Harry Potter and the Simulacrum Seal

Chapter 13: The Simulacrum Seal

'Hand over the bag, Potter,' repeated Snape. He sneered and held out one hand, the other holding his wand, and Harry's muscles tightened in anticipation. 'I don't have time to bother with you - you can keep all your limbs attached if you give me the bag now.'

'Snape,' said Harry, sneering right back. His chest was tight as conflicting emotions jockeyed for supremacy; hatred was quickly overcoming the more transient feelings of surprise and - though Harry would not have admitted it - fear.

'Indeed, idiot boy!' Snape said. His nostrils flared with anger, and he gazed at Harry venomously as he took a confident step forward. 'Give me the bag!' he insisted.

They raised their wands simultaneously, but Snape cast first. Without a word, a small bead of red light formed at the tip of Snape's wand. Instinctively, Harry yelled, 'Protego!'

A jet of red light blasted out of Snape's wand and bounced off the barely-formed Shield Charm barrier. Harry recognized the focused look in Snape's eyes as he prepared another incantation and dived off the steps in ample time to avoid it. The spell hit the door with a thump.

Harry pushed himself to his feet; blood pounded in his veins as he raised his wand and cast another Shield Charm. Snape cast another spell, but it also bounced ineffectually off the barrier.

Harry could tell, from great experience, that Snape was frustrated and impatient; the next spell, he knew, would not be one Harry could block with a mere Shield Charm. 'Relashio!' Harry yelled.

Snape cast the countercurse thoughtlessly and pointed his wand at Harry again. Harry desperately ran through and discarded options in his mind, knowing he had nowhere to go for cover, and he couldn't dodge Snape forever.

Then the door to Grimmauld Place was thrown open, and a burst of red light slammed into Snape, knocking him several feet backward into the street. Hermione stepped outside onto the top step, and Harry briefly nodded to her in thanks. They both focused their wands on Snape and - wordlessly in Hermione's case - cast their own spells at him. As his spell left his wand, Harry enthusiastically considered the prospect of Snape's capture and interrogation.

But Snape cast his own Shield Charm in the nick of time, and both spells bounced off, disappointing Harry more than he cared to admit. Snape immediately cast a spell Harry hadn't seen before, a wide beam of light that caught Harry in the chest and knocked the wind out of him. It hit Hermione in the knees, as she was higher up, and she fell hard onto the pavement.

'I don't have time for this!' Snape's face contorted in anger, and he angrily stalked over to Harry, casting another spell in Hermione's direction that encased her in ice.

Harry didn't care what he had to do - he didn't even care if he died - he would not let Snape get what he wanted. The bag was his mum's. He raised his wand again.

'You can't stop me, Potter,' said Snape, stopping some feet short. 'Hand me the bag.'

'Why don't you take it from me?' replied Harry, snarling.

'Crucio!'

Harry screamed and contorted in pain. His legs gave way as sparks exploded in his eyes, and he clawed at the dirt beneath his hands.

The spell stopped quickly. Harry gasped for breath. 'Give me the bag,' Snape repeated.

'No,' replied Harry, his voice strained. He swallowed blood from his bitten tongue. Why was Snape still asking him? He could just rip the bag from Harry's grasp with a spell.

Unless he can't, Harry realized. 'You'll have to take it by force.'

Snape's glare was briefly unsure, which seemed to confirm Harry's suspicion. If he could take the bag without Harry's permission, he surely would have done so by now. There had to be some sort of charm or curse or ward on the bag stopping him.

'You can't, can you? You can't take it unless I give it to you. Then you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands...and I doubt your master would like that much.' Snape wouldn't kill him or permanently harm him because Voldemort wanted him for himself, so Harry was absolutely safe, and he would gladly hold out over any amount of pain if it meant being victorious over Snape.

But then Snape pointed his wand in the direction of the doorway. 'I'll kill Miss Granger if you don't. Hand it over.'

If only it were just Harry and Snape...but Hermione was there, so Harry knew he had no choice but to give up the bag. He pushed himself to his feet with some effort, the muscles in his shoulder reluctantly agreeing to bear the bag's weight again. 'You bastard,' said Harry, but the words gave him no comfort as he reluctantly took a step forward.

Snape raised his head triumphantly as he closed the rest of the distance between them. 'You couldn't have opened it anyway, Potter,' he said, his face contorted arrogantly as his hand closed over the handle of the heavy satchel.

His fingers brushed against Harry's, and the revulsion this triggered made Harry grasp the bag tighter. Spontaneously, his hand curling around his wand, Harry punched Snape as hard as he could in the face. Snape instantly let go of the bag and took a step back, clutching his bloodied nose and moaning in shock. He raised his wand again in Harry's direction, and Harry felt the full force of a powerful Cruciatus.

But it ended instantly, and Harry heard several loud pops all around him that caused a tiny bubble of hope to form. Snape turned, and as the wands of several Order members trained on him, he Disapparated. Moody's spell only barely missed him; it passed through where Snape's head had been and left a blackened burn mark on the side of the house.

Remus rushed over to Harry and helped him stand up; Harry hadn't even realized he wasn't on his feet, and smiled slightly in thanks. Moody, meanwhile, quickly freed a shivering Hermione from her icy casing. Harry and Remus helped Hermione to her feet, and Harry opened the door for her, worried as he watched her shiver.

'Are you all r-r-r-ight, Harry?' asked Hermione, her teeth chattering.

'I'm fine,' said Harry, getting up. It was true, but the suddenness with which the battle had ended and the lack of any satisfying conclusion for either himself or Snape left Harry feeling uneasy.

He looked past Remus and saw several other members of the Order trailing behind, and felt compelled to explain. 'Snape -' he said.

'He Disapparated as we were arriving!' bellowed Moody. 'That traitorous scum! He doesn't even have the nerve to face me like a man!' His wooden leg tapped angrily against the step outside.

'We're blocking the doorway,' said Remus, trying to diffuse the situation. They moved inside, and the other Order members followed after them.

'You're back!' said Ron, grinning as he walked down the stairs. His face fell as he noted Harry's dishevelled appearance and Hermione's face, red with cold. 'What happened?'

'Long story,' said Harry curtly. Mrs Black shouted obscenities at them all, and Remus soon left Harry's side to help Moody pull her curtains tightly shut.

***

Ron was furious when he heard about Snape's appearance; he crossed his arms and glared at the floor. 'I should've been there,' he said acidly.

'Me too,' Neville agreed. 'All of us together could have taken him down.'

'Oh, I don't really think so,' commented Luna. Ron and Neville glared at her.

'How did Snape even know about the bag?' wondered Remus aloud, sitting back in the old armchair. The room was packed with a half-dozen Order members, Harry, a magically-warmed Hermione, and every other occupant of the house who happened to be at home. The Order members had conjured up their own seating - except for Tonks, who sat cross-legged on the floor.

'We have another spy in our midst!' Moody announced, pointing his finger around the room. 'One of us is working for -'

'Moody, please,' said Remus, raising his voice to speak over him. 'We don't know that for certain. There is no basis on which to accuse anyone. It's entirely possible that Snape learned of this through a source completely outside of the Order. The Ministry obviously knew about the rendezvous as well, after all.'

Moody did not reply to this, but his magical eye twitched.

'I agree with Remus,' said Harry. He didn't dare to look in Moody's direction again in case it made him think he was being ganged up on, but he locked eyes with every other Order member in the room, one by one, as he added, 'Someone in the Ministry could've tipped off Voldemort instead. I trust everyone in this room with my life.'

A collective ripple of discomfort went through the Order members at the sound of Lord Voldemort's name, but it was overridden quickly by smiles at Harry's confidence in them. 'So what's in the bag?' asked Tonks.

The bag sat atop Harry's lap. He looked down at it. 'I don't know. I suppose I should try to open it.'

Remus stood up. 'Set it down on the floor and try to open it with a spell.' He was frowning and gazing at the bag with distinct suspicion.

'It was my mum's, Remus,' Harry replied. 'It's not dangerous!'

'If it were as innocent as that, Snape and the Ministry wouldn't have had any interest in it,' Hermione pointed out.

'I really want to see what's in it - um, unless you would rather be alone?' said Tonks. She was clearly hoping otherwise.

Harry smiled. 'No, that's fine - but I'm going to open it by hand, Remus.' He set the bag down on the floor and could feel many pairs of eyes focusing avidly on his actions as he slipped the leather strap on the left side out of the loop holding it down.

He then tried to pull the strap through the brass buckle, but the buckle burned his fingertips as he touched it, and his hand darted away in surprise. 'Ouch,' said Harry. Remus moved forward in alarm, but Harry waved him off dismissively. 'It's okay, I'm fine ... but it's too hot to touch.'

Harry reached for his wand and pointed it at the bag, but before he could try to undo the buckle with magic, a green glow came out of the top. Everyone stepped back, including Harry, and they watched as the glow swirled around the top, moving up several feet.

As it neared the ceiling, the misty light took form. It moved into the shape of a human torso, with legs and arms filling with light and growing increasingly bright as the process continued. Soon feet, hands, and fingertips could be seen, and out of the green head atop the torso, thousands of thin tendrils resembling hair fell to the torso's back.

After the shape was fully formed it took on colour - again starting with the torso and moving outward, a blot of black ink streaming into the shape of robes and turning into pale skin as it ran up the neck. The tendrils of green light turned to soft red and lost their brightness as they settled into the texture of human hair.

Harry continued to kneel motionlessly by the bag, looking up at the person taking form. It had been clear to him since the shape took on feminine curves who it was most likely to be, and anticipation was making it hard for him to breathe. Mum, Mum, Mum ...

He gazed up at her breathlessly as the woman's lips curved into a kind smile. She looked down at Harry, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the room, just as Harry was. Their eyes locked, and Harry's mother spoke to him for the first time he could remember.

'Hello,' she said simply.

'Oh Harry,' said Ginny, her fingers covering her mouth. 'Is that ...' She did not finish; the look in Harry's eyes made the answer obvious.

'Any further attempt to open this bag by force will result in its implosion,' said Lily, the emotionless words not fitting at all with the way she looked or the way her eyes sparkled into Harry's own.

'Impossible,' stated Remus, standing up and moving just close enough to reach his arm out to touch her. His fingers met her arm - and passed right through.

'It's a simulacrum,' whispered Hermione. Her hand fell lightly onto Harry's shoulder. 'She's not real, Harry.'

'But she's very pretty,' said Luna. 'She looks like she was very nice when she was alive.'

Well, of course she's not real, Harry said, chastising himself for his silly, hopeful reaction. Yet, even knowing that, he couldn't tear his eyes away from her.

On the other hand, the simulacrum's eyes left Harry's without a moment's pause, and said, 'Quite right.' There was, again, no emotion behind her words. 'I am an image of Lily Potter, the owner of the contents.'

Remus, who had still been holding out his hand, retracted it, and sat back down. 'Lily Potter is dead,' he said to the cold, silent room.

Lily turned to him next, still smiling. 'Regardless, the contents are not yours.'

'I'm her son,' said Harry quietly. 'I suppose they must be mine.'

'I'm sorry, but no,' she replied. Harry's brow furrowed in dismay. Her expression turned remorseful. 'You may only access the contents if you answer the question correctly.'

'What question?' asked Hermione instantly.

The eyes of Lily's simulacrum caught Harry's again. Her lips straightened, and she gazed down at him with forceful seriousness. 'What do you wish to do with the contents?'

'I ...' Harry paused, then answered, truthfully, 'I don't know.'

The simulacrum's neutral smile returned. 'A fair answer, but not one for which I can release the contents to you.'

'What's in the bag?' asked Harry. 'I can't tell you what I want to do with it unless I know what's in it.'

'I cannot say,' she shrugged.

Hermione frowned. 'Don't you know?'

She smiled a little. 'I know...but I can't tell.'

'Can you give us a clue?' pressed Hermione.

Again, the image appeared remorseful. Its lips formed a slight pout, and its chin tilted downward. But there was a mechanical quality to its actions that Harry hadn't noticed before, as though all its expressions and movements were patterns it was forced to follow. Its mood changed with every question asked, which just wasn't normal. 'I'm afraid not.'

'Can we ask as many times as we want?' asked Tonks calmly from behind, not having moved from her cross-legged position.

Harry felt bereft when the image turned its back to him. Although he kept reminding himself that it was not his mother, its lack of any particular regard for him was unexplainably painful - as though his mother's love ought to somehow, magically, be extended to this image of her too.

'Yes,' the simulacrum, 'so long as you do not try to force the bag open.'

'Fair enough,' said Tonks, looking gamely about the room. 'We ought to be able to crack this.'

'Perhaps we should ask Harry how he wants to proceed,' said Remus pointedly.

The image turned back to Harry, and he swallowed. 'I'd like to see what's inside,' he said.

The simulacrum, taking this as a reply, answered, 'Curiosity, while a valuable trait, is not the answer required. Good try, though,' it added, smiling in a way that might have been encouraging but instead made Harry's stomach churn.

'She's very lifelike,' Hermione said in awe.

'Thank you,' the image replied.

'Simulacrums are very advanced magic,' began Hermione. 'Usually they can't talk at all, but this one speaks and moves almost like a real person. I read a treatise on lifelike simulacrum charms a few months ago...'

Harry, disgust and anger overriding curiosity, changed his mind. 'I've had enough of this,' he snapped. He did want to open the bag, but he couldn't stand looking at his mother's unfeeling ghost anymore - it was morbid. Did my mother ever think that I would find this - after she was long dead? Or was she planning on picking it up a few days after she left it?

The coldness of the simulacrum's reactions made Harry certain that it wasn't something his mother had meant for him to find, and that pricked his heart. It wasn't her, and Harry knew that he shouldn't hold the simulacrum's lack of love for him against his mother, but it was painful nevertheless.

'Then I will withdraw,' said the simulacrum. 'I hope to see you again soon - when you have found the answer.' With that, the simulacrum instantaneously reverted to a beam of green light and shrank back into the satchel. Then even the light from the satchel died out.

Harry couldn't stop himself from reaching out to touch the bag. He pressed his fingers gently into the cold brown leather, barely hearing the voices around him and not understanding any of what they chattered about until his own name reached his emotion-fogged brain.

'Harry,' said Remus again. Harry blinked and snapped his wrist away from the bag, then turned to Remus and looked at him blankly. 'I'm very sorry,' he said so quietly that Harry could hardly hear him over the excited and curious talk of the others.

'It's all right, Remus,' said Harry louder. 'I'll look at it later.'

Moody's magical eye spun towards Harry even as he continued speaking to another Order member. Harry glared at it, and Moody stopped his conversation to give Harry his full attention. 'Quite all right, Potter,' he said. 'No harm in waiting a bit.'

'We should ask Bill to take a look at it,' Ron suggested timidly, avoiding Harry's look. 'He's a curse-breaker, after all. He should be able to open it.'

'An excellent suggestion,' Remus opined. He leaned over to pick up the bag, glancing intently at Harry to make sure it was all right. Harry barely nodded, and Remus grunted as he lifted it. 'I'll put this somewhere safe in the house, and we can get Bill to examine it when he gets back from Gringotts. Meanwhile, we need to find Kitty York again. Lily may have told her how to open the bag.'

Hearing his mum's name in conversation was strange for Harry. He'd never thought that the day would turn out like this.

Remus walked away with the satchel. Harry bristled at all the sympathetic glances directed toward him, even from Hermione and Ron. 'Well, thanks to everyone for helping out,' said Harry tonelessly. 'I'm going to go upstairs and wash up, if you don't mind.'

***

Bill did not arrive until late that evening - and when he did arrive, he insisted on eating first once he caught a whiff of Mrs Weasley's cooking. 'I love Fleur, but...' he said, and everyone understood, though not everyone was patient. Hermione stared at Bill's plate throughout dinner, as though willing the food into his stomach so he could get to work on the simulacrum.

As soon as he finished, she said, 'Can I watch? Please?' Bill nodded, and she went with him and Remus to fetch the bag.

Harry briefly considered joining them, but he decided he would be quite happy to never see the simulacrum again. He regretted his decision after about an hour with no news of their progress, but was stubborn enough to continue staring at the Occlumency book in his hands and pretend to be reading. Neville, Ron, and Luna waited with him, Luna engrossed in the latest Quibbler and Neville and Ron playing wizard chess.

Bill, Hermione, and Remus emerged nearly an hour after that. Their faces told Harry immediately that they had been unsuccessful. 'There's good news and bad news,' said Bill, dropping the bag onto the table. 'The good news is that I could easily destroy the simulacrum and unseal the bag.'

'That sounds good,' said Ron, frowning, 'so what's the bad news?'

'The bad news is that I don't think there's anything in the bag at all,' said Bill.

Harry snorted. 'Tell that to my sore arm.'

'Oh, it weighs as much as a ton of bricks, all right,' Bill agreed, 'but that's just to throw us off the scent.'

'That doesn't make any sense,' said Ron stubbornly.

Hermione beamed. 'It makes all sorts of sense!' she said excitedly, and she went on as though she could hold herself back no longer. 'She - Harry's mum - put the information into the simulacrum itself! Whatever is inside is only there to throw us off - it's only there to make us think the contents are important, when it's really the spell itself! That way if anyone manages to turn the spell off, the knowledge inside will be destroyed, making it virtually impervious to theft!'

'Clever,' remarked Moody, startling the room with his arrival.

'Containing information within a spell itself is a ploy going back to the dawn of wizardry,' remarked Bill to Moody. 'It's all well and good if you can break the spell to unlock whatever's inside, but if the spell itself holds the knowledge sought, counterspells are counterproductive.'

'But how can you be sure?' asked Ron sceptically.

Bill sighed. 'There's no way to be sure, but if I'm right, there would be no way to undo the damage to the simulacrum I would inflict by opening the bag forcibly. It's not worth the risk.'

'We'll just have to play by its rules,' said Hermione. 'As Tonks said, I'm sure we can crack it if we try hard enough. Surely Lily didn't want to make it impossible.'

Shaking his head, Bill said, 'I wouldn't be so sure about that. This bag may have been meant for her eyes only.'

'So why would the Ministry want it?' demanded Harry. 'If it's supposed to be personal, why is everyone else so interested in it - and why now?'

'Who knows?' said Moody, grumbling angrily. 'It's those damnable Unspeakables at it again...'

'Moody -'

'Don't you "Moody" me, boy!' Moody said angrily to Remus. A dam in Moody's mind seemed to break at that moment, and he said, loudly, 'Merlin, when I was an Auror, I wished the whole bloody Department of Mysteries would collapse on top of those Unspeakables and their petty little secrets! They've always refused to share even critical information - information that could save the lives of civilians and Aurors alike! And if it weren't for the leeway they're allowed and the utter lack of supervision, Augustus Rookwood could have been caught years before his identity was divulged in the trials! His spies infest the Ministry to this day! Lily Potter was the only Unspeakable I've ever managed to have a civil conversation with! The rest of them would be better off transfigured into newts!'

'Harry's mum was an Unspeakable?' Ron blurted out. 'You never said so,' he said to Harry.

'I didn't know.'

Moody's magical eye spun in his head as his real one widened in surprise. 'She left the job before you were born,' he hurried to say, 'and I meant no offence to her, of course.'

'I didn't know, either,' said Remus, frowning at Moody. 'She said she worked in the Being Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.'

'I didn't even know that much,' said Harry with a hint of accusation in his tone.

'It didn't seem important,' said Remus. 'She didn't work there long; as Moody said, she stopped working a few months before you were born.'

'She did work in the Being Division,' explained Moody. 'There was a joint project in the Being Division with the Unspeakables for a while - something to do with Dementors, I heard, but there were all sorts of rumours - but the project was stopped, and Mrs Potter was transferred to the Department of Mysteries. I only know about it because of a bit of information she passed to the Order while she was there.'

'Wow, so there could be all sorts of Ministry secrets in there,' remarked Ron. 'No wonder they want it back.'

Hermione looked thoughtful. 'I don't know if that's all there is to it,' she said slowly. 'Snape must have been awfully desperate for it to have come back to Grimmauld Place. Besides, any Ministry secrets in the bag would have to be older than Harry.'

'It's getting late,' said Bill, interrupting the discussion, 'and I really have to get back home. I'll see you lot around.'

'Yes, I suppose I should be off as well,' said Moody. 'I only stopped by to see if that bag was opened up yet...looks like you have much more work to do. It will be a good test for you, Potter.'

'Yeah, we're always up for a good mystery,' said Ron unenthusiastically.

To Ron and Harry, Hermione spoke quietly, 'As if we need another one.'

***

Harry simply couldn't sleep that night. His chest was tight with an unpleasant amount of curiosity and helplessness. His mother had been an Unspeakable. She had worked in the Department of Mysteries. For all he knew, her whole life was laid out in the bag at the foot of his bed with his trunk - and he couldn't open it. He felt cheated.

When he was quite certain that Ron was fast asleep, Harry shifted slowly out of bed and grabbed his wand and the Occlumency text from the nightstand. If he couldn't get any sleep, he could at least try to do something productive. Remus would be thrilled if Harry could master even one of the exercises in the book...

Harry went to the drawing room, tiptoeing so as to avoid waking the girls. In the darkness, it was as though the room had lost none of its grim qualities despite Mrs Weasley's efforts; the Black family tapestry, so easily forgotten in the bustle of the light of day, dominated the empty, quiet room. It swayed against the wall as Harry passed.

I wonder why they haven't taken that thing down yet, thought Harry. He kept forgetting to ask why the ugly, awful tapestry was still there. He put the Occlumency book down and approached the tapestry, his eyes catching the name of the hateful Bellatrix, which was dimly illuminated by the thin beam of moonlight escaping the curtains.

If Mrs Black could blast Sirius off the tree... Harry grinned. This was much better than studying Occlumency, after all. He pointed his wand at Bellatrix's name and whispered, 'flaminis'.

Bellatrix's name was instantaneously replaced by a black mark even larger than the ones for all the other removed names, and Harry smirked. But the mark began to move outward, and Harry became worried as it swallowed the blast mark for Andromeda beside it.

At that point, the tapestry erupted into flames. Oops, thought Harry; he didn't care if the tapestry was destroyed, but he also didn't want to burn the house down with all of his friends inside.

'Aguamenti,' he said as quietly as he could. A jet of water flew from his wand, and he directed it around the edges of the tapestry's flame until the fire was out.

Harry took stock of the damage. Almost a quarter of the family tree was gone; the damage stretched to the right end of the tapestry, including the "loss" of Narcissa's name, all the way to Sirius' Aunt Elladora at the burn's top edges, whose date of death was singed. The place where Sirius's name used to be was still intact, but most of his brother's name was gone. What was his brother's name again? Only the 'R' and the 'e' remained.

Well, R-something Black, anyway, thought Harry carelessly. It didn't matter; Sirius hadn't liked his brother anyway. R. Black had joined up with the Death Eaters, after all...

'Wait,' said Harry aloud. 'R. Black...R. B....'

It couldn't be.