Chapter 26- Voldemort Strikes
The thrill Harry had felt at finding the second diary quickly disappeared, replaced by an overwhelming curiosity and desire to find the next one. While it had been interesting to see what Hogwarts was like a thousand years ago and the origins of the sorting ceremony, the second diary hadn’t told them anything about the Half-Blood Prince. Who was he? What did the founding of Hogwarts have to do with him? And, most importantly, why did Dumbledore believe locating his tomb is the key to winning the war against Voldemort? All these questions and more nagged at Harry over the next few weeks, driving him to locate the cramped, rectangular room with wooden cross-beams.
Unfortunately, they had absolutely no idea where to find it.
“What about up by Trelawney’s classroom? There’re quite a few empty rooms up there. Probably because no one can stand being by the dingy old bat,” Ron suggested one day in NEWT Transfiguration class. McGonagall had assigned them the task of turning small, fuzzy, black caterpillars into fully grown bulldogs, though Harry’s looked more like a scraggly dark Chihuahua with a mohawk. Several weeks had passed since they had read the second diary.
“No, I checked already. Last week, after Ancient Runes,” Hermione said absently as she scratched her perfectly formed bulldog behind the ears. “All the ceilings over there are made of stone.”
“Well, what about her classroom then?” Ron said in frustration as his caterpillar (which was now the size of a large banana) flopped onto its back, knocking over a bottle of ink.
“We’ve already been over this. Her classroom’s got wooden beams, but it’s much too large and high to be the room we saw in the diary,” said Harry. “What about the kitchens? There’s bound to be a few rooms down there we haven’t checked.”
“No, no. I don’t think it’s likely to be there at all. I mean, let’s look at this logically,” said Hermione, for what seemed like the hundredth time that week. “The room was small, had wooden beams up in the ceiling, and had one wall that was slightly circular. It is also located in an older portion of the castle, one that would have existed back when Rowena Ravenclaw was alive.”
“How do we know Ravenclaw was the one who planted the diary?” asked Ron.
Hermione opened her mouth to respond. Out of habit Harry prepared himself for an argument. Surprisingly, however, she paused, closed her mouth, and looked at Ron thoughtfully. “You’re right, we don’t know that. I just assumed it was Ravenclaw. I mean, it just makes sense she would be the one hiding her own diaries, doesn’t it?”
Harry shrugged. He didn’t know who had hidden the diaries or for what purpose. Considering the first two diaries had been hidden in places only a headmaster or a professor would have access to, it seemed that the next room would follow suit.
“Anyways,” Hermione continued, “the fact that the room has wooden rafters suggests that it is higher up in the castle, or at least somewhere near the ceiling. That disqualifies anything in the lower part of the castle, like the dungeons. The fact that one of the walls in the room was round suggests that it is in a smaller, cylindrical portion of the castle. Probably one of the towers. We also have to keep in mind that whoever hid the diaries did it so long ago that we likely wouldn’t even recognize the room even if we were standing right in it…”
There was a brief pause as she said the last part. Slowly, in unison the three of them looked up at the ceiling of McGonagall’s classroom.
Metal. Not the room in the diary. Hermione looked at the others and gave a slight giggle. Harry shook his head.
“Well, which of the towers haven’t we checked,” he said in exasperation. It had been weeks since they had read the diary and he was beginning to get frustrated. “I mean, how many towers are there at Hogwarts? There’s Gryffindor tower…”
“Checked it,” said Ron.
“The North tower where Trelawney’s classroom is…”
“Checked.”
“…that small tower a couple of floors above Filch’s office…”
“Checked.”
“…the Astronomy tower…
“Checked it,” said Ron and Hermione in unison, causing Harry to look up. Ron had a small grin on his face and Hermione was blushing. “Just the usual staircase leading to the ladder that gets you up to the observation platform,” Hermione added quickly, not meeting his eyes. Thinking he probably didn’t want to probe any further, Harry moved on.
“And the rest of them seem too small to be the one we saw.”
“I agree,” said Hermione, nodding her head.
“Then there’s nothing left! We’ve checked the rest of the castle,” Harry concluded in frustration. Tracking Wulfric Gryffindor was the one thing keeping him sane, the one thing that made him feel like he were doing something to help fight Voldemort. Hitting this dead end was infuriating.
“Maybe Ginny will have some ideas.”
“Wait, what about the Ravenclaw tower? We haven’t checked it?” Ron ventured. Hermione raised her eyebrows and nodded her head.
“Yes, you’re right.”
“Er…I’m pretty sure it’s not there,” said Harry.
“How do you know?” asked Hermione.
Harry hesitated, not sure how he was going to get out of this one. Luckily his punk-headed Chihuahua did it for him, ramming into the back of a large container of ink and sending it crashing to the floor, black ink splattering everywhere.
“Potter! Will you please pay attention to what your…animal is doing?” snapped Professor McGonagall from across the room.
As they left Transfiguration (Harry having received extra homework) and made their way towards the Gryffindor common room, Hermione turned to Harry and asked the one question he had been avoiding for some time.
“So, when is your next meeting with Professor Dumbledore? I’ll bet he has an idea where the hidden room is.”
Seeing the consternation on his face, she added: “You have told him about the second diary, haven’t you?”
“Well, er…He’s been rather busy lately. We’re not scheduled for another meeting for a while. I figured I’d do it then when, you know, we’d have more time,” he lied.
The truth of the matter was that he still hadn’t shared the prophecy with his friends, and, as Dumbledore had told him during the last meeting, they wouldn’t meet again until he did. In Harry’s defense he had come close to telling them a couple of times. The only problem was that he knew sharing the prophecy would only worry them. He didn’t have the heart to do it. Especially now.
While they never acted like they were a couple in public, it was fairly obvious to Harry that things had changed between Ron and Hermione ever since the Halloween Ball. For starters, they very seldom argued anymore. This was a very welcome change from the past couple of years where they had taken every opportunity to start a row. Ron had also toned down his usual antics of mocking Snape and house-elves. Much to Harry’s horror, he had even heard him say that he wouldn’t mind getting SPEW started up again. Last of all, they seemed to be gone on “Prefect Duty” a lot more than they used to, even though Harry was fairly sure none of the prefects had additional duties. Harry wasn’t sure why they hadn’t said anything to him about their new relationship, or why they were trying to hide it, but figured it wasn’t his place to nose in.
“Hmmm. Well, be sure to tell him when you do meet, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Harry replied, thankful he had dodged the issue.
While not having shared the prophecy was the biggest reason for him wanting to stay away from Dumbledore, a close second was that he had broken into the Ravenclaw common room and taken her second diary. While he had kept up with his Occlumency, he severely doubted he could keep something that big from the headmaster. While he wasn’t sure whether this would make Dumbledore mad, he thought it better not to try his luck. Besides, they would only meet again once Harry had shared the prophecy with his friends. And that was something he had no plans of doing.
Some other interesting developments happened in the meantime, however, that kept Harry’s mind off of the headmaster. The Gryffindors played their first Quidditch game against the Hufflepuffs, flattening them 240-40 on account of Ron’s goalkeeping and Harry beating their younger, inexperienced Seeker to the Snitch. Ron had proved himself an able team captain so far and Harry knew he had made the right decision in giving it up for him. It was, however, the first Quidditch game Harry had ever played in that he didn’t take seriously”it was hard to be overly concerned about a mere game when Voldemort was out there. Apparently he was the only one who felt this way, however, as the rest of the school seemed even more enthralled in the game than usual.
One day Harry had walked into the DA meeting to find a crowd of students gathered around Susan Bones, a 5th year Hufflepuff that had been in the DA the previous year. Walking over to see what was going on, he caught a few random bits of the conversation.
“Wow, what is it like?”
“…So she gets to live in some big mansion now, right? Have you been there?”
“Did you just barely find out or have you known for a while?”
“She’ll be loads better than Fudge!”
“Well, er…we’ve known for a while, but we weren’t supposed to say anything until it was official,” Susan said tremulously. She looked embarrassed by all the attention.
“What’s this?” asked Harry. “What’s going on?”
“Susan’s aunt is the new Minister of Magic!” said Justin-Finch Fletchly excitedly.
Harry had met Susan’s aunt Amelia the year before when he had been sent to the Ministry for a hearing on misuse of magic by an underage wizard. She was one of the few that hadn’t seemed intimidated by Fudge. From what he knew she would make a pretty good Minister.
“That’s great. Er…congratulations,” said Harry, not sure what was the appropriate thing to say to someone whose aunt had just been made Minister of Magic. Susan gave him a look of pleading before getting sucked back into the crowd of students. Harry felt a little sorry for her, though not too much. It was good to be out of the spotlight for once.
It was now late November and a blanket of snow had covered the grounds of Hogwarts, causing the students to break out their heavy winter cloaks and winter gloves for the first time that year. As if anxious for a break from the constant tension of the war the students welcomed the snow, starting snow-ball fights, building large snow sculptures of unicorns and dragons (something much easier to do with magic than without), and making animated snow-angels. It had a strange, calming influence on them; for a brief moment at least it seemed hard to believe that war or anything horrible could be happening in the world. Even Harry felt a little bit lighter.
All of it came crashing down one day, however, as they were brutally reminded what was going on in the world. It happened one Tuesday morning as Harry, Seamus, and Neville made their way into the Great Hall for breakfast.
“Uh-oh, something bad has happened. Everyone’s crowded round the paper,” said Seamus as they passed the Hufflepuff table.
“Something bad’s always happened. Aren’t you used to it by now?” replied Harry wearily as he glanced through a defense against the dark arts book.
“No, he’s right,” said Neville. “This one must be particularly bad. Look how quiet everyone is.”
Closing the book and looking around, Harry realized that Seamus and Neville had a point. The students were gathered together in little groups, all reading that morning’s Daily Prophet. Very few of them were talking”the ones that were whispered in frightened, sickened tones. Some of them were crying. No one was even looking at their food. As they passed the Ravenclaw table Harry saw Cho Chang with her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide open in disbelief. She looked like she was about to cry.
He had become accustomed to bad news from the Daily Prophet. Nearly every day it had brought grizzly news about the war”kidnappings, murders, sightings of Voldemort, the Dark Mark floating in the sky”but something told him whatever had happened was much, much worse than anything that had happened before.
As he approached the Gryffindor table, his suspicions were confirmed. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Colin Creevey were huddled around a paper. Ron had his arm around Hermione, trying to comfort her. Ginny had a look of shocked disbelief on her face. Colin Creevey was completely white.
“What is it? What happened?” Harry said in a flat, emotionless voice. Hermione didn’t look up. She was muttering to herself.
“He wouldn’t… How could he…”
Ron looked up at him. He looked worried and angry. Without a word he took the paper and dropped it in front of Harry.
Dementors Attack Orphanage
Reader advisory- The following article and accompanying photograph detail an especially hideous crime which may be too gruesome for our more sensitive readers.
Suffolk, Cambery. Last night a pack of dementors, most likely organized by You-Know-Who, attacked the Abagail Anders Orphanage in Cambery, taking the lives of 26 children. This horrendous attack is the most recent example of the cruelty and utter heartlessness of You-Know-Who, who apparently has no compunctions against attacking innocent, defenseless children in his war against wizardkind.
The attack is expected to have occurred sometime between 10:34 and 12:47 last night, after Delilia Humbcroft, the resident caretaker of the orphanage, returned from a…
Harry felt a sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach. He stopped reading and his eyes flicked towards the picture, knowing that he would be horrified by what he saw but unable to resist. At first he couldn’t tell what he was looking at. It seemed to be of a large, open room empty other than a large number of wooden chairs strewn about the floor. Apparently there had been some sort of struggle as most of the chairs lay twisted and distorted on the ground. While most pictures in the wizard world moved, the only motion in this one was the gentle fluttering of a curtain next to an open window. Looking closer at the chairs, Harry suddenly recoiled in horror. They weren’t chairs at all. They were people. Children. Or at least, the shriveled husks of what had once been children, faces shrieking in horror as the dementors had slowly ripped their souls from them…
He looked away hurriedly, though he knew it was too late. Shock and disgust overwhelmed him. He sat down and buried his face in his hands. It was inconceivable. The Dementor’s Kiss. A means of death so vile the ministry had reserved it for only the worst criminals. The victim’s soul sucked out of them, leaving only an empty, soulless husk behind. A fate worse than death…
Nausea swept over Harry as he tried to make sense of it. How could Voldemort… how could anyone do something so cruel, so heartless? He couldn’t fathom it. Innocent, defenseless children. Orphans. Just like him. Just like Voldemort…
For a brief second Harry thought he was going to be sick. The feeling left. In its place was a burning, overwhelming anger. Hate. Not even aware of making the choice to, Harry rose to his feet and began smashing his fist into the table. He was yelling.
“CHILDREN! WHY CHILDREN? WHAT THE HELL DO CHILDREN HAVE TO DO WITH THIS!”
Everyone at the Gryffindor table looked at him in alarm. He was barely even aware of their presence. All he could see was the table, blood spurting out of his fist, and the horrible image of the orphans, an image that would be permanently seared into his brain.
It was too much. He had to get out. He had to be alone. Dumbledore, who had been at the staff table talking somberly with the other professors, had just stood up and was talking to the assembled students. Ron said something to Harry. Hermione was looking at him, frightened. Ginny was moving towards him, a concerned look on her face. Children, dead. Voldemort was out there. Out there killing. And he couldn’t stop him.
Dumbledore had just said something about classes being cancelled for the morning. Harry didn’t hear any of it. Turning towards the corridor, he walked straight out of the Great Hall and away from everyone, the prophecy burning through his heart more than ever.