CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, Hermione shook me awake rather crossly.
“Lauren, for goodness sake, this is the third time I’ve tried to get you up. Here.” She pushed a cup of life giving brew into my groggy hand, and stepped back to look at me.
I tried to focus, but it was too early for me.
“Well, you’ve looked better,” she decided crisply. “Are you alright? Not sickening for anything?”
I sipped my tea blearily, a little narked at her tone, considering my whole life had fallen apart yesterday.
“So far, but if you don’t go away and give me at least half an hour to get up in my own way, you won’t be,” I answered nastily.
“Are you going to lie down and shut your eyes again the minute I leave?” Hermione sounded suspicious, and not at all put out by the nasty tone.
I moaned. “Just go away.”
She went, flicking the shower on for me as she went out, and I finished my tea, and got out of bed and padded into the bathroom.
Well, she was right. I was a mess. Tangled black hair and puffy eyes. I looked like a right train wreck, as the mirror kindly informed me. 'Seven years bad luck' I reminded myself as I scowled.
Sighing, I turned the shower knob onto hot, relieved that I could at least adjust the temperature without a wand. Hermione says if you shower too hot, you can get varicose veins when you are older, so she always has the shower lukewarm, but I like it boiling. She calls my showers the lobster pot.
The shower helped a lot. I counted my pros, which was something I had forgotten in my misery last night. There were a couple.
I didn’t have my cello, but I had a good one to practice on.
Neville could hardly have been that interested “ we had only met that afternoon. Perhaps I had even misread his look. Besides, I knew for a fact that he had invited both Hermione and Ginny out, and was close to a girl called Luna. So I didn’t need to be embarrassed meeting him again.
On the other hand, there was no way I could go to quartet practice on Monday.
I tried to make myself believe that Ben would change his Death Eater views once he knew I was a Muggle, but even I wasn’t that optimistic. I had heard the tone in his voice when speaking of how we should be “allowed” an education.
How can one fall in love with something one regards as no higher than an insect? Even a dearly loved dog doesn’t inspire one with passionate adoration and desire to do the tongue tango with said dog. At least in normal people (I put in the caveat myself, remembering that there are some weird people out there.)
Once Ben found out I was a Muggle, he was probably going to feel very sick and revolted.
I was going to cry again, so with a great effort, I pushed Ben out of my mind, and turned my face to the hot spray and my pros list again, which seemed meagre, but I was tired of being miserable, and anyway, I didn't think I had any tears left to cry.
Half an hour later, I trotted downstairs waving a greeting to Harry and Neville who were standing in the hall with another boy who had his back turned to me. My hair was still soaking as I hadn’t found an electrical outlet for my hairdryer, (there was a convenient wand lying on the sink, but of course, it was no use to me) and I was still worried about my cello and upset about Ben, but my mood was determinedly better.
Halfway down the stairs, I noticed that the other boy (who had dark brown hair, I might add) was Ron.
I stumbled, and bumped down the rest of the stairs on my backside, landing at the bottom in an undignified heap with my skirt hiked up around my thighs, at the feet of Ron, Neville and Harry. It bruised my back, hurt my pride worse and embarrassed me to no end. I yelped because of my back, but luckily Hermione came in just then.
The boys had got no further than to stand in stunned amazement goggling down at me and my exposed knickers (luckily nothing too risqué) when she cut efficiently through the group and helped me up, fixing my back, my hair and my torn skirt in what seemed like one wand movement. It is very useful having a witch as a friend, especially one like Hermione. The boys put their eyes back in and shut their mouths.
“We are having an early lunch,” Hermione told me crisply. “We’ll clue you in on what we are going to do while we are eating. Hurry up.”
Well. The sympathy had been very short lived, but from the faces of the other three, I know that they regarded my sleeping in as slacking, even though I had been up until the wee hours practicing. However, since I had not just been practicing the Ravenclaw, perhaps they regarded that as slacking too. I know Hermione has a sneaking suspicion that I use cello practice as a convenient way to avoid doing things that I should be doing, but that really isn’t true. If you want to be a cellist, you need to put in the practice, and practicing is more important than anything else that needs to be done, like paying bills and turning off the potatoes.
I caught sight of the clock. It was past twelve. Perhaps I had overslept just a little. I could feel guilt replace the injured expression on my face. It is very annoying having an expressive face.
The table was set for five. Obviously Neville was joining us. A tiny little house elf trotted in with plates covered in sandwiches and bowls of crisps and a few apple tarts on an enormous tray and proceeded to unload it onto the table. It (I have difficulty in determining the sexes) then trotted down the hall with another full tray, obviously for Mrs. Longbottom. I know my eyes lit up and I sat down feeling hungry.
Harry sat opposite me. “We’ve been up for hours,” he said reproachfully.
I made a face at him. “Well, bully for you. I was practicing last night. I got to bed late.” I undid my serviette and slid it onto my lap. The Longbottoms dined in style even when it was only sandwiches.
Hermione leant forward. “Stop bickering you two.”
Well, I liked that! We weren’t bickering so as you’d notice anyway, and the way she and Ron carried on you’d think Harry and I were entitled to a bit of a spat now and again. She went on.
“We haven’t much time. Listen Lauren. We need you to go to the Strangers’ with Ron this afternoon.”
For a second my mouth hung open. I hadn’t expected anything to happen this soon.
Then, in spite of myself, my nerves exploded out of me in a high-pitched laugh a little like a whinny. I don’t do well under stress. I shut my mouth hurriedly, blushing like a tomato as the boys looked at me in surprise. Hermione was used to me, and didn’t turn a hair.
“We found out from a contact that both Mr. and Mrs. Stranger will be at a meeting this afternoon. Are you going to be up to it Lauren? We need to do this as soon as possible, before they figure out what it is that we need, if they haven't already.”
I nodded dumbly. If I opened my mouth now, nothing would escape but hysterical laughter. It made sense, but it was still a shock to have this pressed upon me before I had even downed one cup of coffee. I looked around. In fact there was no coffee available. Since we were eating lunch, there was only orange juice on the table. I saw Neville nod at the hovering house elf and jerk his head in my direction.
Hermione reached out and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You have to be sure you can do this Lauren, because we can’t go in unless you really are ready.”
Her eyes were anxious, and I knew she was worried because of all I had been through the day before. I do tend to get very emotional, and it does affect my behavior sometimes. Hermione calls it “living in alt” and tells me it is because I am an artist. People expect me to be temperamental, and most of the time I enjoy the license to have tantrums whenever I like, but because I have lived up to my reputation a little, people don’t realize that I can actually be calm and restrained when I need to be.
I squeezed her hand back, and took mine away to pick up my coffee, which had magically appeared at my elbow. “What exactly am I agreeing to?” My voice was almost normal. Only a little wobble of laughter. I didn’t dare smile at Neville or the house elf to thank them for the coffee. The most I could do, without making myself laugh was to sort of twitch my features at them. Neville looked most surprised.
“You and Ron have to go in to the house and get the viola de gamba. Harry is going with you, in his invisibility cloak, and Neville has promised to stay here as a contact all day in case we need him.”
I glanced over at Neville again and saw he looked a little doleful. Obviously he knew that the others were being kind in including him at all, and were giving him the job in which he was least likely to do any damage. Then it struck me.
“Ron’s dyed his hair so that he won’t be recognized! Brilliant. He looks totally different. That is why I fell downstairs.”
“Well, I hope I don’t have that effect on everyone,” Ron grinned. “I’m not used to people flinging themselves downstairs to prostrate themselves at my feet.”
That finished me and made me giggle outright. Hermione frowned Ron down.
“Lauren, you have to be careful. If we thought for one minute we would recognize the thing when we saw it, - Listen to me Lauren! - you wouldn’t be going. I don’t think they are expecting us however, and with them out and Harry and Ron - Lauren! - Harry and Ron with you, you should be safe enough. If anything happens, you are to turn and run. I’m serious!”
Unfortunately once I had started giggling, I found her stern tone hilarious. By now my eyes were streaming with the effort of trying to stop.
Giggles are something I have trouble with just before a solo performance too. It is a manifestation of stage fright that is very irritating to everyone else, but makes me feel twice as alive. Hermione knows that it can take a while to stop me once I get started, and occasionally I have even managed to start her off, although she is not much of a giggler. Now she looked at me in alarm.
I managed with difficulty to rein myself in, although my voice shook a bit. Harry was looking at me in a mystified way, although both Neville and Ron had sympathetic grins.
“Alright, I understand. I am such a law-abiding person I am having great difficulty in believing that we are going to do a spot of h-house breaking this afternoon. What if we are all wrong, and they haven’t got the r-right instrument? Or if it isn’t there?”
Neville (who had been on the receiving end of Hermione’s frown), Harry and Hermione all pretended to ignore the huge snort I gave here as a huge gust of laughter threatened to escape me, but Ron grinned more widely. I hurriedly turned my eyes away from him, and tried to think of sad things.
“We’ll go from there,” Harry said cautiously, obviously hoping I wasn’t going to break out laughing. I managed not to, although it was difficult because Harry looked so intense. I managed to get my voice under control again, although I knew my lips were still twitching.
“How do I g-get in touch if we d-do get sep-arated?”
Hermione answered in a dampening tone, calculated to squash me. “I just charged our cell phones. I am going to give mine to Neville, and I have shown him how to operate it. You shouldn’t need it though. If anything happens, we are going to get you out first. I am going to check that all your charms are still working before you go, so that we can do Side Along Apparition at any time, and if anything happens, and you can’t do that, Ron will be able to get you out and you just run to the nearest tube. I did you a map, but you won’t need it. It is just two streets away. Once you are in there, any wizard is going to have trouble finding you.”
I was dubious about this. I know the Wizarding and Muggle communities don’t usually mix, but I knew that Ben used the tube. However, I didn’t mention it. At the most, it sounded extremely unlikely that I would have to use that as an escape route anyway. I was also a little uneasy about it being Neville on the other end of the cell phone, and not Hermione. He didn’t really inspire the same sort of confidence especially after all the stories I had heard! However, the upside was that this made me stop wanting to laugh.
But I couldn’t ask Hermione to man the phone. Hermione would need to set up the place to unlock the Horcrux. The spellwork needed to extract the Horcrux from the music was very complicated. I know that was why it was Hermione doing it and not one of the boys! I would have to play the Ravenclaw as soon as I got back, before anyone figured out how to stop us.
After lunch, and a little bit of practice for me, Hermione gave us last minute instructions.
Ron and I were to go down there on the bus in a very normal way, acting like a courting couple. Ron was wearing jeans and a sweater, with no robe, and Hermione had done my hair in a French Plait, and I wore makeup and large hoop earrings. I was also wearing jeans and a long coat, so I didn’t look anything like myself. If I saw anyone I recognized I was supposed to pretend to snog Ron to keep my face hidden. If Ron hadn’t been attached to Hermione I might not have minded, but snogging your best friend’s boyfriend? Ugh! However, it was her idea.
I looked over at Ron, and saw he had the same sort of look on his face that I did, which made us both laugh. Hermione sighed in exasperation. “Oh come on you two! It is called acting, and actors do it all the time. You don’t have to stick your tongue down her throat Ron. Just keep your faces hidden. Your hair and clothes make you look very different.” I wasn’t entirely sure if I was complimented by the fact that she obviously trusted me and Ron, or insulted!
She hugged me. “Be very careful, and watch out!” Then she hugged Ron, and they sort of fused passionately together in a way that almost looked like it should be censored, before she tore herself away, and mouthed, “Good luck!”
Harry joined us, wearing his invisibility cloak, which wasn’t a good thing.
The bus was crowded at first, and Harry, to keep the cloak on, had to sit on my lap, or he would have been found. It was very uncomfortable, because Harry has a very bony bottom, and it was a good thing Ron and I didn’t see anyone we knew, because it would have been very difficult to kiss Ron as per instructions around an invisible Harry. Why he chose my lap to sit on, I will never know. Ron has a far bigger lap. By the time there was a spare seat I had terrible pins and needles.
The bus dropped us nearly outside the door, and Harry ran on ahead to the house to get rid of the wards, while Ron and I dawdled along, holding hands, and trying to look like a Muggle couple out for a walk. I think we did quite well, although holding hands felt very weird. We loitered along until we saw the door of the house we needed drift open, as if by itself, and then we picked up the pace a little, and trying to look as if we belonged, we walked up the short path, and into the house.
Harry was to stand by the door to guard us, and stop people getting in.
It was definitely a wizard’s house. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary house. There was a confusing moment or two, when you seemed to walk into a small living room with a stuffed sofa and some carpeted stairs, and then it all changed into marble tiles, widened, and there was an enormous foyer, almost like a hotel’s, except that there was no reception desk. There was a lovely fountain in the middle, with cascading water.
Here Ron became very irritating and bossy. He wouldn’t let me look at the fountain, and he wouldn’t let me out of his sight, and so we couldn’t divide up to search. And we had to search the house, believe you me. In an ordinary semi detached, you would have found the thing within minutes, be it ever so cleverly hidden.
Here there was a huge music room, with rows of lovely antique instruments, and then several chambers branching off it, with different collections. I could see why Hermione, Ron and Harry needed me. There were so many instruments even I wondered if I could find Rowena’s instrument among them. Most of the viola de gambas (and there were more than any museum even has a right to) were lined in a glass case that stretched along one wall. None were tagged; Ben’s father must have a wonderful memory to be able to remember all the instruments. There would probably be a filing cabinet, or magical filing system of some sort. I set Ron to look for it, as he would be more likely to recognize such a thing, while I prowled along the instruments looking at them.
Rowena’s wasn’t among them, and we went into several chambers, before I knew I had spotted the right one.
It was in a little round two-door chamber, in a lighted niche that held an old framed script with a few glass shelves below. These contained some fine shells, a jar of different coloured sands and an old flute and some wooden pieces that looked as if they had been washed up on a beach somewhere. The viola de gamba (which looked far more like a modern cello, so from now on I am calling it a cello) was supported at an angle in a cello rest just in front of the shelves. An old script, framed above the shelves proclaimed the items belonged to an Admiral Bertram (from my father’s genealogy lessons I remembered that the Ravenclaws married the Bertrams), but I knew that he had inherited the cello from Rowena. Everything matched the descriptions given, and it had those same curious F holes that hers had in the picture.
I called Ron, who was looking over some old bagpipes with interest (very helpful to our mission, not), and showed him. “This is the one. You had better check for wards, or whatever. And we had better find something to carry it in.”
Ron started his wand waving, while I went back into the main room to fetch a case that I thought would fit. When I came back, Ron was grinning from ear to ear, and had the cello and bow in his hands.
”Don’t touch the bow hair!” I squeaked automatically, and he jumped, alarmed.
“Here. I don’t know what I’m doing. You put it away.” He handed it to me, and I slid it into the case, which Ron promptly shrank, so that I could put it into my pocket. I must say magic is so useful it makes me envious sometimes.
With the light hearts of successful conspirators, we turned to go out, only to find that the doorways were occupied.