Another City, Not My Own

"ANOTHER CITY, NOT MY OWN"
Chapter Seventeen
"Into The Whirlpool"

From the sound effects that she was making with her voice--car horns honking, and a sound like tires squealing--and the swooping motions that she was making with her hands, Harry guessed that Gabrielle was now telling her mother about their flight through the Auto-Route tunnel.

It was two hours since they had returned to the Maquis Mouse II. During that time, Gabrielle had not once stopped jabbering to her mother in French. Harry sat beside her at the dinette table, sipping hot cocoa provided by Madame Delacour. He couldn't understand a word that Gabrielle was saying, but from her spirited tone and the frenzied arm-waving movements she was making, he knew she was giving her mother a full detailed account of the broomstick chase through Latrece. Her voice was excited and giddy, and she was grinning like a kid who had just gone on her first roller-coaster ride.

It had taken them over an hour to get back to the Delacour family yacht. After leaving the Hotel St. Pierre, Harry had landed his broom on a nearby side street in the hills overlooking the city. It might have been faster to fly back to the Vieux Port on the Firebolt, but he decided that they had caused enough Muggle panic and destruction of property for one night. Gabrielle had called her father on the shell phone to say that they were coming home. Then Harry had flagged down a taxi.

They sat in the back seat of the cab as it drove slowly back to the Vieux Port through the city's end-of-Carnival traffic. Gabrielle whispered to Harry that the voice on the cab's radio was talking in French about "boys on flying brooms" and "a twelve-car accident in the Auto-Route tunnel, no serious injuries, still being cleared." The cab driver kept glancing back at them suspiciously through the taxi's rear-view mirror. Harry quickly put the Firebolt that they had used to escape from the Chateau Malfoy down on the cab floor, out of the driver's sight.

Looking out the window, he caught occasional glimpses of men and women in black robes and pointed hats moving through the crowds of Carnival-goers on the sidewalk. He knew instantly, from the wands they held in their hands and the furious expressions on their faces, that these were not Muggles in Carnival costumes. They were real wizards, probably sent by the French Ministry of Magic to investigate the reports of boys flying through the city of Latrece on broomsticks. Harry nervously pulled Gabrielle down in the back of the cab, so that they were hidden from the wizards patrolling the crowds outside.

When they reached the Promenade de la Plage, the smoldering ruins of the giant Carnival King parade float were still bobbing in the dark waters of the Mediterranean, just beyond the beach. The crowds that had been there to witness the Carnival King being set on fire at the end of the great parade were starting to break up now. The cab driver let Harry and Gabrielle out at the Vieux Port. Harry pulled his backpack and the Firebolt out of the back seat and spoke with the cab driver through the window. "Here's an extra 100 Francs! Forget you ever saw us!"

To which the cab driver replied, "Monsieur, I am already trying!"

When they stepped on board the Maquis Mouse II, Gabrielle's mother grabbed her daughter in a bear-hug. Madame Delacour was overjoyed when Gabrielle confirmed that she had opened the crystal lock at the Chateau Malfoy. Monsieur Delacour was relieved that both of them had returned safely--until Harry told him that Draco Malfoy and his friends had chased them through the city streets on broomsticks, in full view of almost the entire Muggle population of Latrece. Monsieur Delacour asked Harry to wait on board his yacht while he went out to, as he put it, "assess the damage," and to see how the wizards from the French Ministry of Magic were handling the incident.

Now, as Harry sat listening to Gabrielle's breathless monologue, he had a bad desire to crawl under the dinette table and stay there for the rest of his life. He could not remember a time when he had screwed up so royally, so completely as he had tonight. This was the topper--even worse than his joyride with Ron in Arthur Weasley's flying Ford Anglia at the beginning of his second year at Hogwarts, or the time he'd inflated Aunt Marge in the Dursley's living room. He had created nothing short of an international incident here in Latrece! He and Gabrielle had been seen flying on a broomstick by thousands of Muggles tonight! Malfoy was probably right; they would be talking about this fiasco in the Daily Prophet for months!

It was bad enough that he now had to go back to England and explain his actions to the English Ministry of Magic. He hoped that they'd at least give him a chance to tell his side of the story before they expelled him from Hogwarts. The worst of it was that Gabrielle and her family were now involved. The last thing Harry wanted was for them to be punished by the French Ministry of Magic for their part in this--especially Gabrielle, who was just starting her magical education. What if they barred her from attending Beauxbatons because of his bungling? Or even worse, what if they expelled her family from the magic world for helping him tonight?

Gabrielle was now describing their encounter with Malfoy's gang in the church steeple, making wild swooping motions with her hands to illustrate the flying bats. Madame Delacour sat at the dinette table, across from Harry and Gabrielle. All the color had drained from her face as she listened to her daughter's recounting of the night's events. Once in a while, as Gabrielle described one of the many fool stunts that Harry had pulled that evening--the broomstick chase over the rooftops of Vieux Latrece, or the flight through the open market--Madame Delacour's mouth would drop open. Her hand would fly to her heart and she would glance at Harry in shock.

Harry winced each time she did this. He could only imagine what she was thinking when she looked at him this way. ("You horrible, reckless daredevil! How could you put my precious baby in such terrible danger?!") He hoped that she would forgive him for this, and that she wouldn't lose her temper and start throwing veela fireballs at him. He knew that veelas could be very hard to handle if you made them mad. He felt like a young kid who had just brought his date home three hours after her curfew, and now had to face the wrath of her parents.

The back door of the salon on the Maquis Mouse II opened, and Monsieur Delacour returned from his scouting expedition. From the dazed expression on his face, Harry knew that the news was not good. "That bad, huh?"

Monsieur Delacour nodded slowly. "You 'ave created quite an event 'ere, mon ami! It is as you said. The wizards from the French Ministry are 'ere, and they are all in a panic! They are running all over Latrece doing Memory Charms on anyone who might 'ave seen you. They did a Memory Charm on the mayor and 'is wife, and on the Carnival Queen and 'er attendants! They even did a Charm on the Grand Marshall of the parade." He tapped his chest with a forefinger. "I was lucky to escape myself!"

"I figured as much," Harry said, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. "What about the Muggles who saw us? Were there any bad injuries anywhere?"

"There were a few cuts and bruises in the Auto-Route tunnel, but no one was seriously hurt. As you said, most of the people who saw you in the parade tonight assumed that you were a part of it, that you were one of the special effects for the Carnival. If you ask me, I think the Ministry wizards are overreacting."

"Yeah, they have a tendency to do that sometimes," Harry admitted ruefully.

Monsieur Delacour looked at him. "Did you get the pumpkin?"

Harry knew that he meant the bottle of Chimaera's Root. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and looked at it. There was a slight crack in the glass on one side--the result, he thought, of his airborne fight with Derrick and Bole--but the bottle and its contents were still intact.

"Tres bien," Monsieur Delacour said, smiling.

"Thank your daughter, here," said Harry, thumbing towards Gabrielle. "She got the crystal lock open in the chateau. I'd've never been able to get this bottle without her."

Gabrielle beamed. Her father smiled at her. "Very good, Monkeyface! Very good!"

Harry looked at his watch and blinked. "Oh, no!"

"What is it, 'Arry?" Gabrielle asked.

"It's almost three A.M. I'd better go!"

"Go?" said Monsieur Delacour. "Where are you going?"

"Back to Hogwarts!" Harry said, standing up from the dinette. "If I don't leave now, I'll never make it back in time!" He put the bottle of Chimaera's Root back in his inner breast pocket and zipped up his jacket.

"Wait a minute, 'Arry," Monsieur Delacour was saying. "You are not going to fly all the way back to 'Ogwarts, are you?"

"I've got no choice!" Harry said. He picked up the Firebolt that was lying upright against the galley counter--and suddenly remembered that this was the broom that he and Gabrielle had used to escape from the chateau. His own Firebolt was still downstairs in the cupboard of the guest stateroom on the lower deck.

"I've got to get the Chimaera's Root back to Hogwarts," he continued, thinking fast. "It'll be light in a few hours. I'll have to fly under the Invisibility Cloak when the sun comes up. It'll be risky, but I'll have to take the chance. I just hope I'm not too late."

He really wasn't looking forward to this trip. After all that he had been through tonight, he was exhausted. He had a number of new bruises on his arms and ribs from his fight with Bole and Derrick, and his "old" bruises--those he had received just yesterday morning from his fall in the Owlery--were starting to ache as well. Now he would have to fly for hours under the burning midday sun wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak, and he didn't have Neville's Jittercress Tea to keep himself awake this time.

"Listen," Harry said to the Delacours, "I really want to thank all of you for helping me. I wish I had time to stay, but I--"

But Monsieur and Madame Delacour were talking to each other in French. Gabrielle was listening intently to her parents. Madame Delacour seemed anxious about something. Monsieur Delacour seemed to be trying to reassure her. He turned to Harry.

"'Arry, you do not 'ave to fly all the way back to 'Ogwarts. We will take you there ourselves!"

"Take me there?" Harry repeated. "You mean--in the boat? Uh, no offense, Monsieur Delacour, but--if we go back to England by boat, how long would it take us? Five or six days? I mean, we'd have to go all the way up around Spain, and then--"

"Non, non, 'Arry!" said Monsieur Delacour. "You do not understand. We will take you back to 'Ogwarts through the Whirlpool. It will be much faster that way."

"Through the Whirlpool?"

"Oui. I know what you think." Monsieur Delacour gestured around the interior of the boat. "This boat looks like an ordinary Muggle yacht. But it 'as one special magical feature. It can travel by Whirlpool! We take the boat out to sea, and we open a Whirlpool in the water. It is like a portal, you see? It allows us to Apparate from lake to lake, and from river to river. With the Whirlpool, we can Apparate up through the rivers of France--through the Rhone, the Sonne, the Seine--and then across the Channel. It is like--'ow you say?--frog-leaping from river to lake to river through the portals. Then when we get to England, we Apparate north up through the lakes and rivers, all the way up to 'Ogwarts. We can come up right in the middle of the 'Ogwarts lake!"

Harry thought about this for a moment, then realized what Monsieur Delacour was describing. "Oh, I see! It's like the Durmstrang ship?"

A few years ago during the Triwizard Tournament, the students from Durmstrang Academy had arrived in a three-masted ship that had risen up out of a whirlpool in the center of the Hogwarts lake.

"Durmstrang?" said Monsieur Delacour. "Oh, oui! The Durmstrang Academy. They 'ave a ship that can travel through the Whirlpool. Oui, it is exactly like that."

"So if we use the Whirlpool, how long would it take us to get back to Hogwarts?"

"About three or four hours, once we get out into the ocean."

Madame Delacour spoke to her husband in French again. As before, she seemed anxious about something. Monsieur Delacour spoke to his wife in French, and again seemed to be trying to reassure her.

"I'm sorry," Harry interrupted. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, nothing is wrong, 'Arry," said Monsieur Delacour, calmly. He nodded to his wife. "Emilie, she is a bit concerned because this will be the longest trip that we 'ave ever taken using the Whirlpool."

"You see, we normally use the Whirlpool for very short trips," Madame Delacour explained. "We go into the Whirlpool in the Mediterranean and come up again in one of the Italian lakes, for example. But this will be the first time we have ever taken the boat all the way north across the continent and into England." She looked at her husband. "I just want to be sure that the boat can make the journey through the Whirlpool without any trouble."

"Can it?" Harry asked.

"Absolument!" Monsieur Delacour said, confidently. "This boat, it is specially fitted to travel through the Whirlpool. It is a very strong boat!"

"Wait a minute," Harry said. "Are you absolutely sure that if we take this boat into the Whirlpool, it will make it all the way back to Hogwarts? I don't want to put your family in any more danger."

"I am positive, 'Arry," said Monsieur Delacour. From his tone of voice, it sounded as if he was not boasting, but was certain beyond all doubt. "We will be fine, trust me. I should warn you, 'owever, that we will be underwater during the whole time that we are traveling through the Whirlpool. It will be a very rough journey."

"Okay-y-y," Harry said. "How rough a journey are we talking about?"

Monsieur Delacour shrugged. "Is difficult to describe if you 'ave not been through the Whirlpool before. Er, perhaps you have seen the American movie, The Perfect Storm?"

Harry looked at him, then turned and leaned weakly against the dinette table. "Oh! Wonderful!"

* * *

While Monsieur Delacour went down to the Harbor Master's office to let the Officer On Duty know that they would be leaving, Harry helped Gabrielle and Madame Delacour to get the interior of the Maquis Mouse II ready for travel. Madame Delacour showed Harry how to put Securing Charms on the dishes, glasses, and cooking utensils in the galley cupboards. The Securing Charms, she explained, would keep these items "nailed down," as if by gravity, so that they would not fly around inside the cupboards and get broken while the ship was traveling through the Whirlpool. Meanwhile, Gabrielle put away a number of fragile objects--vases, ashtrays, lamps, and the basket of shells--storing them in the galley lockers. Harry and Madame Delacour then sealed all the lockers and cupboards on the ship with Sealing Charms, so that their doors could not open while the ship was inside the Whirlpool.

As Harry was helping Madame Delacour to put Securing Charms on the objects in the medicine cabinet in the lower deck bathroom, he asked her, "Is your husband really sure about travelling through the Whirlpool? I can find another way to get back to Hogwarts if you don't think it's safe."

"Mon cheri is very colorful," Madame Delacour said, with a wry smile, "but he is no idle boaster. He would not take us through the Whirlpool if he were not absolutely sure that the ship would be safe."

When they stepped out into the lower deck hallway, Harry said awkwardly, "Uhh, listen...I'm really sorry about what happened tonight. I didn't mean to get Gabrielle involved in this mess. One minute we were escaping from the Chateau Malfoy on a broom, and the next minute we were on this crazy chase through the streets of Latrece! Things were happening so fast, I didn't have time to think about anything except keeping us alive."

Madame Delacour was silent for a moment. She folded her arms and leaned against the wall. "You know, Gabrielle was determined to help you tonight, Harry. She saw it as a point of honor, after you rescued her from the merpeople. Nothing that Gaston or I could have said to her would have changed her mind."

She shrugged. "We knew that what the two of you were doing tonight would be very dangerous--and might lead you into trouble. I must admit, I would have been happier if Gabrielle had come back from her adventure with a less dramatic story to tell." Harry chuckled at this. "But you kept your promise to me. You brought my daughter back safely. And for that, I thank you."

"Yeah, well," Harry said, quietly. "When one makes a promise to a lady, one is obliged to keep it."

* * *

When all the cupboards and lockers on the Maquis Mouse II had been sealed, Harry stepped out onto the aft deck to get some air. He sat against the railing on the starboard side of the deck and looked out across the Vieux Port at the still-smoking ruins of the Carnival King float. The moon shone brightly on the water, and the night wind ruffled his hair. It was the first quiet moment that he'd had in the past six hours, an instant of peace before the final rough leg of this journey. If he could trust Monsieur Delacour's word that his boat could make it through the Whirlpool and get them back to Hogwarts in one piece, it would all be finished, one way or the other.

He knew that he was facing an inquiry of some kind when he got back. He hoped that Dumbledore could help him to smooth things over with both the English and French Ministries of Magic. With any luck, they'd see that he'd had no choice when he'd led Malfoy on the chase through Latrece, that he had been trying to save his own life, and Gabrielle's--and Professor McGonagall's.

Harry's stomach clenched. Here he was worrying about his own future when Professor McGonagall was fighting for her life back at Hogwarts. At least, he hoped that she was still fighting. His fingers moved to his breast pocket and he felt the bottle of Chimaera's Root through the fabric of his jacket. He hoped he could get back in time for Professor Sprout, Professor Snape, and Madam Pomfrey to make an antidote.

Please...let McGonagall hold on just a bit longer

, he prayed.

Monsieur Delacour came back down the pier from the Harbor Master's office. He was smoking a thick, expensive-looking cigar. As he stepped onto the aft deck of the Maquis Mouse II, he saw Harry standing in the shadows.

"Are we ready to go?" asked Monsieur Delacour.

"I think so," said Harry. "We've secured everything on the ship." He nodded towards the interior of the boat. "Mrs. Delacour is down in the master stateroom, trying to get Gabrielle to settle down and take a nap. I don't think she's going to be able to do it. Gabrielle's too wound up right now."

Monsieur Delacour chuckled. "I am not surprised. After the 'thrill-ride' she 'ad tonight, Gabrielle may never get to sleep again."

"I'm sorry about what happened," Harry said again. "I never meant for it to get out of hand like this. It just all happened so fast."

"I know," said Monsieur Delacour, with a dismissive wave. "You would not 'ave done something like this if you 'ad any other choice. The important thing is that you are all right, and that you brought Gabrielle back safely, like you said you would."

"I hope the English Ministry of Magic forgives me for this. I don't know what kind of welcome I'll get when we get back to Hogwarts."

"My guess is, they will welcome you with open arms."

Harry looked at Monsieur Delacour. "Have I put you in the glue?"

"In the glue?"

"What I mean is, is your family going to get in trouble with the French Ministry over what happened tonight?"

Monsieur Delacour smiled. "You needn't worry about me or my family, mon ami. I 'ave some...good connections in the French Ministry. If there is any trouble, I can call in some favors and things will be fine."

Harry took a deep breath. "There's something else you need to know, Monsieur Delacour. Draco Malfoy recognized Gabrielle tonight at the hotel. I don't think he could remember her name, but he knew that she was the veela girl that I brought up from the Hogwarts lake a few years ago. When Draco tells his father about what happened tonight, Lucius Malfoy is going to be furious."

"You think 'e will come after us?" asked Monsieur Delacour.

"I hope not. I'm hoping that he'll be too busy from now on to start any more private vendettas. Arthur Weasley is about to set the French Ministry of Magic on his trail for trying to poison Dumbledore. I don't think the Malfoys will be able to stay here in Latrece much longer."

Harry frowned. "But Lucius Malfoy is the kind of man who seeks revenge just for its own sake. This whole thing started because he wanted to get back at Dumbledore for expelling his son from Hogwarts. And Malfoy has no qualms about coming after people through their loved ones. I've had friends--good friends, people that I care about--who have been hurt because he wanted to hurt them, or because he wanted to hurt people who were close to them."

"You're saying we should watch out for him?"

"I'm saying you should be careful. The last thing I want is for anyone in your family to get hurt because you helped me tonight."

Monsieur Delacour puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. He leaned against the port rail of the aft deck and gestured up into the night sky. "The moon is very bright tonight."

"Yeah," Harry said, looking up at it. "I noticed that."

"When I was a small boy," Monsieur Delacour mused, "I was afraid of the dark. I used to fear it. But my father once told me, 'At any time, half of the world is in darkness, and half of it is in light. It 'as always been this way, and it always will be so. But even in the darkness, God sends us the moon, with its light, to 'elp us find our way. There are times when the moon is hidden by clouds, or when its face is turned away from the Earth. Sometimes the darkness seems to overwhelm us. But the moon is always there, even when we cannot see it. And it always returns, sooner or later, to bring its light back to the world.'"

He looked across the aft deck at Harry. "'And thus,' my father said, 'must it always be with us. We must not fear the darkness of evil men--or what they might do to us if we stand up and fight against them. Sometimes a price must be paid to bring back the light. But if we do not fight against evil men because we are afraid of them, then we deserve to be overcome by the darkness. As long as someone continues to stand up against him, an evil man will eventually fall. And if we continue to fight against the darkness, even when it threatens to overwhelm us, eventually the light will return--as it does when the moon comes back.'"

Monsieur Delacour looked at the stub of his cigar for a long moment, then tossed it overboard. He smiled at Harry. "Come! Help me to cast off the boat."

* * *

It took half an hour for the Maquis Mouse II to steer its way through the crowded harbor and out of the Vieux Port. It also took some maneuvering to get them past the burning wreckage of the Carnival King, which had somehow floated too close to the harbor entrance.

As they pulled out into the Mediterranean, Harry stood on the aft deck and watched the city of Latrece as it slowly disappeared behind them. The city lights were still blazing, even at four o'clock in the morning. The neon signs on the beachfront hotels were flashing, and the beach itself was one long white strip of sand in the moonlight. From the aft deck, Harry could still see the silhouette of the pirate ship, bobbing up and down like a ghost ship next to the jetty.

I'll come back to this city some day, after all the wars are over,

he promised himself, after people like Lucius and Draco Malfoy have been safely locked away where they can't hurt anyone else. I'll explore this city on foot, not on a flying broomstick. I could bring Ginny, Ron, and Hermione here during Carnival time. We could walk around the city in our Hogwarts uniforms, and I could show them all the places where I made all those stupid blunders on my Firebolt tonight.

He would have been very surprised to learn that it would be only five months before he returned to Latrece. He might have been even more shocked to learn that, when he left the city for the second time, he would take the pirate ship with him.

* * *

Back inside the boat, Harry joined Monsieur and Madame Delacour in the pilothouse. Monsieur Delacour sat at the helm, steering the boat through the darkness. Madame Delacour sat to her husband's right in the navigator's seat, watching the instruments, gauges, and switches on the dashboard.

When they reached the open sea, Monsieur Delacour pushed the throttle up to medium speed. Small searchlights on the bow of the ship blazed out in front of them, illuminating their course. The engine of the boat thrummed steadily as they cut through the water. From inside the ship, Harry noticed, the engines sounded like the hum of a jet plane about to take off.

He leaned over and tapped Madame Delacour on the shoulder. He had to shout, so she could hear him above the engines. "Where are we going?"

She pointed to a spot on the chart in front of her. "Naufrage Cove. It is about ten knots west of here. It is a nice quiet cove, and it is well outside the shipping lanes. No one will see us there. That is where we will enter the Whirlpool."

A few minutes later, Monsieur Delacour gently eased back on the throttle. The boat gradually slowed to a stop, drifting in the moonlit water. Harry stared out through the windshield. To his right, he could see the shadowy outline of the French coast, but no lights to indicate any nearby towns or residences.

"Emilie, si'l vous plait?" said Monsieur Delacour, over the continuing drone of the boat's engine.

Madame Delacour pulled out her wand. She tapped it several times on the dashboard, flipped a red switch, and simultaneously said, "Aqua Comprimo!"

Harry heard a sound like a sudden blast of air passing through the yacht. He felt the walls of the boat shudder slightly around them, as if a wave of magic had just swept through the ship from bow to stern.

"We 'ave just turned on a water-tight Sealing Spell in the boat," Monsieur Delacour explained,. "It will seal the doors and windows, and keep the water from coming in while we are in the Whirlpool. Now, we will open the Whirlpool itself."

Madame Delacour reached up and slowly pulled a white lever on the dashboard. As she did, she once again tapped her wand on the helm and said, "Gurges!"

To Harry's amazement, a white beam of light shot out from the bow of the boat. It separated into two beams and slowly parted. A sheet of white light formed between the two beams, like a transparent, triangular awning in front of the boat. The sea in front of the ship started to bubble and foam. A small whirlpool slowly formed directly in front of the bow. It swirled and grew larger underneath the triangular sheet of white light.

"'Ere we go, mes ami," said Monsieur Delacour.

He pulled back slowly on the throttle. The yacht moved forward into the still-expanding whirlpool. Harry expected the boat to suddenly start spinning around in circles, but to his surprise the bow remained pointed straight ahead as they entered the vortex. He was aware, however, that the boat was slowly sinking into the Whirlpool. Outside, the revolving, white-foam walls of the Whirlpool rose up around the ship, as if they were being lowered into a hole. Harry glanced up through the windshield for one last desperate glimpse of the star-covered sky.

People come and go in the strangest ways around here.

They were traveling through a swirling, funnel-shaped tunnel of water. The boat seemed to be plowing straight through the center of the tunnel, but Harry could tell that they were slowly spinning too. The yacht started to tremble violently, as if the ship were a toy being shaken by a huge child. The ear-splitting roar of the Whirlpool was like the thunder of a giant waterfall. Harry held onto the back of Madame Delacour's seat directly in front of him. He was getting dizzy watching the walls of the Whirlpool spiraling out in front of the boat, but he couldn't take his eyes from it.

Madame Delacour reached back and lightly slapped his hand to get his attention. Harry looked at her, startled.

"Go below decks," she told him. "You have not done this before. You will get seasick looking at the Whirlpool. Find a place to sit down and wait. Maybe get some sleep if you can."

Harry nodded. He needed no urging to leave the pilothouse, but he knew he wasn't going to get any sleep as long as the boat was in the Whirlpool. He lurched down the curving staircase to the lower deck and reeled down the hall to the guest stateroom. Wrenching open the door, he barely had time to flip on the light switch before he was half-tossed across the room by a sudden jolt of the ship.

He landed against the opposite wall, next to the oval-shaped porthole. Outside the boat, he could only see white-foam water streaking past the ship's hull, like a blizzard snowstorm. He reached up and yanked the small curtain across the porthole. He didn't want to see what was going on outside!

He crawled onto the bed and sat upright, the G-forces of the spinning vortex pressing him back into the stateroom wall. He found he had to bend his legs and brace his feet against the mattress to keep from being thrown to one side and onto the floor. Harry felt as if the ship was stuck inside a giant washing machine, or trapped in the belly of some great sea beast with indigestion, as it rattled and bounced inside the Whirlpool.

What happens if something goes wrong?

he thought. Would a window burst open and a hundred-thousand gallons of water come rushing in, like it does in all the shipwreck movies? Or maybe the ship would just be suddenly crushed like a tin can and we wouldn't even have time to realize what had happened. For Heaven's sake, stop THINKING about it! It's going to be fine!

The door of the room opened. Gabrielle stood there, still wearing the sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers that she had worn during their chase through Latrece. She held onto the vibrating door jamb to keep herself upright. Her silver hair was tousled and sweaty, and her face was pale. She looked very frightened.

Harry stared at her a moment, then shifted over to one side of the bed. Gabrielle shut the door, stumbled across the stateroom, and sat down beside him with her back against the wall. She put her arms around his waist and tilted her head back against his shoulder. Harry put his right arm around her and held her.

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" he asked, uneasily.

Gabrielle shook her head. "I do not like it when we go through ze Whirlpool. It reminds me too much of being underwater in ze 'Ogwarts lake."

She tightened her grip on him as the boat rocked and quivered around them. Harry squeezed her shoulder reassuringly with one hand. With his other hand, he reached up and wiped the perspiration from his brow. I'd hate to think what her mother would say if she came down here now and found us like this, clinging to each other.

But there was nothing unnatural or perverted about the way they held each other now. In fact, Harry couldn't remember a more chaste embrace. They were two friends, facing danger together for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. This time, however, they both knew that their fate was in the hands of others.

"Hey," Harry said, smiling weakly. "I'll bet your sister's going to be proud of you when I tell her how brave you were tonight. She's going to be really pleased when she hears how you helped me to open the crystal lock in the chateau."

Gabrielle nodded nervously against him.

"Is your father really sure that this thing is safe?" Harry asked once more, as the walls of the ship jolted even more brutally around them.

Again, she nodded. "We 'ave done zis many times before. We used ze Whirlpool last night to get from Sardinia to Latrece. We should be all right."

"I hope so," Harry said, gritting his teeth as the ship went into what felt like the Mother of all Spin Cycles. "'Cause I didn't bring any gillyweed with me this time."