The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Part III - Chapter Forty
The bitter sorrow in Lucius Malfoy's eyes evoked no pity in Edgar Bones. He felt, rising in him, a fury such as he could hardly recall except for the time he had faced You Know Who, his parents' killer. Malfoy had been there with Riddle on that occasion and he had been there the night Riddle had murdered Edgar's parents and family. He lifted his sword, which he had been holding when Harry's alarm had gone off, and pointed it at the caged wizard. Unthinkingly, with fury goading him on, he drew forth the sword's magical energies and it lit up with a burning, blue-white fire.
"No!" Harry said as he pushed down on Edgar's sword arm. He nodded at the watching Muggles, who were gawping at Edgar in astonishment. Few of them had known that Edgar, like Harry, was a wizard and of them all, only Daniels had ever seen a real magical sword in full use. Yet Bones cared nothing for any of that. In that moment, he no longer worried what would happen if Muggles saw him as a wizard. He no longer cared whether he might frighten them or affect the delicate balance that was keeping the fragile secrecy of the wizard world from the full scrutiny of the populace and those in power. All he wanted, in that instant, was to wipe out the man who had taken part in his family's execution, separating Edgar from his youth, innocence, and his full wizard identity in a bare moment. Despite the interruption that prevented his revenge, he knew that he would have challenged even Harry in that moment just for the chance to even the balance of evil done against him.
It was the reflexive reaction of the copper, he supposed later, but when Worthington came striding in with the dispatch that Terence Jones, the Alliance man high up in Hayden's counsels had been apprehended, Bones quenched his sword and accompanied Harry back to London to participate in the interrogation. It was a close run thing though, as Malfoy said wonderingly, "I know you," and he found himself replying, "It was my father you knew. You watched Lord Voldemort murder him and my family."
The taste of barely restrained rage lingered on the ride back to Headquarters and followed him after, a foul acid taste made more noticeable by the dry, odorless air in the deep, subterranean holding cell where Bentley had placed Jones for questioning.
Harry was startled to see Ginny down there huddled in quiet conversation with Brittany Halsey. She wore amber gold dress robes rather than the casual Muggle clothing she would normally wear when mixing with Muggles and Harry could not help noticing that she was tense and angry despite her exterior cool.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. He was certain her presence there meant nothing good and this was confirmed by Brittany's answer.
"She's the one that subdued Jones."
Harry started to protest, to say she shouldn't have been messing with non-wizard targets, but Brittany interrupted him and added, "Jones went after her. He meant to kidnap her but she stunned him and called us immediately."
Harry looked to Ginny for confirmation. "I would have rather they told you later," she said. "Now you'll do nothing but worry and spend the next week interrogating him and you'll miss the feast and Sirius' graduation. And don't try to wrap me up and lock me away for my own safety," she added defiantly.
"We'll talk about safety later," Harry answered. "Right now, I want answers from him, and I'm going to get them." He paused, however, and reached out to touch her cheek. "You are okay, aren't you?" Then another thought struck him and he went on, "You haven't turned him into something nasty?"
"He is nasty," Ginny replied disdainfully. "But I haven't deprived him of his speech, not yet. I can wait until after you're through with him."
"That may be a while," Harry replied.
The prisoner's suit was perfectly neat with the exception of the bloody spots on his crisp white collar. He looked quite put out and not at all concerned about anything other than his swollen and crusty nose.
"I don't know what I'm doing here," Jones protested. "I was just minding my own business when this madwoman attacked me and accused me of all sorts of things. I expect to be released right now."
Harry stepped forward to stand next to Bentley, who was regarding the prisoner with cold disbelief.
"That, is my wife," Harry said softly, "and I will make sure you pay for trying to lay hands on her."
Bentley looked askance at Harry, perhaps troubled by his savage tone; however, he returned his gaze to the prisoner and said, "Have a go at him, why don't you. I think you've got the right."
Jones began to look uncomfortable and for the first time, his superior demeanor slipped. He lifted his cuffed hands and said, "I'm a former M.P. I think I've still got some rights here."
"What I want to know," Harry said without further preamble, "is exactly where Eric Hayden is and what was in the briefcase you took from Saleh Allawi in Las Vegas a few weeks ago."
"I don't have clue where Eric is," Jones said smoothly. "I admit he was my friend, but I haven't seen him in years. And I've never been to Las Vegas. I don't much care for America. So crass and vulgar, you know."
"Don't bother lying," Harry responded. "I saw you there myself and I know everything about you. I want the answers to my questions now."
"Oh?" Jones said. "Or what? You curse me? I saw the telly interview where you denied you were a wizard. But I know better. I know you consider yourself above dark magic, too. You don't scare me."
Harry looked at Bentley and considered whether to draw his wand on the man. His temper was slipping out of control and he had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from bellowing in anger. It wouldn't do, he thought, to lose control. He had to keep his wits together and pry out the information he needed, and quickly, too. It was obvious that Hayden must be either in England already or near enough to jump there if he had taken the step of attacking Ginny. Hayden would know that Harry would come for her in heartbeat, that he would surrender almost anything to secure her release. Fortunately, Hayden had not reckoned on Ginny's own courage and quick wand work. He supposed that Hayden must have thought he could surprise Ginny by sending a Muggle to overpower her - someone she would not recognize or feel threatened by. A feeling of being hemmed in and pursued swept over him. Perhaps it was due to the underground location, but Harry felt as though he were being hunted, harried into a trap, despite the fact that he was in the Security Services' most secure location of all. He could feel the hair on his neck rise. Jones was too cool. He ought to have been upset by being captured. He ought to have been worried, ready and anxious to rat on his leader in order to save his own skin. And yet, he was not. At the thought, Harry drew his wand after all, ignoring Bentley's barely concealed discomfort.
"You have a choice," Harry said coldly. "You can give me the answers now or I will pry them out of you."
Jones looked uncomfortable for the first time at the sight of Harry's wand. His pale eyes narrowed, however, and he said smugly, "You can't force me to do anything. Anything you get from me that way is useless against me."
"We have enough evidence against you to convict you on conspiracy to engage in terrorist acts," Harry replied. "I don't need these answers for evidence. I want them to stop whatever Hayden's got planned." He stared at Jones, willing him to answer. He wasn't sure if Bentley agreed with him, but what he had said was true. Jones's reply confirmed his fears that things were moving too fast for him or any of them to control.
"Can't," Jones answered.
"Of course, you can, man," Bentley interrupted. "What good will it do you to stay quiet in any case? We have you and you're going down for a very, very long time. If you help us, that time just might be shorter."
Jones shrugged and eyed them meditatively. He looked as though he were discussing what choice he had for dinner rather than what the length of his jail sentence might be.
Harry lifted his wand and set himself to do the necessary task, however unpleasant it might be.
Jones eyed his wand with greater worry then and said uneasily, "No use. Eric made sure I can't talk about anything important. Can't say a word. I literally can't."
"He's been Imperiused!" Bones exclaimed. "That is a problem." At Bentley's inquiring glance, Bones explained, "He's been cursed, made to obey Hayden's orders and prohibitions. Even the strongest and best trained wizards have difficulty throwing off the Imperius Curse. That's why it's an Unforgivable - a pass straight to Azkaban Prison for life, that gets you."
"So he really can't talk?" Bentley asked.
"Not unless the Curse is broken," Harry answered. Ignoring Jones's sudden attempt to flee, Boness' doubtful look and Bentley's alarm, Harry sighed and spoke the necessary word: "Legilimens."
Jones stumbled backwards and fell to his knees, his trapped in Harry's green gaze, like a serpent hypnotized by a snake-charmer. Harry said nothing more, but his face grew by degrees paler and paler and a faint dew of sweat beaded his forehead. Bones watched in fascination. He had seen Harry's uncanny ability to know when others were lying, but he had not realized that Harry had the rare talent for Legilimency. Bentley shifted uneasily, as though he meant to interfere, and said softly, "What's happening? What's he doing?"
Bones hesitated and he nearly jumped himself when Jones groaned and started to tremble violently. Bentley moved to interfere but Bones moved faster, gripping Bentley's arm in a tight grip.
"Don't!" Bones said as calmly as he was able. "You could harm them both if you interfere."
"What's he doing?" Bentley asked again. "We'll have trouble if Jones accuses us of using force on him. He is a former M.P."
Bones said carefully, "Harry is not using force on him in the way you think. Hayden has set an enchantment on Jones that makes him obey Hayden's commands no matter what. Jones can't answer our questions at all because of it, not even if he wanted to."
Bentley looked horrified at that and Bones hurriedly continued, "Harry's trying to break the spell. That's what he's doing."
Bones did not explain that Harry was also literally plucking information from Jones's mind and that the effort could break either one of them depending on how powerful Hayden's curse had been.
At last, Harry gasped and looked away from Jones. Jones tumbled over, his chest heaving violently, tears coursing down his face.
Bentley pulled out of Bones' grasp and seized Harry's arm. "Well?" he demanded.
Harry stared at Bentley as though he were a total stranger. His face was quite colorless and his green eyes were full of terror. Bones could not recall ever having seen Harry look literally frightened before. Indeed, he had faced Voldemort with the cool composure of a man about to sit down to afternoon tea. Bones felt his own heart begin to race. Somehow, he knew, something had happened, would happen, something terrible.
"They've got something planned," Harry said at last. "Only Jones doesn't know what it is. He only knows it's to happen soon. Any day. He doesn't know what was in the case Allawi gave him. He doesn't know where Hayden is. He does know Hayden's got an army, over a hundred thousand men, he's got. But something else is going to happen and he doesn't know what or when."
"Well, that only leaves us where we were before," Bentley said. "We knew all that." He frowned, looking suddenly exhausted and quite old. "At least, we knew they were up to something. Just not how many men he had behind him."
"It's not the number of men he's got that frightens Jones," Harry replied.
"Then he does know something," Bentley said.
"Only that Hayden is certain, absolutely confident he'll be King, and soon. Within days, maybe."
"He's mental then," MacCready offered calmly. The big man had stood in the corner of the interview room and said nothing. Now his solid presence seemed to produce a lightening effect, a break in the storm.
Harry, however, did not relax. Had he been a cat, his ears would have been laid flat, his fur puffed out to twice its size. He stood, irresolute, yet fairly humming with tension, as though he hoped for a target to track, to take down.
"Hayden," he said after a moment, "is not mental in that sense. He's got a fixation, yes, but he knows what he's doing. He knows when to run and he knows when to attack."
"Well can't you just use magic?" Bentley asked in exasperation. "Where's your bloody crystal ball when you need it?"
Harry threw him a glance of sheer frustration and Bones thought the Head was lucky not to have been jinxed just then. With deliberate control, Harry answered, "I've never seen a damn thing in a crystal ball. I haven't got the talent."
"But you saw what was happening at the Metro Center," MacCready cut in. "You didn't even have a crystal ball. You saw it out of plain air or something, when no one else could."
Bones opened his mouth to say that wasn't the same thing. Harry hadn't seen the future then; he'd seen the present. And, he thought, that had been a peculiar event at best. Not one to be duplicated on demand.
"That wasn't - " Harry started to say, but he broke off when Carter cut in. "I remember that. You must have some inkling how you do that, Harry."
They were all startled though when Ginny said fiercely, "Why don't you just leave him alone? It's not down to you to tell him when to use magic or not. He does what he has to; when he can; and more."
"They're right though," Harry responded. "They do have the right to ask me to try. Under the circumstances, I do have to do what I can, as best as I can." He dragged in a breath and added, "I can try. At least," he continued, his eyes on Jones's weeping form, "I can try something that's not really divination at all. More like a magical spying device, I suppose."
"How will that work," Bones asked, "if you don't even know Hayden's actual location? It's one thing to use a foe glass or a secrecy sensor, but they're fairly restricted, aren't they?"
Harry nodded and Bones thought that would be the end of the matter. Harry sat on the edge of the table and stared into space, thinking. His green eyes were faintly clouded and though he was motionless, he fairly radiated energy still.
After a moment, Harry stood and his eyes swept the room, examining every object in it closely. There was not much to see: a table, its laminated surface scarred by someone's cigarette; a fluorescent light fixture whose light seemed to bleach the life out of the room's occupants; and a mirror, which Bones knew allowed others on the outside to watch the proceedings inside. Harry fixed on the mirror. His reflection seemed brighter, stronger than the others that appeared there, a trick of the light, Bones supposed. He did not see what use a Muggle mirror could be either and he wanted to urge Harry to leave off whatever plan he had.
Harry lifted his wand as though it were heavy in his hand and shrugged a bit as though he were shaking some weight off his shoulders and with it, his fears. He pointed the wand at the mirror and a red-white light jetted forth. Terribly bright, incandescently bright, the light struck the glass and turned it a red-white as well. The glass turned molten, and fire churned in its center spreading until the entire glass was too bright to look at. It seemed as though the sun itself had been yanked down out of the sky and was set in the wall there, a seething, fiery cauldron; yet it gave forth no heat.
Bones knew his own mouth was hanging open and a glimpse at the others showed that Carter and MacCready and Bentley were just as astonished as he. Jones looked terrified, but not surprised and Edgar wondered just what he might have seen, felt when Harry had looked inside his mind and broken Hayden's curse.
A flick of Harry's wand, and the bright light dimmed. A cold wind whipped through the room, though no wind could ever have invaded that subterranean place. The glass in the mirror was dark now, almost black, but in the black, a thousand pinpricks of light shimmered and Bones had the peculiar idea that he was looking on the light of the stars as they wheeled about, dancing at the edge of time. The frame of the glass was now a frosted gold, and strange runes ran about it, moving too fast for him to read.
Harry spoke then, quietly, simply, just the words, "Show me."
A tiny pin-prick of light flared and grew, banishing the black expanses between each of the dancing stars. The light dimmed again and in the mirror Bones could see a rather mundane scene appear. Bright yellow sunlight broke through lowering clouds shedding radiance on the grey city below. Cars slipped along the motorway, their drivers traveling in sublime ignorance of their watchers. One such car, an elderly black Volvo, pulled off the motorway and stopped at a rest stop on the outskirts of the city. Its occupant, a quite ordinary looking man in a grey business suit, got out of the car and proceeded sedately toward a call box just outside the tea shop that served road weary travelers.
"That's not Hayden," Bentley said. Bones gawped at him, surprised that the Head could even see the images in the mirror.
"No, it's not," Harry agreed. He frowned in puzzlement and said, "I've seen him before, though. I just don't know where."
The man set down his briefcase and picked up the phone. He searched in his pockets and, apparently finding no coins, dropped the phone in its cradle and strode back out of the call box. The black Volvo started up again and the car wound its way back out of the city. After some minutes, Bentley stirred impatiently as the black car continued to drive on the motorway, passing other vehicles as though they were standing still. Bones wondered whether they were, in fact, seeing what was happening in some other time frame and he was just about to ask when the car exited the motorway and the driver got out again, this time into the high grass on the side of a country road. The driver drew a small object from his pocket. It was peculiar, Bones thought, as he was quite sure the object was a mobile phone. The man pushed a button on the phone and the image on the screen dissolved into a sudden, blinding glare as a bright, fiery, red-white plume erupted, mushrooming up and up and up.
In the white glare from the mirror, Harry's face was bleached pale, his green eyes the only color remaining. He was mouthing something silently, the word "no," Bones knew; the same word was on his own. The scene in the mirror seemed to fracture and then played itself out all over again as another man exited another car and also pressed a single button and the image in the mirror erupted in fire once more. Bentley was already on the phone yelling, "Where?" when the third man's image resolved itself out of the smoke and flames. The third man's face was coldly triumphant. He was perfectly groomed and looked as though he were about to drink a cup of tea when the screen grew blindingly bright for the third time. Jones gasped, "Eric, no!"
No one had any doubt where the third explosion had occurred for despite the fact that they were far underground and ought not to have felt anything, the ground shook beneath them and the lights shut off, so that the only light remaining came from the fiery-white plume that grew on the mirror. Less than a minute had passed, Bones thought, from the time the first explosion had occurred until the third and last.
Harry bolted for the door and Bones was barely able to catch him.
"I have to stop it," Harry said. "I can go back and stop it, if I use a time turner."
It took all his nerve to say, "You can't, Harry. It's not possible."
Harry shook his head and pulled away frantically. He would have been out the door and gone had it not been for MacCready blocking his way and wrapping his strong arms around Harry as though he were a small child who had to be prevented from harming himself.
"You can't go out," MacCready said shakily. "You know what that was. None of us can leave here or go outside now for several weeks. You'll die otherwise."
Harry relaxed and stopped fighting MacCready. He stepped back and Bones had to shout at him again as Harry made the small preparatory turning gesture that would lead into disapparition.
"I'll go to Hogwarts," Harry said desperately. "Professor Dumbledore will give me back his watch for this. It has to be undone, and now. Before it's too late."
"It's already too late," Bones said. His chest hurt badly and inside him was a terrible emptiness. The Muggles were looking from Harry to Bones hoping for the miracle he was willing to buy them. "You can't disapparate now," he said. "You don't know what will happen to you if you try to disapparate when the air is unstable. And even you can't go back in time and be in three places all at once. There are too many variables and things could come out even worse than they are now."
Harry nodded finally, a single slow assent. Though he made no sound, crystal tears slid down his colorless cheeks. He made no move to brush them off and Bones knew that every face there was wet and every mouth there could taste the same salty, bitter drink of defeat.
Drawing a small mirror from his pocket, Harry spoke softly, "Professor." His voice cracked a bit, like a young boy's, as he said again, "Professor Dumbledore."
In the hand mirror, the reflection showed an elderly face with snowy hair. "Harry," Dumbledore replied.
Before Dumbledore could inquire further, Harry said dully, "Those emergency procedures we discussed … we need them now. Every one must stay in the castle. Bring in everyone from Hogsmeade, every creature from the Forest that will come, and lock it down. I'll ask the Ministry to announce it on the WWN - the train from Hogsmeade to Kings Cross is canceled until further notice."
Harry glanced back at the great spyglass he'd created and shuddered. In the mirror, the too bright glare had given way to a strange glowing red as tall towers of steel and glass melted into rivers of their original elements and the once grand center of civilization was transformed into a skeleton composed of blackened, burnt out cinders. A terrible wind swept through, obscuring the image. Dust full of poison rose into the atmosphere, some to drift in eddies to land on places not yet ruined; but most settled in the vast empty crater that had once been the heart of a nation.
It was not easy to find a place to be alone in the underground command center. Those officers who had been down below when the attack had occurred were stuck in there and could not leave until the air was fit to breathe. They were imprisoned, safe from immediate danger, but imprisoned nevertheless, by need and by duty.
The first hours after had been the most horrible in Harry's life. Worse than when Voldemort had kidnapped and tortured him; worse than when he had woken in pain and learned that Voldemort lived in a second regenerated body; worse than when Sirius had died, and Harry had felt the sharpest, most piercing arrows of guilt.
He had managed to reach Ron and Hermione and they had ensured the message had gone out over the WWN for all wizards to stay in. But the costs of their failure to stop Hayden were uncountable. Ernie Macmillan was dead. He had been visiting St. Mungos at the time of the attack, and the wizard hospital, which, unlike the Ministry of Magic, was above ground, had been vaporized in the attack along with many of the government buildings in the City. There was, in fact, no working government at all. They were leaderless and very likely going to be powerless to stop Hayden when he called up his army and attempted to claim the now empty throne.
The confines of the narrow broom cupboard into which Harry had shut himself seemed to narrow as all the misery and horror of the last days crashed in on him. He reckoned it was his fault for waiting, for putting the secrecy of the wizard world above the more urgent need to catch Hayden and stop him forever. Worst of all, he could not bear to face Molly and Arthur, for Percy had been in St. Mungos with Ernie, as the Ministry representatives there to celebrate the founding of the hospital.
The cupboard door swung open though Harry had locked it with magic, and Ginny sighed when she saw him huddled there, and when he turned his damp face from her, she reached down and tugged at his hand to raise him to his feet.
When Harry would have resisted, she said sharply, "I know how you feel, but there's no time for that now."
"There's never any time, is there?" he answered. He turned away and the guilt burst out of him, "There wasn't any time for anyone. I should have gone back and made the time. Then Percy would be alive."
"If I thought that," she replied steadily, "I would be the one hiding in that cupboard, Harry. I would have insisted on going back with you, or in your place. You know you couldn't undo a thing a like that. There's a limit to what even you can do, Harry, but you can't sit in there and give up just at the moment when you're going to be needed as you never were before."
"Why not?" he asked. "Why should it be down to me always? I failed. I failed completely and how many people are dead because I failed?"
"How many more would be if you hadn't?" she responded. "Me, at least," she added after a moment.
He looked her in the eyes finally and saw that her brother's death had not chipped a gap in her love for him, and though the guilt did not ease altogether, a fine thread of hope floated in, as comforting as the soft trill of a phoenix singing.
Ginny led Harry to the interview room in which his giant spy mirror hung. Since the day of the attacks, Harry had left the spell in operation and every so often the images in the mirror would change. Harry had been avoiding the room whenever he could as every image was a stark reminder of his failure and of the suffering his failure had wrought. At one moment, those watching might see the desolate remains of their city; at another, people crept about despite their injuries, dragged themselves in desperate search for untainted water or for safe shelter. At other times, they had glimpses of dying crops and withering gardens. Animals lay fallen by the sides of roads. The roads themselves were empty of life. Abandoned cars sat already turning into relics of a lost civilization, more useless now that petrol was unavailable than the hand-chipped flint of a caveman.
As dreadful as those images had been, the ones that filled the screen now were worse, though they were not unexpected. Among the skeletons of a dying wood, soldiers camped. Some polished axes and swords. Others, though fewer than one might imagine, polished rifles. Most alarming was the numbers that drifted in moment by moment. Harry knew at a glance that these grim men were not their own. These were the men Hayden had recruited or brought in under the guise of financial immigrants. For seventeen years, the army gathering had been recruited, and their own was largely shattered, scattered by the great catastrophe, or murdered in the attacks.
"Where are they?" Bentley asked wearily. "I don't recognize it."
Hardly a surprise Harry thought, given the change in the landscape. He squinted at the mirror, trying to gain a clearer picture of where the next battle for Britain must occur. As if in answer to his wishes, the view in the mirror telescoped back, and they could see, as though they were eagles on the wing, the place where the river led to the sea and the crooked ravine that would be their fate and for some, their final destination.
