The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Part II - Chapter Nineteen
That morning had started like many another for Albus Dumbledore. Being an old man, he slept but little these days, and he had risen with the dawn feeling quite well and rested. He had reviewed the teachers' preliminary comments on the students’ grades for the fall session and had dealt quite firmly with the Creevey brothers' latest prank. Inspired by the Weasley twins' mischievous last year, the brothers had made it their business to create mischief whenever life at Hogwarts got too dull. Most of their pranks were quite harmless and gave Dumbledore occasion for a good chuckle or two. This was the first and only time the brothers had been brought to the Headmaster's office for discipline. Professor McGonagall was looking positively furious while Professor Snape looked simply irritated. The two Slytherin boys with him were quite unrecognizable. Dumbledore noted that some combination of the bat bogey hex and the furnunculous jinx had left them looking like the kind of monsters that Muggles liked to include in their really bad movies. He sighed weightily and looked with sincere disappointment at the brothers.
The younger one, Dennis, was scarlet in the face, while his brother Colin was milk white. "Well?" Dumbledore asked.
Colin gave the two Slytherins a look of cold fury, of the kind that Dumbledore would not have expected from a boy of his normally cheery nature. "They deserved it," he said. "I don't care if you expel me. They deserved every bit of it."
Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Dumbledore waited for an explanation. He looked at the Slytherins, but they seemed incapable of speech. Dennis Creevey was not, though, and he blurted out angrily, "They say that You Know Who is coming back. They say that Harry Potter is really dead and nothing can stop him now. They say that even if Harry isn't dead, You Know Who will make short work of him this time. They say that You Know Who will take care of you, too, Professor Dumbledore, sir. Tonight, they say."
"They’re terrible liars," Colin added. "So we hexed them good, sir."
Dumbledore looked at Snape and saw that despite his cool demeanor the Potions Master was actually rather unnerved. And Professor McGonagall looked almost afraid, which, no doubt, would make her angrier than ever.
"I am quite sure that Lord Voldemort is dead," Dumbledore said calmly. "And I am quite sure that Harry is alive, since I spoke with him myself not very long ago." He paused to let his next words sink in. "I am also sure that you are both aware that hexing someone merely because his words annoy you is not acceptable conduct. No matter the provocation, we expect wizards to use their gifts wisely." He continued, "Professor McGonagall will assign your detention later. In the meantime, your first punishment will be to escort these two gentlemen to the hospital wing without inflicting any other harm on them."
The two boys glanced at each other and each took one of the victims by the arm and steered him toward the door. Dumbledore had no trouble keeping his momentary inclination toward laughter in check even when he noticed Dennis' surreptitious signal of victory as they left.
Snape did not protest the mildness of the punishment. Rather, he wasted no time in saying, "They know more than they should even though their fathers are Death Eaters. Have you had any further intelligence?"
"They said tonight!" McGonagall cut in.
Dumbledore, however, wasted no time either. "I have heard nothing more," he said. He waited for Snape to comment further as he was sure the Potions master had some bit of information he had not yet aired. It was a suspicion only, inferred from an attitude of wariness that manifested itself only when Snape thought he was unobserved.
"There is one thing," Snape said slowly. "I had a letter recently from Draco Malfoy."
"And you didn’t tell us!" McGonagall cut in again.
Snape considered his former Professor as though he had only just seen her for the first time. "It told me only what we already knew: that they intend to bring the Dark Lord back and by the means we have suspected. Apparently," he added, "Pansy Parkinson slipped away and contacted Draco. He sent her back to prevent Lucius from knowing."
"But you have had no word on the timing, Severus?"
"No," Snape responded, "none." He paled slightly and his black eyes glittered with what might be fear. "If it is tonight..."
"Then we are as prepared as we may be," Dumbledore answered.
"You will not tell Potter," Snape said. It was not a question.
"Unfortunately, no," Dumbledore agreed. "We could desperately use his talent in this fight, but he will be the most vulnerable person there if they succeed in their efforts; more vulnerable, perhaps than he ever was before when Voldemort was alive."
"Are you sure," Snape started to say, and then hesitated, which was rare for the usually self-certain professor. Again Dumbledore waited and Snape continued, "are you sure you do not shelter Potter unnecessarily, out of affection?"
Dumbledore sighed and considered the question. It was one he had asked himself already, as he had been guilty of the same before. He closed his eyes and put aside the image of the boy and all the suffering he had already endured. He thought coldly, balancing, as he must, the likelihood that Harry's unusual talents might be the very thing necessary to prevent the Death Eater's success against the likelihood that Harry would be a lightning rod for Voldemort's spirit should the Death Eaters succeed in calling it up. He opened his eyes and said, "I think not. I cannot think of any weapon greater to hand them than to provide Voldemort with the opportunity to possess Harry permanently. Given there past connection, there can be no more attractive host for him to possess."
"At least," Snape said sneeringly, "he has had the sense to avoid appearing in public again."
McGonagall made an angry hissing noise and Snape jumped. Dumbledore kept his amusement to himself again, fleeting as it was. He did enjoy seeing Minerva’s former pupils cringe on occasion. It was a good thing for students to retain their respect for professors long after they left school.
It was a tense afternoon, filled with quick communications to Arthur Weasley, to Edgar Bones (whom Dumbledore warned particularly about keeping Harry out of things) and to various other members of the Order of the Phoenix. At nearly six, Mundungus Fletcher's matted ginger head popped into Dumbledore’s fire. "I've 'heard it twice now," he said. "The rumor's goin' round Knockturn Alley." His head turned and Dumbledore had a good view of the thinning spot at the back of Mundungus' head before he turned back and whispered the rumored place. When he left, Dumbledore did not take Snape or McGonagall, though he wrote them each a letter, and gave the portraits of the other Headmasters instructions, just in case.
It was after seven and night had long since fallen before they arrived at the rumored place called Merlin's Cup. They had all first gathered together and then had arrived at the elderly manor on whose property the place was located. A staff member had taken them for Muggle movie extras and had cheerfully instructed them on how to get to the site, which he seemed to think was the location for a might movie shoot. Dumbledore would have thought they were in the wrong place altogether was it not for the information they had on the actor Hayden.
The dark wizards were standing in a circle inside the Hollow and Dumbledore saw, to his dismay that the spell was already well underway. At his signal, they attacked the outer guards. He avoided a Killing Curse, and stunned his attacker, but he had to dodge a falling slab of rock that had been chipped off of one of the ancient standing stones. Nearby, he noted that Hermione Granger had disposed of her attacker quickly, but that Ron Weasley had been disarmed. He made a mental note to remind Bones to be sure his charges were given sufficient time to practice their Defense skills. He quit worrying, however, when Ron flung himself down in time to avoid the attacker's next sally, sprang at him and flung him bodily into the nearest standing stone with a loud crunch. The attacker slid down and moved no more. As if it were a drill well planned, Hermione flicked her wand and Ron's soared over to him. He seized it and launched a stunner at another hooded man without a pause.
At the center of the circle, Bellatrix Lestrange was in the act of placing the wrapped form of a babe in the cauldron and the bitter, whirling wind of the darkness was rapidly descending to engulf the babe.
Draco Malfoy apparated in to the circle, and screamed out the words of the Killing Curse at the nearest hooded man. Dumbledore stopped his own advance for a moment to cry out to the young man to stop; but the Death Eater's son was so far enrapt in his rage that he ignored Dumbledore's voice and he burst through the line of hooded men and flung a curse at Bellatrix. Not a Killing Curse, as the child held by Bellatrix would almost certainly die with her. As he flung the curse, he yelled, "Not mine!" It was a wild cry, the words almost undistinguishable. From the other end, a Death Eater ripped his hood off and turned his back on the fight as well, his exposed head as pale as Draco's and in feature nearly identical in the fury and hatred displayed.
Bellatrix cried out a final word as the descending void continued its inexorable progress toward the small bundle she offered and a chill, colder and far bitterer than any arctic gale, flooded the Hollow. Simultaneously, and with extraordinary speed, she flicked her wand back at Draco and the green light of the Killing Curse flung him back. She screamed with joy, but from behind her back, another curse was flung as Lucius Malfoy struck out.
Bellatrix froze, immobilized, as Lucius Malfoy leapt toward the center reaching out towards the babe, who was still held in the frozen witch's outstretched hands. Yet even as he moved, another form came flying down from the outer edge of the hollow, landing and rolling up in a single fluid movement. Then Dumbledore's heart contracted in terror as he saw who it was.
In his hands, Harry held the Sword of Gryffindor. The Sword glowed with crimson-gold fire, which lit the young man's face. Yet Dumbledore could have sworn that his face and form glowed faintly with some other light, as though his spirit were now almost too great to be completely confined to his earthly body. In an instant, Harry had struck, not Bellatrix, nor Lucius Malfoy as Dumbledore would have expected. In one smooth sweep he swung the Sword straight at the great stone cauldron: it pierced the stone as easily as it might the softest flesh and the cauldron shattered with an earsplitting shriek, spilling its contents into the heart of the circle. Immediately, the simmering brew sank into the ground creating small cracks into which the livid green potion sank.
Even as Harry struck the cauldron, however, the elder Malfoy cried out, "Accio!" And even as he cast his summoning spell, from the descending mouth of the whirlwind there emerged darkness greater than any before, at the center of which glowed two blood red orbs. The darkness swept through the babe, and the tiny thing wailed even as its body was yanked from Bellatrix’s frozen arms by the summoning spell. The darkness swept on and surrounded Harry, and Dumbledore cried out again in utter despair.
The faint glow of the boy was quenched and the crimson-gold fire of the Sword shuddered and died. Green eyes changed to glowing red and out of the young man there came a voice of triumph, the peal of laughter.
Every person there stopped cold and stared at the laughing man. The red eyes swept the circle and hooded Death Eaters knelt before him. All the others backed away, for not even the bravest of the brave would dare to face this new incarnation of the Dark Lord. With equal parts of dread and sorrow, Dumbledore forced himself to advance toward the young man, and he gathered himself for the one thing he had hoped never to have to consider: killing the one he loved as dearly as any son.
Yet in the instant he advanced, the triumphant laughter died, and the young man shuddered. A spasm, like that of a man struck be lightning took him, and he roared a great cry, a great NO, and he pointed the Sword at the heavens where the mouth of the whirlwind had receded and was fast closing. A blinding streak of fire shot upward and it seemed as if the very fabric of reality was torn open. Instead of the dark, black hole, the tear re-formed in the shape of an arch whose outlines glowed in golden fire, and what looked like a ladder or perhaps steps appeared.
Dumbledore ran forward and yelled, "No! Harry!” but when Harry looked at him, he saw in his eyes, now green, now red, the internal struggle that drove him now to take the first step. He placed a foot on the lowest step and some faint shiver of sorrow and loss crossed his face as his eyes shone brilliantly green again. His face set with resolution, he swiftly mounted the stairs, and with each step he took, the stairs rose higher and higher into the sky. Beyond him, Dumbledore thought that he could see a brilliant expanse of blue, which was lit clearly as any morning, but in which no sun or moon shone.
Harry continued higher and there appeared now another archway, and behind that as it opened, Dumbledore thought he saw the reflection or the distant entrances of dozens more. As he reached the first open archway, he paused and a black shadow detached itself from him and it seemed that this separation would undo him utterly, for he wavered as the shadow fell from the stairs, not back to earth, but into a void that opened up beneath the stairs and went on into nowhere, or perhaps everywhere.
The archway continued to rise up and Harry made as if to step through the gate, a greater light suffused the blue and Dumbledore could have sworn that he saw a gentle hand tap the young man. Then Harry did indeed fall. As he fell, the archway continued to rise and it closed, as if it had never been, and the only light left now was the twinkle of the stars and the pure white light of the moon, and the faint golden-crimson glow of the Sword.
Every eye was upon the falling man, as gravity took hold and he fell from nearly fifty feet above. Dumbledore raised his wand quickly, and the fall slowed just in time. He held out his arms and caught Harry's body just feet from the ground. In the first instant, the boy felt light, almost weightless; then with a shock to Dumbledore's ancient knees, he felt the full weight of a grown man of eighteen years.
Harry's eyes were closed and his face was still, peaceful. Trembling, Dumbledore laid him down and barely neither noticed nor cared when another green light jetted out and struck the still immobile from of Bellatrix Lestrange. He had only time for one prayer, one thought, let him live, let him be himself.
After a breath, two eyes opened, brilliant green and clear as any gem or any star. Harry stared at him and said ruefully, "Uh, oh. I think I am going to be in terrible trouble, aren't I, Professor?"
He disentangled himself from Dumbledore's grip and it was all Dumbledore could do not to seize the boy and hug him and not to shake him bodily for his foolishness and temerity and for simply terrifying him so badly. He allowed himself a small smile instead and said, "Well, as you are no longer a student and since Professor Snape isn't here, I think you'll escape nearly scot-free."
"Erm, yeah," Harry said, shrugging his shoulders, and looking up at the tallest rim of the Hollow where a number of Muggles in business suits still crouched, "but I think Deputy Bentley just might fire me."
Deputy Bentley, though, was not Harry's first remonstrance. Having realized that Harry was once again, just Harry, several others came flying forward and first of all of them was a small redhead. She did exactly what Dumbledore had wanted to do: she seized Harry and hugged him and Kissed him and then proceeded, in the inimitable fashion that characterized all the Weasleys, to shout at the top of her lungs, "HOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD YOU SCARE US ALL LIKE THAT? AND JUST LOOK AT YOU! JUST LOOK AT YOUR NEW SUIT! IT'S QUITE RUINED!"
***
The world seemed to shiver around Harry and sounds and sight faded in and out and he felt himself start to shiver as well. His body felt as though it belonged to someone else and he had to clamp down with all his will to focus on the people hovering anxiously over him. He did not have the energy to respond to Ginny's shouting, but as he knew quite well it was merely her way of expressing her fright, he simply tried to smile at her in a reassuring manner. She, however, seemed to found his lack of response unnerving, for she stopped shouting and immediately turned to Dumbledore and said severely, "How could you let this happen? He wasn't supposed to be here?" She turned back to Harry and added, "How did you know?"
Other men were rushing toward the circle: Bentley and Halsey and the rest. "We got it out of Hayden's right hand man," he said curtly. "And Harry here received a letter - by an owl!"
Dumbledore's snowy eyebrows rose and Harry nodded. He found his voice and said hoarsely, "Draco sent a letter." The sight of the heaped up bodies in the circle penetrated his prior feeling of detachment. "I came too late, though, didn't I?"
Surprisingly, it was Bentley who answered. "You can't be responsible for everyone in the world Potter. And didn't I tell you not to make a move without my orders?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer but could think of nothing to say. Another voice broke in gruffly, "Damned heroes are always getting into trouble. I told you first day," Daniels added, "Teamwork is everything."
Harry had no answer still, and in any case, some thought was niggling at the back of his mind, something important and forgotten. It would not be until later that he would truly appreciate Ron's reply. "You might as well tell the sun to stop rising," Ron said, "Harry does what he does because that's how he is and he can't change his nature."
"I want to know -" Bentley started to say, but the thing that had worried Harry had finally surfaced. "Sir," he said quickly, "you can fire me later, but for now, we have to get back to the hotel."
"There are dead bodies here," Bentley said, "and explanations to be given. I want to know what that was. I want to know who these people are; I want to -"
Harry interrupted him. He could feel Dumbledore tensing beside him and thought the elderly wizard was going to lose his temper. "Zoë and Bronzstein," he managed to get out.
Bentley stopped mid sentence and stared at him. "They never called in this evening," Harry added.
He lifted up his sword, though it felt immensely heavy at that moment and strove to still the fine trembling that still shook him. "There are others here," Dumbledore began. But Harry shook his head.
"You don't understand," he answered. "This place is Hayden's. We don't know how many of the staff here are really wizards or even Death Eaters. We need to get there now!" He stepped away from Dumbledore's support and regretted it almost instantly. He looked at the old wizard's blue eyes, which were full of anxiety for him, Harry. He tried to send the feeling of urgency he had without articulating the full reason, as the other part of his worry could not be spoken while any Death Eater might remain in earshot.
Perhaps his thought communicated itself to the Headmaster, for Dumbledore flicked his wand and a wool cloak appeared and settled itself on Harry's shoulders. Its warmth helped still the shivers and Harry nodded his thanks as he began to stride toward the hotel. Behind them, a Ministry wizard was arguing with Halsey about who would take the bodies and where.
Finding renewed strength from his anxiety, Harry managed to break into a quick trot and then a near run. The hooded Death Eaters, he noted, had all gone, including Lucius Malfoy and the baby - Draco's son.
The hotel was lit up and tourists pointed to them as they came striding into the lobby. "They must be part of the show," one lady squealed. "They look quite authentic, don't they?"
Ignoring them, Harry led the others straight for the lift and punched the button to the cellar. He ignored their questions and pushed out of the opening doors before they had fully slid back into the wall. A dimly lit landing area baffled him at first, but then he saw another door, a really old one, shaped in the gothic fashion, with a pointed arch at the top. The rusting wrought iron ring would not budge and he started to lift his sword, but Hermione moved quickly forward and pointed her wand at the door. He went through first again as it opened and when she said, "Be careful!" he managed to answer, "I don't think Fluffy's behind this one." He didn't wait for her reply or Dumbledore's warning or Bentley's muttered, "Doesn't he ever listen?"
The stairs going down to the lower level reminded him of Hogwarts. They spiraled down only they weren't nearly so well kept and twice he nearly stumbled on the worn surfaces. The bottom wound out to a large stone room that ran half the width of the entire manor. Once it had been a wine cellar or even a dungeon, but now it was filled with boxes and boxes, stacked high and forming a kind of maze, just like in his dream.
"The weapons cache," he said to Bentley over his shoulder. Using his sword as a lever, he prized one open, and nestled in packing were disassembled assault weapons. In another, there were bars of gold and in another, soft doughy stuff that he now recognized as platinum. Bentley whistled at that and had his mobile out in moments, but Harry cared for none of it. He wound his way through the maze and at the back of the room, tied to chairs, and was Zoë and Bronzstein. For a moment, from their absolute stillness, he thought they were both dead. Dumbledore moved forward and said softly, "Stunned, both of them."
Harry sighed with relief, but the knot of worry did not go away altogether. There was one more thing to find and he could not, for the life of him, think where to look next. A soft, sibilant sound alerted him and a whispered voice, coldly inhuman. The great green snake raised its head as though to strike but slumped downward on Harry's word. Then he knew, without knowing why, exactly where to look.
He scanned the room again and finally saw the faint outlines on the curved stonewall into which the stairs were set. Sheathing his sword, he slid back the bolt and reached into the cupboard under the stairs to take out the other baby.
The baby's hair was a silken, soft black down and at his touch it woke and looked at him with innocent eyes. They were a pale, blue gray, and they reminded him, with a shock, not of the father's snake-like red ones, but of another's. A tiny hand reached out to him and wrapped around his finger.
Harry turned around and faced them all. They were staring at him as though quite terrified, but he knew, in fact, it was the tiny child he held that really frightened them. He understood what would have happened had he not arrived there first and he said defiantly, "He's mine."
"You know whose he really is," Dumbledore said calmly. But his blue eyes were watchful, worried almost.
"I found him," Harry said. "I claim him. He's mine."
He looked to the others for support, but only one-stepped forward. "You're not holding him right," Ginny said coolly. "You have to support his head, like that." She would have taken him then, but Harry would not let her. He smiled at her though and said, "I knew there was a reason why I love you."
He moved forward and everyone fell away from him as he went. At last, as he put his foot on the step, the ancient stone step, Dumbledore's voice stopped him. "You know that the child may be your death," he said.
Harry held the old blue eyes with his own and said, "We all die someday." He paused and added, "He's a baby. You can't harm a baby...He's an orphan. His Mum and Dad are dead. And I won't leave him to an orphanage or to those that don't want him."
Dumbledore did not move to let him pass and Harry added, "This is the right choice, sir, and you know what, it's not a very hard one. Not this one."
Then Dumbledore smiled and the cloud in his blue eyes lifted. "The power the Dark Lord knew not," he whispered. His eyes met Harry's with perfect understanding. "Where will you take him?"
The baby let out a sudden soft wail and Harry jumped. "One stop first," he said to the little one. He wrapped the cloak around it took the steps carefully where he might in other circumstances take them two or three at a time. At the hotel lobby, he stopped by the long green marble front desk and asked the concierge to call him a taxi.
In seconds, a long black limousine pulled up and Harry sat down inside it gratefully. Ginny followed and so did Ron and Hermione. They all stared, though, when he told the driver where to go
