Penumbra I: Falls the Shadow

by Skaldic Oresteia

Post-HBP. As Harry disappears on the Horcrux hunt, Ginny is left behind to find her own path in the war against Voldemort. On separate paths, Harry finds an unexpected ally, while Ginny faces repercussions for helping him leave. Meanwhile, the Wizarding World faces an increasingly bleak future as Voldemort unleashes a darker and deadlier power than anyone could have ever imagined.

17. 15: Lament for the Old World

A/N:
I originally planned to post this several weeks ago, but as I looked it over, I realized that I didn't really like it as it was, and so I've spent some time trying to revise it to something I find more satisfactory. That being said, I know I dumped a ton of information on you in the last chapter, and I apologize, but this chapter is going to do so again. But it's necessary, because I need the readers to understand the true stakes and mood of the whole Penumbra series by the time I post the next chapter, which is the last chapter in Falls the Shadow. Parts of it might read more like a historical essay than like a dialogue between characters, but I did the best I could to trim it and make it feel like a conversation making the characters truly understand the full scale of what they're facing. It's also a conversation that will upend a lot of the magical history that Rowling provides in the Harry Potter canon, particularly in Book 2.

This is the second to last chapter in Falls the Shadow. The upcoming Chapter 16, currently titled "Half-Shadow" is the only chapter of this story I don't really have a completed draft of, so getting it up might take some time. It also may be shorter than the other chapters, but I sometimes think my chapters are overly long anyway, so it might be a nice break. If you think "Anzem Gauntlets" should have shorter chapters, please let me know.

---

Chapter Fifteen
Lament for the Old World

"Hell is truth seen too late."
—Rev. Thomas Adam, "Private Thoughts on Religion"

---

"But the room is finished," Dobby protested. "Dobby already checked it last night. Miss Ginny need not trouble herself."

Ginny smirked as she pretended to inspect the spotless rug. "I'm not the one who's troubled, Dobby. Trust me, Mum won't be satisfied until Neville and his gran are settled in, and even then only because she'll have no choice but to be satisfied."

Dobby frowned, but after a moment he could think of nothing to say except, "Mrs. Wheezy is a thorough hostess." From his expression, Ginny was sure that were it not for his high opinion of the Weasleys as a whole, the elf would feel rather insulted. While Ginny and Molly had helped prepare for the Longbottoms' arrival, the bulk of the work had been Andromeda's and Dobby's, and true to his nature, the elf would probably throw himself from the roof before leaving a single speck of dirt in bedrooms set aside for new guests. This, however, hadn't stopped Molly from ordering her daughter upstairs after breakfast to ensure that the rooms were ready, causing general annoyance not only because of the unintentional offence to Dobby, but also because Charlie had volunteered to retrieve Neville from the hospital later that morning, and Ginny hoped to accompany him. Therefore, in an attempt to avoid missing her chance, Ginny had quickly summoned Dobby to speed up a task she found rather pointless.

As she looked around the room, however, Ginny had to admit to some satisfaction at the improvements they'd made. The bedchamber, which had once belonged to Sirius's younger brother Regulus, was the only one left mostly untouched in the ongoing campaign to completely redecorate and renovate the house, and until now had mostly been used for storage. Still, with two more guests staying at Grimmauld Place, one of whom was in extremis, it finally became necessary to redo the one room both Andromeda and Sirius had left alone, to ensure that Mrs. Longbottom remained in as comfortable a setting as possible. Ginny had thought it rather curious that even Sirius, who had been hell-bent on purging the house of any reminders of his awful family, had avoided this room.

Andromeda wasn't as surprised. "I don't think Sirius liked to think about his brother at all," she had explained. "Whatever he might have told you, Regulus wasn't nearly as bad as their parents, and certainly some of their cousins were worse." From the bitterness in her voice, Ginny could tell that Andromeda was referring to her sisters. "I don't think there was, or is, much call for throwing away all his belongings simply because Sirius hated the rest of their family."

"Wasn't Regulus a Death Eater, though?" Ginny sceptically asked. It was hard to reconcile Andromeda's words with the tasteless display of old newspaper articles they had removed, most of which were about Voldemort and Death Eater activity, particularly where Black relations like Bellatrix Lestrange were involved.

After a long moment, Andromeda had only shrugged. "It was never clear how far he got as a Death Eater, but I'd never heard that he'd done much. I was always under the impression that he got on cold feet and tried to defect before the end, but no one seems to know for sure what happened. Regardless, we need all this cleared out so we can fit in a new bed."

And so Ginny had spent the rest of that afternoon moving boxes of Regulus Black's old belongings to the attic, mostly his old clothes and school things, and a large set of old tomes with which he'd seemingly studied anything from Dark magic to ancient runes in private, though she also noticed a set of Tutshill Tornados Chaser's robes, and vintage memorabilia from the Moirai, a band she knew had been popular in the '60s and '70s. Questionable life aside, Ginny reflected that at least Regulus seemingly had decent tastes in sports and music.

Once that was done, and they had given the room new wallpaper, the only remaining complication had been squeezing two beds in a room which clearly had only been designed for one. This was significantly more difficult owing to the needs for both intended residents. Regulus's old bed had been thrown out to make storage space months earlier, so they'd replaced it with a newer and more comfortable twin bed, but try as they might, they couldn't feasibly squeeze two beds in the room, even after removing the nightstand and the chest of the drawers, and they didn't have time to magically expand the room before Neville and August arrived. Everyone was agreed that Augusta ought to spend her remaining life in comfort, but Ginny couldn't see how a medium-sized bedroom crowded with two beds could offer that; besides, she was sure it would be emotionally difficult for Neville to share a room with his dying grandmother each night until she finally passed.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Luna who offered a solution. She returned from visiting her father at St. Mungo's in the midst of all this, and to everyone's relief, upon seeing the problem, she volunteered her own room for Neville to stay in, at least until Augusta passed. At first, this left them with the same problem, as Ginny's room was likewise too small to admit another bed, but Luna told them she'd much rather sleep on the sofa in the sitting room. This went against all Molly's notions of good hospitality, but Luna insisted. Though Ginny would have shared her room without complaint, she was privately relieved. She was sure Luna wouldn't mind, but she simply wasn't particularly comfortable about disturbing Luna's sleep with her nightmares, which had increased in frequency since Harry left. It had been mortifying enough with Hermione, who had come to expect it after five years, and who was familiar with the events in the Chamber of Secrets that constantly haunted Ginny's dreams.

As the rising sun blazed through the open window, blinkering Ginny's view of the city and beyond, she thought enough time had passed to at least claim she had done as her mother had asked. She therefore returned downstairs, and heard Charlie preparing to leave for the hospital. Quickly, Ginny darted into her room and grabbed the disguise hair clip she'd been wearing at work. She then jotted down a short note, which she left on her desk, and ran down the stairs, putting the clip in her hair and assuming her Gwen disguise. She arrived just in time to see her brother opening the door, about to depart. Luna was behind him, on her way to visit her father, perhaps, unless she also wished to accompany him. As Ginny hurried down the stairs, Charlie looked up and saw her.

"You're coming too?" he asked. "Have you told Mum?"

"I left a note."

Charlie raised his eyebrows, but then merely shrugged. "Fine. It's not like Mum can really stop you, especially now that you're in the Order yourself, but it's on your head if she gets upset."

"Not like we're doing anything unreasonably dangerous," Ginny said. "So how are we getting him here?"

"Portkey. It'll take us to the park just down the street. Then we'll show him this."

He showed Ginny a card, upon which Aberforth had scribbled the address to headquarters.

"Right. Fidelius Charm." Ginny frowned in confusion as Charlie pocketed the card. "How was I able to bring him here the other day, then?"

"He was unconscious," Charlie reminded her, as they climbed down the stairs to the pavement. "So the secret wasn't imparted. Not sure what would have happened if he woke up without Aberforth there to tell him where he was. Maybe the charm would have prevented him from waking up, but if not, hopefully it might have just stopped him from seeing or understanding where he was. I bet Bill or Flitwick could tell us, not that it really matters right now."

He stuck out his wand hand as he spoke. There was a loud bang, and a triple-decker purple bus suddenly exploded into existence and roared to a halt in front of them. Ginny groaned loudly.

"Well, if you would rather risk me Side-along Apparating both of you," Charlie said, grinning. "Apparation's never been my strong suit, you know."

Before Ginny could retort, a hunched-over wizard stepped from the bus. "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard," he mumbled. "M'name's Stan Shunpike, an' I'll be your conductor this evening… this morning… well, you know…"

Ginny almost gaped at the conductor. She'd heard plenty about Shunpike, mostly because of Harry's outrage over his unjust imprisonment during the past year, but she'd only ever encountered him once, and back then he was an energetic and enthusiastic, albeit silly young man, only a few years older than she was. Now he looked as though he'd aged twenty years. He was as thin as a skeleton, his skin had turned sallow and waxen, and Ginny could see that bits of his hair had fallen out. He seemed unable to make eye contact with any of them, instead keeping his gaze determinedly fixed upon their shoes. Ginny noticed that his shoulders were trembling, and he jumped wildly at the sudden sound of a passenger sneezing somewhere within.

"St. Mungo's Hospital," Charlie said casually.

"That'll be five Sickles each," Stan mumbled. Charlie rummaged around his pocket for a moment, and then handed Stan a Galleon, which he stared at blearily for a moment, before putting it in his collecting bag and stepping aside to let them board, without giving Charlie any change.

"Er, Stan…" began Ernie the driver, but Charlie shook his head and mouthed, "It's fine."

"Right," Ernie said uncomfortably. "Find a seat. We've got to deliver a few folks to the Leaky Cauldron, then the Ministry, and then St. Mungo's it is."

Charlie led Ginny to some empty seats without another word. Luna lingered for a moment, and said something Ginny couldn't hear to Stan, who she saw manage a small smile before lowering himself into a seat and staring out the window. The Knight Bus took off with another loud bang before Ginny could sit down, and she fell to her side. Charlie grabbed her by her shoulder and pulled her into her seat.

"Damn," Ginny said in an undertone, looking over at Stan. "Azkaban really took its toll on him. I thought the Dementors had defected before his arrest."

"I'm told that a few remained," Charlie replied. "I've also heard that they added stuff to the prison to up its security without the Dementors, though whatever it was, it doesn't look much better. From what Tonks has said, Stan was one of the few prisoners left behind after the mass breakout in June; most of those who hadn't joined the Death Eaters outright were placed under the Imperius Curse and kidnapped. Stan was just one of the lucky ones who wasn't caught up in the fray. Scrimgeour had him released soon after, in an attempt to placate Harry, no doubt."

The bus lurched again, cutting off Ginny's reply and throwing her into her brother's side. As she pulled herself back into her original position, Luna took the seat next to Ginny's somehow having reached it without falling once. Nobody spoke during the remainder of the journey, though Ginny watched Stan slowly and dazedly showing various passengers from the bus, sometimes mixing up who was going where while Ernie apologetically corrected him. It was rather disheartening to watch, and Ginny vaguely wondered if Stan had any idea how frequently and vehemently Harry had argued with Scrimgeour about his imprisonment, demanding that he be released. If he did, she reflected, he probably was in too terrible a state to care.

The pall that Stan's condition had cast upon their morning only worsened when they arrived at the hospital, where they found two burly men from Magical Law Enforcement at the entrance, evidently stationed there as extra security in the aftermath of one of the recent waves of attacks. The moment Charlie, Ginny and Luna stepped into the reception room, the MLE men took them aside and began waving probes and Secrecy Sensors at them, checking their wands and determinedly asking them questions. They bore it all with patience, Ginny reflecting that it wasn't much different at Gringotts these days, but then one of the enforcers paused as he examined her wand, looked her up and down, and then coldly remarked, "You're wearing a lot of glamour spells today, aren't you, Miss Weasley? Don't blame you, really. I wouldn't want to show my face either, after refusing to help the Ministry find your deserter of a boyfriend."

Ginny felt her face flush in anger, but before she could say or do anything, Charlie stormed in front of her, staring down the enforcer with a livid expression. "It's not your job to comment," he snarled. "Now will you kindly leave my sister alone and allow us in, before I have my brother Percy file a formal complaint? He's in the Minister's office, you know."

The man paled and refrained from further comment, while his colleague sheepishly allowed them into the reception area. A long line of witches and wizards stood before the front desk, where a harassed-looking witch tried to hastily direct them to their respective wards. Fortunately, Charlie already knew Neville's ward, so they didn't have to stand in line themselves; but as they made their way towards the fourth floor, the overall mood got much worse. It became immediately apparent that the hospital was overrun with patients who had been injured or poisoned in recent weeks, making it clear just how many people the Death Eaters had attacked over the summer. Ginny soon learned that the ward specialising in spell damage, headquartered on the fourth floor, had been forced to expand into the other wards, and on each floor, they saw long lines of people waiting for assistance for minor maladies and accidents, priority having been given to the most seriously injured. By the time they got to the third floor ("Potion and Plant Poisoning"), the lines grew even longer, and injuries became more gruesome. The fourth floor was worst of all, however; it was the most crowded, where patients with minor injuries were forced to sit in the halls alongside stretchers bearing patients for whom there was no room in the actual ward. All around her, Ginny could hear groans of pain from the stretchers, and she forced herself not to look at one man who looked sickly and clammy, wearing a hospital gown stained with blood and a greenish pus oozing from the corner of his mouth. Several Healers were moving up and down the halls, tending to patients one by one, and behind the closed doors of the wards, they could hear muffled cries: of anguish or of pain, she couldn't tell.

"Where is Neville?" she asked, as they squeezed their way down the hallway.

"Just down this way," Charlie said, looking at a piece of paper. "If I'm reading Bill's directions right."

A second later, they arrived at the doors to another ward, but here Charlie stopped, and cautiously attempted to turn the handle, but found it locked. He nodded, clearly expecting this, and glanced towards two Healers who were standing nearby, talking in hushed tones, though still near enough for Ginny to catch some of what they were saying.

"…held back by whatever the Ministry's prioritising now. If we don't get the information we requested, we're going to lose this patient."

"Surely they understand that we can't heal him if we can't determine what spell he was hit with."

"I don't think we're among those permitted to know things the Auror Office has classified. Doesn't help that they haven't yet approved our request for premises to open up a second St. Mungo's branch. We just don't have enough beds."

"Sure, but that won't help much anyway, because we don't have enough Healers either, and that's not something the Ministry can just conjure up."

Charlie checked his watch, and then cautiously approached the two Healers. His imposing form quickly caught their attention. Seeing his Weasley red hair, one of them said, "Oh, you must be the one we were told would be picking up Mr Longbottom. Hold on a moment."

The Healer then led them back to the doors, and tapped the door handle with his wand, muttering a hurried incantation Ginny couldn't hear. The door swung open, and a second later, Charlie led them through, quietly thanking the Healer as he passed. Ginny was further disheartened to see that the ward was fully occupied with about two dozen patients lying in beds that had been squeezed into the room, severely limiting the space. As they tried to navigate the limited space, she also tried not to look too closely at the patients, many of whom were covered with curse marks and bandages, some of which were stained with blood. Most were quiet, asleep or unconscious, Ginny couldn't tell, but she could hear someone close by groaning in pain. Another Healer saw them come in and approached them, wearily saying, "If you're seeking treatment, unless the condition is serious, I'm afraid you'll have to please wait"—

"We're friends of Neville Longbottom," Charlie interrupted. "We're here to take him home."

The woman blinked. Ginny saw the bags under her eyes and the pale skin, and could tell that this Healer hadn't had a proper rest for days. "Oh. Right." She then vaguely pointed towards a bed, where some curtains had been drawn for privacy. "He's with his grandmother there."

Ginny gave Charlie and Luna an uncomfortable look. "Should we give him time?" she asked quietly. "Or should one of us go and let him know we're here?"

"Let me," Luna said, and she made her way over to Mrs. Longbottom's bed, clambering around several other beds as she went. Ginny and Charlie watched from a distance as she pulled open the curtains and peered inside. They couldn't see what was going on within, and the heavy, laboured wheezing of the patient next to Ginny made it impossible for them to hear what Luna was saying, but a moment later Neville emerged from within, and Luna slowly led him away.

"How is she?" asked Ginny, as soon as he reached them.

"She's just about conscious," Neville answered dully. He looked tired and a little pale, but apart from that he seemed completely recovered from his own injuries. "They can't tell me how much more alert she'll get, before…" He faltered, and fell silent. After an awkward moment, he added, "They're going to release her tomorrow. There's nothing more they can do for her, and they need the bed and equipment. You've seen how it is here."

"We'll send someone to collect her first thing, then," Charlie promised. As he spoke, he withdrew an old shoe from his pocket and placed it on a small table by the entrance. Glancing at the Healer, whose back was turned, he then drew his wand. "Activa."

The shoe glowed blue, and as one, Ginny, Luna, Neville, and Charlie all put a finger on the Portkey. Charlie looked at his watch. "In three, two, one…"

Ginny felt the familiar jerking sensation behind her navel, and the hospital vanished in a whirl of colour.

---

He dreamed of the Forbidden Forest outside Hogwarts, the dense expanse of trees that kept much of the forest floor shrouded in darkness. Harry gripped his wand in his hand, alert to each sound and each sudden movement as he quietly moved along the path, knowing that what he sought lay ahead. Something called to him, something important, something or someone he needed to find. Occasionally he caught glimpses of some movement, a person perhaps, in the trees, and he followed, certain that he had to catch them, but the path became more rugged, the brambles became thicker and caught in his jacket and jeans, and he tripped on trees' roots, slowing him down and preventing him from reaching his quarry. He wanted to call out to them, but dared not, knowing that to do so would draw the attention of the werewolves or the acromantulas that waited for prey in the shadows.

But as it turned out, he didn't need to. A moment later, he could have sworn he heard a female voice call out to him instead, in words he couldn't understand: "Bewara, min tudor, for he wacaþ."

Confused, Harry said, "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

He only whispered it, afraid to raise his voice. Again he saw something move between the trees, and then step into sight, strangely indistinct, but visibly a woman with auburn hair and dressed in an elegant, medieval gown. He couldn't quite make out her facial features, but felt that he somehow knew her. Though he couldn't see her eyes, he could tell they were fixed on him, as she spoke again: "Se grim lyblæca, aglæca se wunaþ on deorcnesse, a he hlosnaþ. Þu spræce his naman. Nu cnæwþ he þe. He wacaþ. Bewara."

Harry understood nothing, yet he felt a strange chill at her words.

"Þu scealt to Heagweard cuman. Sum brosnung, seo þe þu secest, is on burge. Ic bide."

Then she moved out of sight again, and he tried to follow, but the forest became darker and denser. Then he turned around a bend in a path, and found himself not in a forest, but in a dark tunnel, reeking of moisture and mould and rotting flesh. His feet crunched upon animal bones as he cautiously moved forward, until he reached the barrier he knew he'd find, a solid wall carved with two intertwined stone serpents, whose emerald eyes glinted as they seemed to watch him.

"Open," he whispered in a faint hiss. In response, the serpents parted, and the wall slid open. Harry nervously eyed the darkness within, uncertain of what he would find within, but at the same time, he was certain he felt something calling to him, drawing him there, and he cautiously stepped forward.

But then the wall closed again behind him, and when his eyes adjusted, he realised that it wasn't the Chamber of Secrets he stood in. There were no stone pillars carved with serpents, and no statue of Salazar Slytherin stood before him. Instead, he found himself in a huge, cavernous room with a high vaulted ceiling, not unlike that of a cathedral, dimly lit only by a crystal hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier, emitting a soft, bluish light. There were no windows, only solid walls of stone, and dark stone shapes all around him, rubble and detritus, remnants of an ancient world, perhaps. The air seemed thick and humid, assaulting his senses with the scent and taste of wet stone. The dim light made it difficult for him to move without tripping on loose stones wearing with age, but Harry uncertainly stepped forward, wary of the deep shadows all around him, yet nonetheless drawn deeper within. But the further he pressed onward, the darker the chamber seemed to become, until he dared not take another step forward, for fear of being entirely lost in the darkness. Again, he heard the woman's words, whispering in his mind:

"Se aglæca is Voes haten, ond se wunaþ on deorcnesse. A he wacaþ. Bewara."

A chill ran down Harry's spine, and he pivoted on his heel, intent on returning the way he came, stepping out of the unknown cavern, only to find himself staring directly into a pair of blood-red eyes, Voldemort's eyes, glaring at him from the black, impenetrable shadows. He took a step hastily back, but then those eyes that had haunted his nightmares for so many years morphed into something new and unknown: half in shadow, an ornate mask, and visible from behind its left eye-hole, a deep amber eye, almost glowing in the darkness, which had locked upon him. A sudden terror erupted in Harry's heart as his eyes met that single amber eye, which was bright and alive with malevolent curiosity. Then seemingly from all around him, he heard a surprisingly soft voice, an almost soothing whisper, that seemed to penetrate into his very soul:

"Enhlagalwet, Edren delchwaalca Akashraim. You have spoken my name. You have my attention."

The gentleness of the voice did nothing to assuage Harry's fear; rather, the opposite occurred, paralysing his body and binding his tongue, preventing him from speaking or running, as he felt the primordial, ancestral terror of prey that had stumbled into the lair of a predator, feeling nothing except a desperate urge to flee, to escape his tormentor's net.

The voice laughed softly. "Escape? You are ignorant and foolish, like all your kind. The world for which you have fought so hard was never yours. It does not belong to you, nor to your friends, nor to your enemies, any more than a castle belongs to the stones in its wall. You cannot escape my domain. By your very existence, you are part of my domain."

Then Harry woke, his heart pounding and his face cold with sweat. He lay quivering on Grobschmied's sofa, breathing hard as he stared at the ceiling, lit with the morning light that crept through the tiny gaps in the curtains, and a low hoot met his ears as Hedwig, who had been perched on the back of the sofa near his head, fluttered down and nudged him comfortingly. Harry's heart slowly began to slow, and the terror gradually ebbed away, but the unnerved feeling the dream had left him with remained. Remembering the breathing exercise Grobschmied had taught him the previous day, he began to inhale slowly and deeply, holding his breath for a few seconds before exhaling just as slowly and completely, as Grobschmied taught him.

This world was never yours.

Inhale. You have spoken my name.

Exhale. You are part of my domain.

Inhale. Ignorant, foolish.

Exhale. Escape.

With each breath, the cruel words from the dream echoed less in Harry's mind, and he gradually became calmer as he focused on the cycle of breathing. When he finished the exercise some minutes later, clarity had returned to his mind and he was able to think back with less panic and more rationality. His first thought, as he looked back, was that his scar felt completely normal, without even an echo of pain, and to him that suggested that this had been a completely normal dream; a highly unsettling dream, to be sure, but nonetheless a dream, devoid of Voldemort's presence. The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that it meant nothing, simply the frenetic imaginings of his mind following Cerdik Gadlak's disturbing revelations the previous evening, ignoring the disquiet that remained in his heart.

His thoughts were interrupted, then, by the sound of a door swinging open as Cecilia emerged from the kitchen, and then the delicious smell of food wafted into the room, causing him to raise his head and look at her expectantly.

"You're finally awake? Good. You'd better get in here before Ron finishes off what's left of breakfast. My brother told me to expect him here at around 10," she said.

"What for?" asked Harry curiously.

But Cecilia had already returned to the kitchen, leaving him to his thoughts. Harry then remembered that Gadlak had found a place for them to stay on a more permanent basis, and as he dragged himself out of bed to join Ron and Hermione in the kitchen, he could only suppose that today was the day for their relocation.

Since Harry, Ron, and Hermione had hardly unpacked anything in the rough day and a half in which they'd stayed at Grobschmied's cottage, there was very little for them to do to prepare for the move. As they and Cecilia finished their breakfast of beans, toast and eggs, Rok Grimrook arrived from the bank, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione all did a double take upon seeing him. Instead of his usual almost 19th century outfit, he was wearing modern Muggle clothing, and he evidently used some sort of glamour charm to hide his pointed ears and make his nose look longer and more human. The overall effect was so bizarre that it looked quite conspicuous to them, though perhaps not to someone who didn't know him. As soon as Grimrook arrived, he handed Harry a set of keys, and informed them that, according to Gadlak, they could depart at any time they desired.

"And where is this place?" asked Hermione cautiously.

"It's called Talverworth. It's a small estate near Welbourn, a village about ten miles from Lincoln. According to Gadlak, it originally was purchased several centuries ago by a duke, who gave it to a second son. During the 18th and 19th century, the descendants of this second son owned and ran Talverworth as landed gentry, but in the 1880s the estate began to decline financially, losing tenants and having fewer dealings with the local communities, though the original family held onto it for a while, until Gadlak purchased it about fifteen years ago."

"And it's as isolated as he claimed yesterday?" asked Harry, uncertain of the wisdom of staying in a country manor in relatively close proximity to a small town, where people were more likely to notice their presence.

Grimrook shrugged. "It's true that it's only a twenty minute walk from the village, but apparently there are a lot of trees blocking it from view, and I believe Gadlak and Menger went there early this morning to add some illusion spells to the perimeter of the property, which hide any activity within the house and much of the surrounding land. As you know, the Ministry of Magic is unaware that Gadlak owns it; in Muggle records, he purchased it under the alias 'Carl Grant', who the local authorities think lives abroad most of the time. Occasionally he has rented it out to Muggles, but I understand that while the residents of Welbourn peripherally remember its presence, it is of so little importance to them that it shouldn't be too difficult to hide the place entirely. Gadlak intends to remove it from all Muggle record, which would keep the tax office and possibly the Department for National Heritage off your back."

Hermione frowned sceptically. "And if the villagers become aware of our presence? Won't they think it strange if they notice three previously unknown teenagers who randomly live in the country without any kind of adult supervision or job?"

"Not if you don't give the appearance of being three teenagers who randomly live in the country without any kind of adult supervision or job," Grimrook rejoined. "If any of you have occasion to actually go to Welbourn, I assume the three of you are perfectly capable of using magic to disguise your appearance. Hell, use an ageing potion to make yourselves appear older, if that's what it takes. At any rate, the three of you should decide on a good cover story in case any Muggles you encounter ask questions. If it's convincing enough, I don't think anyone will give you much trouble, especially if you use a spell ahead of time to repress any undue curiosity."

Ron nodded thoughtfully. "Dad used something similar back home. We visited Ottery St. Catchpole all the time, but thanks to Dad's enchantments nobody in the village ever seemed curious enough about us to try to visit the Burrow."

"It would not go amiss for you to hide your scar, and maybe your eye and hair colour, if you ever have occasion to go beyond the perimeter of the estate," Grimrook told Harry. "That being said, it's most unlikely that anyone will recognise you. Gadlak is quite positive that no one in the magical world lives in Welbourn or in any of the nearby communities, so I don't think you need to use anything as complex as Polyjuice potion and some random Muggle's hair. "

Harry said nothing. He supposed that with the precautions Gadlak was taking, Talverworth sounded as secure as anywhere they'd already stayed at, perhaps more so, as it wasn't even part of the magical world, and so would not draw the Ministry's attention, or the Death Eaters'. Still, he could only hope that the goblins truly knew what they were doing. Given that, so far, they'd never been able to stay in a place for very long without the Death Eaters attacking the local community, he found it hard to get his hopes up, unless, of course, they used a Fidelius Charm to make it impossible for someone to accidentally betray their location to the wrong ears, like with Aelyn Dionn. He looked at Hermione thoughtfully, remembering the complicated spell that Mad-Eye Moody had installed at Grimmauld Place, but if anyone in their small group could successfully put a Fidelius Charm upon this Talverworth place, it would be Hermione.

The thought of Aelyn Dionn caused a surge of guilt to course through Harry. He'd quietly felt it almost every waking moment since Gadlak had imparted the news about Feidlenid the night before. Ron and Hermione had been good enough not to bring up the priestess who had saved Harry's life, but even so, they had spent all of breakfast throwing him furtive looks, which only made Harry think about her more. He already felt bad enough about the residents of Aelyn Dionn, who'd had absolutely no connection with him, and yet were slaughtered because of the conflict between him and Voldemort; but the news about Feidlenid somehow made the whole debacle a thousand times worse.

Grateful for the distraction his relocation provided, Harry stood and cleaned his dishes with a muttered "Scourgify", before asking Ron and Hermione if they could be ready to go in half an hour, as there was little point in delaying. Ron shrugged, still half-way through his beans and toast, and Hermione nodded. Without further comment, Harry put away his dishes and then retreated to the sitting room, where he spent the next few minutes in one of Grobschmied's armchairs, allowing Cecilia to examine his vitals and administer his usual restorative draught while he and Grimrook waited. When Harry asked Grimrook how they were going to get there, the goblin showed him a metal ring, about six inches in diameter.

"It's a Beacon," he explained. "I think we've mentioned them to you before. Somewhat like a Portkey, except Beacons are magically tuned to a corresponding enchantment placed on the desired location, not to the location itself. The link has to be set up ahead of time at the intended location, but the advantage to Beacons is that they are nearly impossible to detect and almost certainly impossible to block. It's how we got you to Aelyn Dionn, but you were unconscious at the time."

Harry nodded, remembering Cecilia's hurried explanation as they tried to find a way to escape Aelyn Dionn. Once Ron had finished eating, he and Hermione both grabbed their rucksacks, Ron hoisting up Harry's as well. Grimrook held out the Beacon ring to the three of them, and he also looked at his sister questioningly; but wanting to clean up the mess left in her uncle's house after hosting so many guests, Cecilia opted to remain, though she promised to join them at Talverworth later. Hedwig, sensing their imminent departure, fluttered to Harry's shoulder, and he, Ron, and Hermione each grasped the metal ring. At first nothing happened, but then Grimrook muttered an incantation in the goblin language and then clicked his fingers. Being used to Portkeys, Harry had expected the signature jerk behind his navel, but instead, he felt a gentle rushing, more like flying a broomstick, as Grobschmied's parlour vanished in a whirl of colour. A moment later the sensation stopped, and Harry blinked. He was now standing on a gravel drive that ran through a copse of trees casting a cool shade upon him, suddenly inhaling fresh, country air instead of the confined indoors air in Grobschmied's cottage. Apparently goblin Beacons were far gentler than Portkeys, which almost certainly would have caused him to stumble, but even so, it was slightly jarring. Apart from the visual and audible changes in sound and scenery, he had absolutely no physical sensation that he had moved at all.

He looked at Ron and Hermione, who looked less surprised, and he remembered that they must have used one to get to Aelyn Dionn. Hermione was watching with interest as Grimrook pocketed the Beacon ring, likely wishing to learn more about the magic behind it, while Ron was looking around with mild interest. Hedwig, no longer needing to balance on Harry's shoulder, fluttered to his outstretched hand and hooted, looking around at the trees and listening to all the outdoor sounds. It was obvious that she was no less than thrilled to finally be staying in a place where she could more openly fly out and hunt. Grimrook, looking satisfied, led the way forward and around a bend in the drive, where the morning sunlight shone over the top of the trees and illuminated a Georgian brick house with an entryway sporting white neoclassical columns. Harry stopped and looked at it in mild amazement. Though it did not have the kind of grandeur he subconsciously associated with what some Muggles loftily called "stately homes", Talverworth House was larger than any place, apart from Hogwarts, he had ever lived in before, four or five times the size of the Dursleys' house in Little Whinging. As Harry took a step forward and squinted, trying to get a better look, he noted that it had the look of a building that had not been properly cared for in years, but could be a rather luxurious place once someone spent the adequate money and effort to restore it, though it was hardly a palace.

Harry had been so interested in the house that he had noticed little else until he heard Grimrook's grunt of surprise and sudden call of greeting. Looking around, he then spotted Cerdik Gadlak and Benedict Grobschmied standing in front of the house, seemingly in conversation as they looked at the place appraisingly. Hearing Grimrook, they both looked up

"I didn't know you were still here," Grimrook said as they joined the two older goblins.

"Well, we weren't expecting you quite so soon, so I suppose we're all square," Gadlak replied, sounding amused. Glancing at the others, he added, "I take it from your expressions that you almost approve, at least."

Harry looked at Ron and Hermione, and found that Hermione was surveying the property with raised eyebrows, looking mildly impressed; Ron, meanwhile, was gaping at the house, obviously thrown by the thought of staying in a place this large and elegant for the foreseeable future.

"Well, it looks very… roomy," Harry said after a moment, struggling to think of an appropriate word.

Gadlak only laughed. "I think that's fair to say. These country manors often are. I assume Grimrook told you a bit about the history of this place."

"Just that a duke once gave it to a second son," Hermione said, "and that it fell into decline until you bought it."

"Another common aspect about these country manors," Gadlak remarked. "The descendants of that second son, Henry Everard, gradually sold off quite a lot of the original land, leaving the Talverworth estate only about a third its former size. As you can see, there still are some signs of decay, although I don't think restoring it should be too difficult, especially once we are more free to use magic for that." Looking at the house for a long moment, Gadlak continued, "The story of Talverworth is a rather sad one. The Everards had a good run in the 19th century, but then the estate began to decline financially in the 1880s, and they began to lose their wealth and status, although they managed to cling to the house itself fairly well for some time. In the late 1910s, George Everard lost all but one of his sons to the First World War, and both of his daughters to Spanish Flu. The surviving son, Thomas, inherited the estate and managed to keep it for some years, but he lost his only child to the Second World War and his wife to suicide, and ended up living in seclusion here, gradually selling off pieces of the estate and living off that money until about fifteen years ago, when I took the house and remaining land off his hands, and he left to spend his last years in the Mediterranean. I believe he has passed away since then. There are no remaining Everard descendants or relatives."

"Tragic for the original family," Grobschmied remarked, "but convenient for us. I understand that Talverworth has also diminished in importance to Welbourn and the other neighbouring communities for the past century, which should make it easier to simply remove it from Muggle awareness. The villagers of Welbourn might occasionally mention 'the old estate', but it shouldn't be difficult to magically induce them to conveniently lose any lingering interest, and ultimately forget its existence entirely. We've already set up a few magical illusions to hide our presence and activities within the property. Once Talverworth is taken off Muggle record, we can install a more thorough array of protective and concealment spells." Looking at Harry, Ron, and Hermione, he added, "The combination of goblin and human magic ought to make its illusions and defences quite difficult to penetrate."

"It also would not go amiss to make the property Unplottable and add a few Muggle repelling charms as well," Hermione mused.

Gadlak nodded approvingly, and then asked, "Well, shall I show you around the place?"

And so, for the next half hour, Gadlak gave them a brief tour of the house, showing Harry, Ron, and Hermione its rooms and amenities. It was large enough to lodge at least twenty people, so Harry, Ron, and Hermione had plenty of living spaces to choose from. The only problem was that the house was somewhat bare of furnishing; the previous owner had been obliged to sell much of the old Everard artwork, furniture and other luxuries in order to keep and maintain the house, although, as Gadlak soon pointed out, after selling Talverworth Mr. Everard had left enough behind to adequately furnish any of the houses in Welbourn. Harry supposed it was only the size of this particular house that made it look emptier.

"We could always add more ourselves," Hermione pointed out. "Make it less of an eyesore. At least there are enough beds."

All in all, Harry could see what Gadlak had meant about the place being suitable both as a place for him to convalesce, as well as a place from which he could operate as he hunted down the Horcruxes. It was located in a relatively obscure part of England, and, as far as the rest of the world knew, under the official ownership of a Muggle with no connection to the magical world, and so would not be on the Ministry's radar, or (hopefully) the Death Eaters'. Unless they drew attention to themselves, it was extremely unlikely that anyone from the magical world would trace them there. His only reservation was its close proximity to a Muggle town that was smaller than the neighbourhood he had grown up in, but between Ron and the goblins' assurances that they could use magic to avoid drawing too much curiosity, and the decision to go to Lincoln, a significantly larger city, for food and other supplies, Harry held his peace.

Once he, Ron, and Hermione finished exploring the house and its rooms, they met with Grobschmied and Grimrook in the sitting room, which was barely furnished with a velvet Victorian armchair and a matching settee and ottoman, where they then began discussion of potential cover stories to explain their presence in the area, which could prove useful if they ever went to Welbourn or other nearby communities. As the three goblins all had extensive experience living incognito in the Muggle world, they were able to give some useful input, keeping the three of them from making their cover story unnecessarily complicated, but detailed enough that they keep things consistent. In the end, they decided that Harry, or "Daniel Prescott", had recently finished university and had found a well-paying job in Lincoln, but preferred to rent out a place in the quieter countryside rather than live in the city itself. If obliged to give this cover story before Harry recovered his health, they were also to explain that "Dan" had recently been in a car accident and was recovering under the care of his younger sister, Emma, and his best friend Rupert Gibson. Harry only vaguely listened throughout all this. Though there had been no serious damage to his health as a result of fleeing through the woods of Aelyn Dionn in addition to the prolonged and painful visions of the attack, there was no doubt that Harry had been weakened from that awful day's events. He still tired easily and became light-headed if he engaged in too much activity, and though it had only lasted about half an hour, the tour through the house had exhausted him. Therefore, as Gadlak began outlining details of this fake car accident as well as the backgrounds of Emma Prescott and Rupert Gibson, Harry began to drift off in the soft, velvet armchair.

An hour or so later, he woke to Hermione shaking his shoulder, and as soon as he looked up, she shoved a cup of coffee under his nose.

"We're having lunch soon," she said. "Gadlak's gone back to Gringotts, but Cecilia's here and she's brought over a small supply of food. Still, I'm going to have to go out tonight and do some shopping." With a note of half-exasperation, half-sympathy, she added, "I suppose we'll have to go over the details of our cover story with you again. Not sure how much you actually took in the first time, but I'll need you to stay awake for it."

Harry nodded apologetically, and Hermione retreated from the room, allowing him to start drinking his coffee. He supposed Ron was in the kitchen with Cecilia and the food she'd brought, or perhaps setting up a living space in one of the three bedrooms, and there was no sign of Grimrook or Grobschmied. Hedwig was perched on the window sill, her eyes fixed on something in the back garden, and as Harry watched her, he suddenly remembered Gadlak's warning that the Order likely knew that Voldemort had massacred Aelyn Dionn to come after him. He winced at the thought of anyone back at Grimmauld Place or the Burrow—Ginny and Molly in particular—waiting in terrified uncertainty, wondering if he was even alive or not, and with that consideration, he reached into his rucksack, which Ron had left on the floor by his armchair, and opened it up, rummaging around until he found a ball-point pen and an old notebook from school. He then tore out a page, and after a moment's thought, he quickly scribbled a note. Hedwig, having spotted what he was doing, fluttered down to the arm of his chair. Before giving it to her, Harry drew his wand, and then hesitated, thinking for a second, before muttering an incantation and giving Hedwig her usual disguised appearance of an eagle owl. He then muttered a couple of other incantations, and after a moment considering his handiwork, he held out the short note he'd written, and in a low voice, he told her, "I need you to take this to Grimmauld Place, but I also need you to be careful on this journey. Play it safe, and avoid being seen, if you can, even if it means this takes you longer than normal. Once you get there, find a way to ensure they know it's from me, but don't wait for them to write any kind of response. Just leave as soon as they have the note."

Hedwig hooted, which Harry took to mean that she understood, and then snatched up the note in her beak, before she took off through the open window.

Harry watched until she became little more than a speck in the sky, desperately hoping that the extra enchantments he had placed on his owl, designed to leave her unnoticeable for her flight to London and back, would successfully hide and protect her from anyone who might intercept her. Even so, he tried to reassure himself that she would be fine. Hedwig had never failed on a journey, and had only ever been intercepted once; and back then, he had not given her any kind of protection or made any attempt to disguise her distinctive appearance. This time she would be protected, and he was confident that she would be careful.

Left by himself in a half-furnished sitting room that had once belonged to a family of wealthy landowners, Harry's thoughts soon drifted from his worry about Hedwig to the events that led him here, and in turn the devastating news Gadlak had imparted to them the previous evening. Ever since Voldemort's return, one of Harry's greatest fears had been someone he knew and cared about dying for him. He supposed he'd unconsciously been afraid of this from the moment he first encountered a Dementor and relived the distant memory of his mother sacrificing her life to save him, but since then, his worst fears had been realised by Sirius's death, by how close his friends came to death twice in the past couple of years, and to some extent, by Dumbledore's death. Now he had to add Feidlenid to that list, and in perhaps the worst way possible. Sirius had thrown himself into battle to save him; Harry's mother had begged Voldemort to kill her instead of her son; but Feidlenid was a gobliness he'd had no prior connection to, and who he'd only known for about three weeks. That she would take her own life to ensure the Death Eaters could not find him, was a brutal shock.

After Gadlak had departed the previous evening, Harry had expected Ron and Hermione to attempt to comfort him with the usual: "You hardly made her do that", or "It was clearly her own choice", or even "She knew that Voldemort had to be stopped at any cost". But they hadn't. In fact, both had seemed at a total loss for words. They had avoided the topic all morning, apparently not knowing what to say, although Harry had woken up to hear them talking to each other in hushed tones, perhaps discussing how best to address this latest blow, although their words had been too quiet for Harry to distinctly hear what they were saying. To his surprise, the goblins seemed less appalled by Feidlenid's suicide, though no less saddened. Neither of the Grimrooks had brought it up, but Cecilia had been far more quiet than usual that morning. Grobschmied and Gadlak had chosen not to discuss it either, although that might have been owing to the distraction of the relocation and subsequent house tour.

As Harry began to consider the goblins' reactions to their friend's death, almost on cue, a door opened and Grimrook stepped in, dusting off his shoulder. Seeing Harry watching him, Grimrook said, "I've been examining the boilers. They're installed in the basement, and I'm not sure if that's normal for these country manors or not. I assume Gadlak's ensured that the heating is functioning properly, but I don't know enough about boilers or radiators to determine that for myself."

Harry didn't respond. He supposed it made sense for Grimrook to worry about the boilers, given how unseasonably cold all of Britain had been throughout summer, and with autumn now on its way, he could only imagine it would soon get much worse. This thought did not cheer his already gloomy thoughts.

Grimrook finished brushing dust off his jacket and trousers, and then sat on the matching ottoman next to Harry. "You're very quiet today," he said, after watching him for a moment.

"Just thinking," Harry mumbled.

"So I see." Grimrook seemed to lapse into silence, but after a moment gathering his thoughts, he said, "Last night was a difficult discussion. I imagine it must have been hard for you to hear, but Gadlak's right. You deserved to know."

Harry winced. "People have died for me before, but someone deliberately killing herself for me is a whole other matter. I don't know… not sure…" He swallowed, and asked Grimrook, "What am I supposed to think about it?"

He wasn't entirely sure why he was speaking to Rok Grimrook about this, but fortunately, the goblin didn't seem affronted that Harry had chosen to bring it up. Rather, he looked contemplative. After a moment, he said, "Feidlenid did not deserve to die, certainly not like that; and you're right, this does seem different because she chose it. You may find it difficult to understand, but that is because you neither knew her well enough, or goblin culture well enough, to understand."

Harry could only stare at him. Grimrook eyed him, looking somewhat uncertain, but then he said quietly, "The truth is, I think Feidlenid knew her life was over the moment she realised the two men demanding admittance to the temple were Death Eaters; she knew who they were and what they had come for, and she knew they would show no mercy if they did not get what they wanted. Gods know, she had spent enough time among us to know what Voldemort and his followers are capable of. Instead of letting them torture and kill her, or risk them forcibly extracting the information they wanted via Legilimency, she chose to go out on her own terms, denying them the knowledge they sought in the process. In doing so, she fulfilled her oath of service to the goddess she so devoutly worshipped, and saved someone she cared about, in one fell swoop."

This explanation made more sense to Harry than any of his wild, appalled thoughts for the past twelve hours, but he couldn't take much comfort from it. Grimrook, who was watching him closely, frowned. His expression had hardened, and in a firm voice, he continued, "I have known Feidlenid for more than twenty years, Harry, and I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that if you could talk to her now, you would find that the only thing she would regret is that her death led directly to the massacre of the community that raised her. That would be far more devastating to her than her life coming to an end. Otherwise, her actions played out exactly as she intended. You survived and escaped, and that was her object." Seeing Harry's anguish, Grimrook added with absolute conviction, "And before you say anything otherwise, what happened to her and to Aelyn Dionn was not your fault. It was Griphook Finli's. Voldemort would never have known where to find you if that traitor hadn't tried to cut a deal with him. From what you have said, he has already paid dearly for it, and I would not waste another moment casting blame anywhere except squarely on him."

"But…" Harry faltered at Grimrook's stern expression. He swallowed again, trying to clear the lump in his throat. "You can't deny that neither she nor Aelyn Dionn would have met that fate if I hadn't been there."

"Can't I?" asked Grimrook lightly. "Voldemort has no more love for my kind than he does for Muggles or house-elves. The only difference is that we can fight back. That is why the Death Eaters never methodically attacked goblins until now. With the exception of my own family." Grimrook's eyes shut, and he looked pained, and Harry realised that though Feidlenid's death had grieved him, he was far more upset by the revelations about his own father's murder. But Grimrook seemed to shake it off, at least for now, and said, "That seems to have changed. Perhaps the Death Eaters did not plan to destroy Aelyn Dionn, but clearly they are confident enough in their own numbers and strength to do so regardless. I think that if Voldemort had remained in ignorance about your presence there, or if we had taken you somewhere else to recover, it simply would have delayed the inevitable. If not Aelyn Dionn, then Baarenbrach or Tymnothran or some other unfortunate community." His face contorted with disgusted foreboding. "In fact, what's in store for them, and for Muggle-borns, and anyone the Death Eaters consider undesirable, is likely to be even worse, difficult as it is to imagine. After everything Gadlak revealed to us last night, I don't think Voldemort has real reason to hold back anymore."

Harry's heart sank further at the reminder, and he looked out the window, watching as clouds began to darken the midday sky. He shivered, thinking about Gadlak's startling disclosures the previous evening, and the terrible power he'd seen in Godric's Hollow and again at Aelyn Dionn. Learning how old that power was had terrified and overwhelmed him. It made this conflict suddenly seem so much bigger than the culmination of a couple of centuries of building suspicion and prejudice in the Wizarding World.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted, hating how desperate he suddenly sounded. "My previous encounters with Voldemort and the Death Eaters didn't prepare me for this. Dumbledore's information didn't prepare me for this. Thanks to the bloody International Confederation of Wizards and their eight-hundred year campaign, I was never taught anything and now I don't know what to expect or how to counter it. If Voldemort truly thinks these necromancers are his ticket to victory, then soon he'll be ruling over a giant graveyard, and I have no idea how to stop it."

"None of us know what to do," Grimrook agreed, his voice contemplative. "But remember that Gadlak gave us a silver lining. As soon as Trawlak sends over the information we need, hopefully we'll be able to truly begin."

"And if we fail?" Harry asked apprehensively. "What then?"

"We won't. We can't. Otherwise all this suffering would have been for nothing." Grimrook's eyes met Harry's, and as the goblin spoke, his voice took on a sharp edge. "Feidlenid did what must be done, and you'd be doing her a disservice if you let guilt, fear or grief hold you back." His face was grim with resolution, as he stared at Harry. "Do you truly feel guilty? Then make it up to her. Make sure her death wasn't for nothing."

---

With Diagon Alley indefinitely closed to the public, Fred and George had been obliged to move their business to their new flat in London, but as the flat was meant to be a rendezvous point for Order members and new D.A. recruits, the twins could no longer do business directly with their customers. Ginny was concerned that operating entirely through Owl Order, which they were now forced to do, would eventually cut into their profits, but Fred and George didn't seem particularly worried, apparently confident that once everything was set up, they'd be able to run about as efficiently as they had when they'd first founded their shop. Ginny soon learned that the twins had applied for a special mail box at the Ministry, where order forms would be directed. Their father had volunteered to retrieve orders after work each day and bring them to Grimmauld Place, and Ginny supposed that bringing these orders to the twins each morning was going to be one of her daily tasks until they could return to Diagon Alley. The day after Augusta Longbottom's release from St. Mungo's, the twins finally found time to show Ginny their new flat, where the three of them would be working from for the foreseeable future. As they were getting ready to head out, however, they were mildly surprised when, at the last moment, Neville joined them, offering to help with the move.

"Are you sure?" asked Ginny in some concern. He had spent the entire previous day sitting with his grandmother, not wanting her out of his sight, in case she should finally die without him by her side.

Looking both miserable and sheepish, Neville admitted, "I need something to do other than sit and think. Besides, Gran swore she'd come back and haunt me if I don't stop keeping vigil at her deathbed. Your mum promised to send word if I'm needed back here."

Under any other circumstances, Ginny might have laughed. When Bill and Charlie brought Augusta to Grimmauld Place the previous day, Ginny had been caught off guard by her almost normal appearance, in spite of having to be levitated up the stairs and into her bed. Only by the pasty colour of her face and the deep wheeze of her failing lungs was there any hint of her terminal condition. Though barely able to breathe and too weak to get out of bed, however, Augusta had lost neither her sharp tongue nor her unyielding personality, and Ginny could well believe that she had figuratively chased Neville out for a few hours.

She looked at Fred and George, who like her, seemed unsure of what to say in response to this, except to simply shrug and accept Neville's help.

"Well, I suppose it gives us an opportunity to chat about the D.A.," Ginny said, as they stepped onto the porch outside. "So where is this place?" she asked the twins.

"Barking and Dagenham," George answered. "It's a bit out of the way, but also in a fairly populated neighbourhood, so hopefully that will make the Death Eaters less likely to find it."

Ginny said nothing. She was no expect in Muggle London, but she'd always been under the impression that this particular borough was riddled with poverty and crime, which conjured in her mind an image of some of the rather seedy Wizarding communities near Diagon Alley, and suddenly she wasn't sure she completely relished the idea of working from this new flat.

The twins Side-Along Apparated Ginny and Neville into an alley behind some bins, but when they walked into the street, she reflected that it could have been worse. It was a moderately run-down neighbourhood, to be sure, but Ginny had seen far more miserable places than Greydown Street; at least it wasn't as bad as Knockturn Alley. She still found the urban scenery somewhat dull and depressing, however, hardly an improvement over the dismal atmosphere in Grimmauld Place these days. Greydown Street was narrow and crowded with old cars that reminded her of her father's old Ford Anglia, but these were poorly maintained or haphazardly repaired with whatever the residents had been able to scrounge up. Both the concrete pavement and the asphalt were crumbling to pebbles in places, with weeds growing in the cracks, and on either side of the street stood graffitied brick buildings that looked as if they had not been renovated for decades.

"Number 32B," George told Ginny and Neville cheerfully. "Just over there."

He and Fred led them to a two-storey house, labelled with a little wooden '32' hanging over the door, which was peeling paint. Fred opened this door and from there led Ginny and Neville up a flight of stairs and into a hallway on the first floor. In the middle of the blank, white wall, there was a single door, with a little brass 'B' in the middle.

"You need a password to get in," Fred explained, and with a small grin, added, "unless you're the one who enchanted it." With that, he drew a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door. The four of them filed into the empty flat, and Ginny turned to the twins.

"So what is the password?" she asked, after Fred closed the door.

"Mischief managed," George said promptly, and Ginny grinned. "You just knock and you'll hear one of our voices asking a question, but no matter what you get asked, the correct answer's always 'Mischief managed.' Think you can remember that?"

He was looking as Neville in particular as he spoke. Looking mildly indignant, Neville protested, "I'm getting better at remembering things, you know. Harry and Ron didn't have to help me get into Gryffindor Tower once last year. Well, maybe once, but just once!"

"Okay, fine," George said, smirking. "In the meantime, let's get started. Over here."

He crossed the dimly-lit hallway and then entered an empty room Ginny supposed was supposed to be a lounge. At the back there was what looked like the door to a broom cupboard, but when Fred opened it, Ginny blinked in mild surprise. Though she had already been told about this, it was still a little jarring to see the door open up, not to the dusty interior of a cupboard, but the enclosed alley behind Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"Well, let's get started," Fred told them. "We've already started boxing things up, so just keep doing that and bringing the boxes here, and we'll tell you where to put them." Glancing at the back of the shop sadly, he added, "We've sealed off the premises fairly well, but just in case, I think we ought to completely clear it out, make sure nothing compromising is left behind, you know? We'll close off the connecting passage once it's all empty, so if anyone manages to break into the shop, they'll find nothing."

With that, Ginny and Neville began their task, and quietly entered the dark, drafty interior of the half-empty shop. Ginny's heart sank at the sight, remembering the colours and bustle and activity when the shop was in its heyday. Still, she had a job to do, and so she found some empty boxes in the back and got to work.

"Thank God they've repealed the Underage Magic decree," Ginny said, as she used Tonks's "Pack" spell to magic the twins' merchandise into one of the boxes. "We'd be doing this all day, otherwise."

"Well, I actually am of age now, you might remember, not that it would be of much help," Neville remarked. "I'm rubbish at this kind of household magic." As he spoke, he cautiously moved to the window and peered between a couple of advertisement posters. "No one out there except Ministry wizards, by the looks of it. I know Diagon Alley's completely shut down, but I gather we're not even supposed to enter the shop?"

Ginny, satisfied that nothing she'd just magicked into the box had been broken, closed the lid. "That's why we're keeping the lights dimmed and trying not to draw attention to ourselves," she replied. "From what Fred and George have said, the Ministry's compensating all the remaining shopkeepers who have had to close up and leave, and at this point I have no idea where they're getting the money for shit like this. But yeah, we're not supposed to be here. With any luck, we can completely clear out the shop without anyone realising we were here."

"Got it." Neville turned away from the window, and began manually loading Patented Daydream Charms into an empty box. "Luna told me you're now officially in the Order, and you and Fred and George are definitely starting the D.A. up again?"

Ginny nodded in confirmation. "So far you're still the only person, apart from Luna, I've actually spoken to, although I think Fred and George might have already started getting in touch with people. The D.A.'s going to be organised a little differently this time, since it's not going to be a bunch of teenagers learning spells in secret this time. This time things are going to be a lot more… real."

"Like they weren't before," Neville said, scowling. "Though I had to remind Harry of that when we went to the Ministry that night."

Ginny shrugged. "To be honest, I suspect even Harry thought of the D.A. more as an act of defiance against Umbridge than as an actual anti-Death Eater resistance group, though he did train a bunch of people to fight in ways they never would have learned otherwise."

"That sure is true," Neville said, smirking. "I never would have gotten that 'E' in the Defence O.W.L. otherwise."

"And most of those Harry trained survived in the recent attacks," Ginny said, remembering what Tonks had said the night of her induction. "But I think the Order would rather the D.A. be put to more use than merely surviving if targeted by Death Eaters. They want me to set up the D.A. as a means of recruitment for the Order, training people not only to fight, but to do small but actual missions, odd jobs like stakeouts or keeping watch for Death Eaters or any other kind of intruder when the Order's doing something. That way they can filter out people who aren't ready to join the Order, and induct those who are." Pausing, she added, "I think Kingsley Shacklebolt ultimately wants to restructure the Order so that it isn't as knowable to the Death Eaters. Most of its current members are veterans of the first Order as Dumbledore organised it, and so are known to Voldemort. So the new D.A. will be structured in a more secretive way, and I think its members will continue in that structure after they join the Order."

"So ultimately, your job is to gradually help the Order become a more effective threat to the Death Eaters," Neville said, his eyebrows raised. "And you're using the D.A. to do it."

Ginny stared at him. "Nobody's ever put it that way, but I suppose so, yes."

Neville made no answer, instead hoisting up the box he'd just filled and hauling it out the back door. Ginny put a charm on her box to make it feel lighter, and likewise carried it out, following Neville to the twins' new flat. George directed them to a room in the back, and it soon became evident to Ginny that he and Fred, likely with Bill's help, had used magic to expand the interior of the flat, giving themselves almost as much floor space as both floors of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Along with the requisite kitchen, loo, bedroom and lounge, they had added a large store room where Ginny and Neville would be moving the merchandise for now, and a couple of other rooms, one of which would probably be used for processing and parcelling up orders, and another where the twins would be inventing new products. The twins had already put up shelves in the store room, so the moment Ginny and Neville dropped off their boxes, George quickly opened them and began putting merchandise on the shelves.

On the second trip from the shop to the flat, Neville, his arms laden with a box full of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, asked Ginny, "So how will the new D.A. be structured?"

Ginny made an attempt to explain Remus's idea for the D.A. to be organised in separate cells consisting of no more than three or four, rather than meeting in one large group and training together, as the original D.A. had. "It's going to be organised in a kind of pyramid structure, with me and Fred and George at the top, and all three of us in contact with two or three others, each of whom, in turn, will eventually be running their own cells. Aside from these contacts, nobody, except for me and the twins, is to know who else is involved. I suppose you and Luna are my contacts, so you would each be in contact with two or three other recruits who you'd be directing and supervising under my instructions. Each of them in turn would eventually direct and supervise two or three others. Ultimately everything would come from the Order, but Fred, George, and I are the ones actually liaising between the D.A. and the Order. You already know how the contact coins work, Galleons for general announcements, Sickles for private communications between members."

"That sounds a bit complicated," Neville said, echoing the same concerns Ginny herself had expressed when Remus first explained the new structure.

"I'm not sure I'm explaining it very well," Ginny said apologetically. "The whole point is that if one D.A. member ever gets captured or interrogated, or, worst case scenario, anyone tries to betray us, hopefully they'd only be able to rat out a couple of others; we're also going to have a means of warning each other if this happens, so if someone is compromised, their contacts can go into hiding. After joining the Order, recruits would be continue to be organised in this way, so eventually the whole Order will be too. It would make it harder for the Death Eaters to counter us."

She dropped off the next box as she spoke. As George began unloading it, Fred suddenly pulled Ginny aside and directed her into the parcelling room. Neville returned to the shop to get another box.

"Explained it all, then?" Fred asked as soon as he closed the door.

Ginny nodded. "I think he gets how it works, although it was a bit hard to explain how things are going to be organised from now on."

"I bet it'll seem like a complex mess at first, but once things get moving, this will get easier," Fred told her. "Anyway, in the spirit of this new subterfuge we're engaging in, I've got something to mention now that Neville's out of earshot."

"What, have you already contacted somebody?"

"Angelina and Alicia," Fred told her. "Oliver Wood sounded interested too. George is also trying to get in touch with Katie. Odd as it sounds, so far former members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team like us seem the most eager."

"Well, I suppose we would know a thing or two about engaging in dangerous activities while facing an opposing group who fight dirty," Ginny mused. "A bit of an escalation from gaining points and catching Snitches, though."

"The matches between Gryffindor and Slytherin were always about more than that. I don't think anyone will forget the Quidditch final back in fifth year, when Wood finally got his victory."

Ginny nodded, remembering the tense atmosphere at Hogwarts back then. She'd only been in her second year, long before joining the Gryffindor team herself, but she remembered how, somehow, that match became much more than a competition for a sports trophy with Gryffindor's name on it. Perhaps because of Draco Malfoy's malicious actions towards Hagrid, who the Gryffindors had always considered one of their own, or because of the Chamber of Secrets attacks the previous year (the victims of which had mostly been Gryffindors), or even simply that the Slytherins had been using dirty tactics and rich donors like Lucius Malfoy to take the Quidditch and House Cups for years, somehow that particular Quidditch match became about every grievance Gryffindor House had suffered at the hands of Slytherin House in recent years. In that sense, Fred was right. The D.A., though it included Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, was almost a continuation of that.

"Fighting Death Eaters is quite different from beating Slytherin at Quidditch, but I can see what you mean." Ginny was quiet for a moment, and then said, "Well, if they're willing, and I know they're able, then I say go ahead and start the recruitment process. You know how it works, don't have too many in the same cell, but perhaps you and George could divide them up between you."

"No problem," said Fred.

"And I suppose we ought to talk about recruiting from outside the old D.A.," Ginny added. "Wood wasn't involved in the original, but all the others we've contacted were."

"Recruitment for the Order is entirely what this is about, and we wouldn't be of much use if we only stuck to the old club," Fred agreed.

Ginny frowned. "I don't really know how to go about it. The old D.A. are all people I already know, but how do I get others to join up? We can't exactly go around passing out leaflets."

"They'll come along," Fred reassured her. "Everyone in the Order keeps an eye and ear out for potentials, especially those who also work for the Ministry. Percy especially has been useful since he decided to stop being the world's biggest prat. He's got access to a lot of the Ministry's human resources records, after all, which makes it a lot easier for us to find possible recruits within the Ministry. Tonks and Kingsley have access to the Auror office's resources, so they could find potentials from the general public. This new volunteer Defence training program the Ministry has started will probably also help. At least, it'll give us some idea of who might be capable and willing. I'll bet we'll be seeing a few dossiers in the future."

Neville returned with the next box a moment later, putting an end to all further discussion on the matter. The next few hours proceeded in the same manner, with Ginny and Neville bringing in boxes from the shop while Fred and George unpacked them. They took a lunch break at noon, George going out and bringing back some takeaway meal from a Muggle restaurant, and then continued working until about two in the afternoon. With the benefit of magic, the whole task went by more quickly than it might have, had they been doing it "the Muggle way", but even so, they lingered a short while after the last box had been moved from the shop, making sure that absolutely nothing important was left behind. Once assured that the shop was completely clear, Ginny, Fred, George and Neville all looked at the empty premises, which had been left depressingly drab by the relocation. It was yet another change in their lives that left Ginny feeling rather bleak.

"We'll bring it back," George declared optimistically.

"Yeah, of course we will," his twin agreed.

Ginny and Neville glanced at each other, but they also expressed agreement, even if neither of them were quite so confident that Fred and George would be able to return business to Diagon Alley any time soon. At least they weren't out of business, Ginny reflected, even if they had to work through Owl Order from that point on. Satisfied with their work, the four of them vacated Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and hopefully not for the last time. Once everyone was back in the flat, Fred sealed off the connecting passage between the flat and the shop. The twins sent Ginny and Neville back to Grimmauld Place shortly after this, though they told Ginny that she'd was expected back early the next morning to help them start preparing customers' orders.

It was still afternoon by this time, and so when they got back, her mother and Dobby had not started preparing dinner yet. Neville immediately returned to his grandmother's bedside, and as things seemed fairly normal at Grimmauld Place, without any change in pace or activity from earlier that morning, Ginny assumed that there had been no change in Augusta's condition, either for the better or for the worse. With her work with the twins done for the day, and the new D.A. not yet organised, Ginny was left with little to do except keep her mother and Luna company. She tried to spend some of this time productively, brainstorming with Luna on who from the old D.A. to contact, as well as anyone else either of them knew who might be interested. They also made more fake contact coins, and browsed through Ginny's new copy of The Battle-wizard's Bible to bookmark useful spells to learn and train people in.

As the sun began to set, Molly began work on dinner, and Luna opted to go and help, leaving Ginny by herself in the sitting room with little further to do. Worn out by the day's work, and her mind a muddle from all the brainstorming she and Luna had done, she found herself reclined on the sofa, looking over today's copy of the Daily Prophet, which predictably was full of the attack on Aelyn Dionn. There was little new information that she hadn't already heard, and a lot of discussion about the response from Danduaith. Thus far, the goblin authorities had only made an official statement in response to the massacre, describing it as a "callous act of savagery" and pledging to do all they could to bring the perpetrators to justice, but they used rhetoric no different from the kind the Ministry used every time the Death Eaters committed these kinds of atrocities, which left Ginny uncertain of what Danduaith actually meant to do. From what the paper was saying, the Tylwthteg High Council was unsurprisingly in disarray, and this had left the Ministry—and the broader Wizarding community—in a state of nervous uncertainty.

As she read, she heard the front door open, and a moment later Minerva McGonagall swept into the room, looking tired but satisfied about something. She bid Ginny a good evening, and then asked if Kingsley or Tonks were around at all.

"Both are at the Ministry, as far as I'm aware," Ginny answered. "I think Tonks might swing by for dinner later, if you want to hang around. Or I could pass on a message."

McGonagall nodded. "One of the families I've been in contact with have expressed a desire to leave the country. Kingsley and Percy have the right contacts to simplify their move and get them settled abroad somewhere."

Ginny nodded. "I gather then that you're the one who gets in contact with Muggle families with young children who show magical ability?"

McGonagall's mouth thinned. "In some respects it's not very different from visiting them with Hogwarts letters; it always involves showing them that magic is real, and then demonstrating that their child has the ability. Usually by the time they receive the Hogwarts letter, the child has already used accidental magic, so it isn't generally isn't very hard to convince their parents once you tell them what it is. But these days, the true difficulty is in explaining the Death Eaters and their threat, and then trying to convince the family to either accept the Order or the Ministry's protection, or else leave the country."

Ginny winced. "I can imagine." She didn't relish the idea of telling Muggle parents, for whom magic and witchcraft had never been anything more than mere superstition, that their children not only had magical abilities, but almost certainly would be targeted by a movement of radical extremists who hated Muggleborns. McGonagall's common tired appearance these days suddenly made sense. For a moment she felt guilty about asking McGonagall to train her to be an Animagus, in addition to her duties. Since their conversation the other day, Ginny had given the matter requisite thought, and though her mind was nearly made up, now she wasn't sure if it was right to ask it of McGonagall at this time.

Seemingly thinking along the same lines, McGonagall asked, "Have you given more thought to what we discussed? In spite of all I warned you about, I must admit, it would be a welcome distraction."

Her guilt disappeared at once. Ginny nervously looked at her former professor, and said, "Yeah, I've thought about it."

"And?" McGonagall prompted.

Ginny hesitated, and in that moment, they heard a sharp tap on the window, making them both jump. Turning to see what had made the sound, they saw an eagle owl perched on the concrete window sill outside, a small, folded piece of paper in its beak. Ginny and McGonagall looked at each other warily. It was quite unusual for an owl to appear at Grimmauld Place; the Order rarely communicated in writing, and when they did, it was usually through messages passed directly between members working at the Ministry. That being said, the only people who could possibly send an owl were those who had been present when the Fidelius Charm had been renewed, or who had been let in on the secret later by Aberforth.

Ginny hesitated, and then approached the window, frowning at the owl. She didn't recognise it, but at the same time, something felt oddly familiar about this particular bird. Ginny looked back at McGonagall, who looked just as bewildered as she felt; but assured that only someone who was in the Order could have sent it, Ginny slid the window open. The owl did not enter the house. Instead, it dropped the small note onto the window sill, and then bent its head down, as if to preen its feathers; but to Ginny's surprise, instead of grooming itself, the owl abruptly plucked out a tail feather, which it dropped on the sill next to the note, before taking flight, disappearing into the darkening sky.

Picking up the note curiously, Ginny unfolded it, noting that it was merely a scrap of notebook paper, and scanned its brief contents. At first, she felt the blood drain from her face, and then a moment later rush back in a blush as a feeling of profound joy and relief rushed over her:

I'm aware of what happened. We're alive, and we're safe.
H.

It was in the exact handwriting of the note left in her bedroom the night Harry had left the Burrow, the letter of farewell that, until now, Ginny had feared was the last she might hear from him. Breathing heavily, she pressed the note to her heart for a moment, feeling her eyes water, before she handed the note to McGonagall, who was staring at her in some concern. The former Hogwarts professor's eyebrows shot up as she read it, and she too paled. Ginny managed a small, amused smile. McGonagall had graded enough of his homework to recognise the writing in an instant. Her hand shaking, she handed the note back to Ginny, before striding over to the window sill and picking up the owl's discarded feather. As she examined it, Ginny suddenly realised something that hadn't quite registered a moment ago. Rather than the usual grey or brown of an eagle owl, the feather was snowy white.

"An illusion spell, not Transfiguration," McGonagall observed with raised eyebrows.

"Harry, you clever bastard," Ginny whispered fondly. She reread his ten short words again, as she felt the last of the fear of the past several days vanish. She couldn't know if he had meant for Hedwig to give the note specifically to her, or if it was meant for the Order as a whole, but found that she didn't care. He was alive, and that was all that mattered to her.

Smiling brightly, bolstered by the renewal of faith and hope, Ginny folded the short note and pocketed it; she would inform Kingsley later. Meeting McGonagall's eye, she was gratified to see that she looked almost as happy at this unexpected scrap of news. Feeling rather emboldened, Ginny said, "I want to do it. I want the training."

McGonagall looked slightly taken aback, but then she nodded in understanding. "I will begin work on the potion immediately."

---

"The breathing and meditation does help keep me calm and relaxed when I go to bed." Harry rubbed at his eyes wearily. "It also helps me calm down after a nightmare, but I still get them."

"Are these normal nightmares, or the other thing?" asked Grobschmied.

"That's kind of hard to say," Harry admitted. "Most of the time I think they're normal dreams; sometimes I wake up with my scar stinging a little, and sometimes…" He hesitated. "Sometimes I'm not sure."

Grobschmied's brow furrowed. "Like the dream you told me about? With the woman in the forest and the shadowy figure in the cavern that was taunting you?" Without waiting for Harry to reply, he leaned back in his chair and said, "Yet you yourself have decided it was a normal dream, because of the lack of scar pain."

Harry grimaced, but said nothing. He couldn't quite ignore the unease he felt every time he contemplated that particular dream, but at the same time, he couldn't think of any other explanation.

After a moment's silence, Grobschmied, looking contemplative, mused, "Well, considering the unique nature of your particular circumstances, we are in rather uncharted territory here, but I think at least we can assume that your scar hurts when the barriers between you and Voldemort are weak in the moment. I can't tell you if what you experienced the other day was a normal dream or something more… unusual, but for now, we'll assume that if you feel pain in your scar, it means your mind is vulnerable in the moment and you need to close yourself off from him."

This had occurred to Harry as well, but it didn't quite alleviate his concerns. "But how am I supposed to keep the connection closed if I'm not even conscious?"

"You are not fully unconscious when you're asleep," Grobschmied said patiently. "In fact, the mind and brain are actually extremely active during sleep. It's hard to properly discuss if people are full conscious or only semi-conscious while they're asleep, not without opening a whole other discussion on the nature of consciousness, and in my opinion, that veers too far from the empirical realm of science and too much in the speculative realm of philosophy to be of much use to us. That being said, I think we can both agree that you are at least somewhat conscious while you are dreaming. Moreover, it is possible to become aware you are dreaming without actually waking up, and that, in turn, allows you to exercise some control over your decisions within the dream. Some people can even control the environment and characters of their dreams." Frowning thoughtfully, he added, "As both Legilimency and Occlumency generally require both parties to be awake, this is not typically taught in conventional Occlumency training, and I understand it's not an easy skill to pick up, given its nature, but I believe it's possible to train yourself to lucid dream. I shall have to do some research, but if I'm right, perhaps we could train you to take command of your own dreams. It might help you consciously and methodically block the connection while you're sleeping, or at the very least force yourself to wake up and use the exercises I've already prescribed for you. Perhaps it might even add an extra level of mental discipline to what we're already practicing."

Harry nodded, considering this. He had heard of lucid dreaming somewhere before, but hadn't known that the phenomenon could be taught, and he had to admit to some curiosity. A part of him was sceptical that he could truly control his dreams, given his experience of them being so far outside his control, but the idea of being able to command them was extremely appealing.

"As for the rest of today's practice," Grobschmied said, "I can tell you're frustrated, but you actually have made satisfactory progress."

Harry scowled. In the week since they had arrived at Talverworth, Harry's training had progressed to Grobschmied lightly probing Harry's mind, and assigning him new exercises to train him in mental discipline, but Harry had yet to successfully exercise full control over his thoughts, which allowed Grobschmied to easily spot potential links and segues that he could use to dig further. While the meditation exercises helped Harry clear his mind more effectively during the morning and evenings, it was a lot harder to keep his mind clear when under the stress of actual Occlumency testing.

"How?" he demanded. "I wasn't able to stop you once."

"No, but you have made were progress, even if it doesn't feel like it," Grobschmied said unconcernedly. Watching Harry thoughtfully, he added, "I understand that you can conjure a fully-formed Patronus. Extremely impressive, but I doubt you were able to do so on the first try."

"Or the first fifty," Harry admitted, feeling slightly better at the comparison.

"So it is with Occlumency. Do not be too hard on yourself. As you humans say, Rome wasn't built in a day." The goblin checked his watch. "I suppose there are plans for supper, but I haven't heard anyone doing any cooking."

Harry shrugged. "I think we're going to Lincoln tomorrow for some shopping. Cecilia brought some food when we first moved in, but we're just about out."

Grobschmied frowned. "I already know from my nephew that you've run several errands there since moving in here. I'd assumed that at least one of them was about visiting the grocer's."

"Mostly they were about making this place seem a little more homely," Harry said, nodding at the bare walls, the windows which lacked curtains, and the wood floor which was bare of a rug. "First night, there weren't even enough blankets or bedsheets for everyone."

"Ah." Grobschmied seemed to accept this. "I suppose staying here would seem far more appealing if the place wasn't quite so empty. There's enough furniture for it to be adequate, but it is rather like a normal house would be if you only had enough décor for one room."

"They also had to get dishes, kitchenware, bath towels, stuff like that," Harry said. "I think Hermione also wants to look at curtains tomorrow, for the windows, and they're talking about adding more furniture. I suppose it's not our highest priority, but it might help put everyone at least somewhat at ease."

At first, Harry had been rather nervous about the regular trips Ron and Hermione and the Grimrooks had made to Lincoln for the past week, but the size of the city's populace, approximately five hundred thousand, meant that they could easily pop in and out relatively unnoticed. Though he usually covered their expenses, Harry had only accompanied them once, as the errands they ran tended to take most of the day, more than he could completely handle in his current state of convalescence. On that occasion, to ensure further anonymity, Hermione had used glamour spells to hide his scar and change his hair and eye colour. She and Ron likewise used these means to disguise their own appearance. To Harry's knowledge, they didn't know anyone who lived in Lincoln, but while the large population meant that no one noticed or concerned themselves with their activities, it also increased the possibility of at least a few witches and wizards living in the city. Ron and Hermione were not as well known to the magical world as Harry was, but they had all felt it was still prudent to change their appearance, in case anyone from the Ministry of Magic (or worse) recognised them. The goblins, of course, used similar spells to make themselves look more human.

"Well, at least it gives Ron and Hermione something to do," Grobschmied said thoughtfully. "You yourself have made learning Occlumency your most important priority, my niece and nephew believe your next priority should be healing; we haven't quite decided upon our next direction or our next move yet, so I would imagine Ron and Hermione are feeling quite bored at the moment."

As if on cue, they heard a sharp tap on the sitting room door, and Hermione stuck her head in. "We've brought takeaway," she informed them, and then, after studying them for a moment, she added, "Are you in the middle of something? We can start without you."

"No, no, we're done for now," Grobschmied said, rising from the armchair. Looking at Harry appraisingly, he added, "Besides, you do look like you could use some food."

Harry grimaced. As promised, Grobschmied was never as forceful or intrusive as Snape, but the training sessions still left Harry feeling somewhat tired and sick. When they entered the dining room, however, and the smell of food reached Harry's nostrils, he already began to feel somewhat better. Judging from the styrofoam boxes on the table, and the sweet and sour scent in the room, Ron and Hermione had brought Chinese food, and the delicious smell made Harry feel suddenly ravenous. As he sat down at the table and began serving himself some orange chicken, he noted that the food was the only thing that brought any colour to the otherwise bleak and empty room. Talverworth did not boast of a grand dining hall like those of the larger, wealthier mansions Harry had sometimes seen on television, but it clearly had been designed to host at least a dozen people, not that there was enough decor left to be hospitable. Like the sitting room, there was no rug on the hard wood floor, meaning that one could hear every footstep on the floor and an unpleasant scraping sound every time someone moved a chair. The walls were bare of art or any other decorations, and like most of the rest of the house, the windows lacked curtains. The room was only furnished with the table and eight chairs, which Gadlak had claimed were the originals left by the Everard family, although Harry suspected that several chairs were missing from the original set. Even so, it was the only room in the house where there was enough remaining furniture for everyone in their party to congregate and sit down, and it was also the only room with a table at which they could take meals.

"Where's Cecilia?" Harry asked, looking around.

"Out," Hermione said. "She did have a place of her own before staying at Aelyn Dionn to care for you, you know, and I guess she decided to check up on it, now that you're healed enough that you probably don't need her present at all times. We'll send word if we need her here again."

Harry nodded. As he scooped some rice and orange chicken onto his place, he noticed the morning's copy of the Daily Prophet on the table, and looked at Hermione curiously as he picked it up, wondering where she would have picked it up, given their voluntary isolation, but she explained, "Grimrook dropped it off earlier, while you were in Occlumency training."

Harry looked at its headline warily, unsure if he wanted to peruse its contents. He didn't want to dwell too much on the aftermath of the Aelyn Dionn attack, and from what he'd heard so far, the Ministry of Magic didn't seem to know much about the Death Eaters' actions and motives apart from the physical details from the ruined village. With so little information about the Death Eaters themselves, it appeared that the Prophet and its contributors were far more concerned about the goblin response and possible goblin reprisals than the Death Eaters' motives, but even with the focus on Danduaith Castle and less on Aelyn Dionn itself, Harry wasn't sure he could bear to look at photographs of the wreckage.

Seeing his expression, Hermione said, "There's nothing in there we don't already know, so there's no call for you to read it, if you don't want to. There's no mention or speculation about you, so at least Trawlak and the Order have managed to keep it from the papers."

Harry nodded dully. "Have the Death Eaters done anything else since Aelyn Dionn?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, they're being very quiet, unless there's more that the Ministry's hushing up."

"I think the former's more likely," Grobschmied said composedly. "They did lose a couple dozen during the attack, and maybe that's forced them to hold back so they can assess their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as any potential consequences. The only thing that's at all clear from all of this is that it's left everyone on edge, especially the people of Tylwthteg. You can feel it at Gringotts these days. Menger has had to be very strict with the other goblins there, ensuring they maintain professional behaviour, but you can feel the tension." He hesitated, then added, "It's part of the reason Menger hasn't made much progress with R.A.B. yet. Between that and his father's concerns about the security of their offices at Gringotts, he hasn't been able to investigate as much as he'd planned."

Harry shifted, trying to tamp down his impatience; since moving to Talverworth, Grobschmied had informed him that they'd narrowed down roughly when Slytherin's locket would have been stolen, but since then he hadn't heard anything significant. The concerns about security at Gringotts were perfectly reasonable, considering what had happened with Tywlthteg Hran, but still, Harry had hoped they would find out more soon, at least a few possible names they could investigate. Harry had been mildly surprised to learn that R.A.B. most likely stole the locket in the weeks prior to Voldemort's first downfall, but while interesting, it hadn't given him any more insight to the anonymous thief's identity than he'd already had. Hermione had pointed out, from R.A.B.'s hope that Voldemort would be mortal again when he met his match, that he seemed at least to be aware of the prophecy, further supporting their assumption that he was the missing Death Eater from Voldemort's inner circle that Harry had noted weeks ago. Still, it was more to go on than they'd had before, so the unrest in Tylwthteg impeding their investigation was rather frustrating for him.

Ron swallowed a mouthful of noodles, then wondered, "What made this bloke turn on Voldemort, if he actually was a Death Eater?"

"Maybe he thought making Horcruxes was going too far," Hermione suggested.

"Why would that upset him? The Death Eaters don't have any problem with Dark magic," Ron argued.

"Then why has Voldemort kept them secret, even from his followers?" asked Hermione.

Ron shrugged. "I dunno, same reason we haven't told the Order about the Horcruxes? His big secret wouldn't be much of a secret anymore if a Death Eater were captured and blabbed under interrogation."

"Voldemort could easily use a Fidelius Charm to prevent that," Hermione said dismissively. "I think he was afraid at least some of the Death Eaters might turn on him if they found out. Which, apparently, R.A.B. did."

"For the most part," Grobschmied interjected, stopping Ron before he could argue further, "the Death Eaters view Dark magic as a weapon to achieve their ends, and certainly there are a few who would view Voldemort's use of Horcruxes with admiration, but the Death Eaters aren't all cut from the same cloth. I think it's fair to say that some of them might be revolted by the idea, especially since it doesn't really forward the pureblood ideology. Some of them might even view it as a sign that Voldemort cares more about himself and his own personal gain than bringing about the pureblood paradise they seem to imagine."

Ron looked sceptical, but Harry, thinking this over, asked, "So, do you think this could backfire on Voldemort at all? Maybe convince some Death Eaters to turn on him like R.A.B. did, if it got out?"

"Honestly, I doubt we should get our hopes up there," Grobschmied said. "There are too many dangers of allowing this secret beyond our current circle, anywhere from Voldemort relocating his existing Horcruxes or replacing his lost Horcruxes, to the worst of the Death Eaters deciding to try to do the same thing. That aside, while plenty of Death Eaters aren't quite as fanatical as the Lestranges or Dolohov, it's safe to say that they're all scared of Voldemort; but now that he has brought these 'Sha'etemmins' into the equation, if the Death Eaters have any brains at all they'll be far more afraid of themthan they are of Voldemort. That Death Eater we interrogated was so afraid to betray Voldemort, in any way, that he fought the Veritaserum we gave him until it killed him. You heard him: 'No one's going to cross him.' The Death Eaters will be keeping their heads down and following their orders to the letter, whether they think Voldemort's gone too far or not. By reviving necromancy, Voldemort has changed the game completely, and they know it."

The others flinched. While the topic of necromancy and the Sha'etemmins had come up every now and then since moving to Talverworth, Harry could tell that nobody liked to dwell on it. Ron and Hermione felt just as stunned and helpless as he did. While the goblins, Grobschmied in particular, seemed to handle it slightly better, he also knew from their comments that they were almost as disturbed by Gadlak's disclosures. Moreover, there was little further to discuss beyond wild speculation, as they had yet to receive Trawlak's promised information. Gadlak and Grobschmied did not seem particularly concerned by this, as Trawlak had been so swamped in the political aftermath of the Aelyn Dionn attack, that it was unlikely he would have had time to compile the information in the past few days, and certainly not with the discretion the circumstances required. Even so, the delay made Harry nervous.

"It still seems like a huge shot in the dark," he said. "Banking everything on finding these Inquisitiors or the research Grimrook's dad was trying to do, and hoping that then we'll have the information we need?" He shrugged helplessly. "I just wish we had more to go on than that."

"Yes, you are right," Grobschmied said grimly. "It's better than nothing, though, and hopefully the information we do find won't be inconsequential. I hope, at least, that we can get information concerning where the Sha'etemmins are coming from, what drives them, why they're doing what they're doing, and the actual cause of necromancer cults, if nothing else."

"How would that help?" asked Harry in frustration. "Their history wouldn't necessarily help us know how to actually fight them."

"Maybe not, but until you get to the root of the problem, you can't truly solve it," Grobschmied said. "As Gadlak said, humans and goblins have both been trying to eliminate necromancy for thousands of years without success, so something is keeping it alive. Therefore, it seems incumbent on us to find out what that is, otherwise we'll never be able to truly stop this." He scooped a spoonful of rice into his mouth, leaving the others a moment to consider this. He then swallowed, and said, "It also wouldn't go amiss to try to understand the Death Eaters in a similar way. They are an entirely different matter from the Sha'etemmins, and in that sense, at least we're not completely out of our depth. The Death Eaters' behaviour and actions, though abhorrent, are at least somewhat predictable. That could be useful."

Harry swallowed his own mouthful of rice and asked, "What do you mean?"

Grobschmied stirred at the chicken on his plate for a moment, seemingly in deep thought, and then answered, "During the first war I was in no position to take any kind of effective action against Voldemort, but that doesn't mean I was just standing idly by. The whole time I was watching, observing, analysing. I was gathering every scrap of information I could, both about Voldemort himself and about his followers, as well as similar movements past and present, looking for weaknesses, looking for patterns. 'Know your enemy.' It's become clear to me that simply fighting the Death Eaters may not be enough. Understanding their motives and beliefs, how they think and operate, might allow us to devise a strategy that could exploit that knowledge, turn defence to offence, demoralise them, make them less effective."

"What is there to exploit?" asked Ron, scowling. "We don't know where they're operating from, we don't know how many members they actually have at this point, and we don't know how many of their fighters are under the Imperius Curse. We don't have any spies in their ranks. We don't know anything about these necromancers they're working with. We don't know where they get their resources or who is feeding them information. Pretty much the only thing we know for sure is that they hate anything that isn't a pureblood."

"Yes," Grobschmied said patiently, "but that is not inconsequential. From my experiences in the past, I think it's actually extremely important to think as the enemy thinks, and as simplistic as they sound, hatred and bigotry are actually not simple. They are rooted in years, generations, perhaps centuries of change, fear, anger, and perhaps even trauma. I believe all human-ish races, including my own, are hard-wired to be cautious of anything that could be considered an 'other', most likely a survival mechanism from our most primordial origins. We simply are intelligent enough to reign in those instincts when it benefits us to do so."

"What, you're saying that bigotry is just a by-product of our own evolution?" Hermione asked incredulously, and, Harry noted, with no little indignation.

"Your wording implies that I have devalued its importance," Grobschmied said coolly. "I never implied that this instinctive suspicion was insignificant. Far from it. But because it is rooted in an ancient survival instinct, it is common, perhaps even inevitable. If it's not species, ethnicity, origins, religion, ideology, or any of the common prejudices associated with our time, it would be something else. Even people who think they know better can be ruled by this instinct. That being said, suspicion and prejudice, while common, are not the same thing as hatred." Seeing their dubious faces, he added, "I have faced prejudice from humans all my life, and yet have had many dealings with those same humans, who nevertheless were willing to work with me, felt respect for me, and even liked me. I have never held their biases against them; after all, there are similar and worse attitudes towards humans from among my own kind. Those biases seen in the words and actions of many of my human colleagues and clients, however, in no wise are in the same league as the vengeful hostility the Death Eaters have consistently displayed over the past few decades to those who are different from them."

"How is this helpful?" asked Hermione in frustration. "I understand trying to find information that can be used against the Death Eaters, but you sound almost like you're defending them."

Grobschmied's mouth thinned, and Harry could tell this remark had tested his patience. After a moment seemingly gathering his wits, however, the goblin said calmly. "I'm stressing this, because there's a reason such movements exist, a cultural and political context that is driving this. Until you understand why pureblood supremacism even exists as a movement, until you understand the cause, you will never be able to put an end to it. Even if you somehow completely wiped out Voldemort and the Death Eaters, if that context isn't addressed, if you haven't identified the cause, then in fifty years a similar movement will just appear again."

Ron shrugged dismissively. "We all know what caused it. We wouldn't be in this mess if Slytherin hadn't decided that Muggle-borns weren't worth a damn."

To Harry's surprise, Grobschmied huffed in exasperation. "That is a misconception that not only doesn't help, but has blinded most of Britain's magical world to the real cause of the problem. Not only is it so simplistic it's hardly worth addressing, it's also mostly untrue."

"Come off it," Ron snapped. "Everyone knows Slytherin hated Muggle-borns and built the Chamber of Secrets to purge Hogwarts of them."

"That is a modern legend, not historical fact," Grobschmied retorted. "The Chamber of Secrets might be real, and Slytherin's quarrel with Gryffindor was real, but the rest is a myth of the past two centuries, a fundamental and possibly deliberate misunderstanding of a conflict between two men who lived in a completely different time and thought in a completely different paradigm." He then softened his voice, and added, "People always want history to be as clear and simple as distilled water, but in reality it is more like swamp water. It's murky. It's complicated. You cannot reduce a current problem to one small event that occurred a thousand years ago. History is never that simple." Seeing their bewildered faces, he explained further, "If you went back in time and slit Slytherin's throat in his sleep before he met the other Hogwarts founders, I doubt it would have significantly changed anything now. The history of Hogwarts would be slightly different, but magical supremacism would still exist. Over the centuries, pureblood supremacists like the Death Eaters have turned Slytherin into a kind of legend to give some semblance of legitimacy to their ideas, but in reality, Slytherin was not the origin of this movement. In fact, people didn't even think of magic in terms of pureblood, half-blood and Muggle-born in Slytherin's time, certainly not as you understand the concept. Slytherin himself was no exception."

Harry swallowed a piece of chicken, and protested, "That's not what Professor Binns taught us."

At this, Grobschmied let out a derisive snort. "Heironymus Binns has long been a cause of intense frustration among magical historians, to the point that they would tell you that students who take classes from him come out less informed than when they went in. He bears a great deal of responsibility for the level of sheer ignorance about magical history that has been prevalent in Britain for the past sixty years, and not just because he is astoundingly dull to listen to. His view of history is informed by a political narrative that first surfaced in the 19th century, not by actual historical research, and nowhere is he less knowledgeable than in the history of Hogwarts and its founders." He shook his head in exasperation. "For all his ranting about fact versus legend, Binns was never able to see that his own views of magical history were framed by legend and embellishment, which he simply took for fact. Look him up in any journal of magical history, and you'll see how much other historians contest his teachings."

"So how did he even get the History of Magic position at Hogwarts, if he's such a bad historian?" asked Hermione in amazement.

"For many years it has been widely believed that Armando Dippet only hired Binns because of his own political leanings," Grobschmied said. "There are many magical scholars who are far more qualified to teach history than him, but unfortunately, they can't seem to get rid of him because he's a ghost, and because differences in scholarly opinion are not sufficient reason for the Ministry of Magic to banish him." He sighed, and served himself a second helping of lo mein. "The point is, take anything Binns taught you with a grain of salt. Much of it is framed by ideological sentiment that was promulgated in the 19th century with little regard for what actually took place a thousand years ago."

"Okay, so what do you think caused all this?" asked Ron in a challenging voice.

Harry could tell that Ron would not so easily let go of his preconceptions about Slytherin or about the version of magical history he had been brought up with; but having not been raised in the magical world himself, Harry felt more curious than offended, so he silenced Ron with a look, and waited for Grobschmied's response.

"That's a question with no simple answer," the goblin said calmly. "Since it's such a strong talking point, I suppose I'll have to start with Slytherin, and how his story was warped by 19th century pureblood ideologues, leaving you with the misconceptions you were brought up with." For a moment, he looked between the three of them, Ron, in particular, with a contemplative expression, then he began, "The historical record from Slytherin's time is so full of holes that it's not possible to fully know what actually happened between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Much is missing, or went unrecorded, or perhaps was destroyed at some point. But what we do know is that Slytherin, mostly known as Luken of Salazar at the time, was a man of Basque origin, in a time period when that particular country was especially rife with tension, constantly under threat of invasion or persecution either by the Ummayad Emirate occupying Iberia or by the Carolingians to the north. He appears to have been a Faustian figure with a strong thirst for knowledge, but the tension and atmosphere of suspicion left no room for him to hone his magical abilities and understanding; he therefore left his homeland at the age of fifteen and spent the next twenty years roaming around the Mediterranean kingdoms, gathering magical knowledge where he could, including from Jewish Cabbalists and also Arabic sorcerers who, in their own cultures, were able to study and practice magic more freely. In his later years Slytherin travelled north to the British Isles, where he wished to learn more about Celtic magical practices, particularly those developed by Merlin some centuries earlier, and that is where, of course, he met the rest of the Hogwarts Founders. It is also where Anglo-Saxon wizards started calling him 'Slidrende', owing to his smooth manner and his affiliation with snakes, which later turned to 'Slytherin', and remains the name he is most known by.

"We know little of Slytherin's activities in those early years, but what the historical record does suggest is that he witnessed a great deal of political corruption and violence in those places, which made him extremely wary of anyone who had any kind of allegiance or fealty either to the Church or to the kings and lords in the Mediterranean regions. This suspicion wasn't just employed against the non-magical; he was cautious of anyone he thought took part in the corruption and abuses he witnessed, including those of magical ability, plenty of whom abused magic for their own selfish ends. Slytherin intended Hogwarts to be more than a place of learning; he wanted it to be a haven from a very dark, violent and corrupt world."

"So it wasn't Muggles he hated, but the established order of things?" Harry asked.

"The concept of Muggles didn't exist in the Middle Ages, not as you understand it," Grobschmied told him. "Even the word 'Muggle' didn't exist yet; its earliest appearance was during the 16th century, a full seven hundred years after Slytherin disappeared from the historical record, and from the very beginning its meaning has had a biological connotation. In Slytherin's time, however, no one really thought of magical ability as an innate, immutable biological attribute. Medieval wizards rarely even called it by the word 'magic', the etymology of which held a darker connotation at the time, ever since the Persians, with help from their Magi, conquered the Greek-inhabited regions of Thrace and Ionia nearly fifteen hundred years before Slytherin's quarrel with Gryffindor. The Hogwarts Founders typically referred to magic as 'runcræft,' meaning 'secret' or 'mystery' craft; or 'gealdru', meaning 'incantations'; or even simply as 'the gift'. They likewise referred to themselves as 'runcræftigan', or 'gealdorcræftigan', craftsmen and women of mysteries and incantations, terms that, you might note, have no biological implication. Instead, they attributed the magical ability of some, but not others, to divine will." Seeing the bewildered expressions on the others' faces, he further explained, "What you must understand is that in medieval thought, an individual's abilities and place in the world were framed entirely in terms of religion and the will of God. Everything, and I mean everything, happened because of God's will. If you were born a serf, it was because God willed it. If you were born a nobleman, it was because God willed it. God determined whether you married and had children, or remained a virgin all your life. You became ill or remained healthy by God's will; your natural talents, anything from writing to music, were sourced in God's will. Similarly, the Hogwarts Founders believed that if you showed magical ability, it was because God willed it."

"But doesn't that just amount to the same thing?" asked Hermione. "If they attributed it to God's will, wouldn't that also give license for Slytherin to believe himself superior to others? Wouldn't he believe himself favoured by God?"

Grobschmied frowned at this question. "I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well. It is difficult to describe to those who aren't well-versed in medieval history. You have been brought up in a very different century, and with a very different mode of thought, and to you, what I have just described might sound simply like another flavour of the modern concept of Muggle and wizard, but it comes from an entirely different paradigm and more significantly shapes how one might view things than you'd think."

"Then try to make us understand," said Hermione.

Grobschmied nodded in acquiescence, and after a few seconds gathering his own thoughts, he said, "To the medieval mind, the most righteous thing a person could do was not merely a radical acceptance of God's will, but the decision to embrace it, to align your own will with God's will. Since magic was a gift from the Almighty, a gift that he could take away if he wished, in the medieval wizard's mind, that gift came with certain obligations. The view of medieval wizards was always that magic is only to be used righteously, only for the worship and service of God, and by extension to the service of one's fellow men." As he spoke, he reached for the pitcher of water Hermione had put on the table, and poured himself a glass. "If used selfishly or frivolously, instead of being sourced from God, it was sourced from the devil. Even using magic for your own minor entertainment or convenience, like sweeping the floor or chopping wood, or making a toy move on its own, would have been seen as devilish, because according to medieval magical belief, such uses of magic eventually invited temptation to use magic in truly evil or abusive ways, such as using it to seize power for yourself or control the lives of others. The implications are clear: it is harder to think yourself innately special when your gift is sourced from a will far greater than your own, and which could easily take that gift away if you dared abuse it. There's no evidence that Slytherin thought any differently. It wasn't for another seven or eight hundred years that there began to be a growing tendency by wizards to view themselves as inherently or biologically superior to those incapable of magic, without any reference to divine will." He paused, staring at his glass of water, then added, "Strange as it might sound to you, if they could see the lifestyle of modern wizards, all four of the Hogwarts Founders would have been appalled. They would be appalled by Hogwarts Castle itself, which was mostly an ordinary castle when it was built, protected and concealed by magic, but with little more than that. Most of the enchantments you encountered there, the famous ceiling in the Great Hall, the moving staircases and talking portraits, were added centuries later."

Harry tried to wrap his mind around all this. It had never occurred to him that the magical world was ever anything other than what he had always experienced. He'd always enjoyed the small uses of magic, watching Molly Weasley employ it for household chores, while the "Muggle way" was used to discipline magical children. The idea that such uses of magic would have been viewed by Godric Gryffindor, a figure he'd always admired, as inherently evil, was more alien to him than the magical world itself had been when he was first introduced to it. Grobschmied's point was clear. If even something as small as using magic to peel potatoes was viewed so drastically differently a thousand years ago, then it made sense that they might have viewed the dichotomy between the magical and the non-magical just as differently.

Considering all this, Harry asked, "So where did all this stuff about Slytherin House and purebloods come from, then, if it wasn't from Slytherin himself?"

Grobschmied, whose voice was starting to sound rather raspy, took another sip of water before answering. "Over the centuries, the politics of the world changed, and ideologies changed. Paradigms shifted, and by the modern era, concepts like 'Muggle', 'Muggle-born', 'half-blood' and 'pureblood' had fully actualised. The peculiarities of the history of Slytherin and Gryffindor, though almost entirely unrelated, made it quite easy for pureblood supremacists in the 19th century to frame their quarrel in terms of blood purity. You see, when it was first built, Hogwarts didn't have school houses. It was run more like a medieval university; for the first few decades the apprentices at Hogwarts, who in those times could be of any age, chose their mentors. It wasn't an assignment; the Sorting ceremony originally was devised to help them make an informed decision, nothing more than that. Because of Slytherin's vision of Hogwarts as a moral and magical sanctuary, the apprentices that were most drawn to him were usually people of magical ability who, for whatever reason, had been alienated by their home communities, or forced to live on the outskirts of society, and so were very attracted to the idea of a sanctuary from the world that had rejected them. As is common with social outcasts, during the Middle Ages disaffected wizards, those alienated and forced to live outside the law, tended to gravitate towards each other and began forming their own little separate communities, 'covens', if you will, and as a result, there was a small demographic of magical practitioners who had been born in these communities. Slytherin's apprentices, many of whom came from such a background, therefore were easily reinterpreted centuries later as 'pureblood'. Though Slytherin himself frequently used the word 'clæne', meaning 'pure' or 'clean', in his vision for Hogwarts, he most likely meant moral purity; but this likewise was reinterpreted in modern times as blood purity."

"And Gryffindor?" asked Harry curiously.

"Similarly reinterpreted, if in the reverse," Grobschmied said, shrugging. "Gryffindor's father was a thane of Alfred the Great, the King of Wessex, and his brother was likewise a thane of Alfred's successor, Edward the Elder. Though he didn't follow the same path, Gryffindor was raised with the same values of courage, honour, strength and tradition as any Anglo-Saxon warrior, and his apprentices, the precursors of Gryffindor House, usually came from the same kind of background, thanes or minor warriors of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as well as some Gaelic and Welsh wizards of similar upbringing. In other words, they were from the established order of things, as you described it, that Slytherin disdained, and this likely was the substance of the quarrel between him and Gryffindor. While Gryffindor himself was almost certainly what you would call half-blood, the general background of his apprentices suggests that they were of non-magical parentage, for the most part. This makes it quite easy to re-envision their feud as an early example of tension between purebloods and Muggle-borns, but there is no evidence that either Slytherin or Gryffindor, or any of their apprentices, thought of it in terms of magical lineage, which, as I have said, had yet to actualise as a concept. The historical revisionism you were fed by Binns comes directly from that very same political narrative originally formed by 19th century pureblood supremacists, just flipped on its head to show Muggle-borns in a more favourable light. Nonetheless, it comes from the same genealogy of narrative as the Death Eaters' ideology."

He finished talking, leaving the others in silence. Ron still looked rather sceptical, stubbornly unwilling to accept this entirely different take on history from the one he had been brought up with. In some confusion, Harry glanced at Hermione too, and saw that she looked as stunned and indignant as he felt, not at this new interpretation, but at the thought that they had been misled about the magical world and magical history from the beginning. It was hard to take in, but Grobschmied spoke with such confidence, such information, and such authority, that Harry, knowing little beyond what Binns had taught, found himself unable to dispute any of it. Struggling with all of this, he haltingly asked, "Then if it didn't start with Slytherin, where did this ideology come from?"

"Ah." Grobschmied looked pleased. "Now I believe that is a far more important question. I don't pretend to be nearly as well-versed in this as other magical historians, but I've read enough to know that, as far as anyone can tell, the earliest iterations of pureblood supremacist ideology first started to appear in the early 18th century."

"Why?" asked Harry, nonplussed. "What happened then?"

Grobschmied said nothing at first, but he neither looked reluctant to answer nor confused by the question. Rather, he seemed to be carefully considering his next words. "You may find this hard to swallow," he said slowly, "but I believe, and you'll find a fair number of historians who would agree with me, that the Statute of Secrecy is the real cause of modern magical supremacism."

Harry blinked. "Really? You think wizards formally going into hiding was what caused it?"

But even as he spoke, he started to feel some semblance of understanding take hold, even as Grobschmied nodded and explained further, "The Statute of Secrecy was the result of over a century of drastic change and upheaval, some of it intellectual, but particularly because of the Koboldalfic goblin rebellion and also because of the Thirty Years' War, both of which changed everything, and left wizards reeling. The magical world has carefully removed from Muggle historical record any mention of the roles that wizards played in the latter conflict, but the simple fact is, there were plenty of witches and wizards who had religious convictions and took sides in the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants, though their having magical capability required them to do so with considerable subtlety. There were also a few bad actors among wizards who took advantage of the upheaval for profit. If I tried to explain the role of the Thirty Years' War in full, we'd be talking all night, but for now, suffice it to say, it left many wizards disillusioned with the traditional religious beliefs that had shaped their moral compass for centuries, leaving them with a moral and spiritual vacuum that left them wide open for ideas like magical supremacism."

Harry was quiet for a moment digesting this. "And the goblin rebellion?"

"It was the most sweeping attempt by the goblins of Koboldrang and Dagadalf to establish fully independent kingdoms not beholden to the whims of humans," Grobschmied said. "I will not sugar-coat it, nor attempt to justify our neighbours on the Continent. The Koboldic and Dagadalfic goblins were extremely violent, even for goblin rebels." He grimaced. "The ferocity of their rebellion caused the wizards of Europe to truly rally and unite for the first time in history. While it had been in existence for several hundred years by then, it was their defeat of the Koboldalfic rebellion that truly granted the Greater Wizards' Council political authority over the lives of magical beings as a whole, to the point where they could reorganise themselves in their current form as the International Confederation of Wizards. You'll find that in goblin society, there is a widespread belief—and nationalists like Tylwthteg Hran are particularly prone to it—that the Statute of Secrecy was actually put in place as an excuse to force other magical species, like goblins and centaurs, into the dominion of humans; after all, if magic has to be kept separate from the non-magic, then goblins too must follow a set of rules and restrictions that ensure this separation. Rules that humans created."

"That's bollocks," Ron said, annoyed. "It was created so wizards would have a safe haven from Muggle persecution."

"Which is also bollocks, as you charmingly put it," Grobschmied rejoined. "While the idea of a magical haven certainly was part of it, it wasn't what most wizards now think. Just like the Slytherin legend, the role Muggle witch-hunts played in the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy is also nonsense dreamed up by the same 19th-century political narrative behind the historical revisionism you were fed at school. While I do not deny that witch hunts became more common during the early 17th century, owing to all the same discord and upheaval I just described, witches and wizards never truly needed a sanctuary from them, as they always had magical countermeasures to ensure they could not be detected or captured by witch hunters, let alone executed. Some wizards even made a kind of game of it. The simple reality is that back then, Muggles had neither the means nor the power to truly be of any real danger to wizards, and wizards were fully aware of it. That being said, witch hunts certainly were used by later pureblood supremacists to promote the image of Muggles as ignorant, barbaric savages who could never rise above the violence and hardship of the Middle Ages, and this led other wizards to believe that to be the reason for the foundation of the Wizarding World, even if the reality was far more complex than that. No, what really motivated the Statute of Secrecy was the idea of a better world, the disillusionment with the medieval world and medieval values, and a strong need to exercise some control of a situation that had been out of control for many decades."

Ron still bore a rather stubborn expression, but Grobschmied, clearly wanting to move on, continued, "It's not much of mental leap to go from thinking wizards would be better off separate from the rest of the world, to thinking wizards are better than everyone else, particularly when so many witches and wizards had become disillusioned with their traditional values and thus had lost their moral compass, leaving them vulnerable to new beliefs about their own innate superiority. In this backdrop, the Statute of Secrecy, whether intentionally or not, encouraged a belief veering away from the fatalistic medieval view of magical ability by God's will, and more towards the assertive, modern view of wizards as naturally and biologically set apart, extraordinary, special, even superior, and therefore with the right to live as they see fit. It is this growing attitude, which first reared its ugly head in the closing years of the 17th century, that you can see the earliest roots of modern magical supremacism.

"But the timing of the Statute of Secrecy, and the supremacist attitudes it created, couldn't have been worse. All of this came about in a world that still had one foot in the Middle Ages, when few had any conception or expectation of a world that would or could be any different from the centuries of post-civilisation chaos that resulted from the fall of the Roman Empire." Looking between the three of them, he said, "Radical political movements usually come about because of a sudden change or upheaval, but it has become clear over the years that there was something more driving this determination to believe that wizards were special, biologically superior to everyone else. So what else had changed during that time?"

He looked between Harry, Ron, and Hermione expectantly, waiting for one of them to answer. Then Hermione finally said, "The Muggles did."

Grobschmied nodded approvingly. "Exactly. Only a few years before the Statute of Secrecy came into effect, Sir Isaac Newton published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, a book that was the foundation of modern physics. Newton's ideas, and the ideas of others like him, would revolutionise Muggle science over the course of the 18th century, opening up new avenues which would completely change Muggle society as a whole. The non-magical world has rapidly advanced since then, to the point of being unrecognisable. Magical supremacism is wholly dependant upon a conception of Muggles as low and unsophisticated and primitive, they way they often were in the Middle Ages; but the scientific revolution set Muggles on a path that completely upended that notion, and over the past three hundred years has increasingly put Muggles on an equal footing with wizards."

Ron was staring at him. "You truly believe that?"

"I don't think it to be true, I know it to be true," Grobschmied retorted. "I've heard otherwise open-minded wizards make remarks like 'I don't know how they manage' or 'their attempts to substitute for magic,' so many times that it's impossible to count, and I have no doubt that even people in your own family, Mr Weasley, have made such remarks. Perhaps you yourself have. But in making those remarks, you only ever betray your own ignorance of the rest of the world. Muggles don't substitute for magic. Frankly, they don't need magic.

"So since the Statute of Secrecy came into effect, the rest of the world has blossomed into something that has never before appeared in all of recorded history, and has become a very powerful and unstoppable force. I believe that the timing of this is mere coincidence, that this would have happened whether wizards went into hiding or not. The true consequence of the Statute of Secrecy has not been its effect upon Muggles, but its effect upon wizards, which, conversely, has been the exact opposite of what has happened to the Muggles."

Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"In all of history, no civilisation has advanced by isolating itself from the rest of the world," Grobschmied told him intently. "It doesn't work like that. It has never worked like that. Civilisations evolve and advance by interacting with each other, trading with each other, forming diplomatic relations, visiting each other, warring with each other, and borrowing each others' ideas, technologies and aesthetics. Isolating oneself has the reverse effect. The Statute of Secrecy has made the Wizarding World stunted as a society, stagnated your growth, left you mired in an era long past, while the rest of the world moves on. The Muggles have become unrecognisable as a society, but wizards still very much live the same lifestyle they have lived since before the Statute of Secrecy, most of your technologies still very much medieval, having no comprehension of the scientific discoveries Muggles have made. Even your magic has failed to advance much in the past three hundred years.

"Any developments you have made have been brought to you by Muggleborns, and even those have been limited, because to ensure that the Statute of Secrecy remains effective, there is a culture of repression in the magical world, which all too often leads magical authorities to do everything in their power to suppress dissent or unconventional thinking, discourage active participation in the Muggle world, and ensure that even Muggle-born wizards remain in and work for the magical world. No matter what the intention was, secrecy on this kind of scale always breeds corruption and abuse of power. It is inevitable." The goblin shook his head in disgust. "It is the real reason magical schools require students to start so young. In fact, the obsession with secrecy led the magical world to do terrible things to the Muggle world almost from the beginning. In the first few decades after they passed that damn Statute, they would employ means of detecting the birth of Muggle-borns and then secret them away from their families from infancy, usually by swapping them with orphaned foundlings and then modifying their families' memories so they wouldn't know the difference, or simply by erasing their memories of their own child's very existence. This lasted until the abducted Muggleborns themselves discovered their own origins as they grew up, and as soon as they came into positions of power and authority themselves, put a permanent end to it."

Having never heard this before, Harry glanced at Hermione, but was startled to find her nodding in agreement, her expression uncomfortable.

"Your self-imposed isolation, however, has not made you immune to the effects of the Muggles' advancement," Grobschmied continued. "As the Muggles' technology developed, so did the quality of their lifestyle and their chances of survival into old age. This has caused the human population to grow exponentially, and proportionally, the number of half-bloods and Muggleborns, who, no longer stolen away from their families or forbidden from visiting them, enter the Wizarding World with all sorts of ideas and beliefs Muggles have developed in the past few centuries, but which are increasingly alien to the traditional Wizarding World precisely because they segregated themselves from everyone else. Wizards completely missed the developments taking place, sometimes right in front of them. In other words, the very artificial line between the magical and non-magical worlds is crumbling, and started to do so almost from the beginning."

There was a light scraping sound, and Harry looked at Hermione, to see that she had pushed her plate of food away, looking pale and distressed. Before Harry could ask if she was all right, however, Grobschmied continued talking.

"To answer your question about where movements like the Death Eaters came from," he said to Harry, "I believe that the continued advancement of the Muggle world, and the growing number and influence of Muggle-born wizards, has played a huge role specifically in the increase of pureblood supremacism, which not only is predicated upon the notion of the biological superiority of wizards and witches, but also seeks to preserve the traditional ways of wizards in a world where those ways increasingly have no place. The pattern is clear: the more Muggles advance, the more frequent, widespread and violent magical supremacist movements become, all across the world. This problem is not unique to Britain. We do not hear much of them, but there are similar supremacist movements all over the world, who undoubtedly will become emboldened if Voldemort succeeds here. As I said, the idea of Muggles on an equal footing with wizards completely shakes the ideological foundation of the Wizarding World itself. The Death Eaters, and others like them, aim to 'keep Muggles in their place', the way they generally were in the Middle Ages. They tell themselves that Muggles are inferior in an attempt to try to justify themselves, but I think the real reason behind their actions and their ideology is that they're afraid that Muggles, as a whole, might one day advance enough to discover the magical world on their own, perhaps even surpass wizards."

Ron was staring at him. "Do you think that's possible?"

Grobschmied frowned contemplatively. "I do not think that fear is entirely groundless. In fact, it's fair to say that Muggles may have already surpassed wizards. Whether or not they discover magic and the Wizarding World on their own is a different question, but I don't think it's impossible. Far from it, I think eventually it will happen, one way or another, and I would be very worried about their response when they do. The Muggle world has been on the receiving end of magical abuses ever since the Statute of Secrecy came into effect, not only because of the actions of Dark wizards, but because the same Statute requires even 'good' wizards to cover up these criminal or violent acts of magical exploitation by violating the mental integrity of the Muggle victims and erasing their memories. Muggle heads of state are permitted to know about magic, and from what I understand, are starting to lose patience with their magical counterparts, but their limited understanding of magic has led them to believe they can do nothing against wizards; the moment they realise that magic can be quantified, and therefore countered, they will no longer have any reason to put up with the Wizarding World and its corruption and abuses.

"That being said, I don't think they'll need to discover magic for themselves if things carry on as they do. The Death Eaters quite obviously do not show much regard for the Statute of Secrecy, which, in their mind, is a barrier to their goals. From what I can tell, their long-term plan is to overthrow the established magical order and install a regime of magical dominion over Muggles, stripping them of their technology and any edge it has given them, which perhaps is the true reason Voldemort has made this alliance with the necromancers, who are not part of the Wizarding World and are therefore not beholden to the Statute of Secrecy. He is gathering every weapon at his disposal to bring this about, and in getting them on his side, he has gained an advantage which, thanks to the International Confederation of Wizards and their idiotic obsession with secrecy and covering things up, no one knows how to counter anymore." He sighed. "So, we have a rapidly advancing Muggle world, who are more likely to discover magic themselves the more they advance, and are not likely to be very forgiving when they do. We have a dangerous and fanatical magical supremacist movement gaining power here in Britain, and similar movements all over the world who will undoubtedly gain followers and influence if the Death Eaters successfully take over in Britain. This in turn has enabled a resurgence of necromancy, a great evil that the human race has tried, and failed, to eradicate for thousands of years, and which is more likely to gain a foothold now because no one knows how to fight them anymore. All this because of a cowardly and ill-advised attempt at creating a magical utopia. The Statute of Secrecy was a fatal mistake. Unfortunately, it's been in effect for far too long to simply reverse."

An uneasy silence filled the room. Harry, now realising the true enormity of what lay before him, felt his heart begin pounding, making him feel light headed. Suddenly no longer feeling hungry, like Hermione he pushed his food away.

"The Muggles have a saying: 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' There is no evidence that the Statute of Secrecy saved anyone," Grobschmied concluded. "But it may have doomed everyone."

---

A/N:
There you have it. I've always thought that the entire Wizarding World setup, the Statute of Secrecy, is unsustainable in the long run, and I'm trying to bring that across in Penumbra.

This revised history of magic actually started out as a little world-building experiment I did several years ago, in which I was trying to take the idea of the Hogwarts Founders and make them sound more historical. Peace to J.K. Rowling, but frankly, what she presents in the Harry Potter canon sounds closer to Arthurian legend than to real medieval history. I don't know how much she has actually studied medieval history, but what she portrays seems more informed by modern popular understanding of the Middle Ages and not the actual Middle Ages, which are a very long, very complex time period that is difficult for modern culture to understand, and thus has been misrepresented and portrayed negatively and/or inaccurately throughout the past couple of centuries. In the past few years, I started to become aware of just how much; I studied European history for most of university, and more recently have taken an interest in Old English and in the Anglo-Saxon world; I have read historical documents and literature from the time period in the original language. That aside, something I also take issue with in Rowling is the idea that people really would share the same ideology and worldview as someone from a full thousand years earlier. Ideas, both religious and secular, change and evolve across time every bit as much as technology does, and as discussed extensively in this chapter, the medieval worldview was wildly different from the modern worldview; so for a long time I've found it rather unbelievable that the pureblood bigotry portrayed in Harry Potter would have originated with an early medieval teacher from the completely different period prior to the Norman Conquest. It seemed more likely to me that the pureblood stuff would have started later, probably significantly later, but would use, and reinterpret, the Slytherin legend to give more legitimacy to their ideas. After all, many modern ideologies, religious and secular, and all across the political spectrum, try to source their ideas in history, usually (and often deliberately) inaccurately. All of this put together informs what I have presented in this chapter.

I actually edited quite a bit out of the earlier version of this conversation, where I went into greater detail about Gryffindor's background, and instead focused on Slytherin. For brevity's sake, and the sake of pacing, I decided to move the details about Gryffindor to a future conversation that's going to take place in "Anzem Gauntlets", in a subplot where he becomes more important. Also, in case anyone asks, this is not an attempt to reverse things and make Gryffindor any kind of villain; I'm simply trying to make both Slytherin and Gryffindor feel like believable figures from the early 900s.

A lot of this revised history I came up with started with me exploring the etymological origins of the Hogwarts Founders' names. Godric and Rowena (originally "Hrowunn") are both Anglo-Saxon names, so I decided that Gryffindor was from Wessex and Ravenclaw was from Mercia; Helga is a north Germanic name, so I imagine her being of Scandinavian origin, perhaps from the Danelaw Viking settlements in Britain. Salazar is actually a surname (not a first name) of Basque origin, and also the name of a valley in the Basque parts of Spain, so I found a Basque first name to add and came up with Luken of Salazar. At this particular period of medieval history (late 800s, early 900s) surnames weren't really a thing in Western European cultures (developing over time to differentiate between different people in a community who share the same name). In Slytherin's case, I settled on Luken for his first name, Salazar as a descriptor for the part of Spain/Basque country he came from (which later would become his descendants' surname), and "Slidrende", meaning "sliding" or "slithering" as the Old English nickname that eventually turned to "Slytherin". Slytherin's background story was the one I devoted the most thought to.