Pieces of a Soul

Chapter Six: The Doors of Hogwarts

Narcissa Malfoy gazed coolly across the Headmaster's desk at an equally unruffled Minerva McGonagall. "Of course I continue to require refuge," she stated haughtily. "I am no longer able to return to my home, not that I would do so even if I could." She shuddered slightly, pain flitting across her noble features for the merest fraction of a second.

McGonagall nodded slightly, sympathy and some pity evident in her gaze. Narcissa obviously did not appreciate even the slightest bit of this; rather than warming up to the older woman, she bristled as if she had been badly offended.

"Do not fool yourself that I am on your side, McGonagall," she said plainly. "I am on no side. I help you only to avenge my son's death." Again, her features became clouded by a momentary look of pain before she drew herself up, meeting the Headmistress' eyes unblinkingly. "Of course you are aware that my life became forfeit the moment I left my home and came here."

"Yes," McGonagall responded simply. "As Professor Dumbledore informed you, and as I myself have reminded you on several occasions, you may consider Hogwarts to be your home for as long as you require asylum."

Narcissa grimaced, clearly pained to hear anyone say that the school was her home, but she held her gaze locked with McGonagall's, saying nothing.

After a few moments, McGonagall broke the silence. "I have been given to believe you have more information to share with me."

"You are a fool, McGonagall, just as Albus Dumbledore was a fool," Narcissa replied, her voice as cold as ice. "You do not yet realize the extent of the Dark Lord's power."

A light chuckle sounded from directly behind where Narcissa sat perched on one of the armchairs facing the Head's desk, and McGonagall's eyes flicked towards the portrait as her lips thinned with repressed emotion. Narcissa did not turn; she was unimpressed by the portraits of the former Headmasters and Headmistresses of the school and had no desire to enter into a conversation with any of them.

"I suppose you wish explain this matter more fully?" McGonagall pressed when Narcissa did not continue.

"The Dark Lord has gotten farther in his quest for immortality than any wizard in history, with the exception of Nicholas Flamel and his ridiculous stone," Narcissa began, raising her chin defiantly, as if she expected a challenge to this statement. When McGonagall merely gestured for her to continue, she said impatiently, "Of course, the Sorcerer's Stone was indeed a potent object, but Flamel had too many noble ideals to realize its true power. In the hands of the Dark Lord..." She trailed off, leaving no doubt as to her belief that Lord Voldemort would have known exactly what to do with the Sorcerer's Stone had he managed to lay hands on it six years before.

Again, McGonagall said nothing, but merely inclined her head noncommittally. Before Narcissa could continue, however, a small, transparent stag leapt through the window of the office and appeared to whisper in the Headmistress's ear. Without comment, McGonagall pointed her wand at the office wall, waving it in a complicated figure-eight pattern before returning her attention to Narcissa. "Continue," she ordered.

"Suffice it to say that the Dark Lord's quest for immortality, should he succeed, will not be so frail as to be destroyed with the simple act of destroying an object such as that stone," Narcissa continued coolly.

"You believe he will succeed?" McGonagall inquired, leaning forward. This was a subject Narcissa Malfoy had not breached in any of their conversations over the course of the summer.

"He has already succeeded beyond what any other wizard has done," Narcissa snapped, annoyed at having to repeat herself. "When his plan is complete, there will be none who will have the ability to destroy him, not even your 'Chosen One,'" she completed cynically.

McGonagall's nostrils flared slightly, and Narcissa remembered her well enough from her own school days to recognize this as a sign of anger. "Still putting your faith in Potter, are you?" she asked sardonically.

At that very moment, a knock sounded on the outer door of the office. McGonagall stood, looking down at Narcissa through her square spectacles. "I believe that concludes our interview for today, Mrs. Malfoy," she said formally. "I have another appointment which is quite urgent." She tapped the wooden office door with her wand and it opened slowly, revealing the very person about whom Narcissa had been sneering only a moment before.

Harry's eyes widened as the door opened and he saw Narcissa sitting, cool as could be, in the very chair where he had sat so many times the previous term. He quickly matched her Malfoy sneer with a glare that would have sent any first- or second-year student running for cover.

"What are you doing here?" he growled, not bothering to keep his tone anywhere approaching civil.

"I see you have still not been taught manners, Potter," Narcissa replied icily. "Professor McGonagall, I must confess myself disappointed that the students of this school are no longer required to exhibit even the most common of courtesies when in the presence of their superiors."

Harry had opened his mouth, about to respond angrily, when McGonagall cut him off. "That will be all, Mrs. Malfoy," she stated firmly.

Narcissa rose to leave, her eyes never straying from Harry's enraged face. "If this boy is truly your greatest hope," she said softly as paused in the doorway, "then the Dark Lord will be in power in a very short amount of time indeed." With that, she turned her back on them and swept from the room, her black robes swishing behind her as she headed towards the revolving staircase.

Harry stared after her for a moment before he shook himself slightly, moving mechanically to the chair opposite the one in which Narcissa had been sitting. He waited as McGonagall magically closed and locked the office door, trying not to look around the office, which, while it held the same furniture as it had during Dumbledore's tenure, looked quite different.

Gone were the many whirring and clinking silver instruments from the table, and gone was the cabinet which had held Dumbledore's Pensieve. Harry wondered sadly what had become of the Headmaster's things.

Far more disturbing that the absence of Dumbledore's possessions, however, was the absence of Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix whose tail feather resided at the heart of Harry's wand. Over the years of Harry's education at Hogwarts, he had become so used to the scarlet bird's presence in the Head's office that the room just did not seem complete without him. Harry remembered Aberforth's assurance that Fawkes would return for a time after he had mourned his master's death, but Harry himself had not seen nor heard anything of the phoenix since the day of Dumbledore's funeral.

"Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said in her usual brisk tone.

"You're welcome, Professor," Harry replied, a bit bewildered. Why was she acting as if he had done her a favor by answering her summons? It wasn't as if he had had any choice in the matter; or, rather, as if he had felt like he had a choice. He didn't suppose he would ever be able to think of McGonagall in any light other than that of the strict professor to whom he had grown accustomed over the course of the years.

"Now, Mr. Potter," she said abruptly. "I assure you, we speak in complete privacy." She indicated the locked door of the office. "I should now like to know exactly why you did not return to school as well as what your plans are."

Harry gulped. He had been afraid of this, but this was one subject upon which he would not let himself be intimidated. "I'm sorry, Professor," he said in what he hoped was a sincere and respectful tone, "but my mission now is my own."

McGonagall's nostrils flared and she pressed her lips into a dangerously thin line. Had Harry still been at school, he would have been certain at this point that the deduction of house points and the assignment of detention was forthcoming. As it was, he quaked ever so slightly, just barely managing to keep his gaze evenly matched with hers. "I'm sorry, Professor," he repeated, not knowing what else to say.

"You realize, Mr. Potter, that I have taken on leadership of the Order of the Phoenix as well as that of this school?" McGonagall asked coolly.

Harry gulped again. "I know that, Professor," he responded, keeping his tone reasonable and, he hoped, mature sounding. "But as I am not allowed to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix and am no longer a student at this school - "

"How dare you?" McGonagall gasped, forgetting her resolution to treat him as an adult. Before she could continue, however, a voice came from behind Harry which caused his insides to become as cold as ice.

"Harry is right, Minerva," Albus Dumbledore's voice seemed to Harry to echo throughout the room.

Harry whipped around so quickly that he gave himself a crick in his neck. There, plain as day on the back wall of the office was a portrait of Albus Dumbledore, sitting serenely in a squashy chintz armchair very much like the one he had conjured at Harry's Ministry hearing before his fifth year.

"Albus, surely...as leader of the Order..." McGonagall sputtered.

"There are things that even leaders may not know," Dumbledore's portrait replied calmly. "The information Harry now possesses is not only the key to defeating Voldemort, but is information which Harry alone has the power to act upon."

Harry and McGonagall both widened their eyes at this statement.

"What do you mean, Professor?" Harry asked sharply, but the portrait Dumbledore only smiled at him as he settled more comfortably back in his chair and closed his eyes, rather like he was going to have a nice nap.

"Professor?" Harry repeated, just as McGonagall said, "Albus?"

The only reply either of them got was a small smile as the portrait of the former Headmaster let his chin drop down onto his chest. Within moments, the painted chest was rising and falling softly and Dumbledore seemed to be fast asleep.

McGonagall and Harry stared at one another, and he could almost see the wheels turning in her mind as she considered what had been said. Finally, she sighed and leaned back into her chair, abandoning her ramrod-straight posture only slightly. "Very well," she said resignedly. "Are you quite certain you cannot tell me what you are doing?"

"I can't, Professor," Harry said firmly, and this time he did not apologize. Cryptic though the portrait's message had been, it had restored a bit of his confidence that he was indeed doing the right thing.

"I see," was McGonagall's only reply, and though her lips were still rather thin, her face softened enough to assure Harry that she was no longer angry with him.

"So..." Harry asked, looking for a way to break the uncomfortable silence in the office. "Erm...who's teaching Transfiguration now?" It seemed like a stupid question the moment it left his mouth, but a return to Hogwarts business seemed to be just what Professor McGonagall had needed to return her to her usual brisk attitude.

"Emmeline Vance," she replied.

Harry screwed up his face for a moment, trying to remember where he had heard that name. After a pause he said, "She's in the Order, right? She was that tall, blonde witch who was part of my guard before fifth year, wasn't she?"

"Indeed," McGonagall replied. "Professor Vance worked for the Ministry until quite recently, when she resigned in protest of Rufus Scrimgeour's new policies."

Harry nodded, beginning to like the woman already. "What did she do for the Ministry?" he asked curiously.

"She was an Unspeakable," McGonagall replied. "She worked in the Department of Mysteries. She is an extremely capable witch, and we are fortunate to have her."

Harry nodded again, wondering what else he could say. He knew that McGonagall's purpose in calling him here had been to ask him what he was going to do, and now that she had seemed to accept that he was not going to tell her, he was not at all certain how to proceed with the conversation.

After another lengthy pause, the silence was broken again, this time by McGonagall. "Potter," she said, and her voice was gentler than it had been all morning.

"Yes, Professor?" Harry asked, looking up from where he had been picking at a loose thread in his cloak.

"I want you to understand," she said softly, "that while you may no longer be a student here, this school will always be a home for you, should you ever need it. The doors of Hogwarts will be open to you and yours for as long as I am Headmistress, and, I would hope, for as long as you should want them to be."

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

Harry saw Ginny briefly after her first class was over, but as there was only a ten-minute break and he was loath to be seen by the other students and have to answer their innumerable questions, all they could manage was a quick rendezvous in their favorite tapestry-hidden secret passage before she had to rush off to her first N.E.W.T. Transfiguration class with Professor Vance. As it was, they were almost seen by a group of seventh-year Slytherins who had been cronies of Draco Malfoy, and it was that which gave Harry an idea that he put into action the moment he got back to his room at the Hog's Head.

"Hedwig," he called softly, holding out his arm for her after he had tossed his cloak on the neatly made bed and scribbled a note on a spare bit of parchment. She fluttered down from her perch on top of a tall wooden cupboard, hooting in a contented sort of way when she landed on the soft, worn fabric of Harry's school robes. "Take this to Ginny, will you?" he asked, stroking her head for a moment after he had tied two separate bits of parchment to her left leg, one of them ragged and worn, the other new and containing only a few lines of carefully coded instruction.

Nipping his finger affectionately, she flew at once through the open window and streaked towards the distant Hogwarts castle. Harry watched her until she disappeared from sight, and then he returned to his papers, wanting to find a good starting place for some research in the Hogwarts library.

He was immersed in his work when Hedwig returned, her beak full of dead...well, dead something. He stroked her absentmindedly on the head, taking a break from copying down various runes and incantations he needed Hermione to translate for him. He could never send anything like this by owl post, of course, but he hoped he would see his friends soon.

"I don't know, Hedwig," he said, ruffling his own hair in frustration. "There is so much here, but I just can't make heads or tails of most of it."

"Does sir require any assistance?" Kibbly asked, startling Harry as he spoke from the gap between the privacy partition and the wall of the room.

"Kibbly!" Harry asked, jumping just a little and causing himself to streak ink across a particularly complicated rune he was trying to copy. "Don't do that!"

"Kibbly didn't mean to startle you, sir," the house-elf said, and Harry was surprised to hear that his tone had become a bit gentler since the night before. "But it is time for Harry Potter to eat something. Master is quite concerned that Harry Potter takes proper care of himself."

As Harry looked across at Kibbly, he saw that the house-elf was indeed carrying the now-familiar wooden tray bearing a covered plate, a goblet and a pewter pitcher. Harry glanced at his wristwatch and was surprised to find that it was after noon and, as if on cue, his stomach gave a growl.

"Thanks, Kibbly," he said, getting off the bed and moving towards the front of the room to take the tray.

"Kibbly will set the table, sir," the house-elf said, bustling past Harry, who stared at him in confusion. "Go on, Harry Potter," he urged, and without further ado, he jumped up onto the bed and sat down without being asked, pointing a long, wizened finger at the small table.

Harry stood rooted to the spot for a moment, completely befuddled. What had caused this change of attitude in Kibbly? He remembered that Aberforth had said Harry would find the Dumbledore house-elf to be much friendlier once he had earned his trust, but Harry could not think of anything he had done that would have brought that about so quickly, not to mention the fact that he had never known a house-elf to sit down unless he was asked or told to do so.

"Does Harry Potter find fault with the food?" Kibbly asked, and a bit of the old surliness returned to his voice.

"Erm, no," Harry replied, seating himself at the table and uncovering the plate to reveal a lunch of ham sandwiches and fresh fruit. "Thanks," he said thickly as he bit into the soft bread, wondering if Kibbly was planning on staying through the entire meal.

Apparently, that was precisely Kibbly's intention. He sat and stared at Harry while he ate and drank, not jumping off the bed until Harry had finished every last crumb.

"Master wishes to know if Harry Potter would like some books," Kibbly said while he busily cleared the table.

"What kinds of books?" Harry asked curiously.

"Dark books, Harry Potter," Kibbly said, narrowing his eyes as if trying to gauge just how he would react to this information.

Harry grimaced a bit. He'd had some experience with some of the darker curse books in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library, and he really had no desire to touch another one. Unfortunately, he knew that in order to think like Lord Voldemort, he was going to have to delve into some of these subjects.

He sighed. "I suppose so, Kibbly," he said. "Would you tell Aberforth 'thank you' for me and ask him if we could talk later tonight?"

For some reason, Kibbly's eyes glinted in satisfaction at Harry's response, and Harry wondered if he had just passed some kind of test, especially when the elf replied more cordially than ever before, "Certainly, Harry Potter, sir," before he disappeared bearing the lunch tray.

Before Harry could delve back into his notes, Ginny's owl, Bono, fluttered through the window and landed gently on Harry's pillow, a small scroll of parchment tied to his leg. Eagerly, Harry untied the leather thong and offered Bono a drink from Hedwig's bowl, which the owl graciously declined as he set back off for Hogwarts.

Dear Harry,

I can't believe you sent me what you did! I think I'm going to have a right good time with it. I've always wanted a go with it, ever since I saw Fred and George using it during my first year, not to mention that it might be helpful in keeping our agreement.

I'm on one of my study breaks right now. The first day of term has gone as well as can be expected without you, Ron and Hermione to talk with between lessons. The Common Room seems so quiet, and I don't have much studying to do just yet. I'm going to try to get my teachers to give me their lesson outlines for the year so I can make sure and keep up.

We have a new Transfiguration teacher, Professor Vance. I think she's in the Order; at least, I'm certain I've heard her mentioned around Headquarters before. She's very strict, and almost as clever as Professor McGonagall. I think she'll be good, really.

I just thought of something today. I have Tonks tomorrow afternoon, and I reckon she's the first Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've had for more than a year! I'm glad, though I wonder what that means. Maybe the job isn't cursed; maybe it's just that the teachers have had a run of bad luck. It's not exactly a safe subject, is it?

I know I just saw you today, but I hope you'll come again soon. I miss you already.

Love,

Ginny

Harry couldn't suppress a grin at her not-so-subtle reminder that he had consented to let her come with him when he left Hogwarts. He scribbled off a quick reply, told Hedwig that she would find Ginny in the Gryffindor Common Room, and set back to work.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

The next few days passed by in an exhausting blur for Harry. By day, he remained at the Hog's Head, secure in either his room or Aberforth's garden. Occasionally, he would leave and meet Ginny at "their" spot on the lakeside path during one of her study breaks, but as she seemed to be trying as hard as she could to get a head start on her NEWT classes in preparation for her departure from school, even those meetings were brief and seemed far too infrequent.

By night, Harry would eat dinner in the pub, heavily cloaked and hooded, straining his ears for any information about Mundungus Fletcher's whereabouts or any Death Eater activity, and after he had waited until all curfews at the school had passed, he would don the Invisibility Cloak and head up to the school to use the library.

McGonagall, true to her word, had indeed ensured that Hogwarts was completely open to Harry. Even though he wore his cloak at all times, he found that the portraits and statues guarding some of the locked doors inside the school were eager to let him pass, and though Harry strongly suspected that Madam Pince was aware of his nightly perusals of the Restricted Section, she never showed herself or offered any kind of resistance as he thumbed through her precious books with increasing frustration.

He had been worried at first that giving the Marauder's Map to Ginny might have made his nighttime wanderings more difficult, as he could no longer search for the small dots representing the staff before going down a corridor or entering a room. His fears proved groundless, however, for between the cloak and the instructions that the Headmistress had undoubtedly issued to the staff, he had no trouble, and on more than one occasion, Ginny's possession of the map was more rewarding than he had ever imagined. To be sitting in the library, reading dark books full of curses and hexes in the wee hours of the morning and then to feel her soft breath on the back of his neck and the feel of her gentle fingers on his sore shoulders was nothing short of the most wonderful thing Harry had ever experienced.

Of course, on the nights that Ginny did come to find him using her map, he had no choice but to abandon whatever dark tome he was perusing at the time, open his Cloak, and allow her to lead him through the stacks of books and into a realm of knowledge that was much more fun to explore than "the Six Hundred Sixty-Six Uses of the Freshly Murdered Human Body." On those nights, Harry invariably returned to the Hog's Head later than usual, twice as exhausted, but tenfold more relaxed.

Kibbly was, as Aberforth had predicted, becoming friendlier to Harry each day, though in his friendliness, he acted less and less like a house-elf, often perching on Harry's bed to watch him eat his meals and waiting up for Harry at night with the air of an anxious parent. At times, it seemed as though the house-elf was even trying to make small talk.

Nothing surprised Harry more, however, than one afternoon about ten days after his arrival when Kibbly appeared in his room with a snack. The house-elf, instead of wearing the light blue pillowcase Harry had become accustomed to, was wearing a set of miniature white robes embroidered with golden stars.

Harry gasped, knowing that the only way a house-elf could become free was to be presented with clothes. Wisely, though, he decided not to comment, working hard to arrange his face into a careful nonchalance.

That night, however, while Harry ate a supper of greasy fish and chips at the bar (the food in the pub was much worse than the food he received when he ate in his room), his head covered by a tattered second-hand cloak he had purchased in the village in order to fit in even better with the Hog's Head clientele, he quietly asked Aberforth what had happened.

Aberforth chuckled out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes twinkling like his brother's always had, but his face still set into the trademark scowl he wore in the pub. "Kibbly's been free for a century," he informed Harry, "but he usually won't let you know that until you've got into his good graces."

"Kibbly's free?" Harry asked in surprise, keeping his voice low.

"'Course he is," Aberforth replied as he bent under the bar and pretended to be cleaning the glasses and butterbeer bottles. "He came to Al one night a long time ago and told him flat out that he'd had enough of following orders 'against his better judgment,' I think he said. This was right after I'd got in a heap o' trouble when someone I'd counted as a friend framed me up an' turned me in for practicing 'inappropriate charms on a goat.'"

Harry could imagine Kibbly's reaction to that, given the fierce protectiveness the house-elf had exhibited towards Aberforth since Harry's first day at the pub.

"I'd ordered him to bugger off earlier that day," Aberforth continued, now facing away from Harry and muttering so that Harry had to strain his ears to catch what the barman was saying. "Guess it was the last straw for old Kibbly, who'd sworn to me Dad to protect Al and me. 'Course Al didn't have a problem with that; he set him free that very night, gave 'im his own little robes and everything."

"The white ones with the stars?" Harry asked with interest.

"The very ones," Aberforth replied. "They're actually a set of Al's that he shrunk with his wand when Kibbly wanted to be free. Little bloke won't wear anything else since Al died." He spoke of the house-elf fondly, the corners of his mouth twitching the way they always did when he was covering a smile.

Harry didn't reply. It was always hard for him to talk about the Headmaster's death, even though he had gotten used to Aberforth's stories of their childhood and the years before Harry was born.

Aberforth, who had also gone silent for a second, glanced around the bar and then said gruffly to Harry in his normal volume, "get off wit' ya. You've had enough for one night." He motioned irritably to Harry's glass of water, which Aberforth refilled each night out of an old bottle that had once contained Ogden's Best Firewhisky.

Being of age, Harry had actually drunk and enjoyed a few glasses of the liquor since he had come to Hogsmeade, but he had found quickly that more than about a glass and a half of it rendered him tipsy enough not to be able to concentrate on his night studies at the school. Since the normal patrons of the pub never drank butterbeer, Aberforth and Harry had designed this trick so that he would not stick out. It had worked; from the talk of the other regular patrons in the pub, it seemed that they regarded him as nothing more or less than an old lush of a wizard, much like themselves, who had nothing better to do than to drink himself into a stupor each night.

Harry, knowing that Aberforth was right and it was time for him to leave the pub, stood and walked, his head down and his gait carefully unsteady, up the stairs and back to his room.

He was not surprised to find Pigwidgeon waiting for him when he arrived and threw off the tattered old cloak. The little owl zoomed around his head, an envelope clutched in his tiny beak, and Harry actually had to leap into the air before he finally caught him and took the letter.

Pig twittered excitedly as he flew over to take a drink from Hedwig's bowl, ignoring the reproachful looks the snowy owl kept giving him and gulping thirstily before zooming out the window. With a grin, Harry opened the envelope and found a letter from Hermione. She had taken to writing him every other day to apprise him of their progress at Grimmauld Place, or rather, the lack thereof, and to ask when he would be returning and if he had learned anything new.

Harry could read Hermione's frustration as clearly as his own as she described how she and Ron had spent the better part of the past week tearing Grimmauld Place apart from top to bottom as they looked for the locket or any clues to its whereabouts.

"I just don't think it's here, Harry," she had written, so irritated that Harry could actually see how the quill had shaken while she was writing. He sympathized with her, and he thought with regret about his reply, which would tell them exactly nothing more than they already knew. Although Harry was learning more about the Dark Arts than he had ever really wanted to know, he was no closer to finding the identity or location of the two unknown Horcruxes.

The letter seemed so much like the other ones she had sent that Harry was only half paying attention when the last paragraph caused him to sit bolt upright in his chair, his eyes growing wide and worried behind his glasses.

Ron and I are both getting very worried about Professor Lupin, Hermione had written, still not abandoning her insistence in calling him 'Professor' no matter how many times he had told her she could refer to him by his first name. He is ever so pale, and I don't think he's eating anything. I'm afraid he's ill, Harry, but I don't know what it could be. Whenever we ask him, he says that he's fine, but it's so obvious that he's not. He asked me not to tell you about it, but I changed my mind tonight when I actually heard him being sick in the washroom after dinner. Maybe you could ask him about it through your amulet? We've got to do something. I think he needs help.

Harry jumped off the bed and began to pace, unconsciously crumpling the letter in his fist in his agitation. There was nothing else for it; he had to go back to Grimmauld Place. He didn't know what he would be able to do, but damned if he was going to stay here in Hogsmeade, accomplishing nothing, if Moony was so ill that Hermione had felt the need to write to him about it.

This decision made, Harry threw the wardrobe open and tossed his robes and other possessions onto the bed before going over to the table to write Ginny a note that it was time for them to go.

He had not gotten farther than the first sentence, however, when a loud 'pop' alerted him to Kibbly's presence in the room.

Surveying the mess with obvious distaste, Kibbly stood still for a moment before turning his large green eyes seeming a bit mournful. "Harry Potter is leaving the Hog's Head?" he asked, seeming more than a bit sad about this obvious fact.

"Yeah, I've got to go," Harry said hurriedly. "Listen, Kibbly, Hedwig's out hunting, but can you see that this note gets to Ginny at Hogwarts as soon as possible? I've got to go and pick her up!"

"Kibbly does not know what has upset Harry Potter so much," the house-elf replied, "but Master wished for Kibbly to get Harry Potter straight away and tell him to meet Master in the garden."

This stopped Harry in his tracks, for he knew that the Hog's Head was still hours away from closing time.

"What's going on?" he asked sharply.

"Master has found out where Mundungus Fletcher is hiding."

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

"I assure you, Harry, that I'm just a bit under the weather," Remus said weakly through the amulet's connection late that night.

"You're not - " Harry responded, concentrating so hard that he had to force himself to back down lest his thoughts come across as shouts in Remus' ear.

"I am," Remus repeated more insistently this time. "Listen, Harry, Aberforth told you that Dung is in Edinburgh. He even gave you an address, correct?"

"Yeah, but just because that Fernie bloke said it doesn't mean it's true," Harry argued. "He's a drunk; he's in the pub almost every night, I've seen him. How would he know?"

"If anybody is going to know where Dung is, it's going to be someone just like that. He doesn't exactly associate with the most upstanding members of the wizarding community, does he?" Remus replied ironically.

"Well, no, but - "

"Aberforth told this bloke he owed Dung money after he'd heard Fernie complaining that Dung had cheated him, right?"

"Right, but - "

"Harry, I'd bet almost anything that address is exactly right," Remus interrupted. "Fernie knows he's more likely to get money out of Dung if he knows Dung's just been paid a debt."

"But - "

"Mundungus Fletcher never stays in one place for more than a couple of days, and you can't go straightaway. If you're going to catch him, you have to act quickly."

"But what about you?" Harry asked quickly, before his guardian could interrupt him again.

"I told you, Harry, I'm fine," Remus said impatiently. "Just a bit under the weather. If you miss this chance to find Mundungus, it could be weeks or even months before you get another one. Do you think that he's not going to hear that Aberforth was asking where he was? He knows Aberforth's in the Order, Harry. He'll be on the move quicker than a Snitch once he catches wind of that."

Harry sighed, feeling the warmth of the amulet pressing into his palm. Moony had a very valid point, but Harry had an ominous feeling about leaving him alone even for a few days. What if he was really sick? After working it out in his mind for a few more moments, he asked quickly, "You swear you're going to be all right, Moony? You promise me it's nothing serious?"

"I promise, Harry," Lupin responded earnestly. "I would go with you myself but for the fact that it's only three days until the full moon."

"Yeah," Harry replied, making up his mind and reasoning with himself that this particular mission should only take a couple of days at most. "If we're going to go, we need to move. Can you send Ron and Hermione this way while I go...I mean, while I get ready?"

"Hold on, Harry," Remus said seriously. "There is one thing you absolutely must do before you go. It won't take long, but it is essential."

"What's that?" Harry asked, wondering what could be so important, especially after Remus' lecture about not wasting time.

"You've got to go to the Ministry and take your Apparation test," Remus said.

"You're joking, right?" Harry asked. He could Apparate perfectly well, and Remus knew that. Why the sudden worry about the license?

"Unfortunately, I'm not," Remus replied. "Harry, I know you can Apparate; I've seen you at it. I also know, however, that the Ministry is going to be looking for any excuse, any reason at all, to bring you in. Rufus Scrimgeour would like nothing more than to have Harry Potter owe him a favor."

"But you said we don't have time," Harry protested.

"Getting your license takes only a few minutes, Harry," Remus said. "But getting caught Apparating without one, given the circumstances, could cost a lot more than a fine. Trust me, Harry. I'll send Ron and Hermione tomorrow at noon. Once you have your license, you can Apparate to Scotland much more quickly than you could get there any other way. That will also give you the opportunity to say goodbye to Ginny."

This presented a problem outside the usual pang of unease Harry felt at taking Ginny out of school without so much as informing his guardian or her parents. He knew there would be hell to pay when they got back, but for the moment, he was more worried about actually getting her there. She couldn't Apparate; she didn't even know how yet, though Harry suspected she had a good idea. He supposed she could Side-Along Apparate with him, but that made him feel a little strange...what if he splinched himself, or her?

He shook these fears off as well as he could. He'd not had much trouble with Apparating, and as long as he concentrated hard enough, it didn't matter who he had with him. Harry had to concede one point to Moony, though: they certainly could not risk Harry getting caught Apparating illegally.

"OK, Moony," Harry finally gave in. "But I'm going first thing. Make sure Ron and Hermione get here."

Remus gave a cough that sounded almost like a retch. When he had recovered, he said, "I will, Harry, and no matter what else happens, come back straightaway. Even if you get the locket, don't do anything with it until you get here, agreed?"

"Yeah," Harry said, feeling at once elated and overwhelmed by the thought of actually retrieving the locket after over two months of searching for clues to its whereabouts. What would he do with it once he found it? As he and Lupin closed their conversation and Harry packed himself in readiness to travel the next day, he pushed the thought out of his mind. The answers were there, inside Dumbledore's packet. He just had to figure them out.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

At Aberforth's suggestion, Harry Flooed to the Ministry of Magic as early as it opened the next morning. Invisibility Cloaks were detectable as soon as one entered the Atrium, and he knew his hooded cloak would be frowned upon by the new security, so Harry simply attempted to keep his head down a bit as he presented his wand to the Security Wizard and proceeded down the hall to the Apparation Licensing Office.

As he had hoped, the office was empty but for a bored-looking young witch who was using her wand to change the color of her fingernails, scowling each time it did not come out exactly as she had hoped.

"I said 'rose bouquet,' not 'passion pink,'" she muttered, holding her hand out to examine her nails critically.

After waiting a moment to be noticed, Harry cleared his throat.

"Yes?" the witch snapped, abruptly putting her hand down on her desk. When she looked up and realized who she was talking to, she gasped. "Can I help you?" she asked a bit breathlessly.

"I need to take my Apparation test," Harry said quickly, trying to ignore the way the blonde witch was looking at him.

"Of course," she said, batting her eyelashes. "Just let me call the examiner." She rose from her desk and disappeared through a wooden door on the back wall.

A moment later she reappeared, and it was easily apparent that she had straightened her hair and applied more lipstick in her absence. "You're our first examinee today," she said sweetly, moving to stand right next to Harry. "You can go right on in, Mr. Potter, and I'll be here waiting to issue your license when you're finished." Her tone and her gaze made it obvious that she would be ready and willing for much more than the standard license-issuing that was part of her job.

Harry nodded, not meeting her eyes, and proceeded through the same door from which she had just emerged. After walking down a short hallway lined with moving photographs depicting nasty splinchings and other ways in which Apparation could go awry, he went through a second door and entered a large room complete with the same kind of rings they had used in the Great Hall when leaning to Apparate.

"Mr. Harry Potter, of Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?" asked a tall, aged wizard in faded chartreuse robes. Harry was relieved that this man, at least, did not seem inclined to take any more notice of him than he would have of any examinee.

"Yeah," Harry confirmed, realizing suddenly that this address was no longer correct, but not knowing what address he could use in its place.

"Step right this way, then," the wizard continued, putting a clean parchment form on his wooden clipboard.

Harry moved to the front of one of the many metal hoops in the room, feeling his insides starting to twist with nervousness. It was one thing to be caught Apparating illegally, and another to be caught Apparating illegally after you had already failed the test, not to mention his embarrassment at having to tell Ginny, Ron and Hermione that he had failed.

"We will start simply," the examiner told him. "Simply spin on the spot and Apparate right into the hoop. Please be cautious, as splinchings is automatic grounds for failure."

Harry nodded, gulped, and spun on the spot. He was infinitely relieved when, after feeling the familiar sensation of being sucked through a drinking straw, he opened his eyes and realized he had indeed ended up right in the center of his hoop.

"Very good," the examiner continued. "Now, if you will kindly Apparate into the hoop I have indicated." Pointing his wand at a hoop in the far corner of the room, he caused it to glow red and hover an inch or two off the ground.

Again, Harry spun on the spot, and again, he reached his destination with no trouble whatsoever. For the next fifteen minutes, Harry felt a bit like a table tennis ball as he popped in and out of the various hoops, growing less nervous with each round. With each successful Apparation, the examiner made a small tick mark on his form.

"Very good, Mr. Potter," he muttered, scanning his sheet. "Right then; all that remains is the long-distance Apparation test. I will be waiting for you at the Apparition point in front of the Three Broomsticks. I trust you are familiar with that location?" Without waiting for an answer, the examiner Disapparated, leaving Harry staring at the spot where he had stood only a moment before.

Concentrating hard on the familiar sights of the High Street in Hogsmeade, Harry took a deep breath, spun on the spot, and was once again sucked into the vacuum, emerging a few moments later right beside the examiner, who smiled indulgently at him for the first time.

"Right-o!" the old man said cheerfully, making the final tick mark on Harry's examination sheet and signing it with a flourish before taking it off the clipboard and holding it out.

Harry took it, not exactly sure what it was to do next.

"Just go on back to the office, lad, and Miss Ackerson will be most pleased to assist you in the issuance of your official license. Congratulations, Mr. Potter."

"Thanks," Harry said, "but couldn't you just give me the license now?"

"Oh, no, no," the examiner laughed. "Don't have the proper paperwork, you see, and it is in the rules that all licenses must be issued from the Apparation Licensing Office at the Ministry. Shouldn't be much of an inconvenience for you, though, should it?" he chuckled. "Now that you can Apparate, just go straight on back to the Ministry. Mind you Apparate into the Atrium, though, as there are blocks in place once you get past those doors. We'll have you on your way in five minutes."

Harry seriously doubted that; somehow, he suspected that the news of his arrival for his test might have spread a bit. He was certain he had seen the young clerk in the Apparation office folding a paper airplane as he had gone past her desk. Before he could protest, however, the examiner Disapparated, leaving Harry once again staring at the space he had occupied only moments before.

With a sigh, Harry went back to the Ministry, reflecting that, while Apparation was still rather uncomfortable, it made traveling much simpler.

Upon arriving back to the Ministry Atrium, Harry realized he had not been incorrect in his assumption about the clerk's interdepartmental memo. Rufus Scrimgeour himself was standing in an attitude of forced nonchalance next to the security desk, and he laughed a bit too heartily when the Security Wizard once again asked to inspect Harry's wand.

"Now, now, Eric, it certainly isn't as though Mr. Potter is here to attack the Ministry! Consider him like a staff member from here, won't you, and allow him to pass into the normal areas of the Ministry without inspection."

"Certainly, Minister," Eric said politely, but Harry, whose mind was reeling with this unexpected greeting, could tell that the Security Wizard was not at all happy about letting him pass without the customary search.

"A staff member?" Harry asked quietly but furiously once he and Scrimgeour had gotten past the desk and were going down the hall that Harry recognized as the one leading to the elevators. "I'm not on staff here, Minister." For once, Harry was not confused; he knew exactly what kind of game Scrimgeour was trying to play.

"Of course not, of course not," Scrimgeour said as he ordered an elevator to take them to Level One, where the Minister's offices were situated. His genial demeanor had already vanished, leaving him with the definite look of a businessman and a politician.

Once they were inside the polished office of the Minister for Magic, Scrimgeour rounded on Harry. "I've been waiting to speak with you, Mr. Potter, but as you opted not to return to school and no one seems to be willing to reveal your whereabouts, I've had a most difficult time tracking you down."

"Speak to me about what?" Harry asked coolly. He was not about to spend half the day exchanging words with Scrimgeour when he needed to get to Edinburgh as soon as he possibly could.

"Joining the Ministry, of course. I heard tell from another staff member that you aspire to become an Auror?"

Harry was momentarily kerflummoxed. For all his joking with Ginny about how the Auror Corps would be willing to take him on if he defeated Voldemort, he certainly had not expected this.

When Harry did not reply, Scrimgeour looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Normally we would not even consider accepting one so young into the program, Mr. Potter, but given your...accomplishments...I believe we could make an exception."

Harry shook his head. "No thanks, just the same," he replied.

Scrimgeour looked slightly surprised as he irritably smoothed out his navy Auror's robes, which he continued to wear to give the people confidence in his ability to track down and dispose of Voldemort and his followers. "Would you prefer, then, a more inactive role in helping the Ministry?"

"No, thanks," Harry said. "If that's all..." He began to edge back towards the door.

Scrimgeour stared at him for a moment, clearly surprised that Harry had not taken the opportunity to join the Aurors at least a year before he could have done normally. He wondered if he had been given bad information on the Potter boy, but it seemed that no one who actually knew him was willing to discuss him.

"That's all for now," he finally said, emphasizing the last two words.

Harry nodded and left the office, taking the elevator directly back down to the Atrium level, where he ignored the desk clerk's obvious advances and got his license hurriedly before Apparating back into Aberforth's garden. It was only a bit after nine in the morning, but to Harry, it felt as though the entire day had already passed.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

After grabbing his pack from his room and asking Aberforth to get word to Grimmauld Place that it was time for Ron and Hermione to meet him, Harry carefully donned his Invisibility Cloak and set off through the village for the wide path that led to Hogwarts.

He hardly noticed the crisp, late-September air as he hurried towards the gates, checking his wristwatch to ensure that he would be able to meet Ginny as soon as her first class was finished. He was cutting it very fine; he had less than five minutes to be outside the door of Professor Flitwick's classroom, ready to murmur the signal words to her as she passed. They had perfected this method over the past couple of weeks; otherwise, Ginny would have no way of reliably knowing when Harry was in the castle, as she could hardly check the Marauder's Map in each class without being detected.

Harry was slightly out of breath by the time he reached the Charms corridor, but he saw with relief that the bell would not ring for another minute and a half. Flattening himself carefully against the wall outside the door, he waited.

Ginny was one of the last to leave the classroom, and as he saw her familiar red head coming, he murmured "look out for Peeves" as softly as he could. The theory was that this was such a common phrase that even if one of the surrounding students heard it, they would not find anything amiss. This morning, a sixth-year Ravenclaw leaving just behind Ginny began looking wildly around, not for the source of the voice, but for Peeves himself.

Ginny giggled and nodded her head imperceptibly as she continued walking with the rest of her class. Three minutes later, she kissed him as he took off the Invisibility Cloak, concealed safely inside one of the lesser-known secret passages between the fourth and second floors. "How are you, love?" she asked, seeming almost giddy.

"Got my license," Harry said. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah," Ginny replied, looking excited and nervous at the same time. "My things are in the broom cupboard off the Entrance Hall, and just in case, I shrunk them and hid them under a bucket."

"Brilliant," Harry said, kissing her one again and wishing they had time for more, but the bell had already rung to signal the start of the next class and he knew they needed to get going. "Ron and Hermione will be waiting at the pub." He swung the Invisibility Cloak around them and, after Ginny checked the map to make sure no one was in the corridor that might see the tapestry move as they passed, they proceeded slowly and carefully down to the Entrance Hall. After checking to make sure the coast was still clear, Ginny carefully removed a bag that had been enchanted to look the size of a coin purse, her broomstick, and Bono's cage from the closet.

"Is that all you brought?" Harry asked. "What about your books and everything?" He was still fiercely adamant that she realize her dream of becoming a Healer, and he didn't see how she was going to do that if she didn't study.

Ginny rolled her eyes as she stowed her shrunken belongings into her pockets and they proceeded carefully to the front doors. "Honestly, Harry," she said amusedly, "do you really think Hermione will have overlooked that? We've got it all arranged. I may need to order some things from Dervish and Banges or Flourish and Blotts, but she'll have most of what I need already."

"When did the two of you have time to arrange all of this?" Harry asked curiously as they carefully slipped through the doors and out onto the grounds, careful not to talk too loudly lest they attract the attention of the first-years taking their flying lessons.

Ginny giggled softly, her excitement and nerves such that she found almost everything funny. "Dearest," she said with mock seriousness, "did you really think that you were the only person I've written to since I've gone back to school?"

Harry blushed just a little. Of course Ginny would be writing to Ron and Hermione, and she had probably written to her mother as well. With this thought in his mind, Harry asked, "Did you leave any kind of a note for your mum?"

Ginny frowned. "No," she answered simply. "But I'll get in touch with her soon. I really don't want her to be upset, Harry, but I think this is more important."

Harry said nothing; he was not looking forward to being the subject of Molly Weasley's wrath when she realized Ginny had left school.

Ginny squeezed his hand softly as they reached the Hogwarts gates, looking around anxiously to make sure no one would see them open. They seemed safe enough; Professor Grubbly-Plank had taken her students into the forest and the flying lessons were on the other side of the courtyard.

"Please don't worry about this right now," Ginny said. "It will all work out, love. I promise."

"We need to get going," Harry said abruptly, steeling himself for his first attempt at Side-Along Apparation as soon as they were officially off the Hogwarts grounds. "Grab onto my arm and hold on tight. You've done this before, I know, but I haven't, so just hold on, ok?"

"Ok," Ginny said, taking hold of his upper arm with complete confidence. "But you have done it before, you know."

"I have?" Harry asked.

"You brought Petunia back to Grimmauld Place," she reminded him gently.

Harry was startled. He had done everything he could to forget his last night on Privet Drive, and in all the confusion of the battle he had not really considered the difficulty of Apparation when he had taken Aunt Petunia out of the house; he had just done it because it was what needed to be done.

"Yeah," he said a bit more confidently. "Ok. Hold on." Taking a deep breath, he Disapparated, feeling Ginny's firm hold on his arm for the split second they were traveling before they reached the pub.

Ron and Hermione were waiting for them, sipping pumpkin juice at the small wrought iron garden table. Before they were even within earshot, Harry could tell how excited Hermione was about the garden itself.

"It's not what you would have expected, is it?" she asked Ron, gesturing at the lush flowers surrounding them. "But I think that makes it all the more magical; it is such a wonderful surprise. I can see why Dumble- "

"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, and his face immediately turned red as he saw his sister emerge from around the corner, right behind his best mate. "Ginny? What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"I'm coming, too," Ginny answered quickly.

"Like hell - " Ron began, but Hermione interrupted.

"We haven't got time for this," she said impatiently. "Ginny's already got everything worked out, and somehow I don't think anyone's going to stop her, so let's get to Edinburgh before Mundungus finds out he's being looked for."

Harry shot Hermione an infinitely grateful look; it wasn't like her to encourage any sort of rule breaking, and he knew that it was costing her every bit of self-restraint she possessed not to ask Ginny just one more time to stay at school.

Ron, however, wasn't finished. He rounded on Harry, shoving him back a little and getting right in his face. "You think you're going to - "

"Bring her?" Harry asked resignedly, having strongly suspected that this would happen. "Yeah, she's coming. If she doesn't, she's just going to try to follow us anyway, and that is too dangerous. Besides," he said, squeezing Ginny's hand, "I need her."

"What do you need her for?" Ron raged, now pacing agitatedly up and down the path, his ears visibly red under the carrot-colored hair.

"Ronald Weasley, this is all very entertaining," said Hermione sarcastically, "but in case you didn't notice, we've got a bit more to do right now than shout at one another. If you want to get to Mundungus Fletcher before he disappears, then we have to leave now."

Ron looked for a moment as though he were considering seriously whether what he wanted to say to Harry and Ginny might be more important than catching Mundungus Fletcher, but in the end, he nodded, shooting murderous looks at both of them as he did so.

As Hermione turned away to pick up her things, Ron abruptly grabbed a fistful of Harry's robes. "This isn't over," he warned, his voice angrier than Harry had ever heard it. "You had no right to bring her along, and - "

"Ron, let go of him," Ginny cried as she realized what was happening. "This was my choice; this is what I want, and it's not down to you to order me or Harry about!"

Those words seemed to do little to calm her big brother; on the contrary, he looked even more furious as he stalked over to retrieve his own pack and returned to the group.

"On three, then, to the address we discussed," said Hermione in a business-like tone. "Ginny, have you got a firm hold on Harry?"

"Yes, thank you," Ginny said firmly, glaring at Ron.

"On three," Hermione repeated. "One...two..."

With a loud 'pop', the four teenagers Disapparated as one.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

It did not take them long to find Mundungus Fletcher's flat. Just as Aberforth had predicted, the address was not far from the wizarding pub to which they had Apparated. After only a few minutes' walk with the aid of the map of Edinburgh Hermione had brought, they were standing in front of an aged and dingy brick building that looked as though it might have once been an institution of some sort.

Mundungus' flat was located on the first floor, about halfway down a hall lit dimly by aged electric lights and covered in a threadbare carpet which might once have been red, but was now stained almost black with mud and the grime of hundreds of shoes over the years. Hermione motioned for the others to be quiet, looked quickly up and down the hall, and then pressed her ear to the door.

"He's there," she whispered. "Watching the television, from the sound of it."

"He's got a television?" Ginny asked with interest; she had only seen television sets in the windows of Muggle electronic stores on the few occasions she had traveled outside of regular wizarding society.

"A tele - what?" Ron asked, looking at the other three like they had all suddenly grown chicken heads.

"Television, Ron," Hermione said repressively. "Now stand back." She looked up and down the hall once again before drawing her wand and waving it over the door in a complicated motion, muttering an incantation in Latin under her breath.

"What are you doing?" Ron whispered loudly.

"Anti-Apparation Charm," Hermione whispered back. "That's one of the things I was studying at Grimmauld Place. Are you ready to go in, Harry?"

Harry took a deep breath and nodded. Before they had arrived in Edinburgh, he had been so focused on Apparating there safely with Ginny that he hadn't thought too much about what they were about to do. Now that the time had come, however, he felt a rush of expectation and nervousness. They were finally getting somewhere. "Let's do it," he whispered.

"Alohomora!" Ginny whispered, jabbing her wand towards the door a little too enthusiastically in her haste to get inside; she had a major bone to pick with the man who had deserted her father in battle. The door flew open with a crash against the opposing wall, and Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny rushed inside, wands drawn.

Mundungus Fletcher had obviously come to like the ancient television that had been supplied in the furnished Muggle apartment he had rented for a cheap price. By all the evidence, it appeared that he spent most of his time sitting in the bedraggled armchair; food leftovers, liquor bottles and rubbish were piled around it so that anyone who wanted to sit in the chair would have had to step high to avoid plowing straight through the mess.

He jumped up when the door banged open, and stared at the four of them incredulously as Hermione shut the door behind them and sealed it with her wand, casting an Imperturbable Charm on it for good measure; they did not want to be overheard. By the time she had finished doing that, Mundungus had leapt from his chair with surprising speed and glared at them for a moment before spinning on the spot, losing his balance and landing ridiculously in a heap on the floor.

"Ya cast an Anti-Apparation charm?" he asked blankly, looking up at them with a small measure of fear in his eyes. "Where'd ya learn to do that?"

"Books," Hermione replied curtly as she moved around the small flat, casting charms on the windows, doors, and even the thin walls to ensure that they could conduct their interview in complete privacy.

"Yer a bright witch, ya are," Mundungus wheedled, obviously trying for flattery.

"Don't talk to her," Ron hissed, breathing heavily through his nose; Harry did not even have to look back at him to know that his face would be entirely red, and Ginny's vise-like grip on his hand gave evidence that she was quite as furious as her brother.

"What'd ya come ta find me for?" Mundungus asked plaintively. "I ain't done nothin' - "

He got no further with his plea. At that very moment, Ron and Ginny both sprang from behind Harry, and before he or Hermione could stop them, they landed on either side of Mundungus, breathing heavily, each of their wands trained right on his startled face.