FIC: The Secret Hunters (1/?): The Visit
The Secret Hunters is a post-HBP hunt for the Horcruxes fic with eventual H/D. You know the drill. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!
Title: The Secret Hunters (1/?)
Author: 1eyedjack
Rating: PG this chapter, eventually NC-17
Word Count: 3,193
DISCLAIMER: Characters and other familiar-sounding things belong to JKR. Canon information comes from the Lexicon.
Summary: Draco gets a birthday surprise, the Dursleys get an unpleasant surprise and Hermione makes a surprising discovery.
Author’s Note: Picks up immediately after HBP. Thanks to perniciousness and miaruma for betaing.
The Secret Hunters
Chapter One:
The Visit
Ten minutes before midnight on June the fourth, Draco Malfoy was huddled under a bridge in Sunderland. It was pouring rain and he hadn't eaten anything in two days, but he wasn't paying much attention to his shivering or to his stomach. His eyes were fixed firmly on his watch. In exactly ten minutes, it would be his seventeenth birthday.
Nine minutes to go. In the past week he hadn't used magic once. Professor Snape had been very clear on the matter: Draco was not to use it for anything, not even in an emergency, until he turned seventeen. He might get caught by the Improper Use of Magic Office, and that was not a risk Draco could afford.
In the old days, his father could have smoothed over a charge of Underage Magic. At least his father was safe in prison. Draco almost laughed. He had never thought would have been thankful for Azkaban.
Four minutes. He was sick of living like a Squib. He didn't know how they managed it, knowing that there was magic all around them and never being able to use it. Draco would probably kill himself. At least he'd be able to use magic again soon.
Three minutes. He wasn't sure what he would cast first. A drying charm on his clothes? Impervio to stop the water trickling through the cracks in the bridge that he couldn't seem to avoid, no matter where he sat? He had two minutes to decide.
Somewhere out in the dark and the wet a dog howled. Draco hunched down tighter into himself. He knew tonight was the new moon and werewolves couldn't possibly be abroad but he was spooked nonetheless.
One minute to go. Thirty seconds . . . twenty . . . ten . . . nine --Draco pulled his wand out of his trouser pocket for the first time in a week -- three . . . two . . . one . . .
"Lumos," he whispered, and the tip of his wand lit up. He had the hysterical urge to laugh. He hadn't so much as touched his wand in days. Snape had been so insistent on Draco not using magic that he had the idea that the instant he cast the charm a whole platoon of Aurors was going to leap down from the bridge and take him in for questioning, but it had been nearly thirty seconds since he'd cast the Lumos and nothing had happened.
Just then Draco heard the crunching of footsteps on gravel somewhere outside the reach of the light from his wand. He put out the light immediately, but it was already too late.
"Stupefy!"
-----
When Ron and Hermione had said they would go with him to the Dursleys, Harry hadn't figured on them actually coming directly to the Dursleys from Kings Cross.
"What else did you think we were going to do?" Hermione said. "We said we were going, and that's just what we're doing."
"Like we'd leave you alone with those Muggles for a minute," Ron said.
Harry diplomatically refrained from pointing out that Ron and Hermione had no idea what they were getting into, while Hermione assured him that she and Ron had checked with their parents and it was fine.
“I told my parents your aunt and uncle are dying to meet us,” she said with a smile.
"Besides, it's not like it's going to be that long before Mum and Dad see us,” Ron said, pulling Hermione's trunk down from the luggage rack. "Bill and Fleur's wedding's not even two weeks off."
As they lugged their things into Kings Cross proper, Harry caught sight of a flash of red hair off to the left. He tried not to stare. He and Ginny had said good-bye in passing as they boarded the Hogwarts Express and had gone off to their separate compartments. It was better this way. He turned back towards Ron, who was staring at something over Harry’s shoulder with utter fascination.
"It's them, isn't it, Harry?" Hermione whispered.
Thirty feet in front of them were the Dursleys: Uncle Vernon, beady eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Harry; Aunt Petunia, craning her neck over the crowds to better glare in their general direction; and Dudley, who looked like he very much wanted to throw a tantrum but was nearly seventeen years old and didn't dare do it in public.
"This is the last time you'll be coming back, isn't it, boy?" Uncle Vernon said, after Harry, Ron and Hermione had finally managed to drag their trunks over to where they were standing.
"Well, I'm not going back to school next year," Harry said.
Confusion and rage battled for a place on Uncle Vernon's face. Rage won out. "You certainly won't be living with us as a dropout!" he said.
Harry couldn’t think of anything he would rather do less. "Did I ever say I was planning on living with you past this summer?”
Aunt Petunia muttered something about mercy and the Good Lord and Harry rolled his eyes. “Speaking of this summer, I'd like you to meet two of my friends from school. Uncle Vernon, this is Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron, Hermione, meet Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and my cousin Dudley."
"What do you want with me?" Dudley said.
"Nothing, dear," Aunt Petunia said soothingly.
"I'm missing Neighbours, you know," Dudley said, glaring at Harry. Harry wondered if he was supposed to feel guilty about it.
"Why should I want to meet your friends from . . . from that place?" Uncle Vernon hissed.
"They’re going to be living with us.” Harry said cheerfully.
"What do you mean, living with us?" Aunt Petunia gasped.
"They bloody well will not be," Uncle Vernon said. "It is my house and I can determine whom I see fit to allow inside it. You can’t force me to change my mind. You people can't do any of your funny business over the holidays, anyway." Uncle Vernon looked distinctly pleased with himself for having remembered that rule.
"You're right. I can't do magic over the holidays," Harry said.
"Don't say that word!" Uncle Vernon hissed.
“What word?” Harry asked. “Holidays? Magic?” The Dursleys jumped.
"Harry might not be able to use magic over the holidays,” Ron pulled his wand out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands. The Dursleys watched its movement, terrified. He grinned at them, looking a lot like Fred or George. "But Hermione and I can. We’re seventeen. We're legal."
"The legal age is eighteen," Aunt Petunia put in.
"Not in the wizarding world, it isn't," Ron said with a grin.
Harry smiled at Uncle Vernon. “So where’s the car?”
-----
The Dursleys actually deigned to give Hermione the guest bedroom, in which no guest had slept since the infamous incident with Aunt Marge the summer before third year, at least not while Harry was in the house.
"The boy can sleep in the same room as you," Aunt Petunia said.
"His name is Ron," Harry said. "And he's standing right here."
"But no funny business," Uncle Vernon said, apparently having decided that 'funny business' was as good a term for 'magic' as any. "No funny business of any kind. Who knows what you people get up to at that place." He wandered away, muttering angrily under his breath.
“Harry, you are possibly the most well-adjusted person I have ever met,” Hermione announced fifteen minutes later as she burst into Harry and Ron’s room and shut the door behind her.
“Er . . . thanks, Hermione,” Harry said.
"I always knew your family was horrible, Harry, but your aunt--"
“Did she hurt you?” Ron jumped off the bed, where he had been playing with his toes.
“No.” Hermione scowled. “Nothing like that. After your family dropped me off at the room, I thought they had left. I put my things away and went to stow my trunk under the bed, and your aunt was hiding under it. Listening to me unpack.”
Harry blinked. The Dursleys had officially reached a new level of weirdness. Having three wizards in the house must have really sent them over the edge. “What did she say?”
“It was terribly awkward, actually,” Hermione said. “She said something about dusting and I pretended to believe her and she practically ran to the door, but then I mentioned something about helping her with dinner--”
Ron looked horrified. “Hermione, are you mental?”
“I know!” She put her head in her hands. “I couldn’t help it. It just slipped out. And she didn’t want to say no and I didn’t want to retract my offer, so now we’re both stuck.”
“You could, er . . .” Ron trailed off. All three of them were silent for a few moments. “Are you a good cook at least?” Ron finally asked.
Harry picked at a piece of lint on the dress robes he was taking out of his suitcase. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Both of you.” He stared at his trainers. “You know.”
When he looked up, Hermione was smiling. “Of course,” she said.
Ron shrugged.
Apparently Hermione’s time helping with dinner wasn’t too terrible. Hermione told Harry and Ron that she and Aunt Petunia had gotten on fairly well because they spent the whole time talking about the importance of clean teeth. However, the détente didn’t last and they all ate dinner in stony silence. Dudley whispered something to his mother about freaks and took his meal to eat in front of the television.
“Hey, I’m writing to Ginny,” Ron said, later that evening as they were both getting ready for bed. “Do you want me to tell her anything from you?”
“No,” Harry said, thinking of the half-written letter to Ginny he’d hidden in the bottom of his suitcase. It wasn’t as if he had anything important to say to her, he’d just written about the train ride and unpacking, but if they were going to stay broken up, that meant actually acting broken up. Which included not talking. “Actually, tell her hi,” he said.
“Just hi?” Ron asked.
“And ask her how she’s doing.”
Ron smirked. “I’ve already got that one covered, mate.”
“Er. Okay,” Harry said. “Then hi is all.”
-----
The next morning Uncle Vernon finally made the connection. "You're one of those Whizbits, aren't you?" he said to Ron over breakfast. Aunt Petunia had cooked for all of them; Harry suspected it had been out of the fear that Ron might hex her if she didn't. She was probably right in that regard.
"Whizbits?" Ron repeated. "Pass the bacon, Dudley."
Dudley clung to the platter with two hands and then finally held it out like he was giving it up to be slaughtered. Ron piled his plate high and dug in.
"Whizbits," Uncle Vernon repeated doggedly. "Wurrthings."
"Weasleys?" Hermione tried.
"Weasleys!" Uncle Vernon said. "You're one of them, aren't you, the ones that yell on the telephone and send letters with too many stamps and have cars that--" He cut himself off mid-sentence.
"Cars that fly?" Ron supplied.
"Not so loud," Aunt Petunia hissed. "The neighbors might hear."
Harry rolled his eyes.
"Well, yeah," Ron said. "I mean, my name's Ron Weasley."
"There are a lot of you, aren't there? Whizzelbys."
"Er, I guess so," Ron said.
"But you," Uncle Vernon said, turning to Hermione, "you aren't one of them, you haven't nearly enough freckles."
With effort, Harry and Ron kept a straight face.
"Oh no, I'm a Granger," Hermione said poker-faced. "My parents are dentists in Oxford.”
"Dentists? Not--" Uncle Vernon waved his hands about; it made him look like a dancing baboon.
"No, they're regular dentists. They use drills and everything," she added inspiredly.
The mention of drills calmed Uncle Vernon down considerably, which on the one hand was good -- Harry imagined it would be a bit messy if he actually exploded of high blood pressure -- but on the other hand they probably could have kept riling him up a while longer before that became a true danger.
After a while Uncle Vernon went off to sell drills, Dudley went off to beat up ten-year-olds and Aunt Petunia went off muttering something about a garden club meeting.
"Brilliant," Ron said. "Now what do we do?"
"Wait," Hermione said. "I'll be right back." She disappeared upstairs and reemerged a few minutes later triumphantly clutching a stack of papers.
“Hermione,” Ron said, “what are those?”
They were a masterpiece on graph paper -- little squares of color neatly segmented into a multitude of quadrants that obviously held meaning for Hermione, but was a complete mystery to Harry and Ron.
“These are my Horcrux charts.” Hermione beamed. “I was thinking about my study charts for exams and how much they help me manage my time, and then I thought if we’re not on a deadline now I don’t know when we ever will be.”
“So these charts are our secret weapon?” Ron said slowly. "Against You-Know-Who. And the Death Eaters."
“Never underestimate the power of effective time management,” Hermione said. “This one is for you, Ron. See, I color-coded it orange.”
“So what is going on here?” Harry asked, turning the chart Hermione gave him over in his hands. It looked sort of like a checkerboard, but without any logic in its color design.
“Harry, you’re holding it upside down,” Hermione corrected. “Along the left are the lists of possible locations, based on important incidents in Voldemort’s life. And across the top are the possible artifacts.”
“The diary,” Ron read, “the ring--”
"They're already accounted for,” Hermione cut him off. “See, those columns are blacked out. The locket’s column is in red because we know it is a Horcrux. We just aren’t sure where it is. The cup and the snake are in pink because they may be Horcruxes. The blank column is for the one item we don’t know. And Voldemort is at the end, in red, because the last bit of soul is in him.”
"Thanks, Hermione," Harry said. Since third year, Hermione had dutifully been making Harry and Ron exam schedules and Harry and Ron had been dutifully ignoring them. Harry stared at the Horcrux chart dubiously. It was colorful, at least.
“Sure,” Ron muttered. “Making the charts was the hard part.”
Hermione glared at them. “Well, it helps me think about it. I think we should go in order, and target the locket first.”
“Okay," Ron said. “Where could it be?”
They were all quiet.
“Okay," Ron tried again. “Who's R.A.B.?”
Quiet again.
“How about we do some research?” Hermione finally said. “Harry, does this town have a public library?”
Ron looked at Harry and sighed.
After three hours at the library, they had still come up flat. Hermione had Harry looking for mentions of missing persons with the initials R.A.B in Scottish and Northern newspapers from 1980 while she checked the South and greater London. Harry wanted to point out that there probably wouldn’t be a citation on a man who had secretly betrayed the Dark Lord anywhere, let alone in a Muggle library, but it wasn’t as if he had a better suggestion of what to do.
She assigned Ron to combing the phonebooks of every locality in Britain for R.A.B.s. When Ron pointed out that most wizards didn’t have phones, Hermione just stared at him and said, “We must leave no stone unturned.”
Finally, when the clock struck five and the librarian started clearing books from under their noses, they had to admit defeat. Hermione photocopied a phonebook-sized stack of newspapers clippings and they headed home. “I hope your aunt made us dinner,” she said.
“Er, maybe we should stop at the pub,” Harry said.
-----
“I’ve got it!” Hermione crowed, running into Harry and Ron’s room. “I was up all night researching but I’ve cracked the case. I know who R.A.B. is!”
Ron blinked the sleep out of his eyes. “Well, that was quick,” he muttered to Harry.
Harry grabbed his glasses and glanced at the piece of paper Hermione had been waving. “Robert Adam Bakersmith?”
“He’s a London jeweler who went missing in 1980,” Hermione said, snatching the paper back from Harry. “Of course, he was a Muggle. And had no known connection to Voldemort, but still: jewelry, locket -- that could be promising.”
“There are a lot of jewelers in London, Hermione,” Harry said. “Even ones named R.A.B.”
Hermione sighed. “Look at his address, both of you.”
Harry took the paper from her and squinted at it. Bakersmith Fine Designs, it read, 16 Grimmauld Place.
“Oh.” Ron peered over Harry’s shoulder. “Never mind, then. Good job, Hermione, you’ve done it again.”
For the first time since they'd found the note inside the fake locket, Harry felt a bit of hope -- that this wasn't a futile mission, that maybe they weren't doomed to failure from the start. "Is Bakersmith Fine Designs still there?" he said.
Hermione smiled. "According to the phonebook, it is.”
-----
Draco woke up in a dark, empty room, certain that he was going to die.
The last thing he remembered was casting Lumos and being happy that he could finally do magic again -- but he'd been abominably stupid, hadn't he. They must've been watching him, and the second he cast a spell they'd jumped. He didn’t even know who they were: the Aurors, the Death Eaters. . . They all wanted him dead. Now, instead of living like a Squib, which had been boring but at least safe, he was going to die like -- well, like anything died, he supposed.
If he'd just been able to kill Dumbledore like he was supposed to, none of this would have happened. His family would have been back in the Dark Lord's favor instead of imprisoned and hiding and fleeing . . . or rather, in his case, awaiting his death in the dark.
He hadn't even managed to get a look at his attacker before he'd been knocked out. How stupid could he get?
The room was completely black; even though he'd been straining his eyes ever since he'd awoken, the darkness remained total. He tried to feel his way around but didn't discover much. There was a rug on the floor, and a rather moldy one at that -- he'd been unconscious on top of it and had gotten intimately acquainted with it -- but other than that the room seemed to be devoid of furnishings. And suddenly it all hit him: he hadn't eaten properly in days, and he was thirsty, and there was a great raging welt on the side of his head, and he was going to die of starvation or gangrene before someone killed him.
And then there came a sound from somewhere outside of the room, and just like that it didn't matter how miserable he was because even being miserable was better than being dead.
There was the scrabbling of a key in a lock, followed by the incantation for an incredibly complex Unlocking Charm -- Draco would have been impressed if he wasn't about to die -- and a doorway opened in the wall. Draco ducked, shielding his eyes from the unaccustomed brightness, and the door clicked shut. On the backs of his eyelids he felt the quality of the light change; whoever it was had just cast a low-grade wordless Lumos, he thought, and then wondered why he was bothering to identify spells when he was about to die. But he wasn't so much of a coward as to die with his eyes closed. He raised his head.
And there, in front of him, was one of the last people in the world he would have expected to see. "Hello, cousin," said Nymphadora Tonks.
Title: The Secret Hunters (1/?)
Author: 1eyedjack
Rating: PG this chapter, eventually NC-17
Word Count: 3,193
DISCLAIMER: Characters and other familiar-sounding things belong to JKR. Canon information comes from the Lexicon.
Summary: Draco gets a birthday surprise, the Dursleys get an unpleasant surprise and Hermione makes a surprising discovery.
Author’s Note: Picks up immediately after HBP. Thanks to perniciousness and miaruma for betaing.
The Secret Hunters
Chapter One:
The Visit
Ten minutes before midnight on June the fourth, Draco Malfoy was huddled under a bridge in Sunderland. It was pouring rain and he hadn't eaten anything in two days, but he wasn't paying much attention to his shivering or to his stomach. His eyes were fixed firmly on his watch. In exactly ten minutes, it would be his seventeenth birthday.
Nine minutes to go. In the past week he hadn't used magic once. Professor Snape had been very clear on the matter: Draco was not to use it for anything, not even in an emergency, until he turned seventeen. He might get caught by the Improper Use of Magic Office, and that was not a risk Draco could afford.
In the old days, his father could have smoothed over a charge of Underage Magic. At least his father was safe in prison. Draco almost laughed. He had never thought would have been thankful for Azkaban.
Four minutes. He was sick of living like a Squib. He didn't know how they managed it, knowing that there was magic all around them and never being able to use it. Draco would probably kill himself. At least he'd be able to use magic again soon.
Three minutes. He wasn't sure what he would cast first. A drying charm on his clothes? Impervio to stop the water trickling through the cracks in the bridge that he couldn't seem to avoid, no matter where he sat? He had two minutes to decide.
Somewhere out in the dark and the wet a dog howled. Draco hunched down tighter into himself. He knew tonight was the new moon and werewolves couldn't possibly be abroad but he was spooked nonetheless.
One minute to go. Thirty seconds . . . twenty . . . ten . . . nine --Draco pulled his wand out of his trouser pocket for the first time in a week -- three . . . two . . . one . . .
"Lumos," he whispered, and the tip of his wand lit up. He had the hysterical urge to laugh. He hadn't so much as touched his wand in days. Snape had been so insistent on Draco not using magic that he had the idea that the instant he cast the charm a whole platoon of Aurors was going to leap down from the bridge and take him in for questioning, but it had been nearly thirty seconds since he'd cast the Lumos and nothing had happened.
Just then Draco heard the crunching of footsteps on gravel somewhere outside the reach of the light from his wand. He put out the light immediately, but it was already too late.
"Stupefy!"
-----
When Ron and Hermione had said they would go with him to the Dursleys, Harry hadn't figured on them actually coming directly to the Dursleys from Kings Cross.
"What else did you think we were going to do?" Hermione said. "We said we were going, and that's just what we're doing."
"Like we'd leave you alone with those Muggles for a minute," Ron said.
Harry diplomatically refrained from pointing out that Ron and Hermione had no idea what they were getting into, while Hermione assured him that she and Ron had checked with their parents and it was fine.
“I told my parents your aunt and uncle are dying to meet us,” she said with a smile.
"Besides, it's not like it's going to be that long before Mum and Dad see us,” Ron said, pulling Hermione's trunk down from the luggage rack. "Bill and Fleur's wedding's not even two weeks off."
As they lugged their things into Kings Cross proper, Harry caught sight of a flash of red hair off to the left. He tried not to stare. He and Ginny had said good-bye in passing as they boarded the Hogwarts Express and had gone off to their separate compartments. It was better this way. He turned back towards Ron, who was staring at something over Harry’s shoulder with utter fascination.
"It's them, isn't it, Harry?" Hermione whispered.
Thirty feet in front of them were the Dursleys: Uncle Vernon, beady eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Harry; Aunt Petunia, craning her neck over the crowds to better glare in their general direction; and Dudley, who looked like he very much wanted to throw a tantrum but was nearly seventeen years old and didn't dare do it in public.
"This is the last time you'll be coming back, isn't it, boy?" Uncle Vernon said, after Harry, Ron and Hermione had finally managed to drag their trunks over to where they were standing.
"Well, I'm not going back to school next year," Harry said.
Confusion and rage battled for a place on Uncle Vernon's face. Rage won out. "You certainly won't be living with us as a dropout!" he said.
Harry couldn’t think of anything he would rather do less. "Did I ever say I was planning on living with you past this summer?”
Aunt Petunia muttered something about mercy and the Good Lord and Harry rolled his eyes. “Speaking of this summer, I'd like you to meet two of my friends from school. Uncle Vernon, this is Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron, Hermione, meet Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and my cousin Dudley."
"What do you want with me?" Dudley said.
"Nothing, dear," Aunt Petunia said soothingly.
"I'm missing Neighbours, you know," Dudley said, glaring at Harry. Harry wondered if he was supposed to feel guilty about it.
"Why should I want to meet your friends from . . . from that place?" Uncle Vernon hissed.
"They’re going to be living with us.” Harry said cheerfully.
"What do you mean, living with us?" Aunt Petunia gasped.
"They bloody well will not be," Uncle Vernon said. "It is my house and I can determine whom I see fit to allow inside it. You can’t force me to change my mind. You people can't do any of your funny business over the holidays, anyway." Uncle Vernon looked distinctly pleased with himself for having remembered that rule.
"You're right. I can't do magic over the holidays," Harry said.
"Don't say that word!" Uncle Vernon hissed.
“What word?” Harry asked. “Holidays? Magic?” The Dursleys jumped.
"Harry might not be able to use magic over the holidays,” Ron pulled his wand out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands. The Dursleys watched its movement, terrified. He grinned at them, looking a lot like Fred or George. "But Hermione and I can. We’re seventeen. We're legal."
"The legal age is eighteen," Aunt Petunia put in.
"Not in the wizarding world, it isn't," Ron said with a grin.
Harry smiled at Uncle Vernon. “So where’s the car?”
-----
The Dursleys actually deigned to give Hermione the guest bedroom, in which no guest had slept since the infamous incident with Aunt Marge the summer before third year, at least not while Harry was in the house.
"The boy can sleep in the same room as you," Aunt Petunia said.
"His name is Ron," Harry said. "And he's standing right here."
"But no funny business," Uncle Vernon said, apparently having decided that 'funny business' was as good a term for 'magic' as any. "No funny business of any kind. Who knows what you people get up to at that place." He wandered away, muttering angrily under his breath.
“Harry, you are possibly the most well-adjusted person I have ever met,” Hermione announced fifteen minutes later as she burst into Harry and Ron’s room and shut the door behind her.
“Er . . . thanks, Hermione,” Harry said.
"I always knew your family was horrible, Harry, but your aunt--"
“Did she hurt you?” Ron jumped off the bed, where he had been playing with his toes.
“No.” Hermione scowled. “Nothing like that. After your family dropped me off at the room, I thought they had left. I put my things away and went to stow my trunk under the bed, and your aunt was hiding under it. Listening to me unpack.”
Harry blinked. The Dursleys had officially reached a new level of weirdness. Having three wizards in the house must have really sent them over the edge. “What did she say?”
“It was terribly awkward, actually,” Hermione said. “She said something about dusting and I pretended to believe her and she practically ran to the door, but then I mentioned something about helping her with dinner--”
Ron looked horrified. “Hermione, are you mental?”
“I know!” She put her head in her hands. “I couldn’t help it. It just slipped out. And she didn’t want to say no and I didn’t want to retract my offer, so now we’re both stuck.”
“You could, er . . .” Ron trailed off. All three of them were silent for a few moments. “Are you a good cook at least?” Ron finally asked.
Harry picked at a piece of lint on the dress robes he was taking out of his suitcase. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Both of you.” He stared at his trainers. “You know.”
When he looked up, Hermione was smiling. “Of course,” she said.
Ron shrugged.
Apparently Hermione’s time helping with dinner wasn’t too terrible. Hermione told Harry and Ron that she and Aunt Petunia had gotten on fairly well because they spent the whole time talking about the importance of clean teeth. However, the détente didn’t last and they all ate dinner in stony silence. Dudley whispered something to his mother about freaks and took his meal to eat in front of the television.
“Hey, I’m writing to Ginny,” Ron said, later that evening as they were both getting ready for bed. “Do you want me to tell her anything from you?”
“No,” Harry said, thinking of the half-written letter to Ginny he’d hidden in the bottom of his suitcase. It wasn’t as if he had anything important to say to her, he’d just written about the train ride and unpacking, but if they were going to stay broken up, that meant actually acting broken up. Which included not talking. “Actually, tell her hi,” he said.
“Just hi?” Ron asked.
“And ask her how she’s doing.”
Ron smirked. “I’ve already got that one covered, mate.”
“Er. Okay,” Harry said. “Then hi is all.”
-----
The next morning Uncle Vernon finally made the connection. "You're one of those Whizbits, aren't you?" he said to Ron over breakfast. Aunt Petunia had cooked for all of them; Harry suspected it had been out of the fear that Ron might hex her if she didn't. She was probably right in that regard.
"Whizbits?" Ron repeated. "Pass the bacon, Dudley."
Dudley clung to the platter with two hands and then finally held it out like he was giving it up to be slaughtered. Ron piled his plate high and dug in.
"Whizbits," Uncle Vernon repeated doggedly. "Wurrthings."
"Weasleys?" Hermione tried.
"Weasleys!" Uncle Vernon said. "You're one of them, aren't you, the ones that yell on the telephone and send letters with too many stamps and have cars that--" He cut himself off mid-sentence.
"Cars that fly?" Ron supplied.
"Not so loud," Aunt Petunia hissed. "The neighbors might hear."
Harry rolled his eyes.
"Well, yeah," Ron said. "I mean, my name's Ron Weasley."
"There are a lot of you, aren't there? Whizzelbys."
"Er, I guess so," Ron said.
"But you," Uncle Vernon said, turning to Hermione, "you aren't one of them, you haven't nearly enough freckles."
With effort, Harry and Ron kept a straight face.
"Oh no, I'm a Granger," Hermione said poker-faced. "My parents are dentists in Oxford.”
"Dentists? Not--" Uncle Vernon waved his hands about; it made him look like a dancing baboon.
"No, they're regular dentists. They use drills and everything," she added inspiredly.
The mention of drills calmed Uncle Vernon down considerably, which on the one hand was good -- Harry imagined it would be a bit messy if he actually exploded of high blood pressure -- but on the other hand they probably could have kept riling him up a while longer before that became a true danger.
After a while Uncle Vernon went off to sell drills, Dudley went off to beat up ten-year-olds and Aunt Petunia went off muttering something about a garden club meeting.
"Brilliant," Ron said. "Now what do we do?"
"Wait," Hermione said. "I'll be right back." She disappeared upstairs and reemerged a few minutes later triumphantly clutching a stack of papers.
“Hermione,” Ron said, “what are those?”
They were a masterpiece on graph paper -- little squares of color neatly segmented into a multitude of quadrants that obviously held meaning for Hermione, but was a complete mystery to Harry and Ron.
“These are my Horcrux charts.” Hermione beamed. “I was thinking about my study charts for exams and how much they help me manage my time, and then I thought if we’re not on a deadline now I don’t know when we ever will be.”
“So these charts are our secret weapon?” Ron said slowly. "Against You-Know-Who. And the Death Eaters."
“Never underestimate the power of effective time management,” Hermione said. “This one is for you, Ron. See, I color-coded it orange.”
“So what is going on here?” Harry asked, turning the chart Hermione gave him over in his hands. It looked sort of like a checkerboard, but without any logic in its color design.
“Harry, you’re holding it upside down,” Hermione corrected. “Along the left are the lists of possible locations, based on important incidents in Voldemort’s life. And across the top are the possible artifacts.”
“The diary,” Ron read, “the ring--”
"They're already accounted for,” Hermione cut him off. “See, those columns are blacked out. The locket’s column is in red because we know it is a Horcrux. We just aren’t sure where it is. The cup and the snake are in pink because they may be Horcruxes. The blank column is for the one item we don’t know. And Voldemort is at the end, in red, because the last bit of soul is in him.”
"Thanks, Hermione," Harry said. Since third year, Hermione had dutifully been making Harry and Ron exam schedules and Harry and Ron had been dutifully ignoring them. Harry stared at the Horcrux chart dubiously. It was colorful, at least.
“Sure,” Ron muttered. “Making the charts was the hard part.”
Hermione glared at them. “Well, it helps me think about it. I think we should go in order, and target the locket first.”
“Okay," Ron said. “Where could it be?”
They were all quiet.
“Okay," Ron tried again. “Who's R.A.B.?”
Quiet again.
“How about we do some research?” Hermione finally said. “Harry, does this town have a public library?”
Ron looked at Harry and sighed.
After three hours at the library, they had still come up flat. Hermione had Harry looking for mentions of missing persons with the initials R.A.B in Scottish and Northern newspapers from 1980 while she checked the South and greater London. Harry wanted to point out that there probably wouldn’t be a citation on a man who had secretly betrayed the Dark Lord anywhere, let alone in a Muggle library, but it wasn’t as if he had a better suggestion of what to do.
She assigned Ron to combing the phonebooks of every locality in Britain for R.A.B.s. When Ron pointed out that most wizards didn’t have phones, Hermione just stared at him and said, “We must leave no stone unturned.”
Finally, when the clock struck five and the librarian started clearing books from under their noses, they had to admit defeat. Hermione photocopied a phonebook-sized stack of newspapers clippings and they headed home. “I hope your aunt made us dinner,” she said.
“Er, maybe we should stop at the pub,” Harry said.
-----
“I’ve got it!” Hermione crowed, running into Harry and Ron’s room. “I was up all night researching but I’ve cracked the case. I know who R.A.B. is!”
Ron blinked the sleep out of his eyes. “Well, that was quick,” he muttered to Harry.
Harry grabbed his glasses and glanced at the piece of paper Hermione had been waving. “Robert Adam Bakersmith?”
“He’s a London jeweler who went missing in 1980,” Hermione said, snatching the paper back from Harry. “Of course, he was a Muggle. And had no known connection to Voldemort, but still: jewelry, locket -- that could be promising.”
“There are a lot of jewelers in London, Hermione,” Harry said. “Even ones named R.A.B.”
Hermione sighed. “Look at his address, both of you.”
Harry took the paper from her and squinted at it. Bakersmith Fine Designs, it read, 16 Grimmauld Place.
“Oh.” Ron peered over Harry’s shoulder. “Never mind, then. Good job, Hermione, you’ve done it again.”
For the first time since they'd found the note inside the fake locket, Harry felt a bit of hope -- that this wasn't a futile mission, that maybe they weren't doomed to failure from the start. "Is Bakersmith Fine Designs still there?" he said.
Hermione smiled. "According to the phonebook, it is.”
-----
Draco woke up in a dark, empty room, certain that he was going to die.
The last thing he remembered was casting Lumos and being happy that he could finally do magic again -- but he'd been abominably stupid, hadn't he. They must've been watching him, and the second he cast a spell they'd jumped. He didn’t even know who they were: the Aurors, the Death Eaters. . . They all wanted him dead. Now, instead of living like a Squib, which had been boring but at least safe, he was going to die like -- well, like anything died, he supposed.
If he'd just been able to kill Dumbledore like he was supposed to, none of this would have happened. His family would have been back in the Dark Lord's favor instead of imprisoned and hiding and fleeing . . . or rather, in his case, awaiting his death in the dark.
He hadn't even managed to get a look at his attacker before he'd been knocked out. How stupid could he get?
The room was completely black; even though he'd been straining his eyes ever since he'd awoken, the darkness remained total. He tried to feel his way around but didn't discover much. There was a rug on the floor, and a rather moldy one at that -- he'd been unconscious on top of it and had gotten intimately acquainted with it -- but other than that the room seemed to be devoid of furnishings. And suddenly it all hit him: he hadn't eaten properly in days, and he was thirsty, and there was a great raging welt on the side of his head, and he was going to die of starvation or gangrene before someone killed him.
And then there came a sound from somewhere outside of the room, and just like that it didn't matter how miserable he was because even being miserable was better than being dead.
There was the scrabbling of a key in a lock, followed by the incantation for an incredibly complex Unlocking Charm -- Draco would have been impressed if he wasn't about to die -- and a doorway opened in the wall. Draco ducked, shielding his eyes from the unaccustomed brightness, and the door clicked shut. On the backs of his eyelids he felt the quality of the light change; whoever it was had just cast a low-grade wordless Lumos, he thought, and then wondered why he was bothering to identify spells when he was about to die. But he wasn't so much of a coward as to die with his eyes closed. He raised his head.
And there, in front of him, was one of the last people in the world he would have expected to see. "Hello, cousin," said Nymphadora Tonks.