Retreat - Act I: Occupation

2. Deceptive Discourse

Language colours perception; it simplifies and solidifies the impressionistic sea of sensory perception whereon we drift with such a deplorable sense of direction. It paints the chaotic world onto a canvas small enough to fit inside our inadequate human minds, using simple strokes we recognise, words we know. Language powers the filing system of our memory: 'boxes' that way, 'foxes' somewhere else entirely (unless, of course, they're foxes in boxes, in which case it should be filed under 'Animal Cruelty').

It is when we start naming things - individual things - that we run into trouble. A small, fluffy rabbit named Brutus will always have that extra edge to it - a hint of being a wolf in sheep's clothing, when it is really too much of a vegetarian to be a wolf, and too much of a rabbit to be a sheep. (Too much of a rabbit, in fact, to be anything else, period. There's no readily available promotion plan within the animal kingdom, much to the dismay of the odd ambitious amoeba.)

When we add an individualising name to a thing already classified as being part of various general categories and subcategories, we always run the risk of creating a confusing mismatch (say, a rabbit with a name that suggests it might be inclined to stomp unsuspecting burglars to death) or just subtly shift our perception of - and attitude towards - the item in question.

Call a forest Forbidden and you will find a whole lot of murderous rabbits crowding people's perception of it. And while the Forbidden Forest was indisputably the home of highly dangerous creatures, it was not the Hell on Earth that its name had inspired in the minds of Hogwarts students for generations. For one thing, it was a huge forest. Some smaller sections of it were really rather nice, if you applied a bit of voluntary tunnel vision.

One of these less blatantly hostile parts was the sunlit trail down which Hogwarts half-giant gamekeeper Hagrid trotted, a small cat trailing behind him, one afternoon in late September 1997.

~~~*~~~

Hermione kept her eyes closed for long, peaceful moments, opening them only when a hollow disturbed her balance or a stone decided to ambush one of her paws. The moss was soft and springy beneath her, a delicate mixture of deep-ranging moistness and sun-dried crunch. Forest scent - a rich mixture of fir, pine, and permeating biological antiquity - scurried up her nostrils and tickled her dozing mind, keeping her alert enough not to fall asleep on the plush green pillows of thick moss.

Hermione felt different about the Forbidden Forest as an Animagus. Names mattered not to the mind of a cat. It was all about perception: sound, smell, sight, the feel of things. It was a forest to a cat; a forest carrying the scent of predators much higher up in the food chain than a common house cat, but still a forest. The trees were rarely dangerous, the moss even less so. No, cats did not care about names. Especially not Forbidden.

Not that Hermione was truly a cat, nor truly human. In her cat form, she retained humanity; in her human form, catness. Her eyes, whatever shape or colour they happened to be, saw the world through a merged perspective. She was Animagus. There was no way of going back. And no desire to.

Though sometimes, happily hunting mice in the dead of night, she felt training as an Animagus was a deliberate step into insanity and split personality disorder.

The cat in her couldn't care less.

The cat in her also wanted to play with the tiny Bowtruckle resting in Hagrid's giant arms. As a cat Animagus, she had urges she did not have as a human. Ones she constantly had to suppress. Among them was a desire to play in a distressingly Slytherin manner with all things mouse-like.

But she would not be playing with the young Bowtruckle. In fact, she wasn't even very interested in its Treeday, the pretence for her following Hagrid into the forest. She needed to talk to the half-giant away from the school, and when he was in an emotional state. Which he certainly was by the time they reached their destination: a little clearing where a tiny young oak grew.

Hagrid placed the excited Bowtruckle on the ground and the tiny man rushed for the tree, jumped onto a branch, and fell off. On his feet again, the Bowtruckle regarded the scrawny little tree with knobbled brow and then, making up its tiny mind, hugged the lithe stem tightly. His tree now. Forever.

Hagrid sniffled and pulled out a dirty handkerchief. He watched the immobile, knobbly little man for a while and then turned around to find a human Hermione sitting on a tree-stump in the sun, licking her hands clean. (In front of Hagrid, she never tried to hide her animal instincts. After all, the man thought monsters were adorable.)

'Isn' tha' jus' adorable, 'Mione?'

Hermione leaned sideways to look at the tree and its new guardian. It looked very much, she thought, as if the sapling had sprouted a large and deformed knob with a pair of disturbing little black eyes.

'Cute,' said Hermione.

~~~*~~~

'Do you think he'll be coming back?' Hermione asked as she strode alongside Hagrid back towards Hogwarts, 'Harry, I mean.'

'Oh,' said Hagrid, 'I s'pose he'll come back sooner or later.'

Hagrid hadn't been very talkative on the subject of Harry Potter's absence from the school. Hermione could tell he was keeping secrets. And with surprising success.

Which meant they were important - maybe even dangerous - secrets.

'But Dumbledore's looking for him, isn't he? And there isn't much Dumbledore can't do, is there?'

Hagrid beamed. 'No. Professor Dumbledore's a great man! Greatest wizard alive!'

'So he'll be bound to find Harry.' Hermione smiled.

'O'course! Don't ye worry, 'Mione!'

'And bring him back here pretty soon...'

Hagrid fell silent. The silence stretched out, following their soft footfalls on the moss.

'Surely,' said Hermione at last, 'he would bring Harry here as quickly as possible - if he could find him...'

'Dumbeldore'll find him!' Hagrid's faith in the former Headmaster was unshakable.

'I mean, there's Harry's education to think of. He could miss his NEWTs.'

'Dumbledore'll sort it all out, don't yeh worry.' Hagrid looked very worried.

'...miss out on a bright future.'

Hagrid stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to face Hermione, bending down till he was on eyelevel with her. 'Professor Dumbledore knows wha' he's doin'.' He placed a massive hand on her shoulder, making her feet sink into the moss. 'Don' worry! He'll keep ye all safe, you mark my words. You, Ron, all of Hogwarts, and Harry too.'

Hermione smiled at him. 'Thank you.'

'Yeh're welcome.' Hagrid unfolded himself again and strode off. Hermione remained where she was. When the half-giant was almost out of earshot, she spoke up again.

'So, if Dumbledore thought Harry was better off where he is now, he'd have him stay there, then?'

Hagrid stopped abruptly, didn't turn around, sighed, and stalked off towards the castle.

Just as she had suspected.

Just as she had feared.

~~~*~~~

Conflict had crept upon their world like molten rock. After the initial explosion - the spark and subsequent eruption - when Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, had burst back from the Wizarding Underworld, everyone had expected a new War to begin. Many claimed it had, but many others felt that wars required a little more actual warring, a little more clashing of spells, a little more open propaganda, a little more gory headlines; in short, a little more War.

What they did get was terror, spreading from the resurrected Dark Lord like magma, unstoppable and utterly deadly. Forever flowing and destroying but never followed by the volcanic outbreak of violence they were all anticipating. And the wait was terror in itself; terror of a most destructive kind: The crumbling of spirits.

The Death Eaters did terror well. There were the quiet assassinations and the terrifyingly loud ones but none of them with the slightest trace of a return-to address. There were the disappearances of those held to be good and those who probably weren't. While the latter were not the ones the public mourned, they were the ones the authorities feared. Missing people posed a threat only if they added to the enemy's numbers. A good missing person was a dead missing person. The conflict brought out the worst everyone. If it was a war, it was a cold one - a disease causing frostbite of the soul.

Families not pure of blood were murdered, their homes burned to the ground; a traditional approach from ultra-conservatives serving a half-blood madman who sought to control a world he claimed had done him wrong. The Dark Mark was all the propaganda he needed now. Its meaning was painfully inscribed on the very soul of the Wizarding World.

In the deathly quiet of undead limbo, Tom Riddle had learnt that nothing could roar louder than cold, deathly silence.

~~~*~~~

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry held within its walls the very future of the Wizarding world, not only its children but also some of its greatest minds and most important research resources. It was also thought to be the safest place in Britain. Its wards were so complex and layered that the mere incomprehensibility of them inspired an absolute faith in their impenetrability in the minds of the general public.

The wards, whose main objective was preventing Apparition within the school grounds, were so old that no one except Albus Dumbledore really knew what they were all for. (And why it was that he seemed to know, no one knew either. But, strangely enough, this did not seem to bother anyone.)

With Dumbledore away from Hogwarts and other wards failing all over the magical world, the Ministry had seen fit to equip Hogwarts with extensive Auror protection. People had been quite surprised to hear that Dumbledore (whom everyone acknowledged as the Master of Hogwarts even though he had been, for the time being, replaced as Headmaster) had not objected.

Not even a little bit.

~~~*~~~

The Aurors were meant to be unobtrusive watchmen. This meant they could be found watching people virtually everywhere except inside the bathrooms, though persistent rumours attributed this to an alleged shipment of invisibility cloaks. These rumours were mainly propagated by select portions of the male student population, for the questionable benefit of its female counterpart.

Even the classrooms were under near constant surveillance. In most cases, the Aurors were met with a frown, an occasional encouraging smile, or no acknowledgement at all from the teachers whose classrooms they were sent to monitor. But there was one classroom no one wanted to be assigned to, the classroom where everyone but the teacher was a student - and a vicious, despicable, time-wasting little mongrel at that.

Even highly trained and experienced Aurors got their years replaced with fears and their confidence twisted into incompetence as they entered the domain of Hogwarts Potions Professor, Severus Snape. This was why anyone who could pull, or even just slightly yank, any sort of rank sent their subordinates down to the dungeons to 'brush up on their Potions skills, life-long learning n'all that.'

The poor sod currently pouring over his poor excuse for a potion (Snape's words) was Terence Higgins, twenty years of age and called Terry. Of course, in the presence of Severus Snape, he usually felt about two and was likely to be called Terrible. And it certainly didn't help that he had been crap at Potions the first time around (when Snape really had been his teacher and not just an uncooperative faculty member who would not allow ludicrous loitering in his classroom).

Terry sighed deeply (taking care not to inhale deeply as he was of the firm opinion that his potion looked distinctly hostile and not in any way susceptible to sucking up). Thus focused on his randomly mutating concoction, Terry consistently failed to notice the many furtive glances of one Miss Granger.

It wasn't that Hermione had a crush on Terry. It was more a case of proving to herself that she could find men who were not called Ron Weasley romantically interesting rather than just nice to look at. It was her mind, not her hormones, she was worried about. What if she got it into her head that Ron was The One, and then couldn't get it out of there? Would she never find love? Would she be reduced to sleeping around and around the issue of a lasting relationship? Would she submerge herself in work? Would she be pretty? Would she be rich? Que sera sera?

No. She would keep her options open. She would have romance in her life regardless of Ron. After all, it wasn't called Ronance, was it?

Now, there were many more attractive Aurors around (there were, of course, ranking-lists in all the girls' dorms) but Terry had not been chosen for his sex appeal. Which is not to say that he lacked one. It just wasn't an aggressive type of appeal. Terry was calm, intelligent, thoughtful, sometimes self-effacing, pretty in a decidedly non-threatening sort of way. And quite possibly gay. In short, the perfect object of Hermione's enterprising affections.

It also helped that Terry was often assigned to Gryffindor Tower when he wasn't wasting away in the dungeons like some tormented romance novel hero. Being one of the lowest ranking Aurors at Hogwarts, Terry was often Confined to Classroom during the day only to be rewarded for his perseverance by having to trudge to the very top of the Gryffindor Tower for night watch duty. Thus, he was always glad to see Hermione sneak out of the girls' dorm to greet him, and gladder still to see the cup of coffee she brought with her.

Hermione turned her gaze back to Ron and heaved a sigh at the sight of him. Ron was so much more real to her than Terry was or would ever, she conceded, be. She could go through the motions of looking for romance with Terry but when it came to Ron, the motions went through her. Her interest in Terry was but a poor reflection of her love for Ron. But reality often seems less threatening when seen through a dirty - even broken - mirror.

Hermione turned back to Terry and smiled. It was time to smash some mirrors and have some fun.

With the noise of Snape's ranting filling the room, no one heard her purr.

~~~*~~~

'I swear that bastard blames us for Harry not being there for him to pester so he pesters us and poor Neville twice as much just because he's such a bloody--' Ron huffed and puffed and tried to find the perfect word for Professor Snape, '--BASTARD!'

'We all miss him,' Hermione said as the class swarmed away from the smoky Potions classroom to the accompaniment of Snape's yelling at Neville Longbottom to clean up that bloody mess right now.

'Miss him? MISS him?' Ron stopped and spread his arms wide, unwittingly blocking the narrow passageway, 'Of course I miss him, and you do too, and most people in the school, I should think, except bloody Slytherins,' there were hisses from behind him, 'but SNAPE? Snape doesn't miss Harry! He hates him! You'd think the bloody bastard would be HAPPY that Harry's gone! But NO, he has to go and blame US! He tries to blame EVERYTHING on us! I mean, if we COULD get Harry back, we WOULD!'

Hermione felt a headache coming on. If Ron COULD stop speaking in capital letters, he SHOULD. But before she had the chance to voice her complaint, Malfoy spoke up behind them.

'Are you quite done with your little performance, Weasley? People do have more important things to do than witness you being dramatic with neither style nor any semblance of wit.'

Before Hermione could stop him, Ron had spun around to face his foe. 'You really think highly of yourself, don't you, Malfoy?'

People sidled past the two verbal combatants on either side. It looked like it could be a drawn-out battle. Sadly, no time was scheduled for such delightful diversions.

'How could I not?'

'Think you're better than everyone else!'

'Certainly better than such a poor excuse for a wizard as you.'

Ron sputtered, tried forming spiteful syllables, and lunged when all else failed. Malfoy smashed into the opposite wall. A beefy hand landed with surprising swiftness on Ron's shoulder, yanked him backwards and tossed him towards the wall opposite. Goyle proceeded to help steady Malfoy whilst Crabbe cracked his knuckles and glared.

Hermione shook her head.

Malfoy shook Goyle off his sleeve and stared long and hard before muttering, eyes dull: 'You really are less than nothing without Potter, aren't you, Weasley?'

Ron's jaw dropped. Hermione placed her hand on his shoulder.

'I don't know why I bother,' Malfoy said and turned to leave. He took a few steps, stopped, and spun around to scowl at Ron and Hermione. 'And Weasley, with friends of your calibre, it's no wonder the Boy Wonder is still missing. You're all a bunch of incompetent do-gooders.'

Before Malfoy could turn around again, Hermione's calm and calculated voice sliced through the dank dungeon air. 'So, are you saying you could find him then?'

'Granger, I don't want to find him.'

'But you're saying you could if you wanted to?' she went on, ignoring his icy stare, 'Maybe you're saying that Dark Arts could find him--'

'I don't dabble in the Dark Arts! You have no--'

'--since Dark Arts are probably what's keeping him away...' She left the suggestion dangling. Draco's father was a Death Eater. Draco more than dabbled in the Dark Arts. She knew this. She knew he would take the bait.

There was a long silence. Ron stared at Hermione, wondering which way the cogwheels of her mind turned, if at all.

Malfoy raised chin and eyebrow and poured every ounce of his Malfoy pride into his words. 'I could find him. But I won't.'

Hermione advanced on Malfoy, eyes aglow. 'Why won't you? Could it be,' she stopped a breath away from his face, 'that you're afraid of Harry? Afraid of finding him?'

'I - am not - afraid - of Potter.'

'Then why don't you find him? Prove that there's a reason you think so highly of yourself...'

'I don't need to prove that, so why should I bother?'

'Because it does.'

'What?!' Malfoy's pale skin coloured. 'Make sense, Granger!'

'It bothers you.'

And with that, she swept past him. He had taken the bait.

She was sure of it.

~~~*~~~

Hermione was getting on Ron's nerves. She could tell.

'What is up with you and Malfoy?' he demanded as they hurried to be late for the next class. 'Why tell him to find Harry? I mean, it's not as if he CAN, but, still, would you wish the first person Harry meets after - whatever - is Draco Malfoy? They're mortal enemies!'

'A git and a good guy does not mortal enemies make.'

Ron managed but a baffled squeak before Hermione pushed open the door to the Transfiguration classroom, unleashing the disappointed glare of professor McGonagall.

~~~*~~~

Ron made a point of ignoring Hermione throughout the rest of the period, obviously hoping this would force out an explanation.

He would have no such luck.

She couldn't explain to him. Not without revealing her secret Animagus status, something she was strictly forbidden to do.

She could not tell Ron that her nightly feline visits with Malfoy had revealed some things and hinted at others. Nor that she now knew for a fact that Malfoy concealed some of his magical powers in public to hide the fact that he had undergone extensive Dark Arts training. He also had access to a massive Dark Arts library and, although she had initially been reluctant to admit it, the brains to use it.

And he was obsessed with Harry Potter.

She wasn't sure just how, or how violent the obsession was, but it was there - always. In some strange way, Malfoy seemed to crave the presence of Harry to achieve balance in his life. His reaction to Harry's absence was similar to that of Professor Snape, only many times worse and far more complex.

But what it all boiled down to was that Draco Malfoy had the resources and contacts to search for Harry in untried ways, and a damn good incentive for doing it.

All she had had to do was point it out to him.

It was up to him to do the rest.

~~~*~~~

The high grass waved slowly above him, framing the sky above, creating the illusion of a huge blue eye gazing down at him, twinkling. The way Professor Dumbledore's eyes so often did.

A searching eye. Just as his friends were probably searching for him at that very moment. Though perhaps they had already given up. Was he really worth all the effort?

He lay perfectly still, watching the sky darken and clouds of grey swept into view by a wind that forced the eye of heaven into a thin, intense slit. It was no longer the eye of a benevolent old wizard. It was his eye.

Grey turned dazzling white as the first flash joined earth and sky. Thunder rolled. Soon, the tears would come.

The first heavy water-drops fell and washed away the salty liquid already on his cheeks. The rain soaked the land, turning the dirt into mud, making the grass heavy and bent as if in mourning.

And still he lay there. Ready to drown in a flood of tears.

Though, to be perfectly honest, it was rather a small and insignificant flood. He would have to lie there for a very long time, waiting to drown. And even then, the rain would probably have tired and moved on before the water level could rise above his knuckles. The only results were likely to be a dreadful cold and more mud-soaked clothes.

Harry Potter shook his head, rose from his puddle and went back to the mansion to do some washing up.

The rain kept falling but the tears had all dried up.

~~~*~~~

The storm reached Hogwarts late at night, observed only by nocturnal creatures and those who should be sleeping but couldn't, or simply wouldn't.

Draco stared out into the turmoil through the window of a dark hallway. A large black cat sat on the windowsill beside him.

'"Find him" they say,' Draco muttered, 'As if I care.' He sighed. 'I thought, I reallythought I would enjoy Potter's being gone. That little celebrity always got all the attention and around him I was transformed into a - a comic cardboard villain.' He clenched his fists. 'And now - I am less than nothing without him around.' He slammed his fist on the windowsill, making the cat jump. 'Bastard.'

The cat watched the young man turn away from the window with curious interest. Draco sighed and slid down to the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him. Outside, lightning struck. The cat's eyes gleamed. Thunder rolled.

The cat purred.

~~~*~~~

Weeks of bad weather followed the storm. It soaked Hogwarts and its residents, seeping into the very spirit of the school. It left both students and teachers dampened and weary, and none more so than Draco Malfoy.

Coming in a close second was Hermione Granger, her mood further dampened by the fact that she seemed to be the only one noticing Malfoy's strange behaviour. Not that she cared. Malfoy interested her merely as a Mystery, nothing more. A Malfoy Mystery begging to be solved.

Of course, her treacherous mind trotted happily along that same path of reasoning to reach the unwelcome conclusion that Malfoy was her Mystery Man, which could give people the wrong idea entirely. Not that she ever spoke about it. Not even to Ron. The dimwit.

Draco Malfoy, who had been withdrawn and moody the entire term, had distanced himself from everything and everyone so far as to become virtually unnoticeable. He drifted through the school hallways with a haunted, sometimes hunted, look on his face. A still studious spectre going about his business and making sure no one stepped into his. An echo of the attention-seeking brat he had been for the past six years. He was hiding something.

Hermione had no idea what this Something was. Her late-night snacks with Malfoy had ceased abruptly some weeks before, after some rough catfights with the new feline on the block had put her painfully off long nightly walks.

Malfoy was up to something, working on something. She hoped it had something to do with Harry. Someone needed to have a Plan, even if it was a dangerous, devious Slytherin Plan.

~~~*~~~

They sensed it before they could feel it. A Change was coming. The great Return was at hand.

Then they felt it, like a ripple in reality, like a tantalising wisp of sweet-smelling smoke. A wisp of Wizarding. The magic beckoned.

Then the Summoning began.