I Have a Rendezvous with Death

"I Have a Rendezvous with Death"

by Paracelsus

Chapter V: Point of No Return

Ginny held her coin ready; she was annoyed to discover she was slightly nervous. "What happens if we all toss the same?" she asked the others. "All heads or all tails?"

It was Sunday afternoon, at a nice little Italian bistro in Covent Garden. They'd seated themselves at the table - Harry, running slightly late as usual, having just arrived - and the icosahedral die had come up 6. Now the "Trio-plus" were readying for the coin toss.

Ron answered her. "Same as if we get two heads and two tails. We toss again."

"For four people," Hermione explained didactically, "the chances of all the coins being the same are one in eight. The chances of an equal number of heads and tails are three in eight. We should get three coins the same, one coin different, fully half the time."

Ginny looked doubtful. "I'd've thought that half the time, we'd get half heads, half tails..."

Hermione shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, Ginny. I could show you the different combinations. Or you could take my word for it."

Harry caught Ginny's eye, and silently mouthed the words "Hermione Is Always Right." Ginny started to snicker, then broke off when Hermione glared at them both. It was only a half-power glare, not full-power, but it was enough for Ginny: she put on her serious face at once. Harry tried to do the same, but his twinkling green eyes gave him away.

At Harry's nod, four coins were spun into the air and caught. Harry, Hermione, and Ron were 'tails'; Ginny was 'heads'.

"All right!" chortled Ginny triumphantly. She produced a slip of parchment and handed it to Harry with an air of challenge. Harry took the parchment, read it, and looked up at Ginny in surprise. "Now wait a minute..." he started to protest.

"Reasonably safe, I was told. Not likely to be frequented by enemy spies, you'll admit. All right, you've been there before, but I'll bet it's been a long time, right?"

"Harry?" Ron asked. "What's wrong? What did she write...?"

Harry held the slip up between two fingers. "The Burrow." He looked at Ginny over the top of his glasses and knitted his brows. "Young lady, did your mother put you up to this?"

Ginny raised her chin defiantly. "I cleared it with her, yes. But it was my idea. How long has it been since you've had a home-cooked meal?"

"Since just last night. I was at home. I cooked."

"And what did you fix for yourself?" Ginny returned, with the air of a Chaser, Quaffle in hand and a clear shot at the goal.

Harry paused. "All right. A cheese sandwich." He added hastily, "But I used two kinds of cheese."

Hermione was grinning, and Ron was positively snorting with laughter. "Give it up, mate," he suggested. "You're not going to win this one. And really, it's a good idea. I owe Mum a visit, anyway."

"We'll meet outside W-cubed around four," explained Ginny, "and Portkey there. See, it's all planned out. You have no excuses."

Harry sighed and nodded slowly. "Okay, okay. I see I'm outnumbered. So we meet next Saturday," and he looked at Ron pointedly, "the first of June."

Ron's eyes widened as he suddenly remembered the Quidditch trials scheduled for that day. He still hadn't told anyone about them... oh hell, they were in the morning, weren't they? Yes. Whew.

He looked back at Harry, his wide eyes telling Harry that he'd forgotten the clash of dates... the slightest jerk of his head, and a tiny sweep of his fingers, telling Harry that he hadn't told Hermione or Ginny (nor, by implication, anyone else)... and a serious set to his brows asking Harry to keep the secret for now.

Harry responded with an arched eyebrow ("I figured you might've forgotten") and a barely perceptible smile and nod ("Of course I won't tell anyone"). Over their years at Hogwarts, the friends had developed such a rapport that they could, on occasion, carry on whole conversations with no words spoken aloud. Many's the time they'd been brought before Professor McGonagall and managed to excuse themselves by non-verbally agreeing on an alibi, right under her nose.

Unfortunately, there were two other people who shared this rapport with them, this knack for non-verbal conversation. Harry looked away from Ron to discover Hermione watching them intently. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and the corner of her mouth quirked upward. That, Harry knew, was Hermione face-language for, "I know you two are discussing some secret, and I'm not going to call you on it right now, but you will tell me all about it, trust me."

Ginny, at least, was still too delighted in getting them all to the Burrow to notice something was up. Just as well, Harry decided. She could be as surprised as the rest of the family, come Saturday.

Minestrone soup was served, and the four of them made small talk for a while. Once the dinner entrees were brought to the table, Harry decided to regale them with an account of his experience a few days earlier with Laurel Wooton. He soon had the others laughing hysterically.

"Oh, poor Harry," gasped Hermione. "It must have been so dreadful for you, stuck there with your unofficial fan club..."

"I don't understand it," Harry said plaintively. "That morning she could hardly say two words to me. By the time I left, she wasn't even pausing for breath!"

"She was just taken by surprise, when you first met her. She probably spent the rest of the day practicing, saying your name over and over," laughed Ginny. "Honestly, Harry, don't you know anything about girls?"

"Well, since you ask..." Harry's eyes flicked from Ginny to Hermione and back. "No. Not one single thing."

"Something I've long suspected," declared Hermione, wiping her eyes, "but I'm glad to have it confirmed."

"Ha ha. It wasn't funny at the time. I remember thinking I'd almost prefer facing Death Eaters."

"What were you doing at Hogwarts anyway, Harry?" asked Ron, his laughter finally under control.

"Having tea with Dumbledore... catching up on the news." The others quickly turned somber. News from Professor Dumbledore was rarely good, these days. Briefly, Harry described the sinking mood of the wizarding world that Dumbledore had related to him.

"Makes sense," Ron finally said, thoughtfully. "I mean, our business is doing okay, but it's a joke shop. Other businesses in Hogsmeade aren't doing so well. Serious purchases, or long-term purchases - new houses, new furniture - folks are putting off buying those. Confidence in the future is really low."

Harry was about make some reply when he began to feel a slight irritation in his scar. If he was right about what that meant... Okay, it's show time. "Something needs to be done, and soon," he said. "Which is why we need to try fighting this war from another direction."

"What do you mean, Harry?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked around, as if to see if anyone were in earshot. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. "I heard about something a few weeks ago, and it gave me an idea. When I was at Hogwarts this week, I took the opportunity to do some research in the library." He pulled from his jacket pocket a sheaf of parchment sheets. "Take a look at these." He handed them to Hermione, and managed not to hold his breath. He could only trust to fate now: the subtle alterations he'd made to the text, back in the Hogwarts library, would go unnoticed by anyone else - but this was Hermione.

Hermione took the sheets and quickly reviewed them one by one. Ron and Ginny peered over her shoulders. "What's that in? French?" asked Ron.

"Mm-hmm," said Hermione, absorbed in reading. She handed each page to Ginny as she was done with it. When she finished the last page, she looked up at Harry. "I vaguely remember seeing this in a book... it was in the Restricted Section, as I recall..."

Harry nodded, and relaxed a tiny bit inside. "Magical Rituals of the Ancient Celts," he translated the title for Ron. "This particular chapter describes a ritual they called the Exorcism of Power."

"According to this," said Ginny, who was still reading, "it was used to punish any of the High Druids who'd turned corrupt and misused their magic. It stripped them of all magical power, forever." She looked up at Harry. "Are you thinking...?"

"Death Eaters aren't likely to follow Voldemort if he's lost his power," Harry pointed out. "If all his defenses were gone, he'd be easy to capture. And with Himself out of the way, his organization will probably crumble and die - just as it did twenty years ago."

"I don't know, Harry," said Hermione skeptically. "It sounds wonderful, but you'll notice this description is pretty vague... something about a special wand to be used, something about an item dear to the criminal..."

"I know it's a long shot," Harry admitted. "But don't you see the significance of using an item closely linked to Voldemort?" He waited expectantly for them to make the connection.

Light dawned in Ron's face. "It means You-Know-Who doesn't have to be there. You don't have to confront him... you can apply the spell to his property!"

"Exactly," said Harry. "All these years, we've never been able to find Voldemort where he's hiding, never able to bring the fight to him. Well, if this works, we won't have to. We can strip him of his powers no matter where he hides."

"What do you mean? Do we have something that belonged to Voldemort...?" began Ginny, and then stopped. Her eyes widened. "The diary!"

"Bravo! Yes, we have Tom Riddle's diary. He poured so much of himself into that book, it was like his second self. What better link could we ask for?" Harry shrugged. "It's a little damaged, but it should still work."

Hermione was watching Harry's face closely. "So what do we need to do?" she asked, with only the slightest emphasis on we.

"For the moment," replied Harry, "we still need to find out if this can be done, and how. Like I said, it's a long shot. I was hoping you might be able to find out more..."

"Of course!" said Hermione happily. "The British Museum cache! There are books there that nobody's ever heard of... there's a chance one of them may describe this Exorcism in more detail..."

Harry nodded. "But be discreet. For the moment, this is only a possibility. I don't want to alert anyone to it until we know more. Hermione, I'm afraid that means you can't ask your fellow Project members for help."

"Even if I don't say what it's for? Trust me, they've lived in ivory towers their whole lives. They'd never connect ancient Druids to fighting Voldemort."

"Well, be discreet, that's all," said Harry with a show of reluctance.

"You know, that would explain why nobody's tried this before," said Ron. "If the book they needed was hidden away for a hundred years..."

Ginny agreed. "And you know, I can contact Madame Maxime, see if she's got anything that might help."

Harry shook his head sharply. "Don't owl her. Nothing in writing, nothing that could be intercepted. If you want to ask her help, go to Beauxbatons and ask her in person. In private."

"Right." She looked at the pages of parchment still in her hand. "This seems to be your only copy. I should take some notes before I leave."

"I've got my own copy at home. This is actually a copy of a copy, I meant it for Hermione," said Harry, "but there's no reason you can't have one too. Let's see..."

He brought a couple of sheets of parchment from his jacket pocket. "I was taught this by some American colleagues of mine," he commented. "They called it the Xerox Charm." Laying a blank sheet over one of the pages of text, he placed his palm atop it and smoothed the sheets with his fingers. The others noticed that he had his wand up his sleeve, its tip barely visible in his palm. "Pinxio," he murmured, and slowly the text began to appear on the blank sheet.

"Wow," said Hermione, impressed. "I could use this on the Project."

"I could've used this in school," returned Ron. "Wish we'd known about it then!"

"The march of progress," said Harry with a smile. "I don't have enough blank sheets to copy the whole chapter, Ginny, but will these pages do?"

"They should," said Ginny, returning the smile. "Let's hope Madame has some references that will help." Her eyes were bright, her cheeks slightly flushed. She was obviously excited at the prospect of helping. Harry kept his smile firmly in place, while feeling like a miserable weasel inside.

"One last thing," he concluded. "The text refers to a specific wand that has to be used..."

"Yes," interrupted Hermione. "It has no name, just that it's the wand anointed for the task... let's see..." She looked over the pages, mumbling in French. "Ginny, help me out here..."

Ginny leaned over. "'Hidden until it is called,'" she translated, "'it can be found only by the Pure, in the fullness of Light, for the cause of Light.' What's that supposed to mean?"

"I get the feeling that the ritual was only used for the most serious abuses of power," Harry replied. "Not for anything trivial. So the wand was hidden in a way that only the High Druids could find it and use it. We're going to have to find where it's hidden. And if I interpret this right," he tapped the page with his fingertip, "we may have only a small window of time to do it."

Ron had been hampered in the discussion by his lack of knowledge of French, but this was something he seemed to understand. "You think it can only be found at certain times of the year? 'In the fullness of Light'? That would be..."

"One of two days," said Harry. "Beltane, or Summer Solstice." He smiled apologetically at Hermione, who was regarding him with raised eyebrows. "I told you I'd been doing some reading, ever since this came to my notice. There was a large element of sun-worship in Druidic ritual, wasn't there?"

Hermione nodded. "Beltane was a major feast day, for sun-worship at least... but if your reading of this is right, the 'fullness of Light' would refer to the longest day of the year: the first day of Summer."

"Which is just as well," interjected Ginny, "since Beltane's passed."

"And it doesn't leave us much time," concluded Harry. "So Ginny, you have a nice visit with Madame Maxime, and Hermione, you see what the Museum has to offer. Ron? I don't suppose you could get into the Hogwarts library without being noticed...?"

Ron shook his head. "If you're thinking of a certain tunnel underneath Honeydukes, I remind you that it's been sealed off ever since Hogsmeade. And you know how they've increased security around Hogwarts. I couldn't just sneak in anymore." He rubbed his chin in thought. "I could just go there in the daytime, same as you did, but I don't really have a good reason to be in the library. I'd be noticed..."

"By the students," Ginny pointed out. "They can hardly be a threat, can they?"

Oh, if only you knew, thought Harry. Aloud he said, "Let's not take unnecessary chances. I suspect I've already mined Hogwarts for all it's got on the subject, Ron. We'll have to keep you in reserve for now."

"Meaning: Ron's library research skills aren't as finely honed as some other peoples', whose names I won't mention," said Ron, with a sly grin at Hermione and Ginny. "S'okay, we all have our strengths."

"Too true, mate," Harry grinned. He saw that Hermione and Ginny had cleared the table of the pages of parchment, tucking them away into their purses, and took this as a sign that they'd said as much as they needed about the Exorcism of Power. He sat back and listened as the conversation moved to other topics, finishing his lasagna and forcing himself to keep his hand away from his itching scar.

*

Harry lingered at the table as the others made ready to leave the restaurant. His standard procedure, when his scar was bothering him, was to avoid any locale with recognizable landmarks. If Lord Voldemort was watching him in the way he thought, he could only see Harry's immediate surroundings - i.e., no more than Harry could see around Voldemort, in his prescient dreams of Voldemort. An anonymous Italian bistro was safe enough, but a city street in London might have signposts, landmarks - enough details for a squad of Death Eater assassins to locate him and Apparate. Harry intended, therefore, to be the last to leave the restaurant - and once outside, return to the safe haven of his warded home as quickly as he could.

Except that tonight, Hermione seemed to want to linger, too.

"G'night, Hermione," called Ginny. "Night, Harry." Ron, escorting Ginny out the door, waved at them and grinned merrily.

Harry pulled out some money, putting his share of the bill on the table. He was preparing to say good night when Hermione caught him by the sleeve. "What's up, Hermione?" he asked lightly.

"I was going to ask you that," she replied, her eyes searching his face.

It took every ounce of Harry's self-control to look slightly puzzled. He waited for Hermione to continue.

"You and Ron," she amplified. "What's up between you two? You have something planned, don't deny it."

Oh, that. Harry felt a flood of relief. Ron's upcoming tryout with the Cannons would make the perfect screen for the other things he had to keep hidden from her. His conscience tried to complain, and he sternly gave it a time-out in its compartment of his mind.

None of that showed on his face; instead, he gave Hermione a knowing smile. "I wouldn't say we have something planned, Hermione. Ron had simply forgotten that he has some other things to do next Saturday." He raised his hand as Hermione drew breath to ask the obvious next question. "And it's for Ron to tell you about it, not me. Which I think he will - next Saturday."

"Keeping secrets from me, Harry Potter?"

His smile turned gentle. "This isn't my secret to tell, Hermione."

"Mm." Hermione seemed to accept this, but still looked unconvinced. "And that's all it is? Nothing else I need to know about?"

"The possibility of the Exorcism spell wasn't enough?" He reached out and took her hand. "Hey, will you at least trust me when I say it will make you happy?"

Her warm brown eyes searched his for a moment longer, then she smiled and nodded. "Of course I trust you. Heavens, how often have I trusted you with my life?" She leaned against him slightly, taking comfort in his presence. "I'll always trust you, completely."

*

Once he'd Apparated back to his home, Harry stripped off his jacket and threw it against the wardrobe savagely. He had never felt so utterly wretched.

And the Award for Best Performance by a Hero Trying Madly To Protect His Friends From An Agonizing Death goes to... may I have the envelope, please?

Harry Judas Potter.

It was for their own good. It was for their own good. It was.

Which didn't change the fact that, for the first time in all the years of their relationship, he'd deliberately lied to his closest friends. Lied? Hell, I manipulated them! I played them like a piano! And now they'll go out and eagerly work on my behalf, never knowing that the outcome is already determined...

He collapsed miserably onto a chair and put his head in his hands. This was the plan, Harry, he reminded himself. It has to look completely natural. Not one single thing can be out of the ordinary, nothing that might arouse suspicion. If I discovered a possible way to end the war, once and for all? Of course I'd ask my friends for help. Of course I'd try to keep it secret from Voldemort.

And of course I'll do the job myself, when the time comes.

There could be no turning back now. Harry was committed. All the elements were in place, all the wheels in motion. A threat to be countered, and a prize to be won - the combination was too great for Voldemort to ignore. He wouldn't trust this task to minions. He'd come himself. It's what Harry would do, if he were Voldemort.

Which I'm not. I'm not. But oh, how easy it was to lie to them all. Feed them falsehoods, and lead them down a road paved with my good intentions. And Hermione, telling me how she trusts me... twisting the knife in my stomach, that was. If she ever finds out about my plan, she may never speak to me again. She'll certainly never trust me again.

If she finds out. Well, I'll just have to make sure she doesn't. That way, even if the plan works, at least she'll remember me fondly.

He stood up, a bundle of guilty nerves, and took a turn around the room. He finally ended up at the fireplace, where on the mantelpiece the pictures of Cedric, Sirius, Lavender's parents, and the others, all smiled and nodded at him. He expected to feel his normal pangs of remorse on seeing them, but tonight they filled him with an iron resolve.

There will not be pictures of Ron, Hermione and Ginny up here, Harry vowed with solemn finality. There will NOT. I don't care what it takes, I don't care what I have to do. I will stop Voldemort without endangering those I love. The plan proceeds.

I'm sorry, Hermione, but the lesson has changed to: Friends Don't Let Friends Fight.