Chapter 55

Imogen ate her breakfast in silence, her head slumped over her plate as she mechanically shovelled food into her mouth, while at the same time she tried to finish a note she was writing to her friend, the centaur chieftain Magorian. She drained another cup of coffee, her third, but what did that matter: no one was counting.

"That's your third cup of coffee," said Angelina Johnson. "If you keep that up, you'll spend your first class running to the bathroom half the time."

"Mumble mumble," said Imogen. "Mumble." She reached for the coffee jug. Ron beat her to it.

"You're not the only one that's tired," he said. "And I need a serious dose of caffeine."

Harry and Hermione weren't doing very well, either. They'd all been up far too late. The day before had at least started off on the right note, the break-in to Gringott's proceeding flawlessly. The four friends easily got past the entrance, all of them disguised by polyjuice potion, and Harry imperiusing or confunding any guard who seemed the slightest bit suspicious. Hermione was a very convincing Bellatrix, and the group easily gained access to that evil woman's vault. Thanks to Imogen's knowledge of "the books", they knew what traps and pitfalls awaited them inside. When Harry grasped the Hufflepuff Cup, he did not have to worry about the bank's defence charms turning the cup red-hot: he was wearing his dragon-skin gloves, the material almost impervious. But what almost ruined everything was Hermione's sudden reversion to her true form.

"I must have misjudged the dose," she said. "I thought I'd taken enough. But what do we do now?"

"Let's chance it," said Harry. "The security's meant to keep people from getting in, and not from leaving. I say we give it a go." He poked his head out for a look, and just as quickly pulled himself back in.

"Spoke too soon. There's a lot of activity out there. Let's wait a bit."

They stood in silence, hearing the noise of what sounded like a work party of some kind, evidently too many goblins for Harry and his friends to imperious all at once. There was nothing for it but to wait, and by the time the workmen left, Harry, Ron and Imogen, like Hermione, had reverted to their normal selves as the effects of the polyjuice potion faded.

"We probably should have chanced it," said Harry. "Now we all look exactly like we are: a bunch of kids that have no business being here."

"We can always hop onto the guard dragon outside, and escape that way," said Ron.

"Yeah, that's true," said Harry. "But I don't like it. It will attract a lot of attention. It might make Gringott's look through the nearby vaults, and if the theft from Bellatrix's vault is discovered, then our whole mission is pointless. In fact, worse than pointless, because Voldemort will know what we're up to."

Harry had his invisibility cloak with him, but that would fit at most two of them comfortably, and he said as much. Imogen spoke up excitedly.

"We can still use it to get out. Two of us could use it to get to the exit. One of us leaves, and the other, still with the cloak on, comes back here and picks up another of us. Then he comes back, and he and the last of us leave together."

"We'd have to be pretty desperate to try that," said Hermione. "That involves a lot of trips back and forth. The more we wander around inside, the more likely it is that one or more of us will get caught."

"Any ideas?" asked Harry.

"Let's wait until after hours. Yes, there'll still be guards, but there'll be a lot less activity and less chance of someone surprising us. And we can try Imogen's idea once we get close to the exit."

Thus it was one a.m. before four friends made it out of Gringott's, and almost four in the morning before they were safe in their beds after a long broom ride from London.

"And now I have to go to that damn Divination class," he said. "And that reminds me. You have to go too, Imogen."

Imogen moaned.

"If only Professor Dumbledore would recover. He wouldn't have made me sit in on Divination. Or History. Herbology's ok with Sprout. But Divinitation?"

McGonnagal had decreed a few weeks earlier that Imogen, having caught up with her peers in her chosen subjects of Defence against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions and Charms, now had the time to learn something of the subjects she'd missed. Since then, Imogen had attended Professor Trelawney's class twice. There was no doubt at all that the Divination instructor disliked Imogen intensely.

"Is she really that bad with you?" asked Hermione, unable to witness the goings on between Imogen and Trelawney, for she had been exempted from Divination for some years.

"Bloody awful. She's heard, from the staff I suppose, that I have some knowledge of the future. So she views me as a rival, I think."

"Hardly," said Hermione. "If you were faking knowledge of the future, then yes, you'd be in a contest with her for the best fake."

"And whatever knowledge I had of the future isn't reliable any more. So there's no need for Trelawney to be jealous of me."

"I just wish she'd stop predicting my death," said Harry. "That last one she came up with was really awful."

"Oh, do tell Harry!" said Ginny, glad that her friends, after being silent and sullen for most of the breakfast, had finally started speaking.

"Let me," said Imogen, who in perfect imitation of the self-important tone and manner assumed by Trelawney when making predictions, waved a hand at Harry and pronounced the following:

"You will die at the hand of the Dark Lord, while he with his escort of snakes of the royal purple, shall be taken to a place of safety."

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"That pretentious fraud. If only I had a knut for every one of her stupid predictions."

"And now I have to go hear some more of them," said Harry. He picked up his book bag, and with Ron along side him headed for the north tower. Imogen folded up her note to Magorian and raced to catch up with her friends.

"I'm trying to help you, Rita. Really I am. But you're making this far too difficult for me. You simply must try harder." Yaxley had been questioning Skeeter all morning, in the interrogation room at Castle Stalker. Voldemort's renovations had taken but a few waves of his wand, but nonetheless the changes to the castle had been extensive. The top floor was now properly roofed, and the largest of the floor's two rooms was devoted to the purpose for which it was now being used: the obtaining of information from prisoners. Yaxley stepped away from the interview table to stretch his legs. Skeeter would have liked to have done the same. But her legs were in chains, the links connected to bolts in the floor. Her hands were on the table, encased in iron bands. She would not be going anywhere. Yaxley contemplated the situation as he took a turn about the room. The Dark Lord was due any minute, and thus far Yaxley had little to show for his efforts. It was not that Skeeter was resisting the questioning: far from it. She was very eager to tell all that she knew about Grindelwald. Skeeter willingly gave up to Yaxley every detail of Grindelwald's past that she knew, within limits. And that limit was the year 1945. Skeeter was positively loquacious about events in Grindelwald's life up to that year, but about events afterwards, she was unwilling to give any information whatsoever.

Lost in thought, Yaxley stared down the wide circular stairway Voldemort had constructed. The stairs wound down, not stopping at the ground floor but extending multiple stories deep below what had previously been the castle's dungeon. Yaxley looked over the railing, and he could just barely discern where the stairs ended, the termination marked by the faint light from a torch at the bottom of the stairs.

"I really don't know why you're being so stubborn, Rita," he said. "It's not like I'm asking you to give away a loved one. Grindelwald cannot possibly matter to you, and even if he did, he is an old man. He will not be with us much longer. And he cannot have done much in prison over the last half-century. Surely you can tell us what you learned about those years. And if you can't, at least tell me why not."

I'm being questioned by an idiot. Can't he figure out that I couldn't tell him anything I learned inside Nurmengard even if I wanted to?

Apparently not, judging by Yaxley's next question.

"The pensieve from your home was exactly where you said it would be, and Carrow spent hours with it last night. And what you've told us so far checks out with the pensieve's contents. You're willing to tell us only about things in the pensieve, but now that we have it, we don't need you to tell us. We need to know things that weren't part of the memories Grindelwald deposited. So let's try again. You insist that you don't have a wand, correct?"

"I'm not supposed to have one."

Yaxley sighed.

"You're equivocating again, my dear. You really must stop that. Now do you or do you not have a wand?"

"I don't have one."

"Then how did you get to Nurmengard?"

"By magic, of course."

Skeeter ignored Yaxley's sigh of exasperation, and retreated inside herself, hoping to find the strength to keep silent about her secrets. From the moment Skeeter had been kidnapped, she had assumed that the reason for it was Harry Potter and her trip with him to Grindelwald's prison. Skeeter knew herself to be of no consequence in the larger scheme of things. But Harry's plan for his upcoming meeting with Voldemort was precious knowledge, and somehow she must find a way to protect what she knew. She was grateful that Severus had taught her Occlumency over the last few months. While her skill was nothing compared to his, perhaps it would be sufficient to allow her to hold out for a few weeks, until the date of the final clash in the Department of Mysteries.