Sixth step – Retrace
For the umpteenth time in nearly two years Harry had to promise his friends to explain later. None of the three students were happy about that, but there never was room to be found for a drawn-out discussion.
The battle with Voldemort and his army was rapidly getting closer and there were still too many preparations to make, so the three students hurried back to the castle not very long after Madame Pomfrey had whisked her gravely injured patient away. Professor Snape would most definitely not be able to join the upcoming battle, but honestly speaking Harry had rather that the man wasn’t anywhere near the battlefield at all. It wasn’t possible to send the potions master away right now, so the current situation was the next best thing—provided that the spy didn’t drag himself out of bed, ghost out of the infirmary and enter the war zone to fight on either side or even both at the same time.
Once past the threshold of the castle, Ron ran ahead and disappeared around the corner. Undoubtedly he would be picking up the supplies that he’d been in the process of preparing before the three friends had to go after Riddle. After that, Harry fully expected the red-head to seek out a high spot somewhere, in one of the taller towers maybe, to spend some time with observing the enemy’s movements. To that end, Ron was carrying the Marauders’ Map for the time being.
Hermione nodded once to Harry and then split off from him to head in a different direction. That too, was exactly as expected—the witch had plans to finalise, groups to assign DA members to and last-minute adjustments to make to all the hundred-and-one small things that still needed her attention.
The final member of the Golden Trio, however, had a battle partner to find and contingency plans to talk through with the part of the DA that would stay in the castle, which meant that he had no time to help the others with their own demanding tasks.
In addition to that, Harry had some more things on his plate that the others didn’t know about. Before he would tackle the parts that Ron and Hermione expected him to do, there was something that he needed to take care of first.
Hogwarts’ hidden ritual chamber looked as deserted as ever when Harry entered this time, though it now gave off a sense of being ‘active’ that it had previously lacked. The uses it had seen recently were the cause of this magical rejuvenation that went down to the very stones and their connections that the room was made of. Harry was planning to make full use of these fortunate circumstances, because he otherwise wouldn’t even have been able to contemplate what he was about to do, let alone act on it.
With Snape’s death, Harry had eventually received the knowledge of the older wizard’s life a few days after Harry’s other half had sent the master spy back to the living world. This meant that the original plan of Dumbledore’s to have Harry obtain certain parts of Snape’s memories had not been followed—not that it was necessary any longer.
The existence of the accidental eight horcrux of one Tom Riddle was now known to the one person that had the most to lose from mishandling its destruction and was now able to deal with it adequately. Thank Merlin for small mercies, as they say.
As soon as Harry had mulled over the new information, he’d been able to connect the knowledge of the horcrux in his scar to the odd spot of fluctuations in his own magic that had been nagging at his subconscious for a while. The pressure of all the things he’d had to do over the last year had repeatedly knocked his mind off the train of thought that dealt with examining the subject, eventually leading to him simply forgetting to pick it back up again, which was why he would never have been able to figure it out on his own under the circumstances.
The ritual he was about to perform was a relatively simple one—much easier to do than the ritual of unmaking, for example—but most definitely also among those that had been forgotten with the passage of time. It used to be a common precaution to take right before going into battle, or any other situation where it was known that there would be fighting in the near future.
Harry thought of it as one of the more sensible habits of those violent times that he was sad to see had been lost coming into the modern age. But on the other hand, there were plenty more things that he was glad had disappeared, so he supposed that one couldn’t have it all.
This time too Myrtle wasn’t around when Harry went about doing the ritual. She had volunteered to patrol around the castle during the coming battle and had immediately started making frequent rounds to practice and establish what the best route would be. The ghost girl would watch out for intruders, regularly check the strength of Hogwarts wards and barriers, act as messenger between the groups inside the castle and occasionally be the forerunner when severely injured needed a clear path to one of the emergency infirmaries that would be set up in the school.
Most of the ghosts had been convinced by her to participate in some sort of supporting role, but none had as many tasks as Myrtle. Harry secretly thought that they had agreed mostly to have something to do to stave off the boredom that ghosts are prone to.
Certain parties had reacted aghast at the thought of the dead being part of the rebellion, outraged at the mere suggestion that the living didn’t do enough that they even had to rely on ghosts to ‘fight their battles for them’. Most of the commanders of the various groups had already been pestered to reject the ghosts’ help, including Harry as the leader of the DA, but so far no-one had yet budged on the stance that all who wished to help were welcome.
The young wizard was a practical person at heart, and he wasn’t at all motivated to muster up the energy to make a fuss over problems solved in non-traditional but more practical ways. He had not spent any more words on the subject than he had to—just enough to tear into the short-sighted idiots and call them out on their stupidity. Hopefully nobody else would try to continue that avenue of thought.
Sometime in the middle of the ritual, a harmless presence joined him in the chamber. Its arrival was so silent that Harry was only able to tell by the gentle waves of magic that he had an audience from that point on.
Hedwig flew down from the edge she’d been perched on as soon as her human had finished not only the ritual, but also the after-ritual cleansing of the chamber. Her weight on Harry’s back was a comforting one, and the young wizard took care not to jostle her too much when he straightened with some items he’d already gathered in his hands.
The Stone hanging from the chain around his neck sent out a pulse of magic in gentle encouragement. Go on, it seemed to say, take the time to enjoy the company. Harry saw no problem in following that suggestion. Despite him having grown much bigger since getting her, Hedwig was still a big and heavy bird, which meant that Harry had a spot of difficulty in crouching and then getting up several more times to finish collecting what was left of the objects used in the ritual.
The Wand and Cloak kept silent, knowing that their input were not necessary, but Harry could still feel their agreement with his decision.
The hallways were filled with people running to and fro, busily preparing for the battle. Harry didn’t pass a single passage without seeing at least someone running past. In comparison to most others his speed never exceeded that of a brisk walk. The seventh-year student saw no use in expending his energy to get somewhere only marginally faster.
Harry didn’t manage to find Neville, but he saw a flash of blonde hair disappear from around a corner somewhere near the closest infirmary. Luna, his mind supplied.
“Hello, Harry,” was the dirty-blonde witch’s greeting once he’d caught up with her. “I’m sorry that you will be stuck with cleaning up for some time to come.”
In some ways, Harry reflected, Luna was the most aware from all of the people in his life. This sentence alone hinted plenty at the things she knew—if one knew how to interpret her words.
“Yeah, I won’t be done anytime soon, that’s for sure,” he replied. “How are you doing?”
“As usual. The Wrackspurts are making everyone here very nervous, but my new charm has been keeping them away. It seems to be more effective than my old one.” And here, she held up another curious trinket with a happy smile.
Harry thought the bracelet might have been made of tiny multi-coloured feathers, shiny pebbles, a few cracked gobstones splattered with paint, translucent coloured disks that looked suspiciously like the lenses of Spectrespecs, with a pair of the familiar orange radishes (Dirigible plums, Harry now knew them to be) accompanying the little figure of a hare that was dangling from a cord, and decorated with what appeared to be a single miniature version of the silver star earrings that Harry remembered her wearing to the previous year’s Slughorn’s Slug Club Christmas party.
“You really went all out, didn’t you?” the wizard commented in an amused murmur. It was very telling that this new creation combined nearly all the essentials of the various unique contraptions he’d seen her use in the years that they knew each other.
“Don’t you know, Harry? I’m always doing my best,” Luna answered in her characteristic dreamy tone, very serious and very sneaky at the same time. She cooed at Hedwig next, greeting the white bird with good cheer and a handful of treats that didn’t seem to be the regular owl treats.
“I always carry some,” she said at his questioning look. “One never knows when all-purpose treats may come in handy.” Harry thought that might explain why certain parties hadn’t tried to set creatures on her again since the one time they’d tried it.
“Is there anything you need?” Harry asked her. “I have a bit of time to help out, if you want.”
“No, Harry,” she shook her head. “I don’t need anything right now, but you must watch your feet.”
“Watch my feet, huh?” A small pause. “I will.”
“Promise me, please,” the witch insisted. “You always keep your promises. I will rest easier knowing that you will definitely do it.”
“Sure, Luna. If it is so important to you, I gladly make you that promise.”
“Thank you.” And then: “Daddy has been asking after you,” she suddenly said, as if the last part hadn’t happened—it almost made Harry believe that the past minutes had been erased from the world’s collective memory. “He had such a good time when you visited and he wants to know if you can stop by again if possible.”
Harry thought of the eccentric but cheerful and passionate Xenophilius Lovegood that he had seen bustling around the Lovegood home on that Christmas day visit. In some sense, the young wizard already felt quite entangled with the older one in ways that he didn’t have the words to describe. Despite the strange things the elder Lovegood said and thought and did, he was as caring as Mrs. Weasley and as open-minded as Dumbledore and yet nothing like either of them.
“Yes,” he answered then. “I’d love to visit again. I wonder if he can show me some more of his souvenirs.”
“I’m sure he will,” Luna said happily. “He doesn’t often get the chance to show them off; captive audiences are hard to get a hold of after all.”
And didn’t that say a lot about the general attitude of people towards those that they consider to be not like them?
Both chatted some more, but not for long. There’s much to do and neither of them had too much time to spare while they were needed elsewhere. In short order, both students said goodbye to each other and went their respective ways.
Harry wondered anew if Luna sometimes Saw things. The way that her attention on occasion drifted off to somewhere else was very telling, even if not conclusive. If she was one variety of Seer or another, she likely didn’t have a Coven to support her.
A Seer without connection to an organisation of likeminded individuals, especially one who was unaware of their gift or not believed by others when they expressed what they Saw, was most commonly referred to as a Mad Prophet. The name was often a literal truth, for the visions and knowledge that came with their power put great stress on their minds that could lead to insanity if the individual did not get proper support. The Seer Cassandra was the most famous example of what could happen to someone’s sanity if the knowledge of what they Saw was continually dismissed.
Harry did not know how to ask Luna. How should one bring up the possibility of being a Mad Prophet in polite conversation? If there was a way to do it, it was one he did not know—and so yet another opportunity slipped through his fingers like the finest Time Sand locked within Time Turners.
Disheartened, Harry began trekking through Hogwarts’ halls again. He still had a battle partner to find, after all. Hedwig held herself quietly still on his shoulder, seemingly not wanting to disturb her human’s brooding. Her presence helped Harry cope with the sudden frustration burning inside, in a way reminiscent of his horrible summer after his fifth year, when he raged and burned and was depressed by turns.
Still, even a bout of dark thoughts couldn’t last forever, though it certainly attempted to.
After having visited—and searched—the kitchens, the Great Hall, various offices both in use and unused, some of Myrtle’s favourite spots, around half of the extra infirmaries, the aurors’ meeting room, the Order’s meeting room, two of other rebellion organisations’ meeting rooms, various courtyards as well as a couple of the watch posts on top of the castle walls, Harry decided to go to the DA’s headquarters—a number of formerly abandoned rooms spanning a full hallway in an out-of-the-way part of the castle.
In his frustration and emotional turmoil he’d forgotten that Neville would definitely be busy at the DA, seeing as the latter was one of the substitute leaders. It was in the main training room that Harry found his wingwizard-to-be, busily conversing with fellow deputy leader Ginny about battle strategies and the defensive measures for Hogwarts for during the battle and in case they lost the battle partially or fully.
Harry didn’t want to disturb them, and busied himself with giving his attention to Hedwig while he waited.
Somehow, Harry mused good-naturedly, together the three stand-in DA leaders had all the same qualities of leadership that the Golden Trio also possessed, though not in the same way divided amongst them.
Ginny had all the charm—here, Harry shuddered in revulsion at the unpleasant truth—and drive of Harry’s but not quite the watchfulness (paranoia) or improvisation skills. While she occupied the leader’s position by unspoken agreement, just like her counterpart of the Golden Trio, she was less of a puller and more of a pusher when it came to exercising her leadership. Part of that was her age and image of the poor youngest sister of seven, with a smothering head-strong mother and a dotty muggle-obsessed father, but her strong personality was an even bigger factor in slotting her into that role. She had Hermione’s forcefulness, similar skill as Harry at offensive spell casting and shared her immediate older brother’s fiery temper—which combined to create a much more explosive character than the wizard had ever before encountered.
Luna held part of Hermione’s task as the resident information collector, but was not nearly as over-specialised in all aspects of it as her Golden Trio counterpart. The blonde girl had the strongest intuition of the three, an aspect she shared with Harry, but also a keen insight in the inner workings of people that likened her more to Ron. Her orientation of places was very much lacking though, as she simply did not pay enough attention to her surroundings. It didn’t need to be said that her strangeness was very off-putting to most people, and likely because of that she had never developed much skill for the social niceties essential for dealing with new or unknown people. Luna worked best in the background—unnoticed or disregarded, but very much present and underestimated. She, most of the three, was masterful at distraction and sowing confusion amongst people.
Neville, while roughly a year older than both witches, fit in perfectly with them. He was the calm that Ginny lacked and the alertness that Luna chose not to employ for most things in her life. The peace-loving teenager was all of Ron’s strategic skill employed by a completely different personality, possessing similar focus as Harry. With Hermione he shared—an admittedly much milder—thirst for knowledge and therefore all parts of information gathering that Luna didn’t take care of were his. As the heir to the Longbottom name Neville had knowledge of a different sort drummed into him since childhood and it came with a sort of awareness of the British magical society that all the muggle-raised and non-elite lacked. He was the public speaker of this particular trio, the point of contact for all other parties.
It took a bit of time before Neville and Ginny were done, and all the while Harry ruthlessly crushed the feelings of frustration and irritation that kept bubbling up within him. Hedwig’s presence helped to both soothe and distract him, even if only by constantly demanding attention whenever her human’s attention drifted inwards for too long. Whenever others noticed his presence, Harry would wave them off, sending them back to their tasks—effectively creating a bubble of isolation around himself for the time being.
“Harry, did you need me for something?”
The raven-haired young wizard turned to Neville, who’d come to stand beside him. Ginny gave a cheery wave when she passed her once-crush on her way to the next things to do, taking all others with her. In no time at all, the room was deserted except for the two male teens and a snowy owl.
“Let’s go somewhere else—I don’t think we’ll get this place all to ourselves for too long,” Harry sighed with a gesture towards the door. Neville nodded in understanding and followed without complaint.
The DA had at this point a full hallway and all adjacent rooms available for their use, for—like all the various groups housed in Hogwarts currently—they had seen their territory grow over the course of the year. Where they had started out with just a single abandoned classroom in a moderately out-of-the-way location—and before that they’d been using whatever abandoned room they could find—it had slowly yet steadily seen more space acquired for their full-time use as their growing numbers increased the need for more rooms to train. All in all, the DA had now two big meeting rooms, three smaller meeting rooms, five full-time practice rooms, a common room, five rooms for both lessons and practice, four rooms with unspecified designations that could be changed to suit any of the previous activities already named (though it took a little work to make it so), six storage rooms, a small infirmary to deal with the non-emergencies that the main infirmary didn’t need to be burdened by, one record room where inventories, lists and contracts were kept, a communications room that had a working floo in addition to good window access for owls and a dozen or so changing rooms that included warded lockers that a couple of bright muggle-borns with forethought had installed.
Harry led Neville to the nearest unoccupied storage room and locked the warded the door behind them. The behaviour was not at all odd for him—or any other senior DA member for that matter—so the only reaction Neville had was to silently double-check the functionality of Harry’s spells. Only when both teen wizards could be sure that their conversation would be private did they turn to each other.
“Nev,” Harry started off immediately. “When we are out there looking for Riddle, I need you to keep a few things in mind.”
“Strategy?” Neville asked in full seriousness, matching the other’s tone of voice.
“Yes,” Harry confirmed, turning to the nearest bare wall and covering it with a chalkboard transfigured from a piece of scrap parchment. The levitating chalk began to sketch out a map of Hogwarts’ grounds.
Starting off with the broadest aspect, the DA’s main leader continued: “I ordinarily expect Riddle to enter the battle a little before he estimates the battle to have reached to midway point. This means that he’ll stay in the back while we make our way across. He’ll come out early in any of the following scenarios: his forces are badly losing, our formations are about to collapse or an opportunity to kill either the Headmaster or me.”
“Are we going to lure him out?” Neville asked after having taken a moment to think.
“I plan to, but we need to time it right. If he gets to us too early, we’ll end up fighting while our allies are all around us, offering him opportunities to damage our forces or morale. On the other hand, if we wait too long there might be a lot of his followers nearby and chances are someone will be tempted to interfere, orders be damned.”
“So we need to aim for some spot right between the armies to meet the scaly bastard, preferably out of the way of the main fight to minimise the presence of other people, and try to keep ourselves healthy the whole way,” Neville summarised easily.
Harry nodded, both impressed and unsurprised at his friend’s quick gasp of the simple explanation he had been given.
“Are we going to sneak or will we attack openly?” was the Longbottom heir’s next question.
“A bit of both. I want to push forward openly when possible, but we’ll also use my invisibility cloak to avoid the larger fights so that we’ll not get tangled up with the unnecessary time-consuming stuff.”
Here, Harry fell silent for a moment.
“I have gathered spells,” he continued softly, “that should protect us from attracting too much attention and the occasional stray curse—but they are in no way fool-proof, so we’ll need to be really careful no matter what.”
Neville stayed silent too, his gaze wandering around the room almost skittishly before he squared his shoulders and moved his brown eyes to look directly into Harry’s too-green gaze. “There is more, isn’t it?” the formerly shy young man half-stated with the kind of understanding that was normally only seen in adults of at least thrice his age.
Harry didn’t even attempt to deflect the almost-question. “Yes, I can’t tell you why I’m certain, but if he gets me— if I get hit—”
“You’ll live,” the budding magical plant specialist finished wryly, “again.”
“Yeah.”
Harry gripped the closest of Neville’s wrists in both hands and looked at his friend when he said: “Please, Nev. Please, please, be careful when we run and when we fight. Do you know that you were the other option for the prophesised ‘saviour’? When it comes to war and survival that means nothing. Don’t risk yourself overly in the coming battle. Focus on getting through alive before everything.”
“Harry—”
“No,” the other wizard interrupted, “don’t take this lightly. This is about life and death, of not just you but many others who’ll be out there fighting in less than a day. I want to be absolutely sure that you will keep your wits about you regardless of anything that could be happening. You will be following me out into a war, onto a battle field, and I’ll not have you get killed because of a lack of attention. So, be sure that you take up this challenge with the gravest seriousness that you have to offer—swear an oath if you have to—but I will not let you set even one foot across Hogwarts’ threshold unless I can be absolutely sure that you enter this fight with the right mindset—the one that’ll make it possible for you to survive this.”
To his credit, Neville took it all in with nothing but a thoughtful frown.
Harry waited while he petted Hedwig some more. The whispers in his ears, always present, attempted to soothe his ragged temper even as they warned, reassured and gently chided in response to all his thoughts. The cloak in particular was vocal in its urging to be careful be carefulbe careful—in word, in deed, in everything he had or hadn’t said in this very conversation.
At last, the blond turned back to his conversational partner. “I understand,” he said simply, with its undertone conveying that the use of more words would be inadequate to describe neither the conclusions he’d come to nor the insights he’d obtained. Without giving the other wizard a chance to comment, he went on:
“I promise that I will treat this battle seriously, from beginning to end, no matter what. I promise that I will be watchful, that I will take care to minimize the chances that we’ll be taken by surprise. I promise that I will aim for survival first, strategy second, loyalty third and honour last, that I will not cling to Gryffindor ideals in the midst of battle—”
“I swear,” Neville ground out with visible reluctance, “that once we step outside I will leave behind all my thoughts of revenge—of vengeance—and all my distractions and insecurities at Hogwarts’ threshold. For as long as this battle rages, I have no need of them. So mote it be.”
Despite suggesting it in the first place, Harry honestly hadn’t expected Neville to actually make an oath. The form of the words used was not quite correct—thus not lending much magical enforcement to it—but it was an oath nonetheless. Not nearly as strict as a vow, unbreakable or not, and not quite a proper oath either, but just strong enough magically that making one was a serious enough matter. It might’ve been partially an in-the-heat-of-the-moment decision, but it was hard to tell for sure and the knowledge wouldn’t be of any help right now anyhow. All Harry could do was accept it and move on.
So when Neville moved to look Harry directly in the eye, with a look as if expecting questions or admonishments, the raven-haired teen just gave a small sigh and a statement. “I trust that you understand the consequences, Nev.”
Harry squared his shoulders. “One last thing.”
He brought his wand up to cast the counter to the protections he’d semi-permanently placed on the bag hanging from his hip. It was an unremarkable brown leather bag which sported a number of strings whose ends were sown into the side so that they could be used as handles. The bag itself was held closed by its own pulled string and Harry easily untied its knot with the hand not holding his wand.
“You know Voldemort’s snake, Neville? He’s got a huge snake—calls it Nagini.”
“I’ve heard, yeah… What about it?”
“It’s got to be killed. Ron and Hermione know that, but it’s more likely that we will meet it out there at Riddle’s side. If we do, we need to kill it first before everything else. I plan to deal with it, but if you get the chance—”
“Kill the snake?”
“Kill the snake,” Harry repeated with a firm nod.
“All right, Harry.”
“Here, you might need this.” The young hero handed his friend and classmate what appeared to be a wad of cloth. At his friend’s incredulous look he added: “Believe me—if you are to kill the snake, you need it. I have no doubt that this will prove helpful.”
Though Neville wore a frown of incomprehension he still reached out to accept what Harry held.
“Okay… I’ll keep that in mind.”