Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Five—Gone to Ground
"Thanks for coming to help us, Bill."
"Ron contacted me and told me how important this is." Bill Weasley smiles and shakes out his long red hair as he stares up at the small block of flats that Hermione and her parents thought could be safe for Muggleborns and other people who need to run from the war. Sirius was glad to contribute some money to purchase it, along with Harry, and even Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Muggleborn Hufflepuff who apparently comes from a rich family and donated when someone told him what it was for, no questions asked. "Wards aren't going to be as tight as they would be on a building specifically built with magic in mind, though."
"That's all right," Hermione says firmly. The flats are going to be important mostly as secret hideouts for people who need them, and those people are all going to be chosen and vetted carefully. Hermione has a few ideas about that.
"If you're sure," Bill says, and takes out a long pale wand. He falls back a step and looks up at the building's façade. "Ready?"
"I must admit, I'm excited to see real magic being done," Hermione's Mum says, smiling at her and Bill both. "The only other time we've seen it is when Professor McGonagall brought Hermione's letter and turned into a cat."
"Will we be able to see anything?" Hermione's Dad asks anxiously. "I've heard that some forms of magic are invisible to Muggles."
"Some," Bill answers politely. "Dementors, for instance, that guard Azkaban prison." Hermione shudders, and sees her parents' eyes focus on her for a second. "But wards are one of those cases where you can see the effects even if you can't see the primary spell."
He closes his eyes and stands still for a minute. Hermione expects him to begin chanting a spell, but instead, he flings his wand out in front of him.
And magic comes with it like spring rain.
Hermione gasps aloud as she watches the light fall over the flats and wash something Hermione wasn't even aware she was seeing off them. Not dirt or grime; the building does have some of that, given its age. But as if there was a layer of openness that's gone now. Hermione could imagine, before, just walking in through the door or climbing to open a window. Now, the thought makes the hair rise on the back of her neck.
"Incredible," Mum breathes.
"That really is something," Dad says, and glances at Hermione. "Will you be able to do that someday?"
"Not unless I specifically go into curse-breaking and constructing wards, Dad," Hermione says, and flushes a little when he peers harder at her. Luckily, the next instant he turns back to Bill and starts asking all sorts of technical questions about wards that Bill seems happy to answer.
Hermione doesn't think that she'll go into curse-breaking and warding, honestly. They're powerful and interesting, like so many of the things that she might study in the future, but they're also…
Passive.
Hermione doesn't think she's meant to just break spells that other people have put up, or put up spells to fend them off. She's meant to go out there and do. Cast the spells. Fight for justice. Fight back against the opponents that other people might think are too strong for them.
"Magic can do wondrous things," Mum says in a low voice as she and Hermione walk towards the building. "But it's dangerous, too. Just think of the people that those things are meant to fend off."
Hermione nods. She would never disagree with her mother. Magic can be used to hurt and abuse people. Just studying some of the spells that she and Harry and Ron and the rest of their friends have learned shows that.
But it can also be used to protect, and Hermione will never rest until she learns the best ways to do that.
"You might as well know that the cat-creature escaped us."
Harry sighs and rubs a hand across his face. He's back in the sitting room of his house with Snape, and Lyassa is swaying back and forth in front of him, not meeting his eyes. "You thought you could track it down from Umbridge's office, but you couldn't?"
"We followed its trail in the physical world as soon as we could. But then it passed into the dream realm."
Harry finds his hand rising to the scar on his forehead before he firmly pushes away the notion of Voldemort assaulting him through his dreams and lowers it. "Do you think that means it won't attack for a while?"
"I fear what it might do. Its reemergence after so many centuries when we believed it lost to history has worried my people."
Harry nods absently. He can see how that would be worrying. And as much as he'd like to say that Lyassa and the other Speakers don't have anything to worry about because the cat probably wants Harry and Theo more than them, he can't be sure of that. "What should we do to prepare for its attacks?"
"I want you to consider a visit to our realm. We can explain certain things there more clearly than in this world. And you can receive training in holding off an assault on your dreams, which we can't provide here."
"Why can't you provide it here?"
"You simply go to sleep, and we have no means of finding the path to enter your dreams. In our world, such paths are obvious."
Harry sighs. Lyassa has said things like that before. Harry didn't want to visit the Speakers' realm when they would have essentially kidnapped him into it and prevented him from having a choice, but a lot of what she says is making a grim kind of sense now.
"I'll consider visiting it after tomorrow night," he says.
"What is tomorrow night?"
"We put a curse on Voldemort last year, involving several of us," Harry says. "It renews with each year's end and drains more of his strength. We're getting together to make sure the renewal happens as it should."
Lyassa's tail lashes, and her eyes brighten. "Then I shall leave you to it. Voldemort is your enemy no less than the cat-creature." She reaches out and touches Harry's forehead for a second, over his scar, to his discomfort. "Remember that you can and will face enemies in the future more formidable than these."
That sounds discouraging, but Harry reminds himself that if Lyassa's saying that, she believes he'll survive Voldemort. It's something to look forward to as he spends the rest of the afternoon working on serpent magic.
Once again, eight of them, including Professor Snape, are gathered in the drawing room that they used last year when they cursed Voldemort. Daphne holds the lit candle and exchanges a smile with Astoria. Her sister looks a lot calmer about this than she did last year.
Then again, Astoria understands Dark Arts better this time, and that they don't have to be evil.
Professor Snape comes into the room with his own lit candle. Harry and Blaise and Theo and Hermione follow, carrying theirs. There's a moment when Daphne can feel herself opening her mouth to ask the pertinent question despite knowing it'll probably be answered in a minute, and then Luna skips into the room after Hermione. Her candle is unlit.
Professor Snape lights it for her without making a comment, and then nods to the others. "You know that you sacrificed a bit of your hair last year in an attempt to curse Voldemort."
Hermione nods and bounces in place, making her flame waver dangerously. Astoria draws a little closer to Daphne's side. Daphne says, "Yes, Professor. But we're only repeating the intent of the ritual, correct? Not the exact same ritual?" Everything she's read says that the same sacrifice will either have no effect or might weaken the whole curse.
"Correct." Professor Snape inclines his head. "This year, we use blood."
"We do?" Hermione looks ill.
But Harry's face is firm, and after a glance at him, Hermione seems to find her heart. At least she doesn't object. Luna is smiling and already has a little silver blade in her hand. Where she got it, Daphne has no idea. "We just cut the tip of our finger and drip the blood into the flame, right, Professor?" she asks, with her sweet smile.
"That will do," Professor Snape says, and looks sideways at Astoria and Hermione. "I can also make the cut for you, if you would prefer that I do that."
"I can do it for Astoria," Daphne says quickly. Astoria is frowning and trembling again, and Daphne doesn't want to know what she might do if someone else approaches her.
Professor Snape inclines his head and goes over to help Hermione. Daphne faces her sister, and Astoria stops trembling and holds her chin up, much faster than Daphne thought she would.
"You know that you don't have to do this, right?" Daphne whispers. "The whole thing is risky and experimental anyway. Just because one of the people who participated last year doesn't participate this time—"
"It'll make the curse less likely to succeed."
"Yes, but the chances are against it succeeding anyway. We're doing this because every little bit we can weaken the Dark Lord helps."
And because Professor Snape is humoring us and pretending that more of us than Harry stand a chance of affecting him, Daphne thinks, but that's the kind of realization she isn't going to say aloud.
"Then I want to help," Astoria says, and holds out her hand. "But I can't look." She twists her head to the side and squeezes her eyes shut.
Daphne nods, and catches Blaise's eye when he starts to open his mouth. If he's going to make fun of her sister, then lots of people could search and not find all the pieces his body has been cut into.
Blaise rolls his eyes and turns away. He's cut his own finger and is burning his blood, Daphne sees. She makes a small, swift cut on Astoria's finger and then on her own at the same time, and guides Astoria's hand so that she can drip the blood into her own candle, before squeezing her own finger to get hers out.
The candles with the blood in them flare for a second and cast dazzling shadows around the room. Daphne gasps as she feels power flood out of the light and leap into the hearth. The logs there are cold and still, but burst into fire as she watches. Daphne blinks, and blinks again, and glances at Astoria as she heals her cut.
Astoria smiles bravely at her. "That wasn't so bad."
"No, I agree," Daphne murmurs, while trying to figure out why the ritual seems so much more powerful this time. Just because they were using blood instead of hair? Or because this is the second year they've done it and the power is building on itself?
She's not sure. She hates not being sure.
"Harry Potter."
The voice purrs through his dream, and Harry turns around to face it. He has his hand on his wand. For all the good that will do in this dream realm, he thinks, where he has to face whatever tactic Voldemort has dreamed up this time.
Then he sees the jungle fronds around him, and sees the shadow moving on the far wall of a room that shouldn't be there, and relaxes with a loud sigh.
"Come back for another try, did you?" he asks. "The Speakers of old resisted you, and you think that you're going to be able to claw me to pieces? Or frighten me?" He's not sure what strategy the shadow-leopard would try, and he finds himself a little curious. Maybe Theo would know, being more or less a leopard himself.
The leopard says nothing for long moments. It just prowls back and forth, dappled form fading in and out of the shadows of the fronds. Harry turns to keep it in sight, and reaches out to shape the dream-realm around them with his own desires. Some of the fronds turn into trees, and others sink into the soil, which is suddenly bright red at their feet.
Harry gets the feeling that the shadow pauses, although he doesn't see it for long enough for be sure before it's moving again. It weaves in and out through the darkness, and then crouches down, in the shade of a tree but closer to visible than it's been so far. Its lips peel back from shining fangs.
"You are my enemy."
"Yeah, you've said that a few times."
The creature says nothing and doesn't move for long enough that Harry wonders if he's going to wake up from the dream before it does. But then it steps back, almost disappearing into the shadow of the tree it's under, and says, "We could make a bargain, you and I."
"You have nothing I want."
"I could bargain to leave you and your friends alone."
"What would you want in return? There's nothing I have that's worth that." Not that Harry thinks he would trust the shadow-leopard who tormented Theo with his mother's voice to keep its word in any case.
"You would cease to speak Parseltongue. To have pet snakes. To summon snakes. To ally with the Speakers."
Harry frowns and doesn't say anything for a long moment. Only the last part of that demand really makes sense to him. Yes, he could make the Speakers stronger if he was their ally, and the Speakers are this cat's enemies, but what does it care about him having pet snakes or practicing Parseltongue and its magic?
"Explain to me why your first three demands are part of this."
There's silence for long enough that again Harry thinks the dream is about to end, and then the leopard explodes into splintering laughter.
"They did not tell you."
"Who didn't tell me what?" Harry snaps, wishing that Lion was in this dream with him. But he isn't, and Harry feels very alone as he clutches his wand and stares towards the laughing leopard.
"Ask your Speakers why they were so eager to ally with you. Why your speaking Parseltongue gives them a foothold in this world that has been dominated by humans for so long. Ask them for the true history between humans and Speakers."
The leopard turns and springs back into the shadow, but not before Harry hears the words, "Ask them what Parseltongue is, besides a language."
The dream dissolves, and Harry wakes up. He pants, staring up at the ceiling, and clenches his hands for a second in the pillowcase.
He knows the leopard was speaking to save itself, or at least to try and make Harry less of an enemy. He knows he can't trust it. He knows that it was probably just attempting to make him doubt the Speakers and his alliance with them.
But he knows, too, that its questions are going to linger in his brain.
It's like rising from beneath a dark ocean. The pressure of the water overhead is so incredible that he never thought he could do it.
But on the other hand, he has nothing else to do. He rises, and rises, and rises, and there is a surface after all, dancing water with light on it only a few feet above his head. He rises and then he halts, panting, thinking.
There is something he has to remember, other than his desperate desire to reach the surface.
After a long time when his thoughts feel as heavy as the dragging dark water he's almost escaped, he remembers. He has a captor. That is why it has taken him so long to rise, why he has been trapped in his body for so long.
He must not alert her that he has regained a measure of independence. He floats beneath the surface, and watches the thoughts that begin to sketch themselves across the water. He watches lines of light that form into images, and he struggles to remember names.
He does, at last. The names are so familiar that they draw him forwards with the force of his hatred, and hold him there.
He knows, now. He is Tarquinius Nott. The beast that imprisoned him with her venom is called Lyassa. The boy that she bound him to serve is Harry Potter.
The one he longs to kill more than he has ever longed to kill anyone, even Lyassa, is Theodore Nott.
Tarquinius smiles to himself, and settles back to await the best moment of breaking free.