Chapter Twenty Three
They'd been on the bus long enough for the rest of them to find beds to perch on; Seamus and Parvati on one, Harry and Hermione on another. Parvati kept eyeing up Hermione, but when the other girl looked round she'd suddenly smile and nod, but Harry felt like something was maybe amiss.
Other than the obvious.
Hermione had been a little sheepish in their victory, but Seamus and Parvati seemed smug, like they'd been allowed to come on a grand adventure. Harry wasn't sure if he'd made the right decision or not, but he felt they were going to be near impossible to dissuade now, short of tying them down they were officially part of the expedition.
"Are you cross?" asked Hermione in hushed tones. They were a few beds away from the others, but they still might have been able to hear them over the bouncing bus sounds and thrum of the engine.
Harry took a moment to realise she'd spoken, he was so wound up in his thoughts. "Cross?" he repeated. "No, no, not cross at all, I meant it, I'm incredibly touched you guys want to help." He rubbed where his scar should have been on his forehead. "I'm just worried, I don't think anyone, including me, can fully comprehend what's coming. This could get really hairy."
Hermione was pale and she swallowed. "I'm not going to lie," she said after a moment's consideration. "I am scared. I've never even snuck out of the house before, and now I don't even know where we're going, on a magic bus of all things." She rolled her eyes and gave a little nervous laugh. "But I couldn't have just gone home, left you to face this by yourself."
Harry felt a pang of guilt. "But you don't know me?" he said, wondering where this faith in him was coming from.
Hermione bit her lip. "You've been more of a friend to me in the past few hours than I've ever had in my whole life."
Harry was tired. He was worried. He was scared. And those words made tears spring to the back of his eyes faster than he could blink. "I'll always be your friend," he said.
She smiled, sadly. "What about the other you, if we succeed, if we get you home?"
Harry hadn't even considered that. "One step at a time," he said. He glanced at Seamus and Parvati. Parvati was whispering to him non-stop and Seamus looked to be imitating Malfoy and struggling to keep his eyes open. "Besides, the other me can't be that different, you'll just have to explain it to him."
Harry doubted they'd be able to keep his true identity a secret for much longer, it was bound to come out at some point. Maybe if they could just make it until after they had saved his sister and defeated the Death Eaters, that would be nice.
"Hey," he said, changing topics. "There's something I want you to have, just for now." He pulled out Sarah's wand, and showed it to her.
"I can't take that," said Hermione, obviously already knowing who it belonged to.
Harry shrugged and still held it out. "I'm not saying you keep it. You can look after it for her, until we get her back. In the meantime it'll just be sitting in my pocket, you might as well see if you can do anything with it?"
Hermione bit her lip and looked at the small stick intently. It could only have been eight or so inches, and it was made of a dark wood with a smooth finish. She reached for it tentatively, and plucked it from Harry's palm, letting it balance between her fingers.
"If you're sure?" she said.
"Positive," he assured her as she inspected it closer. "Besides, this way I can teach you a couple of spells that might come in handy."
"Are we allowed to practice up here?" she asked, and Harry couldn't help but smile. Typical of Hermione to worry about breaking the rules, even in the midst of all this chaos.
"I'm sure it's fine. Now, I want you to move your hand like this." He showed her a motion, and after a few attempts she managed to mimic him with confidence. "Good, good," he told her, and she beamed. "This is a shield charm, it will block against a lot of standard magic. The word is 'Protego' - give it a try."
"Protego," said Hermione, doing the motion, and a weak glimmer of light sprung up in front of her. "Did I do that!" she cried, causing Seamus and Parvati to look over. Parvati's eyebrows shot up, and Seamus gave her a little round of applause.
Harry nodded. "Looks like the wand's not a bad match. Try it again," he said encouragingly. "This time with more gusto."
"I don't want to wake up Draco," she said, flicking her eyes over at Malfoy's sleeping form.
"Ah who cares," said Seamus a little louder than was perhaps necessary. "Give him a scare, it'll be funny."
But Malfoy didn't wake up, no matter what noise they or their magic made. After a few minutes Seamus and Parvati came and joined them, thinking of other spells Hermione could learn. She picked up a great deal in the fifteen or so minutes they were practicing, but Harry wasn't surprised, and he even felt a little better about agreeing to let her stick with them.
The bus vaulted forwards again, and in the blink of an eye the windows outside were filled with neon lights and the sound of honking horns filtering through the glass, loud enough to make Harry jump. He could also make out a couple of thumping bass lines as he darted over and looked outside, taking in the bustling streets, even though it was around eleven at night. There were brightly coloured bars, pizza vendors offering dozens of toppings, cinemas showing the latest blockbusters and an illuminated fountain that some people looked dangerously close to falling in.
"I'm guessing we're in London," he said as Seamus and Parvati darted back to where they'd been sitting to hurriedly pull their coats back on and grab their belongings.
Hermione gaped down at the pavement in awe as she snatched up her bag and Harry strode over to Malfoy, who was apparently still sleeping fretfully, twitching on top of the covers.
There was a sharp knock at the door, and everybody froze where they stood. "Hello? Mr Ward sir?" came the voice of Stan Shunpike. "We're at Leicester Square. Can I help with your luggage?"
"Ward?" said Seamus.
Harry shrugged. "The name on Malfoy's i.d.?"
And then Stan tried the door.
"Oi!" he called, rattling the handle. "Why's 'is locked? What choo doin'!"
Harry was about to unlock it, when he looked down at Malfoy. The spell he'd used on his hair was obviously fading, and was almost half streaked with white blond again, making him resemble a badger or a skunk. As dim as Stan was, he was bound to notice that.
"Er, just a minute!" Harry called, before turning and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Malfoy wake up," he hissed, giving him a light shake.
He was obviously in the grip of some dream though, sweat was beading on his forehead, dampening his two-tone hair as well as the pillow. His face was screwed up and his breathing shallow and fast. "Malfoy," Harry tried again. He didn't know the spell he'd used on his hair and Stan was going to bang the door down any second. "Malfoy," he tried again, giving him another shake. "Malfoy - Draco!"
Malfoy shot up, limbs flailing and right fist swinging right at Harry's face. Years of dodging fast flying balls on the Quidditch pitch snapped Harry's head back just in time, and he snatched Malfoy's wrist to stop him going any further.
"Oi!" cried Stan through the wood. "You need to open this door, or, um, I'll call the Ministry! Do you hear me, I'll-"
"I'm not decent!" shrieked Hermione, and instantly turned a dark shade of pink. Parvati looked shocked, and Seamus grinned in approval.
"Oh," stuttered Stan. "Oh, yes, of course miss, I'm so sorry."
Hermione couldn't seem to look at anyone. "It's quite alright," she said, and cleared her throat, pulling at her hair. "I'll, uh, just need a minute."
"Malfoy," said Harry as the other boy continued to breath extremely fast, but his blinking eyes seemed to be focusing and remembering where he was. "Malfoy your hair."
"My what?" said Malfoy, trying to steady his breaths, his eyes looking at where Harry was holding his still-bloodied hand to stop the punch to his face.
"Your hair," said Harry. "It's reversing."
Malfoy just blinked once more, then finally understood. Harry let him go and he grabbed his wand from where he'd jammed it under the pillow, aiming it at his head. "Novo Etcapillus," he said, and the black melted over the white like ink running down parchment. "Done?" he asked.
"Done," Harry replied.
The two of the moved hurriedly from the bed; Malfoy scooped up the flower pot and flung his satchel around his neck again as Harry fired the counter-jinx at the door. Stan was standing awkwardly on the other side, arms folded, left foot swinging off the top step. He jumped to attention at the sight of Harry. "Right," he said, not sure where to look. "Do you...need me to carry anyfing?"
Harry shook his head. "We're fine thanks."
Stan nodded. "Okey dokey then, er, this way then."
The group traipsed down after the gangly conductor, earning several glares from other passengers on the lower levels for holding the bus up, and all in all Harry was quite relieved when they hoped down onto the pavement, and watched as the bus vanished once again.
"Well," said Seamus. "That was fun."
"Come on," said Malfoy, turning the collar of his coat up as the wind tore through Leicester Square and made a gaggle of girls smoking near a club entrance squeal and shiver in their tiny, sparkly dresses. "This way."
He led them towards Charring Cross Road, weaving between tourists and clubbers, avoiding the puddles reflecting back all the colours from the neon lights overhead. Harry soon recognised a few buildings as they moved to a slightly less busy street, and up ahead stood The Leakey Cauldron.
"Is that it?" asked Hermione as they neared the pub, and Harry nodded.
"I take it we're going to Diagon Alley?" he asked Malfoy.
"Yeah," Malfoy replied, a little distracted, and shifted the weight of the old flower pot in his arm. Harry had assumed it was the portkey he'd mentioned, the one his mum had helped him with, but he didn't understand why they hadn't just activated it at the house. Malfoy was still bound by magic though, and wouldn't be able to answer him if he asked why, so he just had to trust he'd find out in a while.
Trusting Malfoy with anything made him uncomfortable to say the least.
"What if someone recognises you Malfoy?" said Parvati from behind her scarf, and he turned to scowl at her.
"Well," he said scathingly. "It might help if you didn't call me Malfoy, like I asked, mightn't it?"
"What can we call you instead then?" asked Seamus cheerfully as they approached the pub's door. "Git Face? Troll Bait? Lord of..."
Seamus' voice died in his throat as Malfoy pushed the door inwards and they stepped over the threshold into the shelter of the pub's walls. It was dim inside, and no one was sat at any of the tables. Tom, the innkeeper, was wiping down the bar, and didn't bother to look up to great them. "We're closed," he said in an unusually frosty manner.
"We just need to get the courtyard," said Malfoy, flattening the back of his still black hair as the door mercifully swung shut again and gave them a moment's rest from the wind.
Tom was concentrating on a particularly stubborn stain and still didn't look up, only jerking his head towards the back to show he'd heard. "Go on then, you know where it is I suppose?"
"We're fine," said Malfoy, already walking across the room to the back door, and Harry followed after him, wondering what had happened to make the usually friendly Tom so dour. Maybe he'd just had a bad night, Harry reasoned. Or, knowing what he did of this world, maybe something more sinister had happened. He didn't get a chance to find out.
They walked by the toilets, one of which was moaning disconcertingly, and Malfoy leant into the rear door that would take them to the courtyard without pause. The breeze hit them with force again, and Harry sucked the air through his teeth, tingling the nerves. "Will any of these places be open either?" he asked as they fanned out into the small little square of paving, sealed off on all sides by walls eight feet high.
"Where we're going never shuts," said Malfoy and no more, though Harry was impressed he was able to give him that much. The other boy waited until they were all outside once more and the door firmly shut, then pulled out his wand to tap the bricks in the order Harry was used to from his own world. It was nice to see not everything was different here.
"This is Diagon Alley," he said to Hermione as the bricks started to spin and move, creating an archway that lead into the heart of Wizarding London. She gaped first at the way the bricks whizzed and changed, then at the sight that lay beyond.
"Wow," she said, full of wonder as she followed on in after Malfoy, but Harry had to say he was less impressed. Even from where they were, he could already see several of the shops were boarded up, and there was a good deal of litter accumulated in the gutters.
"It's normally not so...run down," he said to her, hearing the bricks scrape against each other as they put themselves back in place.
Seamus shrugged and walked ahead along the eerily quiet street. "Looks about right to me."
"I've never seen it at night before," said Parvati, looking at all the shop fronts with their doors locked and shutters across. "It's creepier."
"Keep your voices down," instructed Malfoy, glancing up at the flats above the stores. Harry could see some lights on behind the curtains, but a lot were as dark as the street.
There were a string of gaslights that ran along the main street, but they only gave off a faint green glow. Harry's eyes were getting used to the gloom though, and he could read the signs on the familiar shops now as they passed.
He inclined his head and caught Hermione's eye. "That's Flourish and Blotts," he told her in a whisper. "Where you'll get your magic books from, and over there's Ollivanders, the only place to get wands from."
Hermione stared at the closed shop with longing. "So, I could maybe have me own wand?"
"Don't see why not," Harry said. "Now you know you're a witch, seems unfair not to let you practise magic."
Hermione spent the rest of the walk deep in thought. Harry was glad he'd been able to show her this, even if was under such unpleasant circumstances. He remembered his first trip to Diagon Alley vividly, and how that to him was the moment he'd really believed what Hagrid had told him; that he was a wizard, that his life had just changed forever.
He hoped Hermione's life had changed forever. He hoped the Ministry wouldn't erase her memory after all this was done, just because she was Muggle-born. Quite frankly though, he wouldn't put anything past them at the moment.
Malfoy made to turn left down another alleyway, and Parvati stopped dead. "Knockturn Alley?" she asked, looking between it and Malfoy, who had also stopped. "I'm not going down there."
"Okay then," said Malfoy in something close to a cheery tone. "See you later."
He turned back around and headed into the shadows of the unlit alley, and Harry couldn't blame Parvati for her trepidation. "What's down there?" asked Hermione as the other girl clenched her jaw and looked back over her shoulder at the way they had just come.
"It's a bit dodgy," admitted Harry. "It's okay if you want to head back to the pub. You could still Floo back home?" he added hopefully.
But Seamus scoffed. "It's not that dodgy," he said as if it was obvious and started following Malfoy. "Just if someone offers you anything that looks like human thumbs, tell them you're cutting down and they'll leave you alone."
Parvati rolled her eyes and looked to Harry, who raised his brow questioningly. Hermione had already started following the other two boys, so Parvati huffed and did the same, and Harry resigned himself that he really wasn't going to be able to persuade any of them to head back to where it was safe.
They passed Borgin and Burkes, the shop Harry had ended up in two and a half years ago by accident, and was pleased when Malfoy showed no interest in going inside it. Instead, he paused outside a dingy teashop called The Botched Brew; it had a great crack running across its window but there was a glow coming from behind the yellow net curtains to indicate that this place, unlike anywhere else they had passed, was indeed open.
Malfoy only checked that Harry was still with him, then creaked open the wooden door to venture inside. Parvati, apparently wanting to redeem herself for her moment of doubt, pushed ahead after him, followed by Seamus and then Hermione and Harry. The door had a little bell above it, so it tinkled as they came in from the wind, but that was only cosy aspect of the entire shop beyond that. The small round tables were all made of a dark, polished wood that looked like they'd never had a tea cup placed on them in their whole existence, and portraits hung on the wall of hooded figures that looked down on them with a sinister interest.
"Are you lost?" croaked an old hag, rubbing under her eye patch.
"Ignore them," said Malfoy flatly.
There was a Chinese girl that couldn't have been much older than them standing behind the bar, leaning her elbows on the counter. She had been reading a book, but now she looked up, unimpressed. Malfoy had already turned his back to her to face the others, and Harry realised he recognised the girl from school. She was a Slytherin that had already graduated. "Do you know her?" Harry asked, looking at Malfoy's hair. It was still black but would that be enough to fool her?
"In passing," he said in hushed tones. "But it might be best if someone else goes and speaks to her."
"What are we doing here at all?" asked Seamus.
Malfoy glanced to a door to his right, at the end of the bar. "We need a private parlour," he said.
"I'll do it," said Hermione but with a little hesitation. But then she smiled and gave Harry a nod. "Non-magical job," she said, and walked over to greet the girl. Harry worried this might not be a good idea, but within a moment Hermione came back with a key hanging from a rabbit foot pendant. "She said we can have room number seven." She proudly offered the key out to Malfoy, who took it without saying thank you and marched over to the door he had looked at before.
Hermione looked a little hurt, but Harry rubbed her arm. "Well done," he said and hoped it didn't sound patronising. This Hermione was so timid he genuinely was impressed that she would volunteer to go speak to any stranger, let alone one in Knockturn Alley.
They followed after Malfoy, not keen to stay any longer under the glare of the Slytherin girl, and he used the key to unlock the door. It led to a corridor with more doors heading off it on the left and the right, and Malfoy made straight for the one with a number seven attached above the peep hole. He used the key once again, unlocking the door and letting it swing inwards.
There was nothing but a circular table inside surrounded by six chairs, all made of the same dark wood used in the main parlour of the tea shop. Harry guessed maybe it was set up for card games or something, but Malfoy was already pulling the chairs out. "Help me move this," he said to no one in particular, placing the flower pot on the carpet and wrapping his fingers around the table's edge.
"Should we lock the door?" Parvati asked as Harry took the other end of the table, and between them he and Malfoy managed to shift it over to the side of the room, leaving an area of free space that they could all stand comfortably in.
"No point," said Malfoy, dropping the key onto the table with a clunk and picking up the pot again. "We won't be here long enough."
Hermione frowned and took in the room, which was bare aside from the tables and chairs. "What's in here?" she asked.
"Nothing," said Malfoy. "It's the where that matters, not the what."
"What's the flower pot got to do with it?" asked Parvati, pointing to it and eyeing up the scampering gnomes suspiciously.
"Portkey," Malfoy told her. "Anyone that wants to carry on with us needs to be holding on." He looked pointedly at Seamus. "Feel free to take this moment to tie your shoelaces."
"You wish," said the Irish boy, and took a firm grip of the lip. Parvati equally grabbed the pottery, and Harry glanced at Hermione to see if she would accept one last chance to persuade her to stay.
"What's a Portkey?" she asked.
"You hold it, and it transports you somewhere," said Malfoy.
Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Like the fireplace?" she asked.
"Fireplace can take you anywhere," said Harry. "Portkeys are programmed with specific locations."
"And this one will take us to where Sarah is?" Hermione asked, reaching forward to touch the cracked paintwork.
Malfoy opened his mouth, and struggled to get the words out. "Close enough," he said eventually.
Hermione nodded, and wrapped her fingers around next to Seamus'. Harry sighed. "This is it then?"
Malfoy looked at him with his silvery grey eyes, the first hint of blond hair starting to show through once again. "Whenever you're ready," he said quietly. It wasn't impatient though, more sincere than anything else.
So Harry took a deep breath, and sized the base, next to where Malfoy's hand was. He had his wand out already, so as soon as Harry had a good hold, he pointed it at the flower pot.
"Avercium," he cried, and immediately the room exploded with light. Harry felt himself shoot up off the ground, the familiar sensation that there was a hook behind his navel. They didn't transport right away though like a normal Portkey, they began to spin, the light becoming blinding and a roaring noise filling the air as they tore around like they were on a crazy funfair ride.
"Malfoy!" shouted Harry in panic as they gained even more speed.
"Just hold on!" he shouted back, but there was no danger of letting go, it was like Harry's hand was glued to the ceramic. Parvati was screaming, the whole room was a blur and Harry felt like his shoes were going to come flying off.
Just when he thought they couldn't take much more, the hook sensation in his belly tugged, and they vanished from the room at The Botched Brew.
In an instant, they fell to the ground once more in a dishevelled heap. The wind hit them before they'd even landed, telling Harry they were back outside, and their fall was cushioned by a foot deep blanket of snow on the frozen ground. With a gasp he rolled over and untangled himself from Malfoy's legs, his teeth already chattering and shoved his hands under his armpits, his clothes already damp from snow.
"Malfoy!" he cried over the roaring wind. "Where have you taken us!"
Malfoy had jumped to his feet as the other three scrambled up out of the snow. He tossed the flower pot aside, not caring that it bounced and cracked, and Harry guessed it must have served its purpose. They were looking down into a valley from halfway up a hill, but on the other side loomed an even greater mountain just visible in the moonlight. From the few twinkling lights and shadowy structures, it looked like there was a small town or village at the base on the mountain, but it didn't exactly look like Voldemort's stronghold.
"It worked," said Malfoy disbelieving but happy, and turned to Harry. "We're here."
"Where's here?" Harry shouted.
Malfoy grinned before he replied, authentic pride and relief showing on his face despite the plummeting temperatures.
"Germany," he said. "We're in Germany." And grinned even more.