Harry Potter and the Magic Within

Harry Potter and the Magic Within

Chapter 13: 'The Plot and the Waiting'

Harry met Ron and Hermione back in the common room not long after he left the pitch. They looked up as Harry walked in and sat heavily in a chair beside them. Ron grinned.

'What did you catch him for?' he asked puzzled.

'I don't know, I just thought I should,' answered Harry as he straightened his glasses. Hermione looked out of the window.

'It was a very noble thing to do, Ron,' said Hermione sharply. 'but it isn't going to do any good, if anything it will make Malfoy more angry at Harry than ever,' she added frowning. 'Surely you have problems enough without adding Malfoy to them, Harry,' she said quietly. Harry sighed.

'Dumbledore wouldn't tell me who this guardian person is,' said Harry. 'He just said that I would find out soon enough.'

'If anyone has a right to know that it should be you!' said Ron, annoyed. 'It isn't fair that they don't tell you anything.'

'No, I suppose not,' Harry said. 'Well I'm going to bed.' he added. Ron left to go to their dormitory aswell and not long after them, Hermione left the common room to go to bed too.

November grew colder, and by the time Christmas came it was cold enough to see your breath in some of the classrooms. All the Weasleys were staying for Christmas since Mr and Mrs Weasley were going to see Charlie in Romania. Christmas morning brought snow to the Hogwarts grounds.

'Harry! Harry! Wake up, Harry!' Ron yelled, unwrapping his first present. Harry sat up and put his glasses on. He went to the end of his bed and picked up a brown package that was most certainly from Mrs Weasley. He tore the wrapping open to find a dark green jumper with a golden snitch on the front. Ron had his usual maroon coloured jumper, which he put on as Harry put on his. Mrs Weasley had also put in some of her delicious home-made fudge and biscuits. He got an assortment of sweets from Hagrid, which he had obviously purchased from Hogsmeade's famous sweet shop, Honeydukes. Harry also got a book about special Wizards and Witches who had strangely unusual powers from Hermione, as well as a handful of Chocolate Frogs.

The feast was wonderful as always, with its amazing different foods all piled along every table. Harry and Ron stayed for thirds, though they wished they hadn't the next day.

The winter cold melted away as the snow did, at the beginning of Feburary. The school was once again in a term, and Harry had no problems in any of his other classes, apart from Potions, of course. Professor Argent always seemed so nice, and was very observant of Harry in all her lessons and, he got the feeling, other times as well. But he could still be right in thinking that she was the supporter at Hogwarts. He kept wary of her, though she seemed so unbelievably friendly. It was late March when Harry, Ron and Hermione celebrated Harry's most advanced use of his special power, he changed colours of the bed sheets and curtains in the boys dormitory in an instant. He even managed to change them back again.

It was a shame that they didn't have any time to do more about the powers he possessed but the workload they had was monstrous. Every night they were busy working in the common room for hours. Harry's life was rather normal for a while.

After one night of busy revision in mid-March, Harry went to bed after one in the morning. He was asleep before he could count to ten.

Harry woke up. There was a strange tapping noise. He grabbed his glasses, put them on and looked around. There was a large grey and white speckled owl at the window. He scrambled out of bed and opened the window. It had a small note tied to its leg. Harry pulled it off.

Dear Harry,

I am in Hogsmeade. I have informed Dumbledore as well. He believes it may be safe for me to sneak in to Hogwarts at night. I have some floo powder and a fireplace to travel from. Let me know if you can be in your common room, alone, at midnight tomorrow. I will see you very soon.

- Sirius

It was still dark. He grinned as he wrote that he would be in the common room alone at the time Sirius suggested and tied the note back to the owl's leg. The owl left through the window, silently. Harry smiled to himself as he got back in to bed, took off his glasses and fell asleep.

Harry sat up. He got out of bed to see that the dormitory was deserted. He got changed and went down to the common room. It must be late, he thought. The common room was empty too. He set off for the Great hall.

When he got there, some of the students were finishing their breakfast. Most had left the hall already. Hermione was sitting at the Gryffindor table next to Ron. Harry sat by their side.

'Why didn't you wake me up?' he asked as he started to eat his breakfast quickly.

'We couldn't,' said Ron simply. 'You just turned over and went back to sleep.'

'Sirius is going to use floo powder to get to the common room tonight at midnight,' whispered Harry. Ron and Hermione stopped eating.

'Tonight?' said Ron, a little louder than he had expected.

'Shhh,' hissed Hermione.

'Yes, he's coming tonight. I sent him the owl back with my message. I said I would be there,' whispered Harry back to them.

All that day, Harry found it hard to concentrate in his lessons. He didn't even talk about how oddly Snape was acting in their Potions class. He hadn't bothered Harry all through their lesson. He seemed almost nervous. Harry didn't have room in his mind to think about him though.

The afternoon lesson in the grounds with Hagrid and the Wimmets seemed to take forever. Harry did enjoy looking after the Wimmets, but he wanted to be in the common room waiting for Sirius' arrival.

'Where did our wimmet go?' asked Ron suddenly, as he realised that theirs had disappeared.

'What?' said Harry distracted.

'The wimmet!' cried Ron. 'Where did it go?'

Harry and Ron looked about them. They found their small, brown, fluffy wimmet snuffling in Hagrid's pumpkin patch a few minutes later. They were taking it back to the front of Hagrid's hut when they stopped. They could hear hushed voices. It was Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. Harry and Ron listened.

'Well, what is it you wanted to tell us?' Crabbe was saying.

'Some wonderful news I heard from my father,' Malfoy sneered, 'we won't have to worry about Potter anymore.' Malfoy paced around grinning for a moment. His hand didn't need bandages, the nurse would have fixed his hand in a moment. This was clear because Malfoy hit the side of Hagrids hut in his glee.

'There will be no Harry Potter at Hogwarts for much longer,' Malfoy sneered at them. They looked a little puzzled at this. Then they looked at each other and blinked stupidly. 'Would you like to know more?' Malfoy asked, resuming his pacing. Harry stiffened. I should have let him fall, he thought to himself.

'Hide!' Malfoy hissed, as footsteps approached. They left.

Ron was positively livid.

'Oh, that Malfoy, wait 'til I get my hands on him!' he growled.

'He can't get me in trouble as easily as he thinks he can,' said Harry as he struggled to keep the wimmet in his grasp.

'I don't think he was planning to do the trouble, Harry,' Ron said, worriedly.

'He was probably making it all up!' said Harry firmly. He wasn't sure he believed himself, but it would be ok, he was seeing Sirius.

They told Hermione about Malfoy's secret meeting after they had left Hagrid and the wimmets about ten minutes later.

'Oh dear,' said Hermione, looking worried.

Harry, Ron and Hermione all went to their last lesson, in Harry and Ron's case Divination and in Hermione's Arithmancy, with Malfoy's words in the front of their minds.

Harry and Ron went to the seventh floor and up through the trap door. They sat down as far back as they could from Professor Trelawney.

She gave each pair a pack of cards. Harry and Ron started to predict the events of their next week. Ron's cards were all predicting that he would be having a great amount of good luck and other good things. Harry on the other hand, as always, had terrible cards. They found this very funny indeed.

They almost burst out laughing when Ron determined that one of Harry's cards predicted that he would find trouble ahead and no way out of it. This, they thought, was just typical of Harry's Divination luck. Every single card Ron had was of good fortune, every single one Harry had was the other way around. It seemed they had divided the pack exactly between the good and bad. Trelawney walked by a few times and one of those times, Ron had to smother his laughter in his robes. Professor Trelawney mistook the meaning of this.

'It may be difficult to accept that the worst is coming but at least you are forewarned of it before hand,' she said comfortingly, thinking Ron was upset by some prediction Harry had read for him. This made Harry clamp his hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing out loud. They ducked under the small table to laugh as quietly as they could once she had left.

'Well, that wasn't such a bad lesson,' said Harry, as they wandered back towards Gryffindor tower. Ron nodded in agreement then they both grinned widely and started to laugh. They laughed all the way to the common room.

Hermione was sitting at their favourite table by the window.

'What are you laughing about?' she asked, grinning.

'We had the funniest Divination lesson,' started Ron. Then he went on to explain. At the end of his story Hermione was giggling.

Fred and George came over to them a moment later.

'Have any of you seen a small cup of blue liquid recently?' asked Fred, innocently.

'No, we haven't,' answered Harry. He guessed that they had lost one of their inventions, or perhaps part of an invention.

'I was sure we left it in our dormitory,' said George, thoughtfully. 'Perhaps we should check our last lesson's classroom,' he added. They left through the portrait. Ron watched as they went.

'I wonder if they've managed to sell any of their joke things yet?' he thought aloud.

'I don't think they have tried selling them yet,' Harry said, 'I think they are waiting until they have finished all of their stock.'

That evening passed rather quickly, they had a lot of homework. Ron and Harry were having trouble with their Divination homework in particular.

'Nothing that the cards said would happen has happened,' said Ron annoyed, 'so how can we write how 'accurate' they were?' Harry scratched his head.

'Maybe we have to wait 'til the end of the week. Maybe by then I will have,' he looked at the list of card meanings he had received, 'had a deadly encounter and a terrible truth will have been revealed.' he said sardonically. Ron grinned.

'I wouldn't mind waiting until the end of the week to do this,' he said brightly, as he closed Unfogging the Future.

The common room slowly emptied over the next hour or so. It was eleven o'clock when Fred and George, who had been very secretive in the corner, finally left for their dormitories.

'I'm tired,' yawned Ron.

'You don't have to stay up if you don't want to,' said Harry quietly.

'No, we do!' said Hermione, loudly, as she closed the book she was reading.

They waited. The clocks hands seemed to move slower than a lame snail. Ron fell asleep on the table and Hermione sat reading and yawning. Harry sat by the fire waiting.

Hermione's head nodded. Harry still sat, barely moving, in front of the low fire. It was almost ten minutes past midnight.

Harry, who had become lost in his thoughts, jumped as the flames turned a green colour and rose up in the fireplace. A figure materialised through the flames and walked out in to the common room in front of him.

Harry Potter and the Magic Within.

Chapter: 14 'The Living Nightmare'

The figure was cloaked. That was odd. Harry didn't know Sirius ever wore a cloak. He stood up, waiting for Sirius to pull back the hood, sit down and talk to him, but Sirius didn't sit down. He did however pull back his hood.

It wasn't Sirius at all! It was Wormtail, or Peter Pettigrew. Harry jumped backwards, knocking over a small table. Ron jumped out of his sleep and Hermione lifted up her head, blinking to wake herself up.

'You will be coming with me, Harry Potter!' wheezed Wormtail. Ron and Hermione jumped up and Harry backed off to where they stood.

Hermione picked up her very large book from the table and threw it at Wormtail's face. He yelled and tripped backwards.

'Harry!' yelled Ron, as Wormtail got up, caught Harry around the knees and picked him off the ground and carried him over his back as if he weighed no less than a bag of feathers. Harry kicked and hit Wormtail as hard as he could to free himself. Ron and Hermione rushed to his aid as Wormtail headed for the fireplace. Ron grabbed Harry's hand. Wormtail was walking in to the fireplace.

'No! Harry!' Ron held on to Harry's hand tightly. Harry's face shone green in the tall green flames that rose in the grate. Hermione desperately tried to hold Wormtail back. Ron's grip was broken and the last he and Hermione saw of Harry was his hand trying to grab on to the edge of the fireplace.

Harry found himself spinning, once again, in a whirl of green. He struggled to get out of Wormtail's grasp but only managed to bang his head. He felt dizzy and then he remembered no more.

Ron and Hermione on the other had were running at full speed to McGonagall's study to demand that she then take them to Dumbledore.

'What on earth are you doing? Mr Weasley? Miss Granger?' she said sharply with her night gown and her night slippers on.

'Harry's been kidnapped!' Ron yelled, frantically. Hermione was very pale beside him. McGonagall took them straight to the gargoyle behind which lay the secret home of Dumbledore. Ron and Hermione followed McGonagall closely and would have been very interested in their surroundings if it weren't for the fact that Harry had just been taken away minutes before. They entered the round room to find Dumbledore leaving his desk as though he was just about to go to bed.

'Professor! Harry! He was - and we tried - but,' sputtered Hermione, a tear coming down her cheek as she spoke. Dumbledore stiffened. He knew he was going to get bad news, Hermione couldn't say it though.

'He was Kidnapped, Professor,' said Ron, just as frantically as before, 'and we tried to stop Wormtail from taking him but we couldn't. He took him through the fireplace in the common room.' Ron ended.

Dumbledore must have known something about Sirius and his plan to meet Harry at the common room fire because he never asked anything about Wormtail's way of entering. Professor McGonagall looked very pale and utterly shocked. Dumbledore sat down at his desk very heavily.

'Professor? What do we do now? How do we get Harry back?' asked Ron feverishly. Hermione looked at Dumbledore, as did Ron.

Dumbledore sighed and said: 'We can't get him back.' Ron went white.

'You can't mean? No! We have to get him back!' he cried. Hermione looked imploringly at Dumbledore, who's eyes were not shining as usual.

'There is no way to tell where he has been taken, Mr Weasley,' said Dumbledore slowly and sadly. An idea struck Hermione.

'But what about Malfoy?' she shrieked. 'He knew something this afternoon, he might know where Wormtail has taken him!'

'Excellent, Hermione!' yelled Ron. 'Professor, Malfoy might know.'

Dumbledore sighed yet again.

'No one except those directly involved ever know anything about Voldemort's plans.' He then got up and walked slowly out of the room through a door to the back of the chamber. Professor McGonagall, still looking shaken, led them out of the round room and sent them off to Gryffindor tower.

Neither Ron nor Hermione slept that night.

*

Harry opened an eye. He had been having an awful dream in which he was being kidnapped by Wormtail, it had seemed very real.

Then he realised it hadn't been a dream.

He was lying, hands and ankles tied up, on the dusty floor of a practically empty room, with almost completely boarded up windows. There was a small table, a few odd items cast about and a tall backed armchair sitting in front of a fireplace with a low fire burning in the grate.

Wormtail was sitting on the floor close by. Harry sat himself up with difficulty.

'Morning,' croaked Wormtail. Harry didn't return the greeting. 'My orders are to watch you and make sure you don't escape until my master has finished his business elsewhere.'

Harry didn't see much chance of escape and not much hope even if he did, he had no idea where this house was in the country. He wondered what the other 'business' was.

'How long will that business take?' asked Harry, coldly.

'A few days, perhaps, so we will have plenty of time to get acquainted,' he paused, 'before you die,' he added.

Harry spent the whole morning tugging at the ropes that bound him. It made no difference. He was untied at lunch to eat some bread and water and in that time he managed to search for his wand in his pocket and find he didn't have it. He could see it standing on the small table by the high backed armchair. Perfect, he thought sarcastically to himself.

Meanwhile, unknown to Harry, the word had gone around at Hogwarts that Harry had been abducted and it was causing a great disturbance. Dumbledore hadn't left his round room all day, all the Gryffindors were in a terrible state, especially Ron and Hermione who didn't smile once, and barely spoke. Even Fred and George had gone quiet and didn't joke around. Ginny Weasley was very upset, she had after all been very fond of Harry. Neville cried a lot which made it harder for the others to stop thinking about it all.

Hagrid had cancelled all of his lessons for that day and was wailing so loudly that if anyone had been anywhere near his hut, they would have thought he was being tortured.

Across the lunch tables in the Great hall, Ron caught a glimpse of Cho Chang from Ravenclaw who, to his surprise, was crying silently after her friend had given her the news. Cho Chang was Harry's crush and had been for some time before.

Some people, however, were not sorry for the kidnapping. Lots of the Slytherins saw it as a good thing since Harry had been such a good Seeker they saw more chance of beating Gryffindor without him. Malfoy was over the moon and was walking around as if he owned the place. Ron meant to give Malfoy a big black eye and more damage if possible, but Hermione, who was completely silent except in Ron's company, stopped him just in time.

Harry had never in his life had the same feeling as he did in that time. He felt as though he was sinking deeper and deeper in to a sea of trouble and the deeper he sank, the harder and more impossible it was to get back to the surface. He had no wand, he had no idea where he was, no means of escape and the food wasn't even good.

That evening, Wormtail received an owl informing him that Voldermort was going to be later than he expected. Harry couldn't feel too happy about this. He was starting to think that if he could just get his death over and done with, it would be better than the way he was then which shows just how low he was feeling.

Harry looked forward to sleep the most. At least he could pretend to be somewhere else then. He went to sleep straight after his pitiful dinner.

The next two days were nothing but a blur of boredom, hunger and terrible waiting for Harry.

At Hogwarts, however, most of the school didn't doubt that Harry was already dead. Ron, Hermione and most of the other Gryffindors were told to stay in their common room and not to go to lessons. This was something that many of them were glad of. Hagrid was still shut inside his hut. Ron and Hermione had contemplated going to see him but decided that they couldn't make him feel better and that the chances were that they would just feel worse. And the Slytherin's were overjoyed at the absence of the Gryffindor seeker, as Gryffindor had a match against Ravenclaw coming up and if they lost they were out of the running for the Quidditch cup.

In the early evening of the third day since Harry was taken, Ron and Hermione were playing a game of chess in which they barely noticed who was winning, in the common room. Ginny was by the fire doing her homework and the twins were talking quietly in a far corner. Neville, Seamus and Dean were sitting over by the portrait and were talking as quietly as the twins were. When Hermione had won the chess game, which was something that didn't happen often, she and Ron went up to the boys deserted dormitory and sat on Harry's bed.

'I suppose,' said Hermione slowly, 'he could be on his way back to us right now.' Neither she nor Ron found it easy to believe though. Ron voiced what they had both been thinking for some time.

'What if he doesn't?' he said quietly. A damp spot appeared on Hermiones skirt as a tear fell in her lap.

'Don't say that,' she almost whispered. Ron looked out of the window. Then jumped up off the bed. He had had an excellent idea.

'Hedwig!' he shouted. Hermione wiped her face.

'What?' she asked startled.

'Hedwig could find him!' he said running to the dormitory door. Hermione followed quickly.

Ten minutes later, they were in the owlery, looking for Hedwig.

They found her sitting on the windowsill, gazing out in to the gathering darkness. She recognised them but seemed to be looking behind them as if expecting someone else. They knew she was looking for Harry. She hooted and looked agitated, shuffling from foot to foot.

'Hedwig, we need your help,' said Hermione gently. 'Something's happened to -'

'He's been kidnapped!' Ron blurted out. Hedwig's eyes widened, she seemed to understand what they were saying. 'You-know-who's got him!' he continued. Hedwig gave a squawk of alarm and flapped her wings.

'Can you find him, Hedwig?' pleaded Hermione. Hedwig hooted and set off immediately through the window. Ron and Hermione watched her disappear in to the night.

'We should go and tell Hagrid,' said Hermione a moment later. Ron nodded and they set off, feeling that maybe there was hope after all.

There were no wailing sounds as they approached Hagrid's hut, but when he opened the door, his eyes and as much of his face as they could see under all his shaggy hair were red and sore with weeping. He sniffed and wiped his nose with a gigantic spotted hanky.

'Hagrid, listen,' said Hermione as she and Ron rushed in. 'We went to the owlery and we have sent Hedwig to look for Harry!'

Hagrid looked at them doubtfully.

'Yeah, Hagrid,' started Ron, 'you know how much Hedwig loves Harrry, she'll track him down, somehow.'

'That might jus' work,' said Hagrid slowly. A look of hope spread across his face. 'I think I might put the kettle on.'

Over mugs of steaming tea, they chatted for about half an hour. It was the first time any of them had felt relaxed in days. When they left, Ron and Hermione met Professor McGonagall crossing the entrance hall and told her about Hedwig. She didn't seem to be as cheered by the news as Hagrid had been.

'Well, it's a long shot,' she said, almost to herself, 'but we must try every avenue... I will inform Professor Dumbledore of this. I will award Gryffindor one point for each of you. You have shown great initiative.'

Then she sent them off to Gryffindor tower where they got an early night and slept just a little better than recently.