Rating:
PG-13
House:
The Dark Arts
Ships:
Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Characters:
Harry Potter
Genres:
Mystery
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 02/19/2004
Updated: 07/29/2007
Words: 410,658
Chapters: 40
Hits: 159,304

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Barb

Story Summary:
Aunt Marge's arrival causes Harry to flee to avoid performing accidental magic again. But when number four, Privet Drive is attacked, he becomes the chief suspect and a fugitive from both the Muggle police and the Ministry. He tries going to Mrs Figg's but finds unfamiliar wizards there. With an Invisibility Cloak and nowhere to turn he hides in the house next door, to keep watch on Mrs Figg's. He has no idea that this will irrevocably alter the rest of his life....
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Chapter 13 - Masquerade

Chapter Summary:
Harry has lost some time and wonders whether Voldemort possessed him. He discovers a hidden talent that has served him before but he's not certain that he likes Tilda's reaction to it. Meanwhile, Dumbledore discovers that Voldemort knows where Harry is. The time has come to muster the powers of the Order of the Phoenix to protect Harry and bring him back to London...
Posted:
07/22/2004
Hits:
5,381

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Thirteen

Masquerade


Harry blinked rapidly. He was lying on the floor in the hall outside Tilda's bedroom, his tailbone aching as though he'd fallen hard onto his bum. He looked around in confusion; his head felt like it had been struck hard and then wrapped in too much gauze.

"What--what's going on?" He blinked some more. It didn't help.

Tilda started to kneel over him and then stood hastily, holding the neck of her dressing gown together with her hands. "I--I don't know. I heard a thud and I came running out here. Is it your scar?" she asked with a shaking voice.

He stood slowly, wincing. "I--I don't think so. I don't remember much. I woke up and needed to use the loo--"

"Why didn't you use the one downstairs? Jack fixed it, remember?"

He stared at her stupidly, his mind feeling like it was an utter blank. "Oh. Right. Forgot. I'm so used to coming up here. But I don't even remember how I got up here, and the next thing I know I'm lying on the floor, my bum aches--"

She laughed; it sounded forced. "You're just sleepy. Go on, use this one; you're here already. I can wait. And then we'll work out what we want to take to Brighton."

He forgot about everything else when she said Brighton. "We're still going?"

"Of course. Why not? It's our birthday. We deserve to celebrate." She smiled at him.

Harry looked at her; Tilda's hair was down on her shoulders this morning, making her look very young. Her cheeks were quite pink and her eyes looked brighter than usual. She was still holding the top of her dressing gown together at her throat. He slouched toward the bathroom, trying not to think about what had almost happened between the two of them the night before. "Yeah. Celebrate," he said dully before closing the door.

Once in the bathroom he stared into the mirror; for a moment it seemed that he looked very, very different--older. Then he blinked some more and the usual thin, pale face stared back at him, the black hair standing up on one side of his head from the odd way he'd slept on the couch. He splashed some stinging-cold water on his face to try to wake up. After he used the loo he returned to the sink to wash his hands and brush his teeth, but as he was rinsing his toothbrush afterward, something caught his attention.

Seven-fifty.

He stared at his watch. It couldn't have taken almost an hour to splash water on his face, use the loo and brush his teeth. He wished he'd checked his watch before he had entered the room. How long had he been out cold? How much time had he lost? He swallowed then, remembering what Ginny had said when he'd asked her about being possessed:

Can you remember everything you've been doing? Are there big blank periods where you don't know what you've been up to? He frowned, staring into the mirror again, touching his scar tentatively, but it was flat and still, no discolouration, no throbbing, no nothing. When he did it to me, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing for hours at a time. I'd find myself somewhere and not know how I got there.

He wasn't missing hours, but he was feel like he was missing some time. Somewhere between twenty minutes and half an hour. There was simply no reason for it to be so late. His chest felt tight as he contemplated what could happen if Voldemort possessed him while he was with Tilda.... He could do something to endanger her. Voldemort could force him, Harry, to hurt or even kill her and he wouldn't know until afterward....

He swung open the door, his heart hammering in his chest. Tilda was nowhere to be seen. He pounded on her bedroom door impatiently. She did not answer, which panicked him. He raised his hand to strike the door again when she finally swung it open abruptly.

"So! My turn then?" she said brightly. Too brightly, it seemed.

"Erm, yeah," he said uncertainly. He'd been about to warn her that she might be in danger if he stayed. He was going to suggest that he turn himself in to the wizards next door, whether that meant the Order or the Ministry. But something about her stopped him. She watched him warily as she went into the bath and shut the door. Harry looked at the closed door with narrowed eyes. Was she watching him for strange behaviour? How long was I out of it? he wondered. And what went on during that time?

He tried to swallow but a lump in his throat wouldn't let him. No. I'm not going to leave her. If--if she's actually still Tilda, she could be in danger. And if she's not.... He crept back down to the living room, trying to formulate a plan for action. If she was no longer Tilda, if, during the lost time, Tilda had been replaced by a Death Eater, he needed to feign ignorance until he could make his move, try to find out what had happened to the real Tilda. Wait, he thought; if she's a Death Eater, why not just kill me while I'm out cold? Why wait for me to wake? He didn't have an answer to this. She was definitely behaving very strangely, though. And she looked odd and was wearing her hair differently....Perhaps she was still Tilda, but under the Imperius Curse? The question again being, of course, why that and not just killing him immediately?

Suddenly, having any more physical contact with Tilda Harrison was the last thing he wanted. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened or how it had happened, but somehow, whether she had been replaced or put under Imperius, she had become the enemy. Harry had to pretend that nothing was wrong, however, and go through the motions of preparing for the trip. He turned and looked up the stairs, his hand on his wand, the words of the man he'd thought was Mad-Eye Moody ringing through his brain:

CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Albus Dumbledore stood at the open tower window, breathing in the morning air and admiring the cloudless summer sky. He tried to find these small moments of calm during the day and enjoy them, for the clear blue sky was in stark contrast to the metaphorical dark clouds gathering, clouds which grew darker and more ominous by the day.

He had too many people in too many precarious positions to feel completely at ease; at any moment news might come about one of them (as it had come about Sturgis Podmore and Arthur Weasley) being detected and put out of commission in some manner. He had had quite the balancing act to do to make Arthur's presence in the Department of Mysteries corridor seem utterly innocent and it had been quite difficult to finally convince the Minister to release Sturgis so that he could continue in the fight against Voldemort. The poor fool had a worse criminal record than Mundungus and Cornelius was not convinced that he was the sort of person who could be trusted. Albus had finally prevailed and Arthur had recovered, but in both cases it had been very touch and go. And now....

He watched the wisp of what seemed to be a small white cloud whipping toward him; it was almost impossible to see, and were it not for the fact that there were no other streaks of white in the sky he very likely wouldn't have seen it. It seemed to pick up speed once it was above the school grounds, and Albus braced himself for the impact. A misty, insubstantial white bird seemed to dive suddenly into his wrinkled old brow, beak first, and almost immediately, the voice of the sender echoed around his cranium:

I have done as you asked me, sir, the deep but young voice began, without preamble. And it is as you feared: the Department of Magical Examination has indeed sent Harry's OWL results to him. The letter should have arrived yesterday morning. The reports you have received from the undercover Order members about this are not fabrications. He very likely knows exactly where Harry is and was probably only waiting to have the information confirmed himself. We should get Harry out of there as soon as possible. I recommend that as many members of the Order as you have at your disposal go to Mrs Figg's house and lie in wait. I will try to learn more here at my end.

The voice was gone. Albus pictured young Weasley sending it, remembering how proud his parents were when he became Head Boy. Albus hoped fervently that he was safe. He'd taken many risks and made some of the worst sacrifices of anyone in the Order....

Albus walked wearily to his desk and sat, laying his hands flat on the tooled leather surface. After giving some thought to his plan, he turned to Phineas Nigellus and said, "Phineas, I need you to go to Grimmauld Place. Tell Arthur and Molly Weasley to recall all of the members of the Order to Headquarters. I shall be there shortly."

With a disgruntled twist of his mouth, Phineas nodded and then disappeared from his portrait frame. Albus sighed again.

I hate travelling on Thestrals, he thought as he descended the spiral stairs outside his office. So undignified at my age...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ginny sighed as she held the Extendable Ears to the drawing room door. Once in a while she caught murmuring, but for the most part it was quiet and boring. Then she saw a beam of light out of the corner of her eye; someone had opened the kitchen door at the bottom of the stairs. The meeting was over. She quickly opened the drawing room door and ducked inside, not caring that she was violating Ron and Hermione's privacy. She didn't look at them but put the Extendable Ears to the drawing room door from the inside this time, hoping that those leaving the meeting would say something worth hearing.

She'd felt her heart leap into her throat when she'd seen the story in the filthy page from the Times that Mundungus had carelessly tossed to her before he'd entered the kitchen. It still stank of greasy fried fish, but just as she was about to bin it, something had caught her eye:

Village Stricken by Epidemic of Catatonia
Scientists Baffled; Water Testing to Begin Today

Catatonia? It sounded like it had something to do with people being catatonic, and when she began to read through the dreadful grease stains she learned that she was right. Everyone in an east coast fishing village had suddenly gone "funny," according to the story. A delivery man driving a lorry to the local pub had been the first outsider to notice; when he tried to make his delivery he'd discovered that the pub was locked up, and when he'd tried going to the newsagent's next door he discovered him sitting in front of his business, glassy-eyed, rocking back and forth, his arms around his knees.

The lorry driver found the barman around the back of the pub in the same position. The driver began to go from door to door, trying to find anyone who wasn't senseless, until he finally couldn't take the eeriness of the place and ran back to his lorry. While driving out of the village he said he felt a strange coldness slicing through him, as though he were being stabbed with shards of ice. The lorry driver was currently under observation. Scotland Yard was called; the reporter hadn't gone to the village himself but talked to the investigators after they returned, all of them reporting the same strange attack of coldness that the lorry driver had experienced; one of them had tried to kill himself, full of despair.

Ginny had shivered when she read the story, which was buried on a back page with another small story about an old department store in London, plus a lot of adverts with very tiny type. It was so familiar and so chilling. It's started, she thought numbly. We knew that the Dementors had left Azkaban, and now they're working their way across the country.... London didn't seem so terribly far from the coast; at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, they were probably safe, but what about the rest of London? What about the suburbs around the city?

She closed her eyes and tried to swallow, her mouth utterly dry, as she remembered the Dementor on the train when she was starting her second year....

Tom, why am I covered in blood and feathers? What's going on, Tom?

A cold, cruel, careless laugh.

What's going on is destiny, little Ginny. And you are helping me to fulfil mine... Write the words on the wall and then go to the girls' bathroom.... Open the chamber.... He'll come for you, you know he shall. It is his nature. He shan't be able to resist playing the hero--

No! I shan't do it! And you're wrong about him! He doesn't play the hero, he--

--doesn't even know you exist? Well, that could be a problem.... But since you are his best friend's sister, I think that might help him to remember....

No! No! Noooo!

"Ginny!"

Ginny whirled around, sweat beading on her forehead. She tried to slow her breathing, so that she was no longer gasping. Smiling feebly at Ron and Hermione, who were sitting at opposite ends of the couch with books on their laps, she said, "The meeting's over. I'm hoping someone slips and says something actually informative when they're leaving."

"About Harry?" Hermione said, putting her book aside.

Ginny shook her head. "No, I was wondering whether they were going to say anything about the--the Dementors."

"Dementors!" Ron said, turning white and letting his book drop to the floor.

Ginny took the article she'd from the Times out of her pocket and handed it to him. Hermione hung over his arm, reading. When she'd finished she was as pale as Ron.

"How will the Order--or the Ministry--stop all of the guards that used to be at Azkaban from Kissing every Muggle in the country?" Ron said in awe to no one in particular.

"I still can't believe those idiots at the Ministry. They were supposed to-- Oh dear! Albus seems quite certain that it was seen..."

"I mean," Ron went on, "even most wizards probably can't--"

"Sssh!" Ginny hushed Ron. "Professor McGonagall was saying something," she added in a whisper. Ron and Hermione joined her at the door; Hermione took one of the ears for herself, while Ron shared Ginny's.

"You heard him, Minerva. It came from our most reliable source," said Remus Lupin.

They all heard Professor McGonagall heave a world-weary sigh. "Albus didn't say whether he is going..."

"Not in so many words. I think he's going to try to. The rest of us shall be there, though, standing by, ready to fight."

"We should have got him out of there long before this...."

A familiar grunt travelled up the Extendable Ears. "He's there for a reason. We're going to have a hell of a time getting him out without being seen this time. A Disillusionment Charm won't be enough. But then, he and his friends managed to get from Hogwarts to the Ministry last month; perhaps one of them can give us a suggestion," Moody said, and before the three of them knew what was happening, the drawing room door was opening.

Ginny, Ron and Hermione hastily hid the Extendable Ears behind them, looking sheepishly at their head-of-house and two former professors. No, Ginny thought quickly; only Professor Lupin actually taught us, the other Moody was a fraud....

Professor McGonagall's mouth had gone very, very thin; she looked disapprovingly at Ron and Hermione in particular, it seemed. "To think," she said imperiously, "that I should see the day when two of my own prefects take up spying on me..."

"You want to get Harry out of--wherever he is, don't you?" Ginny said quickly.

Moody nodded. "No harm in you knowing. The Ministry--"

"Alastor!" McGonagall scolded him; she shivered visibly when he turned his magical eye on her.

"The little girl worked it out," he said. "The twins and their sister are the reason why we've tripled coverage at Arabella's. Dumbledore's source confirmed it."

Ginny's eyes went round. "You mean--the Ministry did send Harry a letter about his exams? And--and You-Know-Who knows where he is now?" she added in a very small voice. She clutched at Ron's arm and he tried to pat her hand reassuringly, his bloodless face betraying his suspicions about what was likely to happen to his best friend.

"But--but I thought Dumbledore would have told everyone in the Ministry that they shouldn't try to contact him!" Hermione said, her voice verging on a squeak; Ron was wincing and Ginny reckoned Hermione must be holding his arm very tightly.

"It's that filthy Mudblood again!" screeched Mrs Black, making them roll their eyes.

"Nearly everyone," Remus agreed with a nod, used to ignoring Mrs Black by now. "But somehow the berks in the Department of Magical Examinations didn't understand that he didn't just mean any extra letters; he meant any at all."

"What is she still doing here? Why is she still in my BLOODY HOUSE?"

Ron winced at the noise and then looked like Mrs Black's ranting had given him an idea. "Or they didn't care and are working for You-Know-Who!" he shouted above the din.

Ginny frowned. "But if it's that easy, why didn't a Death Eater just send an owl to Harry ages ago? Or even when he was still in his aunt and uncle's house?" she said very loudly.

"VILE, IMPURE, FILTHY, LOATHSOME, FETID, PUTRID--"

"Well, they knew where he was then, but he couldn't be touched in their house, until he broke the spell, so there wasn't much point," Remus told her in a perfectly normal voice that nonetheless did manage to carry over Mrs Black's.

(...STINKING, ROTTEN, MALODOROUS, VILE...)

"Used that one already!" Ron called down the hall, rolling his eyes.

"And," Remus continued, "I think Dumbledore is probably using the strongest spell he knows--apart from the old one--to protect Harry where he is now. An owl from a hostile source wouldn't be able to reach him; that's the nature of protection spells. If the intent behind sending the owl is harmful, it doesn't get where it's going, the protection spell sort of bounces it back to the sender. But an innocuous letter about exams...."

"Just--just do whatever you have to do to keep him safe," Ron whispered to Remus. Then he turned and sat in a nearby armchair, pounding the arms impatiently and raising a fair bit of dust. "Damn! I wish I could actually do something to help...."

(...FOUL, POLLUTED...)

"I know, Ron, I know. But you in particular need to rest. Inside of two months you've been attacked by the brains in the Department of Mysteries and had to regrow your femur. I think your summer homework should give you enough to worry about right now."

Hermione wrung her hands. "Well, it's hard not to worry about Harry."

(...PRESUMPTUOUS DIRTY MUDBLOOD DEFILING MY HOUSE...)

"And we have been doing our homework, every day," Hermione continued. "We're trying to keep our mind off other things; we've been doing practically nothing else."

Ginny found it very hard not to snort with laughter at that, but stifled it quickly, trying to sober herself. She nodded at McGonagall, Moody and Lupin and said, "Please be careful, all of you. Are--are Fred and George going to be--be fighting too? And--and Bill?"

(...AND THE BLOOD-TRAITORS...)

Remus Lupin looked uncertainly at Professor McGonagall, who nodded after a moment. "The twins are going to open up their shop as usual this morning," she said briskly, "but they've given us a number of things to aid us and in fact we are using the fire in their back office to get to--to where we're going."

"Dumbledore has pulled some strings in the Department of Magical Transportation and now the only place you can go from the shop is to--to the other place, and vice versa. A very small, very private Floo network for the Order of the Phoenix," Remus told them.

(...FOR MY HOUSE TO HOST TRAITORS TO ALL OF WIZARD KIND...)

"Now, as far as Bill goes," Remus said quietly, looking wary, "he wasn't at the meeting this morning. That's all I know."

Ron strode back to the door. "When did he last check in? He's all right, isn't he?"

Remus held up his hand. "Now, Ron. He and Severus are perfectly safe, I'm sure...."

"Snape! How do we know he hasn't already sold Bill to You-Know-Who?"

"Ron!" Hermione said quickly, scowling. "He's on our side!"

"Yeah? I still haven't seen any evidence of that. And if he gets our brother killed--"

"--you shall have reason to give vent to your feelings then, Mr Weasley," said a familiar voice. Albus Dumbledore walked into the pool of light outside the drawing room door, his long white beard disappearing against the perfectly white robe he wore this morning. There was a strange silence in the hall and they realised that Mrs Black had gone silent; Ginny wondered whether Dumbledore had done something to her as he was passing.

Ron turned deep pink. "Oh, good morning, sir. I--I didn't see you there..."

Dumbledore smiled gently at him. "I had already worked that out. Don't worry, you three. I expect that we shall be bringing Harry back here very shortly."

Ginny wondered what the cost would be, however. She knew that a large guard had brought Harry to London the previous summer, but they'd managed to do it under dark of night and without Death Eaters about to converge on Harry's location. This was very different, and she feared that there might actually be a fight...

Hermione seemed to be thinking the same thing. She sprang forward and threw her arms around Professor McGonagall, quite surprising the old woman. "Oh, do be careful!" she cried. After a second McGonagall gave Hermione's unruly hair an affectionate pat.

"We shall, Miss Granger--Hermione," she said softly, looking fondly at her. "All of us."

Ron shook hands with Remus. "We'll be careful," Remus told them. "There may not even be--" Remus caught Ginny's eye for a second and she had the distinct impression that he could tell that she didn't believe him. His false optimism faltered and he said to Ron, still looking at Ginny out of the corner of his eye, "We hope, at any rate, that we can get him up here to London without anyone being the wiser. Wish us luck."

The three of them nodded to Remus, McGonagall, Dumbledore and Moody, but as they were shutting the door again, Moody stopped Ginny and said gruffly, "You should know; they really have been doing homework. Haven't seen a repeat of St Mungo's..."

Ron pushed the door shut quickly, looking guilty. Ginny and Hermione frowned at him.

"What did Moody mean by that, Ron?" Hermione wanted to know, fists on her hips.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"One more thing, Harry," Tilda said, coming back from carrying a picnic hamper to the car. He looked up at her suspiciously.

"What?"

"Come upstairs," she said, no hint in her voice that she might mean him harm, which made him even more suspicious. He followed her six steps behind, not wanting to get too close. He avoided holding the handrail with his right hand so he'd be free to whip out his wand at a moment's notice. They reached the upstairs bath without incident, however, and Harry followed her in, trying to make sure she wasn't between him and the door.

Tilda turned to him. "Harry, I have a confession to make...I'm not what I appear to be--"

Harry seemed to have stopped breathing. He wished with all of his might that he had not ducked into the garage next to Mrs Figg's house a fortnight ago, he wished that he hadn't opened up to her... It was all a ghastly mistake. A dreadful, horrid, disastrous mistake...

"I'm not really blonde," she finally said, pulling a box from behind her back and handing it to him. On the front was a photograph of a smiling woman with the same dark blonde hair as Tilda, but longer, sweeping across her shoulders in a thick, shining mane.

"Oh," was the best he could do as a response. He looked at her blankly, wondering what other response she was expecting. "Erm," he tried, "you'd never know. I mean, you do a good job. It looks really natural, a lot like your dad's hair, actually, and Jack's..."

"Well, my hair is more like my mum's, sort of mousy brown, and--" She sighed. "What I meant is that you've missed the point. The dye is for you, not me. To disguise you."

"Oh," Harry said, again at a loss for words. "Me? Blond? I don't know--" He looked uncertainly at the woman on the box, forever frozen while flinging her curtain of hair over her shoulder. When he thought of disguising himself it hadn't included this.

"Do you know how easy you'd be to spot, even with the other people on the beach?"

He pictured that then, everyone else on the beach with light hair, or at the very least brown hair, while his messy mop of black hair stood out in the crowd, his scar bright red on his pale brow, his glasses glinting in the sun.

"All right," he conceded. "I reckon I need a disguise. But can't I just wear a hat?"

"You'll be drowning in your own sweat! And you can't wear a hat if you want to go swimming. This really isn't so bad....stinks a bit when it's still wet, that's all..."

"Well--how long does it take to grow out?"

She shrugged. "I touch up my roots every four to six weeks or so. Before you know it--"

He felt a cold panic rise in his chest. "Four to six weeks! The new term starts in a month! I can't--I can't go back looking like a--isn't there some other way?"

She stared down at the box. "If the choice is between being safe and worrying about your looks--" She raised her eyes again and gasped, backing away from him for a moment.

"What?" Harry frowned; she motioned speechlessly at the mirror. Now it was his turn to gasp. His hair had gone so pale it was white; it was so blond it was Malfoy blond. That made him think, I knew there was a reason why I didn't want to be blond... Even as he thought this, his hair started to darken again. He felt like he couldn't breathe. Stop! he thought. His hair stopped its progression from light to dark again, so that it was a slightly lighter shade of dirty blond, compared to Tilda's.

"Are--are you controlling that, Harry?" she whispered in awe.

"I--I must be a--a Metamorphmagus..." he breathed, still staring into the mirror.

"A--a what?"

"Tonks is one," he said, realising immediately that this was a completely inadequate explanation. "She can change her hair length and colour at will. And the shape of her nose. Chin too, I think. Anyway. I never realised, but that must be why I was able to grow my hair back when Aunt Petunia cut it. The next morning I looked just the same, even though she'd all but shaved my head. It--it must have been because...."

He was speechless again, staring at himself, wondering how much of his appearance he could change. This was much better than using the dye. Tilda looked like she was having a revelation. "Oh! Is that why you haven't needed to shave since that first time?"

He frowned. "What?"

"It's just--I remember talking to you about what I'd bought at the shops and your facial hair started to grow before my very eyes, it seemed.... Could you do that again? A little bit of a shadow could help your disguise, if no one's used to seeing you that way."

He stared at the mirror and then closed his eyes, concentrating hard, thinking about what he'd looked like the other time. When he opened his eyes he appeared to need to shave every day (or more often) and seemed to have missed some days. He laughed out loud and Tilda smiled and laughed with him. Biting his lip, he surveyed her happiness for him and thought, How could I think that she was a Death Eater? He also realised that a Death Eater replacement version of Tilda wouldn't know about the one-time shaving. He could see that she was genuinely pleased. Suddenly, however, her face fell.

"Wait, Harry. Should you--should you be doing that? Isn't that doing magic outside of school? And didn't you tell me that your headmaster told you not to do any magic?"

He froze for a second. "Well--I don't know. It's not really using a wand or anything. Of course, I didn't use a wand when I inflated Aunt Marge..."

"When you what?"

"Never mind. And Tonks doesn't use a wand when she does it. I think that, in a way, this could just be considered a, erm, bodily function. No, sorry, not function. Talent. Something you can just do if you practise a bit, like--being able to whistle. Or crossing your eyes. Or juggling."

She looked at him sceptically. "If you're sure..."

Harry looked at her sheepishly. "I'm not, actually. I'm just--hopeful."

Tilda nodded. "Well, it's certainly made you look unlike you. And we can clip this on your frames--" She put a pair of small greenish plastic lenses over his glasses. "--so that they look like sunglasses. There! Brush your fringe over your scar and it's hard to believe you're you!" she said delightedly. Harry looked in the mirror, feeling somewhat disgruntled. The stranger who looked back had streaky blond hair just a little longer than his had been--he didn't remembering consciously lengthening it, but he had been thinking a bit about the way Jack Harrison looked, who had hair the same length. His cheeks and chin were a greyish colour from the stubble he'd deliberately grown, which made him look like he was at least twenty, rather than sixteen. The sunglasses also made him look different, mysterious, like a surfer who was really a spy. He caught her delighted look out of the corner of his eye again and felt less pleased about it this time.

"You think I look loads better like this, don't you?" he said in an accusatory tone, feeling like he had ice in his stomach. She may not be a Death Eater, but--

She stared at him with wide eyes, guilt written all over her face. "You just look different, Harry. I never said better."

He snorted, turning from the mirror and leaving the small room. "Right. Just 'different.'"

She stopped and put her hands on her hips, blocking him. "Are you calling me a liar?"

Harry didn't answer but pushed past her and went down to the living room to finish packing. He didn't have to wonder anymore about the real reason she'd pulled back from him. She found him repulsive. Age came into it a bit, of course, but if he looked 'different' he had a feeling that she wouldn't have found it so easy to control herself....

A moment later she came down the stairs, stomping angrily. Entering the living room without looking at him, she went to a small cupboard and pulled an old photo album out of it. She glanced through it quickly, threw it down on the couch, open, and cried, "HA!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "What?"

"There! Harold Carpenter. Nineteen eighty-one. I fancied him rotten for three years before he finally noticed I existed."

Harry grudgingly stepped close enough to the couch to see the photograph. Carpenter was tall and skinny and needed a visit to the orthodontist's very badly; he had crooked spectacles sitting on what seemed to be a previously-broken nose liberally decorated with red spots and his brown hair was very messy and in need of a cut as it almost completely hid his eyes. He wore a footballer's uniform, including shorts that stopped just above his knobby knees, showing his badly-bruised and bandaged shins. (His socks had fallen down.) Harry looked up at her in disbelief. "I don't believe you. Him? He's the one you told me about who had all of the girls chasing him?"

She crossed her arms. "Yes. He's the one. He was very clever and funny and the best footballer we ever had. And for the longest time I was a complete nobody to him."

Harry snorted. "Then he had the worst taste in girls ever," he said, unable to hide his opinion of her. She smirked and went to turn the pages of the album.

"You think so? This is what I looked like." Harry leaned over and saw a picture of a painfully thin girl with lank light-brown hair and a crooked smile, as though she'd been caught before she could smile properly (it looked like a grimace, as a result). She had one hand under her chin in an awkward pose, as though trying to hide the spots on her face. (Quite a lot were still visible.) She made Eloise Midgen look glamourous.

"Oh," was his only response. She hit him on the arm with the back of her hand, laughing.

"Oh? That's all you can say? I thought this was my birthday, not National Puncture Tilda's Ego Day." Sparks no longer seemed to jump between them when they touched and Harry looked down at her; she was still standing very close to him.

"It is your birthday," he said softly. "And I still think he was a prat for not noticing you." Suddenly it seemed that if he leaned forward just a little, just a few more inches--

"Oh, my, is that the time?" she said, twisting his left arm around painfully. "We really must be going before the traffic becomes impossible." She was striding into the kitchen now and Harry watched her go with a sigh. He looked down again at the young Tilda in the album, her wavering smile as she sat between her father and brother, as though the world wasn't nearly as predictable as she would have liked. She looked like she very badly wanted to trust someone and didn't know anyone who would permit her to do that. He understood completely.

When he reached the garage with the final bag she was standing at the door that let out onto the driveway, waiting to open it. "Just get into the front seat and put your Cloak on," she told him. "I don't want to open the door until you're hidden."

He nodded and got into the car. He threw his bag into the back seat on top of a load of other things they were taking, including two picnic hampers, what looked like abbreviated surfboards that seemed to be made of some sort of polystyrene, snorkelling equipment, and even pails and shovels. When the bag landed on the seat some of the other things shifted, but when he turned to make sure everything was all right the things in the back seat were still once again. He covered himself in his Cloak and sat back to anchor it in place, tucking the edges under his legs so that there was no chance he'd be seen.

Tilda swung up the garage door when she could no longer see him and then got into the driver's seat. After she backed out of the garage and had the car idling at the kerb she closed the garage again. Once she was back in the car she put both hands on the wheel and gave Harry--where she assumed he was, at any rate--a sly smile.

"Next stop, Brighton!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"What did you and Lestrange find in Swansea, Snape?"

Severus Snape looked at the eerie red eyes impassively, giving away nothing. "No sign of Potter, My Lord." The man beside him was a bit less impassive.

"None at all, Lestrange?"

"No, My Lord," the other wizard answered.

A slow, very disturbing smile spread across the Dark Lord's visage. "I know."

Snape momentarily looked at the other man out of the corner of his eye but otherwise tried to seem as though he'd never taken his gaze from Voldemort's. "You--you know, My Lord?" All of his thoughts were focussed on keeping his breath even, his heartbeat steady and his voice deep and regular. He must betray nothing.

"Yes, I know. You see, I have since learnt that Potter is not in Swansea. He may have been, before you went, but it has been confirmed that he is no longer there."

Snape frowned, but not too deeply. That wouldn't do. "Pardon me, My Lord, but how can it be confirmed that he is no longer there?"

The eerie smile spread even wider. "Because I know where he is now. I tried sending owls to him, but Dumbledore's meddling means that a spell prevented them from reaching him because the intent wasn't pure," he said scornfully, his voice going up in a mocking singsong. "But the Department of Magical Examinations.... Ah, yes. I had forgotten. Potter took his O.W.L.s a month ago. The results have been sent to him by Ministry owl. And he did, in fact, receive the letter."

The smile looked worse than Severus ever remembered it. He focussed even more effort on maintaining his facade. "But My Lord...the prophecy, as it appeared in the Prophet. It said that Potter has power that you know not...."

"Crucio!" Voldemort cried almost lazily; Severus Snape screamed as the curse hit him and sent him into the foetal position on the floor. He was vaguely aware of the dark boots standing very still near him as the curse continued. He still screamed, but under it all he tried to maintain his train of thought. I am a loyal servant of the Dark Lord, I am a loyal servant of the Dark Lord.... It was far harder to do at times like this, but he tried to maintain these thoughts through the agony of the curse, and it was a shock when the spell was lifted. He lay on the floor, gasping for breath, staring up at the ceiling.

"You were saying, Snape?" the Dark Lord asked him casually, as though he hadn't just been torturing him almost to the brink of madness.

"I'm only--only thinking of you, My Lord," he rasped, struggling to his feet. "Until you learn what this power is and how to fight it, would it really be wise to take such a chance? According to the prophecy he can, well, you know--" He braced himself for the curse.

But Voldemort waved his hand casually. "And according to the prophecy only I can kill Potter. I know now that it is pointless to send lackeys after him. I must take care of this myself. But I shall not be alone; you shall come with me, both of you, and my other servants as well. Dumbledore will, no doubt, have some of his people on hand to defend Potter. You will keep them busy and allow me to dispose of him...."

"My Lord, will you enter his mind, to disorient him?" Snape asked as though he didn't really care. Voldemort made a scornful noise.

"No. I have another way to seize upon his mind.... According to young Malfoy here," he said, gesturing toward the boy as he entered the room, "what Potter fears above all else is--fear. And I control the Dementors of Azkaban now...." His laughter was very nearly as bad as his smile; Snape's eyes flickered over to Draco Malfoy, whose shirt sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing a newly-minted Dark Mark on the smooth white skin of his left forearm. Malfoy was smirking unbearably, but Snape was not tempted to hex him. Years of self-conditioning held and he maintained his composure perfectly to the end, his chin up, his eyes half-hooded. "Let him try to fight all of them off. Let him send his little Patronus against an army of despair...."

"Very good, My Lord," he said quickly, understanding now what was going to happen. "So--where are we off to, My Lord?"

The dreadful smile widened. "Evidently, there is an old Squib who lives not two blocks from Potter in Surrey. She testified at his trial. And evidently Potter has been in the house next door to her while Aurors and Dumbledore's people camp in the Squib's house, oblivious to Potter's close proximity but nonetheless protecting him by their presence."

Snape dropped open his jaw, unable to hide his surprise now. Next door! He quickly collected his thoughts; he must maintain the facade. Too many lives were at stake.

"When do we go, My Lord?" Snape asked quietly, carefully keeping his voice calm. He watched Draco Malfoy out of the corner of his eye; the boy was positively avid.

"Tonight as the sun sets. My Dementors are still making their way to me, feeding on the way. But I expect them tonight...."

He laughed, the familiar cold, cruel, high laugh. A finger of ice touched Severus's spine. "And then I shall give Potter the opportunity to fulfil the prophecy...in my own way....."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"How are you, Arabella?" Minerva McGonagall said upon stepping out of the fire into the small frowzy living room with its legion of antimacassars. Mrs Figg shrugged.

"As well as can be expected," she sighed, petting one of her cats as she sat in front of the television. Moody looked around the cramped room; there were already five members of the Order present, scattered around the room. He thought he heard voices in the kitchen, as well.

"So--has Dumbledore said where he is? Where we have to go to get him?"

"Not yet, but I'm sure he will," Mrs Figg said. "The others should be here shortly. I don't know where we're going to put everyone while you wait for cover of darkness...."

"But you can't tell us where he is?" Remus Lupin said, frustrated.

While he was yet speaking, Dumbledore appeared silently in the middle of the room. He seemed to understand what Remus was asking. "Follow me, Remus," he said simply.

Remus, McGonagall and Moody all followed him into the kitchen. Dumbledore stood at the kitchen window and nodded at the property next door. The three of them looked at each other, then at the simple little house, a mirror image of the one they were in.

"That's where he's been all of this time? Next door? Next door?" Remus's voice shook with frustration. Dumbledore held up his hand.

"Now, I have protected Harry during his stay there. If it weren't for the Ministry owl--"

To his surprise, Minerva muttered some rather foul names under her breath before reddening and mumbling, "Go on, Headmaster...."

Dumbledore smiled. "As I was saying, if not for the ministry owl, it is very likely that Harry would never have been discovered. As it stands.... with a fixed location, Voldemort can try to look for ways to circumvent my spell. It is not as efficacious as the Ancient Magic that was protecting him at his aunt's house. So--"

"He's not there."

Dumbledore looked with surprise at Moody. "Did you say something, Alastor?"

"Yes. Potter isn't there. Whilst you were talking I took advantage of--well, Potter's not there, so I don't see how we can do this...."

Remus turned and stared at the kitchen window of the house opposite, a clear frustration on his face.

"He's given us the slip again."



Author notes: Thanks to Lea and Cattatra for the beta reading and Britpicking.
More information on my HP fanfiction and essays can also be found HERE. Please be a considerate reader and review.