The Paradigm Of Uncertainty

HARRY POTTER AND THE PARADIGM OF UNCERTAINTY

Chapter 11: Long Day's Journey Into Night

Hermione's heart felt so far up her throat she was amazed she could still breathe. As soon as darkness descended, the strong hands of whoever was in here with her released their grip on her arms. She pressed herself up into the corner, straining her eyes to get a look at her new acquaintance. "What the hell?" she rasped. "Who are you?"

"Just another innocent bystander," came a voice...a woman's voice, throaty and American and so very Eartha Kitt. Hermione knew it from somewhere.

"What do you want?"

"Only to help you."

Hermione whipped out her wand. "Lumos!" she cried. Its tip blazed brilliantly forth. Hermione sighed, sagging against the wall in relief. "You gave me quite a fright, Quinn."

"Sorry. When I saw you heading down the street, I..."

"Oh, bloody hell!" Hermione cried, remembering what she'd been doing. She pulled out the compass. Its face had gone back to plain white. "Bollocks! I've lost him!"

"Who, Harry?"

"Yes! He was here...somewhere...and now he's gone. Damn you, I almost had him!"

"I know! Why do you think I stopped you?"

Hermione gaped at her. "What are you talking about?"

"You think Sorry was alone out there? Allegra's little Junior Achievers are everywhere, making sure that their little weenie-roast didn't draw any undue wizardly attention. Harry knows this, which is why he was wearing his invisibility cloak, in case you hadn't figured out why you couldn't see him." Hermione said nothing, feeling sheepish...she hadn't, in fact, figured that out. "If you'd gone barreling in there with guns blazing you would have exposed Harry *and* blown Sorry's cover."

Hermione shifted uncomfortably, feeling suddenly like she was in far over her head. "I didn't think of that."

"Of course you didn't. You're not a spook, it's not your job to think of stuff like that. That's why I'm here."

"How did you know?"

"Remus Lupin owled me and told me what Harry was up to."

"How did *he* know?"

"Oh, they know everything over there at I.D., it's best not to ask how. He can't do much himself without Pfaffenroth getting suspicious so he asked me to take a look-see. I deduced your involvement all by own self...though it wasn't too big a deductive leap...and when I checked sure enough here you were, hot on his trail. I thought you might appreciate some help more than he would, and it being summer holiday I didn't have much else to do so here I am," she said, her eyes twinkling.

"You didn't come here to stop me?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Wouldn't it be futile to try?"

"Absolutely."

"Then I won't try to stop you. What's that?" she said, pointing at the compass.

Hermione glanced down at it, feeling a little bit embarrassed; she was sure that this jury-rigged talisman would seem hopelessly amateurish to Quinn. "Well...I suspected Harry was going off on a solo vision quest when he left so I put a homing talisman on him. This compass is enchanted to follow the signals."

Quinn grinned. "Swell! That makes things lots easier. That was a good move with the homing talisman. Where did you hide it on him?"

"I stuck it under the hood of his cloak. I'm a little worred that it'll fall off or get lost."

"Well, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. For now I suggest we get back to it."

Hermione nodded. "Okay." She started for the door but Quinn grabbed her arm and led her out the back way. "Thanks for your help. I would have found him myself, though."

"Of course." She grinned and clapped Hermione on the shoulder. "Come on, Mrs. Peel. We'll make a spy of you yet."

********

In Harry's dream, he was sitting in the Gryffindor common room in his favorite squashy red armchair. There wasn't anyone else around, just the fire blazing in the hearth before him. He felt comfortable and very much at home.

"Harry," said a quiet voice. He looked around...sitting in the armchair next to him was his father. He recognized him from all the pictures Hagrid had given him, though he looked older. He looked, Harry realized, as he would probably look if he were alive today. His black hair was shot through with distinguished streaks of gray and there were smile-lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

"Dad," Harry said. "Thanks for coming." He somehow wasn't surprised to see him there.

"How could I miss your graduation?" James said.

"But...I graduated ten thousand years ago."

"You're so tall," his father said, looking over at him with a tender smile. Harry looked down at himself and saw that he *was* tall; some part of his mind was aware that his dream self was taller than his waking body really was. His shoulders sat up above the back of the chair and his legs stretched out before him. "You're not supposed to be that tall. You're just a baby."

"I'm not a baby anymore, Dad."

James shook his head slowly from side to side. "I was supposed to be there to help you grow up, to show you how to be a man," he said sadly. "Why wasn't I there? Who helped you?"

"The elves helped me," Harry said.

His father nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Your mother knew the elves too," he said, looking over his shoulder. Harry craned around and saw his mother coming towards them from the portrait-hole. Her long red hair hung straight down her back, she appeared to be the same age as James. Hermione, dressed in a flowing white gown, was walking with her arm in arm. They passed between his chair and his father's without acknowledging either of them, then stood before the fireplace and faced each other.

"Your skin is pale," Lily said, tracing one finger down Hermione's cheek.

"It's wintertime," Hermione replied. "I haven't had much chance for sun."

Lily reached out and embraced Hermione warmly, smoothing her hair with one hand. "It's time to go now," she said.

Hermione drew back, nodding. She and Lily joined hands, then turned towards the fireplace and stepped into the fire. Harry cried out and tried to get up to pull them away from the flames, but found that he couldn't move from his chair. He watched helplessly as their bodies turned to smoke and vanished up the flue. He looked at his father, who was watching with clinical detachment.

"It's all for the best, Harry," he said. He turned towards him and smiled, then his face began to turn to smoke and dissipate into a cloud of mist.

Harry jerked awake, breathing hard. He sat up and looked around, unsure where he was. His surroundings clicked into place...he was in a safe house the I.D. kept in northern Ireland. He scrubbed his hands over his face, damp with sweat, the image of his father's face turning to smoke lingering before his eyes.

He just sat there for a moment, listening to the crickets chirp outside his window. Persephone ruffled her feathers in her sleep and he could hear the wind rustling in the trees. You *were* supposed to be there, Dad, he thought. To teach me how to shave and give me my first broom and hug me in that back-slapping way that men hug each other. I had to get the facts-of-life talk from Mr. Weasely, and I learned how to behave like an honorable man by watching Albus Dumbledore and my other professors. I got my validation from my schoolmates, and my Christmas presents from my friends and their families.

The old sorrow rose in his chest again like a distant relative that just won't go home but keeps sleeping on the couch night after night. Every time he thought he'd really and truly gotten over his lack of parents something happened to remind him of just how much he had missed out on during his childhood and beyond. He wished his parents could have seen him become a wizard and win the Quidditch cup for Gryffindor and wear his Head Boy badge and defeat their murderer and a thousand other things he'd done that he was proud of and that he knew his parents would have been proud of too.

Tears pooled up in his eyes and he shut them tightly, scrunching up his face and willing the pain to retreat to the distant corner of his brain in which it usually resided. The image of his mother embracing Hermione floated before his eyes unbidden...I wish they could meet you, he thought. They would love you, too.

That did it. He gave in; his head dropped into his hands and he let himself cry.

**********

In Hermione's dream, she was looking down at a rocky beach in shades of gray and silver. The sun was low on the horizon and the surf was flowing in tendrils of foam and water over the pebbly sand at the shore. Large boulders loomed at the edge of her field of vision. A figure was walking towards her along the waterline. As it drew closer she saw that it was Harry. Even though she knew it was only a dream, her heart swelled just to see him and to see that he was alive even in this most ephemeral of forms.

He walked along the damp sand of the beach leaving shallow footprints that were obliterated by the surf. He had his hands in his pockets and he was looking out towards the horizon. Suddenly he looked off past her and grinned, raising his hand to wave at someone she couldn't see. He crouched and opened his arms for a small boy of about four years old who ran to him, arms flapping. Harry scooped up the child and stood, holding him against his shoulder, the little boy hooking one arm familiarly about his father's neck...for of course Harry was the boy's father, who else would he be? Hermione watched, feeling detached from the tender scene, as Harry pointed out towards the ocean and talked to the little boy. Who's his mother? she wondered. Is it me? Then where am I?

Harry looked back over his shoulder and his eyes seemed to bore through her and she felt herself falling forward...

Suddenly she was in the Cloister back at Bailicroft, except the walls were gone. In their place there was only fog, a dim and chilly fog that crept right up to the bed where she was. She was sitting in the middle of it staring around herself at the stones of the floor and the moss growing between the cracks (in reality the floor in the Cloister was hardwood) and the little fingers of fog creeping up the bedsheets. She looked around and there was Harry right in front of her, in fact she was sitting there in his arms. She looked down and saw that neither of them had a stitch on, but that felt very natural. Harry smiled at her, looking deep into her eyes, and then bent to kiss her neck. Hermione relaxed against him, smiling to herself and sliding one arm around his shoulders...suddenly she felt something in her hand, her fingers gripping it tightly. She glanced down and saw the glint of metal, but before she had barely registered the fact that she was holding a very long, sharp knife her arm took on a life of its own and she thrust her hand forward, plunging the knife into Harry's heart.

She gasped and scrambled backwards, holding her bloody hand up before her eyes. Harry just sat there, his mouth wide open and his eyes staring, with the knife sticking out of his chest and blood pouring out of the wound. He reached out towards her then fell forward onto the sheets.

Hermione was kneeling on the grass looking down at a gravestone inscribed "Harry Potter, The Boy Who Died." There were no dates on it and there weren't any other gravestones nearby. She looked around and realized that they were in the glen near Hogwarts, the same one where they'd found Ron's body. She stared down at the grave, feeling numb. Someone tugged at her sleeve; she looked up and saw the little boy from the beach. She thought her heart would break at the sight of him; he had Harry's green eyes and her own wavy brown hair. His face was wet with tears and he was holding a bunch of flowers. He bent and put the flowers next to the gravestone, then climbed up into her lap like he'd done it a thousand times. Hermione hugged him because she didn't know what else to do even though she had no idea who this child was, if he was some sort of mental projection of a combination of her and Harry or just a representation of her inner child. "Daddy," the little boy said in a tear-choked voice.

A hand grabbed her shoulder and jerked her around quickly. She stared up into Harry's furious green eyes; he was standing there covered in dirt and mold, his wizard's robes torn and tattered, the knife still sticking out of his chest. He shook her shoulder, hard, and just kept shaking and shaking and shaking...

Hermione struggled awake to find Quinn sitting on the edge of her bed shaking her shoulder. She sat up, feeling the sweat running down her face. "Wha...wha..." she managed.

"You were screaming in your sleep," Quinn said, her own eyes muzzy with sleep. "My God, you scared me half to death! Bad dream?"

Hermione covered her eyes with both hands as if to shut out the images that still lingered. "Horrible...horrible." To her relief, Quinn didn't ask her what it had been about, just sat there and held her hand. "I'm just afraid...of the worst."

Quinn shook her head. "Don't worry about Harry, he can take care of himself."

Hermione sat up, the sheets pooling around her waist. "You don't understand...there's something happening to him, we don't know what it is."

Quinn frowned. "What do you mean?"

"He's been having these...attacks. The first one was severe enough to put him in a defensive coma that we designed to protect him from just such an occurrence. The second wasn't as bad, but it still knocked him out."

"These attacks...can you describe them?"

"They start with pain in his scar. It hurts from time to time, it used to get bad if he was around evil, but he said this was worse than anything he'd felt. Then he'd lose consciousness."

"Did these attacks occur during rainstorms?"

Hermione thought for a moment. "The first one did...and yes, it was raining the second time as well." She looked up at Quinn. "Does that mean something to you?"

"Someone may have been trying to contact him, or send him a message." She tapped her forehead. "From the mind of one wizard to the mind of another."

"It must have been someone evil if they were trying to hurt him."

"They might not have been trying to hurt him. You said the second one was less severe?"

"Yes...though Harry said that it felt closer."

"As if the sender realized they overdid it with the first message and were gentler the second time."

Hermione was stunned. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Perhaps the sender was trying this for the first time...which is why I asked about the rainstorms. The electrical activity in the atmosphere during a storm makes it much easier to send such messages. A novice would choose such a night to compensate for his or her inexperience. Did Harry say if he received any impressions during these attacks? Words, pictures, names, faces?"

"He didn't say...but then, I didn't think to ask."

"He may not even be aware of it, it's a rather traumatic way to get a message. There are ways we can retrieve any information he might have received. Can you think of anyone who might want to send him covert messages?"

"What about Sorry?"

"I don't think so. Didn't he say he expressly avoided contacting Harry?"

"I don't know who else it would be." She bit one knuckle, considering. "There is something else I should tell you. It's about a man I've been seeing, Gerald Van Haven."

"What about him?"

"Just before I left Hedwig brought me a message that said simply 'Spellbound Books,' which is where Gerald worked. I went there and found out that Gerald died a year ago. I saw a photograph of this man, and it did appear to be the man I knew as Gerald."

"Interesting," Quinn said casually, but her eyebrows were furrowing. "Who would take over a dead man's appearance and identity?"

"I don't know, but whoever it was went to an awful lot of trouble."

"Seems too risky to me. I assume he took you out in public; what if you'd run into someone who'd known the real Gerald?"

"I don't want to think about it. It gives me the creeps, I don't mind telling you."

"I imagine it would. And there's also the question of who sent you the note that led you to this discovery? Did you recognize the handwriting?"

"No."

"The plot thickens."

Hermione flopped back onto the bed with a sigh. "It was quite thick enough before, thanks." They said nothing for a few moments. "I don't want to be here, I want to be out looking for him."

"Relax. You need a few hours' sleep...and so do I."

Hermione turned on her side. "Where are you from? Where in America, I mean?"

"I'm from a little town called Loves Park."

"Sounds romantic."

"Only if cornfields turn you on. It's in northern Illinois."

Hermione frowned. "My U.S. geography is a tad rusty. Where's Illinois?"

Quinn smiled. "Sort of in the middle."

"I've never been to America. I've always wanted to visit."

"It's nice. Big. Sometimes if I'm traveling by car I marvel at the sheer amount of space in that country."

"Harry likes it there."

"I love Scotland, but I do miss the good old U.S.A. sometimes. When I hear another American voice, or on the 4th of July, or when something reminds me of home."

"Why did you take the job at Hogwarts instead of one of the Stateside wizarding schools?"

"When I started looking for a position there wasn't one available in the States. Vailsmith has had the same Defense professor for fifteen years, Yamagosa is happy with their current staff, and Shreve's Landing just hired someone new."

"What about the Enforcer Academy? That's in Texas, isn't it?"

"San Antonio, yes. I spent quite enough time there as a student, thanks."

She smiled, intrigued by this peek into Quinn's past. "Which school did you attend?"

"Shreve's Landing."

"I've heard it's beautiful there."

"It is. Almost too much so. Distracting, you know." She smiled. "But then Hogwarts is pretty scenic, too."

"That it is." Hermione laced her fingers together behind her head and stared upwards, examining the cracks in the ceiling. Hmm, that one looks sort of like Prince Charles, she mused.

"Are you going to be all right?" Quinn asked after a few silent moments.

Hermione sighed. "I will be when we find him."

**********

Inspector Davies of the local police stood examining the smoldering wreckage, shaking his head sadly. An entire apartment building reduced to a rubble. Damned shame...four people killed, all in one family.

"I don't get it," the fire inspector said after a long silence.

"What don't you get?" Davies asked.

"It takes *time* for a fire to get hot enough to burn an entire building to the ground. We got here only a few minutes after the smoke was reported, we should have had plenty of time to get the blaze under control. Instead...this," he said, kicking at a piece of charred wood on the pavement.

Davies suddenly whirled around. "What the hell's the matter with you?" the fire inspector said.

"I could have sworn something just brushed past me."

The fire inspector sniffed. "It's just the crime-scene willies."

"No, I'm telling you. All morning I've felt like someone's standing near me but there's never anyone there."

"You need a holiday, you do."

"Yeah," Davies said, turning back to the burned-out building.

**********

Sescha pressed the handkerchief against her face, trying in vain to stifle the sobs. The flat was swarming with Muggle police, she could sense their blank sensibilities and their hardened souls from where she sat in her kitchen, clutching a mug of tea in one hand. For the moment they were leaving her alone, tending instead to the documentation and removal of her husband's dead body.

A woman slipped in and sat down next to her. "Mrs. Hough?"

"Yes."

The woman bent her head close to speak softly. "I'm Willa Thompson, I'm an Enforcer."

Sescha relaxed, relief flooding her to have one of her own with her. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here...I can't tell them anything."

"Tell me what happened."

"I came home from work and found my husband...he was...was..."

Willa shushed her. "Do you think your husband was the sort to take his own life?"

"No!" Sescha exclaimed. "That's just what *they* made it look like!"

Willa frowned. "They?"

Sescha's voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "You know...the dark ones." She cut her eyes away as if she were afraid of the very words she spoke. "They're building themselves up again, you know. We deny it but we all see the signs. You-know-who may be gone but evil never dies!" She pressed one hand against her eyes. "They wanted my husband, but he wouldn't give in. He fought them."

"Why would they have wanted him?"

"I don't know!" She began to cry again. "His work was...secret. He couldn't tell me about it and it just ate away at him. But lately he'd come home and charm-lock the door and jump at the slightest noise...like he was being pursued. He'd become anxious, more secretive than even he'd been before. I knew something awful was going to happen...but he'd never kill himself, never. He was strong...that's why they had to kill him."

Willa nodded. "All right, Sescha. We're looking into it."

She shook her head, a slow and despairing motion. "You can't stop them. Ordinary wizards like you and me, and the Enforcers and the Ministry, we can't stop them. All we can do is watch and wait until it's our turn." She looked up at Willa with frightened eyes. "There is someone who can stop them, I think. I just hope they don't get him first."

"They can't get to Harry Potter."

Sescha smiled grimly. "They can get to *anyone.* They'll find his weakness...it's only a matter of time." She watched as Willa left the room, appearing just as unsettled as Sescha felt.

Suddenly Sescha felt a warm pressure on her hand as if someone had laid *their* hand over her own. She jumped and would have cried out, but a hand she could feel but not see was pressed against her lips. "I will stop them," a voice whispered into her ear. She could feel the speaker's breath against her cheek. "Don't let them win before they've won."

And then it was gone, leaving Sescha to wonder if she were going quite insane.

**********

Quinn sat holding the compass in the passenger seat of Harry's Jeep as Hermione drove. "Um...bear to the left!" she said.

"I can't, there's no road."

"This is a Jeep, isn't it?"

Hermione tossed her an alarmed glance, then braced herself and eased the Jeep off the two-lane highway and onto the grassy fields of southern Kent. "Hang on!"

"Wait! Stop!" Hermione slammed on the brakes and Quinn stood up in her seat, turning in a circle with the compass held out before her. "He's moving!"

"Blast!" Hermione yelled, hitting the steering wheel with her fist. "Can't he stay in one bloody place for more than an hour?"

"Wait for it..." Quinn stood squinting at the compass face while Hermione sat impatiently in the driver's seat, her fingers digging into the padded steering wheel. "Got it! Back to the road!"

Hermione twirled the steering wheel and stamped on the accelerator; Quinn grabbed the roll-bar and flopped back into her seat. "Direction?"

"Just follow the road for now."

They drove in silence for a few moments, Quinn keeping her eye on the compass while Hermione urged the car ever faster. The sense of urgency that had come upon both of them had been steadily building for the past few days as a now-familiar series of events unfolded again and again. They would start off in the direction the compass indicated and get maddeningly close only to have the needle spin and the compass face blink back to white as Harry Apparated or flew away from them. They'd been all over the country and even taken one jaunt across the Channel. Hermione's nerves were frayed to a jagged edge, and all the close calls were even wearing down Quinn's good humour. She kept telling herself that every time he moved to a new place at least it meant that he wasn't dead...and that her homing talisman was still in place. He was pursuing Allegra,that much was clear. Close on his trail, they'd seen the destruction and tragic loss of life that had drawn him...the calling-card of a relentless dark force gathering strength and momentum.

A flash of white streaked past the Jeep, the car swerving momentarily as Hermione jumped, startled. The white object slowed and paced the car; it was Hedwig. "Come on in," Hermione said. Hedwig swooped into the car and settled between the bucket seats, dropping a note in Quinn's lap. She leapt into the air and flew away again.

"It's for you," Quinn said. Hermione pulled over to the side of the road and took it, frowning. She popped open the seal and unfolded the note. "What does it say?" Wordlessly, she held it out so Quinn could read the message, just two words written in script: Carfax Abbey. "Carfax Abbey?" Quinn said, puzzled. "Wasn't that the church that Count Dracula wanted to buy?"

"Yes," Hermione said, folding the note. "It's also a real place, an old broken-down rectory in Kent. It was the site of the Mandelawan Uprising in 1232 during the unrest of the Post-Carthagian period. There was considerable discord amongst wizards of the time as to the extent and faithfulness with which the Yager Convention was to be upheld in matters of affectual magic. It led to a lot of infighting and eventually the uprising, which was ultimately quashed."

"You lost me. Way back there."

"The history isn't important, it's just that Carfax is a relatively significant historical site in the wizarding world."

"Who sent the note?"

"I don't know...but I can tell you that it's the same handwriting as the note that said 'Spellbound Books.'"

The two women just looked at each other for a moment, considering. "Someone's leading us around by the nose, Hermione. I don't much like it."

"Nor I...but I trust Hedwig. And the first note doesn't seem to have been malevolent in nature; I'm certainly glad that I know the truth about Gerald...or part of it, at least." She nodded towards the compass. "What does it say?"

"Northeast, towards Scotland."

"Hmm. Kent's in the opposite direction." She looked at her companion. "What do you think?"

"Well...if we follow the compass we'll probably just lose him again. But...someone sent this note about Carfax Abbey for a reason, it's got to be relevant. If we go there now..."

"We could get there before he does." Hermione put the Jeep in gear. "Let's just hope our paths actually cross this time."

"That would be a nice change of pace, wouldn't it?"

**********

Harry sat cross-legged behind a large tree, slapping at bugs and listening intently to the whispering grapevine near his left ear. About a hundred feet away in a clearing in the woods was a small log cabin known to belong to a Circle member; earlier today he'd followed Torgo, a wizard he knew to be a favorite stooge of Allegra's, here from the site of a double homicide in Wessex. From his vantage point he could watch the cabin through a spyglass, and with the aid of the vine he could hear everything that was said.

He often wondered what Muggles would say if they knew that their saying "heard it through the grapevine" came from the wizarding world, namely a magical strain of vine called whispering grapevine. Plant one half of a cutting near where you are and the other half near the people you're spying on, say the proper spells and within ten minutes the grapevines will grow to maturity and whisper to you everything that's being said, word for word...they even do the voices.

Harry peered through the spyglass, which afforded him a lovely view through the front window into the living room. The three wizards and one witch were inside, conferring intently with each other. Harry was having to restrain himself from jumping up and down with excitement from all the beans they were unknowingly spilling. He didn't recognize the other three wizards, but he'd already given them names of his own without even thinking about it.

"No, the vault is somewhere in America," Torgo was saying. "It's the decryption spells we need first."

Mr. Mohawk paced anxiously as he spoke. "Goddamn it, why can't that bitch do her own dirty work?"

"Shh!" Ms. Eyeliner hissed. "Don't call her that!" Harry smiled to hear Allegra referred to by that term, one that he'd been known to apply to her himself.

"Oh sod it, she can't hear us," Mohawk said.

"You never know, she has spies everywhere." She's not the only one, Harry thought.

"We're in the middle of the bleeding woods!"

"Where is this place?" said Mr. Monobrow. He seemed to be the ranking wizard, the others all snapped to attention when he spoke.

"It's down in Kent. Some abbey...something Abbey, I dunno. We're supposed to get the directions tomorrow morning."

Harry frowned. An abbey in Kent. Carfax Abbey? That was a sobering thought.

"I'm getting restless just sitting here doing nothing," Eyeliner said.

"Did you hear about Potter?" Mohawk said. Harry perked up his ears.

"What about him?"

"Bugger went AWOL. Allegra says he's losing it."

"I don't believe it. We couldn't be that lucky."

"I'd love to get my wand on that fucking asshole."

"Oh shut it, he'd squash you into tandori paste without breaking a sweat." Harry smiled. Knowing what your enemies really think of you was an invaluable luxury he wasn't accustomed to having.

"Still. You know Allegra used to shag him?"

"Get out!"

"I'm serious. Back in her good-guy days."

"Ugh. Still, makes you wonder," Eyeliner said.

"Wonder what?"

"What such a goody-goody would be like in the sack."

A general outcry went up at this statement. "I did *not* need that image in my head, thank you so bloody much!" Mohawk yelled. Harry had to clamp his hand over his mouth to avoid giving himself away with loud hoots of laughter.

"So what about this abbey?" Ms. Eyeliner asked Torgo.

"I dunno. Just that Her Majesty was rather worked up about it. It's something about the vault in the States."

"What's in that vault that's so all-fired important?"

"What, do I look like one of the inner sanctum? I just work here. I just know she can't get to the vault without going to this abbey first, don't ask me why."

Harry bit his lip, thinking. He cocked his ear towards the vine again but the wizards were getting out some playing cards. He didn't think he'd get any more out of them tonight.

He touched his wand to the whispering grapevine and it shriveled into a small cutting which he plucked out of the ground and tucked into his kitbag. He picked up his Jet Stream and flew off into the night.

**********

"Whoa," Quinn said, stopping short.

Hermione drew up alongside her, holding two torches. She flicked them on and handed one to Quinn, looking up at the ruined stone facade of Carfax Abbey, backlit by the nearly-set sun, its walls taking on a bloody red glow in the advance of twilight. "I know. Creepy, isn't it? Hundreds of wizards and witches died here in the Uprising."

"What are we looking for?"

"Blast if I know. The structure is mostly in ruins and very well explored, I've been here myself. If there's something secret, I'm inclined to think it's underground."

The two women walked softly towards the Abbey, circling around the side and entering through a gaping hole in the stones. Their footfalls echoed on the half-rotted wooden floor, their flashlights making solid beams in the dusty air. "Well," Quinn said, "where shall we start looking?"

Hermione smiled. "Maybe we won't have to." She pulled out her tiny spell compendium, handing her torch to Quinn, who shone it on the pages so Hermione could read the words through her magnifying glass. "Ah...here we are." She read a spell to herself, her lips moving silently, then closed the book and stepped forward, both hands raised palms forward, fingers splayed. Quinn watched her as she began to speak the words of the spell, Latin and some other languages too, softly lest they be heard. "Radium manifestus, et lumine ad oculae!" she finished, her hands glowing a brilliant purple color. At the end of the spell she clapped them together and a burst of purple light flew from her and filled the space around them. Quinn smiled as the walls went semi-transparent except for a small square near the far end of the abbey which glowed a brilliant golden color.

"Nicely done," she said. "That's not an easy spell."

"Shows you only what's been hidden," Hermione said, taking her torch back. "Hurry before it fades." Even as they walked across towards the glowing part of the floor the walls began to seep back and the golden light faded, but not before they reached it.

"Must be a trapdoor," Quinn said.

"It's very well hidden. I can't see any seams, can you?"

"No." They both bent to the floorboards. Hermione pulled out her wand.

"Oh well, when in doubt..." She tapped the floor at their feet. "Alohomora!" A square seam drew itself in the floorboards and the trapdoor popped up to reveal and curving flight of stairs beneath. Hermione sheathed her wand. "That was almost the first spell I learned...certainly comes in handy."

Quinn put out a hand and stepped to the head of the stairs, the tacit message of 'let me go first' understood between them. She drew out her wand, a thick and powerful-looking combat wand, and held it at her side. Hermione followed her slowly down the stairs, shining the torch over Quinn's shoulder. The stairs led to a narrow stone passageway, dark but for their torches.

They walked slowly forward. The scrape of their shoes seemed very loud on the floor, and Hermione was sure she could *hear* the beetles scurrying through the stones. The corridor sloped gently downward through what seemed like an endless series of twists and curves. Suddenly Quinn stopped short. "What?" Hermione hissed.

"Do you see that?" she said, pointing up ahead where there was a sharp corner to the right. Hermione squinted, realizing that she could *see* the corner. There was a faint light up ahead.

"Let's go," Hermione said. "I don't want to spend the night here if I can avoid it."

They moved forward a little more quickly, the light grew stronger as they approached. They rounded the corner and found themselves in a short corridor perhaps two meters long, that then turned back to the right again forming the bottom of a U-shaped hairpin turn. In the center of the short corridor was a door with two small flame torches mounted in the wall on either side of it. Hermione was about to move forward when suddenly Quinn grabbed her by the arms and they ducked back around the corner. "Shh," Quinn hissed. "There's someone else down here."

"How do you know?"

"I saw their shadow at the other end of the hall." She peeked around the corner. "I can't see anything," she whispered quietly.

"Who could it be?"

"I don't know. The fact that they're hiding from us isn't a good sign." She took a deep breath. "Okay, on three we go for it."

"Go for it? Is that wise?" They were both speaking as quietly as possible, almost mouthing their words.

"Well, it is two against one."

"And we know that how?"

"Single shadow, one pair of shoes scraping. And we should try and immobilize him before he tries to escape....or immobilize *us.*"

Hermione took a deep breath. "Okay. Count of three. One. Two. Three!" They leapt together into the short corridor, wands raised. At the same moment their mysterious neighbor leapt around the corner with *his* wand raised.

For one shocked second, all three of them just stared at each other, adrenaline hanging in the air like the smell of ozone around electrical towers. Hermione stared into Harry's green eyes, her mouth hanging open. "Harry!" she breathed.

Harry dropped his wand. "Bloody hell," he muttered.

**********

Three tired wizards trudged along a path leading up a long hill towards a country house not far from Carfax Abbey; it belonged to a friend of Harry's in "the business" who was away on sabbatical.

No one was really speaking much; they were all exhausted. Hermione was running over recent events in her mind and trying to fit them into the larger picture...a picture she wasn't sure she knew the shape of yet.

The scene in the corridor had been confused to say the least. The minute she saw him Hermione was overcome with irrational anger that he had eluded them for so long, and that he'd left in the first place even though she'd expected it. Harry wasn't exactly all smiles himself; one of the reasons he'd left had been to protect her and here she was, not cooperating. Quinn had demanded to know why Harry was sneaking around the abbey and if he'd sent them the note that had led them there, and for a good five minutes they'd all just stood there talking at each other and not listening at all.

Finally Harry had held up his hands, quieting them. "All right," he'd said. "I came here because Allegra is sending some wizards here tonight to steal what's in this vault."

"What is in the vault?"

"I'll show you." The vault door was not locked, apparently whomever had built it had considered the enchanted trapdoor to be protection enough. It swung open into a small room containing nothing but a square pedestal that rather resembled a filing cabinet. It stood in the center of the room like a golem waiting to be woken. Harry opened the doors mounted into the front of the pedestal...to reveal nothing inside.

For a moment he'd been completely dumbstruck. "Okay, I'm waiting for the punchline," Quinn had said.

"But...it was all here!" he said. "When I got here I checked and...they were here!"

Hermione came forward and peered over his shoulder. "What was?"

"Um...well, the general wizarding public doesn't really know this, but after the Mandelawan uprising some of the dissenting wizards, who'd been doing very illegal magic, hid their records and spellbooks in this vault. I wasn't sure why Allegra was interested until I saw tonight that one of the scrolls talks about a secret underground catacomb in America where are hidden 'the keys to the metamorphosis.'"

Hermione sucked in her breath. "The changeover."

"Yes, that's apparently what Allegra thinks."

"Why didn't you take them yourself?"

"I wanted to catch the thieves for interrogation, so I waited outside the door." He looked at them, his face grim. "No one came to the vault until the two of you...or at least, I didn't see them."

She looked up into his face. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That with their time-travel magic they could have slipped in without my knowing it." He shut the doors and slammed his hand against the stone wall. "Damn it!"

He had stormed out, leaving Hermione and Quinn no choice but to follow him. Hermione felt very uneasy...he seemed so angry. He'd said nothing as they drove to this house and now he was trudging forward, dispirited. She wanted very much to touch him or at least *talk* to him but he seemed so far away and deep in thought.

They reached the house and Harry pulled a key out of his kitbag to open the front door. He walked into the large front living room and then stopped, turning to face her. Quinn slipped into the other room to give them privacy.

Hermione took a deep breath, ready. "All right, Harry, will you let me explain? I know this isn't what you had in mind but really, it's better this way. Now, I know what you're going to say and I..."

"I love you," he said flatly.

Hermione just stood there, hands raised, her mouth hanging open. That was the first time he'd said that. "Okay, I didn't know you were going to say *that.*"

He took two steps towards her. "I spent most of the walk up here thinking about it. I should be angry. I *want* to be angry. There's a million reasons why I didn't want you along and why I still don't. I should be much happier if you were safely in Bailicroft surrounded by wards and spells and other wizards...but none of that matters now." His lips slowly curled into a smile. Hermione dropped her hands and sighed. He reached out and grasped her by the upper arms. "I know I didn't seem very welcoming when you showed up at the Abbey, but I'm tired and I'm angry at Allegra and the entire situation. I tried to feel angry at you, too...but I'm just too glad to see you, I can't help it. I suppose what it comes down to is that...no matter how good the reasons are for me to go this alone, I..." He looked down at the floor for a second, then back up at her face. "Deep down I don't care about the reasons, I still want you with me." He bent and kissed her, softly but firmly, then let his forehead rest against hers. "I still *need* you with me."

Hermione sniffed and laced her hands together behind his neck. "Good, because you're not getting rid of me now after I've just spent three days driving all over Creation looking for you."

He pulled back, his brows furrowing. "Come to think of it, how *did* you find me?"

She smiled and ran her hand under the hood of his cloak near the seam...there it was, a small nubbin like the head of a thumbtack. She pulled it loose and held it up before his eyes. "Did you think you were fooling me when you left that evening?"

He shook his head slowly. "No, I didn't...but it seems I underestimated your resourcefulness, Dr. Granger."

"A mistake you'll not make again." He chuckled and drew her into a tight embrace. "Come on, let's get something to eat, I'm famished."

"You know this house has a lovely master suite with a very large, comfortable bed."

"Are you coming on to me?"

"Oh my, yes."

**********

Quinn lay awake as the three-quarter-moon rose, listening to the night breezes outside her window. When she judged the time to be right she rose and flipped the covers back; she was fully clothed underneath.

She picked up her shoes and padded barefoot into the hallway, peeking through the half-open door into the master bedroom. They were both asleep, a single candle casting dim light over their forms. Hermione lay on her side with one arm and one leg thrown across Harry, the sheets tangled around them. Quinn smiled and slipped quietly down the stairs.

She laced up her sneakers and snuck into the yard, squinting in the darkness. An indistinct figure detached itself from the shadows near the edge of the woods and came silently forward. Quinn hurried to meet it, guiding it back towards the shelter of the trees. "You're late," the figure whispered.

"I had to make sure they were asleep." She glanced up at the silent house. "Hermione knows about you. She went to Spellbound Books as you'd hoped. The note was a stroke of genius."

The man's smile was almost invisible in the darkness. "Did it frighten her?"

"Not so much frighten as freak out, I think. How would you feel if you found out a man you'd been seeing had been dead for a year?"

Gerald shrugged. "I couldn't say. But it's information she needs." He sobered. "Do they suspect?"

"Not a bit. They're too preoccupied with this changeover business."

"Well, it'll all be over soon."

"Thanks for the note about the Abbey."

"You might have missed him without it. And it's better you join forces sooner than later. Makes it more convincing in the long run."

"How's Allegra?"

"Nervous about Philadelphia. The scrolls have given her the lock spells but the tablets themselves...that's another story."

"You should have seen Harry's face when he realized the scrolls had been taken right out from under his nose." She hesitated. "I'll get him and Hermione there in time."

"Good, you better. They both need to be there for it to work."

"If it doesn't work we're both screwed." She sighed. "What about Sorry?"

"No one knows. I think it's better to hold that trump card until we need it, don't you? Besides we need him for the changeover."

"Does he know about Winter?"

"You'd think he'd have figured it out by now, wouldn't you? But no, he doesn't know. Simple-minded fool," he said, teeth gritting. "Allegra plans ahead, I'll give her that much."

"All right. You get back. I'll see you later."

Gerald smiled and melted back into the shadows. Quinn shivered at a sudden breeze, clutched her sweater more tightly around her, and went back to the house.