A Road of Shattered Glass by Ennalee
Chapter Notes: This chapter is about a year late in coming, but here it is after all this time. I think I can promise that this story will never go on hiatus for such a long period again, though future updates may be sporadic.
Many, many thanks to my most fantabulous of betas, Hermionedancr, who encouraged me throughout this chapter's many drafts, and helped me differentiate between Bill and Dumbledore.
“Do you think this place looks familiar?” asked Tonks, staring at the fork in the passageway in front of her. From behind her, Kevin snorted.
“No, not at all,” he said sarcastically. “It only looks exactly like all the other passageways we’ve walked through today. Everything looks the same down here “ I don’t know how you expect to find your way back to Dumbledore’s room. We could be going in the opposite direction for all we know, or we could have walked right past it!”
“The walls near Dumbledore’s room were painted, remember?” interjected Charlie. “They were all covered in queer sorts of signs and pictures.”
“No, I don’t remember,” said Kevin. “You seem to have seen all sorts of things I didn’t. Painted walls and mysterious packages “ next thing I know, you’ll be telling me all about the dragons Hagrid is secretly breeding in the next tunnel over.”
“Is that even possible? Are there dragons that can live underground?” Charlie demanded.
Tonks stomped her foot. It made distressingly little sound against the cold stone rock beneath her. “Dragons!” she burst out angrily. “We’re not looking for dragons, we’re looking for Dumbledore’s room! And if we don’t keep looking for it we’ll never find it, and we’ll never figure out what he hid!”
“Why do you want to find it so badly?” Kevin asked. “It’s been over a month since Dumbledore put it there, and he could have moved it already. And even if you did find it, what would you do? Hide it under your bed? I’m sure it would make your mum real proud if you got kicked out of Hogwarts for stealing.”
“We wouldn’t steal it!” Tonks exclaimed hotly. “I’d just like to know what it is! Maybe someone else would try to steal it, and we could save it and then we’d be heroes just like Harry Potter, and-”
Bill laughed. “I’m curious too, Tonks. But from what you said about the other room, we’re probably miles away. See how the walls here are really rough? I bet that’s because we’re in the older part of the tunnels. Look at the runes carved into the walls!”
Tonks stopped, and ran her fingers across the queer symbols. “Can you read them?” she asked.
Bill moved his wand closer to the wall, throwing the shadows into sharp relief. “This one is Raido, which stands for a long journey. And next to it is Thurisaz…in combination, I think they mean a dragon.” He turned to grin at his brother. “Hear that, Charlie? Maybe your dragons aren’t so farfetched after all.”
“Maybe we’re about to discover a dragon’s cavern,” said Charlie, catching his brother’s spirit. “He’ll be guarding a room full of treasure, of course, and we’ll have to fight him to get it! Or maybe someone could distract him while the rest of us took it. There could be all sorts of magical objects, and we could bring them back to the school, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about finding Dumbledore’s room at all, Tonks “ we’d be heroes for just saving the treasure!”
Kevin blinked. “I’d rather keep looking for Dumbledore’s room,” he said. “Dragons from a distance are fine. Dragons up close, not so fine. I don’t do dragons.”
“Kevin’s scared,” teased Tonks.
“I am not!” retorted Kevin. “Just practical. Fighting dragons? Definitely not practical.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a brave Gryffindor?” asked Tonks.
“No, I’m a smart Gryffindor. Rare things, those. Anyway, I don’t see either of you charging off to fight dragons anytime soon.”
“That’s because we haven’t found them yet,” answered Charlie. “And we won’t anytime soon, if we don’t get moving.” He and Kevin began moving down the passage, Kevin busily unwinding their ball of string as he went. Bill hung back, continuing to trace the runes with his finger. Tonks was still trying to think up an intelligent question to ask him to start him talking again when Charlie’s voice broke the silence.
“Are you two coming? We’ve found something!”
Bill and Tonks shared a look of mutual excitement before sprinting down the passageway in pursuit. To Tonks’ great disappointment, the boys had found neither dragons nor Dumbledore’s secret, but the room they had found was intriguing nonetheless. It was a small, round chamber, and the walls were completely covered in carving. Despite its small size, the room had a distinct presence, almost as if it were something alive. Everyone stood for several moments before Bill broke the silence, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve been here before.”
“You have?” the others asked together.
“The first time I ever came down into the tunnels. Professor Emrys “ my Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher my first year “ brought me down here.” He ran his fingers down the queer symbols carved into the stone, looking thoughtful. “Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in this room.” He looked up to see the others’ surprised expressions and laughed. “You didn’t know that it happened at Hogwarts? Well, under Hogwarts, at least. You should pay more attention in History of Magic.”
Kevin snorted. “Grindelwald? He’s far too modern for Binns to talk about. He’s only interested in things that happened before International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy went into effect. Which, by the way, was in 1692, and don’t ask me how I know that because I really have no idea.”
“Is it possible that you actually paid attention in History of Magic once?” Tonks asked, feigning shock.
Kevin made a face, and Charlie laughed. “I have yet to see the day.”
“We must have come down a lot farther than I thought,” said Bill, ignoring them. “This is one of the oldest parts of the tunnels, which are one of the oldest wizard-made places in England themselves. The rest of Hogwarts was just built on top of all of this, centuries and centuries later. Lie down.”
“What?” asked Charlie, startled.
Bill grinned. “Just do it. With your ear against the ground.”
Tonks lay down immediately and pressed her ear against the floor, surprised at how cold it was “ somehow the room gave the impression of being warm. For a few moments she lay in bemusement, wondering what she was supposed to be doing, and then she noticed it. She couldn’t tell if she was hearing or feeling it, but it was there, a deep, warm, thrumming coming from the stone. She sat up, startled. “What is that?”
Next to her, Charlie’s face mirrored her expression, and Kevin, who was still standing, looked surprised.
“It’s the magic,” Bill said. “Old Magic.”
“Old Magic?” Kevin asked, sounding skeptical.
“Professor Emrys was mainly interested in Old Magic “ Celtic protective spells, tree circles, mirror magic, water masking, Egyptian curses, all that “ I asked about them, and he brought me down here. He said he wasn’t really supposed to show students the tunnels, but he seemed so excited that I was actually interested in Old Magic; he thinks that our generation would do a lot better to spend less time looking forward and more looking back.
“Old Magic, for the most part, was how wizards worked spells before they had wands to focus their magic. It took huge amounts of energy, but they could do things we can’t do now. It works by different rules than ours; it’s all about circles. The magic keeps on going in loops; it’s constantly strengthening and reinforcing itself. That’s what you can hear down there “ the rumbling of the Old Magic, still winding away somewhere, holding all the tunnels and Hogwarts together.”
“What happens if it stops?” asked Kevin, looking apprehensive.
“I don’t know. Everything falls apart? Don’t worry, I doubt it’s in danger of stopping.”
“Mmph,” said Kevin. He turned to Charlie and Tonks. “So you really can hear it? I thought he was going to have us all lie down and then laugh at us. I guess I’ll have to try, then.” He lay down and pressed his ear to the stone.
Tonks did the same, listening once more to the comforting rumble, and then sat up and turned to Bill. “What happened?” she asked. “Why was Grindelwald here?”
“Well, I don’t know the whole story,” said Bill. “I tried to look it up, but there’s surprisingly little information about Grindelwald’s defeat. The books go on and on about the war, and the various battles, and then they’ll stick in a paragraph or so in which they say that Dumbledore and a group of his supporters defeated Grindelwald near Hogwarts, and then they go straight on with the descriptions of what happened after he was defeated. So I only know what Professor Emrys told me.”
“So what did he tell you?” prompted Tonks, more because she was hoping for another of Bill’s stories than because she was curious.
“Grindelwald came to Hogwarts looking for the Founder’s ring,” Bill began, his voice taking on the low and husky tone that Tonks had come to associate with his stories. “Back when Hogwarts had just been started, the founders made a ring.
“Without wands, all sorts of little spells, the ones you use everyday, would be a lot more complicated. They used to have to perform an entire ceremony just to start a fire! So they used magic a lot less than we do now, and when they used it, it was for more important things.
“It was a bit dangerous, too “ when you make such strong spells, without a wand, it takes a little bit out of you. If you tried to do something that took too much magic, you’d get weaker and weaker, but if you were in the middle of a spell you probably wouldn’t notice it right away. A lot of wizards died when they tried to do something that required more magic than they had; they just kept on pouring and pouring their magic in, and then suddenly there just wasn’t anymore left to pour in.”
“What happened then?” asked Kevin, after a moment.
“They died,” said Bill.
He paused, and Tonks shivered. The light from their wands wavered on the cold stone walls of the cave, and for a moment Tonks felt as if she could almost see the shadowy forms of wizards dancing a stately death-dance around a flickering fire.
“That’s why really powerful objects “ Merlin’s staff and Sigrlami’s sword and the Mirror of Narcissus “ are so rare,” Bill continued. “Only the most powerful wizards could risk taking that much magic out of themselves, and even those that were strong enough didn’t always want to risk placing so much of themselves into a single object.”
“Why did they, then?” Tonks asked, fascinated. “Why would they take that risk if they could just keep their magic?”
“Lots of reasons,” Bill answered. “Using a magical object was easier than using raw magic “ it’s why we use wands. Fighting with magic took a lot of energy, so if you had a magic sword that could block spells, you were one step ahead of the fellow who was going through all the work to perform the long incantations and throw spells at you. Or once you had made a magic mirror, you wouldn’t have to do complicated spells every time you wanted to do something that the mirror could do. And I suppose some wizards wanted to make something that would be passed down from generation to generation “ something for other people to remember them by.
“Because making magical objects took so much magic, some wizards would work together; that way they could each put less magic in, and still make something really powerful. Only that was dangerous too, because when you share magic like that, you leave yourself really vulnerable to the other person; you can only do it with someone you completely trust.
“That’s what the four founders did. Three of the four founders, actually. They decided to make a ring, a ring that would show whoever wore it how to do the thing that person thought was more important than anything else in the world. They meant to use it for good, to unite the wizarding world, end wars and suffering.”
“Bet you anything it was Slytherin who didn’t help,” muttered Kevin sarcastically.
“You lose,” said Bill, to everyone’s surprise. “It was Hufflepuff who refused. She thought that the task was impossible, and it shouldn’t be done because it would be too easy to be used wrongly. If it fell in the hands of the wrong person, it might be used to separate the world instead of uniting it, or to put a single person into power. The other three founders wouldn’t listen to her “ they were so sure that they could do it, and do it right, that they went on and made the ring without her help.
“Each of the three put in their own magic, and with it their greatest strengths. The ring was meant to cause change, and it was filled with the ambition, courage, and wisdom necessary to do so, but it didn’t have the kindness and impartiality that Hufflepuff might have brought. The entire story might have been different if Hufflepuff had helped, but maybe she was right and her help wouldn’t have made a difference, because the plan was flawed from the start. It was flawed because the founders themselves were flawed “ they were wonderful wizards, but they were still only people.
“They made the ring right here, in this room, the oldest and most magical part of Hogwarts. It was a huge ceremony, and took hours and hours and hours of concentration and magic, but finally they had almost finished it. For the last step of the spell, the ring had to be on someone’s finger. It was Ravenclaw’s ring, and Gryffindor was doing the last part of the spell, so they gave the ring to Slytherin.
“The ring wasn’t finished yet, but when Slytherin put it on he saw a vision of the world that he thought would be perfect. In the vision, magic was everything and the wizards didn’t have to hide because there were no Muggles to see them.
“He also saw what he must do to make this perfect world, and his friend “ his best friend “ Gryffindor, the champion of the oppressed and the protector of the Muggles, stood in his way.
“Something of what Slytherin was thinking must have shown on his face, because Gryffindor suddenly became afraid. For the first time, he wondered if they had made a mistake in making the ring. Who was to say that anyone’s vision of a perfect world would be right “ even if that person was good and wanted only the best? They had thought that the ring was safe as long as they kept it out of the hands of the wrong people, but he realized for the first time that perhaps it wasn’t safe, even in his own hands.
“So, as he watched Slytherin’s temptation, Gryffindor tried to pull the magic “ the melded magic of two wizards and a witch “ out of the ring. But magic is like anything else “ it doesn’t permit a vacuum. When the magic was pulled out of the ring, something else had to fill the empty space. The ring was on Slytherin’s finger and the spell by which they had been putting their magic into it wasn’t finished yet, so some of Slytherin’s magic flowed into the ring. At the time Slytherin was full of his own ambition, and so the magic dragged into the ring was tainted by his hatred of Muggles.
“The ring was left weaker, and even more flawed than it had been before. Some of the original spell remained “ it will show you your greatest ambition, and a way in which you might achieve it. But that path may not be the right one, and whatever it is, it will have consequences “ most likely consequences that will badly affect Muggles.
“Slytherin could feel Gryffindor pulling the magic from the ring, and he could feel his own magic slipping away from him. Perhaps his thoughts were influenced by the ring he was wearing, but he thought that Gryffindor was betraying him “ that Gryffindor had created the ring in an attempt to pull his magic from him and weaken him. He attacked Gryffindor, both to take revenge and to take the first step in his attempt to purify the world.
“As they began to fight, Gryffindor ripped the ring from Slytherin’s finger, and it fell to the ground unnoticed. Ravenclaw took it away and hid it. She couldn’t destroy it “ it was linked to her own magic, and Gryffindor’s, and Slytherin’s, and the Old Magic which holds the entire school together. Destroying it would rip the entire school apart, so she hid it deep in the tunnels. She never told anyone where she hid it except for her son; the knowledge was passed down among her heirs.
“As Ravenclaw hid the ring, Hufflepuff tried to separate the two enemies who had once been best friends. She convinced them to work together for the sake of the students and the school, but they never trusted each other again. They began to fight, all the time, over everything. What should be taught and who should teach them and who should be accepted into the school. They couldn’t agree, and the school was split into four different houses. Even then they continued to fight, and eventually Slytherin, feeling that the other three founders were working against him, left.
“The ring disappeared for over a thousand years, until Grindelwald somehow discovered that it was hidden underneath Hogwarts. He came to Hogwarts to claim it, entering the tunnels through a secret entrance. Dumbledore came down to stop him, with only a few supporters and a handful of students, mostly sixth and seventh years. Professor Emrys was a fifth year at the time, but he went, and so did McGonagall and Hagrid.
“Grindelwald was defeated, but somehow the ring was lost. Perhaps someone found it and stole it, or it may still be in the tunnels somewhere, lying forgotten in a dark crevice. The magic of the tunnels will block any searching spell, so there’s no way to tell. For all we know, it could be right here in the room with us.”
Tonks stared at the stone walls, wondering if the ring could be hidden somewhere in the ornate carving, while Bill stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor. “And that’s all,” he announced, his voice taking on its normal tone once more, becoming Bill once more. “Are you ready to go? It’s getting late.”
Kevin was looking around, wide-eyed. “And you tell us about the ring now?” he asked. “We could have been looking for it all this time, instead of some cave full of dragons, or a mysterious package that Dumbledore might have hidden in some room.”
“You think we’re more likely to find a ring that could be absolutely anywhere than a package that’s in a room we’ve seen before?” demanded Tonks.
“Anyway, would you really want to find the ring?” asked Charlie. “It doesn’t sound like it’s the kind of thing we want anything to do with. Personally, I’ll take dragons, thank you very much.”
“Aw, it’s just a ring. It probably doesn’t do half of the stuff you said it could,” said Kevin. “How do you know all this, anyway? You’re always saying that Gryffindor felt, or Slytherin thought “ there’s no way you could know all that.”
“It’s a story, Kevin,” said Tonks. “It wouldn’t have been nearly as good if he had told only the exactly true parts.”
Bill grinned. “For all you know, it’s completely fictitious and I made the whole thing up. Think what you like. Now, anyone who wants to go back had better come now, because I have a Potions essay to write, and I’m taking this ball of string with me. So unless you want to sleep down here tonight…”
“Ha! Not likely!” interrupted Kevin. “Rumbling stone walls, dragons guarding treasure, destructive magic rings “ let’s go back.”
Their journey back was uneventful, with much talk of dragons and rings, but no actual sightings. There was a frightening moment right outside the entrance to the tunnels when they thought they were about to be accosted by Professor Snape, but it turned out to be little Professor Snith, their fluttery and fussy Herbology Professor. She twittered something unintelligible at them as she went by, robe askew and wispy hair flying. Tonks let out one muffled snort before Kevin stepped on her foot, and then managed to contain her laughter until the professor had turned the corner.
Her giggles were contagious, and they were still laughing as they clambered past the disgruntled Fat Lady into the common room. Flopping on a large couch next to Justine and Marianne, Tonks thought contentedly that it was lovely to have friends.
Her enthusiasm lasted until the next day when, on the way from Transfigurations to Potions, her shoelace came untied. Marianne and Justine continued down the corridor without a break in their conversation; Tonks glared at their retreating backs.
Charlie and Kevin would have waited, she thought in annoyance. I think. As usual, her anger made her clumsy, and it took her several tries to get her shoe properly tied. By the time she had finished, Justine and Marianne had already turned the corner. Biting her lip, Tonks was considering whether to chase them or to continue alone to Potions at a normal speed, when she heard a voice through a nearby door.
What caught her attention was not the words, but the voice itself. It was odd “ not rough or smooth, neither high nor low. It gave no clue as to the age, or even the gender of the speaker. The voice was notable for its complete anonymity.
“How far have you checked?” it asked.
“It’s so hard to keep track of things,” came the response. There was no question about this voice; it was obviously a girl. Her voice was rather nasal, with a barely concealed whine. “I’ve been trying and trying, but I can hardly find time to get down without getting caught, and when I do I have to hurry. It’s hard to keep directions in your head when you’re hurrying around in the dark.”
“How far have you checked?” repeated the voice. Tonks could not identify what about it had changed, but it sounded harsher now, more menacing.
“I’ve drawn it out, the best I could.” The girl sounded both frightened and annoyed. “It’s awfully hard in the dark, but I did my best.”
There was a long pause.
“The spiral room. You’ve gotten as far as the spiral room. I’ve checked farther than that myself.”
“I’ve done my best,” the girl whined. “I’ll keep on trying, but it’s difficult. I don’t have that much time.”
“You had best make time,” responded the voice. “Do I need to remind you why?”
“No.” The girl sounded frightened again, and resentful.
“Don’t forget.” The voice was heavy with warning. “If you find it, don’t try to do anything “ only mark the location, and come get me immediately.
“Don’t you want me to try and take it?”
“No! Don’t touch it “ just tell me, as soon as you can without being conspicuous. You can go now. For all your talk of not having enough time, you seem to spend enough time doing nothing.”
Swift footsteps approached the door. Tonks looked around wildly; she did not have enough time to hide. She barely had enough presence of mind left to concentrate on her hair and her nose “ the two parts of her body that came the most easily to her.
When the person came out of the door, Tonks had red hair and a very large nose; she hoped that they were distinctive enough that no one would pay any attention to her other features.
Upon seeing Tonks, the figure stopped in dismay. It was a young girl. She looked like a student; an older student, but definitely not an adult. Long years of being a metamorphmagus had made Tonks very observant of people’s appearances; now she noted the girl’s sallow face carefully so that she would be sure to recognize her again.
“What are you doing here?” the girl demanded, her voice high and nervous.
“I was tying my shoe,” Tonks explained lamely, gesturing and trying to look innocent.
She probably did not succeed “ she had never been good at looking innocent, especially when she wasn’t. The girl’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she did not say anything else, only turned on her heel and flounced off.
Tonks would have liked to see if the other person was still in the room, but she did not dare. She was halfway down the hall before she checked her watch and realized that she was late to Potions. She dashed down the corridor and into the dungeons, remembering only at the last minute to change her nose and hair back to their usual appearance.
Snape sneered at her and took five points from Gryffindor. To her dismay, the class seemed to be working in pairs; typically, Ninette was the only one without a partner. Snape gestured, and with a sigh Tonks went over to Ninette to battle her way through the lesson.
The class fully lived up to her expectations by being perfectly dreadful. Ninette was as perfect and aloof as ever, and carried out the instructions to the letter. Tonks wrinkled her nose as she watched her partner delicately drop in exactly fifteen black-beetle eyes, stirring counter-clockwise between each. As Ninette added the perfectly diced tubeworms, Tonks amused herself with various calamities that could befall her perfect partner. Unfortunately, none of them seemed forthcoming. Ninette’s hair was bound back in a neat braid, and was hardly likely to fall into the potion. Neither did she spill the leech juice all over the front of her robe. Tonks, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
“She never smiles and she never makes a mistake!” Tonks wailed to Charlie and Kevin, holding her sticky robe away from her body. “She’s about as friendly as a flobberworm, and I’ve never even seen her sneeze!”
Her friends’ responses were far from satisfactory. Charlie made an unsuccessful attempt to hide his grin. “Shouldn’t that be ‘as unfriendly as a flobberworm?’” challenged Kevin.
Leaving them laughing, Tonks marched to her dormitory to change her robes.
Tonks split her friendship fairly evenly between Charlie and Kevin, Justine and Marianne. In both groups she felt somewhat like a third wheel; they accepted her, but also seemed content in their own company. She gravitated between the two, and enjoyed each for different reasons. Justine and Marianne satisfied that part in her which needed whispers and giggles and time spent before bed planning the next day; Charlie and Kevin were playmates with whom she could go adventuring. She was not entirely satisfied, but she did well enough, and she reminded herself that most people were not lucky enough to find single best friends who fulfilled all their needs. In any case, there was no question as to with whom she would share the conversation she had overheard.
She interrupted Charlie and Kevin in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap that evening. She looked for Bill as well, but he was nowhere to be seen. As she told her story, she tried to invest it with the intensity and meaning that always filled Bill’s stories. She thought she did fairly well, but when she finished the boys did not look the least bit intrigued.
“So you heard two people talk about something they were looking for?” asked Kevin with raised eyebrows. “What’s the point? I think you missed the punch line.”
Tonks stamped in frustration. “Don’t you see?” she demanded. “The girl mentioned keeping track of things and finding her way in the dark and making a map “ they must have been referring to the tunnels. They’re looking for something down there “ and I think it’s the ring.”
This statement did not have the effect she had hoped for. Kevin and Charlie exchanged a wry look. “Very logical,” drawled Kevin sarcastically to Charlie. “She hears two people discussing a lost object “ therefore someone is out to find and steal the Founder’s ring, which Bill just happened to tell us about last night, and which probably isn’t even there. For all we know it doesn’t even exist!”
“I think it exists,” Charlie said seriously. “But I don’t think there’s any reason to believe whatever they’re looking for is anything they’re not allowed to have. We don’t even know who these people are, Tonks. And even if they were talking about the tunnels, they have as much right to be there as us. Probably more, actually.”
“True,” Kevin laughed, then waved his cards under Charlie’s nose. “It’s your go. You can play next round, Tonks, if you want.”
Angrily, Tonks turned on her heel and hurried towards the stairs to her dormitory.
“Don’t be mad, Tonks,” Charlie called after her, in a cajoling voice. “You can play this round “ we’ll deal you in.”
Tonks ignored him; running into the dormitory, she threw herself onto her bed. Angry as she was, she could hardly blame them; now that she looked at her argument herself it was paltry and unconvincing.
All the same, she was convinced. They had not heard the two voices, or felt the sense of urgency in the air. The girl had been afraid of the other person “ Tonks was sure there was something more at stake than a simple possession dropped in a corridor.
It was not long before Justine and Marianne came in, Marianne in the middle of a complicated story involving somebody’s cousin and a bushel of frogs. Tonks joined them in their usual evening gathering on Marianne’s bed, only half paying attention. She briefly amused herself with the ludicrous thought of Marianne venturing down into a dark tunnel, and Justine crawling around on hands and knees looking for a ring.
That night she dreamt of running through the tunnels in a vain effort to save the ring from a dark, mysterious figure cloaked in black.