Harry Potter and the Book of Ages

Chapter 5: Old Friends - New Friends

Just as Tank had promised, after 25 minutes they were pulling off the main road into a boatyard. Tank briefly removed his helmet and identified himself and a guest to the guard on duty who had obviously been warned of their imminent arrival. They slowly made their way through the various buildings and down to the finger pontoon docks at the water's edge. Tank parked his beloved Honda and the two helmets were stowed in the top box on the back of the bike. The two then made their way out to one of the pontoons and Harry finally got a glimpse of Sam.

Harry was strongly reminded of Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Auror and member of the Order of the Phoenix that he'd met this time last year. The man gave off an unmistakable aura of power and strength and made Harry think twice about staying in his company for any length of time, but as soon as he saw Tank his face split into an enormous grin and he roared with laughter.

"Man, it's good to see you! Why'd you keep away from me for so long, eh? Just because you broke up with my kid sister is no good reason to keep friends apart, eh? What did you think I'd do? Rip your head off or something?"

Harry saw Tank's face break into a sheepish grin. "Well, you can't blame a bloke for being cautious, can you? Anyway, she's obviously better off without me."

"Girl's a damn fool if you ask me!" replied Sam. "But why'd you go and take off like that? You'd done nothing wrong! The whole damned family's missed you, man! It's sure good to be together again. Come aboard and let's open a couple of cans and you can introduce me to your new friend here."

They went down into the cabin and Sam got three cans of lager from the fridge and they settled down. Although it was tiny and Sam and Tank were by no means midgets, the two men surprised Harry by moving around with agility and ease. The cabin was small, but not cramped, and Harry seated himself on a bench built into one of the bulkheads.

Not being used to lager, Harry took his time with his drink. It was not bad, he decided, but he much preferred butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks. Harry sat and sipped slowly and his mind drifted back to his friends and how much he missed them.

But were they missing him?

Did they believe the article in the Daily Prophet and were now convinced that he had murdered the Dursleys? After all, the two witnesses against him were Bill Weasley and Arabella Figg, with them speaking out against him, what chance did Harry have?

At the end of his fifth year Dumbledore had told Harry of the prophecy which foretold that Harry would end up murdered or murderer, but could he really kill someone?

What would Molly and Arthur say? Ron's mum and dad and indeed all his family, were the only real family Harry felt he had. Would the Weasleys believe he could take a life? Would Ginny think he was a murderer? All at once, the gently smiling face of Ginny Weasley came to mind. Ginny! God, he hoped Ginny at least would believe him innocent.

Innocent! Could Harry really claim that he was still innocent? Hadn't he cast the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange last June? By rights he should be in Azkaban right now for casting an Unforgiveable on a fellow human being, but Bellatrix had cursed Neville Longbottom's parents so much that they resided in the Locked Ward for Permanent Spell Damage at St. Mungo's.

Harry hoped that Bellatrix, being an escapee from Azkaban, would be considered a legitimate target by the authorities and that they would go easy on him if it ever came to light, but as he was now being sought in his own right...

Peels of laughter from the two friends brought Harry's wandering thoughts back to the present. Tank thrust another can into Harry's hand as he embarked on yet more tales of life on board the North Sea rig.

Harry's eyes were getting heavier and heavier until he finally gave up and fell back on the bench, sound asleep.

"Report!"

The single word sounded like a whip cracking in the tense atmosphere. The speaker was standing at the top of a flight of stone steps at the foot of which were gathered about fifty black-cloaked figures, their faces hidden by masks. Harry recognised the exterior of the house from which he had escaped.

"My Lord!" One of the Death Eaters had stepped forward. "We have been able to follow Potter's movements and it seems he has had some assistance with his escape. He managed to escape the grounds to the Muggle campsite. We had some difficulty tracking him, but we have been able to determine that he was given some assistance by a Muggle with a motor bicycle!"

At Voldemort's look of confusion the Death Eater continued, "It's a Muggle method of transport, my Lord. It has two wheels and can travel quite fast!"

"And?" questioned Voldemort.

"Well, we have managed to track them to a marina at Swanwick, just outside Southampton," continued the Death Eater.

"Well, what are you standing here for? If you know where he is, retrieve him or feel my displeasure!"

"Yes, my Lord! Immediately, my Lord!" Harry heard the familiar pops of Disapparition.

The figure of the Dark Lord turned his back on his remaining Death Eaters.

"You can try to evade me, Harry, but I will always find you and when I do, you will pay for all the times you have thwarted my plans! Yes, you will pay most dearly and not just you! I will hunt down all those you care for. Your thoughts have given you away, Harry, and now I know your weakness. How like your father you are, Harry. He too was prepared to sacrifice his life for your mother's. Will you do the same, I wonder?"

"Noooo!" cried Harry with mounting alarm as he struggled awake.

As Harry was thrashing around, Tank laid a hand on his arm to try to gently awaken him. All at once, Tank was blasted back across the cabin, striking his head and falling to the floor.

Alarmed, Harry sat up and looked at his new friend lying unconscious. Sam bent over him showing unexpected gentleness for such a large man.

"Tank! Wake up, man! What did you do to him?" Sam looked accusingly at Harry who pushed past him in fright, trying to get off the boat and away from the two friends. He was nearly on the deck when he heard Tank's voice shouting.

"Stop him, Sam!"

Harry's legs felt like jelly as he tried to run for it, but Sam was a good deal taller than Harry and his long legs quickly ate up the distance between them. Suddenly he was rugby-tackled to the ground, Sam's weatherworn arms wrapped tightly around his legs.

"Get off me!" Harry shouted, but his panic was less than when he had first awoken and this time Sam kept a hold of him.

"Seeker, I'm fine! Don't go running out on me like that!" called Tank.

"Calm down, it's okay!" added Sam and at these re-assuring words, Harry stopped struggling in Sam's grip and his panic suddenly turned to near-hysteria.

"Oh God! I'm so sorry I hurt you! Everyone who gets close to me ends up hurt or dead and I just thought.....!"

Harry slumped in relief, glad that Tank was really all right. Sam stood up and pulled Harry to his feet.

"Help, I can't find my glasses! Oh, Merlin, I hope they didn't fall overboard. I can't see a thing without them."

The panic in Harry's voice and the oath he'd used made Sam screw his eyes up in an unspoken query.

"Got them, they're fine," came Tank's voice from behind Harry who reached out to take them. "No, hold on, the screw's just about to fall out on this side," noted Tank. "You still got that set of jeweller's tools below deck, Sam?"

"Should have. Don't ever throw tools away, never know when you might need ‘em. Do you think you'll be able to make your way okay or do you need a hand?" Sam asked Harry.

"I can manage okay, thanks and sorry for ... you know ... earlier," Harry stammered.

"It's a good job I'm not that clumsy when I'm on the rig or I'd be doing myself a damage," replied Tank. On seeing Harry's puzzled expression, Tank explained that just as Harry had awoken from his nightmare he, Tank, had tripped over his own feet and fallen backwards.

Harry didn't believe a word of it but didn't dispute it. He had felt the same surge of power as he'd felt last summer when Uncle Vernon had grabbed him round the throat through the open window.

What was going on? If he was doing accidental magic would it be detected by the Ministry and lead the Aurors to him?

Just as the three had gone below deck, the first few tell-tale spots of rain appeared on the cabin windows. "They are called portholes on board ship, not windows," said Tank as he secured the outer hatch and closed the portholes. "The forecast said there would be a storm today, but that it should be blown out before midnight."

Harry resumed his seat on the bench while Sam fixed his glasses, cleaning them before handing them back.

"It makes all the difference in the world when you have the right tools for the job." Harry nodded his agreement.

He had a job to do but the tool he needed, his wand, was back in Malfoy Manor!

- o - O - o -

Looking back just a short while later, Harry wondered what it was about Tank and Sam that made him feel so safe and so willing to talk to them. Harry had been very careful not to let anything slip that would give him away as being magical or anything about the wizarding world.

After fixing his glasses, Sam and Tank set about preparing a meal which they all enjoyed in the cosy galley while the storm raged around them. The boat bobbed up and down only slightly at its mooring and the movement seemed to reflect Harry's mood. The timber craft seemed to be eager to be out on the sea in motion instead of tied up at safe anchor and Harry felt the same way, but he reckoned his safest way to get to Grimmauld Place was on this boat with Sam. So he stayed put and talked to the two old friends.

Tank and Sam now believed that he went to a charity-run boarding school for gifted children and that his least favourite teacher taught chemistry. When it came to mentioning some of his other lessons, though, Harry had a great deal of difficulty trying to think of Muggle equivalents; how do you explain Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts? Fortunately he could talk about History with no problem -- aside from mentioning that his history teacher was a ghost or mentioning his obsession with Goblin Rebellions.

When Harry came to mention that he had taken lessons on Astronomy, both Tank and Sam's faces lit up. Working on the rigs, explained Tank, the skies are not polluted by lights from towns and cities and you can see a great deal of detail in the heavens. Quite a lot of the crew of his rig had expensive telescopes and they did a lot of stargazing in their free time.

"Look up now, Seeker," said Tank when Harry had calmed down from his upset, "and tell me what's the brightest thing in the sky."

Harry looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Mars! Mars is bright tonight!" Tank exclaimed.

Harry's jaw nearly hit the deck!

"What do you know about Mars being bright?" queried Harry worriedly.

"Well all the planets in the solar system have a slight wobble in their orbits so occasionally -- such as now -- the planets move closer than they normally are so their light shines brighter than usual. Simple. It's like shining a torch at the end of a football pitch at midnight then moving it closer to say, the half-way line."

Harry positively laughed out loud and replied, "Dean would love that analogy, but I don't reckon Firenze would."

"Dean? Is he one of your classmates then?" asked Sam who had just come up on deck with some mugs of hot chocolate. It was now about 11.30pm and Harry knew that he and Sam had to be up at 5am to catch the morning tide.

"Yes, I've shared a dormitory with Dean for the last five years, but I don't know a lot about him. He's got the same surname as you, Thomas, but I think his family came from the West Indies. I know his dad is a milkman and he's a great fan of West Ham United. He's got a poster on the wall by his bed of the current team, but Seamus always takes the mickey out of him for it, but then he doesn't understand football."

"Doesn't understand football!" exclaimed Tank and Sam in unison. They looked at each other and roared with laughter.

Tank continued, "With a name like Seamus the lad's gotta be Irish, so what sport is he into then? Rugby, I suppose!"

"Er, no. I don't think he's into that kind of sport much," Harry lied, trying to get the conversation and his mind in a safer direction. He still missed Quidditch so much it was like a dull toothache in the back of his mind; most of the time he could ignore it, but just occasionally he reacted to something and the pain flared up again.

"Oh, so Seamus prefers 'indoor' sports, does he?" Sam's innuendo was not lost on Harry.

Sam and Tank took Harry's comment to mean that Seamus was into a different kind of sport. The female, feminine, girly kind of sport that occupied the minds of a lot of 16 year-old lads.

"Well what kind of 'sport' do you prefer then, Seeker, me lad? The kind with the lads or with the lasses? Eh?"

In a vain attempt to keep the conversation away from himself, Harry told them, "Well, I think my best mate Ron's little sister, Ginny, is interested in Dean. On the train home at the end of last term she told us she had just given her old boyfriend, Michael, the elbow and she had now decided to go out with Dean."

"How old's this Ginny then?" asked Sam. Behind Harry's back, Sam and Tank exchanged looks and raised their eyebrows.

"She's in the year below us," replied Harry, but his words were lost in his mug of chocolate.

"Sorry, mate... didn't quite catch that."

"Somehow, Sam, I get a feeling that Seeker here wouldn't mind being in Dean's shoes and to have young Ginny seeking him out! What do you reckon? Read the signs right, have I?"

Harry blushed to the tips of his ears, just like Ron. The two men realised that Harry's feelings on the subject of Ginny were not something to laugh at however. Tank gestured to Sam in a way that old friends understand without words. Sam stood up, collected the three mugs and went below decks leaving Tank and Harry alone under the velvety blackness of the midnight sky.

"She doesn't know you like her, does she?" Tank stated bluntly.

Harry just continued staring at the deck and shook his head. When, after a long minute's silence he raised his eyes, Tank was surprised to see water-filled eyes.

"I hope to God she thinks I don't like her as anything other than Ron's little sister," Harry very honestly replied. And I hope no one else thinks that either or her life is in even more danger. Harry couldn't bring himself to speak the rest of his thought aloud.

"Why?" That simple word asked so many questions.

"Because I'm not someone she should love. She should be with someone whose life is less... complicated... less dangerous!" replied Harry.

"Complicated? Dangerous? For goodness sake, Seeker, you're only, what 16? What can there possibly be in your life that can be complicated or dangerous?"

"You don't understand. You can't possibly understand. From the day I was born I was... destined I suppose you could say ... to do something that only I can do. I don't have a choice. The problem is that now it's going to be almost impossible for me to do it. Things have changed... I've changed... I've done things I regret and wish to God I hadn't done them. All last year people believed the worst of me and then when the truth came out, most people were too scared to act. The Minister didn't change anything. Oh sure, he sent out leaflets warning of possible dangers, but what good's that if an attack happens? You can't hide behind a leaflet and hope it will keep you alive! He needed to act! Be decisive! But no.... he sends out leaflets!" Harry ended sarcastically.

Harry's mouth was running away with him and Tank sat and looked at him with a deep frown on his face. The fact was that, as a Muggle, Tank wouldn't have a clue what Harry was talking about, would probably think Harry was living in a fantasy world.

"What do you mean attack? What kind of attack? You almost make it sound as though there's a war going on. Calm down. There hasn't been any kind of war in England since 1945. You're safe. Don't worry."

Harry shook his head and looked Tank in the eye. "You can't possibly understand. I'm sorry I even mentioned it. Just forget it, okay?"

"Forget it! How can I possibly forget it when I can see that whatever is going on is tearing you up? Look, mate, I know we only met a short while ago, but ... Oh, I don't know, I can't really explain it, but I believe you. I may not understand what you are going through, but there's something about you..." Tank's voice trailed off.

"Destiny."

The single word was spoken by Sam. He was standing with the harbour light behind him and his face was in shadow. Harry screwed his eyes up as he looked from one man to the other.

"My old gran, she used to say to me that you can't fight your destiny. You can fight everyone else, even yourself, but you can't fight destiny."

Sam continued, "A great believer she was in divination, never went anywhere without her Tarot cards and she always read the leaves. I used to be absolutely terrified of her when I was a kid 'cos she used to look at me and say, 'you got a great battle to fight.... not for a long time yet, but fight you will!' My dad died during the war in Korea and every time that Gran mentioned fighting, my mum would get so mad!

I remember one time Gran ended up hitting Mum with her handbag saying that she knew it, she'd seen it and knew it could not be denied. Strange thing was that my mum just nodded her head, crying fit to bust all the while. Then she looked at me with tears pouring from her eyes and ran from the room.

"Right up to the end of her days Gran would say, 'You promise me now that when the time comes you will do what you have to do. He'll need all the friends he can get and you gotta make sure you're the best friend you can be. Sacrifice and Duty. Hah! To the younger generation that have already given so much, sacrifice and duty have become dirty words. You though, you know, don't you, that when the call comes you just can't leave it unanswered.'"

"He?" questioned Harry and Tank together. They both smiled after speaking in unison. Harry continued, "Who did your Gran mean by 'he?'"

"Mum always made me think Gran was going on about a new Messiah or something and said that Gran was losing her marbles. Whenever Gran overhead her saying this she used to look me straight in the eye and shake her head emphatically. What we never understood though was her obsessions, apart from the divination that is."

Now it was Tank's turn to ask a question. "What sort of obsessions?"

"Well, Gran always loved to make things, sewing, knitting, baking, painting and drawing. Always though whatever she made had the same animals on them. Well, not just animals, signs and initials, too."

Harry was getting more and more intrigued as Sam continued.

"Animals...?" Harry prompted.

"A lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake."

Harry's mouth went dry. He tried to speak, but couldn't. In his stead, Tank posed Harry's unasked question.

"And what signs and initials?"

"Well the sign used to really freak me out. It was a green skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. The initials were always the same two."

Harry waited with baited breath.

"The letters H and P!"