"Right," said Harry, and pulled the invisibility cloak off them. "We're in luck. Nobody lurking around."
"And the streetlamp isn't working," Hermione added, pleased. She handed out their broomsticks there on the dark corner of the street.
"The Knight Bus should be coming right along shortly, if it's on time," she continued. "Hopefully we'll be at Grimaldee Hall within the hour, before Giselle's class lets out. Ron, do you know that your broom straws are terribly bent?"
"It flies all right," he said distractedly.
"Well, it wasn't reacting at all good during two-on-two quidditch at the Burrows last month."
"That was Ginny's fault, flying too close behind. Look--! I think I see the bus coming."
It was there before he finished speaking, a BANG and a swirl of dust off the curb.
"Hurry up, you three," shouted the old wizard at the wheel, "we're running late! Never mind the fare, take a seat and be quick about it!"
Harry led the way up the steps of the panting bus. "Grimaldee Hall, outside Godric's Hollow," he said to the driver.
"Fifteen minutes maybe. Hurry, sit down, we're off!"
No sooner had Harry, Ron, and Hermione plopped down on a ragged couch behind the driver's seat when their legs swung up from the force of acceleration, their ears ringing from the explosive noise.
"Glasgow Station!" and a screeching halt. A portly wizard in a snappy white suit and cape, and four elderly witches with cobwebs on their crooked black hats, shuffled slowly off the bus as the driver fidgeted. "Mind your step. Watch the door. We're off!"
BANG.
Hermione sighed, sitting up and adjusting her Gryffindor scarf. She pulled out a small leather book from her back pocket.
"This was Sirius' grandfather's charm lexicon," she was saying in a loud whisper as Harry and Ron leaned in for a closer look. "It's a list of his favorite spells for overcoming various difficulties. I found it under a bed in one of the guest rooms yesterday when I was cleaning the third-floor chambers. It was covered in rubble."
Ron grunted. "Anything we can manage? We're still in Intermediate Charms, you know."
"Well, this one here--" she turned a moldy yellowed page "-- is similar to a cross-through spell that Gee told me about last term. She was taught it the summer before by her Aunt Minerva. It allows access through magic barriers, like enchanted doors and windows, and through force-fields. It IS quite an advanced spell. But Gee and I are pretty good at cross-through charms, so I think I can cast it all right, if we encounter a barrier around the school tower."
"Don't lose that book, Hermione," said Harry. "We'll probably be needing it more than once." He winced, a hand to his forehead.
"Your scar again, mate?" said Ron. "I don't have a very good feeling about this."
Hermione closed the book. "Well, something has to be done, but I haven't a good feeling about this either. If the tower is too well guarded with spells or, dare I say, Dementors or something worse, we will just have to go to Sirius and explain the situation."
"Grimaldee Hall!" yelled the driver, slamming on the brakes.
Giselle stepped into the narrow passage as the rusty iron door shut loudly behind her. Ahead was the spiral stairway that led to the upper chambers, its stone treads cracked and splintered in places where the light from torch stubs shone on them. It was deathly quiet as usual.
She hurried down the passage, careful not to look at the stern portraits on the walls that stared at her disapprovingly. "It's that nervous timid one," a portrait remarked of her, "late as always. She needs a good slapping."
'They're not as insulting tonight,' Giselle thought, going quickly up the curving stairs, clutching the rolled-up scroll on which she had written her homework.
She could hear the muted whispers of her Charms classmates as they crossed the landing above. She passed the second floor arch and then the third. The low tolling of the class bell echoed over her when suddenly she stopped, just down from the fourth floor landing, and turned to look in puzzlement at the stone-block wall of the stairwell.
It seemed to be judging her. But how could that be? She thought it must be her imagination, stirred up by the stress of classwork in such an unnerving atmosphere.
Instinctively Giselle extended a hand and touched the wall. She felt what seemed to be a tweed cloth, like that of a coat, but wasn't she touching the rough stone block, just the bare wall and nothing else?
She jerked her hand back. The sound of the bell was fading. She ran up to the landing and entered the Charms classroom out of breath just as Professor Elgar entered the room from his office doorway.
"AB...solute silence," he said to the class.
Even the torches along the high walls seemed to quieten, their flames hushed and barely fluttering.
Ringgold Elgar's deep-set amber eyes shone with that strange dark light as he watched Giselle walk as quickly and as quietly as she could to her desk in the second row from the front.
Her desk top was covered in rocks and chunks of brick. She stood gawking at the mess. Everyone sat perfectly still, as silent as humanly possible.
"MISS... McGonagall," said Elgar, "you will sit with Mr Roundhouse this evening. And there WILL... be no talking."
Giselle glanced at the teacher as she went over to Roger's desk in the corner by a draped window. She didn't think she would ever get used to Elgar's appearance, his great height, his waxen white skin, his thin angular face, glossy grey hair cut square at his jawline, and those eyes lambent with a dull throbbing fire. She sat down shoulder to shoulder with Roger, feeling the cold eyes of the teacher slide off her.
Roger acted as if a fly had landed next to him. He knew better than to show any interest in his desk mate while Elgar was in the classroom. They all knew that it was not permissable to acknowledge anyone except the teacher. That had been their first lesson. It had not required a second one.
Of course Giselle understood why Roger had to treat her as though she wasn't there. That was not so terribly bad, because she could sense his fondness for her and his excitement at having her so close to him. She felt the same toward him. It was going to be a very tolerable two hours tonight, she thought.
"MIS... ter Cork, and Miss Boother, you will see that every student has a rock or piece of brick. MEAN...while, class, you will open your pamphlet to page eight and read the description of this evening's lesson."
Harry turned and gestured to Ron and Hermione. They stepped out from behind a gnarly oak tree and joined him at the gap in a stone fence softly lit by the moon.
They knelt down together.
"Right," said Harry. "I didn't detect any protection spells, but my Revealo charm isn't exactly fool-proof. Anyway, I think we should first fly on our brooms around the school tower, getting closer to it little by little, just to be sure. Gee's classroom is on the top floor, east side, which is straight across from us. With luck we can hover next to a window without being seen. We shouldn't need my cloak. The windows on this side have drapes over them."
Hermione had her book out. "Lumos," she said, shining her light on the smudged pages as she feverishly turned them. "Here it is! The Verily View spell. If I touch the window pane with my wand I'll have a view of the classroom in my mind's eye. But I have to memorize the canto. It has more syllables than a machine-gun going off."
"A what?" said Ron.
"Never mind. Give me a minute to learn it."
"Take your time," Harry said. "We have to wait for that cloud to cover the moon. Too bright out there. I say, that's a grim looking place. Worse than Snape's dungeon. Glad I'm not wasting my summer there."
Just as the cloud began to dim the moonlight, Ron said excitedly, "Somebody's coming up to the tower door. A man, I think. He's going in--"
The light from the passage illuminated the tall black-clad figure as it stepped inside. The door groaned shut.
"Speaking of Snape, bloody hell, that was him!"
"Might have been," said Harry. "Did sort of look like him."
Hermione, who had been repeating the complicated canto, put the book away and peered over the fence. "But what would Professor Snape be doing here? Do you really think it was him?"
"I'm pretty sure," Ron said. "And he'd feel right at home in a place like this, wouldn't he?"
"I suppose he would," Hermione agreed. She picked up her broom. "We'll, it's not going to get any darker. Better be moving before I forget the canto. We've about forty-five minutes before Gee's class is over."
In the narrow passage Severus Snape stood looking at the portrait of an old bald wizard seated in a plush chair filling a pipe.
"Heinrich Flaxseed," said Snape in his low droll voice. "Attend to me, if you would be so kind."
"Eh? Who are you, good sir?"
"The potions master of Hogwarts, and a fellow Slytherin alumnus. I received a message the other day from Ringgold Elgar, requesting that I confirm the validity of a certain artefact he has taken possession of. Inform him of my arrival, if you will."
Flaxseed sighed, set aside his pipe, and rising from his chair as if it took every ounce of his strength, he went off behind a curtain in the dusty background of the painting.
Snape went over to a portrait in a gilded frame that hung near the foot of the spiral stairway.
"Ah, Severus," smiled the plump witch standing on a scaffold in a Paris scene, circa 1785. "My great-great-great granddaughter has told me what an exceptional student you were in her N.E.W.T. potions class."
"Undoubtedly," Snape replied. "Has she arrived here safely?"
"Who? My great-great--"
"Giselle McGonagall."
"Oh," said the condemned witch, frowning. "Have you any reason to expect an endangerment, and fear she might fall victim to it, as I have done to mine?"
Snape turned to the stairwell. "I expect many things, Cosima," he said, walking off. "But I fear nothing."
Giselle took the piece of stone from Gladys Boother and sat there holding it as though it were a wad of cloth. It was the strangest and most unexpected feeling.
She looked at Roger. He had a chunk of brick and seemed not the slightest bit surprised by it.
"PAY... attention, class," said Elgar, standing near Roger and Giselle's desk. "If you have understood what you read of this exercise in your pamphlet, you will KNOW...the purpose of the Identification charm. Close your hand over your sample. YOU are to identify the person who has some relevance to it, an IN...tuitive identification. Practice the canto before attempting the charm."
But Giselle did not need to practice the canto, nor even intone it. It was what she had sensed in the wall of the stairwell. She turned to Roger and whispered, "It's your mother!"
Though she saw well enough the startled look in his eyes, he quickly put a finger to his lips.
They had flown around the tower several times at the second and third floor level when Harry signaled that they should now go higher and closer in.
In the distance they could see the street lamps of Godric's Hollow, the town cemetary where they would be meeting the Knight Bus in an hour and a half. The land about Grimaldee Hall was wooded with oaks, and the hills that nearly encircled it were glinting from the stray moonbeams on granite outcrops. It was a deceptively pleasing view, marred only by the reality of the jagged black tower.
As he swept past the fourth storey windows Harry felt as if his gut was being wrenched up into his throat. In the next moment he was rolling on the flat roof of the tower.
He got groggily to his knees. He grabbed his broom, thinking to fly away before some guard spotted him or a defensive spell took effect. But the Firebolt felt as dead as a fallen tree branch. Its magical energy was gone.
"Harry, what happened?" said Hermione as she landed beside him and dismounted, Ron right behind her. "Are you hurt?"
"No I'm fine, just a bit boggled. Don't know what happened. Some sort of catch spell." He was on his feet now and holding out his broom. "It won't fly. Energy's drained out of it. And my wand, it's nothing more than a stick!"
"Bloody hell."
"But my broom's all right, Harry, and my wand too. So are Ron's. I don't like this. I don't like it at all. This spell effect is only affecting YOU, as if you were expected!"
"Looks that way," Harry said. He pointed his wand at a hatch that gave access to the tower roof from inside. "See, it won't obey my directive to open the hatch. You try it, Hermione."
"Oh, Harry, I think we should leave. You can ride behind me. I'm lighter than Ron. My broom can carry the both of us."
Ron stared down at the hatch. "Maybe your broom and wand will be all right once we get out of here," he remarked. "But why not have a quick look before we go? Just see what's down there. You know, a defensive spell like this, that caught Harry, might be dispelled now that it's been set off. Harry just happened to trigger it. It could've caught any one of us if we'd been in Harry's place."
Hermione flopped her arms. "Have your quick look then, but let's not hang around a second longer than we need to."
"Let me borrow the wand of one of you two," Harry said. "I want to see if I can still cast spells."
"Take mine, mate. We don't want Hermione to be without her wand if trouble comes around. She's the best spellcaster among us."
"Good thinking," said Harry, taking Ron's proffered wand as Hermione fidgeted.
"Just a quick look, Harry," she said.
His confidence was such that the mere thought of spelling the hatch open had the meter-square lid rising up at once. He knelt down and saw a ladder descending to the floor of a small room cluttered with text books and assorted paraphanalia stacked on two rows of tables and several wooden chairs. The lighting was from a standing lamp near a closed round-top door. There were no windows.
Harry adjusted his glasses and leaned forward over the opening. "My God," he whispered in surprise. "No, I have to go down there to make sure it's what I think it is."
Ron knelt beside him. "WHAT is what you think it is?"
"Wait here. I'll just be a sec."
Hermione stamped a foot. "Harry!" she hissed.
But he was already going down the cold metal ladder.
What had excited Harry's interest was lying on a gold-embroidered cloth that covered a stack of books that teetered on a chair to one side of the ladder. The object should have been set in a special place, given its significance, but almost every inch of the room was burdened with stuff. There was no available space for a shrine.
Harry hesitated to touch it. He stood for a minute listening to the vague sound of voices that came from beyond the quaint door. But the lure of the object on the ceremonial cloth was too much. He picked it up, shuddering from a rush of memories.
It was Tom Riddle's diary.
It felt like his broom, like his wand, drained of life. The hole in the diary from the basilisk's fang was still crusty with blood.
The voices grew louder.
Harry clamped the diary under an arm and hurried up the ladder.
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