Harry leapt from his seat in a rush and clamored into the hallways with Ginny in hot pursuit. It took no more than a second to spot Hagrid, who was towering above all their heads as usual.
“HAGRID!” Harry yelled, before throwing himself into the giant mans arms.
As usual Hagrid enveloped him and Ginny into a bone-crushing hug, although this time Harry found that he welcomed its aching familiarity. When they separated at last, Harry studied Hagrid’s face intently. The bags under his eyes had swollen as though filled with bubator pus indicating that Hagrid had been doing quite a bit of crying. It was clear someone had informed him of Dumbledore’s demise. As though summoned by his thoughts Professor McGonagall with Hermione trailing behind her appeared just behind Hagrid.
“I’m glad to see you’ve awoken,” Professor McGonagall said tenderly with a nod of approval in Harry’s direction. “Please take them home at once,” she instructed Hagrid suddenly getting down to business, “and do not question Harry or Ginny until I have had the opportunity to do so.”
Hagrid nodded though his bleary eyes did not show that he had understood the order. It was not until Tonks appeared by his side that he began to move at all. With a curt nod acknowledging their presence, Tonks turned her attention to Professor McGonagall.
“Is he alright?” she asked, her eyes revealing the depth of emotion that her tone failed to hide.
“Remus is fine,” Professor McGonagall answered with a wave of her hand. “His orders are for you all to make sure that Harry, Hermione and Ginny arrive home safely.”
Tonks nodded adamantly and her eyes were suddenly blazed with passion.
“Mad-Eye is waiting just outside the door,” she told Hagrid, before turning to face them. “Harry, you stick with Hagrid, Ginny, you stay with me, and Hermione, you’ve been assigned to Mad-Eye. Make sure that you don’t lose your partner, understand?”
Once they had all nodded their assent she grabbed Ginny’s arm and Hagrid followed suit by latching on to Harry as they exited the train. Few people paid them any attention save for Mad-Eye who deftly assumed his position next to Hermione as they walked in procession out of platform nine and three-quarters. Taking the lead, Tonks led them out of King’s Cross and into the parking lot. They continued to walk swiftly until they reached a beat down old dress shop that went unnoticed by the Muggles around them.
“Apparate on three,” Tonks issued the command. “One…two…three…”
Harry felt as though he were being squeezed through a rubber pipe. His vision clouded over and a high whistling came from within his ears which he felt were flattened against his head. Just when his lungs were on the verge of collapse due to the lack of oxygen, he felt his feet plant firmly onto solid ground and took a large gulp of air. Multi-colored stars twinkled in front of his eyes for another minute or so, but Hagrid continued to drag him at a startling pace to some undisclosed location.
“We’re here,” Tonks called out. “Give them the parchment.”
Harry found her orders to be far less confusing than their present location. They were standing in front of a cloister of…well, “dwellings” would be the term he would use if he was being fast and loose with its definition. Strangely, standing in front of the rickety structures made him long for the Shrieking Shack and all its coziness. It would take several upgrades before the dwellings in front of him could boast all the amenities and comforts provided by the shack, and that was really saying something. He had no doubt, however, that he was now standing in the shadiest part of London if the beat up surroundings were any indication. It all seemed to be part of some bizarre joke. Why were they here of all places?
“’Ere ye go, ‘Arry.”
Harry looked down at the folded bit of parchment that had been shoved into his palm by Hagrid. It read:
Number one, Sunshine Lane
London Heights
Sunshine Lane! A more befitting name would be Dreary Way or Ramshackle Place! He was dumbfounded by the possibility that someone put effort into hiding something here of all places. Was a Secret Keeper really necessary, would anyone actually come here of their own accord?
“All done?” Hagrid asked. Harry nodded and the parchment disappeared in a blue puff of smoke. The similar puffs in front of Hermione and Ginny indicated that they too had received and read parchments of their own.
“Home, sweet home,” Tonks said miserably as she pushed open a door that Harry had not noticed before.
They all scampered inside, Harry, still feeling distinctly ill at ease about their location.
“This will be the new headquarters for the Order,” Mad-Eye grumbled. “For the time being,” he corrected, upon catching Harry’s disgruntled gaze.
“It’s the best we could do on such short notice,” Tonks clarified.
“Helps that it already has Secret-Keeper, doesn’t it?” Ginny supplied.
“It’s a good thing ye’re mom convinced Charlie tha’ he needed the extra protection ‘round ‘ere,” Hagrid nodded adamantly.
“Doesn’t seem like it would be a particularly difficult argument to make,” Mad-Eye whispered to Harry slyly.
“It wasn’t,” Tonks responded shortly, flipping on a light switch and temporarily blinding them all. “The glories of Muggle technology,” she said when the florescent bulb in the fixture above their heads flickered and dimmed.
“Would you mind if we relaxed a bit before Professors Lupin and McGonagall arrive to continue their questioning?” Hermione piped in and Harry realized that she had been uncharacteristically quiet.
“’Course ye can,” Hagrid said gruffly, the rims of his eyes filling anew with unshed tears, “ye’ve had a rough enough time.”
As Hagrid turned to wipe his eyes Mad-Eye indicated to Tonks that she ought to lead them to their destination. His own feelings of guilt and helplessness left Harry unable to offer a single word of condolence to Hagrid, so he reluctantly marched behind Tonks, leaving Mad-Eye with the difficult task of comforting Hagrid.
“Charlie gathered what was left of your things and sent them here,” Tonks told them as she led the way down a dank hallway. “I’ve taken the liberty of placing you all in the same room,” she added as they reached the last door and opened it with a rough shove.
The room seemed to wallow in its own misery, perfectly matching Harry’s current disposition. There were moth-eaten curtains flimsily fluttering as the window, although closed, continued to let in particularly chilly gusts of wind. Old cots with questionable, mold-like stains that someone had unsuccessfully tried to clean were littered along the walls. The floor was concrete, with a long crack running from one of the corners directly to the center of the room. Spotting his soot covered trunk at the end of the cot closest to the door, Harry gratefully stretched his body on its raggedy mattress. Hermione took a seat along the windowsill and forlornly gazed at the nothingness of the midday fog while Ginny absentmindedly fingered the remainder of her trunk.
“I’ll bet you’re hungry,” Tonks said, conjuring up a plate of mini-sandwiches and setting it on a rickety table with four small chairs that Harry had not noticed earlier.
Food was the furthest thing from his mind…until that moment. The smell of warm bread soon had him heading over for a bite. Not surprisingly, Ginny and Hermione followed suit, taking the two remaining seats before half-heartedly sampling the sandwiches. The meager meal was soon gone as they eagerly wolfed it down, not realizing that it had been more than a half-day since their last meal.
“Ron would have liked these,” Hermione said, placing the last sandwich in her mouth.
“He was always quite fond of them,” Tonks told Hermione with an acquiescing nod. “It’s the only recipe I ever picked up from Charlie.”
A ghost of a grin faintly graced Hermione’s face, but like an ember in the rain it was quickly extinguished. Harry, with a semi-renewed gusto, bristled over the fact that they were exchanging niceties. It was time for action, what action he could not say, but anything would be preferable to the sitting and waiting they were reduced to.
“We’re in big trouble,” Ginny said miserably. Her sobering words had the opposite affect on Harry, so much so that he wanted to scream like a crazed man because of all the turmoil that they embroiled within him.
“I just don’t understand it! Why take Ron?” Hermione furiously asked, genuinely perplexed. “They didn’t even go after you,” she said to Harry, pointing out the one thing that had been bothering him all along.
Harry stared at his feet. A feeling of quiet desperation and self-loathing kept him mute despite Hermione’s questioning gaze.
“He knew something that they wanted to keep hidden,” Hermione answered her own question after due consideration.
“What could Ron possibly know about SSS?” Ginny argued dismissively.
As she and Hermione continued to argue back and forth Harry felt his eyes glaze over and their voices became stifled, as though a set of earmuffs had been placed on his head. His minds-eye transported him back in time, to the previous night. Before the battle with SSS, before the fires breaking out…before Dumbledore’s death…a time before Ron had been taken hostage.
They were running down the spiral staircase…Ron let out a series of sneezes…Harry felt a rush of guilt for having been so agitated by Ron’s allergies. So what if they woke everyone in the Dorm? It wouldn’t have been the first time they had been caught out of bed. Why had he become so frustrated with Ron? Then, they reached the bottom of the staircase and entered into the common room.
Ron whispered, “Harry, I’ve just had an idea…”
He had an idea. What idea did he have? Harry gave himself the mental kick he deserved. He had been so upset with Ron that he had ignored him and his idea completely. Before Ron could say another word Hermione arrived and Harry ordered her back into the girls’ dorm to get Ginny.
“Harry,” Ron persisted, “when I was sneezing I remembered…”
What had Ron remembered? Could the thing he remembered be the key to unlocking the reason he was abducted? After all, Evan Bailey was there, lurking in the shadows. He heard Ron saying that he had just remembered something. But how could Evan know what Ron was about to say? Surely the SSS hadn’t taught all their members Volcency. Or had they? With Snape at their disposal, were they that powerful? Were they able to accomplish a feat that Ginny, an actual Volcen, could not? Than again, that was unfair to Ginny as DA was considerably larger than SSS. Could the information Ron was trying to share with him between sneezes have threatened SSS so much that they would abduct him before he could share it? Perhaps…but Harry was certain of one thing, Ron’s abduction had been a last minute addition to Malfoy’s plans.
“He had to know something,” Hermione yelled, tearing Harry out of his trance-like state, “why else would they make off with him instead of Harry?”
“He definitely knew something,” Harry interrupted their discussion suddenly and they both looked taken aback by his sudden intrusion into their argument.
Tonks, who was seated across from him, gave him a scrutinizing stare. He hastily explained his theory that Ron had some sort of breakthrough as they rushed down the dorm stairway, making sure to note that Evan Bailey had been witness to this sudden realization.
“Sneezing?” Hermione asked, her brows burrowing at the notion.
“Sneezing,” Tonks replied, a coolness settling into her tone so chilly that it seemed to turn the very air around them frigid. “Did you hear that, Ginny?” she asked in a deceptively calm voice, but Ginny’s expression remained impassive and her face expressionless.
“If only his allergies weren’t acting up,” Hermione went on, missing the interplay going on between Tonks and Ginny, “he could have had the time to tell you what it was.”
“If only he hadn’t sneezed…” Tonks replied in a crass tone that was somewhat belligerent. This time Hermione picked up on Tonks’ unusual behavior.
“What’s with you?” Harry asked angrily, concerned by Hermione’s hurt look.
Tonks’ face went from aggressive to that of someone in severe pain in a split second. Startled, Hermione pushed her chair closer to Harry for protection. Harry, however, continued to watch Ginny’s face which remained aloof as ever. Finally, as though a light bulb had been lit in his brain, he understood what was going on.
“Ginny, get out of Tonks’ body and leave her mind alone,” he said forcefully.
Hermione gasped, “Ginny’s not possessing Tonks,” she insisted in horror, but the confused look Tonks wore combined with the reanimation of Ginny’s facial features confirmed that Harry’s guess had been on mark.
“Why did you possess Tonks?” Harry asked quietly, still seething that Ginny had dared to do something so reckless when only hours ago she had killed someone by the same means.
“She needed to check my memories,” Tonks cut in, shooting Ginny a wary glance.
“Ginny, how could you!” Hermione sputtered in repulsed shock. “You could have hurt yourself and Tonks! You don’t have that type of control over your Volcency yet!”
Harry left Hermione to her assumptions about Ginny’s control over her Volcency, no matter how wrong they were, and continued to wait for Ginny’s answer to his question. When none was forthcoming, he decided to try a different tactic, turning to Tonks for answers instead.
“You asked Ginny about sneezing right before she possessed you,” Harry noticed, “why?”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? Every time a Weasley sneezes, they seem to go missing,” Tonks pointed out.
“First Percy and then Ron,” Hermione exclaimed, a look of comprehension crossing her face. “Sneezing didn’t stop Ron from telling Harry his idea! Sneezing was the thing that caused Ron to have the idea in first place!”
Harry thought back to Percy’s trial where he offered no defense but continually sneezed. Thinking back, Harry recalled that it was only after sneezing that Ron mentioned having an idea. Ginny couldn’t hear anything in Percy’s mind except I have to sneeze…Choo…I have to sneeze…Choo. It was a signal, a hint Percy was giving his family that Ron finally understood.
“He didn’t come here at all, did he?” Ginny’s voice, alienated, distant and hollow, spliced the silence. Harry returned his full attention to the people before him.
“Not once,” Tonks replied, the blood draining from her face as she gave Ginny a look of dismayed comprehension.
Ginny, it seemed, could not take the pity in Tonks’ gaze. She closed her eyes and let anguish and disbelief take a hold of her. Finally, after what seemed like eternity to Harry, she opened her eyes.
“Percy wasn’t sneezing,” she told them. “He was saying Choo Choo. Charlie is the murderer.”
“That can’t be,” Hermione stated simply, as though she noticed a flaw in a homework assignment.
“Why?” Tonks asked, or rather, she begged. Tonks clearly wanted Hermione to pull off one of her spectacular bursts of logic.
“Well, he was here with you when the murder happened,” Hermione answered calmly.
“No,” Tonks replied with disappointment, “that’s what Ginny was checking. The night before the murder he was at an Order meeting…”
“That’s right,” Harry recalled, remembering the discussion he had with Charlie the morning of the Giant attacks.
“From the meeting he went to help out with the Giant attacks,” Tonks continued, “or so he said.”
“How could he have gotten into the Ministry?” Hermione asked. “He would have been captured, or at the very least spotted by someone who could attest to him being there.”
“It was a mess at the Ministry with everyone coming and going to prepare for battle. He could have easily gotten in without attracting attention.”
Momentarily perplexed, Hermione bit her lower lip and digested the new information she had been given.
“Let’s say he got in without notice, how did he get into the restricted areas?” Harry asked.
“By somehow disabling Percy and stealing his wand Charlie could have easily maneuvered around the Ministry,” Tonks replied. “As you know, everyone entering the Ministry has their wand checked. That is because Ministry officials use their wands as a sort of identifying mechanism. Different security clearances are given depending on your job and as it so happens, Percy had full clearance given his position with the Minister. With security lax as a result of the attacks and using a wand that has full access Charlie could have easily scattered the body parts…”
“…scattered,” Harry piped in, “not murdered.”
“Being at the Order meeting, he had no time to kill Karkaroff,” Hermione declared triumphantly. “Not to mention that tracking Karkaroff down had to be a task in-and-of itself.”
“Percy was pointing at Charlie during the trial the only way that he could,” Ginny cut in harshly. “He must have been attacked by Charlie that night or else he wouldn’t have been fake sneezing.”
“But why did he take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit?” Hermione asked.
“Because the person who committed it was not acting of his own accord,” Harry rushed in with a new line of reasoning.
“Dumbledore checked every Order and Staff member personally and regularly to ensure they were not under the Imperius,” Tonks said, dashing his hopes. “Besides, with so many people who know him so well it would be impossible for us not to notice strange behavior.”
They all fell silent and the minutes ebbed slowly by.
“He was acting weird,” Harry broke the monotonous silence unexpectedly.
“In what way was he acting weird?” Tonks asked, although it didn’t look like she believed him.
“He would leave the room.”
Harry’s answer was met with more silence.
“I don’t understand,” Tonks interjected at last.
“Exactly,” Harry affirmed.
“I need you to explain,” she clarified.
“I can’t,” Harry said with a shrug. “He would just up and leave the room without explanation in the middle of a conversation or game of chess. Sometimes he would just leave before class was over without any explanation or…anything really.”
“Like when I was describing my trip with Dean to the Palace,” Ginny spoke at last with some excitement.
“That’s right,” Harry said, “and every time Ron and I would play a game of chess.”
“…and when I asked about the mating habits of the Queen Pixie,” Hermione said. She began pacing the length of the room tapping her forehead repeatedly and muttering incomprehensibly. Finally, she froze in mid-step. “Of course!” she cried out. “Why didn’t I think of it before? It’s so brilliant in its simplicity and undetectable by magic!”
“What is it?” Ginny asked, sitting at the edge of her seat, gripping the table so hard that her knuckles were startlingly white.
“It’s hypnosis!” Hermione declared triumphantly.
“What’s hypnosis?” Ginny implored, looking as though she may cry.
“Essentially, it’s the Muggle form of the Imperius curse,” Hermione responded.
“Don’t cry!” Tonks reassuringly patted her hand. “It’s a very mild form of the Imperius.”
“A person’s mind is cleared from all thoughts,” Harry explained, “then the hypnotist suggestively offers actions to the subconscious. Usually the hypnotist uses a trigger, like the word Queen in this case. When the person is brought back into consciousness they don’t realize that they have been hypnotized.”
“What happens next,” Ginny asked, captivated.
“Well, whenever they hear the trigger, it prompts them to do the action suggested to their subconscious mind by the hypnotist. For example, at my cousins fifth birthday a hypnotist made my cousin think he was a dog. Every time he heard a bell he would act like a dog, until the hypnotist un-hypnotized him,” Harry elaborated.
“Every time anyone said the word ‘Queen’ Charlie would leave the room and go write a message and get an owl to send it. He’s been information unknowingly to Voldemort all this time!”
“How do you know he sent letters?” Ginny asked, looking as though she were about to faint, whether from relief or horror Harry couldn’t tell.
“I followed him several times, continuing our conversation about Pixie mating habits. He only left class after I mentioned the Queen Pixie. You see I was having so much trouble grasping the concept that she is the only female in a Pixie herd that I didn’t realize anything strange had happened. I wasn’t paying close attention to his actions.”
“Makes sense,” Tonks said, warming up to the theory that Charlie was under hypnosis. “Naturally you would mention the word queen in chess and when discussing the palace.”
A thrill coursed through Harry. Percy was innocent and so was Charlie! Of course it was Voldemort who had been behind the murder of Karkaroff! Hadn’t Harry heard him order Karkaroff’s death the night Cedric died? Implicating a member of the Weasley family as the culprit would be rather appealing to the Death Eaters given that two of the Weasley kids had fought alongside Harry in the Mysteries Department of the Ministry of Magic the previous year. Harry grinned, things were looking up. True, Percy and Ron were still missing, but he was certain that Voldemort would use them as bait to lure him into battle…assuming he had them both, that is. Charlie would need to be de-hypnotized somehow. Harry doubted that a healer could work much magic on this Muggle innovation. Perhaps they needed to kidnap a Muggle hypnotist to that affect and then alter his memory. If so, he fondly remembered the name of the hypnotist that had put Dudley under.
“We’re in danger,” Ginny said in a whisper so low that Harry barely heard her.
“Why is that?” Tonks asked.
Ginny looked up at them wearing a look of incredulity. “Don’t you realize? The Secret Keeper for this home is a spy of Voldemort’s.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than loud sounds of curses being fired reached their ears. The sounds were ushered in by the body of Hagrid which crashed through the shabby door of their room and flew onto the table, demolishing it in the process. His face showed no pain or sorrow, only a fleeting look of surprise that chilled Harry to his very core. Before he had time to process a single thought a searing pain burst from his scar ripping through his entire body. He couldn’t remember screaming, he couldn’t remember thrashing around on the ground in abject pain; all he could remember were the dead bodies of his loved ones and his ardent desire to join them.