The Traveler's Secret

CHAPTER 28: DIVERGENCE

Dumbledore stared out the wide window in the Headmaster's office, a weariness settling on his shoulders. Darkness was swallowing the land as the last weak rays of sunlight slowly and painfully fell below the horizon in the west. A tremor rippled through him as he thought of two friends in the east about to start a journey across a war torn continent, a journey he feared would be their last. And as he thought those gloomy thoughts, he remembered the fleeting sunset. Though it was disappearing on the horizon, the sun's last light still lingered there. It was a small accomplishment, but in a world that was growing darker, that last glimmer of light could change everything.

"Albus, have they gone? Have the Muggle and American left Hogwarts?" Headmaster Dippet asked, his voice quiet as if he were afraid he would awake the dead.

Armando Dippet paced behind Dumbledore, a cloud of worry hanging on his stooped shoulders. Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours. In just a day, one teacher had been found to be a traitor and was killed because of it. Enemy combatants had been within the walls of Hogwarts and killed their caretaker. But what was worse than all of that combined was the kidnapping of Sergei Krum, a man who carried a secret that could kill them all if it fell into enemy hands and just last night it had.

"Is the Muggle... is he all right to travel?" Armando asked, skirting around the real question he wanted an answer to, a question Albus already knew would eventually be asked.

"Jean Fulver is either incredibly resilient or incredibly bullheaded. It depends on how you want to look on the situation."

Headmaster Dippet paused behind Albus, his silence heavy in the room as he tried to think of what way it was best for him to ask his urgent question. Albus sighed. He knew what was coming.

"Can we trust him, Albus? The fate of our world now lays in the hands of a Muggle. How do we know that he won't betray us, even if the American is with him?"

"I trust him, Headmaster. If you can trust my judgment, then you can trust him. He may be the only one that can help us!"

"How is that?" Armando asked, as confusion clouded his aged face.

Albus turned from the window, his head wrinkled in worry.

"Headmaster, Jean Fulver was a Muggle spy as was his friend, the one who kidnapped Sergei. He knows of contacts on the continent and in the Muggle world that we have no way of knowing and he says he is absolutely certain he can track his friend. Without his knowledge and skills, I'm certain that Sergei Krum will disappear into the Muggle world and we will have no way of finding him."

Armando stopped pacing, his eyes searching Albus' face as he asked, "But Albus, how can you be sure that Grindelwald won't just use magical means like Disapparation to get Sergei to him? Why do you think that he will hide Sergei in the Muggle world?"

"Because it is more complicated than we originally thought. We both know that we have our own spies hidden amongst Grindelwald's camp of followers, as last I heard from the French Ministry of Magic. I believe that Grindelwald knows that he has moles in his ranks and won't risk bringing Sergei Krum anywhere near his encampments until he can flush out those moles. Why else would he use a Muggle to kidnap Sergei Krum in the first place?"

"Merlin, Albus, if he knows that there may be spies amongst his own people, then things are going to get very dangerous very soon. He managed to plant a spy here amongst my own staff and now you tell me that those who are deep undercover in his organization may soon be exposed? Does the French Ministry of Magic know that their people may be in danger?"

Albus massaged his head as the beginnings of a terrible headache slowly crept on him. He had been feeling tired and on edge all day, but he still had no idea why. He had gotten plenty of sleep and food. Even as he tried to answer the Headmaster, a sudden fear pounced on him, but he had no idea where it was coming from.

"Yes...they know," Albus stuttered. His heart was racing, but there was nothing there to make it race. "Right now, the French Ministry of Magic has gone underground. They are not in the position to pull their people out. My contacts in our own Ministry has told me that we are doing all we can to help them. When they got the news of Sergei Krum's kidnapping, the English Ministry of Magic did their best to lock down the coast by all magical means, but they know very little of Muggle transportation and means of travel. That is where Jean Fulver can help us the most. He says he has a very good idea which route his friend will use. We can safely guess that his friend is taking Sergei to Grindelwald's stronghold, Nurmengard and that..."

Albus suddenly gasped and screamed out in fright as he fell to his knees. Darkness covered his eyes and a deathly cold filled his lungs. He struggled to breathe and felt a salty breeze sting his nose and eyes. As quickly as the strange occurrence happened, it was over, leaving Albus panting on the floor of the Headmaster's office. A sudden understanding of what was happening to him came over him, though he wasn't quite sure of the details yet. Armando Dippet leaned down next to him, a terrified look on his face.

"Albus, are you all right? What happened?" He asked.

Albus took a moment to calm his heart. He had never felt such a terrible fear and anguish as he felt at that moment. He gritted his teeth to push the sledgehammer of those feelings out of his mind.

"The spell I put on Sergei Krum is what happened. That is why I'm still here and not with Fulver and Wolfbane tracking Sergei down. I haven't been completely honest with you, Headmaster. I haven't told you the full extent of the work I did on Sergei Krum and this information must never leave this room. It is, as Muggles like to say, the one ace we have up our sleeve."

Armando Dippet stood suddenly, an anger simmering in his eyes, but also a fear.

"What have you done, Albus?"

Albus gingerly stood, his head throbbing and the smell of salt still stinging his nose.

"I told you that it was impossible to separate the blueprints from Sergei Krum without killing him. He will have to live with those horrible plans inside him for the rest of life and he will have to die alone because if anyone he loves is near him when he dies, his death will enact the Krum family spell and cause a horrible explosion. It is his curse to bear. Grindelwald doesn't know any of this yet, but I have a feeling that he will soon find this out. He has spies everywhere.

What I did was disguise the blueprints with indecipherable gibberish. The only person who can decipher the gibberish is me. In order to keep the blueprints disguised, I have to maintain the complex spell that I have started, feed it energy and control it. I can only do that here. This you know already. What I haven't told you is that the complex, experimental spell I used linked me to Sergei Krum, a fact that I have just become aware of. Once Sergei left the boundary of the school's protective spells, I began to feel the connection. The only reason I didn't feel it earlier was because of the spells around the school, which probably dampened my spell's effects. I, apparently, can catch fleeting glimpses of what he is feeling, especially if he is really distressed, as well as see what he sees, hear what he hears and smell what he smells. This was an unexpected side affect and one I'm not sure of the full repercussions," Albus finished. He felt a sudden gnawing hunger in his stomach, a feeling that was soon gone and one that had not been his own.

Armando Dippet stared at his Transfiguration teacher in abject horror.

"Albus, you are messing with very dangerous magic! What happens if he is killed? Will it kill you as well?"

An icy shock of fear flooded Albus. He hadn't thought of that possibility and now that the idea was in front of him, he couldn't turn away from that cruel truth. Albus suddenly knew what Sergei had felt all these long months. It was terrible sensing a dark scythe of doom hanging over your head, waiting for the simplest of catalysts to start its downward plunge. And what was worse was the uncertainty Albus felt. For he had no real answer to the question that the Headmaster had asked him and that unknown variable terrified him more than he would ever admit.

"I'm not sure, Headmaster," Albus answered as calmly as he could. "I do know that I can bear this burden. I will bear it. It may help us if I can tell where Sergei is. Right now he is somewhere near the coast, cold, hungry and in a very dark place. I would check out all the Muggle ships that are leaving the ports," Albus concluded.

The Headmaster was silent for a moment and Albus knew he was still very uncertain about this new development in the situation. There was nothing that Albus could do now about it. Whatever happened would happen and it was how they handled crisis that showed what they were really made of.

"Albus, I'm worried about you, about how close you are to Krum, but there isn't much we can do now. For now, all we can do is wait. The Ministry is already attempting to contact our undercover agents and if there is danger, extract them. It's strange that it should come to this, that a Muggle may be our greatest hope. We live in dark times, Albus and I fear it will only get darker."

Albus turned from the Headmaster, towards the open window. The last of the setting sun had disappeared and the land long since swallowed up in darkness.

"Yes, it will only get darker, but Headmaster, there is always hope and that hope is already on the road to Nuremgard."

******************

Thick, mauve tinted clouds scudded across the color splashed evening sky. The last rays of golden sunlight broke through the tremulously shifting sky. A brisk sea breeze rolled up off the ocean and ruffled Jean Fulver's hair. The cold brought the ache out in his shoulder. Pain radiated down his arm, but he ignored it all. His focus was on the coastline across the channel. The coast of France to be exact, his beloved country. The sunlight was nearly gone from its shore, steeped in the growing darkness that had fallen over it like a ravenous wolf.

A sudden pain stabbed through him, starting out from his heart. Though he had had the bullet taken out of his shoulder and his wounds healed, there was a pain that was much worse than the ache in his shoulder, a betrayal that he couldn't easily forget about. It sat like a solid rock in his chest, a fire he knew would only be alleviated when he had finished his dark task. He had one goal in mind, just one, and that was to catch Marius and save Sergei. He would tromp through the entire Nazi infested continent, lie to who he had to, steal, cheat and even kill to stop Marius. This was their last game, the last violent act of a black play and Jean would see it through. Inside, a seedling of anger and hatred glowed, slowly taking root over his heart. Jean Fulver gingerly shifted the pack on his shoulder, wincing as he did so.

Behind him Johnny Wolfbane paced. He was tense, his shoulders set like tightly wound springs and the air around him charged with lethality. Ever since Sergei had been taken, Wolfbane had been a walking time bomb. This was good. They would need every bit of rage, every last morsel of strength and resolve to see their goal through. Ahead lay a dangerous battlefield of shifting alliances and deadly intentions. For Jean, there was no going back to the life they had known, not once this journey was taken, but it still made him a little nervous to see a man who could turn into a bear this high strung, even if it could aid them.

"When will the plane be here?" Wolfbane snapped.

"My contact at the SOE said that the plane will come just after sunset. He will be here!" Jean stated confidently.

Johnny Wolfbane grumbled some sort of sarcastic comment that Jean could barely make out. Wolfbane's restless pacing was starting to wear on Jean and the French soldier wondered on it. Was it the dangerous journey that they were about to embark on that made Wolfbane spark at any provocation or was it the fact that they were about to get on a plane that would fly them over France in the dead of the night with enemy planes in the air and from which they would have to parachute down to the ground?

"Is there a problem, Woflbane? If there is, I need to know it now!" Jean said tersely.

Wolfbane stopped next to Jean and Fulver could see that the man was not completely in control of his ability at the moment, a fact that was becoming more worrisome to Fulver as the evening wore on. Wolfbane's skin was oscillating between his normal brown and the black color of a bear. His fingers clenched and unclenched nervously at his side. Wolfbane shifted his eyes away as he answered Jean.

"There's nothing wrong. It's just...I'm not particularly fond of flying!"

Jean could feel his laughter slowly rising up out of his throat, an uncontrollable and maniacal urge that was bitter as it was sweet. Jean knew that he wasn't going to have a lot of opportunities to laugh on this trip and he took it when he could, though it earned him a murderous glare from Wolfbane.

"You... are a afraid of flying? You, the man who can turn into any creature including a bird, are afraid of flying?" Jean's laughter had reached his mouth and he quickly shut it to keep the emotion from getting out.

"I'm not afraid of flying," Wolfbane growled in response. "I'm just not particularly fond of getting in a metal contraption where if one part breaks, the entire plane crashes down into tiny, fiery pieces!"

Jean was just about to make a witty comment that was sure to get a rise out Wolfbane, when he heard the whine of an approaching engine slicing through the early night air. The sun was completely gone by now and clouds now rolled across the starlit sky.

As the plane circled and got closer and closer to the ground, Jean wandered back to Sergei and Marius. He wondered if they had already reached the other side of the shore, if their journey had already begun, but mostly he wondered if Sergei was safe. He couldn't be dead yet. They would have noticed an explosion of the sort of magnitude that came from his predicament. No, he was still alive and that gave Fulver hope that they would find him.

The roar of the plane's engine engulfed the two men as it touched down with ease and rolled to a stop through the open field they stood in. It was one of the many secret pickup points that the SOE had set aside for this exact purpose.

The SOE's (British Special Operations Executive) main goal was to cause chaos on the Nazi controlled continent and upset the plans of the enemy. They trained civilians to fight, smuggled weapons, people and messages onto the continent, as well as spies. Jean had a contact at the SOE F-section (France Section), who could get them on the next available plane that made a drop in France. Since the seas were compromised, that left only the air and of course, parachutes. With a little luck and a lot of providence, they would hopefully land near the safe house in Ch*teauroux and meet up with their contact on the continent.

Jean turned to Wolfbane as he asked, "If you're so afraid of flying, how are you going to handle jumping out of the plane?"

A mischievous grin covered Wolfbane's face, "I plan on walking up to the open door and jumping out. What are you planning to do?"

"No parachute?" Jean asked incredulously as they began to walk towards the plane, whose cargo bay doors lay wide open.

"As you said before, I can turn into a bird. Do you really think I need one?" Wolfbane answered, that grin on his face mocking Fulver.

Jean smirk, but didn't answer. He knew better than to answer and the two men walked towards the plane in silence. Just before they boarded, Fulver turned once more towards the direction they had come from, towards the school that was hidden behind walls of magical protection. Maybe one day he would be able to go back. As Jean got onto the plane and felt it's engine sputter to life, he knew he would never be back and a part of him was a little sad. A part of him would remember those spelled halls, but that was not his world. He belonged in this one.

Jean felt the plane begin to move, its metal frame shaking all around them and beneath them. The smell of oil and dust blanketed the Spartan interior of the cargo hold. He had been handed a parachute as he had boarded, which sat nestled in between his feet. At his side, Wolfbane's fingers were twitching nervously, drumming on his jittering knees. All he had was one pack at his feet and it wasn't a parachute. Fulver could hardly believe that Wolfbane was really going to jump out of a moving plane with no parachute. Jean shook his head.

The plane began to gain speed, its interior shuddering all around them. When it lurched to get airborne, Jean could hear Wolfbane's breath catch in his throat. He smiled a private smile, but said nothing. Instead, he looked out the small porthole near his face at the disappearing coast below. A calm fell over him as if the certainty of knowing he may be on his last mission, his last long trek, had brought a gentle composure to his mind. The time of conspiracy, shifting loyalties and deadly intentions lay ahead of him.

A time of reckoning was upon them.

A/N: Thank you for reading this story and I'm so sorry for the late update. I had quite a writer's block for this and I had to do some research. That is no excuse, I know, but I hope you won't kill me with pitchforks slowly for it. This has not been edited as much as I normally edit it, so if you see any mistakes or any historical inaccuracies, please let me know. Feedback is greatly appreciated!

This is also the last chapter of this story, but I am working on the sequel, which will be called On the Road to Nurmengard. Have a look out for it!