
"It's strange though," Hermione continued. "My hand doesn't disappear when I press into the wall."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. When I press against it, there's still a wall here."
"So why is it whistling?" Harry said, putting his hand up against his ear to block the shrillness of it.
"No idea. It looks just like the wall… if you hadn't been pressed up against it, we'd have never noticed anything amiss," Fred said.
"I'm going to go back into that crevice," Harry warned, trailing his hand on the wall again, looking for the empty space. "I need to find what's making that noise."
"No, Harry. It could be a trap… maybe it is designed just to trap you!" Hermione said in alarm.
Someone was holding onto his shirt—Ginny, he guessed.
"Odd place for a trap, though. It's not like I'd normally be walking along this side of the house. If someone was trying to trap me, wouldn't they try to get me to come out here alone?"
Hermione put her hand on his arm and he shook it off.
"I'll be fine. Ginny's got my shirt. You lot are all right here. And it seems to be something that just I can find."
"Harry! That's what I'm talking about. Something's not right!" Hermione insisted, her voice pitched high.
He patted her arm trying to reassure her and moved around her to find the space again… it wasn't like going around a corner… it was as if the wall just disappeared under his hands. Just there then not there… like walking where he expected pavement and then there was just a hole that his staff swept over and his foot was just falling into nothingness.
Hermione gasped behind him.
"Your hand just disappeared," she explained. "It's as if you put on the invisibility cloak, except reversed."
"Like you're wearing the house!" Ron chortled.
"I'm getting Mrs. Weasley!" Hermione said and she ran off. Another set of foot steps followed her and Harry wondered who it was.
"So strange!" George marvelled as Harry moved more of his body into the empty space. The whistling was getting louder and he tried to cover up his ear with his hand while using his elbow to navigate along the wall until he was fully standing in a space where the wall had disappeared… though now, the sounds were echoing differently… as if he stepped into an alcove.
Ginny tugged at the back of his shirt, but not hard enough to upend him—a gentle reminder that he was tethered.
Someone shoved in next to him.
"Hermione's right. Something is off about this. I'm coming with you this time, mate," Ron explained as his elbow dug into Harry's ribs.
"What does it look like in here?" Harry asked.
"Let me in more, it still looks like a wall. Real close up, but still a wall. And, ugh, it is foul."
Harry held his breath as he reached forward, trying to find the walls of the alcove that it sounded like he was in.
"What does it look like to you, Nio?" Harry asked in Parseltongue.
"It smells even worse than that rat hole," Nio said as he slipped under Harry's shirt and wiggled to his tummy.
"That's not what I asked," Harry protested, but the little snake had retreated and was burrowing his nose in Harry's navel which made him squirm.
Another person squeezed in next to him on his other side… one of the twins, Harry surmised from their height. Harry still hadn't been able to find the wall. Ginny was now tugging more on his shirt as he tried to move deeper into the space.
Harry's outstretched hands finally found the wall again. It was brick with mortar squeezed out in uneven lumps as if someone had hastily thrown it together. He followed the sound up the wall until his fingers found the source of the whistling… a strong wind coming through a small metal pipe high up on the wall, almost out of his range.
"Oh, this is so odd," Ginny was saying from behind the three of them.
Ron and George were pushing against him, muttering about how they were just pressed up against a rather rugged wall and getting scratched in the process.
"Here, help me reach it," Harry grunted.
"Reach what?" Ron asked.
"This pipe. Up here," Harry said as he stretched up as far as he could on his tip toes, body extended along the rough wall, bits of mortar crumbling off and raining around his feet.
Nio hissed in alarm as he was being smushed against the edifice. Harry sucked in his belly to give the snake more room.
"I can't see anything," George protested. "You are invisible… I can't see what you're touching."
"Then feel for my hand," Harry grunted, trying to grasp the thin pipe. It moved, grating against the disintegrating mortar. His fingers interrupted the whistling as they plugged the orifice. "You're taller than me. You'll be able to grab it."
George's fumbling hand found Harry's, and then followed it up to the pipe. Once he had it, Harry moved out of the way and listened as George drug it out of the wall. It sounded like the silver tip on his staff when he walked across paving stones.
"Is it goblin silver?" Harry asked.
"No idea. I still can't see it," George said and then stepped back into Harry.
Harry moved out of his way and Ron followed him, then the four of them were gathered around Harry as George grabbed his hand, flipped it palm up and placed the small, light-weight pipe in his hand. The whistling had stopped and the foul odour was dissipating.
"Oi. I think it is. How did you know that Harry?" George asked.
Harry shrugged his shoulders instead of explaining how he could hear the silver.
Thudding feet stomped toward them. "What did you find?" Fred asked, sounding out of breath.
In the distance, Harry could hear Hermione talking rapidly to Mrs. Weasley, whose loud inquiries sounded just as alarmed, and gathered that they were headed their way.
Harry ran his fingers over the metal tube and found that it was tapered at the end. There were holes along one side. He brushed the dust off the surface and turned it around, moving it toward his mouth.
"What on earth are you doing?" Mrs. Weasley shouted. "Don't put that in your mouth!"
"Er. It's a flute," Harry said.
"It's a magical object that was hidden behind an illusion charm!"
"You knew it was there?" Ginny asked.
"No, but whoever put it there was up to no good," Mrs. Weasley harumphed as she took the flute from Harry's hand. "It could be a trap!"
"Oi! Mum! We didn't do it!" Fred and George protested.
"Well, thank goodness it isn't a portkey! Now, where was it?"
The other children were trying to show her, but couldn't they find the place where Harry had disappeared. Harry shook out his staff and moved toward the wall again, knocking at ankles until they cleared a space for him and then demonstrated for Mrs. Weasley how he had found it. Though now that the flute was no longer whistling, it was harder for him to find the spot and he had to feel along the wall following the diagonally placed timber pieces until his hand fell into empty space again.
"Here it is," Harry said finally, pulling his hand out and then putting it back into the hole.
"Oh, my. Well, that's an advanced spell… far beyond what you can do," Mrs. Weasley said and again the twins decried the injustice of the accusations.
"And you shouldn't be able to do that. I don't think that's how it works. Something is off. Arthur! Auror Bones! You need to see this!," Mrs. Weasley said, her voice suddenly authoritative and forceful.
Harry's head whipped up as he tried to ascertain if Auror Bones and Arthur had joined them, but he couldn't hear any evidence that they had and guessed that Mrs. Weasley had cast the spell that allowed her to send a message. He made a mental note to ask Hermione about it later. It would be a handy one to know.
Within seconds, the pop of apparition sounded nearby and everyone flocked around the new arrivals to tell them about the discoveries… the hidden room as well, much to Mrs. Weasley's shock and dismay. Harry hung back, poking his staff into a fresh garden gnome hole. But then they quieted down enough where he could make out that they were talking about how only he could go through the cloaking on the side of the house to locate the flute and he felt as if all eyes were on him.
"Er, Harry, could you show us?" Bill asked quietly and Harry was surprised to learn that Bill was there, too.
He shrugged and found the wall again with his staff, when Arthur exclaimed, "This flute! It's been lost for at least a decade! Since Ron was a baby. I remember trying to find it… Remember, Molly? Ron was such a colicky baby!"
Ron groaned.
"No, Arthur. I think it was when Ginny was a baby. I remember you used to play a flute to lull her to sleep. It's so tarnished, I didn't recognize it."
"Er, let me clean it up," Arthur said and cast a cleaning spell.
"Oh, yes. I see it now. It's the one your mother gave you—the Black family heirloom? I had forgotten about that. Yes, I think it is."
The whistling started again…a gentle tune this time that was no longer discordant, but soothing and Harry yawned widely and rubbed at his eyes. Then Arthur changed the tune to a lively jig and instantly the heaviness in his limbs evaporated, Harry's foot started tapping as if of it's own accord.
"That's quite the magical object," Auror Bones observed.
"I don't know how it ended up here. Quite the mystery. But this secret room behind the hearth is even more alarming," Arthur said, the magical trilling of the flute hanging on the air for a few notes.
"And there were lots of books in the room," Hermione disclosed. "Books a dark wixen would use… from the Hogwarts library!"
"What? How do you know that?" the others clammored around Hermione demanding to know.
Hermione was flipping open a book, the pages rustling.
"I don't like this at all. A dark wizard has been living in our house? Stealing our heirlooms? Arthur! How is this possible?" Mrs. Weasley demanded. "How could we not notice?"
"I suggest a cleansing," Auror Bones said. "After a thorough investigation, of course. I'll have my best team come in immediately. We'll get to the bottom of this. Is there somewhere you all can go in the meantime? I don't think it is wise for you to remain here when your house has been so thoroughly compromised."
Harry quietly found the wall with his staff to follow it back to the Weasley's kitchen. The thought of the lot of them having to relocate was disconcerting… he was the one who had brought all this danger to their home and he knew that there was a simple solution.