CHAPTER ELEVEN

HARRY

Again, the icy contents of the Pensieve swirled around them and when Harry opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a shadowy corner, flanked by Ron and Hermione. A few feet away, the man called Godric Gryffindor was asleep. He had aged immeasurably in the span of a few short months - his hair streaked with silver and his once-handsome face creased with worry.

The bed chamber was utterly silent. Harry moved soundlessly to the window and peered over the grounds - still and serene, bathed in moonlight. And yet, Harry had a terrible sense of foreboding. He glanced back at Ron and Hermione, then stole another glimpse of the castle grounds. In the split second he had looked away, menacing storm clouds had gathered the horizon, obscuring the moon, and as he listened, he thought he could make out the distant rumbling of thunder.

A hair-raising shriek echoed down the corridors; Harry sprang back from the window just as Gryffindor vaulted out of the bed. Once on his feet, he moved with the agility of a much younger man; Harry, Ron, and Hermione sprinted after him as he ran from the room.

“Where is he?!” Gryffindor bellowed at a huddled mass of students.

“Sir – the Entrance Hall – sir -” a girl stammered, pointing down the corridor towards the sweeping stairwell. Without a word of thanks, Gryffindor barreled onward.

He stopped abruptly at the top of the stairwell, and Harry skidded to a halt to avoid hitting him.

“SALAZAR! Why have you come here?!”

Salazar Slytherin stood at the foot of the staircase, wand aloft, encircled by a ring of green flames. When Slytherin spoke, his voice was eerily calm, “You should have known I would return when you so foolishly wrested me from my school!” He jabbed his wand at the domed ceiling and the chandelier plummeted to the ground with an earsplitting crash.

“You so readily destroy that which your own hands have wrought?” Gryffindor asked, brandishing his wand. Flames danced in the wreckage of the chandelier.

“The foundations of the Hogwarts I helped to build have already corroded away!” Slytherin aimed his wand at a fluttering Hogwarts banner, which caught fire immediately.

“Do not make me --” Gryffindor snarled, as the blaze spread through the rafters like wildfire.  

“Do what you must!” Slytherin directed a curse at the wooden beam above Gryffindor’s head. “Know only that if you oust me, Hogwarts will never be secure for those who dwell within its walls!”

“The talk of a madman!” Gryffindor cussed under his breath. Rowena Ravenclaw materialized at his shoulder just as Helga Hufflepuff emerged from the dungeons below, hands clamped over her mouth in horror.

“Do you know what lies within the bowels of the school, even as we speak?” Slytherin taunted.

A shower of sparks emitted from the end of Rowena Ravenclaw’s wand; Slytherin cursed her. Harry, Ron, and Hermione ducked automatically as a torrent of spells ricocheted off the walls around them.  

“The Chamber of Secrets!” Slytherin screeched insanely, returning fire. “One day, Gryffindor, my – own – true – heir,” he said the words with great effort, dodging a volley of spells as he spoke, “- will come and unleash a scourge upon the school, the likes of which--”

Harry heard a rushing sound and Slytherin crumpled to the ground; Harry had not even heard Gryffindor utter the fateful words.

“Godric – no!” Rowena Ravenclaw leaned over the banister, her eyes wide and horrified.

As Harry goggled down at Slytherin’s lifeless body, he felt a bony hand clench his shoulder. To his horror, he felt himself being towed upwards; Ron, Hermione, and the scene of chaos below were disappearing in the swirling currents. Harry thrashed about, desperate to free himself, but moments later he emerged from the Pensieve, head spinning and ears ringing –

* * * * *

“Dobby!” he gasped, steadying himself against the table; his brain was still reeling from his rapid ascent from the depths of the Pensieve.

“Dobby must speak to Harry Potter!”

“Dobby – why – on – earth – would you do that?!” Harry demanded, struggling to regain his breath.

“Dobby hopes Harry Potter is not angry with Dobby,” the house-elf said timidly. “Dobby had to come - Harry Potter has a visitor, sir!”

“Yeah,” Harry muttered darkly, drawing deep measured breaths. “I thought I had a visitor just now…in the Pensieve…”

“Dobby is sorry, sir. Dobby had to speak to Harry Potter and here he finds the great Harry Potter with his head in a basin!” Dobby buried his face in his hands, as though reliving the worst moment of his life. “Dobby feared for Harry Potter’s life, sir!”

Ron and Hermione emerged from the Pensieve; Hermione melted in relief at the sight of him.

“Harry! We thought – we were afraid – but, never mind –” Hermione stammered, clutching the neck of Harry’s robes compulsively.

“Stop overreacting, Hermione – he’s fine,” Ron said, his ears flushing pink in embarrassment as he pried Hermione away from Harry.

“You were worried too, Ron!”

“Yeah…” Ron looked down hastily and his eyes fell upon Dobby. “What’s Dobby doing here?”

“Miss Granger, Wheezy!” Dobby bobbed up and down excitedly.

Hermione gave no reply, she had clearly noticed Dobby’s wobbling tower of white woolly hats and Harry thought it wise for the two of them to depart as quickly as possible. “Shall we be going, Dobby?”

“Yes, sir, yes!”

“Do you know who it is, Dobby?” Harry asked, as they set off together down the seventh floor corridor. Dobby had to jog to keep up with Harry’s broad stride.

“Dobby knows not, sir!” Dobby squeaked. “He was most polite, sir, when he asks Dobby to fetch Harry Potter, sir. And Dobby does it gladly, yes.” The house-elf bowed so low that the tip of his nose brushed the ground. “But Dobby heard tell, sir, that Harry Potter employed the services of another house-elf…” he murmured timorously.

“If you’re talking about that nutter Kreacher…you have nothing to worry about, Dobby.” Harry said grimly. “I’d prefer you over Kreacher any day.”

Dobby beamed from ear to ear. “Thank you, Harry Potter, sir!”  

They traipsed down the stairwell into the Entrance Hall, Harry had vivid recollections of the scene he’d left behind in the Pensieve. Harry’s eyes swept the domed ceiling and sweeping staircase for traces of the long-ago battle.

“Hello, Harry.”

Harry had been so distracted that he had not noticed Remus Lupin, standing beside the massive oaken front doors. He looked shabbier and thinner than Harry had ever seen him, but he managed to smile at Harry nonetheless.

“Professor – “ Harry was quite taken aback. After Lupin’s relative absence for the past year-and-a-half, he would hardly have expected to see him here...He didn’t think he would have been more surprised had he seen Voldemort or Severus Snape standing there before him.

“I hope you’re well, Harry?”

“Yes,” Harry replied absently, his mind scrambling for some explanation for Lupin’s unexpected visit.

Lupin seemed to read Harry’s mind. “Don’t worry, Harry. Nothing has gone wrong…or, worse, I should say,” he grimaced. “Hestia Jones was murdered a fortnight ago - perhaps you remember her from the Advance Guard? – but in the scope of the war, that is old news by now…”

Harry stood awkwardly on the bottom step. If nothing was “wrong,” why had Lupin come?

Again, Lupin seemed able to decipher the questions circling in Harry’s mind. “I am here to continue where your Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape left off, Harry.”

Lupin raised a hand to beg silence from Harry, whose mouth had wrenched open in fury at the sound of Snape’s name.

“I know you did not have an easy time with Occlumency, Harry, but Dumbledore felt that it was of utmost importance for you to learn to control your emotions. Before he died, he approached me to see if I would be willing to aide you in your studies.”

“Are you a Legilimens too, then?” Harry asked, uneasy at the thought that Lupin could have been freely accessing Harry’s mind since his third year.

“Indeed I am,” Lupin replied, smiling slightly. “It comes in handy for any spy, or warrior, or werewolf, as it may be.”

“When do we begin?” Harry asked, feeling rather apprehensive about the whole affair.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” Lupin said meagerly. “I was just passing through.”

“Oh, right.” Harry scuffed the toe of his shoe on the flagstone step.

“However, I shall return a week from Saturday – October the twenty-fifth. Good night to you, Harry.” Lupin tipped his ragged wizard’s hat to Harry and stepped out the door into the chilly night.

* * * * *

HERMIONE

“So he said things were quiet?” Ron asked incredulously. “There’s a war going on!”

“You should be grateful, Ron,” Hermione replied reproachfully. Then she realized that a period of inactivity in the midst of open warfare might not be such a good sign – what if the other side was plotting something?

Ron pressed on, “So nothing? No news whatsoever?”

“He said something about Hestia Jones – died about a fortnight ago,” Harry said tonelessly.

“I remember her, always in and out of Grimmauld Place with the rest of the Order, wasn’t she?” Ron propped his chin on his folded arms, looking wearied rather than shaken by this news.

Hermione cringed at this blatant lack of emotion. War had hardened them all, she observed sadly. Two years ago, any death would have been a massive blow… but since Voldemort and the Death Eaters had come into the open, death and destruction were routine subjects of conversation – no more unusual than talking about the weather or Quidditch, or so it seemed. A week without a significant death was an anomaly; now more than two weeks had passed with no reports of casualties. For some reason, this worried Hermione more than anything. She wanted to ask Harry and Ron if they felt an offensive by the Dark Side was likely, but she couldn’t bring Harry to look any more anxious than he already did. Crookshanks hopped onto her lap and Hermione scratched him gently behind the ears, grateful for the distraction he provided.

The sun was coming up behind the Forbidden Forest and the tops of the trees glowed in the morning rays as though they were on fire. The sky was slowly changing from gray to palest blue.

Ron yawned and stretched. “That’s it, I’m turning in for the day.”

“Ron! You mustn’t, we’ve got classes—”

“You go, then, Hermione. I might as well be in bed and not in class these days anyway,” Ron grumbled, “don’t understand a thing they’re talking about…not that I don’t have other things on my mind…”

“You do well to pay attention to some of the defensive spells they’re teaching us,” Hermione sniffed.

“I still think Harry was a better teacher,” he replied, winking at Harry.

Ron muttered something under his breath, and with a flick of his wand, an opaque Krup-like Patronus bounded from the wand’s tip and promptly chased Crookshanks from the room before vanishing into thin air.

“Now as I was saying,” Ron said, as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired, “I’m going to bed.”

“Come to think of it, I could use a bit of sleep myself,” Harry said, rubbing his tired eyes.

“Harry – you don’t think they could be plotting anything, do you?” Hermione asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“Yeah,” Harry said gravely. “I do.”  

“But, Harry–”

“There’s nothing I can do, Hermione,” he said, his voice tainted with agitation. “My part comes later, remember?”

Hermione was startled to tears. “Harry! I didn’t mean–”

“Sorry,” he said roughly. Then he kneeled down in front her. “Hermione, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just – it’s hard, Hermione.”

“I know, Harry. I’m sorry too…Sometimes I just wish I could tell--” she added absentmindedly.

“Could tell what?”

Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth. “Nothing…” Harry looked at her suspiciously. Hermione sprang to her feet and strode towards the portrait hole, turning her back on Harry to hide her unease. “Sleep well, Harry.”

* * * * *

Hermione chided herself as walked to Charms class. She had come remarkably close to letting something slip. In the future, she knew she would have to keep a closer check on her emotions. Yet the prospect of Harry learning Occlumency was enticing; maybe I’ll be able to tell him.

“Late, Miss Granger!” Flitwick squeaked, shooing Hermione into the classroom.

The floor was strewn with singed feathers, a testament to the first years’ most recent encounter with the Levitation Charm. Flitwick wended his way through the classroom and hopped atop a teetering pile of books which served as a makeshift pedestal for him to stand upon. Even so, Flitwick was dwarfed by the massive mahogany desk and was only visible from the chin up.

“Class! Settle down, class!”

His words had no obvious effect on the chattering group of seventh years. Hermione, still lost in her own thoughts, heard only snippets of the conversations going on around her. From the garbled remarks, Hermione could tell that she, Harry, and Ron were not the only ones agonizing over the apparent break from the fighting.

“—you don’t suppose something’s happened to You-Know-Who, do you?”

“—Nah. We’d know, wouldn’t we? The Daily Prophet --”

“—It’s too quiet if you ask me! Makes me nervous!” Neville mumbled, shooting an uneasy glance at the windows as though he expected a squadron of Death Eaters to materialize on the grounds outside.

“Your attention please! We have a very important lesson today!” Flitwick stamped his little foot impatiently and the stack of books wobbled beneath him.

The level of conversation in the classroom fell to a low hum.

“Textbooks out, page 290. Snip, snip!”

Hermione grappled absently inside her bag for her copy of Standard Book of Spells Grade Seven but could not be bothered to open it. She drummed her fingers on the dog-eared, Spellotaped cover as Flitwick continued with his lecture.

“—Now the Protean Charm is a most handy spell, causing an item to change form. I doubt any of you have encountered it in your six years of Magical education—”

Across the aisle, Neville pulled his D.A. coin out of his pocket and quickly examined the dates. He returned it to his pocket with a sigh. Two rows back, Ernie Macmillan cast a furtive glance in Hermione’s direction, clearly remembering her same accomplishment made two years earlier.

 

“It is very advanced magic and, as such, I hardly expect any of you to pull it off on your first attempt. In all my years of teaching, only a few of my finest pupils have mastered it—”

Hermione felt vaguely pleased with herself, but her thoughts were still on Harry.

“It can be a rather tricky enchantment. The incantation itself can be rather temperamental…” 

What will Harry say when he finds out?

“I’ve been saving this for your NEWT level. It’s a bit above and beyond the average skill level for Charms--”

…after Dumbledore promised to tell him everything two years ago…

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Flitwick demonstrating the correct wand movement. The class mimicked him and chanted the incantation as one.

“Now pair up! Practice, practice!” Flitwick chirped.

Seamus Finnigan flicked his wand upwards with great enthusiasm and accidentally set the brim of Dean Thomas’ hat on fire.

What will happen if Harry never masters Occlumency…?

“Miss Granger?” Flitwick rapped his wand on her desk, staring pointedly up at her. “The rest of the class is practicing Protean Charms. Perhaps you would care to join them?”

Hermione bowed her head in embarrassment and hurried across the room to partner Ernie Macmillan, who spent the next hour waving his wand and pronouncing the incantation with theatrical flair. By the end of the period, Ernie had made no progress whatsoever with the Protean Charm, although Hermione had made several stabs at taming his overly-showy wand movements. 

As Hermione left the Charms classroom, she spied a wiry black woman standing outside the door. As Dean Thomas passed, she leapt forward and caught him by the scruff of the neck.

“Ma!” Dean cried in surprise, struggling in vein to free himself from her iron grasp.

“I am taking you home this minute! I’ve let you stay at this crackpot school too long!”

“Ma! Nothing’s happened!”

 

She screeched madly, “Nothing’s happened?! I am sick and tired of worrying about you here – war going on, students dying, headmaster killed!”

“Only one student died and that was two years ago, Ma!”

“I don’t care if it was two years ago or two hundred! Never should have let you come here in the first place! What was I thinking, I ask you? Too many children in the house and paying homage to some promise I made to that rotten, good-for-nothing father of yours--”

“You don’t know anything about my father!” Dean roared, reeling backward as his shocked mother released him.

“How can you defend him?! Your father left us when you were but a baby, Dean! What he expected us to do without him--”

“Never bothered to find out why he left though, did you? Here I was, always thinking my father skived off on us!”

“He did skive off on us, Dean! If it wasn’t for your stepfather, I don’t know what we would have done!”

“You don’t know the half of it, Ma.” Dean strode off in the opposite direction, but his mother swung out an arm and caught him around the middle. Students lined the corridor, looking on with interest and ill-disguised delight at the battle brewing before their eyes.

“I am not going home without you, Dean!”

“Stay here, then! See if I care! Maybe you’ll find out what really happened to my father!”

“Dean Rigel Thomas – I will not have you mouthing off --”

Dean barreled on as though he had not heard her. “He died to save us, Ma! He died so THEY wouldn’t come after us!” Dean turned on his heel and stormed away, swiping aside the tapestry that hid the secret passage between the second and third floors. His mother stood, stunned into silence, as the sea of students began to move once again. Slowly, Hermione came to her senses. Six years… She had known Dean Thomas for six years as a classmate, as a Quidditch player, as Ginny’s boyfriend… She had never known, nor bothered to find out…

By the time she reached the Gryffindor Common Room, Dean was sitting in front of the fire, still fuming, surrounded by a gaggle of fawning girls.

Feedback and constructive criticism are always appreciated...you can post feedback in my guestbook.