Harry Potter and the Elemental Wands

Harry Potter and the Elemental Wands
Chapter 5 - Stimulants and Spies

Several weeks of untouched school whirled by with unusual placidity. The trees in the grounds began to fade away from the emerald greens they had been that summer and into the warm, ruddy hues of autumn. His studies (mainly Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts, with the new Professor Dale) and Quidditch practise were keeping his mind off the location of the elusive Wands but he kept Sirius' words of wisdom in mind. He had come to the conclusion that the Wand of Water was indeed hidden in the lake, beneath several hundred gallons of salt water. Halloween dawned before Harry could think twice about it and he only realised that the festival had arrived when he came down for breakfast one morning.

The Hall was decorated with usual autumn colours of orange, auburn and gold. Several pumpkins grinned toothlessly at the students from the front of the Hall, staring at them with an uncanny gaze. The candles within them had not yet been lit, so their eyes and mouths were shadowy, making them look somewhat hellish.

'Is it Halloween again already?' Harry asked Hermione glumly as he sat down between her chair and Ron's.

She nodded, taking a sip of pumpkin juice from her goblet. 'I wonder what Dumbledore has planned for this evening.'

Harry shrugged but Ron was clearly not paying attention. His eyes were searching the Gryffindor table for a certain somebody.

Hermione exchanged a glance with Harry, and they both stifled a laugh. Neither one of them had any trouble guessing who it was.

'Arandelle isn't down yet,' Harry told Ron, sighing mock-exasperatedly.

'Shut up, Harry,' Ron replied, ignoring his teasing comment and continuing to look around. 'We all know who you look out for every day.'

Hermione chuckled as Harry glared, embarrassed. 'Very funny, Ron.'

The red-haired boy finally turned away from the stairs into the Great Hall to look innocently at his friend. 'Effective though,' he said mildly.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, then stopped, casting a glance at Hermione, who was giggling uncontrollably. 'I forgot to ask, Hermione,' he said, changing his strategy. 'How was your summer with Viktor?'

'Vicky,' Ron muttered, almost automatically, turning back to his watch on the entrance.

Hermione shrugged. 'Bulgaria was nice. Sort of cold for summer, but it was still nice.'

'Where did you stay?' Harry persisted curiously.

'With Viktor's family. His parents were very nice but his younger brother avoided me most of the time. He only came down at meal times. We didn't stay around the house much in the day, though - the scenery in Bulgaria is absolutely beautiful.'

'Even better than in France?'

She cocked her head, considering. 'No. France was brilliant. It wasn't so cold either. I like France better.'

Ron jerked in his seat, suddenly alert. 'She's coming down,' he reported.

'Finally,' Hermione muttered, spooning herself some cereal. 'Sleeps late, doesn't she?'

'Make a space,' Ron hissed, ignoring her comments and waving his hand in a sort of shooing motion.

'You never did that for Cho,' Harry objected defensively, more comfortable than having any real objection to moving.

'Cho Chang sits at the Ravenclaw table, Harry,' Hermione reminded him directly, moving, leaving a gap between Ron and Harry. Arandelle walked up them grinning, her amber eyes flashing almost mischievously.

'Why, is that seat for me?' she asked, mockingly. Hermione stifled a grin and the two girls chuckled together.

'What's so funny?' Ron asked, somewhat annoyed.

'It's a girl thing, Ron,' Hermione assured him.

'You wouldn't understand,' Arandelle added, sliding into the seat between him and Harry and helping herself to some food. Ron reddened noticeably as she sat down. The golden-eyed girl cast a sidelong glance at him, but carefully avoided his gaze.

'What do we have first, today?' Harry asked.

'What happened to your timetable?' Hermione replied sharply. She gave him a disapproving look.

He shrugged. 'I don't know. It's somewhere in my dormitory, I think.'

'Check under your trunk,' Ron advised quietly, not looking up.

'I will,' promised Harry. 'Not now though. Just tell me what we have first. I'll go look for it at lunchtime or something.'

'Potions,' Hermione told him in an oddly neutral tone.

Both Harry and Ron grimaced noticeably Arandelle snickered at their tortured faces. 'I'm guessing that Professor Snape hates you, or at least your class?'

'Who doesn't he hate?' Ron replied spitefully.

She rolled her eyes at him. 'Is that a trick question? Maybe if I were a Slytherin ...' She laughed suddenly, and batted her eyelashes girlishly.

'That's easy for you to say, Dandy,' Harry told her, calling her by her famed nickname and grinning. 'Now I understand why they call you that.'

Arandelle made a face. 'So do you think it's inappropriate?' she asked distastefully.

Harry grinned. 'Not in the least.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'Well I guess I'll have to do everything I can to change that.'

---

Breakfast ended unfortuously soon. Grumbling under their breaths, Harry, Ron and Hermione made their way towards the Slytherin dungeons, after bidding a rather smug Arandelle goodbye. He couldn't imagine anyone charming Professor Snape, who seemed to have a grudge against everyone he knew who wasn't a Slytherin.

'Today we will be learning how to make stimulants,' Snape rasped as he paced the front of their dungeon classroom, eyeing every students with hatred. 'The main ingredients in most stimulants are deadly poisonous, even to touch. Use your gloves to handle them and then make sure you clean them very carefully. After all, we wouldn't want any unfortunate deaths today, would we?' He glared at Neville Longbottom who shrank back in his seat.

'The potion recipe is on page four hundred and sixty-two. I will be handing out the Alihotsy leaves shortly. Make sure all of your measurements are extremely accurate. Alihotsy leaves are extremely potent.'

Snape opened the door to the teacher's storeroom and moved inside to get the ingredients, leaving the students to prepare the other ingredients. Harry and Ron, who sat together as always, flicked their books open to the appropriate page. Ron's book was noticeably inkspotted and a good deal of the words were blurred away by water or some other liquid. Without thinking twice, Harry pushed his friends book over and placed his own in the middle of the desk. Ron grinned gratefully at him and set to work.

The Alihotsy leaves that Professor Snape handed out were a strange silvery white that gleamed as though they were covered in oil. The recipe for the potion only required a very small portion so Ron, pulling on his worn dragon-hide gloves, sliced two tiny squares from the leaf and carefully put it aside. He took the gloves straight off and set to work on the other ingredients.

Snape moved up and down the aisles between the desks as usual, patrolling the classroom as if it was Azkaban. Harry could tell immediately when the potions master had reached his desk - he could feel him breathing down his neck.

'Why is there only one book on this table?' Snape asked in a dangerously low voice that threatened expulsion.

Ron and Harry exchanged a nervous glance. 'Our other book is a bit inkspotted,' Harry said cautiously, purposely trying not to put the blame on either one of them.

Snape reached across the table and snatched up Ron's secondhand book. He flicked through the pages, a cold grin seeping onto his lips.

'Who's book is this?' he demanded, staring specifically at Harry.

'It's mine, sir,' Ron admitted at last.

Snape's steely gaze flickered from one boy to another. 'Detention, Weasley,' he commanded with a somewhat regretful note in his voice. His eyes searched the rest if the table as if to pinpoint some other crime.

'I assume you are done with you Alihotsy leaf,' he said, brightening considerably as he saw the poisonous leaf sitting calmly by itself. He didn't wait for a reply. 'Why is it still on your table? For your information, Potter, Weasley, the oil that coats that leaf moves around the body at an extremely fast rate, stimulating all the muscles in the body so that the person is completely paralysed within a minute of being infected. That oil is now on the desk, and the next person who uses it and accidentally touches that part of the table will become paralysed and will most probably die. You could have killed someone with your carelessness, boys,' he snapped. 'Detention for you too now, Potter.'

He swept pass, leaving Ron and Harry to stare disbelievingly at each other.

---

After Potions came another eventful lesson with Professor Dale, the blasé Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She had devoted that lesson into teaching them shields that would hide them from the minds and eyes of almost anyone, demonstrating to the class personally. Harry rather reluctantly admitted that Artemis Dale, though she had her faults, might be a better Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher than Lupin.

Well, at least she's not a werewolf, he thought. It's a start.

After that came lunch. To Ron's delight, Arandelle walked past them as they were heading outside to the grounds and he made no secret of his desire to have her along in their company. She raised a questioning eyebrow, blushed, but curtsied to him with a very formal reply.

'Mr. Weasley is too kind,' she said extravagantly. Harry grinned, remembering how she had done a similar performance for Sirius.

Ron blushed too, grinning inanely, but she took his arm firmly and together they left the Hall and went outside, Hermione looking rather amused.

The Hogwarts grounds were beautiful in autumn, even though it not the emerald smoothness of summer or the crisp freshness of winter snow. The grass was dry and husked, preparing for the oncoming winter rains and the trees were shedding their leaves such a way so that the veined fossils continually drifted into piles. The sun was not the harsh ball of fire it was in summer, but more of an orb of incandescence.

Movement in the corner of Harry's eye caused him to turn his head. Blended almost perfectly in with the surrounding scenery, he noticed only one small flaw in the animals camouflage; one tree seemed to have a beak.

'Hello, Fawkes,' Harry greeted Dumbledore's pet phoenix. It stared at him, its crimson eyes unblinking, before flying over to him with a flap of its gentle wings.

'What are you doing here?' Arandelle chided, not in the least disturbed by the bird's presence. Fawkes cocked his head and cooed softly, hopping from Harry's shoulder to Arandelle's exposed arm. She was silent for a moment, as if listening to his unspoken words.

'That's what you think,' she told the phoenix. 'No one said anything about that before. Go back to Dumbledore.'

'She can talk to birds?' Ron hissed at Harry, a slightly sick look on his face.

He shrugged in reply. 'Apparently it's not that hard - she said that we can all understand them, if we take the time.'

'What did Fawkes say?' Hermione asked Arandelle curiously.

She gave the bird reproving look. 'He seems to think he's my protector. I've never heard anything more stupid in my life.'

Fawkes clicked his beak in a sort of annoyed way but her firm expression did not waver. 'I'm serious, Fawkes, go back to Dumbledore. He's very lonely without you. You're supposed to protect him, after all. He needs you more than I do.'

The phoenix cooed and flew off with obvious reluctance. Arandelle yelled something as he disappeared into the azure autumn sky, 'That's what you think!' she screamed before turning earthward again.

'What did he say?' Hermione asked again.

'He says that Dumbledore doesn't need him as much as I do but then, phoenixes aren't known for their intelligence. They're very noble, I suppose, but nobility is so hard on the mind that they can't think of anything else.'

'Fawkes saved me once,' Harry said defensively, feeling that he should stick up for his old friend.

'Probably because he thought it was a heroic thing to do. You'd be very surprised.' Arandelle smiled serenely. However, the peaceful air laid on the semi-frosted grounds was shattered in an instant. Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall burst loudly through the castle doors, a wild expression on their faces. McGonagall spotted them first and she led Dumbledore over by the elbow of his cloak. Harry immediately sense something was very wrong.

'What is it?' he asked anxiously, changed in an instant from the looks on their faces.

Dumbledore and the Transfiguration teacher exchanged a nervous glance that spoke volumes. 'I have spies in everywhere,'

Dumbledore began almost hesitatingly. 'Many of them are to keep a look out for Voldemort's moves. But now, he's suddenly disappeared. Completely gone.'

Ron's mouth fell open. 'He can't have just disappeared. There must be some way to track him down. Where was he heading the last time you heard about him?'

McGonagall inhaled sharply. 'That's what we're here to tell you about,' she told them, her tone deadly serious. 'Voldemort was last seen heading towards Hogwarts. He's coming here.'

---

'Why must we lose track of Voldemort now, of all times?' Dumbledore paced the floor of his office with uncharacteristic frustration. 'I've never had any trouble keeping track of him until now and I've been trying for quite some time.'

There was a tension-filled silence. Dumbledore glanced at his audience seated on the curved benches around his office. Ron was fidgeting nervously, casting sidelong glances at the people on either side of him, Hermione and Arandelle. For once, he was not embarrassed by being near the golden-eyed girl - his mind was clearly on other things.

'I think we all know why he's coming here,' Harry said bleakly, if only to break the silence. Professor McGonagall gave him a sharp look.

'What?' she asked him, her eyes flickering between him and Dumbledore. 'You don't mean to say that he's going to begin his assault on Hogwarts, surely!'

'It's got nothing to do with that, Minerva,' Dumbledore replied in his quiet voice.

'What is this all about, then?'

The Headmaster sighed and walked over to the sideboard cabinet where he kept many of his more precious belongings - the glowing Pensieve included. Carefully, he removed the withering prophecy from one of the shelves and brought it over to the Transfiguration teacher. She unrolled it with shaking hands and began to read. Harry noticed her eyes widen considerably as she unraveled the parchment that had taken over much of that year for them.

'Albus ...' For once, Professor McGonagall seemed lost for words. 'Is this the reason that You-Know-Who is coming north?'

She waved the parchment in front of his face in disbelief.

'Minerva,' Dumbledore replied patiently. 'His name is Voldemort. -' both Ron and McGonagall flinched with uncanny similarity '- There is absolutely no need to call him by those silly aliases - 'You-Know-Who' and 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. It's really rather stupid.'

Professor McGonagall straightened her glasses with a disdainful look and Harry guessed that no one else had ever called her stupid in her life. 'That's beside the point, Albus. It's simply a question of style. You can correct that problem when you have the leisure but I think now is not the time.'

'Of course.'

She took a deep breath. 'So the Legend of the Elemental Wands is true, then, is it?'

'More than we could ever wish for,' Dumbledore answered, a regretful note in his voice.

McGonagall glanced around at the people sitting around her. 'And these four are the ones destined to wield the Wands?'

'I thought you would have already noticed that. Why else do you think I summoned them?'

'You only asked me to look out for them and to tell them the news,' she accused.

'Did I? How forgetful of me.'

'Precisely.' Professor McGonagall gave him a steely glance before surveying the Prophecised. 'A little ordinary looking,' she critisized meticulously. 'But at least one or two of you have some common sense.' She smiled gratifyingly at Hermione and Arandelle but stared hawk-like at Harry and Ron. Harry felt himself blush.

'And now, I assume that You-Kn- well, Voldemort, if you insist, is coming to stake his own claim on the Wand that belongs to Harry?' she continued.

'You're very quick,' Dumbledore complimented her.

'Did you ever think otherwise?' McGonagall gave him an arch look.

Dumbledore paused. 'On second thoughts, no, I never did.' He bowed with a flourish to his deputy headmistress. 'And what, if
I may ask, is your professional conclusion from all this?'

'It's quite simple, actually. We need to find the Wands before Voldemort does.'

'Any thoughts where they could be?'

Harry started at this question, remembering what Sirius and the Sorting Hay had told him. 'The Sorting Hat told me that they were hidden around Hogwarts in their 'Center of Power' and Sirius suggested that the Wand of Water might be buried under the lake.'

'We don't have anywhere better to look,' Dumbledore pointed out. 'And Sirius has a very good instinct for this sort of thing. But do we have enough time to just sort out one at a time? Voldemort could be on our doorstep before we're ready for him.'
'But we don't know where else to look for the other Wands,' Arandelle told him, almost forlornly.

Professor McGonagall ticked them off on her fingers, thought for a moment, then smiled. 'I think I know where the Wand of Fire could be,' she said, with a smirk that looked very strange on her stern face.

'Where?' Hermione asked eagerly.

McGonagall, however, did not answer her question directly. 'Albus,' she began to say to her colleague. 'Have you, by any chance, ever noticed the fireplace in Professor Trelawney's room?'

'I try not to go there too often,' Dumbledore admitted somewhat ruefully. 'I know it's there, of course, but what's that got to do with anything?'

'Well, if you take a careful look at the center stone on the archway, you'll noticed that it has a slight indent on it. Furthermore, if you took the time to carry out some little experiments, you'd also find that there is some residue of certain herbs on it. I asked Professor Sprout and Professor Snape to take a look once, and they both told me that the mixture of those herbs on that particular stone is used only for one thing - a Gateway spell. Our resident seeress has opened a portal in her fireplace.'

Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled. 'Marvelous,' he said. 'Absolutely brilliant. It's illegal, of course, to open gateways to other worlds - especially Stone Gateways. We must investigate both of those theories immediately.'

Hermione started to raise her hand, then stopped, realising that she wasn't in a classroom. 'How do we know who is to guard which wand, Professor?'

'I can take a good guess,' Arandelle told her. 'I already know that I am supposed to wield the Wand of Air. It's probably got something to do with the fact that I love birds. Harry would most likely be guarding the Wand of Earth, since he can talk to snakes.'

'That makes sense, doesn't it?' Ron murmured.

'You,' Arandelle told him. 'Would most likely have the Wand of Fire. I'm not so sure on that one, but the colour of your hair seems to give that away. And, Hermione that would leave you the Wand of Water.'

'We're operating on entire guesses here,' Professor McGonagall pointed out dubiously.

'At least we've have something,' her student reminded her. 'Which is more than we had a few minutes ago.'

Dumbledore smiled. 'Keep this up, all of you, and I'll personally make sure that you're all made prefects.'

Hermione grinned. 'Did you ever think otherwise?' she quoted the older woman with glasses next to her. They all laughed.

'We're going to need some Gillyweed or something to get down into the lake,' Harry reminded them, still grinning as the giggles subsided.

'Or we could get Professor Flitwick to teach us the BubbleHead charm,' Hermione suggested eagerly. Harry had a gnawing suspicion that she already knew it perfectly.

Dumbledore shook his head. 'Gillyweed is much simpler and requires no practice. I'll ask Severus for some immediately.' He bowed and swept up out of the single door and up the stairs.

Professor McGonagall stood up and assumed the same position that Dumbledore had taken. 'Potter, I believe that you've been in the lake once or twice before-'

'Once,' Harry corrected.

She gave him a very stern look. 'Once, then. I think that you should accompany Miss Granger in the search for her Wand since you probably have some idea of what the bottom of the lake looks like.'

'I'll go with Ron, then,' Arandelle volunteered in her smooth, quiet voice. Ron gave her a strange look but nodded mutely.
'And I,' Professor McGonagall said, drawing herself up. 'Will make sure that you will not be interrupted by our friend Professor Trelawney on your quest. It will be my pleasure.' She smirked again and Harry began to wonder how well he really knew his teachers. If his Transfiguration teacher hide so much after four and a half years, he found himself curious to know whether Snape had a better side as well.

'You have your instructions,' McGonagall said with her familiar steely glint in her eye. 'Let's go.'

'Well, I guess we'll see you later,' Harry muttered to both Ron and Arandelle.

'Make sure you come back alive,' Hermione added, a queer look in her eye as she bid them goodbye.

'I'll make special a point of it,' Ron replied, returning her gaze.

Arandelle smiled mysteriously. 'Good luck ...'