Chapter 52

Rita Skeeter stepped out of Mr. Edgerton's office, having dropped off the most recent of her reports, setting out for her parole officer (for that, in effect, was Mr. Edgerton's function) the life she had led in the previous week. Absent from the report was any mention of her second visit to Nurmengard in the company of Harry and Sirius Black, for her activities outside of working hours were none of Edgerton's business. In any event, the biography (now close to completion) she was writing of Grindelwald was an undertaking that was known to, and even approved of by the ministry, and she had no need for Edgerton's approval of her writing of it, nor of her visits to the aged dark lord's prison. Her weekly report was merely a dull catalogue of what to outward appearances was a dreary existence as a servant to Muggles. Some weeks before, the Daily Prophet had ceased to publish Skeeter's reports because they were no longer interesting. The newspaper's readers, like Skeeter, had grown accustomed to the wandless writer's routine in the household of Hermione's parents, and had lost interest. But the reports still had to be handed in to Edgerton each week, and Skeeter dutifully attended at the ministry as required. These occasions were unpleasant, for Edgerton required that she sit in his office while he reviewed the latest report and, from time to time, asked her questions. S keeter was uncomfortable with the way the man's eyes glided over her, sometimes fixing upon her only to flit away if she returned his gaze. At times the man was hostile; on other occasions, faintly mocking. That he was looking for an excuse to hurl Skeeter into Azkaban was obvious enough, but over the months Skeeter had gleaned from the man's manners, questions and facial expressions an understanding of Edgerton's true attitude: so far as he was concerned, he owned Skeeter. It was this discovery by Rita that caused her to make her reports as brief as possible, in the hope of keeping her meetings with the man short. It seemed that this was working, for today, the last meeting before Easter, was her shortest encounter ever with Edgerton. Grateful for the unexpected reprieve, Skeeter hastened down the hall, her destination the immense library deep within the ministry. She was not due home for several hours, and there was much she could do in that time.

"Rita," said Arthur Weasley, stepping out of this office as she passed, "I'd be grateful if I could have a word with you, if you don't mind." Arthur Weasley was one of the reasons that Skeeter was free to walk the halls of the ministry. Without his evidence at her sentencing hearing the previous Christmas, Skeeter might very well be in Azkaban. Skeeter did not mind in the slightest that her plans to study in the library were being interrupted, not if she could be of use to Arthur. She cheerfully stepped into his office and took a seat. Arthur Weasley seated himself at his desk, the surface of which was covered with files and papers. His bright red hair was even more striking than usual, tufts sticking this way and that. He cleared his throat, and looking distracted, asked,

"Do you know about the search for the missing Muggle, the one that worked at the hospital?"

"I've been following it in the papers, but I haven't seen anything on it for a long time. I thought the ministry gave up that search."

"They did," replied Arthur. "Investigators I spoke to said never had they had fewer leads to work with."

"If you don't mind me asking, why was the ministry even involved? The girl was a Muggle, after all."

"That's true, but prior to her disappearance, the ministry detected the odd bit of magic taking place in the vicinity of the hospital where she worked. And we're reasonably certain that the spells took place in the hospital itself, because the charms in question were healing charms. But there were only a few instances of this, and the spells were performed so weakly that our unauthorized Magic Department could not get a fix on the location. But the last spell was very powerful, nothing less than a strong apparation charm. This was done only a hundred yards from the hospital, in what must have been plain view of dozens of Muggles. Our investigators were there almost instantly, and a day later we learned from the Muggle media the story of the missing nurse. The ministry believes, and I think rightly, that the girl's disappearance had something to do with a wizard or witch."

"But the disappearance was in January, and now it's almost Easter. Is the ministry going to start searching again now?"

"I'm afraid so. And unfortunately, the task has come to me. It seems that the girl had dual citizenship, being both a British subject and a Danish citizen. Our ministry's counterpart in Copenhagen made a request for assistance, and the Department of International Magical Cooperation has been asked to respond. And I, as the assistant to the deputy minister, have to deal with this, as if I didn't have a million other things to do. And everyone under me is swamped, too. I need someone who can go into the hospital and get information, but I simply don't have the bodies. I don't have a single person I can assign. But then it occurred to me that you, with your rather unique background, would be just the person for this assignment. You would have no difficulty at all getting inside the hospital in disguise, and getting information. In fact-"

Weasley was taken aback by Skeeter's appalled reaction.

"If you're suggesting that I borrow a wand, go to the hospital and turn myself into a beetle so that I can overhear things -"

"I'm suggesting nothing of the sort. The reason I'm asking you to help is that first of all, you're an investigative reporter. You know how to ask questions and get answers. Unlike almost everybody else who works for me, you also know a lot about the Muggle world. You know how to dress like one of them and talk like they do. You won't look out of place. If I, or one of my staff went, we'd only make a botch of it. Can you help us?"

Skeeter was delighted to help, or rather at least to try, though she doubted that her efforts would lead to very much. Doubtless the Muggle police had already interviewed everyone that could be found, and the ham-handed efforts of the ministry investigators probably only make things worse. Would any potential witnesses come forward now, months after the events and after having been repeatedly questioned?

"I'll do my best, but don't expect much. Even if I'd gone in January I don't know if I would have been able to accomplish anything. The trail's pretty cold now, but at least you'll be able to say that you did everything you could."

"Exactly!" remarked Weasley. "You'll be able to prepare a highly readable report, something that will show the Danes that we took this seriously. Here's the file I got from our own investigators, along with a copy of the notes from the Muggle police. If you don't mind, please make copious references to all this in the report."

Skeeter took the heavy bundle of documents.

"How soon do you need to report?"

"We have to give them something within a week, but if you could do it sooner than that, that would be better."

"I'll get right on it."

Skeeter was not sure how she would juggle this investigation with her duties at the Granger residence, but somehow she would have to find a way.

Harry, Hermione, Ron and Imogen sat around the boardroom table in the Prefect's office, the door magically locked against any intruder, the usual measures taken against their being overheard. Spread out on the table before them were pages of notes, diagrams, and textbooks. The meeting of Harry and his friends on this Thursday before Easter was to make a final effort to find someway — anyway — to get into Gringotts, other than the way mapped out for them by Imogen some months previously, when over the Christmas holidays, she had revealed to them the method in the 'books' for breaking into Gringotts. This involved many perils and obstacles, not the least of which was obtaining a sample of Bellatrix's hair. This last requirement seemed insurmountable, and so Harry had asked his friends to meet with him for a brainstorming session in the hope that some other, more workable plan could be settled upon. They all listened attentively as Ron expounded upon his plan. It involved sending in two of their team, disguised as dragonkeepers sent in to care for the dragon that guarded the depths of Gringotts near where Bellatrix's vault lay. Ron thought that once he and Harry (for he presumed that it would he and Harry who performed the mission) got near the vault, they could easily overpower the Goblin escort, get into Bellatrix's vault, and either depart undetected using Harry's invisibility cloak, or fly out on the dragon, the escape method described by Imogen.

Harry and Imogen liked Ron's idea. It was simple. It required only two of them it gave them access with a minimum of fuss.

"It's too risky," said Hermione, the cold water of her common sense cooling her friend's enthusiasm. "There's one major disadvantage this has over Imogen's method. Bellatrix could go to Gringotts absolutely anytime she pleased, and expect to be admitted. So if the guards think one of us is Bellatrix, we're in. But dragonkeepers must be very rare visitors to Gringotts. Suppose no dragonkeeper visit is scheduled? The guards will be suspicious. And then what happens? It's just too risky."

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Ron. "Did you come up with anything better?"

"No," replied Hermione. "I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I scoured the library for ways to defeat Gringott's. I read every account I could find of successful and unsuccessful attempts to break into the bank. It's been tried many, many times and it almost always has failed. Wizards have tried accessing their own vault, and then hiding, remaining after dark and then attempting to break in to other vaults. Others have tried tunneling in from neighboring buildings. Cruder attempts involved using force. Even Polyjuice Potion, which Imogen says in an unaltered feature works for us, is anything but a sure thing. In every instance of a successful break-in to Gringott's (with one exception) that I could find, two common elements were present. First of all, the vault in question belonged to a wizard known to practice dark magic. Second, Polyjuice Potion or some other magic was used to trick the guards into thinking that the customer himself was accessing his vault."

"And the one exception..." asked Harry.

"That was when we were in first year, when somebody broke in to Gringott's, seeking the Philosopher's Stone. That particular attempt I suppose was unsuccessful, because the thief did not find what he was looking for, but nonetheless whoever it was got past Gringott's defenses, broke into a vault and then left without being detected, so in that sense, the attempt succeeded. The reason it was successful was because the person behind it of course was Voldemort. I doubt very much that there is any defense Gringott's could devise that Voldemort could not defeat. But we're not anywhere near his caliber, and we have to come up with some other method. But I just can't think of one." Hermione hated admitting defeat to a problem that obviously was solvable, if one was clever enough.

For his part, Harry had to admit to his friends that he too had been unable to put together any kind of viable plan. It would be bad enough getting caught sneaking into Gringott's. In such a case, they could expect expulsion from school and perhaps a term in Azkaban. But far, far worse would be to get past the guards at the front door and into a vault, only then to have the attempt fail, for in such cases, the vault doors would seal themselves, leaving Harry and his friends to starve to death.

"Then we'll have to do this just like Imogen told us it would be done," said Harry. "We'll have to get some Polyjuice Potion, and you, Hermione, will have to drink it, and enter Gringott's as if you were Bellatrix."

Hermione immediately voiced the obvious objections.

"But Harry, we've been through this before. You yourself pointed out that this method won't work, because we need a sample of Bellatrix's hair for the Polyjuice Potion. How on earth will we get that? That would be every bit as difficult as breaking into the bank. At least we know where the bank is. None of us has the faintest idea where Bellatrix can be found."

"We won't need to find her," replied Harry. "She'll give us the hair for the asking."

"Are you bonkers?" asked Ron. "What are you going to do, send her a letter with a prepaid envelope to put a lock of hair in?"

Harry laughed.

"It's a bit more complicated than that. But I'm pretty sure that Bellatrix can be made to cooperate. Now to make this happen, I'm going to have to change my plans a bit. There's a meeting I've been needing to have involving all the remnants of Dumbledore's army. Everyone in Gryffindor who is still with us, along with Ernie, Luna, Cho and Marietta. And we don't have anytime to waste. We're going to have to have the meeting tonight. In fact, I like us all to skip going to the Great Hall, and eat dinner together here, in the Prefects boardroom. I'm sure Dobby will accommodate us with all the food we want, if we just ask."

"But why do you want to do the meeting over dinner?" inquired Hermione.

"It might be that we won't be able to get everybody together after dinner on short notice. But I know that everyone will be available at dinner time, because of course everybody has to eat. Besides, for reasons which I won't explain right now, this meeting could get rather ugly, and I'm hoping that if we do it over dinner, that might have a civilizing influence on it."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're getting at, but I'll speak to Ernie about it right away," said Ron. "After all, he's a Prefect, and he won't mind meeting in here for dinner."

"I'll speak to the Ravenclaw girls," offered Hermione, despite the distaste she felt at the idea of speaking with Marietta.

Harry leaned back in his chair, satisfied that the first order of business had been taken care of. He then addressed the second.

"Good. Now let's move onto something equally pressing. Draco. Imogen, what did you learn from following Draco the other day?"

Over the last couple of weeks, Harry's friends had taken turns following Draco while wearing Harry's invisibility cloak. None of them had found anything suspicious, other than the bizarre fact that on two occasions, Draco had been seen to enter the teacher's private quarters. Other than that, virtually nothing had been observed that could not be explained away as an innocent activity.

"I followed him into the library," began Imogen, "But first let me tell you about a discussion I had with McGonagall yesterday. I told her that before Professor Dumbledore got poisoned or cursed or whatever it is that paralyzed him, we'd been trying to warn him about Draco, and that we were sure he was up to something. Professor Snape tells me he tried to warn him too. So, I thought now that McGonagall's in charge that maybe I should speak to her and tell her what I saw, and that Draco was going into the teacher's private corridor. I didn't want to look like a tattletale, but I felt I had no other choice. I was hoping she would give me permission to follow him into the teacher's area, if I can catch him doing it again.