The Lewis House 92 страница

Sirius and Ron exchanged a dark look, but before anyone could protest, Moody was already talking again.

"There aren't enough Aurors to patrol Culparrat and Azkaban at once, and Azkaban is now the clear priority. But Arthur, that can't last. I need those people to serve in other capacities. You'll have to replace them."

"How?" Rose demanded.

Moody shrugged. "Hire as many wizards as are willing to protect the shoreline along the camp - and on the island itself, to stop the Dementors from ever hitting the water. And then I recommend you speak to Diggory and station Enforcers around Stornoway until something else can be done."

Rose made a noise of dismay. "We can't afford to hire new staff," she said.

"We can't afford not to," Arthur said quietly. "All right, Moody. I appreciate your input. I'll… speak to Diggory and the Privy Council straight away and see what arrangements can be made. But for tonight -"

"Tonight you'll have the Aurors."

"And what about tomorrow?" Sirius burst out. "Containing them isn't good enough - look at these riders, Arthur, consider what happened today. Another solution must be found. I've been saying all year -"

"I know it," Arthur said, and gave a weary laugh. "But we've pooled our ideas time and time again, and no solution has presented itself. What would you have me do? Is there new information? Some way to destroy them that we have overlooked?"

Sirius opened his mouth, glanced at Ron, and then shut his mouth again in a tight line. He was quiet for a moment.

"I'll take that as a no," Arthur said gently. "I'm sorry, Harry, but our options are so limited at the moment that we -"

"Wait. There's a spell." Sirius put a hand up to stave off the questions that had already formed on everyone's lips. "Not a working spell, nothing we've ever used. It's something Hermione Granger developed that I've been working with on my own, and I want to test it."

Harry looked up at him, hope obvious in his face.

"On the Dementors?" Arthur said doubtfully. "What exactly is the spell?"

"The one she used on her parents," Sirius said. "The one that sucked the pain out of them. I've adjusted it to suck the life force out of the Dementors. To drain them of their energy."

"You've… adjusted?" Arthur frowned. "Has any licensed spellcrafter worked on it? Has any Thinker approved it? Has Hermione -"

"Just me. And I want to test it," Sirius repeated. "All right? This is an emergency, and we should exhaust every possible avenue before we choose to send these riders up there again to be preyed upon -"

"I agree." Arthur folded his hands on the desk. "Whatever this spell is, leave the plans with me, or meet with me immediately after I speak to the Council - and Diggory. Tonight, if you can stay."

"I'll stay. But the Council and Diggory can only provide you with temporary relief," Sirius said desperately. "It's high time to strike at the root issue -"

"And if your spell is the way towards that, then I'll be thrilled." Arthur took a deep breath. "But though the root issue is ultimately more important, there are immediate issues that must be addressed. The safety of the residents of Stornoway and the enhancement of security around Azkaban must be dealt with first. Perhaps they are surface problems, but right now they need our attention."

Sirius made a noise of impotent fury.

"That's all, for the moment." Arthur looked around the room. "Thank you for giving me this information so quickly."

Charlie nodded. "We've got to get back up there, Dad," he said. "See you." He and Cho headed for the door.

"I should get back up there too," Harry mumbled, standing up on shaking legs. "There aren't enough people."

"Harry, mate." Mick put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be stupid. You're barely making sense. Go home and sleep before you get yourself half-killed again tomorrow."

Looking glad of the direction, Harry stumbled out of the office.

"Go with him," Sirius said, looking slightly deranged and pointing at Ron. "I have to stay, and he needs help."

Ron was well aware of it. He handed his archival notes to Sirius and followed Harry out of the building, tailing him until they were both on the Ministry steps. "Sure you're up to Apparating?" he asked.

Harry gave him a dazed sort of look. "Huh?"

"Right." Ron took him by the elbow and steered him toward the Leaky Cauldron. "Floo powder it is. Want a drink first, Harry?"

Harry laughed weakly. "Yeah, right."

Ron glanced sideways at Harry as an idea occurred to him. "You know," he said, "it's none of my business. But you look like hell, and you almost got yourself…" Ron couldn't bear to finish the sentence. The idea of Dementors bearing down on Harry and trying to make a meal of him was more than Ron could stand. "If you're going back out there again tomorrow, then you'll need to be in better shape than this."

"Sleep," Harry mumbled. "That'll help. And food."

"Or Ginny could help," Ron said honestly. "And she'd do it. I don't care how tidy she wants to make her schedule, she'd do anything for you." They were strange words to say. But they were true.

Harry stopped cold. "Tidy?" he said softly. "What do you mean?"

Ron waved the question off. "Oh, you know. She's upset with herself for what happened to Remus and she says she isn't going to do any more Healing until she's finished with school."

"Not even the Grangers?" Harry asked, lifting his head and pushing up his glasses. "Really? I find that hard to -"

"Just the Grangers, she said. But nothing else." Ron studied Harry's face. He looked like he'd been run over by a dragon, rather than saved by one. "Go and tell her what's happened, and let her help."

"No." Harry looked ahead, down the road. "And don't you tell her either." He reached up and rubbed his own neck.

Ron looked at him in irritation. Always noble, always self-sacrificing - Harry was really a pain in the arse. "You're an idiot if you don't go to her," he said hotly. "Anyone else in the world would kill to have a Healer to help them, and here you are, and you've got her, and she's right up the bloody road, and you're acting like -"

"You don't get it," Harry said. His voice was barely audible, but there was such helplessness in it that the rest of Ron's tirade froze on his tongue. "I don't have her, all right?" Harry turned away. His eyes were suddenly red, and so was his face, and he looked disgusted with himself. "Drop it, just drop it." He tried to stride off ahead of Ron, but he stumbled and had to take a moment to catch his balance.

Ron forgot about Ginny. He forgot about the Dementors. He forgot about Culparrat, and Aurors, and Malfoy. He forgot about his job as a Defender, and he stepped up beside Harry, deciding that the rest of it could wait. What mattered was getting Harry back to the Notch in one piece - this had been his first job, really. And, he realized vaguely, as he tossed a bit of Floo powder into the ramshackle fireplace of the Leaky Cauldron and pushed Harry into the flames, this was probably a job he was going to have for life.

He didn't mind.

~*~

"Back again, Black?" Alastor Moody's tendency to sneak up in silence always made Sirius jump.

"Back again," Sirius said, not moving his eyes from the elaborate model of Azkaban in front of him, through which the Peeping Charm was activated. He didn't mind being startled by Moody; he knew that his lack of self-defense drove the old Auror mad. It usually amused him. But since the Ministry meeting a week ago, Sirius had taken to spending most of his time at Culparrat, and there was little he found amusing.

No one seemed to think it odd that he had spent more time at the prison this week than in his office, and he was glad that no one had questioned him. Remus probably would have, if he had known about it - Remus was always suspicious of any abrupt change in Sirius's behavior. He was far too wise that way. But Remus was busy with Ginny; the two of them had been deep in study ever since the failed Wolfsbane Potion. And Ron was so absorbed in preparing Malfoy's case that he didn't seem troubled by what Sirius was up to.

Sirius smiled grimly. It had been a while since he had got away with anything of this magnitude - not that that was the point. This was… well… serious. This was something that had to happen, and it couldn't wait another moment. Other people were unable to give time to it right now, but that wasn't going to stop him. Not anymore. This had required attention for nearly a year - he couldn't believe that no one had done anything about it. He couldn't stand to see Harry looking the way he had looked in Arthur's office last week. He wouldn't stand it.

He had waited a week, in order to plan his attack. He had also waited in the hopes that Arthur and the rest of the Ministry officials would quickly turn their attention to the heart of the trouble. But since he had presented the spell to Arthur, nothing had been done. They were all occupied with the wrong things - no one would pay heed to what Sirius knew was the first priority. The Dementors had been allowed to run rampant long enough. They had wasted enough resources, enough time, and enough lives. Something had to be done. Right now. And if no one else was going to do it…

Moody moved to stand across the room from Sirius, viewing the model of Azkaban from the opposite side. "The dragons haven't failed yet," he said. "Seems Ginny Weasley worked a miracle there. But the Dementors are still mad as pixies."

"Except for these," Sirius said, pointing to a group of three Dementors standing in Azkaban's main guard station, a small hut that was connected to the castle by an underground corridor so that it seemed separate. "They've stayed in there all week."

"That's why there's only one wizard guarding that section at the moment." Moody ran his finger along the island's shoreline. "The worst concentrations seem to be around the main entrance hall and the old kitchens, but they haven't done any damage. It was a good move on the Council's part to approve the reinforcements. None of the Dementors have made it past the dragon camp, and no one's been hurt."

"It's still a miserable situation," said Sirius, watching as a Patronus in the form of a waterfall cascaded toward the prison. "This is a ridiculous system. One of them will slip by, and someone else will be Kissed - it's only a matter of time."

"And not much time at that." Moody agreed. "Well. Since you've been spending so much time in here analyzing things, have you noticed whether or not they appear to be eating anything? There's no possibility that we could just starve them to death, is there?"

"I think," said Sirius, bending even closer to the model, "that there is enough residual human emotion in Azkaban to keep them well-fed for centuries."

"Pity that. But this Ravenclaw spying charm is excellent, isn't it?" Moody said, walking back around to survey the map with Sirius.

"It's unsettling," Sirius said. "I always thought Ravenclaw girls were prudes, and all the while they were probably watching me shower. Lucky little tarts."

Moody threw back his head and laughed. "Ah, Black. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?"

Sirius smirked. "It most certainly is… Shouldn't one of these maps be set up at the dragon camp?"

"Tomorrow," said Moody, the sound of his wooden leg resounding as he headed towards the door. "This one was the test model. Now that she's got it working, Miss Chang's going to duplicate it up at Azkaban in the morning." He snorted. "Unless you can work out how to get rid of the Dementors before then."

Sirius started. "What do you mean?" he asked, but he sounded guilty even to himself. Had he been that obvious? Did Moody know what he planned to do?

"Did you think you were being subtle?" Moody narrowed his good eye at him. "I know what you're on about, Black, and I'm on your side. They need destroying. Just don't do anything foolish."

Sirius forced a smile. "I won't," he said lightly, and picked up his things. He pulled his wand. "Well then. Back to work."

"And me." Moody stumped out of the room, grumbling about retirement and how he planned to take the Ministry up on it any day now.

Sirius waited until Moody was out of earshot and then quickly left the prison - but he didn't go back to the Ministry. He walked away from Culparrat and down the rocky shore of the bay to where he wouldn't splinch. When it was safe, he Apparated to the shore line opposite Azkaban, and steeled his mind, going once more over the plan he had made. He knew it wasn't entirely rational, but most people thought he was deranged anyway, and sometimes he thought he might as well live up to their expectations.

And the Dementors were destroying Harry. It was his job as godfather to put an end to that. It disturbed him to see James's eighteen-year-old son look older than James had ever been. It disturbed him to see Harry's white hairs and his ashen face every time they spent five minutes together. It disturbed him to know that his godson's soul had almost been sucked out last week by creatures that were apparently unstoppable. But nothing was unstoppable - nothing. He had escaped Azkaban. He had seen Voldemort destroyed. The Ministry had pardoned him. Nothing was impossible, save bringing back the dead, and Sirius was tired of waiting.

Standing on an isolated outcropping in front of the P.A.P. headquarters, Sirius squinted out to sea. The weather was terrible – he shivered and quickly cast a Warming Spell over himself - though he was glad for the thick fog and the light drizzle. It would be much easier to avoid being seen, in this weather. His only worry was that the perimeter of the prison was bathed in charmed light that extended several hundred meters out to sea. The light made it easier for the dragon riders to spot Dementors, but it would also make Sirius's plan more difficult to execute.

But he had come prepared. Sirius shrugged his rucksack off his shoulder and reached into it. He had considered bringing the Invisibility Cloak, but somehow, the thought had unsettled him; instead, he pulled out an old set of robes that he had found in the attic of Lupin Lodge. They had, most likely, belonged to Remus' grandfather, and although they were ripped and torn in several places, the fabric was strong. More importantly, they were gray, too big for him, and had an enormous hood.

He slipped the robes over his head, revulsion sweeping him as he did so. He had to remind himself several times that they were just old robes and nothing more, but he was chilled to the bone by his choice of costume. Still, if he did his job properly, he wouldn't have to wear them for long.

Taking a deep breath, Sirius put his broom carefully on the ground, next to his rucksack, and then, slipping his wand inside his robes, transformed into Padfoot. This would be the easy part. He'd swum this route once before as Padfoot, and as long as the dragon riders' attention stayed focused on the things that were leaving Azkaban, they probably wouldn't have occasion to notice a relatively small, very dark canine swimming towards the prison.

It would be far more difficult to remain hidden once he reached the guard station on the prison shore. But after several mornings of observing the model of Azkaban at Culparrat, Sirius had learned that the guards along Azkaban's shoreline changed shifts at three o'clock, and that there were three Dementors that seemed never to leave the guard station. Sirius had never imagined that he would be glad to know the habits of Dementors, but the three in the guard station were ideal for his purposes. They were fairly stationary and entirely contained, and it was on them that Sirius planned to try his own version of Hermione's Weeping Spell.

The Warming Spell that he had cast over himself only dulled the chill of the water, and Padfoot shivered as he began to paddle towards the shore, making sure to keep his head low. It would have been much quicker to fly to the shore, but the new guards and the dragon staff had been warned not to let anyone near the island, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Padfoot paddled harder, swallowing salt water and spitting it out again, remembering far too clearly the last time he had done this. The memory made him feel suddenly invincible.

He had escaped this place. He had escaped these creatures. Azkaban had been his unwilling home for twelve long years. And if he bloody well wanted to pay it a visit, then no one in the world had a right to stop him.

*

"Expecto Patronum!"

"All right there, Harry?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Harry watched a pair of Dementors race back towards the prison. Panting with effort, he slicked back his sweaty hair with a gloved hand and tilted up his face to feel the wind, glad that it was a cool April.

He tried to imagine a time when he hadn't been riding Norbert on a daily basis, but found it difficult. If this were last year, then he'd be sitting in Potions right about now, cutting up insects that he'd never have to look at ever again for some disgusting concoction that he'd have to drink. The fact that Snape would never be able to force him to drink a potentially dangerous potion ever again made Harry oddly sad.

He couldn't say that dragon riding was boring. In many ways, it was much better than school. No homework, for example. And when he went home at night, he could read whatever he wanted, or play chess with Ron, or listen to Quidditch, or visit with Sirius and plot future adventures - though he hadn't been over to Lupin Lodge at all in the past few weeks. The only problem was that he had to wake up at five in the morning, and if he didn't fall into bed the night before by ten o'clock at the very latest, then he'd go through the rest of the day in a half-awake daze. But getting to bed by ten hadn't really been an issue lately. It wasn't like he'd had anyone important keeping him awake.

She'd looked so tired last week. Harry's mind wandered back again to their conversation - the only one they'd had in nearly a month - and he saw her again in her work robes, standing still at the top of the steps with quiet defeat written all over her face. Harry wasn't sure why it had made him want to hold her - perhaps because she had seemed, for a moment, to actually need him. He wasn't sure if that was true, but he had a feeling that if he had just walked up the steps and hugged her like he'd wanted to, it might have solved a lot of problems.

Or perhaps it wouldn't. Whether they had hugged or not, she would probably want to know why he had shouted all those horrible things at her - things about Malfoy, and about her family and his, and about the cupboard under the stairs… Harry grimaced. And she would definitely want to know how he felt about her; she'd made that very clear. Harry restlessly fingered the letter in his pocket, but he shook his head for the hundredth time and withdrew his hand. He just wasn't ready. He wondered how he would know when he was. He wondered if Ginny would still be there for him when he decided what to say. Perhaps she was already gone - but he couldn't entertain that idea. It made him feel so empty that he ached.

"Eleven of them! Eleven! Ha ha! Top that!" Mick voice sounded again in Harry's ear. He patrolled the stretch of sky that saw the most Dementor activity, but he somehow kept his spirits up.

"Remind me to get your autograph at the end of this shift," Harry said. "I've already got Krum's."

"Shut up, Potter, or I'll ask for yours." Mick was as tired as he was, and Harry knew it, but it was somehow important to keep up the jokes. "What's your record today?"

"All at once?" Harry asked, feeling a bit useless. "Three."

"Joe?

"Er - seven," Joe said, and his grin was audible.

Harry still wasn't used to the new dragon rider's voice. He kept expecting to hear Malfoy, and it was jarring to have normal conversations with a decent person after so many months of that obnoxious sneer.

"Seems I'm the man, then," said Mick, laughing, and the Communication Charm crackled out.

In truth, Harry was glad that he hadn't been the one to turn back eleven Dementors. He never wanted to see that many in one place again, and he was grateful that there hadn't been another dangerous episode like last week's. Dozens of wizard guards around the prison and on the shoreline of the dragon camp made things far more bearable. Still horrible… but bearable. In fact, in some ways, work had actually been better since Malfoy's arrest. Not seeing Malfoy's pointed face in the mornings made Harry's toast digest easier, and not having to listen to his suggestive jeers about Ginny was a definite plus. Even the absence of his shiny red dragon was somehow encouraging - the Ministry had taken Mordor to Wales for observation, and the dragon keepers there had reported that he seemed to miss his master, which led Harry to wonder whether Malfoy had been singing lullabies to his dragon during his shifts.

"Want a hand, Harry?" Joe asked suddenly.

Harry steered Norbert around and looked down at the island. "I don't think so," he said. "Keep an eye out, though."

A cluster of Dementors hovered not far from one of the Azkaban docks. Harry flew in close and made Norbert circle them in the air a few times. The wizards on the island's shore could only help if they could get in front of the Dementors and drive them back towards the castle, and this group was already too far out. The docks were isolated, rickety, and narrow, and Harry could see a witch standing at the end closest to the prison, having arrived too late to precede the Dementors on the dock.

Instead of running inside for cover, the Dementors scattered as Harry flew over them. Three went to his left and two to his right.

"Damn!" he muttered, looking quickly right and left. He had just decided to go left when an enormous, silvery waterfall appeared to that side of him, driving the Dementors away. Harry steered Norbert to the right and sent the remaining two Dementors scurrying up the dock to the prison.

"Thanks, Joe," Harry shouted as Joe and his Welsh Green, Tardonius, gracefully pulled up from the water. It didn't surprise Harry that Joe was the only person who had so far passed Charlie's battery of tests - he had previously been a Seeker for the Sumbawanga Sunrays, so his flying skills were unquestionable, and he seemed fearless where dragons and Dementors were concerned.

"There's more -" Joe called back, pointing. "Got them?"

"Yeah." Another group of Dementors had slipped past the guards and slipped out across the water, towards the shore. Harry pushed Norbert into a dive, raised his wand, and summoned his brightest thought.

Ginny. He wasn't sure why she was still the first face to come into his mind, but she was, and a sliver of joy sliced through the fog of his fatigue and made him capable again. "Expecto Patronum!" he cried, and Prongs galloped forward, full and fast.

Harry sat back, watched the Dementors glide miserably back into the prison, and idly wondered if there were substitutes for "I love you." If there were words that meant the same thing, and didn't taste so strange in his mouth. Not that it would be any easier to say "You're the source of my Patronus" - he winced at the very idea. Might as well give her the pink princess hat as say something that stupid…. No, there had to be something else. Something comfortable and normal and not so frightening.

But what it was, Harry couldn't imagine.

~*~

Padfoot's hind legs grazed something hard and rocky, and he realized that he'd reached the island. Allowing his belly to rest on the rocks, he kept his head just far enough above water to sniff the air around him. There was a person close by. Very close. To his right. Before he even had a chance to look, he ducked his head under the water, afraid of being seen, and tried to float to his left. Bringing his head up for air a moment later, he groped along the shoreline until he found a small crevice, and he pulled himself up further, hiding behind a rock.

The man was standing just outside the old Azkaban guard station. He was humming. Panting, Padfoot pressed closer to the rocks. He sniffed, and surveyed the area in front of him. It would be possible for him to crawl along the top of the rocks, and then climb in through the old window in the back of the guard station. If he timed it right, he could approach at the same time as the replacement guard, and then it wouldn't matter so much if he made a bit of noise.

Slowly, Padfoot inched his way to the top of the rock he'd been using as a shelf, and flattened himself on the cold, wet stone. He didn't know what time it was, but he expected he had a few minutes to spare before three o'clock. It was difficult to tell without the benefit of sunshine.

The old guard station building was small. It looked much smaller, even to Padfoot, than it had to Sirius back at Culparrat. It looked bleak and cold and inhospitable, and he could remember the first time that he had seen it, as a young man in chains. The day that he'd thought he'd killed Peter Pettigrew. The day he knew he'd killed James and Lily.

"Oi! Expecto Patronum!" The guard's voice made Padfoot jump, and he almost rolled off of his rock. He recovered himself just in time to see the doors to the guard station open. Two of the three Dementors who never left glided out towards the space where the guard was standing.

"Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!" The third Dementor slithered out to join its companions, and Padfoot could smell the guard's fear as nothing but a loosely-formed wisp of smoke emerged from his wand.

Why had they put such an incompetent guard out here, alone, to guard the Dementors? Most likely because these three had been so quiet for so long. Padfoot inched along, fighting the urge to transform into Sirius, who would be able to help. Or would he? No, Sirius could be no help to this man in fighting the Dementors. His best option was to remain as Padfoot, and, if anything, charge towards the man and carry him away from the creatures. It would sabotage the plan, but even Padfoot knew that this man's soul was more important.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04