When Barnaby woke the next morning, he discovered that a canvas wall had been hung in front of Jacob's bed, blocking his wing of the tent from view. Barnaby shimmied out of Elena's grasp and crept out the entrance to the tent.
It was early; the dew still clung to the leaves and grass like fine jewelry as the creatures stretched their legs and began their search for breakfast. He'd always loved the forest in the early morning; after he awoke from some nightmare he'd come outside and breathe in air what was somehow fresher at this time and listen to the sound of peace before beginning his day.
How difficult life had seemed then. He let out and amused grunt, imagining the things that used to worry him in his school days. He'd get so worked up about an upcoming exam or being sent home for Christmas that he'd make himself physically ill. Now, he'd give anything to relive those days again.
Barnaby reached out and ran his fingers along the bark of the nearest tree trunk. It was a wiggentree. He let his eyes wander upward in search of the bowtruckles that were sure to call it home. Sure enough, some of the tree's higher branches appeared to be twitching, as the cleverly camouflaged creatures skittered up and down them in search of wood lice.
Barnaby's heart nearly exploded at the sight of them, though out of joy or grief he couldn't say. How he longed to be working with creatures again—to wake up each morning knowing the plan for the day, understanding what was going on and what to do, caring for something and helping it grow and thrive. Back then, his biggest worry was whether the erumpents would calf and perhaps the occasional poacher.
He watched the bowtruckles carry on with their business, unaware that the world outside their happy grove had changed into something monstrous, and that it would never, could never, be the same as it had been before.
Elena came to stand beside him, driven out of the tent by the angry voices that rose with each passing minute, disrupting the gentle creatures as they foraged and forcing them out of the clearing.
She yawned. "Good morning."
"Morning."
She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. Barnaby stared up at the bowtruckles to avoid looking at her. She was another decision he'd have to make soon. He liked her, and he appreciated all she'd done for him after only knowing him a short time, but being with her made him feel...uncertain.
"You call these wiggentrees, correct?" she asked, following his gaze to look up into the branches. Barnaby nodded. "They say that one will be protected from dark creatures as long as they touch the trunk."
Barnaby rested his hand on the trunk again. "Does it work for dark people, too?"
Elena shrugged.
Perhaps they could remain in this clearing forever, protected from the darkness by the fortress of the wiggentree and its army of twiggy soldiers.
"What will we do now?" she asked.
Barnaby didn't answer. What could they do? His only intention had been to rescue Merula, and he could hear her raspy yells from within the tent, safe and sound. Should they try to rejoin Sarah and the others? He didn't know if they could find them again, and wasn't sure if he wanted to. He wondered if his parents' had given up searching for him. Perhaps he could go back to his job, hide away in forest groves or mountain caves and look after the creatures there. No, even if that would work, he knew he couldn't live with himself if he ran and hid while his friends risked their lives to end Voldemort's regime. No, he was in this fight; he just didn't understand how to win.
Barnaby and Elena turned at the sound of the tent flaps being shoved aside and angry footsteps crunching on the forest floor. Merula was stalking toward them, her hair and eyes as wild as ever. Jacob was striding behind her.
"Of course you don't have to come with me!" Jacob was shouting. "You're free to do whatever you want, but I'd like it if you came with me."
Merula spun around to face him. "Why?!"
Jacob halted. The angry red began to drain from his worried face. "You know why," he said softly. "So I know your safe, and because..."
He glanced awkwardly at Barnaby and Elena, who were staring on like front row ticket holders.
"I see..." said Merula. "Well I don't see how I have much choice. The Death Eaters will hunt me down and kill me unless someone gets to their master first. Not that I think this plan of yours will ever work."
Jacob rolled his eyes, but Merula had turned to face Barnaby and didn't notice.
"He's coming with us."
"What?" said Barnaby and Jacob together.
"You heard me," said Merula.
Jacob shook his head. "I'm not a babysitting service. I've done enough to save their lives already. This job I'm talking about will be hard and dangerous. It has to be just me and you."
"I only go if Lee goes," said Merula. "This foreign witch can piss off to wherever she came from."
Elena's eyes became hard as steel as she stepped forward to look down her nose at Merula. "I go with Barnaby," she said.
Merula scoffed.
"How do you do it, Lee? You must have more magical talents than I thought to be able to trick so many intelligent witches into thinking you're worth caring for."
"Hold on a minute," said Barnaby, his brain pounding. "What is going on? Where are you two going? Why would you want me to come?"
Merula had never wanted him around. Even when she recruited him to work for her, she always insulted him and bemoaned the fact the he was the only person strong enough to help her, or she'd have gladly told him to shove off.
Merula nodded to Jacob. "Go on. Tell them."
"No!" Jacob was clearly as bewildered and upset as Barnaby. "This is the most important information in the world right now. I'm not going to hand it out to a couple of thick heads just because you want to punish me!"
"Fine," said Merula simply. "Then, I'm going with them. Good luck on your mission. Perhaps, if we both live through this war, we'll see each other again."
She made to head for the tent, but Jacob caught her arm. "Merula, please." He winced. "Just...explain to me why they have to come."
"I don't need to explain myself; I just need you to trust me."
"I do! But can we trust them?"
"I trust Lee. Look at him. That big oaf will do anything for me."
"It would help if you were nicer to me," Barnaby piped up.
Merula shrugged.
"What about her?" asked Jacob, nodding to Elena.
"This mission is to defeat the Dark Lord, yes?" said Elena. She displayed the same confidence she'd always shown in Romania. "My brother is missing, probably dead, because of the Dark Lord. If you cannot trust me, trust that I will do whatever I must to destroy the Dark Lord's plans and avenge my family."
Barnaby stared at Elena's cold eyes and set jaw in admiration, but Jacob was less impressed.
"Your brother is dead because of his own stupid decisions," said Jacob. "But I suppose revenge is as good a motive as any at the moment." He sighed deeply. "Let's have breakfast. I'll explain everything while we eat."
They watched as Jacob set up his cooking fire and served up more bacon and coffee, as well as some stale bread and cheese that had begun to mold in a few spots.
"I'm sure you've all heard the rumors that Harry Potter is destined to be the only one that can kill Lord Voldemort," said Jacob, staring down into his steaming mug. The others flinched at the sound of the name, but Jacob ignored them. "I don't know if that's true or not, but from the intel I've gathered, Potter's certainly going to try one of these days. But he'll have a hard time of it. I don't mean because he's a powerful wizard with an army to protect him, I mean that Lord Voldemort is, at the moment, impossible to kill."
"How?" asked Barnaby.
"Have you ever heard of Horcruxes?"
They all shook their heads.
"It's a form of dark magic. Very dark, very advanced. Basically, an immensely powerful dark wizard can preform the magic to split their soul in half. Half the soul remains in the physical body, and the other half is hidden away, stored in an object of the wizard's choosing. So, even if the physical body is destroyed, the soul would remain in this world, and if the wizard can manifest another body, he can live again."
Jacob paused, taking a sip of his coffee. Barnaby looked around to check if the others were as lost as he was. Elena made a face as if the breakfast wasn't sitting too well with her, and Merula just stared blankly into the fire.
"So, the Dark Lord can split up his soul?" he asked. "How?"
"Dark magic is more powerful than other magic, but more costly," said Jacob. "Every spell costs something. In the case of the horcrux, to gain life you must sacrifice life."
"You mean, you have to kill someone?" Elena asked, quietly.
"Yes," said Jacob. "That's how Voldemort was able to survive the night he tried to kill Harry Potter. His fragmented soul had to wait years to find a new body, but obviously he managed it."
"But, if he used a horcrux to come back to life already, surely he's not immortal anymore," said Merula.
Jacob looked up at her, his face deadly serious. "I've spent my adult life studying horcruxes, learning how they work and how they could be used, as well as tracking down any piece of information I could on Voldemort's life before he fell, once I was certain he must have used a horcrux to cheat death that Halloween night. I don't understand how he could have survived the process, but I believe Voldemort created more than one horcrux."
"You mean there's bits of Dark Lord soul all over the place?" asked Barnaby.
"Hopefully, only one or two more," said Jacob. "Ripping the soul more than that..." He shook his head. "It's unimaginable."
"So, you've been hunting down the bits of soul?"
"When I'm not having to traverse the countryside keeping you lot from throwing yourselves into the arms of death?" he huffed. "Yeah. I'm not sure if Potter actually can kill Voldemort, but if he can, I'm going to give him a fair shot. Hopefully, by the time they face, he'll be a mortal man."
Jacob stood and poured the remains of his coffee on to the fire, which spit and hissed as if in reproach. "I've got a lead on where one might be, but Voldemort will have put measures in place to protect it. I suppose I could use the help in destroying it."
"How do you destroy a horcrux?" asked Elena.
"Fiend fyre. Its one of the few things powerful enough. Do you all now how to cast it?"
Of course not, thought Barnaby. That was advanced dark magic. Even if he was a capable wizard, that kind of spell would never be taught at Hogwarts. He was surprised to see Merula and Elena nod as he shook his head.
Jacob gave Merula a look that clearly said, Are you sure we have to take this moron with us? Merula only grinned.
"I suppose I'll have to teach it to you," said Jacob.
"That's alright," said Barnaby. "I'm not smart enough for that stuff, and I don't really want to learn anyway."
He didn't trust himself to wield dark magic. Wasn't the power of it what had lured his parents to the dark side? If he tried to control it, he might become like them, willing to torture and kill the people he should have loved most.
"Dark magic isn't something to be afraid of, Barnaby," said Elena. "It is a useful tool to those who learn to control it. It's only called Dark Magic because of people who don't understand it."
Barnaby glanced nervously at her, but Jacob nodded in approval.
"Couldn't have said it better myself. So, that's the gist of it. You coming or not?"
Barnaby looked a the others who watched him expectantly. Why was everyone always asking him to make decisions? His instinct was to say no, to run away from this madness as fast and as far as he possibly could. But, Merula was right. He still wanted to look out for her, and he didn't trust Jacob. Elena stared at him with eager eyes; she clearly wanted to go with them, and she'd been the only one to join Barnaby when he'd gone after Merula. He supposed he owed it to her. Besides, where else could he go?
Barnaby met Jacob's eyes and nodded.
"Great," said Jacob, not at all convincingly. "The first thing we ought to do is get the hell out of this forest. Dumbledore's bound to realize we're here soon, if he doesn't know already."
They packed up the tent and erased any trace that they'd been there.
"Wait a minute," asked Barnaby. Something had finally clicked in his mind. "Sarah told me she saw you die."
Jacob gritted his teeth, preparing for the next words.
"How do you understand so much about these horcrux things?"
Elena gasped, and Merula stared down at her feet. Barnaby didn't remove his eyes from Jacob's, waiting.
"Like your girl said, Dark Magic is a useful tool," said Jacob. "If I had stayed dead that day, you all would still be the play things of the Death Eaters, and my little sister would be dead. Can we leave it at that for now?"
Barnaby's heart beat fast. Who was this wizard? A stranger, really, a stranger who used dark magic, who'd committed murder and used spells only people like Lord Voldemort were capable of.
He searched the faces of the girls. Surely, he wasn't the only one that thought they should make a run for it, or else tie Jacob up and turn him into the Order? Both girls were grave, but as Jacob held out his arms, they both took one, preparing to disapparate with him.
"I'm not the enemy, Lee," said Jacob. "I've had to sacrifice a lot to be strong enough to fight the enemy. You can accept that or you can leave."
Accept it? How could he possibly accept it? He'd seen firsthand the cruelty of the people who used dark magic. He'd sworn to himself years ago that he'd never let the temptation of the strength and power it offered corrupt his soul.
His soul. Did Jacob even have a full soul? Did it rejoin with the other half after he used the horcrux? Had the halves joined again seamlessly, or were they sewn together roughly, with scarring and gaps along the way? Barnaby imagined the two halves of Jacob's soul warring against each other, trying to separate once more and one take over the other. Perhaps that explained what happened occasionally behind his eyes, when they flashed and almost changed a different color.
"Come with us, Lee. I won't let anything happen to you," said Merula. She'd been unable to remove the sass from her voice entirely, but she'd rarely spoken that softly to him before, and she hadn't included a single insult. "Trust me."
That's what it came down to. After all his past experience and advice from his friends to leave her alone, he'd always trusted deep down that she was good. He'd been let down time and time again, but he still looked after her. He had to believe there was more to her story than hurt and hate.
He reached out and took her hand.
Instantly, Jacob disapparated, and Barnaby was pulled away from Hogwarts and any sense of peace or safety he felt while standing on its grounds.