The Paradigm Of Uncertainty

HARRY POTTER AND THE PARADIGM OF UNCERTAINTY

Chapter 12: Truths, Lies and Secrets

Hermione stood under the spray from the shower head, the water cascading over her neck and shoulders. Despite a good night's sleep she felt deeply tired, every muscle protesting their lack of rest these past few days. This was the best shower she'd ever been in. It was a large tiled stall separate from the bathtub with good, strong water pressure, built-in shelves and even a little bench.

She ran her soapy hands over her body, shutting her eyes tightly and letting the water flow over her face. Gerald and I once took a shower together, she remembered. I thought those were his hands touching me and his lips kissing me...whose were they, really? What horrible, evil person did I allow to know me in the most intimate of ways? What did he really look like under Gerald's face? Did he laugh at me, knowing he had me fooled?

She scrubbed harder, grabbing a loofah off the shower rack and dragging it across her skin as if to rub off the ghostly imprint of that stranger's touch. She opened her mouth and let the water roll in, sniffling as it went up her nose. She grabbed the shampoo and dumped some in her hair, brutally scratching her fingers through the soggy strands as her other hand rubbed the loofah over her body...her skin began to turn red and raw underneath it.

I'm freaking out, some distant part of her mind chimed in. Delayed reaction. She threw the loofah onto the tile floor and braced her hands against the wall to stop their shaking. "Harry?" she called softly. No answer. "Harry!" She tried in vain to keep the beseeching note out of her voice, feeling silly for calling to him for help in the shower, but silly or not she needed him.

She heard footsteps from the bedroom and the shower door opened. "What's the..." He stopped when he saw her face. "Okay, hold on." He reached out and drew a large fluffy towel off the rack and stepped into the shower stall, unmindful of the water spraying on his clothes. He drew Hermione out from under the shower head and wrapped the towel around her shaking body. "Shh, just relax." He led her out of the stall, into the bedroom and sat her down on a chaise lounge that was set into a bay window. He crouched in front of her, wrapping the towel more closely around her. "You wanna tell me what's wrong?"

"I can't stop thinking about it," she said in a rush.

"About what?"

"About Gerald touching me." Harry frowned, blinking. "Oh no, not like that!" Hermione hurried to add, realizing how that had sounded. "It's...horrible."

"What?" he said, confused.

Hermione took a deep breath and told him the whole story, the note about Spellbound Books, the real Gerald's death. By the time she finished he was staring at her with a wide-eyed, stunned expression. "I put it out of my mind to concentrate on finding you...I suppose this morning I just started thinking about it."

"I can't believe it," he said, hoarse. "Do you realize what this means?"

She nodded. "That in all likelihood there's been a stranger spying on us for all the time I've been dating him."

Harry shook his head. "I knew I didn't like that guy. I thought I was just jealous."

Hermione smiled, feeling better already. "You were jealous?"

He looked up at her sheepishly. "Of course I was jealous, it just manifested itself as annoyance at his entire personality." He straightened up and sat beside her. Hermione swung her legs up across his lap and he drew her into his arms. "Apparently my emotions are a lot smarter than I am because they knew before I did. It hurt to see you with him, just as it hurt to see you with Horace, and Rufus, and that git Dr. Kilroy." Hermione pressed her lips to his jawline just below his ear and let her head fall to his shoulder. No one spoke for a few moments. "When I find Gerald...or whoever he is...I'm going to beat him to a ruddy pulp," he said grimly.

"Shh, don't talk like that," she said. "That won't solve anything."

"No, but it'll sure make me feel better." She said nothing, realizing that while Gerald had hurt her in a very personal way, by his actions towards her he had also hurt Harry in a completely different way. "Are you feeling better?" He rubbed his hands along her bare arms as if to warm her.

"Yes," she sighed. "I'll be better still when I know who he really was." She drew back and looked into his face. He was staring at some point over her shoulder, his eyes far away. She smiled gently, running her hand down his cheek so that his morning stubble rasped under her fingers. "You're tense," she said, feeling through the fabric of his shirt the tightness of the muscles in his neck and shoulders.

"I feel tense. Whatever's ahead of us in the next few days, we can be confident it won't be relaxing."

"You used to get so nervous before a confrontation or a contest. You never believed you had the stuff."

"I still get nervous, I've just gotten better at hiding it. At least I always had you and Ron to help me prepare."

"Poor Ron. He was always the one getting Stunned eight times." They both smiled sadly. Hermione watched Harry's face as a troubled expression came over it. He suddenly released her and moved a bit away from her on the chaise. "What's wrong?"

He hesitated. "He was my best friend," he said softly.

Hermione sighed, wondering if they'd ever be free of this. "I know."

"More than that. He was my brother, the one I never had."

"He was my friend too, Harry...and more."

"Yes, but...well, there's just something about male bonding. Ron was my peer, and by that I mean a boy of my own age, and the first one to accept me completely." He thought a moment. "All the time we were at Hogwarts I felt guilty for taking what was his. I took the recognition he should have had for being a Weasely. I took his independence, because people always saw him as my sidekick. I even felt like I was taking his mother's affection, even though I was glad to have it." Hermione said nothing...what could she say? It was true. "He never resented me...well, almost never. He stood by me and welcomed me into his life, his family." He looked up at her, a haunted look in his eyes. "Now I'm taking something else that was his. What must he think of me?" He stared at his hands, his jaw working uneasily.

Hermione reached out and took his hand, afraid that the entire future of her relationship with this man rested on her ability to find the right words at this moment. "Harry, look at me." He did. "I want you to listen to me very carefully." She fixed her eyes on his with the most sincere expression she could muster. "Ron is dead, and you and I have been mourning him for ten years. You feel guilty because you're now experiencing some of the happiness that he missed. Don't look so surprised, I feel it too. But who's to say how things would have turned out if he had lived?" Harry looked away. Hermione grasped his chin and turned his face towards her again. "I love you," she said softly. Harry shut his eyes for a moment and exhaled mightily as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. "And I can't remember a time when I didn't love you, even if I wasn't smart enough to know it. What's more important, I can't imagine not feeling that way, regardless of who was or wasn't with us."

He blinked, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that although I cared deeply for Ron, even if he were still here, I don't think my romantic relationship with him would be. If Ron had lived, you and I would still here together...except we wouldn't have to have this conversation, because Ron would be here too and he could hug us and tell us for himself that he's glad for us." Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized just how much she wished that were so. Harry was staring at her, his own eyes overbright as well.

"You know, I was supposed to be comforting you when I brought you out here," he said, drawing the towel tighter around her. In his eyes she could still see those vestiges of insecurity left over from a childhood in which he was denied every form of love and affection...deep down he still believed he didn't deserve it. He was fiddling idly with the edge of her towel, not meeting her eyes. "Do you really?" he whispered.

She smiled. "Yes. And you'd better get used to the idea." He smiled back.

"I'll try. It's just a new concept." He kissed her forehead near the hairline...and then his face scrunched up in a moue of distaste.

She drew back, alarmed, as he began to smack his lips and stick his tongue out as if he'd tasted something awful. "What? What is it?"

"Ugh...shampoo! Ack! Bleah!" He jumped up and ran into the bathroom as Hermione laughed, unable to stop herself.

**********

Hermione rose with her dishes and went to the sink, dropping a kiss on top of Harry's head as she passed. Quinn smiled at them from across the table. "You two are so cute," she said.

Harry rolled his eyes. "She's the cute one, I just work here."

Quinn pushed her plate away. "We need to talk about what happens now."

Harry crossed his arms on the edge of the table as Hermione returned to sit next to him. "Allegra now has the scrolls from the vault at Carfax. Where she is, that's the question. Sorry said she took a sudden trip to the States last week, it's likely that the changeover materials she's after are there." He shook his head. "Bloody colonials," he muttered, winking at Quinn to show he was just kidding.

"It's a big country," Hermione said. "It'd be nice to narrow it down."

"I examined the scrolls at Carfax before you two arrived. They're the code charms to unlock something, presumable some sort of crypt or vault where the keys to the metamorphosis are kept...but fortunately for us, they're also time-sensitive. They can only be used at a certain time of day at a certain point in the lunar cycle. Allegra's first chance to use them would be midnight Eastern time, which is 5 a.m. our time...that gives us less than 24 hours to find those keys, whatever they are, before she does."

"Did Hermione tell you about my theory of your attacks?" Quinn said

"Yes. It's an interesting theory but I don't think I received any information during my attacks, and even if I did, how would we know the intent behind it?"

"It strains crediblity to think that Allegra or someone working for her would go to all the trouble of contacting you mentally and then back off when they realized they'd hurt you."

Harry still looked skeptical. "Honey, I can put you in a trance," Hermione said. "Try and retrieve what, if anything, was sent to you. Then we can decide what to do with it."

Harry thought for a moment. "All right, it's worth a shot." He stood up with his own dishes, smiling down at her. "Thanks for calling me 'honey,' by the way."

They finished the washing up in short order and adjourned into the sitting room. Hermione installed Harry in a leather recliner and sat in a straight-backed chair next to him.

"All right now, just relax," she said, her voice low and smooth. She pulled out her wand and whispered a few words; its tip began to glow with a soft lavendar light. She held it before Harry's eyes. "Hypno ad dormirum," she whispered, moving her wand in small circles before his face. "Sophias ad oculum..." Harry's eyes fixed in a sort of faraway stare, the lavendar light glinting off their green irises. She lowered the wand; his eyes didn't move.

"Harry, can you hear me?" she said softly. He nodded. "All right. I want you to think back to your first attack, and I want you to..."

He suddenly sucked in a breath and began to speak, very rapidly, saying what sounded like a spell. Hermione leaned closer but was unable to pick out individual words.

"Stop," she said. He stopped talking. "Is that a spell?" He nodded. "Where did you hear it?"

"The pain..." he murmured. "It was behind the pain." Hermione and Quinn exchanged a glance. Hermione pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill.

"Can you write it down?"

His hand reached out for the quill and the parchment. She slipped a book under the parchment on his lap so he could write; the words flowed quickly from the quill as his hand moved on its own across the parchment. Hermione read over his shoulder; it did appear to be a spell. He finally let the quill fall. "All right," she said. "Now I want you to..."

That was as far as she got. He suddenly let out a sharp cry and sat bolt upright, slapping both hands over his forehead. "Harry!" she cried, reaching out to grasp his arm. He wrenched it out of her grip and struggled to his feet, screaming in pain and clutching his head. He fell to his knees on the rug and then to the ground, writhing in pain, his back arching and his face contorted in a rictus of agony. Hermione knelt next to him, her arms reaching out towards him, afraid to touch him. Quinn whipped out her wand.

"Do something!" Hermione cried, too distraught to think of anything herself. Quinn raised her wand and opened her mouth to speak...but before she could, Harry suddenly relaxed and fell silent. Hermione immediately leaned over him, checking his pulse and peering into his eyes. She sagged, relieved. "He's okay," she whispered. She sat down near his shoulders and gently stroked his forehead. "Harry?" she said quietly. "Can you hear me? Harry?" His eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes, looking up at her.

"Why am I on the floor?" he croaked. Hermione helped him sit up and stayed there with one arm around his shoulders. "What happened?"

"We're not sure," Quinn said. "You were under hypnosis. You wrote down a spell and then you collapsed in terrible pain."

One of his hands rose to finger his scar. "I don't remember. A spell?"

"Yes," Hermione said, showing him the parchment. "Do you recognize it? I don't."

"I thought you knew every spell ever written."

"Apparently not."

"I don't recognize it, either...but it looks like a two-person spell. See?" He pointed to the writing. "It's in two parts, one for each wizard."

"Well, it's not going to do us much good if we can't figure out what it does. We're cut off from all our usual resources."

Harry got up. "Not all." He grabbed another piece of parchment and scrawled a note on it. "I'll send this to the Librarian."

Hermione frowned. "That little girl down in Research?"

Harry glanced at her. "She's not a little girl."

"Then what is she? How long has she been there?"

"I don't know what she is, I've never asked. And I think she's been there since the beginning of time, at least. If she can't tell us what this means, then no one can. Persephone!" he called. With a flutter of wings the tawny stealth owl landed on his shoulder so he could attach the note to her leg. "Take this to the Librarian, but don't let anyone see you." Persephone nipped at his ear and took off through an open window, vanishing from sight as she did so. "The Librarian has no political loyalties, she will feel no obligation to tell anyone at I.D. that I've been in touch with her. All things being equal, she'll stay silent." He sat down on the couch, rubbing his temples with his fingers. Hermione perched protectively on the arm of the sofa next to him, Quinn took a seat on the ottoman before them.

"Did you remember anything else?" she asked. "We still don't know where Allegra is."

He frowned, his eyes staring at nothing as he concentrated. "Yes. I have an impression of a city..." He pressed his first two fingers to a spot above his left eyebrow, scrunching his eyes shut in thought. "A city near the water...something about brothers? Love of brothers?" He looked up at Hermione, who answered his puzzled look. Quinn, however, was smiling. "That means something to you?" he asked her.

"Philadelphia," she said. "The City of Brotherly Love."

Hermione was nodding. "Philadelphia was home to a lot of colonial wizarding societies. They got into some pretty rough magic over there back in the day."

"There's a system of secret catacombs underneath the city," Harry said. "Shielded from Muggle eyes and even from wizards, most of whom don't know they exist. Five'll get you ten that whatever Allegra's after is hidden down there. Those tunnels go on forever...most of it is unexplored, who knows what secrets are buried under that city." He stood up with an air of action about him. "Let's get our things together and meet back here in five minutes," Harry said. "We'll Apparate out together." As quickly as if someone had said "break" the three scattered. Quinn headed for the guest room, Harry and Hermione for the master suite.

Hermione hurried into the bathroom, tossing her hairbrush and tooth powder into her bag. "Heads up!" she called to Harry, tossing his shaving kit towards him. He caught it neatly and stuffed it into his kitbag.

"Is this your sweater?"

She poked her head around the corner. "Nope."

"Hmm. Must be Dana's."

Hermione wiped down the countertop and her own wet footprints on the tile floor. "Who's this Dana?"

"She's an Auror. Friend of Sabian's...an ex-wife of Sabian's, actually, one of many. This is her house, she's in China on sabbatical."

Hermione came into the bedroom, holding her pack. "Aurors aren't part of the I.D.?"

"No. We're global Federation employees, they work for their Ministries. We do all sorts of things relating to intelligence, they just hunt. We do work together sometimes. They're rather more pragmatic than we are. They tend to shoot first and ask questions later...we're all about asking the questions."

"Moody said we'd make good Aurors, remember?"

"He wasn't Moody," Harry said darkly. He very rarely discussed those events, and Hermione usually avoided bringing them up.

She zipped up her pack and put on her cloak. "Hey," she said, stepping close to him. "You still look nervous. One would think you'd never done this sort of thing before."

He forced a smile. "Oh, I have. Just...never with the woman I love right in the line of fire." He drew the string on his kitbag and grabbed his cloak from off the back of a chair.

"Look, don't throw a wobbly on me, all right? If you start freaking out, then I'll start freaking out, and it'll be one big freak-out extravaganza."

"I'm not freaking out, I'm just being realistic." He met her eyes. "If something happened to you...well, I don't know if I could stand it."

She slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him. "Nothing's going to happen to me, all right? It's not as though I just bought my wand yesterday. It'll be all right." She pushed away the thought of something happening to him...which, really, was just as likely as misfortune befalling her, if not more so. "Let's get this over with."

They separated and went downstairs to find Quinn waiting. They went out to the front porch and stood there in a row. "Ready?" Quinn said. "On three. 1...2...3." They all vanished, and then a fraction of a second later reappeared in the same spot.

Hermione looked around. "Hmm. Seems as though Philadelphia looks a lot like Kent."

"We're back in the same place," Quinn said.

Harry looked around with a sigh. "I was afraid of this. Let's try it one more time just to be sure." He counted to three again and they Disapparated...and once again reappeared in front of Dana's house.

"What was it you were afraid of?" Hermione asked.

"She's put up security wards around the city. You try to Apparate in, you just bounce right back. There are similar charms around Hogwarts and the I.D. We're not going to be able to Apparate in."

"Then I have a question," Hermione continued. "How the blazes are we going to get there?" Harry and Quinn looked at each other blankly. "It's too far to fly on broomsticks. We can't buy plane tickets without Muggle money and we can't change any wizard money until Monday when Gringott's opens, and even if we could change some money right now I don't have that much on me, and even if I did we'd never get seats at this short notice!"

"Can't we just Apparate outside the security charms and then hitchhike or something?" Quinn said.

Harry shook his head. "No, she'll have thought of that. We won't be able to get near enough to reach her before midnight tonight." He stood there thinking, the other two watching him and hoping for a brilliant idea. When they saw a slow devilish smile spread across his face, they knew he'd had one. "But I think I can make some other arrangements."

**********

The taxi left them off in a rather industrial neighborhood. "Should I ask what we're doing here?"

Harry glanced at Hermione. "Do you know where we are?" he said, walking up a driveway nearby.

"Of course, we're in Little Whinging...but I've no idea why we're...oh!" she exclaimed, as they drew up by a large sign in front of a grubby white building. "GRUNNINGS," it said.

"There's no place like home," Harry said as they walked past.

"I thought you hated it here," Quinn said.

"I didn't say there wasn't anyplace better, I said there was no place like it."

"Should you perhaps take off your cloak, Harry?" Hermione said. She and Quinn had already done so. "We are among Muggles, after all."

"I think I'll leave it on, thanks." They drew up to the security gate. A guard held out a hand to stop them, glancing at Harry's odd appearance.

"D'you 'ave an appointment?" he asked.

"No," Harry said confidently.

"State your business, please."

Harry made a small gesture with his hand. "You don't need to know our business."

The guard nodded amicably. "None of my affair, I'm sure."

"You'll let us in now."

He stepped aside and held the gate open. "Come on in, please."

"No one needs to know about this."

"Of course not, sir. I'll just be here at the gate."

"Thanks ever so much." The gate swung shut behind them.

"Nice work, Obi-Wan," Hermione said, coming up next to him.

"The Jedi stole it from us, you know."

"Can I ask how you did that?"

"Let's go in here," Harry said, angling towards the front door and deftly changing the subject. He swept through the front doors and right past the receptionist with another cryptic hand gesture; she didn't even glance up at them. Hermione's curiosity was mounting...she couldn't tell how Harry was doing this. He didn't seem to be using a spell or a charm or his wand.

Hermione and Quinn followed him through the corridors; he seemed to know where he was going. Finally they stopped before a pair of double mahogany doors labeled "Director." Harry didn't even knock, just opened the door and walked in.

Sitting behind a very large desk was Harry's cousin Dudley Dursley. He stood up, his florid face going pale at the sight of them. Hermione held back a smile at how the mighty had fallen...where once Dudley had made Harry's life a living hell with fear of merciless poundings, now their roles appeared reversed. Whereas Dudley had become a short, round, pink-faced man with a rapidly receding hairline and a doltish expression, Harry was tall, handsome, and held himself with an air of understated power. It was difficult to believe the two were related; they almost didn't appear to be the same species. "Get out!" Dudley squeaked in a nasal, whiny voice, pointing back towards the door. Harry ignored him and strode up to the desk. Hermione understood why he'd kept his cloak on, it really added to the mystique as it billowed out behind him. Quinn and I must look like bodyguards, she thought. They stood on either side of him and said nothing.

"Hello, Dudley," Harry said. He pointed one finger at Dudley and flicked it downwards; Dudley flopped back into his leather desk chair, looking surprised to find himself there. "Have a seat."

"What do you want?"

Harry smiled, but there was no humor in it. "Do I need a reason to pay a visit to my relatives? I'd think you'd be happy to see me, Dudley."

Dudley appeared to be frightened to death of Harry. Hermione didn't quite understand that; surely Dudley knew that Harry would never actually hurt him. Then again, those who have no qualms about inflicting pain on others are the first to believe that others are equally capable of inflicting pain on them. "I'll call my father," Dudley said in a plaintive voice.

Harry chuckled, shaking his head. "Still hiding behind Vernon, Dudley? He's probably out on the golf course."

"No he's not! He's..."

"I'm not afraid of Vernon, and I'm not afraid of you, Dudley. Do you know how many big, bad evildoers I've put away? You're small potatoes." Hermione, with effort, refrained from giggling. She'd never in her life heard Harry speak with such bravado. He sounded like he was auditioning for the part of the Dashing Hero in some cheesy Saturday afternoon serial...but she knew that it was all for Dudley's benefit, and he seemed to be buying it completely. He leaned forward and planted his hands on the desk, staring right into Dudley's piggy little eyes. "Here's what you're going to do, Dudley. I know that Grunnings owns a private jet. You're going to loan it to me for a few days."

Dudley's eyes widened. "What? I can't possibly..."

"Oh, yes you can. You're not going to be using it, are you? The only places you ever go are home and to the local ice cream shop. You're going to give me the keys and then if anyone asks where it is, you're going to tell them that it's in the shop." Hermione watched him closely. He didn't appear to be compelling Dudley to agree as he had the guard at the gate. She supposed that Dudley was easy enough to boss around without using magic.

Dudley drew himself up a little. "What if I don't?"

Harry straightened, backed up a step and smiled. "You will," he said...and for just a moment, his eyes glowed red. Hermione bit her lips to keep from grinning. It was so easy to intimidate people who already thought the worst of you. A little magical window-dressing and they were putty in your hands.

Dudley fumbled in his desk drawer, pulled out a keychain and tossed it to Harry. "Here, take it," he managed. "Just go away."

Harry slipped the keys into the pocket of his cloak. "My best to Vernon and Petunia," he said, turning around. He swooshed out of the room, Quinn and Hermione close on his heels.

"You enjoyed that, didn't you?" Hermione said, hurrying to keep up with his long strides so she didn't trip over his cloak.

He smiled at her, and it was his regular smile instead of the sinister smile he'd given Dudley. "Do you blame me? I don't get to play the heavy that often, it's kind of fun."

"So we're hijacking Dudley's jet," Quinn said, "but who's going to fly it?"

Hermione pulled out her wand. "If Arthur can enchant a car to make it fly, enchanting a plane to fly itself shouldn't be too hard."

**********

"Now that is the ugliest thing I've ever seen," Hermione said. The three wizards were sitting on a bench in front of Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia and staring at the 70's-style glass pavilion that housed the famous Liberty Bell. It was almost noon and they'd landed in Philadelphia just an hour ago. Their first stop had been the Philadelphia I.D. field office, where Harry had sent a stealth owl to Sorry.

Harry nodded. "It looks like the last holdover from the disco era."

Hermione looked at Quinn. "Isn't this bell a treasured historical relic? You'd think they'd find someplace better to house it."

Quinn shrugged. "I agree it's ugly, but they didn't consult me when they built the thing." They fell silent for a few moments. Quinn sat slumped down on the bench with her arms folded over her chest, looking generally impenetrable. Harry sat in the middle with his legs crossed, looking around at the scenic park and holding Hermione's hand. She sat on his other side with one leg tucked beneath her, biting her lip in thought.

"Are we waiting for something?" Hermione finally asked.

"Yes," Harry replied. "Sorry. Hopefully he's here in the city with Allegra, and it won't take him long to answer my owl."

"Can't we start looking for the crypt without him?" Quinn said, sounding a tad exasperated.

"Where do you suggest we start?" Harry said patiently. "Those catacombs stretch for hundreds of miles with hundreds of entry points."

"Harry," Hermione said, "Allegra wants you for the changeover, right?"

He hesitated. "Probably."

"So why hasn't she tried to capture you? Sent wizards to kidnap you?"

He sighed. "Because she knows I'm coming. Why do you think she provoked me by attacking George, Laura, Remus, Lefty...she wanted me to come after her."

She released his hand and turned to face him. "You don't need to oblige her."

"Yes, I do. If I don't she'll start killing." He looked at her. "She'll come after you. I'm essentially walking right into her clutches and gambling on my greater skill to come out of it in one piece...but the odds are stacked in my favor. She underestimates me, she always did, and I've learned a lot since she left. And I have a few aces up my sleeve...you, and Quinn, and most importantly a man on the inside with the element of surprise." He shrugged. "With any luck she'll never get her hands on me. Whatever she's here to steal, we may get to it first."

Hermione shook her head. "Sounds like a lovely way to get yourself killed."

"Not just killed," came a new voice. They all turned to see Sorry standing behind them. "Changed over. That's much worse than killed." He came around the bench and sat down next to Hermione.

"Sorry," Harry said. "You got my note."

"Yes. Allegra brought me here so I could look at the tablets as soon as they're unearthed."

"Tablets?" Hermione said.

He took a deep breath. "All right, to start at the beginning: the changeover is a delicate ritual requiring just the right balance of subject mentality, practitioner skill and environment. I've participated in the Muggle-to-wizard changeover, as others have before me. Allegra assumed that the reverse process was the same ritual."

"But it's not," Harry said. "That's why it didn't work on Leland."

"Correct. As it turns out the changeover of a wizard is far more complicated, and the existing ritual is inadequate. You can imagine the magical power needed to reverse all the spells a single wizard has done in a lifetime. It's a process that has the potential to reshape events on a global scale. It's much more involved than a few incantations and some creative visualizations."

All the pieces were clicking together in Harry's mind. "So Allegra sent out the troops looking for any source material on the original rituals. Lucius Malfoy found some here."

"My ancestors were the wizards who originally wrote the two changeover rituals...one of them creative, and one of them destructive. They realized the power of the destructive changeover and vowed never to use it. The stone tablets that described the rituals were passed down in secret..."

"Until they found their way to the colonial wizards who built these catacombs," Hermione said.

Sorry nodded. "They hid them here so no one would ever find them, and then they hid the charms that open the crypt at Carfax Abbey. Lucius found the crypt by tracing the last surviving ancestor of those colonial wizards and torturing him." He pulled out a folded-up piece of parchment and gave it to Harry. "I've drawn a map through the catacombs. Allegra hasn't seen fit to tell me where the crypt is...trust is not her strong suit, believe me...but I know the general area. You'll have to search for the crypt itself, but this at least can narrow it down for you. There's an entrance to the catacombs under a tree in front of the Magnolia Cafe on Locust Street, you'll need to start there. You can't miss the tree, it's the one with all the beads in it." He stood up. "This is as much as I can do. I hope you can get to her soon, because frankly I'm getting nervous. I feel like I'm going to slip up and blow my cover at any second."

Harry stood up and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You hang in there. It'll all be over soon." Sorry nodded.

"Listen," he said. "In case things go wrong and you need to find Allegra's hideout...I've got an Apparation locator in my pocket. Here's its partner." Hermione took it. "After she gets the tablets she's taking me there." He hesitated. "There's something else that you should probably know."

"What?"

"Her time manipulation magic? She's gotten far, far better at it. She can send people further and with less effort."

Harry shook his head. "If I knew how she was doing it I might be able to design a counterspell."

"I can't tell you exactly how it works, but I can tell you that the reason it's so strenuous is that it's largely a mental projection."

"Like a glamour?" Hermione said.

"A bit, yes. The wizard has to visualize their destination and then summon magic powerful enough to transport them there."

Harry blew air through his teeth. "I can see how that might really take it out of you."

Sorry shrugged. "I don't know how that will affect what's happening here, but forewarned is forearmed." He smiled at them. "Good luck." He turned and walked away; Harry just stood there and watched him go.

Hermione sighed. "Can I ask...again...why you're not calling in the cavalry?"

"Because she'd never miss a mobilization, it'd tip her off. I'm hoping she doesn't know I'm this close to her, and if she doesn't I'd like to keep it that way."

Quinn stood up. "We should sneak into those catacombs as soon as possible."

Hermione jumped to her feet as well. "Come on! It'll be crawling with Allegra's goons!"

"No, I don't think so," Quinn went on. "If she knows where the crypt is, and that she can't unlock it until midnight, she's probably back at her hideout preparing for the changeover."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because that's what I'd do," Quinn said. "I'd want all my ducks in a row so that the moment I had my victim I could perform the ritual immediately and not have to wait around looking for potion ingredients or something."

"She's right," Harry said. "If we want to get to those tablets before Allegra does, we've got to do it now. The sooner the better."

"There's also the tiny problem that we don't have the charm locks for the crypt, and even if we did they can't be used until midnight."

He shook his head, staring off into space. "I can get in."

Hermione felt anxiety rising in her chest, inexorable like the tide, and with it the knowledge that Harry wasn't telling her something...something very important. "Oh, you can? Like you put the whammy on that guard at Grunnings? How, exactly, can you get in? And if we get the tablets, then what?"

Harry went on as if he hadn't heard her. "There are still things you don't know, Hermione. I can get in and get those tablets...and then wait for her to come after me. Then we'll see."

**********

Sorry was right...you couldn't miss the tree. The Magnolia Cafe, as it turned out, was a Cajun/Creole restaurant, and the tree on the sidewalk outside the restaurant was festooned with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Mardi Gras beads that were given to the patrons as souvenirs and then tossed into the tree for goodluck.

Hermione put up an Unremarkable Charm around them so that they could search for the entrance unobserved by the steady flow of passersby. Harry knelt on the sidewalk, crawling about and inspecting the gratings around the tree. He finally lifted one of them and peered underneath. "Here," he said. Hermione and Quinn bent and looked down...underneath was a smooth channel of stone like a slide that curved down, away and out of sight. Without a word, Quinn sat on the edge and slipped down. Hermione followed her, and then Harry, shutting the grating over his head.

Hermione slid for what seemed like forever, and then the slide suddenly wasn't there. She flew through a short reach of space and felt Quinn's arms catch her around the middle and they both thumped to the ground. A few seconds later Harry came hurtling out of the slide and landed on his tailbone, wincing in pain. "Dammit," he said, getting to his feet and rubbing his backside. He looked up at them sheepishly.

Hermione got out Sorry's map and illuminated her wand. "This way," she said. Harry took the lead and they started down the corridor. Hermione fought back the feelings of dread that this place inspired. The catacombs were not the close, cramped, rough-hewn tunnels she'd been expecting. They were cavernous arched passages laid with stones, the floors littered with loose rock, cave detritus and occasionally the bones of wizards long dead. The blazing tip of Harry's wand, held high over his head, seemed very small in the inky-black darkness that filled the space.

They continued on through a bewildering series of passages, Hermione following Sorry's crude map as best she could. No one really said much; the dank atmosphere seemed to stifle conversation as well as thought. She tried to keep her sense of direction about her but after half an hour she was totally disoriented. At last they reached the end of Sorry's map. "That's as far as he knows where to go," she said, folding it and putting it back in her bag. They were standing at a T-junction before a great stone wall encrusted with moss and dribbling with brackish threads of water.

"We must be near the river," Quinn said. "It's so damp down here."

Harry turned to them. "We should split up."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"No, he's right," Quinn said. "We'll have to search both passages for the crypt, it'll go faster if we split up. We'll explore separately for say, fifteen minutes and then meet back here and decide what to do."

Hermione still felt doubtful. "I'll go this way," Harry said, pointing to the left. "Quinn, you and Hermione go the other way."

Hermione gripped his hand for a moment. "Be careful," she said.

He nodded, squeezing her hand back. "You too. Stay close to Quinn, and watch your back." He turned and walked off to the left. Hermione watched him go, swallowing past her lingering uneasiness, then turned away and followed Quinn down the other passage.

**********

Harry walked purposefully down the passageway, examining the walls as he went, wondering if he'd even recognize this crypt when he found it. It could be hidden, he thought, or enchanted to appear as part of the wall.

His stomach was busily tying itself into knots. No matter how often he engaged in dangerous espionage-related activities he never seemed to get used to it. His nervousness was only compounded by Hermione's presence...I should have had her come with me, he thought. Then I'd know she was safe. She's safe with Quinn, he told himself. She was a damn good Enforcer and from what he'd heard an even better DaDA professor.

He rounded a corner, then stopped short as all his questions about the crypt were answered.

Cut into the wall was an immense square door carved with runes that looked vaguely familiar. He stood there numbly and looked up...and up...and up to the vaulted ceiling meters above. His jaw dropped at the sight of it. Whatever he'd expected this wasn't it. It was hardly a hidden crypt, more like an extremely ostentatious and obvious crypt.

He stepped closer and examined the runes carved into the door. He didn't recognize the language. He wished again, for a totally different reason, that Hermione was with him.

He didn't know how long he stood there staring at the door and puzzling over the runes on it...a few minutes, perhaps...but when remembered the business at hand he realized it was high time he went back to the rendezvous point and told Hermione and Quinn of his discovery. He turned around, then leapt back and flattened himself against the crypt door.

Opposite the crypt door was not a blank corridor wall but a medium-sized chamber that he hadn't even seen, so focused on the crypt had he been. Standing in the chamber were at least twenty of Allegra's dark wizards who had probably just been lurking there waiting for him to come along...and idiot, he had walked right into it. He had been so concerned about Hermione and focused on finding the damned tablets. Watch your back, he'd warned her. He'd do better to take his own advice. Allegra, standing in the center of the group, walked forward with her hands on her shapely hips, smiling at him.

"Oh, Harry. Did Lefty teach you nothing? Always keep a wall at your back." She held up a hand, seeing him tensing up. "Tsk tsk," she scolded. "Don't even try it. There's a lot of us here, Harry. Not even you can take all of us...though twenty of my wizards against you might finally make it a fair fight." He sagged, letting his wand drop. She walked forward and took it out of his hands. "And here I thought it would be hard to capture you, Harry. I knew that Dr. Granger was your Achilles' heel, but I never thought that her mere presence would unnerve you so much that you'd walk right into my hands."

He just glared at her. "You've got me. That's what you want, isn't it? I want your word that you won't harm her."

Her smile widened. "What do you care? You haven't told her what you really are, have you? I warned her that she didn't know you." She shook her head. "But they never believe the ex, do they?" She walked back and forth before him, twirling his wand in one hand. "What is she to you? Really, now, the truth. Remember who you're talking to; you have no secrets from me."

Harry sighed, not wishing to play her game. "I love her."

"Surely not. That little mouse?"

"She's worth a hundred of you, Allegra."

She leaned closer, her perfume wafting around his face. "You didn't think so when you came panting like a dog to my bed."

He smiled thinly, unfazed. "Well, we all have to go slumming now and then, don't we?"

Allegra's smug smile faded. "You're not the man I once knew, Harry. You've grown up. You're tougher." Her smile spread once again across her icy features. "Which only makes this all the more satisfying."

**********

Hermione and Quinn stood at the T-junction, saying nothing. Hermione was tapping her foot anxiously and glancing at her watch. "He's five minutes late," she said tightly.

Quinn nodded. "Let's give him a few more minutes."

"No," Hermione said, straightening up and grasping her wand tighter. "I'm going after him. You coming?"

Quinn stepped forward. "Right behind you, Mrs. Peel." Hermione strode off down the left-hand corridor holding her wand before her with no idea what she'd do with it if someone attacked her. All the defensive spells she'd once known verbatim had cleverly fled her brain now when she needed them most.

"I wonder if he found the crypt," Quinn said.

"Maybe it's hidden...it's hardly likely that they'd make it really obv..." She stopped short in the hallway, so suddenly that Quinn ran right into her.

"Geez," Quinn breathed, looking up at the mammoth crypt door. "That makes quite a statement..." She trailed off when she saw Hermione's face. She was staring not up at the door but down at the floor of the passage. Quinn followed her gaze. In the middle of the passage was Harry's kitbag.

"Oh no..." Hermione murmured, lurching forward. She fell on her knees by the bag and snatched it up. "There's a note," she said in a flat tone.

Quinn watched her as she read it and her shoulders slumped; she clutched his kitbag to her chest and her head drooped. Wordlessly, she held out the note. Quinn took it and held up her wand so she could read it:

"Hey Hermione- Missing something? -The Ex."