Harry Potter and the Shadow War

Harry Potter and the Shadow War

Chapter 1 - Transported

Harry Potter was sitting with his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron and Ginny Weasley, in the library of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry one autumn afternoon. They had only been back to school a few weeks, but Hermione insisted that they needed to get into good study habits early.

"Our O.W.L.s may be over, but we still have a lot of work to do, and the N.E.W.T.s will be here before you know it."

Harry and Ron looked at each other and groaned simultaneously.

"But, Hermione," Ron said pleadingly, "those are nearly two years away!"

"Besides," continued Hermione, as though he had not spoken, "the least we can do is help Ginny with her O.W.L. preparations."

Harry couldn't really argue with that. He reflected that it would have been nice to have someone on hand who'd already been through the O.W.L.s willing to tell them what to expect and what to focus on. He and Ron returned to working on their Potions essays. Suddenly, Hermione and Ginny reached for the same book - and disappeared, along with the book. Ron and Harry looked up quickly to the empty seats across from them, and then at each other.

"That must have been a Portkey!" Harry exclaimed. Then he began randomly touching other books on the table. "That was probably meant for me," he muttered.

"Not everything is about you, you know," Ron stated irritably.

"No, just the bad stuff," Harry retorted, though he wasn't really angry with Ron. He knew that Ron was just worried about the girls, like he was.

"Wait," Ron said after a pause, "Let's think about this logically."

"You sound like Hermione," Harry said, though he stopped his frantic search for another Portkey.

"Maybe," replied Ron, uncharacteristically not taking offense, "but I'm also a strategist, remember? Anyway, let's suppose that someone did want you to make use of a Portkey in this room. They couldn't be sure that you'd touch a specific book at the appropriate time."

"Right," Harry answered. "So?"

"So, to increase the chance that they would get you, probably every book on this table is sort of cycling. After all, a Portkey only works at a specific, pre-set time. Each book here must have a series of possible activation times, spaced a certain distance apart, and somehow set so that they won't complete their function until someone touches it."

"That makes sense," Harry agreed. "If that is the case, what do you suggest?"

"I think that our best chance of finding Hermione and Ginny would be simply to choose one book to touch and wait until its next turn on the cycle came. And I think we should take the same book, just in case they don't all go to the same place."

"Wow," said Harry. "That was really good."

"Thank you," Ron replied, trying to look modest.

"But why wouldn't they all go to the same place, if they were all designed to get me there?" Harry continued.

"I have no doubt that they will go to roughly the same location," Ron answered. "But, just in case someone were to follow you before the person who set this up could deactivate the remaining Portkeys, they wouldn't want to make it too easy to find you. So, my guess is that each one takes you to a slightly different point. Would you care to choose a book?"

"Okay," Harry said. He pointed to a text on counterjinxes. As long as they had a choice, they might as well choose something that might be useful. He and Ron each put a hand on the book and waited. After a minute or so of silence, Harry realized something odd.

"I still have one question," he said. "How did anyone know that I would be in the library right now with these books?"

Before Ron could answer, however, Harry felt the familiar pulling behind his navel, and the library dissolved before his eyes.