Harry Potter and the Headsman's Hostage

Chapter 3
Confirmation

"When evil stalks upon the land
I'll neither hold nor stay me hand,
But fight to win a better day,
Over the hills and far away...."
-----"Over the Hills and Far Away,"
British Traditional, as sung by John Tams
on the "Richard Sharpe" series soundtrack

Harry's feet hit the ground hard, but he managed to keep his balance this time by leaning on Buckbeak. He glanced at the late afternoon sun to orient himself, then looked around. They had landed in the middle of a pasture, in a valley between two long, low ridges running from north to south. A hundred yards or so to the west, a small flock of sheep grazed beside the brook that ran down the center of the valley. "Perfect," Sirius said. "The Portkey's original endpoint should be just on the other side of that ridge." He pointed up the slope to the east of them.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Harry asked. "Let's get up to the top and have a look." He mounted his broom, and the others followed suit; then they kicked off and went skimming up the hill, just a few feet above the ground. Sirius held onto Buckbeak's tether as he flew, and the hippogriff paced him easily, spreading his powerful wings and covering the ground in long, gliding leaps.

They stopped just below the top of the ridge, in the shade of an enormous copper beech tree. The ends of its lowest branches hung within a couple of feet of the ground, forming a dense canopy of leaves that concealed the clear space around the ten-foot-thick trunk. Sirius tethered Buckbeak to one of the low-hanging limbs, then walked stealthily to the far edge of the canopy, donned the invisibility cloak, and stepped out to look down the east side of the ridge. After a moment he returned.

"There's an old stone cottage down there, about a quarter of a mile away," he said, "with three wizards in masks sitting around a table outside it."

"Let's find out how many are inside," said Lupin. He reached into yet another inner pocket of his robes and pulled out what looked like a pair of small brass binoculars sporting numerous odd knobs and dials.

"Those look like Omnioculars," Harry observed.

"They're the ones you bought me at the World Cup last summer," said Hermione. "I loaned them to Professor Lupin a while ago."

"They're another of our little projects, like the Untraceable Portkeys," said Sirius. "What with the price on my head, and Remus's lycanthropy making him unwelcome just about everywhere, we've had a lot of time on our hands lately; we've been spending it doing magical research. Hermione and the Weasley twins have been helping some, too. What we did with the Omnis was to put some of the same charms on them that Mad-Eye Moody used to make his magical eye. You can come and have a look, if you want."

"Thanks," said Harry. He got under the voluminous cloak along with Sirius and Lupin, and they moved carefully out from under the tree. At the very top of the ridge, they lay prone in the grass, still covered by the cloak. Lupin looked through the Omnioculars, adjusted a couple of knobs, and kept looking for a moment before handing them to Sirius. After half a minute or so, Sirius passed them to Harry.

He could already see the three figures Sirius had described; they were sitting around a small, round table in the yard in front of the ancient, one-story cottage. There were also a couple of lounge chairs in the yard. Harry shook his head. Death Eaters meeting in abandoned graveyards in the dead of night he could accept, but the idea of Death Eaters relaxing in lounge chairs in broad daylight required a little rearrangement of his own mental furniture.

He lifted the Omnioculars to his eyes. The three men at the table appeared to be playing some kind of card game. He noticed that in the view through the Omnioculars each of them was limned in a faint, red-orange glow. "What's that?" he whispered to Sirius. "That red aura around them?"

"Their body heat," Sirius replied. "It lets you see people in the dark. Try focusing on the inside of the cottage, you'll see what I mean."

Harry pointed the Omnioculars at the stone wall and adjusted the focus; the wall appeared to become transparent, and he could see the interior of the cottage. The front door led into a large room with a bare wooden floor, furnished with a simple wooden table and chairs, and a small, rough cot. Harry could see two people in the room, their warm glow far more pronounced in the relatively dim interior light: a black-robed man sitting in a chair beside the cot, resting a great double-bladed battleaxe across his knees, and a petite, slender girl who lay on the cot before him, her wrists and ankles bound with leather thongs. Harry felt a moment of profound relief, immediately replaced by a surge of renewed fear: Cho was alive, but the axeman could kill her in seconds if he suspected they were there. They'll have to take him out first, he thought. Good thing we've got my cloak here....

There were two doors on opposite sides of the room; Harry shifted the Omnioculars to see what was behind them. One led to a bedroom with twin beds. Behind the other was a flight of narrow wooden stairs leading down to a cellar. He refocused to look through the floor. The cellar was dark and empty; he could just make out food stored on shelves at one side of the room, and cloaks hanging from a row of hooks on the other, but no telltale glows of body heat.

He looked back at the main room of the cottage, trying to work out which window would offer the best vantage point from which to fire a Stunning Spell at the Death Eater, and noticed something odd; there were two lanterns in the room, one on the table and one hanging above the cot, and they both burned with a weird, deep purple flame. Adjusting the focus, he saw that there were more of the odd lanterns outside - one on the table where the other three death eaters sat, and three others hanging from tall, hooked posts around the yard. "What are those lanterns?" Harry whispered.

"Let me see," Sirius said. Harry handed over the Omnioculars, and his godfather looked through them again. After a moment, he muttered, "Bloody hell. Well, we can forget about using the invisibility cloak down there."

"What?" Harry exclaimed, keeping his voice down to a harsh whisper with some effort. "Why?"

"The light from those would make it glow like a giant firefly," Sirius replied. "I should have figured they'd do something like that. Voldemort must know you own the cloak - Wormtail and young Crouch both saw you use it. They'd expect you to arrive wearing it. Come on, let's get back in the shade and work out how we're going to tackle this."

They carefully crawled backwards, staying under the cloak, until they were out of sight of the cottage. Then they stood and walked back into the lee of the giant copper beech.

Harry told Ron and Hermione what they had seen. "Four of them against the two of you?" Ron said, when Harry had finished. "I don't much care for those odds."

"Neither do I," Lupin admitted. "And we can't use the cloak; stealth is out, so it'll have to be speed. What do you think, Sirius?"

"I think we can probably take them, but it's going to be tricky. It would be better if we had some help. I'd give a lot to have Dumbledore or Moody here right now. Or Charlie Weasley - he probably has the fastest reflexes in the Order."

"I'd settle for Mundungus Fletcher," Lupin said. "Or even Snape."

Harry cleared his throat. "Excuse me, but do you remember who was flying rings around the two of you not an hour ago?"

"Harry--" Sirius began, warningly, but Harry interrupted him.

"Hear me out, all right? We can send Ron and Hermione back to this headquarters of yours for reinforcements. If they send help, fine, I'll stay out of this. But if they can't get anyone here by sunset, then I come down the hill with you. You know I'm good at fighting from a broomstick; I just spent the afternoon proving it. I won't simply stand by and wait while you maybe get yourselves and Cho killed."

Lupin glared at him, but Sirius looked thoughtful. "You know, he does have a point, Remus," he said. "It's his friend that's in danger down there, and it's because of him that they kidnapped her; we can't pretend he doesn't have a stake in this. And he's right about his dueling skills, too; we've just seen it."

"You've got a point," Lupin admitted. "All right, Harry, we'll do it your way."

"Hang on," said Ron. "Only one of us has to go back." Hermione nodded, and they both stared defiantly at Sirius and Lupin.

"No," said Lupin. "You both go. Neither of you is the duelist Harry is; you'd be as likely to get in the way as to help."

"You know that's not true," Hermione said. "It's true that neither of us is a match for Harry, but we can hold our own. Anyway, someone should ride Buckbeak, if you want him to fight. He won't be nearly as much help to you without someone to direct him, and all three of you should fight from your brooms - you've had more practice at that."

"Then it had better be Ron," said Harry. "You don't like riding Buckbeak."

"Oh, it's not that bad," said Hermione quickly. "Not now that I've had time to get to know him - I've been helping Sirius look after him at headquarters for the last month. It's better than a broom, actually; with Buckbeak, I can see what's keeping me in the air."

"Which means," said Sirius, "if only one person goes back, it has to be Ron."

"Why me?" Ron protested.

Lupin replied, "Because your mother will skin the pair of us for rugs if we don't send you back. We're going to be in enough trouble as it is for involving Harry and Hermione in this. Now take the Portkey and go!" He pulled a large quill from his pocket and handed it to Ron, then touched it with his wand. "Portus." Ron vanished instantly.

"All right," said Sirius to Harry and Hermione. "If we're lucky, he'll be back with reinforcements, and you two won't have to do a thing. But just in case we're not, we ought to have a battle plan. Remus, what do you think?"

Lupin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I know Harry suggested attacking at sunset," he said. "That does make sense, since we'd be coming at them out of the sun; it might take them longer to spot us. The problem is, tonight the full moon rises before the sun sets; if we wait that long, I'm going to transform."

Sirius considered that. "You know, that might not be such a bad thing," he said, slowly. "I mean, in wolf form you're immune to most spells, right?"

"That's true," Lupin acknowledged. "Werewolves are immune to pretty much anything short of an Unforgivable Curse or a silver weapon. I suppose if you already have Harry with you, I might be more help to you in wolf form than on a broomstick."

"My thought exactly. No offense to your dueling skills, Moony, but I think you'd be at least as effective as a wolf, especially at close quarters with opponents on the ground."

"I'd have to be careful not to bite anyone, though; I don't think we really need to be creating any werewolf Death Eaters."

"Or, if you do bite anyone, make sure it's fatal," said Sirius grimly.

Lupin nodded. "I can live with that."

Sirius's smile could have frozen firewhisky. "Considering where any prisoners we take will be spending the rest of their lives, we might be doing them a favor if we simply killed the lot of them."

"You would know. Still, it would be nice to have them available for questioning."

"True. That might even convince old Fudge to pull his head out of the sand... or wherever it is he's keeping it these days...."

"All right," said Harry. "So we attack at sunset, after Lupin transforms. What are our tactics?"

"You and I ride in on our brooms, fast as they'll carry us. We try to Stun the ones in the garden as we pass over them, but our main target is the house. How are you at the Reductor Curse?"

"I can do it in my sleep. I spent a lot of time practicing that one before the Third Task."

"Good. We go straight for the door and blast it open, then Stun the axeman. Then we turn around and deal with any of the others we didn't hit on the way in. We'll send the Bludgers down just ahead of us, and Lupin will be right behind us; that should keep them busy."

"What about Buckbeak and me?" Hermione asked.

"You're our reserve," Lupin told her. "Buckbeak's a lot bigger than a broomstick, and he can't fly as fast; if you fly down with us, they'll probably spot us a lot sooner, and we'll lose the element of surprise. You get in the air as soon as we hit them, and fly down to help Lupin deal with the three outdoors... unless all of us are Stunned or killed going in. I'm going to make Buckbeak's collar into a Portkey that will take you both back to headquarters; if worse comes to worst, use it, then send help as soon as you possibly can."

Hermione nodded tightly. "All right. I don't like it, but I suppose getting caught or killed myself won't help you any."

"Exactly," Lupin said. "That's another reason we sent Ron back instead of you. You're better at listening to reason."

She nodded again. "Thanks. I think I'll get to work on those Bludgers." She knelt next to the case with the Quidditch set and opened it.

"Good. I'll set up the Portkey, then go back out and keep an eye on things." Lupin walked over to Buckbeak and aimed his wand at the hippogriff's collar, murmuring an incantation. "There," he said to Hermione. "It's got a bit of a delay, so you can't trigger it by accident; you'll have to hold onto it for a good five seconds to make it work."

She looked up long enough to say, "Thanks, Professor," then returned her attention to the Bludgers. Lupin vanished back under Harry's cloak; a moment later, the outer branches of the tree rustled as he emerged from under the canopy.

Sirius sat down on the mossy ground, leaning against the tree's enormous trunk. Harry, lacking anything better to do, sat next to him, drawing up his knees and crossing his arms.

"Tell me about this friend of yours, Harry," said Sirius.

Harry sighed. "She's not really my friend," he replied. "I've barely even spoken to her. But she's the prettiest girl I've ever met. She's a terrific Seeker - gave me a real run for my money in the last Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match, even though I had my Firebolt and she was riding a Comet Two Sixty. She seems nice, too. She always smiles at me in the halls, she went out of her way to say hi to me at the World Cup, and she never wore one of those stupid "Support Cedric Diggory" buttons even when most of her friends had them. And..." Harry started blushing in spite of himself. "This might be wishful thinking, I guess, but she seemed really disappointed that she couldn't go to the ball with me. I keep wondering what would have happened if I'd asked her before Cedric did. I don't know... maybe it wouldn't have worked out anyway. I mean, what do I know about girls?"

Sirius shrugged. "Every man has to learn some time."

"I guess so. Anyway, I ended up taking Parvati Patil to the ball, but I'm afraid she didn't have a very good time; she wanted to dance, and I'm no good at dancing. I would have tried with Cho, though. I keep thinking... if she'd been going out with me, instead of Cedric, she wouldn't have gotten her heart broken when he died." Harry hunched forward, pulling up his knees and hiding his face in his arms. "I don't know, that doesn't seem right, somehow, but I can't help thinking about it."

Sirius rested a hand on his shoulder. "Do you blame yourself for his death?"

Harry looked up at him. "No... yes... I don't know. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but he still wouldn't have died if it hadn't been for me. Just like Cho. If not for me, she wouldn't be tied up in there, waiting for those murdering bastards to, to--" He choked, unable to finish the thought.

Sirius squeezed his shoulder hard for a moment before letting his hand fall. "We're going to get her out, Harry. You couldn't save Cedric, and there's no shame in that; sometimes there's nothing you can do. But we will save Cho. I promise."

"I can't stand this waiting," Harry muttered. "All the while she's lying down there, not knowing we're here, imagining who knows what...."

"I know, Harry. I hate it too. But we have to give Ron a chance to get help. Wouldn't you rather have Dumbledore or Moody here?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I've hardly met the real Moody, you know."

"True, but you know what he's like; Crouch did a perfect job of pretending to be him, otherwise he could never have fooled Dumbledore. Anyway, as I said, I think we can take these scum, but it would be a lot easier if there were more of us."

"All right. Let's just hope that Ron finds someone to send."

They lapsed into silence then, each lost in his own thoughts. Harry found himself brooding on Cedric's death. Was Sirius right, he wondered? Had there really been nothing he could have done?

They'd seen Wormtail coming, it was true, but they hadn't known who he was. With his small stature, and the bundle containing Voldemort's feeble form, he had looked like a woman carrying a baby. The first sign Harry had had that things were not as they seemed was the flaring pain in his scar, which had been so bad that he dropped his wand and collapsed. Looking back, it was obvious that he and Cedric should have Stunned first and asked questions later - but could they really have attacked what looked like a mother and infant?

If I'd been thinking faster, he thought bitterly, it might have occurred to me to wonder what anyone would be doing with a baby in that graveyard at night. I wasn't nearly as paranoid as I should have been, after being hauled away from Hogwarts by an unexpected Portkey. I wish I'd listened to Moody... except of course he wasn't Moody.... He almost laughed at the irony of it: had he taken the false Moody's lessons more to heart, he might have foiled the man's own scheme.

Then, as if in answer to these thoughts, he thought he could hear Cedric's voice in the back of his mind: I didn't do anything either, Harry - not even after you screamed and fell over.

Harry sat bolt upright. "Cedric?" he whispered, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Maybe. Maybe there's still an echo of me clinging to you from the Priori Incantatem spell. Or more likely, maybe this is just you telling yourself what you already know but refuse to admit.

Yeah, Harry thought. And maybe this is just me going quietly insane.

You're not insane, Harry; you're just under a lot of stress.

Lovely. The voice of someone I saw die is talking to me in my head, telling me I'm not crazy. That's really convincing, you know.

The voice was silent for a moment; Harry imagined Cedric shrugging his shoulders. Then it said, You shouldn't blame yourself, Harry.

So everyone keeps telling me, Harry thought irritably. It's just... your shade helped me fight Voldemort; I never would have gotten out of that graveyard otherwise. I wish....

I know. It wasn't just me, though, and we didn't only do it for you. All of us - me, the old Muggle, Bertha Jorkins, your parents... we all had a score to settle with Voldemort. Helping you escape was the least we could do. Anyway, you risked your life to bring my body back to my family. As far as I'm concerned, we're square.

Harry shook his head. It seems a poor payment for saving my life.

All right Harry, said the voice. If that isn't enough... think about where you are and what you're doing. I loved Cho, and if I were there, I'd be getting ready to do exactly the same thing you are. Get her out of that place alive, and we're square, once and for all - all debts cancelled. All right?

Fair enough, thought Harry. The voice fell silent.

The minutes crept by with no sign of Ron or anyone else from the Order. The light filtering through the leaves turned golden, then orange as the sun sank toward the horizon. At last, Lupin stepped back into the lee of the copper beech, shedding the Invisibility Cloak as he came.

"Any minute now," he said. "They're still where they were when you last looked - three outside, one inside with Cho."

"The Bludgers are ready," said Hermione, coming around the tree trunk. "All I have to do is point them at the Death Eaters."

"All right," said Sirius. "Let's go."