The Real Story of Harry Potter

Chapter Five: The Three Broomsticks

As Hermione and I watched in horror, Voldemort transformed back into Dumbledore. "There, that's better. Now, Wormtail, you had better assume rat form and travel in my pocket."

"Yes, my lord." Within a split second, a rat stood in Pettigrew's place. Voldemort bent down, scooped him up, and placed him in the side pocket of his burgundy robe. Taking the Polyjuice Potion with him, he left through the other door.

Hermione and I stared at each other, still shocked. "What are we going to do?" she whispered.

"Enlist reinforcements," I said in a confident voice. However, my shaking hands betrayed me. "Oh my God, Hermione, you're going to have to help me. I'm a Muggle, remember, Voldemort could kill me like that."

"You're right, though, we should get some help. After all, I don't think an underage witch and a Muggle writer will be much good alone." She took a deep breath. "The best thing we can do now is to pretend we don't know anything about this. If You-Know...all right, if Voldemort knows, that's it for us. Now, I think we'd better meet Harry and the others at the Three Broomsticks like we said we would."

"Are we going to tell them?"

"I think we should. They'll have other ideas, and of course Harry will want to know. Now come on, before someone finds us in here."

We went back out the door we had come in and found ourselves in the corridor once more. "My broomstick's on the rack over there," said Hermione. "I only bought it last week...it's a second-hand Nimbus 2000. You can sit on the back and I'll steer, there should be room for both of us."

The second she kicked off the ground, my stomach gave a terrible lurch. "Hermione, do you suppose you could fly a bit more slowly?" I asked.

"I'm only doing seven miles per hour."

We flew over Hogsmeade, my stomach doing some sort of horrid dance in my abdomen. "Look, I don't think I'm cut out for flying. Maybe it's a Muggle thing. You don't suppose we could land and walk, do you?"

"No, we're almost there. See, it's the one with the golden rooftop."

We landed after anther tortuous minute. "All right," said Hermione, "we're here. I wonder if they've arrived yet....Joanne? Are you going to be sick?"

"No, I'm fine."

Inside the Three Broomsticks, we saw Harry and Ron at one of the back tables. "Oh, hello," said Ron, when he looked up from their game of wizard's chess and saw us. "Hagrid and Lupin aren't here yet. Hagrid wanted to but a new collar for Fang...don't know what happened to Lupin....are you all right? You look a tad green."

"She's been through a lot today," said Hermione, sitting down next to Harry. I took the seat next to Ron, and Hermione told them what we had seen.

"I should have known Voldemort was behind this," said Harry.

"Why," I asked, "did your scar hurt?"

"No. In fact, I think it's fading a bit."

"Did you have a dream or something?"

"No."

"Then why should you have known Voldemort was behind this?"

"Well," said Harry, "when has Voldemort ever NOT been behind something?"

"Good point."

At that moment, Hagrid and Remus came in together. Hermione, whose throat was beginning to sound sore, told them what she had told Harry and Ron.

Remus paled. "Everyone has always said Dumbledore's the only wizard Voldemort ever feared, and if now he's captured him...."

"Wish we knew Dumbledore's secret," said Ron miserably.

Hagrid had been very quite during Hermione's story and now he spoke. "Well," he said, "We can't take Dumbledore back now, or You-Know-Who'll know that we know he's up to summat. So we can't go an' try to ask him. But even if Professor Dumbledore is the only wizard You-Know-Who's scared of, there's still some pretty powerful ones out there who'd be on our side."

"But it has to be someone we can trust," said Remus. "Someone who we know for sure isn't a Death Eater, someone smart enough to defeat him. Not that you lot are all useless," he added, glancing hastily at Harry and Hermione, "but a brilliant fully trained wizard is more useful than a brilliant young one."

Harry looked up suddenly. "Sirius," he said. "Sirius, he's perfect. He's obviously clever, he and my dad were the two smartest students at Hogwarts in their day. And he escaped from Azkaban. And when it comes to someone we know isn't a Death Eater....well, you can't be less of a Death Eater than Sirius."

"Now we need to decide who'll convince him to help us," said Ron, with a crafty smile on his face. All eyes landed on Remus.

"Oh no, I'm not the one," he said. "He's too angry at me. No, it should be Harry."

"All right then, both of you," I said. "It should be easy too, I don't see why he shouldn't believe you."

"But what I don't understand," said Hermione, "is why Voldemort's after Joanne. What does a Muggle matter to him?"

"Oh come on Hermione, you're not that thick," said Ron.

"She's told the world all he's done, Hermione," said Hagrid. "Millions an' millions of people know who he is an' what he's done. There's some crazy Muggles out there, I can jus' see a group of 'em decidin' that the things in her books were real an' goin' out lookin' for Volde- I mean, You-Know-Who."

"We ought to all say his name," said Harry. "That's one advantage Dumbledore's got, he isn't afraid of his name."

"Don't know what got into me," said Hagrid. "I've never almos' said it before."

"Time to start," said Remus. "Repeat. Voldemort."

Hagrid looked scared out of his wits. "It's easy," said Harry. "I've said it loads of times and I'm not dead yet. Come on. Just the Vol part."

"Vol," whispered Hagrid.

"Now the de."

Hagrid began to sob. "I can't...it's too dangerous..."

Hermione patted him on the back. "That's all right. Now, we'd better get back to Hogwarts. Joanne, you're staying in the dorm with me.

Harry yawned. "NOT you," said Hermione, "you've got to go with Remus and get Sirius on our side. Now let's go. Don't worry," she said, when she saw the look on my face, "we'll walk to the basement of Honeydukes."

Chapter Six: Why Invisibility Cloaks Should Be Used With Caution

Half an hour later, we were gathered in Hermione's dormitory, discussing our plan. Hermione and I sat on her bed, Ron and Harry sat on Lavender's, Remus sat on Parvati's, and Hagrid, probably afraid of flattening a bed, stood by the door.

"I've already sent an owl to Sirius," said Harry. "He should be here in about half an hour. I told him that Remus and I wanted to talk to him. We'll talk in my dorm, I think."

"What's wrong with the common room?" asked Ron.

"Well," said Harry, giving Ron a pointed look, "I thought that after Remus and Sirius reconcile, they might want to be, you know, alone...."

"Look, Harry, we aren't so sex-crazed that the minute you leave us alone we'll be on each other," Remus said, glaring. "Besides, we wouldn't ever use someone else's room."

"Well, I give you permission," said Harry, but a look from Hermione told him to shut up.

"I think what we ought to do," said Hermione, "is try to settle out of court. Voldemort won't object, or else it would make him look too suspicious. And if we settle out of court, he can't send Joanne to Azkaban."

"He's got to have some sort of plan," said Remus, "some reason he wants to keep her and the rest of us alive for a while. Or else he'd have killed Dumbledore, us, and anyone else who isn't a Death Eater."

"We oughta get yer brother Percy on our side too, Ron," said Hagrid. "He's fully trained now, and he was Head Boy and everythin'."

"We should let McGonagall in on what we know, too," said Ron. "Oh, I wish we had some way to spy on Voldemort."

"There's the Invisibility Cloak," said Harry, "but that's too risky."

A large smile came over Hermione's face, and she began to dig under the bed.

"What're yeh lookin' for?" asked Hagrid.

"Probably some library book that details the ways to spy on and outwit a Dark Lord, something she picked up for light reading," said Ron, rolling his eyes.

"Shut up," came Hermione's voice from under the bed. She emerged a second later with a jar.

"If that's one of your fires in a jar, I don't think setting Voldemort on fire is going to work," said Ron.

"Ron, shut your mouth and use your brain for once," snapped Hermione. She pointed at the large brown beetle in the jar and raised one eyebrow.

"Hermione," said Harry, "you are a genius."

"I know."

"Could someone fill me in?" asked Remus.

"Hermione found out that Rita Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus, and is keeping her in that jar," I expalined. "She's perfect to use as a spy."

"Can we trust her, though?" asked Ron. "I mean, we don't know anything about whether she was ever a Death Eater or not."

"Good point," said Hermione, "but we'll keep her on hand."

"We should contact Alastor Moody too," said Remus. "An Auror like that should be a great help."

There was a knock on the door. "It's Sirius," said a voice from the other side. "Sorry I'm early."

"That's all right," said Harry. He turned to Hermione and me.

"Joanne, you and Hermione can put together a list of all the witches and wizards we should contact about this. And Ron, you can send them owls saying to meet us somewhere or another.....Diagon Alley, maybe, they can Apparate and we can use Floo Powder. Not Hogsmeade, where Voldemort will be. Don't tell them what it's about, in case the letter's intercepted."

He and Remus stood up and went out the door. Hagrid and Ron followed a second later, Hagrid saying he wanted to give Fang the new collar and Ron wanting to get Pigwidgeon from the owlry. Hemione and I were left alone.

Hermione turned to me. "Oh, sure, we get the paperwork. Let's see....McGonagall, Moody, probably Ron's dad...not Fudge, he's had enough opportunities to prove he isn't a stupid git and failed every one of them. Probably all the Hogwarts professors. Can you think of anyone else?"

"No."

We stopped talking for a second. We could hear voices coming from Harry's dormitory.

"I wonder what they're talking about," said Hermione. "Just out of curiosity..." She stopped and stared.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I think Harry left his Invisibility Cloak in the common room last night," she said. A devilish smile moved across her face. "Let's go and spy on them."

Giggling like two little girls, we tiptoed down to the common room and saw that Hermione was right. Our hands clamped over our smiles, we slipped on the cloak and went back upstairs.

"This is so childish," whispered Hermione.

"Do you think we shouldn't?"

"Of course not!"

Inside Harry's dormitory, Sirius was looking very grave. "We'll need as much help as we can get," he said. "But I agree with you, Harry, the best thing to do now is to pretend we know nothing."

Harry nodded. "I'll go find Ron and tell him you're back on our side," he said. He walked right past us and shut the door.

Hermione mouthed something to me. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought she mouthed, "Oh SHIT!"