Based on the Harry Potter Series By J. K. Rowling
Chapter 43 “ Secrets In The Sand
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One precious minute was expended before Harry made it to the top of the stairs. From the first floor, he heard Scrimgeour and Thompson yelling at Benton about the call which had not yet arrived. Harry doubted he would have fifteen minutes; even five seemed highly unlikely at this point. When the yelling from the parlor ceased, Harry was able to listen closely for Mary and the children. Nothing. Dead silence.
Thanking the Thompson’s interior decorator, Harry tread carefully down the thickly carpeted hallway towards Rebecca’s room. Her door was ajar three or four centimeters, but it was enough for him to hear her breathing.
Continuing to the south end of the hallway, Harry nearly walked in front of the open door to the family room. Mary Thompson sat on the sofa where Ginny had seen her twelve hours earlier, staring at the wall.
Backtracking, Harry tried to find the twin’s room, but just got lost in a maze of unused bedrooms and offices. Returning to the second floor kitchen, Harry heard shouting from the first floor, then Benton’s voice, almost begging, “But sir, what if he calls back?”
“I don’t care, tell him I’m busy. Good night.”
Thompson was coming up, but alone this time. Harry panicked when he thought of Benton being left alone down there with Scrimgeour, but there was nothing he could do except Apparate back to the Burrow or be seen. He could still get away, but if Thompson saw him he’d raise an alarm, possibly putting Benton in further danger.
Reversing his path, Harry retreated back to one of the unused bedrooms; unfortunately, Thompson was walking the same direction. Stepping as quietly as he could, Harry wove through doors and hallways, avoiding his pursuer. After another three minutes Harry was certain his presence was known. He had back-tracked and still Thompson followed.
Finally, after taking a wrong turn in a dark corridor, Harry found himself trapped in a small room that looked like a linen closet. Pocketring his wand, Harry opened a chrome linen chute, saw it was large enough for him, and climbed in feet first.
Falling the twenty vertical feet to the basement, Harry was reminded of his last trip into the Chamber of Secrets; his fall ended just as roughly. Spat onto a concrete floor which was padded with only a few soiled sheets and napkins, Harry’s lower back felt like it was on fire, but he could still walk. Not believing the Prime Minister would follow him down the chute, Harry waited another minute, listening for any sound of detection.
Above, on the second floor, Thompson looked around the linen closet. Stepping to the chute, he opened the door and peered down. Below, Harry heard the door open, followed by a sniffing sound. Then the door closed; he seemed to have escaped detection.
With a few more minutes reprieve, Harry calmed himself and went to the partly closed door. Hearing another sound seemed too incredible, but that’s what it was. Stealing a look through the narrow space between the door and the frame, Harry watched Scrimgeour walk past his field of vision and then heard his feet climbing the stairs. With a loud click, the lights shut off.
Upon hearing the cellar door closed and bolted, Harry finally had time to relax. He knew that his family and friends back at the Burrow would be furious with him for staying away so long, but tough! he thought, I’m here, I’m safe... and what was Scrimgeour doing in the basement? Certainly not looking for me.
Thankful for the solid concrete basement floor that would not require time consuming care as he walked about, Harry lit his wand with a faint glow and exited the laundry room. Ten steps later he was at a junction of hallways with only a left or right turn option. Believing it best to search where Scrimgeour had been, Harry turned left into a dead end. No doors, windows, curtains “ nothing. Turning to check the other end of the hallway, a creak in the floorboards above startled Harry and required him to extinguish the wand. But it had been a false alarm, probably just someone walking about on the first floor. Relighting his wand, Harry froze and then extinguished it again. What was that?
Allowing his eyes a minute to readjust to the dark, Harry looked down...along the base of the wall...THERE! Four meters down the hallway there was a door of some sort. You could see a faint glow of light seeping through the tiny space between the floor and the door’s lower edge. Yet no door was detectable.
While standing, thinking how to best proceed, a muffled CRACK startled Harry, straining his already taut nerves even further. Someone just Apparated nearby. It has to be Scrimgeour, but where is he? In the hidden room?
Harry reversed his path and retreated back to the laundry room. At this point, he had been gone twenty minutes and had found very little. Sitting on the floor of the room, Harry heard another CRACK and some banging, another CRACK, and another. The noise repeated a few more times. Often there were other sounds accompanying those Harry recognized as belonging to someone Apparating. Thumps, wood banging against wood, but no voices; he was perfectly happy to not hear that.
Perhaps five more minutes passed before the sounds coming from the other side of the laundry room wall stopped. A door banged next, followed by the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Rising silently, Harry again looked through the narrow space between the door and its frame, and again saw Scrimgeour leaving.
Harry had a difficult choice to make now. He knew that his friends were ready to kill him, assuming he hadn’t already been discovered and killed by Scrimgeour. Returning was the safer, and probably the wiser move. Staying, however, Harry could look into whatever was happening on the other side of the wall; it obviously was something of importance to Scrimgeour, therefore, important to Harry.
He chose to stay, but not push his luck. One trip into that room, if I can even get in, then back to the Burrow. Next Harry had to find a way into the room, quietly, quickly, and safely. Exiting the laundry room for the second time, Harry returned to the hallway outside the invisible door and cast a silencing charm on the area. Then, hoping for the best, he put his shoulder into the center of the invisible door and pushed. Nothing happened. Trying the unlocking charm and pushing again was no more successful.
Harry then contemplated something highly dangerous: a blind Apparition from one side of the door to the other. The risk was high, but Harry believed it necessary. Hoping the door swung inward, thus requiring no obstruction on the other side, just moving forward one meter should be all he needed. Closing his eyes, Harry did what every rule of common sense and Apparition training told him never to do.
When Harry appeared on the other side of the door, he immediately knew that the door swung out, towards the hallway, and not inward. A stabbing pain shot through his body.
The first ten minutes had been difficult for those awaiting Harry’s return. At the fifteen minute mark, some glances were exchanged. After twenty five minutes, Ginny was in the parlor screaming at her parents to let her find Harry. And she wasn’t the only one getting testy from anxiety. Now, forty-five minutes had passed and Remus was beginning to think Ginny should Apparate into the house, with someone else, of course, to find out what had happened. But it was not necessary.
CRACK The unmistakable sound of someone Apparating to the parlor signaled, everyone hoped, Harry’s return. Ginny and Hermione were the only ones in the parlor at that time and turned to see Harry falling to the ground. He was carrying something large wrapped in a piece of plastic.
“Harry!” Ginny yelled, running to his side. But Harry didn’t respond. He was curled up in a fetal position. Within seconds, everyone else had run into the parlor forming a circle around Harry and calling his name. There was a long, low, moan from his mouth in response. Molly bent down to help Ginny administer whatever was needed. The two gently rolled Harry off his side and onto his back; that was when they saw the blood.
The entire front of Harry’s shirt was covered with blood. Then they realized it was not his shirt they saw, it was his skin and... muscle tissue. A neat rectangle from his shirt was missing and below that, skin was cut from his middle to lower abdomen in the same pattern. Screaming for everyone to leave, Molly and Ginny each took out their wand and started healing the areas bleeding the most. In a few minutes they were finished, but they both knew the shabby work they had done in haste would leave an ugly scar, but at least Harry would not bleed to death.
Ginny was cleaning Harry up as Molly went to tell everyone that Harry would be all right. Seeing Harry open his eyes, Ginny kissed his forehead and asked the question everyone wanted to know: “What happened?”
“Gin, the book, give it to Hermione.”
“Harry, but what happened to you?”
“Found something... see book.”
Reaching into his pant pocket, Harry retrieved a small bag of what looked like sand.
“Gin, hide this and do not touch it. I’ll ‘splain later.” Then Harry slipped back into unconsciousness.
At seven the next morning, Harry was still sleeping on the parlor floor. All the “kids” had forsaken their soft beds to be near Harry, so the room looked more like a dormitory that a family parlor. Ginny was, as expected, next to Harry, snoring almost as loudly as Ron.
Molly stood at the door, looking in, and still wondering what had happened. The only thing she knew was that Hermione had disappeared upstairs with the book Harry had brought back. Patty had joined her shortly thereafter, and both were looking at the pilfered manuscript until early in the morning.
In the kitchen starting breakfast, a hand landed on Molly’s shoulder nearly causing her to drop the skillet of eggs she was preparing.
“Where’s the book?” Harry asked, quietly.
“Oh Dear! We were so worried about you.” Molly pulled Harry to her and held him tightly or at least until she heard Harry gasp in pain.
“I’m so sorry, is it ok?”
“Yeah; it’s just painful is all. I did something pretty stupid. I did a blind Apparition into a room, thinking the door swung in and required a clear path.”
“I take it the door did not swing the way you expected?”
“Er”no, it didn’t . I found the end of a wooden box imbedded into my skin. One centimeter further and I think I’d still be there. I had to, uh, tear and cut my skin away, but I got the book.”
Molly gasped in horror and had to be assured Harry was fine before asking about the book.
“Not sure, exactly, but it looks very similar to the...”
Harry was cut off by Remus bounding down the stairs with a wild look of horror on his face. Tonks was right behind him calling, telling him to stop. The racket they made woke up almost everyone else at the Burrow.
“Molly, good God, there was a full moon last night. I forgot all about it. I never thought getting my powers back might return me to being a werewolf.” Then seeing Harry, Remus was temporarily distracted. “Harry! You’re up. What happened last night?”
Obviously distress by the werewolf situation, Remus quickly forgot about it and focused on Harry.
“Hi, Remus, well, it’s a long story.” Harry glanced at Molly hoping she would not tell anyone of his stupidity. She didn’t.
Then from the parlor they all heard George and Ron cursing at each other. A moment later Hermione walked into the room with a devilish smile on her face.
“What are they yelling about?” Harry asked.
“Oh, it seems Ron forgot I was sleeping on his right and George on his left.” Hermione giggled and walked off to the loo.
Remus sat at the table with Tonks. He was obviously still irritated with himself. Shaking his head, Remus considered the memory lapse. “What I might have done! Sometimes I hate this life.” Tonks and Molly assured him that the matter was closed and he should forget about it.
“Remus, every test you had showed that there was no wolf blood in your body. We need to put that part of our life behind us. Ok?” Nodding, Remus composed himself and watched everyone walk into the kitchen over the next few minutes.
“You’re going to have to spend a lot of time with James this morning, I believe the curse of motherhood is hitting me again.” Tonks exited the kitchen quickly.
Harry looked at Remus. “Morning sickness?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad with James; hopefully this one will be the same.”
A look of surprise crossed Harry’s face and he jumped up from his chair, clutching his stomach. “Shi, er...Bugger, I forgot, too, Remus. The Prime Minister is addressing Parliament at eight and the nation right afterwards. Dad, do you have a Muggle radio?”
“Not a working one.”
Tom Granger spoke up. “We do, but it’s in the car. I don’t think everyone can fit in it, though.”
“Well, we have almost an hour, let’s have some breakfast while Hermione tells us about this secret book Harry brought back with him.”
Everyone seemed to find this to be the best plan. Hermione went to get her notes and returned, sitting next to Patty. As Molly started serving sausage, eggs and toast, the story started.
First Harry told them what had happened up to the point where he returned. Omitting the incident with the wound in his stomach, he finished by telling how he picked that particular book.
“It was in a large box, about two meters long and almost a meter wide. I, uh, ran into it and saw there were four or five books inside. The bottom of the box was covered with a few centimeters of sand. I grabbed the closest book and a small bag of sand that was next to it. I think it was the same sand, but it’s hard to tell.”
“Harry, do you know what this book is?” Hermione asked first.
“No, but it looks like the same book I read with Snape in Merlin’s world; at least from the outside.”
“Close enough.” Opening the book to a page marked with a strip of paper, Hermione placed the book on the table for all to see. One entire page was taken up with a drawing of a round object with the double triangle, or hourglass, in the middle. The Latin words TEMPORUM HARENAE encircled the edge of the object and were also the heading of the page opposite the drawing.
“TEMPORUM HARENA,.” Patty said while pointing to the words. Latin for “the sands of time.”
“That’s the thing I saw hanging around Scrimgeour’s neck, or very close to it.” Ginny added. Then removing a small plastic bag from her pocket, she placed it on the table.
Ron reached for it, but Harry placed his hand out to stop him. “Hang on a sec, Ron. If that’s what I’m thinking it is, we have to be very careful.”
The room was silent but for the sausages cooking, and even they seemed hushed by what was before them. It also gave Harry an idea. Going to the counter, Harry took an old bowl and placed a cooked sausage on it, then, returning to the table, he took the bag, opened it, and sprinkled a few grains on the meat. Before their eyes, the cooked sausage began to turn pink, then red...the meet was uncooking.
“My God!” was all Harry could say, flopping onto his chair. The table was frozen in place, half the mouths were open in amazement, some eyes were bulging at the sight, Patty crossed herself and muttered what sounded like a prayer. Arthur swallowed so hard Molly could hear him at the far end of the table.
“Uh, I think this is bad,” Fred said quietly. “I mean, if Scrimgeour has this stuff he could be, I don’t know, thousands of years old, maybe even older than...”
“No, Fred,” Patty said quickly. “Hermione and I knew about this last night, I mean, about the medallion. But the leap from the medallion to the sand was pretty easy. I don’t think he can be any older than Merlin, or Merlin would have known of him.”
“Well, what, or WHO do you think he is?” Moody asked testily.
“We’re not sure, but we have an idea. Let me tell you more about what’s in here. Fortunately it’s written in Latin and Patty and I have become pretty good at these translations lately, and none of them are in a code like Merlin’s.” Hermione pulled out a pad of long yellow paper. Harry, Ron, and Ginny had seen her with that type of tablet at Hogwarts. She called it her “legal pad,” though none of them knew why it was considered “legal.”
“In short, this is a book of curses; essentially a book of magic. There are other parts that look like journal entries or stories, and a few references to magical creatures. The book is similar to what Harry described as Merlin’s Book, but it was not written by Merlin, or at least most of it wasn’t. We found a reference to the start of the book being around 460 AD.”
“The binding is similar to what Harry described. Pages of an early paper, pressed and bound inside a tough leather cover. You can see the ligature marks and also tell that different types of ropes or twine were used.”
“The handwriting throughout the book appears to be that of the same person. I’ll get back to that in a minute.”
“The first remarkable thing we noticed was that the book was dedicated, almost entirely, to spells, or ‘curses,’ as the author calls them. When we read that, Patty and I thought we had another one of Merlin’s books because he references all his magic as curses. But later in the book the author starts to differentiate between the categories of magic, more like our modern classification system of spells, curses, hexes, charms, and so forth.”
Hermione’s story was capturing everyone’s complete attention. Even Molly nearly burned the sausages that were still on the stove.
“The next important thing we noticed was that each of the curses, or spells, was a story unto itself. Some were short, as short as a few lines. Others took up many pages. When we translated the spell names we understood why. Many of the spells are ones we still use today, and we know how difficult some of them are to cast. Anyway, each had pictures accompanying them and even crude drawings of people. We think they are showing the reader how to use or cast that particular piece of magic.”
“As we moved through the book, we noticed that the directions for casting spells changed. The oldest spells, those at the start of the book, always had the notation ‘manus tuus usurparas,’ or ‘use your hands.’ Toward the middle and end of the book we started seeing the direction, ‘scipio tuus usurparas,’ much more frequently.”
“Use your wand?” Tonks guessed.
“Exactly: Use your wand. What’s even more interesting is that there are references to a name familiar to us after the ‘scipio tuus usurparas’ instruction began being used: Osiris Ollivander.”
Remus whistled in amazement, then ran upstairs to fetch the crying James.
“The next thing we talked about last night was the chronology of the book. There were very few dates, just that 460 one I mentioned, and one other. But if you examine the book page by page, you can see that the quality of the paper it’s written on becomes better and better. Patty and I believe this is because the quality of paper used in those days was poor at the time the book was started. Over the years...and centuries...”
“Hang on there, Hermione. Centuries? And these were written by the same person?” Moody asked suspiciously. He had made himself comfortable and put his feet on the table. Molly would throw him a nasty look every once in a while. Moody, in response, would stick his tongue out at her.
“Well, I’m getting to that right now, Moody. Remember my comment about the handwriting being the same throughout? Well, at the end of the book we found the only other date referenced.”
Hermione stopped here to make sure everyone was listening. They were.
“The date was 979. We couldn’t translate much more, we were falling asleep, but we did see these other words stand out.” Hermione wrote out seven words.
MEUS
GEMELLUS
G.
ET
FRATRES
CONVENIEMUS
CHOERUSPHACO
A few around the table recognized one of the words, but mostly they were looking at Hermione for the answer.
“As best we can tell, the first six words translate as:
MY
TWIN
G.
AND
SISTERS
WILL MEET”
“That’s only six, Hermione!” Ron’s frustration at not know the answer was showing. But he was not alone.
“The last word was a bastardization of ancient Latin but we believe it means, WARTHOG.”
“My twin and sisters will meet wart hogs?” George asked with obvious skepticism.
Patty answered him. “Almost, we think that the complete translation will be, ‘My twin, Galen, and I, will meet our sisters at Hogwarts.’”
“There’re five hundred years between...” Moody started to say, but then backed off. Around the table, only Harry, Hermione, and Patty saw all the pieces fit together. Moody was almost there, as were Ginny and Tonks. Hermione put the last pieces in place.
“I believe this book was written by Merlin’s first son, Stefen. Galen, or ‘G,’ is his twin. The sisters he is speaking about must be the twins girls, Hannah and Renae.” Looking at mainly confused expressions, Hermione spelled it out for them.
“Stefen, Galen, Hannah, and Renae are Merlin’s four children. According to this note, they were going to meet around 979 at a place called Hogwarts. HOGWARTS, our school!”
“You mean it wasn’t founded by Slytherin and Gryffindor and the others?” Ron asked in an offended tone.
“RON! Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw ARE Stefen, Galen, Hannah, and Renae!”
“Oh. So what?” Ron asked, completely indifferent to the significance of the find. Hermione looked like she was about to hit him.
Patty did.
“Hey! Cut that out. What’s the big deal anyway? It’s not like it changes anything... does it?”
Arthur made another connection Hermione had talked about the day before. “Hermione, this is what you saw in Merlin’s world yesterday, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly, dad, what I came across was the significance of the sand. The same sand that’s in the time turners, the medallion, and this bag here; probably that entire box on Downing Street, too. And if that’s true, it probably all came for that town in Egypt were Merlin originated. Abu...something.”
Next, Tom Granger asked a chilling question. “Hermione, do you think this Scrimgeour fellow IS Slytherin?”
The questions and answers bouncing back and forth between Hermione and the others reminded Harry of a table tennis match.
“No, I don’t think so. If he was he would have been far more powerful than Voldemort and we wouldn’t be sitting here, and he certainly wouldn’t be working through the Prime... holy cow, I forgot. The radio.” Hermione jumped up and grabbed her coat, heading out to the car to turn on the radio.
“Don’t rush, we missed the speech to Parliament, but the national address should be coming up soon,” Remus told everyone.
Soon they were all bundled up and standing around the Granger’s car, listening to the radio, except Remus and James. An announcer with a thick Irish accent was recapping the speech to Parliament with a journalist.
“...even if it was true, do you think he has the right to ask Parliament for this?”
“I don’t know if he has the right, but he has the votes, that’s clear. I think the only hope the wizarding community has now is if the vote is delayed a few days. Perhaps cooler heads will prevail.”
“That’s not going to happen. Member Fisher was in tears when the Prime Minister told about his daughter, and he HATES Thompson...”
“Sorry to interrupt you, Bob, we just received the thirty second warning for the Prime Minister’s public address. Please stand by while we take you back to Parliament.”
Arthur was just as stunned as everyone else, even if he didn’t hear what was happening he could tell it was going to be very bad for them. As the Prime Minister began speaking, Arthur saw Gerry and Deborah Fairling walking toward them. Gerry was carrying a rifle. Not believing he would shoot, Arthur set his attention back on the radio.
“My fellow Englishmen and Englishwomen, most of you just heard my address to Parliament and my call for action against those responsible for what happened to my daughter, and almost to myself. This is not a call for revenge, it’s an admission of folly and weakness on my part. Monday evening, just thirty-six hours ago, I believe with all my heart that we would be able to welcome our brother and sister wizards back into our community after a sixteen hundred year absence. I now know this is utterly impossible.”
“I spoke to you that night about Ms. Weasley and Mr. Potter, and all they had done for our country and my family, personally. For whatever reason they have now turned against us and it is clear that they have no other intention than mischief. If these two are examples of the...”
Tom Granger turned the radio off after the speech finished and looked at those gathered around the car. “I can’t believe this is happening to us. He sounded just like Hitler, calling us all Jews, and establishing secret police.”
The fact that Tom had included himself and Jeannie as “us” in his words, convinced Hermione that she had to accept them back. She walked over and stood between her parents with an arm around each. Ron walked over too.
Gerry Fairling spoke up, startling those who had not seen them approach; they were even more startled when they saw he had a gun.
“Damn, Art, if that were my car I’d’ve blown the radio out by this point. I thought I liked that guy. I know you better than that, what kind of horse sh..., beg pardon, Molly. What kind of dung is he heaping?”
“It’s just unbelievable, Ger, thanks for being here.” Molly and Arthur stood with Gerry and Deborah, lost in their thoughts.
“I wish I’d taken you up on your offer, Fred.” Patty said for everyone to hear. “I’m ashamed to be a Muggle now.” Fred saw the tears in her eyes and put an arm around her shoulder, looking more awkward than Ron used to with Hermione. George came up and joined him, tears in his eyes, also.
Moody and McGonagall stood silently with Remus, Tonks, and James, who was bundled in a blanket. He was the only one happy right at that moment, pulling off Remus’s spectacles and sucking on them.
Harry slipped away to the house quietly and unseen. He had watched Ginny go inside when Thompson mentioned Rebecca and he had an idea what she was doing. He also knew, from personal experience, that she couldn’t do it alone.
The sole person sitting, in an old lawn chair near the leafless, dormant hydrangea, Percy Weasley decided to go on his own adventure with his friend Severus Snape. This time Snape didn’t argue. As their ears heard no more and their vision faded to darkness, a new light, in their minds and in their souls, showed them the way to a very different sort of family reunion. Along the way Albus Dumbledore met them, embraced them, and handed them off to two brothers who would escort them for the remainder of their journey.