All That I'm After
"This grove, that was once so peaceful, must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the thought I could believe I heard it ringing still."
- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Harry stumbled as he apparated onto the uneven terrain right outside the gates of the castle grounds. Seconds later, another pair of loud cracks announced the arrival of Dave and Ron, too, and together they looked up at the stone wall surrounding Hogwarts, struck momentarily into silence.
Dave was the first to clear his throat and advance forwards. He shuffled along at first, obviously hesitant about entering, and Harry thought he knew why: the single time that Dave had been here, it’d just been the site of a bloody battle. He must be just as nervous as the rest of them to face the historic grounds.
It was the just the three of them that had come. Malfoy wouldn’t want a whole zoo full of Weasleys chasing after him, and three trained Aurors would be more effective than all of them anyways. The rest of the brood had stayed at The Burrow to await news and any last minute messages having to do with Hermione and Ginny, while they snuck into the castle to search out the Room of Requirement. It was September and while most of the teachers were aware of the events a couple days before, no students were and Harry hoped that they wouldn’t run into too many inquiring minds while they were here.
Opening the iron-barred gates, Dave entered first, then Ron, then Harry. He took a deep breath and held it in as he crossed the threshold, fearing the smell of blood and burnt flesh that he’d last smelt in this place. But he opened his eyes and looked around, and he was shocked by the simple tranquility of it. It didn’t look like the war of all wars had been fought here just four short years ago.
“Weird, isn’t it?” asked Ron in a hushed whisper, like how you might talk when in a library or in a room housing the dead.
“What is?” questioned Dave.
“It’s almost … normal in here. That’s a good thing, I guess. Keeps the atmosphere for the kids, but for those who know, were actually there … It just feels strange.”
David nodded. “I can see what you mean.”
“It’s like …” hesitated Harry, not sure if his opinion would be welcome, “like I expect to see it all again in my mind; smell the blood, hear the cries … but I can’t see it. It’s not really there.”
Ron nodded and for an all-too-brief moment a look of understanding was passed between them. Then the redhead glanced away, focusing on the tall towers and stonework against the overcast sky, and the spell was broken, and Harry was suddenly forcefully reminded of just how different everything now was. They weren’t here for reminisces today “ they needed to find Hermione and Ginny, find them now, and get out.
Harry stepped in front. “Come on,” he said, and then, not waiting to see if the others were following him, he started sprinting across the green grass and up to the oak front doors of the school.
As he ran down the entrance corridor, a reel of pictures and sounds were flowing across Harry’s vision. He saw again the sprawled body of Lord Voldemort on the floor. Witnessed the slumped, tiny figure of Colin Creevey being carried up these very steps by Oliver Wood and Neville. He heard cries of Harry, HARRY, as Voldemort proclaimed victory over The Boy Who Lived, humiliating his body as he played dead. He saw and relived it all, and he fought down the nausea wanting to come up his throat, pushing himself harder and faster until he reached the main staircase leading to the upper floors.
He heard David and Ron hurrying behind him, saw blurs of people passing them in the halls, but he paid no special attention to them. He jumped trick steps with barely a thought, pushed tapestries aside to reveal their hidden paths, and he kept going, up and up and up, until he was on the seventh floor and couldn’t go any farther.
And then Harry stopped short. He had just come to an entrance he knew well: the regal stone gargoyle that lead to the Headmaster’s offices. Where Dumbledore had taught him his fate; where he had watched Snape’s memories of his burdening love for Lily Evans; the place where he, Harry, had fully embraced that heavy sacrifice to walk to his own end and, ultimately, to Voldemort’s.
Ron and Dave had stopped too and were looking at him curiously. “Harry?” asked Dave.
“I need to go in there,” he answered, gaze fixed upon the statue.
“What?” exclaimed Ron, his eyes disbelieving. “Are you mad! Have you forgotten the whole reason we’re here?”
“Of course not. Look, I can’t explain it … I just know that I have to. The two of you can go to the room without me.”
“What if Malfoy’s there?” yelled Ron angrily. “We’ll need your help if it comes to a fight!”
“Keep your voice down, Ron,” hissed Dave. “Harry … are you sure?”
“Yes.” He turned around, facing them. Ron was looking at him as if he were disappointed in Harry but expected nothing less; Dave appeared resigned. “Go on without me. I’ll catch up later. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
Ron huffed. “Whatever.” He shook his head at Harry and strode away, Dave following soon after.
Harry turned back to the gargoyle entrance. He realized belatedly that he didn’t have the password, but he couldn’t back out now. Some drawing force was still pulling him towards this place and he thought he’d try anyways. “Lemon pops?” he asked the stone face, feeling ridiculous.
Nothing.
“Bertie Botts? Cauldron cakes? Liquorice wands?” But still, the entrance revealed nothing.
He thought of any candy or sweets he could and then wondered if it might be none of those things. After all, those were Dumbledore’s types of passwords; Professor McGonagall might have something different. He remembered that it had opened for Dumbledore’s name during the battle, so he tried that too, but it did not work.
He was frustrated now and getting angry. Why did he have to go up there if the damn thing wouldn’t let him in? He grabbed fistfuls of his hair, pulling at them, but that only gave him a headache.
“You stupid thing!” he shouted. “Just let me in! It’s Harry Potter, just let me in!”
The stone gargoyle came to life and sprung aside at the sound of his name, exposing the spiral staircase he had travelled up more times than he could count on both hands. And, mouth gaping, Harry stepped onto the staircase, which started spinning upwards in a tight circle, taking him to where he wanted to go.
When he reached the top, the door was already open and he stepped inside without hesitation. The office was empty save for the portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses, all of whom appeared to be quietly dozing in their frames. A few of Dumbledore’s old instruments were strewed about the room, as well as some Harry didn’t recognize. He was busy studying the differences when he heard a small cough behind him.
“Hello, Harry.”
Harry spun around at the voice. Behind the large desk, in the biggest portrait of them all, a pair of familiar electric blue eyes were smiling down at him.
“P-professor Dumbledore … err, hi.”
Professor Dumbledore chuckled. “No need to look so uncomfortable, Harry. I did not call you up here to reprimand you.”
“Wait, you called me?”
He nodded. “I did. Even after my death, I still have some control over the castle. I wished to speak with you.”
“Oh, um … what about, Sir?”
The twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes dimmed slightly and the corners of his mouth turned down in the way Harry remembered would happen when the Headmaster was displeased. “The last four years.”
Harry’s gaze dropped to his shoes remorsefully.
“Harry …” he said. “Harry, I told you I was not going to reprimand you.”
Still, it felt like one.
“Harry, please look at me.”
Harry looked up; Dumbledore’s expression was sad but not angry. Instead, he seemed more like a parent who’s child has done something regretful but whom still dearly loves that child anyways.
“I was merely wondering,” he continued, “what you have learned from your experience.”
“I don’t “ I don’t think I follow you, Professor.”
“Well,” said Dumbledore vaguely, “You spent a long time away from home “ trying to find meaning in your existence, I assume, in what you were forced into that last year. I could only conclude that you must have found whatever it was you were looking for to make you want to stay.”
“You cannot honestly believe that, Albus,” sneered a high, cold voice to Harry’s left.
Harry whipped his head around, his neck cracking, only to come face to face with the one person he’d never expected to see in this office again: Severus Snape.
“Don’t look so shocked, Potter, I was a headmaster too,” said the former Potions professor from his much smaller portrait, his lip curling. “You’re a coward,” he sustained. “You couldn’t face yourself, and you couldn’t face your friends. You stayed away out of pure disgrace.”
“Severus,” interceded Dumbledore.
“Do not tell me I’m wrong, Albus; I am not the only one who has entertained the thought.” He looked pointedly at Harry.
“And now you feel obligated to save the Weasley girl and Granger “ yes, I know Draco has them, don’t look at me like that, Potter. Minerva was at the wedding; she came in here after it happened, sniffling like a pathetic homesick first year. You better get a move on, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
The wrong place? “I don’t understand,” said Harry slowly. A sudden feeling of dread had crept its way into his heart. “The note said to go to the place of the fire, the Room of Requirement, where Crabbe died.”
“And that was obviously meant to mislead you,” scorned Snape. “You are even more idiotic than your father, Potter. Hide hostages at Hogwarts, during the school year! Nobody is mad enough to try that, not even Draco. He wants you to chase him, to test you. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
Snape couldn’t be right, could he? The thought made Harry scowl. Now, though, in hindsight, the idea of Hogwarts as a holding cell for Hermione and Ginny seemed painfully, obviously ridiculous. He turned on his heel, heading for the door, meaning to tell Ron and David that they’d been played, when Dumbledore again called to him softly from his place on the wall. “Harry.”
He turned around, giving Dumbledore a curious look, one hand on the door handle.
“You never answered my question earlier: did you gain what you wished to when you left?”
Harry looked down at his scuffed trainers and baggy Muggle trousers. There had been a time, only a few hard months, in his first year away when he’d tried to make it as a Muggle, like when he was innocent and young, living in his relatives’ cupboard. Immediately, he had missed magic: it had been his refuge all those years ago, from his life with the Dursleys, and he had felt like he’d betrayed all it had given him. It wasn’t long before he was pulling his wand out again and casting all sorts of spells.
He had been betraying the Wizarding world, too, he realized, when he had hid from himself, even when he did use his magic. It never mattered what you accomplished by using it, only how you conducted yourself while doing so; and he had conducted himself rather poorly, in regards to his friends.
“No, I didn’t find what I was looking for, Sir,” he said. “But I think I’m starting to. Perhaps it will find me when it’s ready, someday.”
“You can do this, Harry, you can save your friends.” Dumbledore’s voice was a little kinder now. Behind his half-moon spectacles, his eyes smiled at Harry. “I have faith in you; you have faced worse dangers than Draco Malfoy many times over and come through on the other side. Think about what you know of him, and maybe the answer will come to you.”
Harry nodded and opened the door leading out of the office and down the revolving staircase. Behind him, he could hear Dumbledore and Snape talking over the background of snores from the neighbouring portraits. Faintly, he heard Snape say, “As arrogant as his father, but stupid “ at least one thing can be said for the Muggles who raised him. Could you imagine him growing up like Draco! He’d be ten times worse: they have peacocks at the Manor, Good Lord. White peacocks!”
There was a muffled admonishment from Dumbledore before the door was shut and their conversation cut off.
Thoughts about Malfoy, and fire, and locked basement dungeons while Hermione screamed in agony overhead raced round his mind and blurred his vision as he ran towards the Room of Requirement. He reprimanded himself for being so stupid: he should have known this wouldn’t be as easy as sneaking into Hogwarts and winning back the girls with a bit of sweet talking; he should have anticipated Malfoy playing a ploy like this.
He turned onto the seventh floor corridor which housed the Room of Requirement and skidded to a halt: Ron and David were approaching, walking briskly towards him; Malfoy, Hermione and Ginny were nowhere in sight.
“Hey,” said David when he saw Harry running. “They’re not there. We asked for the place where Draco had been, but he’d already left, if he had ever been there at all.”
“Never mind that,” panted Harry. He stopped in front of them. “I figured that out already, or Snape did, actually.”
“Snape!” spat Ron. “How did he “ Snape’s dead “”
“His portrait is in the Headmaster’s office. I was talking to him and Dumbledore. Listen, we should’ve known this was the wrong place from the start: why would Malfoy hide them, in the middle of September, in a school with thousands of students and staff who could spot them at any time? He wanted us to believe they were here, to throw us off his trail, make us believe we had a lead when really we had nothing.”
“Yeah, he wanted us here, all right,” said Dave. “But not for those reasons. This was in the room that opened up for us.”
Harry stared down at David’s open palm; in it was a long, snow-white feather, about a foot long.
“It came from a peacock “ a white one.”
Harry closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think. “White peacocks … white peacocks! But how did Snape know?” he murmured. He picked up the feather, twirling it in circles between his fingers.
“What’s going on, Harry?” asked Ron.
He looked up at them, his green eyes wide. “When I was leaving McGonagall’s office, I heard Snape tell Dumbledore something; I wondered how he knew … but of course he was a Death Eater … he’d probably been there a dozen times during the war.” Ron and Dave still seemed confused so he clarified, “According to Snape, Malfoy Manor has white peacocks. Malfoy wants us to go to Malfoy Manor; that’s where he must be!”
“It makes sense,” Dave mused. “Send us on a wild goose chase, tire us out; he also wouldn’t want to out right say the name of his place so it wouldn’t be as easy for us. It’s clever.”
“Harry …” Ron whispered; his voice shook. His form, bent over so his hands rested on his knees, trembled. “What “ what if he’s torturing them there, like Bellatrix did before. I mean, Hermione still has nightmare’s of that place …”
In his mind’s eye, Harry saw himself again in the basement cell of Malfoy Manor, and he thought that Ron could too. He heard Hermione screaming upstairs; Wormtail’s silver hand choking the life out of its wearer; the tiny, but deathly knife sticking from Dobby’s stomach, his large and trusting eyes glazing over as he died in Harry’s arms.
He shook his head, scattering the memories. “We’re going to get them out, Ron,” he rasped. “We’re going to get them out of there.”