Disclaimer: The Harry Potter world is the property of J.K. Rowling.
The plot is of my own invention.
“We have to find something soon, Bill, Hermione’s driving me spare. Every night as we do the rounds she bombards me with ideas and questions. I had to ask Ginny to drop her a not-so-subtle hint to back-off; she wasn’t listening to me.”
At first Bill appeared not to have heard a word Harry had just said. A minute later he asked, “Did she say anything useful?”
Mumbling a curse, Harry shut the latest book and threw it into a pile on the floor of the library at Grimmauld Place. “Yes, actually she did. Bloody stupid of me, too.” Jumping up, Harry threw a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace. “Hogwarts, Head Girl/Head Boy suite.”
A moment later a face, haloed in frizzy brown hair, appeared. “Harry! Hi, what’s going on?” Hermione asked. Harry saw that Ron was standing near the back wall holding a book and talking to himself, apparently memorizing something.
“Hermione, where would we find books that no one knows about?”
“Huh?” Harry heard Bill grunt behind him.
“I mean, like you said last night, we’re not going to find anything important in a published book, are we?” Hermione shook her head no, digesting Harry’s thought. “If this information is anywhere it’ll be unpublished or in a collection of papers, something like that, right.”
“Yes! Of course, Harry. Private collections would be the most promising place to look. I’ll Floo over and...”
“NO!” Harry called out. “Hermione, we’ve been through this. You have a job to do there and I have an idea which way to go now. Thanks.”
As he withdrew Harry could see Hermione starting to protest. Behind him he heard Bill chuckling. “I’m glad you get to deal with her. That was a brilliant idea, Harry, but where do we go from here?”
“First we go and talk to Dumbledore’s portrait, then I think we will head to the continent.” Dashing to a desk, Harry jotted out a brief note and called for Hedwig. “Here, girl. Can you get this to Boris Titov straight away?”
The snowy-white owl leaned forward and nuzzled Harry’s hand and then took off in a flurry of feathers.
“Harry, we don’t have visas for Germany and the Ministry is closed...”
“I know, that’s why I wrote to Titov, he can get us in. As long as we’re not caught we’ll be fine, and it’s only for a few hours. Come on.”
Yeah, but as Ron discovered, it’s easier to get in than get out. Bill muttered to himself. Following Harry out of the library, Bill went to pack a change of clothes and they were both on their way to Hogwarts in minutes.
“Professor Dumbledore,” Harry called out to the portrait sleeping soundly in the Headmistresses office.
“Well, Harry, and Bill Weasley! What a pleasant surprise.”
Bill smiled and nodded an acknowledgement to the greeting.
“Sir, when you defeated Grindlewald, where were you?”
“I was at his hideout in the Black Forest, near a town called St. Blasien. Why the interest in Grindlewald, Harry?”
Ignoring the question, Harry asked another of his own. “What happened after you, er... killed him?”
Dumbledore frowned. “Harry, these are not happy memories. Is there a point to all this?”
“Yes, but I need to find out what happened to all his possessions, do you know?” Harry hated ignoring his mentor a second time, but he was hot on the trail of... something and couldn’t stop.
“I believe the Americans had already occupied that part of Germany when I arrived. I was quite drained after the battle, Harry, but I think a wizard from the Americas confiscated everything. It wasn’t much, though.”
Bad news! “Do you have any idea how to find out where Grindelwald’s possessions are?”
“I’m afraid I cannot be much help, Harry. Perhaps someone at the American School in Salem might have information. Do you know anyone there?” By the smile on Harry’s face, Dumbledore could tell he did. “Good luck, my boy.”
As quickly as they arrived, Harry and Bill bade good-afternoon to McGonagall and Floo’d to Boris Titov’s residence in Croatia.
The dizzying, disorienting long-distance Port key trip to Dover, then to Calais, and finally to Zagreb left Harry woozy and not at all decided on whether he detested Floo or Port Key or Apparating travel the most. As Bill helped him up, Boris Titov walked up and shook Bill’s hand and then embraced Harry.
“Hello, my friends. I theenk I owe both uff you an apology. Aberforth told me vhat happened.” Titov bowed to Bill and then motioned for them to follow him.
Much more calmly than he felt, Bill let Titov off the hook. “That’s past, Boris. We need your help finding Grindelwald’s old house, or hide-away, Dumbledore called it.”
Titov stopped, and pointed back down the corridor from which they had just come. Three doors back they entered a room full of maps and large books. Titov grunted out the obvious: “Zee map room.” He pointed to the large central table and stepped into an adjoining room, returning shortly with a large, old, rolled-up piece of paper.
“Windberghof.” He pronounced it Veend-bearg-oaf “Zeese is vhere zee other Dumbledore fought heem.”
“Right, do you know if his home is still there?” Harry asked.
“I theenk zoe, Harry. Usually zee Americans destroy anysing remotely related to zee Nazis, but not zis one. Here.” Titov exited and fetched another smaller map. “Zis is zee village. Zee house vas here.” He pointed to a spot. Bill jotted down the street names as he drew a crude map.
“Boris, can you get us there? Today?” asked Harry.
Titov cocked his head and squinted his eyes, looking like he was considering a refusal. “Yes, Harry. For you and Bill. But eet has to be a quick, eh ‘in-and-out’ as you call eet. Zee Germans don’t like me too mooch.” Then he smiled wickedly. Harry suspected the challenge would be worth the effort and risk for the Croatian.
The three walked down still another long corridor and entered what could best be described as a locker room. Titov walked to one of the unbolted cubbies and removed a black garment that looked like a cross between a diver’s wet suit and a sleeping bag; then started stripping. “Vell? Find von und put eet on!” he snapped, pointing to any one of the hundred other lockers.
Bill and Harry searched until both had found one of the ‘cloaks’ and stripped to their pants before redressing. “Hey, Boris,” Bill called over the rows of lockers between he and Harry and the Slav. “What are these things?”
“Besides the worst smelling thing I’ve worn since Troll boogers,” Harry muttered.
Titov rounded the corned. “Zees are Russian invisibility coats,” he said proudly. The fact that they smelled vile and looked nothing at all like a coat dampened Bill and Harry’s opinion of their friend a bit. “Zay vill make you safe: I promise!”
“That’s a meaning of the word ‘safe’ I haven’t run across yet,” Bill commented to his young English partner as he felt the thin “ almost thread-bare fabric.*
“Hey, Boris. How do you turn these things on?” Bill asked. No answer was forthcoming and Bill continued to check out all the pockets for anything useful.
Before they knew it, all three had been Port keyed to Germany and the village of Windberghof, which was little more than a quarter-gross of run-down houses and shops on a road leading to St. Blasien. They could see the entire Berg from the bare hill on which they’d landed. The quickly vanishing twilight shed just enough light for them to quickly descend the path into the town. As they approached the only main road Titov stopped without warning and pointed to his right. “Zere, zees is eet.”
An incredibly average looking cottage sat back from the road about thirty meters. It was badly run down and obviously had not been painted in ages. The thatched roof sagged to the point where parts had became invisible and all but one of the once pretty shutters had rotted and fallen into the overgrowth surrounding the building. Hanging from what appeared to be but a sliver of metal was a plank with the house number: 66.
“Not much to look at, is it?” Bill said. Harry nodded in agreement.
Titov grunted and held his hand out to the structure as if saying, Are you sure you want to look in there?
Harry led off, first walking around to the back of the dwelling. He looked into a couple windows, carefully, not wanting to cut himself on the few glass shards remaining in the frames. The house was empty but for a couple sticks of broken furniture, vulgar graffiti in many languages on the walls and parts of the failing thatch roof that had fallen into the staircase. “No, there isn’t much here. I can’t see anything and I don’t feel any magic. Are you sure this is the house, Boris?”
“Yes, zis is eet,” he replied.
“Harry, use a repulsing charm while I poke around in there,” Bill instructed, yanking the rotted door open. Harry had just enough time to cast the spell before a section of the door frame fell, barely missing Bill’s left shoulder. A minute later Bill returned.
“Nothing obvious, but I want to try a few things. Hang on.”
Harry recast the spell to provide temporary stability to the roof as Bill drew his wand and uttered some spells in a language Harry was unfamiliar with. To his amazement a light shone briefly on the floor and when Harry looked again a solid metal door had appeared embedded in the floor. Titov, who had been watching from the front window whistled in amazement.
“Zat ees odd. Vat did you do, Beel?”
“Before I left Gringotts last summer I worked with an old German wizard. I noticed he would add a single word to the end of many spells he cast. When I asked him about it he shrugged and mumbled something about a ‘trade secret.’ So, of course, I recorded him over the next few days on a Muggle tape recording device and played the tapes back until I understood what he was saying.”
“Vell?” Titov asked exasperatedly, when Bill didn’t say anything else. “Vat did he say?”
He threw Titov a cagey grin before replying; with the scars on Bill’s face it was remarkably fierce. “Trade secret, Boris. Sorry.”
Casting a few more spell, which Harry determined to be anti-hex and anti-jinx enchantments, Bill took his time to walk around the door frame, examining the lock, handle and hinges. A half-hour passed before he did anything other than make some notes in a small pad of paper. “In case something goes wrong,” he said to the other two, holding up the pad. “You’ll know what not to do!” Harry cringed and Titov grunted approvingly.
“Here goes,” Bill said. He slowly opened the door without difficulty “ until it had swung about a quarter of the way on it’s hinges. An explosion rocked the building and threw Bill back against the far wall. Harry’s repulsing charm ended when he was distracted by the blast. The sound of the roof crumbling bode ill for anyone inside.
In horror, Harry watched the cottage collapse in upon itself, burying his friend. But what infuriated him more was the sound of Titov laughing. As he swung around, wand now pointing at the source of the laughter, his blood boiled. The Weasleys will never forgive me... ran wildly through Harry’s mind.
*The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.