Harry Potter and the Necklace of Menat
Chapter 07
AN: This was a complete rewrite of the chapter as I've originally written it (and intended) with Harry in a different country and the events in this chapter merely flashbacks but I needed H to be in just one country.
I will edit the fics based on constructive reviews but if i keep quiet on certain areas, i just might have a reason.
Thanks for reading.
Harry was sitting on his haunches, balancing himself on one leg by the ball of a foot, while the right was firmly planted on the grassy soil, his right forearm propped against his thigh. For the past two weeks, he, along with countless wizards from Serbia's Ministry of Magic, had been planting magical crystals all across the country, crystals that Harry himself designed and made, ensuring that they would not be used for purposes other than what he had originally intended them to do. And he would have done the embeddings himself, but if he did, he would never leave the country until he was old and decrepit. Harry straightened his back and looked about himself, inspecting his handiwork, visually checking for traces of magic. Then he stretched out a hand, palm face down, feeling for the same. Nothing. He nodded to himself and stood up.
He tilted his head up slightly and gazed towards a distant ridge - part of the Dinaric Mountains of Central Serbia - and noted the red, dying sun burning its last light of the day. Already darkness had encroached upon the edges of the wide expansive lands about him, creeping in like black smoke, settling first in the gloomy trees of the forest at the foothills of the mountains but gaining breadth all over the valley.
Harry then turned to look further up the hill where his companions were standing - a Roman Catholic priest sent directly from the Vatican, and two Serbian Ministry of Magic employees: a Savage Creature Handler from their Department of Magical Creatures and an Auror in full alert mode (though Harry was sure that there were few people around – wizard or otherwise – and so there was very little chance of them being seen, or any danger at all that the creature they were hunting would make an unscheduled appearance). The three seemed content to just let Harry do his work though. Harry signaled to them that he was finished and the priest and the Handler visibly relaxed - they were probably anxious not to disturb Harry while he was working and cause him to bungle up what he was doing. While the other Auror acknowledged Harry with a nod of his own then Disapparated to report back to the Ministry.
Harry surveyed the land one last time, the dusk now fully upon them, then he walked back up the hill to rejoin the others. When he was near enough, the priest spoke (of his companions, he was the only one comfortable enough to speak directly to Harry, the others seemed to be still in awe of him): "You think it will work?"
Harry shrugged then looked back towards the edge of the forest where he had just been, "I sure hope so. Or else, we may have to stay in the country for a little while longer."
The priest sighed. "Then, let's hope so."
Simply because of the nature of the creature and the grounds he had to cover, this was turning out to be one of the most difficult jobs Harry had to do in the last three months since he left England. Yes, job, for job it was his flight from England had become; officially, he was still on the payroll of the British Wizarding Ministry. Because upon Harry's arrival in Greece three months before – so soon after making their request for Harry's help at the International Wizarding Caucus -, the Greek Ministry of Magic had then treated Harry's appearance as an official one, and consequently afforded Harry with all the pomp and officiousness of such a visit – for the Greeks acknowledged that what they were asking of Harry was a favor. Harry, keen not to offend and overwhelmed by the warm reception he was receiving from the Greeks, was thus forced to do everything by the book – including making a formal report to Kingsley. After the job was done though, Harry could only muster the energy to make a verbal report via Floo to Kingsley, who understood and made no further demands on him (like report to the International Auror Office, as was required of him). That initial discussion was rather brief and to the point, except for a few moments, when Kingsley mentioned Ron and Hermione and how the latter kept asking him about Harry. Kingsley did not say much, but from his few and carefully chosen words Harry had quickly gathered that Hermione was having a bad time of it and by the second week, Harry caved in and sent for his two friends. It took him some time to reassure them, especially Hermione, that he held no grudges against them, that they were not the reason he left England, though neither would he give any reason why, only his word that nothing had changed between them. Harry did know, however, that his friends settled on 'guilt over Donaghy's death' as that which drove him away from England and Harry allowed them this false assumption.
It had been a short and happy reunion with his friends, but once or twice, Harry would catch Ron staring into space looking as if he had just been run over by the Knight Bus but when Harry would ask him what was wrong, his two friends would exchange a quick look - Hermione's pleading - then Ron would try to compose his face into what Harry could only describe as a grimace of a smile and say, "I just can't believe you left so suddenly. Are you sure you're not mad at us?" (which Harry wasn't, of course).
Harry did not think much of it. It was an expression he was not unused to seeing on his friend's face, most often when an anniversary with Hermione was coming up, and Ron had forgotten to buy a gift, or buy a gift that he thought was good enough. So Harry let the moment pass.
Thus, their friendship reaffirmed, the trio spent the next two days in happy companionship, although Harry, dreading any mention of Ginny happy with her new boyfriend, would not tolerate hearing any news at all from England and would immediately direct the conversation away to a new topic the moment they started. (In fact, he hadn't even picked up a newspaper ever since he left England for much the same reason.) Ron and Hermione noticed this at once and since then had followed Harry's example.
They also had fun with the Menat headdress and necklace. At some point in the last three months – Harry wasn't sure when – the sundisk's light had diminished. So, Ron, in particular, felt brave enough to play with the artifacts over Hermione's protests. Having read the Soay case files, Ron then dared Harry to throw a spell at him. But Harry had already given much thought to the mystery of how his spells had failed to connect with Galina while she was wearing the jewelries and, after a few tentative spells, Harry discovered several powerful deflection and absorption shields, particularly in the headdress. It was simply the magical version of Muggles' Kevlar bullet proof vest and soon enough Harry was able to develop a technique that would allow him to puncture through the headdress' shields. Hiding a grin under a look of deep concentration, Harry hit an unsuspecting Ron with a spell without uttering a single word or taking out his phoenix wand. Ron sputtered indignantly when he suddenly found himself wearing nothing but a cupid costume which looked suspiciously like what Lockhart's cupids had worn their second year at Hogwarts. When Ron raised a disgruntled face back to Harry, he found his mate grinning smugly back at him. Ron made a moue of disgust, as if to say: "I'll get you for this."
Harry also told them a bit about a few of the jobs and places he'd been to, like Greece and the Teumessian Fox which Harry had easily dealt with - no small thanks to the Hogwarts Centaurs' gift. After learning that there were still Centaurs living in the Greek islands though, and believing that he would have no more need for the bow and arrows, Harry hunted down the descendants of the oldest Centaur tribe known to man, travelling down to the Foloi Oak Forest in southwestern Greece. There he turned over the set of bow and arrows, a gesture which the Greek Centaurs reciprocated by giving Harry an acorn, a seed of a magical oak tree, with the counsel that he should plant the seed where his heart truly lay, and the tree would grow and bloom as abundantly as his love would, ensuring that his own relationships would prosper. Harry stared at the Greek Centaur's Chief for quite a long time after he received the seed, oblivious to the possibility that he might be doing something offensive. He was trying to gauge why he had been given that particular gift, just when he decided that true love was a happiness he could never have in this life, but the Chief held Harry's stare just as long - proudly, defiantly. From experience, Harry knew that Centaurs were quite discerning creatures, and saw more (and indeed, saw far ahead) than most intelligent beings and he instantly knew, he was being given hope. Did it mean he would eventually be with Ginny? For that was the only happiness he cared about: her, where his heart truly lay. Harry furrowed his forehead, thinking, then looked about him where the rest of the tribe stood gathered round, all the centaurs looking wild, fierce, and… lustful-looking? They looked less dreamy than their Hogwarts counterparts, but both tribes seemed to radiate with an ancient wisdom quite unknown to modern man with his complicated life and twisted self-preservation instincts. As a species, centaurs hadn't left far the grounds from which they had sprung, affording them a simpler view of life, choices a lot more clear-cut. And now they all smiled down at Harry, which he had thought at first was because he returned to them a great possession, but no, the smiles were just a bit too knowing, slightly condescending even. Harry made his leave then, thanking them for their hospitality and friendship and the gift. Whatever its significance was, Harry was grateful nonetheless.
But that was three months ago. No other event had happened since that would give him reason otherwise that he could ever have Ginny's love back, Or her fancy, if that was all he ever had of her in the first place.
He had only seen his friends one other time after that (the weekend of his birthday, in fact, which Hermione insisted upon). Although he could not let even his two best friends know most of the things he'd witnessed, things that were simply too horrific - not in the gory kind of way, he and his friends were made of sterner stuff than that – for him to let anyone know, least of all Hermione.
His brief reunions with his friends and one with Teddy, who couldn't understand Harry's abrupt disappearance and prolonged absence, and was starting to get affected, were the sole bright spots in his life in the last three months. The rest of the time he buried himself deep in work, driving his nose to the ground until he was so tired that at night he could only plop down in bed and sleep and need not have to think. It was Hermione who insisted on telling him that Teddy had acquired this habit of waking up very early in the morning and waiting by the front door of the house for his godfather, refusing to come in when his grandmother would call him back inside the house. And Teddy would then ask "Harry's not back yet?" or "When will Harry be back?" or any variations of such and when his grandmother couldn't answer - for she didn't know the answers herself - Teddy would then cry for the rest of the day. So Harry had no choice but to have Kreacher bring Teddy and Andromeda to a secluded island somewhere in the Indian Ocean for a short vacation. Thankfully, Andromeda didn't ask too many questions and accepted whatever Harry was willing to give, which was barely little. Harry then had a heart to heart talk with his god-child, explaining to Teddy that he had to do a job away from England, like fighting fire-eating dragons (which Harry hadn't, for the creatures he had to fight were not the kind that he could tell his godson), dragons that if Harry didn't fight would go to England and eat all the children there. Teddy didn't want dragons to fly to England and eat all the children, would he? Harry asked his godchild, to which Teddy fervently shook his head no and agreed that Harry should stay and do all he could to stop the dragons from coming to England. Harry tried to make it sound like an adventure to Teddy, promising his godson all sorts of gifts and souvenirs when he returned back to England so that Teddy would get used to the idea that it would take Harry awhile to return back home.
And a while indeed it was starting to look like before Harry could return back to England, though this time, it would not be by choice. Harry had been in Serbia for three weeks now, longer than he had ever been in one place, far longer than he had ever anticipated being in one place. But Harry had no choice. The lay of the land, the nature of the creature itself, and the range in which it stalked the land was such that it was nigh impossible to capture it. Serbia's Ministry of Magic had been trying to do so for quite a while now but obviously had been unsuccessful. The creature had been plaguing the country since December the previous year, the attacks so severe that they even reached the Muggle news. But what Muggles didn't know was the extent and severity of the attacks, for the creature, a Drekavac, was primarily a wizard monster, and the deaths in the wizarding world had been particularly high.
Many believed the creature to be the regional variant of the chupacabra, for eyewitnesses' description of the two creatures appeared to be similar; in fact, in the Drekavac's case, the descriptions for its appearance were as varied as the sightings. A Drekavac came into being when a child died without having received the grace of baptism, and thus was bodiless, incorporeal - the reason for its shape-shifting abilities and its need for animal blood to give it form, hence the Muggle sightings as it attacked livestock. Its one constant feature was its horrific screams, the wailing of a tortured soul - its own - and a portent of what awaited its intended victim. The creature would wait until nightfall to appear, often in dreams, and strangle its victims to death. Out of the mists it would form and into it the creature would disappear the moment it felt threatened, and that's why it was so difficult to capture, let alone kill. The Drekavac found by the Muggles had just fed; sated with blood, the creature was unable to disappear back into the mist, and thus was killed. But what was destroyed was merely its mortal form, for the creature could not truly be killed unless it be baptized or had finally found its peace, its soul's satisfaction.
Upon arriving in the country and having been apprised of the situation, Harry at first was taken aback by the number of casualties. But then again, it had to be, given that it had already reached the Muggles' attention. At first he attended the meetings held by the task force set up by the Serbian Ministry, but by the second day when fresh report came in that another victim had died, a young girl, Harry then asked if he could reconnoiter the country, particularly the central region where most of the attacks seemed to be concentrated. It was Standard Operational Procedure really but often Harry used the opportunity to clear his head and allow his instincts to take over, enabling him to process subconsciously clues and information that often helped him in solving cases, but when a member of the task force - obviously a Muggle-born - timidly mentioned that they're already on the internet and wouldn't it just be easier if Harry googled them instead? Harry couldn't help the small smile that formed on his lips.
Harry had power but a linguist, he wasn't - yet. In the last three months he had learned that there were certain skills he needed and for which there were no shortcuts: languages he had to learn the old-fashioned way. And he vowed to work on it in his free time and acquire at least half the language skills Dumbledore had. So another member of the task force, a dark-haired, painfully beautiful female Auror who was assigned as Harry's official interpreter, took it upon herself to answer on Harry's behalf.
"When you find a computer or cellphone or any other Muggle gadget that would work within the vicinity of Mr. Potter, Mr. Obrenovic, do let us know," she said aloud in English. The said Mr. Obrenovic, whose seat neighbor seemed to helpfully whisper the translation, reddened and mumbled a reply which he alone heard.
Later that night, the female Auror accompanied Harry all the way to his quarters and lingered for a while. She tried to draw Harry in with an unfettered kiss, hungrily pushing her body – a body that was all woman in all the right places - into his. Harry was sorely tempted, it had been so long since he'd been with a woman, but he knew what he would feel when he woke up the next morning, He had been hiding his feelings from Ginny for such a long time and what did it get him? Now he was forced to literally run away from her. But there was nowhere in the world, nowhere he could go where he wouldn't be in love with Ginny - he could not feel any more wretched than he already did. And so he gently untangled the Serbian Auror's arms from his neck, where she had attached them, smiled sadly at her and wished her "good evening".
The female Auror pulled back and gazed into Harry's handsome face. Then she brushed the back of her hand against him and knew that he was not wholly unaffected; but Harry gently removed her hand from his body. She sighed, gave him one last, long look and then moved to pick up her things from an armchair where she had placed them earlier. Then she turned back to Harry and said, "Whoever she is, Mr. Potter, I hope she's worth it." and then left Harry alone in a darkened room where the only light came in through the window from an overcast moon.
The next morning, several members of the task force, riding on broomsticks while one flew in his bird Animagus form, accompanied Harry as he aerially surveyed the country, familiarizing himself with the lay of the land. He himself had transfigured into a golden eagle commonly seen in the area. He was the only wizard currently known who could hold his full animal transfigurations indefinitely, the average for most wizards (the few who were even capable of doing it), was an hour, though Harry knew Kingsley and Bill could hold theirs for several. Flying just underneath the cloud cover, despite the land's magnificent beauty Harry was immediately disheartened by what he saw. The country was simply vast, with hills and mountains, valleys cut through with bodies of water, and forests constantly shrouded in impenetrable mists. There were simply too many places the creature could easily appear from and disappear into.
They spent the entire day on the reconnaissance mission. Harry also checked for himself the caves and other possible nesting places of the creature, making sure that it was not a member of a pack. The group concentrated their investigations on where the attacks had been more frequent. Finally, just when the sun was about to set, they flew back to the task force's field office set up in a poljane zupa - the deserted settlement buildings camouflaging the Ministry of Magic's offices - to facilitate fast response time for reports of fresh attacks,
Other members of the task force were already waiting on the grounds for Harry's and the others' return and hurried to meet Harry as the group began to land on the open field. A couple of meters from the ground, Harry ended the transfiguration spell, landing gracefully on the soft ground on his two feet, while the other wizards made a fast, whooshing sound as they flew past him and then a soft thump! thump! as one by one, the other members landed round him.
As Harry straightened up, he kept his head down, deliberately avoiding the expectant looks the Serbs were giving him; it was, after all, but a simple reconnoiter. He was also still processing what he had seen and didn't want small talk to crowd and confuse his mind.
His interpreter was also there, but she and Harry both chose to ignore the incident of the previous night and acted as they did before. Finally, Harry turned to one of the Aurors, the head of the task force, one of those who had accompanied Harry in the aerial reconnaissance and spoke.
"I'd like to meet with the victims' families, please, as well as the eyewitnesses."
"Yes, Mr. Potter."
Harry nodded but didn't even try to correct the man to simply address him as Harry, especially since they were both Aurors. For years he had been trying to tell people to stop calling him Mr. Potter to no avail. So he stopped; he simply got tired of the routine. The Auror then turned to the others and with a flick of his hand in the air, everyone understood that they were to go back to the Ministry.
Upon returning to the Ministry of Magic offices though, Harry waited for about an hour till the Ministry could gather as many of the witnesses as they could, Harry devoting the time to re-reading the files anew. And when the interview began in a separate room, he simply contented himself with listening to the victims' families and eyewitnesses, seldom interrupting. The more he listened, the more Harry realized that the easiest way to deal with the Drekavac was to stop it materializing in the first place. That would mean removing its primary mode of appearance – the fog. Harry simply hated the idea. It was, to say the least, stupid to the point of inanity, a stop-gap measure, to be sure, but when people's lives were at stake, stop-gap would have to do for now.
He also hated the kind of magic involved, where they interfered with nature. Who knew what effect it would eventually have, given the earth's closed system? But he had no choice. He couldn't stay forever in the country just to wait for the creature to appear.
Then slowly a plan began to form in his mind. Halfway through the interrogations, Harry asked for the list of wizards in the country, quickly scanning the files while continuing to listen to the testimonies of the witnesses. He waited until the last of them had finished and then left the room with the other task force members back to the operations center nearby. The operations center could only be described as dark with the black wooden oval center table dominating the entire room, which was similarly paneled in dark wood with only a hint of gold in the thin accent moldings edging the ceiling and the half panels surrounding the walls. At the far side of the room hang the room's main focal point, a Shield decorated with the country's White Eagle heraldic emblem – for the symbol was the family crest of a wizarding noble family dating back to the Middle Ages.
Everyone immediately took their places around the table but nobody spoke, waiting for Harry to begin. He understood only too well why the Serbs seemed to be hanging on his every move and word - they had been grappling with the problem for the last nine months and had gotten nowhere. Some in the building and even in the room had lost either a friend or a loved one to the creature. Now they were looking to him to deliver them from this dreadful evil. Harry, growing more self-conscious as the Serbs continued to stare at him, suddenly felt his throat run dry. He felt the urge to take a big gulp but thought to do so would not be too confidence-inspiring so he kept his face immobile as he organized the thoughts in his head.
Harry wasn't sure at first how to begin. Blurting out "We should stop fogs from forming." didn't sound too professional to him or someone who was supposedly the world's number one Ace Auror would come up with - the comment would surely be met with incredulity, if not derision. So he sat there, thinking how best to put his idea forth (because, unfortunately, it was the only solution that came to his head). In the end he took a deep breath, and, acknowledging the fact that he had never been one for words, pulled out his phoenix wand and started conjuring a crystal. He concentrated hard, thinking the word Desiccato!, embedding the magic in every base unit of the crystal. He had to create the magic just right so that it wouldn't drain all the water out of the air, just enough so that fog or mist would not form. He also made sure that the crystal would work only at night (for the Drekavac was a nocturnal creature), the better to hide the absence of mists from Muggle eyes. Finally, he was done, but the Serbians still looked clueless as to what he was doing, so Harry said simply:
"This crystal will prevent fog or mist from forming in the air at night."
"And it will prevent the Drekavac from appearing in the first place?" asked Harry's interpreter. "That's brilliant, Mr. Potter," she added, open admiration on her face. But Harry turned his face away from her. There was a slight hubbub as all round the table the other members of the task force passed the information amongst themselves.
"Actually, it's just a temporary measure. The crystal itself is not completely indestructible. And over time, it might lose its potency, and the Drekavac could return - angrier, more vicious, more bloodthirsty."
"So, what do we do now, Mr. Potter?"
So Harry laid out his plan. They would all start embedding the crystals all over the land, from the borders of Serbia inward, but they would keep a certain area free of the crystals, the area in the Central Serbian region where most attacks had occurred; for something seemed to be drawing the creature to those parts or perhaps that was where it had originated. Harry, taking a wild guess, chose one particular household, wherein lived the sole wizarding family for miles around. They would try to draw the creature there, keeping the area free of the crystals while denying it access to the rest of the country. So Harry spent the next few days creating the crystals and teaching the others how to plant them, in particular, how to keep the magic concealed so as not to spook the creature into moving into other, yet unprotected, parts or even to neighboring countries.
And that was what they had been doing in the past couple of weeks, with Harry concentrating his efforts in the target area. Harry had requested only a skeleton force. He didn't want the area to be crawling with wizards as it might scare the creature away. That's why he had only three companions with him – the Savage Creature Handler who was Serbia's foremost Drekavac expert, the Serbian Auror was their official liaison with the Ministry of Magic, and since the wizarding household where they would be staying was Roman Catholic, a priest from that denomination. For, if they couldn't find out what caused the Drekavac to appear in the first place, then a blessing would be their only option of getting rid of the creature once and for all.
With the Auror reporting back to the Ministry that the last crystal had been placed, Harry, the priest, and the Handler began walking back to the wizarding home where they were temporarily billeted. The Ministry now would start activating the crystals around the Central Serbian region (they had already done so in the peripheral areas of the country) so that it would have no choice but to appear where Harry wanted it. The Handler, who was walking ahead of Harry and the priest, kept looking back at them as they all wended their way through the rows of grape vines which were the economic mainstay of the region. The Handler seemed rather put out that they had to move the "Muggle way" when they could easily Disapparate to return back to the house. But Harry was starting to feel the adrenaline build-up - he usually got this way just before an operation began and so needed the walk-off to calm his jangled nerves.
The priest, Fr. Lockefeer, seemed to notice Harry's unease and kept quiet by his side. Truth be told, Harry was probably more interested in the priest than the other way around, probably even more than Harry would ever admit out loud to anyone. The past several days they had never had much chance to talk because Harry had been busy and too exhausted by the end of the day to really engage the priest in more than casual conversation. But now Harry had the chance to ask the priest a few questions. For one thing, he was a little bit surprised when he was informed that the Catholic Church had sent a priest all the way from the Vatican to help them deal with the creature. It was necessary, but the fact that the Vatican took an active part in the operation surprised him.
When they were first introduced, Harry had offered his hand but the priest hesitated for a few seconds before he took up Harry's proffered handshake. It puzzled Harry but he took it in stride – over the years he had learned that there were very few things in this life worth sweating over - and the priest had never been anything but friendly and warm towards him since then.
At first, Harry was taken aback at how unpriestly Fr. Lockefeer seemed. He did not fit at all with Harry's mental image of what a priest should look like. For one thing, he was obviously magical. Not very many could, but Harry immediately felt the priest's hidden power. He was also remarkably well-preserved for an eighty-year old, and actually looked more like he was in his late forties or early fifties, a very tall, blond, muscular, forty-fiftyish man. It just might be the wizard in Fr. Lockefeer, but Harry had the strong feeling that the priest was a wizard one ought not to tangle with.
As they walked, Harry suddenly was reminded of Soay and the fiendfyre that he should never have been able to destroy and he told Fr. Lockefeer this.
"Father, in our last operation, one of the suspects cast a fiendfyre curse. Have you heard of it?"
"Of course. One of the darkest curses around. Very hard to control, even by the one who cast it."
"Father, I've read that the only spell that could stop the creature could only be cast by fully ordained priests, but I was desperate and I shouted the charm anyway. And it worked."
"I am not surprised. It has happened before. Hundreds of years ago, a young Muggle-born wizard in England wanted to become a priest but he was needed by his family to tend the farms. Then the Vikings came and raided their village. Afterwards, they gathered most of the villagers inside the church. The young boy was up in the hills at the time, but he rushed towards the village center when he saw the church burning, and he found the fiendfyre still raging. In those days, the fiendfyre was a common weapon of fear and destruction by the Viking wizards. So he was not unfamiliar with the creature and the countercharm for the curse. Unfortunately, he was too late. Most of the villagers were taken into the church, others taken by the raiders to become slaves. It wasn't certain whether he was the lone survivor but the boy left their village to travel all the way to Rome, where he took his orders. And that's how his story came to the Church's knowledge."
"So, the belief that only priests can cast the countercharm is not true then?"
"Unfortunately, it is true. Up to a certain point." Fr. Lockefeer inclined his head a little towards Harry as he spoke. "The fiendfyre is one of the greatest evils known to man, Mr. Potter, for it devours everything, not just the matter of whatever it comes upon; it consumes even that which death was not even supposed to touch – "
"You mean the soul?"
"Yes. So you see now just how evil it is?" He stopped and turned to face Harry fully. "It would take uncommon good to defeat such uncommon evil. And for you to overpower it with a simple countercharm..." He fixed Harry with his stare so intently that it made Harry very uncomfortable.
"Erm, Father, I have no plans of becoming a priest. I'm not even Catholic," Harry said, scratching the back of his neck.
Fr. Lockefeer laughed quietly, shaking his head. At length, he spoke again.
"I wasn't expecting you to," he said, still smiling. "It's just, I'm no stranger to strange things happening, Mr. Potter, and yet you somehow still manage to surprise me. I've heard so many things about you. Half of those I can hardly believe are true," he said. "But certain things are simply undeniable. Some things just can't be faked."
They turned and resumed their walk back to the house, openly discussing magic and everything else Harry could think of as Fr. Lockefeer was very accommodating with his answers. Harry was amazed that the priest knew so much about magic, particularly how it worked and Harry learned a lot from the priest. Harry was even more surprised to learn that Muggles knew about magic, though they didn't understand it as such.
"They've seen it, Muggles. They actually have proof of it. They just call it quantum physics," the priest said, laughing. "My favorite is the so-called 'Observer Effect' where an observer can influence the way an electron behaves - a wave or a particle - depending on his expectations." (At this point, Fr. Lockefeer's words began to wash over Harry's head. His life in the Muggle world with the Dursleys seemed so long a ago it felt like it had been from another lifetime, and he understood none of what the priest had just said.)
"It has been known for decades now that there's seemingly a disparity about the way laws of nature behave: Newtonian physics for the big things and quantum for the really small ones," the priest continued, unaware of Harry's wandering attention. "And apparently, we magical humans are the missing link," said Fr. Lockefeer, still laughing. "That's how we're able to do magic, Mr. Potter. That's where our ability to manipulate the material world around us comes from."
Harry suddenly grew quiet. It was not spoken out loud but he realized that the priest did not tell him all these things without reason. Harry stopped walking and faced the priest once again so that Fr. Lockefeer was obliged to do the same.
"Why are you telling me this, Father?"
"To help," the priest said simply. "You have so much power in you. Mr. Potter. And your recent experiences have done nothing but add to that power even more. I felt it the first time we met. That's why I was apprehensive to touch you. I was afraid that I might get magical shock.," the priest said, smiling; and then he looked kindly at Harry. "You should be able to use it well – competently; for it to do your bidding and not be its slave." Then Fr. Lockefeer turned back to the path once again. "It's safer for everyone," he called back to Harry.
Harry, chastened, rejoined Fr. Lockefeer. He didn't know he was bleeding off power anew, the way he had immediately after his defeat of Voldemort. And with his emotions so out of whack lately, he could have done serious damage. He and Fr. Lockefeer then resumed their conversation. This time, Fr. Lockefeer was more direct in his instructions to Harry on how to use magic. Though the priest was not a little impressed with Harry's extensive knowledge of magic – thanks to Dumbledore's book – still it became painfully obvious that Harry still had a lot to learn.
At length they returned to the property owned by the wizarding family playing host to them. Once they crossed the white wooden palings fencing off the property, Harry instinctively looked up the second floor window and thought the curtains in the front room moved. Harry bent his head down and smiled. Ever since he arrived, the only child in the house, Senka, a brown-haired, wide-eyed, eight-year old girl, had been watching him non-stop, but only if she thought Harry was not looking. Once, he saw in the living room a children's book written in Serbian, which turned out to be about him. It was opened to the page illustrating his, Ron's and Hermione's escape from Gringotts on a dragon. Harry often saw her carrying the book around, pinned under her arm. She never spoke a word to him and when she and Harry happened to be in the same room, either she would run away or hide behind her mother's or her elder sister's or maternal grandmother's skirt from where she would peer up at Harry, her eyes round. Harry immediately liked her, for she reminded him of a young girl once, long ago, who also used to not be able to speak in his presence.
In fact, Harry liked the family - well, the women, anyway - for the only male in the house, the child's father, was a Muggle. When he learned that he had married into a witching family, he resented it as he viewed "their lot" an abomination. Unfortunately, his resentment spilled over to include even his own children, all three of them. He refused to have them baptized, even as the second child, a boy named Pavle, lay dying of bone cancer. And when Harry learned this fact about the family, he knew his instincts had been right in choosing this house. He asked for the picture of the young boy, who died at the age of nine. Had Pavle lived, he would have been thirteen now. The family knew of the attacks, even the father, and Harry suspected that deep down, the adults all had their suspicions about the creature but refused to acknowledge the possibility that their young boy had turned into a monster. And when Harry kept asking about the young boy, the mother's face in particular, grew harder with unrelieved pain, but Harry couldn't stop his questioning. Many had already died, and many more certainly would if nothing were to be done about it. He had to persist, otherwise he would just be wasting everyone's time. However, Harry tried to do it the gentlest way he knew how; but, really, how do you debride a festering wound and still be gentle about it?
So Harry and two other Task Force members, settled into the wizarding house. The fact that Harry was staying there was kept secret save for the most relevant personnel to prevent kibitzers. The family understood their reason to stay there and the Serbian Ministry took care of everything that was needed.
On the second day of their stay however, the Auror left for the Ministry to fetch Fr. Lockefeer who had just arrived in the country. So it was just Harry and the Handler at the house. The Handler was not as fluent in English as the Auror, and his and Harry's conversations were limited to short sentences and single words.
Harry, who was then studying the wards around the perimeter of the house to make sure that he didn't accidentally set them off and blow the house up, couldn't help but notice the looks the grandmother, whom everyone called Baba, kept giving him. She seemed impatient to say something to Harry. Finally unable to contain herself any longer, she walked right up to Harry, tapped him on the arm and tried to tell Harry something, grabbing a handful of her hair.
"Izvinite. Ne razumem." Harry said. They were the only Serbian words he'd learned to speak so far, aside from hello.
The Handler, who was standing nearby tending to a Thestral he had brought along with him, heard the exchange and turned to look at them. Harry looked back at him expectantly. The Handler then called out to the old woman, presumably to ask her what she was trying to say. They exchanged a few words and then the Handler turned to Harry and said aloud:
"She said, 'You. Woman. Head of fire.'"
Harry schooled his face to remain expressionless. He stood there, calmly staring back at Baba as if he were waiting for further explanation. But Baba shook her head impatiently, seemingly dissatisfied with the translation of her words as they did not bring any reaction out of Harry. Then she turned to the Handler again, talking more animatedly. She continued to emphatically grab fistfuls of her hair shouting what sounded to Harry like "vatra".
The Handler gave her a few more seconds of his time, wrinkling his brows in what would be a show of effort to understand her, then once again he turned back to Harry and said, "She says: You. Woman. Head. Fire." saying each word slowly this time. Then he shrugged his shoulders and returned to brushing down the body of the Thestral.
"Psah!" Baba shouted at him, raising an arm in a gesture of annoyance then finally waving a hand dismissively at the unmindful Handler. Then she turned back to Harry, pulled back and touched him gently on the cheek and said with an emphatic nod of her head, "Voleti". Then turned and walked back to the house. Senka was waiting for her a few distance away. Baba only had to reach out a hand and Senka took it up and together, the two females went back inside the house, with Senka frequently turning her head back to look at Harry.
Harry then turned around and walked right towards the fence surrounding the property, busying himself with checking the wards of the house, keeping his face hidden, pretending that he made nothing of Baba's words, yet his heart was doing a boing-a-boing-boing inside his chest. If he had been waiting for any more sign that there was still hope for him yet with Ginny, it was Baba's words. For even among the Muggles, her prophetic abilities were quite well known - though Muggles had no clue as to the extent of her powers. Harry was at first surprised upon arriving at the country to learn that of all the magical disciplines, soothsaying was generally acknowledged in the country – and that Baba was quite well known as an honest-to-goodness Seer, not at all of the Trelawney kind. She offered no explanations for her abilities, only that it was given most definitely. By what or whom she could not rightly say, but she believed in a higher power. Her abilities were as they were – she accepted them wholly. But neither would she profit from her gift. Harry respected the old woman immensely.
Now that the final crystals had been embedded, there was nothing to do but wait. By now, the magical crystals in the rest of the country would be fully active, and if the creature wanted to make an appearance, there was no place for it to do so but around these parts. Members of the task force were placed all over the region, ready to answer a call should the Drekavac make an appearance. But all the human deaths attributed to it were magical, and Harry was willing to bet his right arm that he was right in choosing this house.
They all had an early supper and turned in early for the night with Harry taking first watch, his companions sleeping together in a room downstairs. They all had had a long day. Harry didn't think that he could sleep anyway, not sure that his plan would work.
But Harry was far from complacent. The adrenaline, the anticipation that something was going to happen tonight, was upon him and though he should be tired, Harry knew that sleep wouldn't come. He lay on the bed, the lights out, and looked out the window where the pregnant moon hang heavy in the night sky.
As usual, whenever he found himself alone in the dark, his body began to cry its need for Ginny. It was a constant demand really that began when he first realized he was attracted to her. Unsatisified and unheeded over the years, it only managed to get even worse, especially the morning when Ron and Hermione left for Australia. Harry was just coming down from Ron’s room to bring his laundry down to Mrs. Weasley who had asked for them earlier at breakfast when he walked by Ginny’s room, the door of which was half-open. She was doing her nails, her left leg up, propped against a chair. She was wearing a mid-thigh skirt and Harry couldn’t help but steal a glance at her thigh that was, oh so, invitingly presented to him. Ginny looked up at him, beaming as she greeted him. Harry tried to discreetly lower the pile of dirty clothes he was carrying, as his own thoughts started to become as filthy every second he stood there by her door.
He was edgy for the rest of that day. He had never felt his youth more keenly than at that time. At supper, he absolutely refused to look Ginny's way as his eyes kept wanting to stray down her chest. But unfortunately, whether Mrs. Weasley sensed Harry’s rioting hormones or not, she kept Ginny close by her side and Harry never had a chance to talk to her.
That night, alone in Ron’s room in the attic, Harry couldn’t sleep. He was so randy that even his phoenix wand was vibrating, probably picking up on Harry's emotions. And that was after Harry tried to work off his need by flying for several hours in the Burrow’s makeshift Quidditch field and taking two cold showers. Still, the very devil was upon him. But he couldn’t very well wank off to that image of Ginny in her room in her parents’ very own house. So the very next day, Harry made an excuse to leave for Grimmauld Place, but with every intention to attend dinner every night at the Burrow. But Kreacher, so happy to be reunited with his master, overdid himself in preparing every dish he knew Harry liked, laboring over the feast the entire day and Harry just didn’t have the heart to tell his house-elf that he would be eating dinner at the Burrow instead. Soon after, Kingsley asked for his help, and Ministry work became so demanding that often Harry’s days blended into the night and he never had the chance to return to the Burrow, let alone talk to Ginny. But ever since, that day at the Burrow was one that Harry would always remember. In fact, he often thought that he had better sex wanking to that inspiring image of Ginny than he had with any girl he’d ever been with.
The past three months had been harrowing. Often he found himself looking at the time and wondering where Ginny was and what she was doing. He ached to see her once more. Just to see her. But at the same time he dreaded meeting with her. What would he say to her? How would he explain his abrupt departure that day at the Burrow? It was rather boorish of him to have walked out on her like that: what must she think of him?
Harry still cringed at the memory of that day. How he almost kissed her - and she with a boyfriend and all, a boyfriend that she obviously deeply loved. How he nearly pounced on her when he could not even remember if she had shown any sign at all that she was also attracted to him. Looking back now, he now realized that she hadn't been anything but warm and friendly towards him - as she'd always been with everyone. But he now thought that it had all been a mere delusion, that he was just projecting his own need upon her, imagining she felt the same towards him. Could he have made a bigger arse of himself than he already did?
There was simply no excuse for his behavior and he hated himself for his hypocrisy. He'd already been with women and why shouldn't he expect Ginny to be the same? No matter how he tried to justify it to himself that those times he'd been with other women were simply because he was lonely just didn't wash anymore, even to himself. It was even disrespectful of the women he'd been with, even though not once had he pretended to any of them that what he was seeking was more than he could give.
He tried not to think what drove him into other women's arms in the first place. It was June at the family get-together at the Burrow a year and a half after the Battle. Harry was a couple of hours late coming to the party, but he was determined to attend, hoping Ginny would be there. He arrived at the front of the property and headed straight towards the back where he knew the tables would be laid. As he rounded the house, he stopped at the sight that greeted him: Ginny, playing with little Freddie. She was wearing a simple white summer dress then cut just right above the knee and was playing catch-up with little Freddie, throwing him slightly up in the air, letting go for a few seconds and catching him as he came down again and little Freddie was giggling and squealing his delight, as Ginny kissed him on the tummy, the side of his neck - basically anywhere on his plump body she could lay her lips upon. A slight breeze was whipping her long, red hair and a part of her skirt, enough to tantalize Harry of what lay underneath. But it was the domesticity, the simple happiness that the scene promised that went to his very heart. He was about to walk up to her, planning to spend the rest of that day by her side. He wasn't afraid then. He was among family and he was determined to tell Ginny once and for all how he really felt about her. But just then out of nowhere, a tall man he did not know, cocktail glass in hand, lazily ambled his way towards Ginny and placed a possessive arm on her shoulder. She turned her face towards the bloke then, away from Harry. Harry felt as if he had been sucker-punched, his dream stolen right before his very eyes. He abruptly turned around and left the Burrow, with no one noticing that he had even arrived; since then he had seldom attended any of the family's get-together, burying himself deep in work, and at nights when he found himself alone at Grimmauld, buried himself in nameless Muggle women in a series of meaningless, one-night stands.
But that was months ago. He had stopped long before his visit to the Burrow. He just realized that sex had become worthless; it wasn't giving him any joy or satisfaction at all. Not anymore. One time, right in the middle of the act, a thought came suddenly to his head unbidden: "This isn't Ginny." And he stood up abruptly, made his apologies, and left. And that was the last time he'd been with a woman.
And now, the prospect of seeing Ginny once again, grew larger now, becoming clearer. The thought had been growing in his mind – to come home. There had been other requests for him to work on but nothing that he could not walk away from, nothing like this job anymore or as urgent; he had deliberately chosen to attend first to those he seemed he was most needed. The rest he thought could wait or others could very well attend to.
Now that there was some time and distance between them, he had acquired a bit more perspective and he had lost much of the angst he'd felt the day he left the Burrow. He just missed her, that's all. Just to be near her was enough for now, to know that she was safe, happy - even at the cost of his own. But to be away from her? He just couldn't do it. He just couldn't conceive of a future without Ginny in his life.
True, it still hurt to think of Ginny being in love with another man but the Greek Centaurs' gift and Baba's words gave him hope like nothing could that he still had a chance, that he hadn't completely bollixed it all up with her. For an Ace Auror such as he supposedly was, it was such a spineless, cowardly thing to do, not letting her know his feelings for her, considering Ginny was supposed to have become the most important person in his life.
His justification, that he was respecting other bloke's right, seemed shallow now that he thought about it. If he really wanted to, he could have found time, insinuated himself into the family home, assigned himself to monitor all the games Ginny had played, instead of just making sure that her games and public appearances were guarded at all times. Just be there, be near her, and himself created the opportunity to tell her his feelings. He was lulled into thinking that he had time, that Ginny would always be there.
But now it seemed his time had run out. Ginny obviously cared now for another man. But if a shred of her former regard still remained, if it were any real, he was hoping that she would at least talk to him and hear him out even though there was no excuse justifiable for keeping his feelings hidden for so long. The years before the end of the war, perhaps he might have been justified in keeping his feelings for her secret, but there was really no excuse for him thereafter. He had to travel halfway across the world to realize what he had been doing. That she was his one vulnerability did not hold wash anymore. He should have been selfish and demanded her attention; instead of letting other men come in between them who he was sure would not love her as much as he did. He had dallied long enough.
And yet perhaps it was not too late. He should let her know, at the very least, that he'd always been in love with her. It was the right thing to do. It was hers anyway, had always been hers. That she would always have him as an option. Always. Always.
He could just imagine her standing before him now, wearing that white summer dress she had been wearing at that get-together. She would look now just as she looked then. She had always been beautiful. But more than that, she was Ginny. But now her face seemed to be marred with anger and deep resentment. Harry could just hear the accusations coming from her. His own guilty conscience was voicing out the worst of what he imagined her recriminations against him would be.
"Did you ever really love me Harry? Where in what you have done in the last several years was love?"
"If you truly loved me, then I didn't have to wait."
"What good is your love if all I ever knew about it was pain or heartache or neglect?"
And Harry would be hard put to prove to her he truly loved her.
"Even if you did, I'll never believe in it, Harry. I can't trust that you won't ever hurt me," Ginny answered back. And then she turned around and started to walk away.
Harry called out to her. But Ginny suddenly was riding her broomstick and she was flying fast away from him. Harry immediatley transformed into a bird and flew after her. But Ginny was too far away, flying towards the sea. Harry flew hard trying to close the distance between them but the harder he flapped his wings the farther Ginny seemed speed away from him. He tried transforming, Apparating near Ginny, but somehow could not. His magic seemed to have deserted him, his heavy heart tamping down his power. The air seemed to solidify about him and he found it harder and harder to fly. He flapped his wings harder but he just couldn't get any lift. Finally, he fell down, down in the still, blackish water underneath him.
He began to sink down the deep, dark water. He struggled to breathe but couldn't and Harry knew he was drowning. Something seemed to be sucking the very air in his lungs, his eyes popping at the lack of oxygen. And then he heard it: faint, but unmistakable, a horrific scream. And it was getting louder and louder, as if it were coming near his ears. And then it hit him - he was dreaming! Sometime during his musings he must have fallen asleep and now the Drekavac was attacking. Harry struggled, clawing at his throat where he could now feel long-fingered hands clamped down round his neck, sharp talons of a claw digging into his jugular vein. He tried to wake up but just couldn't and felt himself sinking, but this time he was really beginning to lose conscious thought, his mind becoming cloudy. No, he will not die like this! Harry thought, the face of Ginny in his mind. With a powerful burst of magic, Harry broke through the spell, the magical wave shaking the house down to its foundation. Harry finally opened his eyes and stared right back to a pair of wild, red eyes - dark with putrid hatred. It leaped back off the bed but Harry waved his wand and the air crackled and popped as tiny water molecules in the air began to solidify, denying the Drekavac an escape. It screamed, rending the air with its sharp, piercing cry as it vocalized its frustration. Losing its ability to disappear, it ran towards the open window, jumped through and out into the dark night.
Deciding not to transform as he needed his wand, Harry, heart hammering, himself immediately jumped after the creature through the same window – a height of more than twenty feet off the ground - and landed agilely on the ground. With his initial burst of magic, Harry had powered the crystals to fully activate and the Drekavac truly had no magical means of escape, inside and outside the property.
Harry thus ran after the creature on foot, magic powering his every step, every leap. Suddenly a ball of fire came hurtling out of nowhere flying round him. Harry stopped, momentarily distracted, his wand up and ready. But almost at once a voice seemed to scream at the back of his head and thought it sounded like Fr. Lockefeer's: "Harry, it's me! Go! Just go!"
Harry, understanding and feeling quite stupid, regained the pursuit. Soon they were joined by the Auror and the Savage Creature Handler, the Auror on a broomstick, the latter in his Thestral. They were herding the Drekovac towards the open field where Harry had planted crystals earlier. The Drekavac, in an effort to escape, would, from time to time, leap at the Auror and the Handler, but the two were prepared and would instantly fly higher out of the Drekavac's reach. Harry, on the other hand, it seemed to be afraid of and kept its distance away.
At last, they reached the open part of the field where the creature was completely hemmed in, to his back by the wall of trees where hidden hundreds of Harry's crystals, and in a semi-circle in front of it, Harry and the two Serbians with the priest, as a ball of fire, preventing the Drekavac any area of escape.
Finally, the creature, tiring, fell down on its arms and legs, heaving and panting. Harry waved his hand. The circle of earth upon which it stood darkened as the spell Harry cast took effect, locking the Drekavac inside the circle.
For a time Harry and the rest stood there - Fr. Lockefeer having transformed himself back to human - unsure of what to do. The creature, weakening, had started to lose its monstrous appearance, and was slowly turning back to the ghostly form of its human self.
Then out of the darkness, members of the family arrived, with the mother hurrying ahead. Baba, came hobbling too, holding her youngest grandchild tightly. The father was the last to arrive, carrying his hunting rifle. But when he saw the ghostly form of the child, he stopped abruptly. He looked uncertainly at the people around him, all wizards. Then his face hardened into a stubborn expression, squaring his shoulders, he turned his back on them and then limped back the way he had come and disappeared into the dark of the night.
But his wife, however, rushed forward as she recognized her deceased son in the ghostly creature. She fell down to the ground just outside Harry's confining Shield, crying the boy's name. Her eldest daughter, rendered speechless by the ghostly sight of her deceased brother, followed beside her, as did Baba and Senka.
"Don't come too near," Harry spoke quietly.
The ghost-child began to cry too but this time, not in the piercing scream of the Drekavac but the wail of a child lost and in pain. "Mama! Mama!" it cried.
"Pavle, what have you done?" Baba spoke, Fr. Lockefeer interpreting the family's words for Harry, but did so quietly.
"It's lonely here, Baba. I want Senka with me. I want my sister. Papa doesn't love us. He'll never love us."
Senka herself was crying, saying Pavle! Pavle! over and over again.
"Will you hurt your sister then, Pavle? Is that what you want?" Baba continued to ask.
"It's lonely here, Baba. I want Senka."
"Then wait for me, child. I will be with you soon. Wait for Baba."
But the Pavle-ghost continued to cry while Baba continued to reassure him. Everyone was crying in earnest now, with Baba repeating the words: "Ja ću biti sa vama uskoro." I will be with you soon.
Chapter 07
AN: This was a complete rewrite of the chapter as I've originally written it (and intended) with Harry in a different country and the events in this chapter merely flashbacks but I needed H to be in just one country.
I will edit the fics based on constructive reviews but if i keep quiet on certain areas, i just might have a reason.
Thanks for reading.
Harry was sitting on his haunches, balancing himself on one leg by the ball of a foot, while the right was firmly planted on the grassy soil, his right forearm propped against his thigh. For the past two weeks, he, along with countless wizards from Serbia's Ministry of Magic, had been planting magical crystals all across the country, crystals that Harry himself designed and made, ensuring that they would not be used for purposes other than what he had originally intended them to do. And he would have done the embeddings himself, but if he did, he would never leave the country until he was old and decrepit. Harry straightened his back and looked about himself, inspecting his handiwork, visually checking for traces of magic. Then he stretched out a hand, palm face down, feeling for the same. Nothing. He nodded to himself and stood up.
He tilted his head up slightly and gazed towards a distant ridge - part of the Dinaric Mountains of Central Serbia - and noted the red, dying sun burning its last light of the day. Already darkness had encroached upon the edges of the wide expansive lands about him, creeping in like black smoke, settling first in the gloomy trees of the forest at the foothills of the mountains but gaining breadth all over the valley.
Harry then turned to look further up the hill where his companions were standing - a Roman Catholic priest sent directly from the Vatican, and two Serbian Ministry of Magic employees: a Savage Creature Handler from their Department of Magical Creatures and an Auror in full alert mode (though Harry was sure that there were few people around – wizard or otherwise – and so there was very little chance of them being seen, or any danger at all that the creature they were hunting would make an unscheduled appearance). The three seemed content to just let Harry do his work though. Harry signaled to them that he was finished and the priest and the Handler visibly relaxed - they were probably anxious not to disturb Harry while he was working and cause him to bungle up what he was doing. While the other Auror acknowledged Harry with a nod of his own then Disapparated to report back to the Ministry.
Harry surveyed the land one last time, the dusk now fully upon them, then he walked back up the hill to rejoin the others. When he was near enough, the priest spoke (of his companions, he was the only one comfortable enough to speak directly to Harry, the others seemed to be still in awe of him): "You think it will work?"
Harry shrugged then looked back towards the edge of the forest where he had just been, "I sure hope so. Or else, we may have to stay in the country for a little while longer."
The priest sighed. "Then, let's hope so."
Simply because of the nature of the creature and the grounds he had to cover, this was turning out to be one of the most difficult jobs Harry had to do in the last three months since he left England. Yes, job, for job it was his flight from England had become; officially, he was still on the payroll of the British Wizarding Ministry. Because upon Harry's arrival in Greece three months before – so soon after making their request for Harry's help at the International Wizarding Caucus -, the Greek Ministry of Magic had then treated Harry's appearance as an official one, and consequently afforded Harry with all the pomp and officiousness of such a visit – for the Greeks acknowledged that what they were asking of Harry was a favor. Harry, keen not to offend and overwhelmed by the warm reception he was receiving from the Greeks, was thus forced to do everything by the book – including making a formal report to Kingsley. After the job was done though, Harry could only muster the energy to make a verbal report via Floo to Kingsley, who understood and made no further demands on him (like report to the International Auror Office, as was required of him). That initial discussion was rather brief and to the point, except for a few moments, when Kingsley mentioned Ron and Hermione and how the latter kept asking him about Harry. Kingsley did not say much, but from his few and carefully chosen words Harry had quickly gathered that Hermione was having a bad time of it and by the second week, Harry caved in and sent for his two friends. It took him some time to reassure them, especially Hermione, that he held no grudges against them, that they were not the reason he left England, though neither would he give any reason why, only his word that nothing had changed between them. Harry did know, however, that his friends settled on 'guilt over Donaghy's death' as that which drove him away from England and Harry allowed them this false assumption.
It had been a short and happy reunion with his friends, but once or twice, Harry would catch Ron staring into space looking as if he had just been run over by the Knight Bus but when Harry would ask him what was wrong, his two friends would exchange a quick look - Hermione's pleading - then Ron would try to compose his face into what Harry could only describe as a grimace of a smile and say, "I just can't believe you left so suddenly. Are you sure you're not mad at us?" (which Harry wasn't, of course).
Harry did not think much of it. It was an expression he was not unused to seeing on his friend's face, most often when an anniversary with Hermione was coming up, and Ron had forgotten to buy a gift, or buy a gift that he thought was good enough. So Harry let the moment pass.
Thus, their friendship reaffirmed, the trio spent the next two days in happy companionship, although Harry, dreading any mention of Ginny happy with her new boyfriend, would not tolerate hearing any news at all from England and would immediately direct the conversation away to a new topic the moment they started. (In fact, he hadn't even picked up a newspaper ever since he left England for much the same reason.) Ron and Hermione noticed this at once and since then had followed Harry's example.
They also had fun with the Menat headdress and necklace. At some point in the last three months – Harry wasn't sure when – the sundisk's light had diminished. So, Ron, in particular, felt brave enough to play with the artifacts over Hermione's protests. Having read the Soay case files, Ron then dared Harry to throw a spell at him. But Harry had already given much thought to the mystery of how his spells had failed to connect with Galina while she was wearing the jewelries and, after a few tentative spells, Harry discovered several powerful deflection and absorption shields, particularly in the headdress. It was simply the magical version of Muggles' Kevlar bullet proof vest and soon enough Harry was able to develop a technique that would allow him to puncture through the headdress' shields. Hiding a grin under a look of deep concentration, Harry hit an unsuspecting Ron with a spell without uttering a single word or taking out his phoenix wand. Ron sputtered indignantly when he suddenly found himself wearing nothing but a cupid costume which looked suspiciously like what Lockhart's cupids had worn their second year at Hogwarts. When Ron raised a disgruntled face back to Harry, he found his mate grinning smugly back at him. Ron made a moue of disgust, as if to say: "I'll get you for this."
Harry also told them a bit about a few of the jobs and places he'd been to, like Greece and the Teumessian Fox which Harry had easily dealt with - no small thanks to the Hogwarts Centaurs' gift. After learning that there were still Centaurs living in the Greek islands though, and believing that he would have no more need for the bow and arrows, Harry hunted down the descendants of the oldest Centaur tribe known to man, travelling down to the Foloi Oak Forest in southwestern Greece. There he turned over the set of bow and arrows, a gesture which the Greek Centaurs reciprocated by giving Harry an acorn, a seed of a magical oak tree, with the counsel that he should plant the seed where his heart truly lay, and the tree would grow and bloom as abundantly as his love would, ensuring that his own relationships would prosper. Harry stared at the Greek Centaur's Chief for quite a long time after he received the seed, oblivious to the possibility that he might be doing something offensive. He was trying to gauge why he had been given that particular gift, just when he decided that true love was a happiness he could never have in this life, but the Chief held Harry's stare just as long - proudly, defiantly. From experience, Harry knew that Centaurs were quite discerning creatures, and saw more (and indeed, saw far ahead) than most intelligent beings and he instantly knew, he was being given hope. Did it mean he would eventually be with Ginny? For that was the only happiness he cared about: her, where his heart truly lay. Harry furrowed his forehead, thinking, then looked about him where the rest of the tribe stood gathered round, all the centaurs looking wild, fierce, and… lustful-looking? They looked less dreamy than their Hogwarts counterparts, but both tribes seemed to radiate with an ancient wisdom quite unknown to modern man with his complicated life and twisted self-preservation instincts. As a species, centaurs hadn't left far the grounds from which they had sprung, affording them a simpler view of life, choices a lot more clear-cut. And now they all smiled down at Harry, which he had thought at first was because he returned to them a great possession, but no, the smiles were just a bit too knowing, slightly condescending even. Harry made his leave then, thanking them for their hospitality and friendship and the gift. Whatever its significance was, Harry was grateful nonetheless.
But that was three months ago. No other event had happened since that would give him reason otherwise that he could ever have Ginny's love back, Or her fancy, if that was all he ever had of her in the first place.
He had only seen his friends one other time after that (the weekend of his birthday, in fact, which Hermione insisted upon). Although he could not let even his two best friends know most of the things he'd witnessed, things that were simply too horrific - not in the gory kind of way, he and his friends were made of sterner stuff than that – for him to let anyone know, least of all Hermione.
His brief reunions with his friends and one with Teddy, who couldn't understand Harry's abrupt disappearance and prolonged absence, and was starting to get affected, were the sole bright spots in his life in the last three months. The rest of the time he buried himself deep in work, driving his nose to the ground until he was so tired that at night he could only plop down in bed and sleep and need not have to think. It was Hermione who insisted on telling him that Teddy had acquired this habit of waking up very early in the morning and waiting by the front door of the house for his godfather, refusing to come in when his grandmother would call him back inside the house. And Teddy would then ask "Harry's not back yet?" or "When will Harry be back?" or any variations of such and when his grandmother couldn't answer - for she didn't know the answers herself - Teddy would then cry for the rest of the day. So Harry had no choice but to have Kreacher bring Teddy and Andromeda to a secluded island somewhere in the Indian Ocean for a short vacation. Thankfully, Andromeda didn't ask too many questions and accepted whatever Harry was willing to give, which was barely little. Harry then had a heart to heart talk with his god-child, explaining to Teddy that he had to do a job away from England, like fighting fire-eating dragons (which Harry hadn't, for the creatures he had to fight were not the kind that he could tell his godson), dragons that if Harry didn't fight would go to England and eat all the children there. Teddy didn't want dragons to fly to England and eat all the children, would he? Harry asked his godchild, to which Teddy fervently shook his head no and agreed that Harry should stay and do all he could to stop the dragons from coming to England. Harry tried to make it sound like an adventure to Teddy, promising his godson all sorts of gifts and souvenirs when he returned back to England so that Teddy would get used to the idea that it would take Harry awhile to return back home.
And a while indeed it was starting to look like before Harry could return back to England, though this time, it would not be by choice. Harry had been in Serbia for three weeks now, longer than he had ever been in one place, far longer than he had ever anticipated being in one place. But Harry had no choice. The lay of the land, the nature of the creature itself, and the range in which it stalked the land was such that it was nigh impossible to capture it. Serbia's Ministry of Magic had been trying to do so for quite a while now but obviously had been unsuccessful. The creature had been plaguing the country since December the previous year, the attacks so severe that they even reached the Muggle news. But what Muggles didn't know was the extent and severity of the attacks, for the creature, a Drekavac, was primarily a wizard monster, and the deaths in the wizarding world had been particularly high.
 | |
| Drekavac |
Upon arriving in the country and having been apprised of the situation, Harry at first was taken aback by the number of casualties. But then again, it had to be, given that it had already reached the Muggles' attention. At first he attended the meetings held by the task force set up by the Serbian Ministry, but by the second day when fresh report came in that another victim had died, a young girl, Harry then asked if he could reconnoiter the country, particularly the central region where most of the attacks seemed to be concentrated. It was Standard Operational Procedure really but often Harry used the opportunity to clear his head and allow his instincts to take over, enabling him to process subconsciously clues and information that often helped him in solving cases, but when a member of the task force - obviously a Muggle-born - timidly mentioned that they're already on the internet and wouldn't it just be easier if Harry googled them instead? Harry couldn't help the small smile that formed on his lips.
Harry had power but a linguist, he wasn't - yet. In the last three months he had learned that there were certain skills he needed and for which there were no shortcuts: languages he had to learn the old-fashioned way. And he vowed to work on it in his free time and acquire at least half the language skills Dumbledore had. So another member of the task force, a dark-haired, painfully beautiful female Auror who was assigned as Harry's official interpreter, took it upon herself to answer on Harry's behalf.
"When you find a computer or cellphone or any other Muggle gadget that would work within the vicinity of Mr. Potter, Mr. Obrenovic, do let us know," she said aloud in English. The said Mr. Obrenovic, whose seat neighbor seemed to helpfully whisper the translation, reddened and mumbled a reply which he alone heard.
Later that night, the female Auror accompanied Harry all the way to his quarters and lingered for a while. She tried to draw Harry in with an unfettered kiss, hungrily pushing her body – a body that was all woman in all the right places - into his. Harry was sorely tempted, it had been so long since he'd been with a woman, but he knew what he would feel when he woke up the next morning, He had been hiding his feelings from Ginny for such a long time and what did it get him? Now he was forced to literally run away from her. But there was nowhere in the world, nowhere he could go where he wouldn't be in love with Ginny - he could not feel any more wretched than he already did. And so he gently untangled the Serbian Auror's arms from his neck, where she had attached them, smiled sadly at her and wished her "good evening".
The female Auror pulled back and gazed into Harry's handsome face. Then she brushed the back of her hand against him and knew that he was not wholly unaffected; but Harry gently removed her hand from his body. She sighed, gave him one last, long look and then moved to pick up her things from an armchair where she had placed them earlier. Then she turned back to Harry and said, "Whoever she is, Mr. Potter, I hope she's worth it." and then left Harry alone in a darkened room where the only light came in through the window from an overcast moon.
The next morning, several members of the task force, riding on broomsticks while one flew in his bird Animagus form, accompanied Harry as he aerially surveyed the country, familiarizing himself with the lay of the land. He himself had transfigured into a golden eagle commonly seen in the area. He was the only wizard currently known who could hold his full animal transfigurations indefinitely, the average for most wizards (the few who were even capable of doing it), was an hour, though Harry knew Kingsley and Bill could hold theirs for several. Flying just underneath the cloud cover, despite the land's magnificent beauty Harry was immediately disheartened by what he saw. The country was simply vast, with hills and mountains, valleys cut through with bodies of water, and forests constantly shrouded in impenetrable mists. There were simply too many places the creature could easily appear from and disappear into.
They spent the entire day on the reconnaissance mission. Harry also checked for himself the caves and other possible nesting places of the creature, making sure that it was not a member of a pack. The group concentrated their investigations on where the attacks had been more frequent. Finally, just when the sun was about to set, they flew back to the task force's field office set up in a poljane zupa - the deserted settlement buildings camouflaging the Ministry of Magic's offices - to facilitate fast response time for reports of fresh attacks,
Other members of the task force were already waiting on the grounds for Harry's and the others' return and hurried to meet Harry as the group began to land on the open field. A couple of meters from the ground, Harry ended the transfiguration spell, landing gracefully on the soft ground on his two feet, while the other wizards made a fast, whooshing sound as they flew past him and then a soft thump! thump! as one by one, the other members landed round him.
As Harry straightened up, he kept his head down, deliberately avoiding the expectant looks the Serbs were giving him; it was, after all, but a simple reconnoiter. He was also still processing what he had seen and didn't want small talk to crowd and confuse his mind.
His interpreter was also there, but she and Harry both chose to ignore the incident of the previous night and acted as they did before. Finally, Harry turned to one of the Aurors, the head of the task force, one of those who had accompanied Harry in the aerial reconnaissance and spoke.
"I'd like to meet with the victims' families, please, as well as the eyewitnesses."
"Yes, Mr. Potter."
Harry nodded but didn't even try to correct the man to simply address him as Harry, especially since they were both Aurors. For years he had been trying to tell people to stop calling him Mr. Potter to no avail. So he stopped; he simply got tired of the routine. The Auror then turned to the others and with a flick of his hand in the air, everyone understood that they were to go back to the Ministry.
Upon returning to the Ministry of Magic offices though, Harry waited for about an hour till the Ministry could gather as many of the witnesses as they could, Harry devoting the time to re-reading the files anew. And when the interview began in a separate room, he simply contented himself with listening to the victims' families and eyewitnesses, seldom interrupting. The more he listened, the more Harry realized that the easiest way to deal with the Drekavac was to stop it materializing in the first place. That would mean removing its primary mode of appearance – the fog. Harry simply hated the idea. It was, to say the least, stupid to the point of inanity, a stop-gap measure, to be sure, but when people's lives were at stake, stop-gap would have to do for now.
He also hated the kind of magic involved, where they interfered with nature. Who knew what effect it would eventually have, given the earth's closed system? But he had no choice. He couldn't stay forever in the country just to wait for the creature to appear.
Then slowly a plan began to form in his mind. Halfway through the interrogations, Harry asked for the list of wizards in the country, quickly scanning the files while continuing to listen to the testimonies of the witnesses. He waited until the last of them had finished and then left the room with the other task force members back to the operations center nearby. The operations center could only be described as dark with the black wooden oval center table dominating the entire room, which was similarly paneled in dark wood with only a hint of gold in the thin accent moldings edging the ceiling and the half panels surrounding the walls. At the far side of the room hang the room's main focal point, a Shield decorated with the country's White Eagle heraldic emblem – for the symbol was the family crest of a wizarding noble family dating back to the Middle Ages.
Everyone immediately took their places around the table but nobody spoke, waiting for Harry to begin. He understood only too well why the Serbs seemed to be hanging on his every move and word - they had been grappling with the problem for the last nine months and had gotten nowhere. Some in the building and even in the room had lost either a friend or a loved one to the creature. Now they were looking to him to deliver them from this dreadful evil. Harry, growing more self-conscious as the Serbs continued to stare at him, suddenly felt his throat run dry. He felt the urge to take a big gulp but thought to do so would not be too confidence-inspiring so he kept his face immobile as he organized the thoughts in his head.
Harry wasn't sure at first how to begin. Blurting out "We should stop fogs from forming." didn't sound too professional to him or someone who was supposedly the world's number one Ace Auror would come up with - the comment would surely be met with incredulity, if not derision. So he sat there, thinking how best to put his idea forth (because, unfortunately, it was the only solution that came to his head). In the end he took a deep breath, and, acknowledging the fact that he had never been one for words, pulled out his phoenix wand and started conjuring a crystal. He concentrated hard, thinking the word Desiccato!, embedding the magic in every base unit of the crystal. He had to create the magic just right so that it wouldn't drain all the water out of the air, just enough so that fog or mist would not form. He also made sure that the crystal would work only at night (for the Drekavac was a nocturnal creature), the better to hide the absence of mists from Muggle eyes. Finally, he was done, but the Serbians still looked clueless as to what he was doing, so Harry said simply:
"This crystal will prevent fog or mist from forming in the air at night."
"And it will prevent the Drekavac from appearing in the first place?" asked Harry's interpreter. "That's brilliant, Mr. Potter," she added, open admiration on her face. But Harry turned his face away from her. There was a slight hubbub as all round the table the other members of the task force passed the information amongst themselves.
"Actually, it's just a temporary measure. The crystal itself is not completely indestructible. And over time, it might lose its potency, and the Drekavac could return - angrier, more vicious, more bloodthirsty."
"So, what do we do now, Mr. Potter?"
So Harry laid out his plan. They would all start embedding the crystals all over the land, from the borders of Serbia inward, but they would keep a certain area free of the crystals, the area in the Central Serbian region where most attacks had occurred; for something seemed to be drawing the creature to those parts or perhaps that was where it had originated. Harry, taking a wild guess, chose one particular household, wherein lived the sole wizarding family for miles around. They would try to draw the creature there, keeping the area free of the crystals while denying it access to the rest of the country. So Harry spent the next few days creating the crystals and teaching the others how to plant them, in particular, how to keep the magic concealed so as not to spook the creature into moving into other, yet unprotected, parts or even to neighboring countries.
And that was what they had been doing in the past couple of weeks, with Harry concentrating his efforts in the target area. Harry had requested only a skeleton force. He didn't want the area to be crawling with wizards as it might scare the creature away. That's why he had only three companions with him – the Savage Creature Handler who was Serbia's foremost Drekavac expert, the Serbian Auror was their official liaison with the Ministry of Magic, and since the wizarding household where they would be staying was Roman Catholic, a priest from that denomination. For, if they couldn't find out what caused the Drekavac to appear in the first place, then a blessing would be their only option of getting rid of the creature once and for all.
With the Auror reporting back to the Ministry that the last crystal had been placed, Harry, the priest, and the Handler began walking back to the wizarding home where they were temporarily billeted. The Ministry now would start activating the crystals around the Central Serbian region (they had already done so in the peripheral areas of the country) so that it would have no choice but to appear where Harry wanted it. The Handler, who was walking ahead of Harry and the priest, kept looking back at them as they all wended their way through the rows of grape vines which were the economic mainstay of the region. The Handler seemed rather put out that they had to move the "Muggle way" when they could easily Disapparate to return back to the house. But Harry was starting to feel the adrenaline build-up - he usually got this way just before an operation began and so needed the walk-off to calm his jangled nerves.
The priest, Fr. Lockefeer, seemed to notice Harry's unease and kept quiet by his side. Truth be told, Harry was probably more interested in the priest than the other way around, probably even more than Harry would ever admit out loud to anyone. The past several days they had never had much chance to talk because Harry had been busy and too exhausted by the end of the day to really engage the priest in more than casual conversation. But now Harry had the chance to ask the priest a few questions. For one thing, he was a little bit surprised when he was informed that the Catholic Church had sent a priest all the way from the Vatican to help them deal with the creature. It was necessary, but the fact that the Vatican took an active part in the operation surprised him.
When they were first introduced, Harry had offered his hand but the priest hesitated for a few seconds before he took up Harry's proffered handshake. It puzzled Harry but he took it in stride – over the years he had learned that there were very few things in this life worth sweating over - and the priest had never been anything but friendly and warm towards him since then.
At first, Harry was taken aback at how unpriestly Fr. Lockefeer seemed. He did not fit at all with Harry's mental image of what a priest should look like. For one thing, he was obviously magical. Not very many could, but Harry immediately felt the priest's hidden power. He was also remarkably well-preserved for an eighty-year old, and actually looked more like he was in his late forties or early fifties, a very tall, blond, muscular, forty-fiftyish man. It just might be the wizard in Fr. Lockefeer, but Harry had the strong feeling that the priest was a wizard one ought not to tangle with.
As they walked, Harry suddenly was reminded of Soay and the fiendfyre that he should never have been able to destroy and he told Fr. Lockefeer this.
"Father, in our last operation, one of the suspects cast a fiendfyre curse. Have you heard of it?"
"Of course. One of the darkest curses around. Very hard to control, even by the one who cast it."
"Father, I've read that the only spell that could stop the creature could only be cast by fully ordained priests, but I was desperate and I shouted the charm anyway. And it worked."
"I am not surprised. It has happened before. Hundreds of years ago, a young Muggle-born wizard in England wanted to become a priest but he was needed by his family to tend the farms. Then the Vikings came and raided their village. Afterwards, they gathered most of the villagers inside the church. The young boy was up in the hills at the time, but he rushed towards the village center when he saw the church burning, and he found the fiendfyre still raging. In those days, the fiendfyre was a common weapon of fear and destruction by the Viking wizards. So he was not unfamiliar with the creature and the countercharm for the curse. Unfortunately, he was too late. Most of the villagers were taken into the church, others taken by the raiders to become slaves. It wasn't certain whether he was the lone survivor but the boy left their village to travel all the way to Rome, where he took his orders. And that's how his story came to the Church's knowledge."
"So, the belief that only priests can cast the countercharm is not true then?"
"Unfortunately, it is true. Up to a certain point." Fr. Lockefeer inclined his head a little towards Harry as he spoke. "The fiendfyre is one of the greatest evils known to man, Mr. Potter, for it devours everything, not just the matter of whatever it comes upon; it consumes even that which death was not even supposed to touch – "
"You mean the soul?"
"Yes. So you see now just how evil it is?" He stopped and turned to face Harry fully. "It would take uncommon good to defeat such uncommon evil. And for you to overpower it with a simple countercharm..." He fixed Harry with his stare so intently that it made Harry very uncomfortable.
"Erm, Father, I have no plans of becoming a priest. I'm not even Catholic," Harry said, scratching the back of his neck.
Fr. Lockefeer laughed quietly, shaking his head. At length, he spoke again.
"I wasn't expecting you to," he said, still smiling. "It's just, I'm no stranger to strange things happening, Mr. Potter, and yet you somehow still manage to surprise me. I've heard so many things about you. Half of those I can hardly believe are true," he said. "But certain things are simply undeniable. Some things just can't be faked."
They turned and resumed their walk back to the house, openly discussing magic and everything else Harry could think of as Fr. Lockefeer was very accommodating with his answers. Harry was amazed that the priest knew so much about magic, particularly how it worked and Harry learned a lot from the priest. Harry was even more surprised to learn that Muggles knew about magic, though they didn't understand it as such.
"They've seen it, Muggles. They actually have proof of it. They just call it quantum physics," the priest said, laughing. "My favorite is the so-called 'Observer Effect' where an observer can influence the way an electron behaves - a wave or a particle - depending on his expectations." (At this point, Fr. Lockefeer's words began to wash over Harry's head. His life in the Muggle world with the Dursleys seemed so long a ago it felt like it had been from another lifetime, and he understood none of what the priest had just said.)
"It has been known for decades now that there's seemingly a disparity about the way laws of nature behave: Newtonian physics for the big things and quantum for the really small ones," the priest continued, unaware of Harry's wandering attention. "And apparently, we magical humans are the missing link," said Fr. Lockefeer, still laughing. "That's how we're able to do magic, Mr. Potter. That's where our ability to manipulate the material world around us comes from."
Harry suddenly grew quiet. It was not spoken out loud but he realized that the priest did not tell him all these things without reason. Harry stopped walking and faced the priest once again so that Fr. Lockefeer was obliged to do the same.
"Why are you telling me this, Father?"
"To help," the priest said simply. "You have so much power in you. Mr. Potter. And your recent experiences have done nothing but add to that power even more. I felt it the first time we met. That's why I was apprehensive to touch you. I was afraid that I might get magical shock.," the priest said, smiling; and then he looked kindly at Harry. "You should be able to use it well – competently; for it to do your bidding and not be its slave." Then Fr. Lockefeer turned back to the path once again. "It's safer for everyone," he called back to Harry.
Harry, chastened, rejoined Fr. Lockefeer. He didn't know he was bleeding off power anew, the way he had immediately after his defeat of Voldemort. And with his emotions so out of whack lately, he could have done serious damage. He and Fr. Lockefeer then resumed their conversation. This time, Fr. Lockefeer was more direct in his instructions to Harry on how to use magic. Though the priest was not a little impressed with Harry's extensive knowledge of magic – thanks to Dumbledore's book – still it became painfully obvious that Harry still had a lot to learn.
At length they returned to the property owned by the wizarding family playing host to them. Once they crossed the white wooden palings fencing off the property, Harry instinctively looked up the second floor window and thought the curtains in the front room moved. Harry bent his head down and smiled. Ever since he arrived, the only child in the house, Senka, a brown-haired, wide-eyed, eight-year old girl, had been watching him non-stop, but only if she thought Harry was not looking. Once, he saw in the living room a children's book written in Serbian, which turned out to be about him. It was opened to the page illustrating his, Ron's and Hermione's escape from Gringotts on a dragon. Harry often saw her carrying the book around, pinned under her arm. She never spoke a word to him and when she and Harry happened to be in the same room, either she would run away or hide behind her mother's or her elder sister's or maternal grandmother's skirt from where she would peer up at Harry, her eyes round. Harry immediately liked her, for she reminded him of a young girl once, long ago, who also used to not be able to speak in his presence.
In fact, Harry liked the family - well, the women, anyway - for the only male in the house, the child's father, was a Muggle. When he learned that he had married into a witching family, he resented it as he viewed "their lot" an abomination. Unfortunately, his resentment spilled over to include even his own children, all three of them. He refused to have them baptized, even as the second child, a boy named Pavle, lay dying of bone cancer. And when Harry learned this fact about the family, he knew his instincts had been right in choosing this house. He asked for the picture of the young boy, who died at the age of nine. Had Pavle lived, he would have been thirteen now. The family knew of the attacks, even the father, and Harry suspected that deep down, the adults all had their suspicions about the creature but refused to acknowledge the possibility that their young boy had turned into a monster. And when Harry kept asking about the young boy, the mother's face in particular, grew harder with unrelieved pain, but Harry couldn't stop his questioning. Many had already died, and many more certainly would if nothing were to be done about it. He had to persist, otherwise he would just be wasting everyone's time. However, Harry tried to do it the gentlest way he knew how; but, really, how do you debride a festering wound and still be gentle about it?
So Harry and two other Task Force members, settled into the wizarding house. The fact that Harry was staying there was kept secret save for the most relevant personnel to prevent kibitzers. The family understood their reason to stay there and the Serbian Ministry took care of everything that was needed.
On the second day of their stay however, the Auror left for the Ministry to fetch Fr. Lockefeer who had just arrived in the country. So it was just Harry and the Handler at the house. The Handler was not as fluent in English as the Auror, and his and Harry's conversations were limited to short sentences and single words.
Harry, who was then studying the wards around the perimeter of the house to make sure that he didn't accidentally set them off and blow the house up, couldn't help but notice the looks the grandmother, whom everyone called Baba, kept giving him. She seemed impatient to say something to Harry. Finally unable to contain herself any longer, she walked right up to Harry, tapped him on the arm and tried to tell Harry something, grabbing a handful of her hair.
"Izvinite. Ne razumem." Harry said. They were the only Serbian words he'd learned to speak so far, aside from hello.
The Handler, who was standing nearby tending to a Thestral he had brought along with him, heard the exchange and turned to look at them. Harry looked back at him expectantly. The Handler then called out to the old woman, presumably to ask her what she was trying to say. They exchanged a few words and then the Handler turned to Harry and said aloud:
"She said, 'You. Woman. Head of fire.'"
Harry schooled his face to remain expressionless. He stood there, calmly staring back at Baba as if he were waiting for further explanation. But Baba shook her head impatiently, seemingly dissatisfied with the translation of her words as they did not bring any reaction out of Harry. Then she turned to the Handler again, talking more animatedly. She continued to emphatically grab fistfuls of her hair shouting what sounded to Harry like "vatra".
The Handler gave her a few more seconds of his time, wrinkling his brows in what would be a show of effort to understand her, then once again he turned back to Harry and said, "She says: You. Woman. Head. Fire." saying each word slowly this time. Then he shrugged his shoulders and returned to brushing down the body of the Thestral.
"Psah!" Baba shouted at him, raising an arm in a gesture of annoyance then finally waving a hand dismissively at the unmindful Handler. Then she turned back to Harry, pulled back and touched him gently on the cheek and said with an emphatic nod of her head, "Voleti". Then turned and walked back to the house. Senka was waiting for her a few distance away. Baba only had to reach out a hand and Senka took it up and together, the two females went back inside the house, with Senka frequently turning her head back to look at Harry.
Harry then turned around and walked right towards the fence surrounding the property, busying himself with checking the wards of the house, keeping his face hidden, pretending that he made nothing of Baba's words, yet his heart was doing a boing-a-boing-boing inside his chest. If he had been waiting for any more sign that there was still hope for him yet with Ginny, it was Baba's words. For even among the Muggles, her prophetic abilities were quite well known - though Muggles had no clue as to the extent of her powers. Harry was at first surprised upon arriving at the country to learn that of all the magical disciplines, soothsaying was generally acknowledged in the country – and that Baba was quite well known as an honest-to-goodness Seer, not at all of the Trelawney kind. She offered no explanations for her abilities, only that it was given most definitely. By what or whom she could not rightly say, but she believed in a higher power. Her abilities were as they were – she accepted them wholly. But neither would she profit from her gift. Harry respected the old woman immensely.
Now that the final crystals had been embedded, there was nothing to do but wait. By now, the magical crystals in the rest of the country would be fully active, and if the creature wanted to make an appearance, there was no place for it to do so but around these parts. Members of the task force were placed all over the region, ready to answer a call should the Drekavac make an appearance. But all the human deaths attributed to it were magical, and Harry was willing to bet his right arm that he was right in choosing this house.
They all had an early supper and turned in early for the night with Harry taking first watch, his companions sleeping together in a room downstairs. They all had had a long day. Harry didn't think that he could sleep anyway, not sure that his plan would work.
But Harry was far from complacent. The adrenaline, the anticipation that something was going to happen tonight, was upon him and though he should be tired, Harry knew that sleep wouldn't come. He lay on the bed, the lights out, and looked out the window where the pregnant moon hang heavy in the night sky.
As usual, whenever he found himself alone in the dark, his body began to cry its need for Ginny. It was a constant demand really that began when he first realized he was attracted to her. Unsatisified and unheeded over the years, it only managed to get even worse, especially the morning when Ron and Hermione left for Australia. Harry was just coming down from Ron’s room to bring his laundry down to Mrs. Weasley who had asked for them earlier at breakfast when he walked by Ginny’s room, the door of which was half-open. She was doing her nails, her left leg up, propped against a chair. She was wearing a mid-thigh skirt and Harry couldn’t help but steal a glance at her thigh that was, oh so, invitingly presented to him. Ginny looked up at him, beaming as she greeted him. Harry tried to discreetly lower the pile of dirty clothes he was carrying, as his own thoughts started to become as filthy every second he stood there by her door.
He was edgy for the rest of that day. He had never felt his youth more keenly than at that time. At supper, he absolutely refused to look Ginny's way as his eyes kept wanting to stray down her chest. But unfortunately, whether Mrs. Weasley sensed Harry’s rioting hormones or not, she kept Ginny close by her side and Harry never had a chance to talk to her.
That night, alone in Ron’s room in the attic, Harry couldn’t sleep. He was so randy that even his phoenix wand was vibrating, probably picking up on Harry's emotions. And that was after Harry tried to work off his need by flying for several hours in the Burrow’s makeshift Quidditch field and taking two cold showers. Still, the very devil was upon him. But he couldn’t very well wank off to that image of Ginny in her room in her parents’ very own house. So the very next day, Harry made an excuse to leave for Grimmauld Place, but with every intention to attend dinner every night at the Burrow. But Kreacher, so happy to be reunited with his master, overdid himself in preparing every dish he knew Harry liked, laboring over the feast the entire day and Harry just didn’t have the heart to tell his house-elf that he would be eating dinner at the Burrow instead. Soon after, Kingsley asked for his help, and Ministry work became so demanding that often Harry’s days blended into the night and he never had the chance to return to the Burrow, let alone talk to Ginny. But ever since, that day at the Burrow was one that Harry would always remember. In fact, he often thought that he had better sex wanking to that inspiring image of Ginny than he had with any girl he’d ever been with.
The past three months had been harrowing. Often he found himself looking at the time and wondering where Ginny was and what she was doing. He ached to see her once more. Just to see her. But at the same time he dreaded meeting with her. What would he say to her? How would he explain his abrupt departure that day at the Burrow? It was rather boorish of him to have walked out on her like that: what must she think of him?
Harry still cringed at the memory of that day. How he almost kissed her - and she with a boyfriend and all, a boyfriend that she obviously deeply loved. How he nearly pounced on her when he could not even remember if she had shown any sign at all that she was also attracted to him. Looking back now, he now realized that she hadn't been anything but warm and friendly towards him - as she'd always been with everyone. But he now thought that it had all been a mere delusion, that he was just projecting his own need upon her, imagining she felt the same towards him. Could he have made a bigger arse of himself than he already did?
There was simply no excuse for his behavior and he hated himself for his hypocrisy. He'd already been with women and why shouldn't he expect Ginny to be the same? No matter how he tried to justify it to himself that those times he'd been with other women were simply because he was lonely just didn't wash anymore, even to himself. It was even disrespectful of the women he'd been with, even though not once had he pretended to any of them that what he was seeking was more than he could give.
He tried not to think what drove him into other women's arms in the first place. It was June at the family get-together at the Burrow a year and a half after the Battle. Harry was a couple of hours late coming to the party, but he was determined to attend, hoping Ginny would be there. He arrived at the front of the property and headed straight towards the back where he knew the tables would be laid. As he rounded the house, he stopped at the sight that greeted him: Ginny, playing with little Freddie. She was wearing a simple white summer dress then cut just right above the knee and was playing catch-up with little Freddie, throwing him slightly up in the air, letting go for a few seconds and catching him as he came down again and little Freddie was giggling and squealing his delight, as Ginny kissed him on the tummy, the side of his neck - basically anywhere on his plump body she could lay her lips upon. A slight breeze was whipping her long, red hair and a part of her skirt, enough to tantalize Harry of what lay underneath. But it was the domesticity, the simple happiness that the scene promised that went to his very heart. He was about to walk up to her, planning to spend the rest of that day by her side. He wasn't afraid then. He was among family and he was determined to tell Ginny once and for all how he really felt about her. But just then out of nowhere, a tall man he did not know, cocktail glass in hand, lazily ambled his way towards Ginny and placed a possessive arm on her shoulder. She turned her face towards the bloke then, away from Harry. Harry felt as if he had been sucker-punched, his dream stolen right before his very eyes. He abruptly turned around and left the Burrow, with no one noticing that he had even arrived; since then he had seldom attended any of the family's get-together, burying himself deep in work, and at nights when he found himself alone at Grimmauld, buried himself in nameless Muggle women in a series of meaningless, one-night stands.
But that was months ago. He had stopped long before his visit to the Burrow. He just realized that sex had become worthless; it wasn't giving him any joy or satisfaction at all. Not anymore. One time, right in the middle of the act, a thought came suddenly to his head unbidden: "This isn't Ginny." And he stood up abruptly, made his apologies, and left. And that was the last time he'd been with a woman.
And now, the prospect of seeing Ginny once again, grew larger now, becoming clearer. The thought had been growing in his mind – to come home. There had been other requests for him to work on but nothing that he could not walk away from, nothing like this job anymore or as urgent; he had deliberately chosen to attend first to those he seemed he was most needed. The rest he thought could wait or others could very well attend to.
Now that there was some time and distance between them, he had acquired a bit more perspective and he had lost much of the angst he'd felt the day he left the Burrow. He just missed her, that's all. Just to be near her was enough for now, to know that she was safe, happy - even at the cost of his own. But to be away from her? He just couldn't do it. He just couldn't conceive of a future without Ginny in his life.
True, it still hurt to think of Ginny being in love with another man but the Greek Centaurs' gift and Baba's words gave him hope like nothing could that he still had a chance, that he hadn't completely bollixed it all up with her. For an Ace Auror such as he supposedly was, it was such a spineless, cowardly thing to do, not letting her know his feelings for her, considering Ginny was supposed to have become the most important person in his life.
His justification, that he was respecting other bloke's right, seemed shallow now that he thought about it. If he really wanted to, he could have found time, insinuated himself into the family home, assigned himself to monitor all the games Ginny had played, instead of just making sure that her games and public appearances were guarded at all times. Just be there, be near her, and himself created the opportunity to tell her his feelings. He was lulled into thinking that he had time, that Ginny would always be there.
But now it seemed his time had run out. Ginny obviously cared now for another man. But if a shred of her former regard still remained, if it were any real, he was hoping that she would at least talk to him and hear him out even though there was no excuse justifiable for keeping his feelings hidden for so long. The years before the end of the war, perhaps he might have been justified in keeping his feelings for her secret, but there was really no excuse for him thereafter. He had to travel halfway across the world to realize what he had been doing. That she was his one vulnerability did not hold wash anymore. He should have been selfish and demanded her attention; instead of letting other men come in between them who he was sure would not love her as much as he did. He had dallied long enough.
And yet perhaps it was not too late. He should let her know, at the very least, that he'd always been in love with her. It was the right thing to do. It was hers anyway, had always been hers. That she would always have him as an option. Always. Always.
He could just imagine her standing before him now, wearing that white summer dress she had been wearing at that get-together. She would look now just as she looked then. She had always been beautiful. But more than that, she was Ginny. But now her face seemed to be marred with anger and deep resentment. Harry could just hear the accusations coming from her. His own guilty conscience was voicing out the worst of what he imagined her recriminations against him would be.
"Did you ever really love me Harry? Where in what you have done in the last several years was love?"
"If you truly loved me, then I didn't have to wait."
"What good is your love if all I ever knew about it was pain or heartache or neglect?"
And Harry would be hard put to prove to her he truly loved her.
"Even if you did, I'll never believe in it, Harry. I can't trust that you won't ever hurt me," Ginny answered back. And then she turned around and started to walk away.
Harry called out to her. But Ginny suddenly was riding her broomstick and she was flying fast away from him. Harry immediatley transformed into a bird and flew after her. But Ginny was too far away, flying towards the sea. Harry flew hard trying to close the distance between them but the harder he flapped his wings the farther Ginny seemed speed away from him. He tried transforming, Apparating near Ginny, but somehow could not. His magic seemed to have deserted him, his heavy heart tamping down his power. The air seemed to solidify about him and he found it harder and harder to fly. He flapped his wings harder but he just couldn't get any lift. Finally, he fell down, down in the still, blackish water underneath him.
He began to sink down the deep, dark water. He struggled to breathe but couldn't and Harry knew he was drowning. Something seemed to be sucking the very air in his lungs, his eyes popping at the lack of oxygen. And then he heard it: faint, but unmistakable, a horrific scream. And it was getting louder and louder, as if it were coming near his ears. And then it hit him - he was dreaming! Sometime during his musings he must have fallen asleep and now the Drekavac was attacking. Harry struggled, clawing at his throat where he could now feel long-fingered hands clamped down round his neck, sharp talons of a claw digging into his jugular vein. He tried to wake up but just couldn't and felt himself sinking, but this time he was really beginning to lose conscious thought, his mind becoming cloudy. No, he will not die like this! Harry thought, the face of Ginny in his mind. With a powerful burst of magic, Harry broke through the spell, the magical wave shaking the house down to its foundation. Harry finally opened his eyes and stared right back to a pair of wild, red eyes - dark with putrid hatred. It leaped back off the bed but Harry waved his wand and the air crackled and popped as tiny water molecules in the air began to solidify, denying the Drekavac an escape. It screamed, rending the air with its sharp, piercing cry as it vocalized its frustration. Losing its ability to disappear, it ran towards the open window, jumped through and out into the dark night.
Deciding not to transform as he needed his wand, Harry, heart hammering, himself immediately jumped after the creature through the same window – a height of more than twenty feet off the ground - and landed agilely on the ground. With his initial burst of magic, Harry had powered the crystals to fully activate and the Drekavac truly had no magical means of escape, inside and outside the property.
Harry thus ran after the creature on foot, magic powering his every step, every leap. Suddenly a ball of fire came hurtling out of nowhere flying round him. Harry stopped, momentarily distracted, his wand up and ready. But almost at once a voice seemed to scream at the back of his head and thought it sounded like Fr. Lockefeer's: "Harry, it's me! Go! Just go!"
Harry, understanding and feeling quite stupid, regained the pursuit. Soon they were joined by the Auror and the Savage Creature Handler, the Auror on a broomstick, the latter in his Thestral. They were herding the Drekovac towards the open field where Harry had planted crystals earlier. The Drekavac, in an effort to escape, would, from time to time, leap at the Auror and the Handler, but the two were prepared and would instantly fly higher out of the Drekavac's reach. Harry, on the other hand, it seemed to be afraid of and kept its distance away.
At last, they reached the open part of the field where the creature was completely hemmed in, to his back by the wall of trees where hidden hundreds of Harry's crystals, and in a semi-circle in front of it, Harry and the two Serbians with the priest, as a ball of fire, preventing the Drekavac any area of escape.
Finally, the creature, tiring, fell down on its arms and legs, heaving and panting. Harry waved his hand. The circle of earth upon which it stood darkened as the spell Harry cast took effect, locking the Drekavac inside the circle.
For a time Harry and the rest stood there - Fr. Lockefeer having transformed himself back to human - unsure of what to do. The creature, weakening, had started to lose its monstrous appearance, and was slowly turning back to the ghostly form of its human self.
Then out of the darkness, members of the family arrived, with the mother hurrying ahead. Baba, came hobbling too, holding her youngest grandchild tightly. The father was the last to arrive, carrying his hunting rifle. But when he saw the ghostly form of the child, he stopped abruptly. He looked uncertainly at the people around him, all wizards. Then his face hardened into a stubborn expression, squaring his shoulders, he turned his back on them and then limped back the way he had come and disappeared into the dark of the night.
But his wife, however, rushed forward as she recognized her deceased son in the ghostly creature. She fell down to the ground just outside Harry's confining Shield, crying the boy's name. Her eldest daughter, rendered speechless by the ghostly sight of her deceased brother, followed beside her, as did Baba and Senka.
"Don't come too near," Harry spoke quietly.
The ghost-child began to cry too but this time, not in the piercing scream of the Drekavac but the wail of a child lost and in pain. "Mama! Mama!" it cried.
"Pavle, what have you done?" Baba spoke, Fr. Lockefeer interpreting the family's words for Harry, but did so quietly.
"It's lonely here, Baba. I want Senka with me. I want my sister. Papa doesn't love us. He'll never love us."
Senka herself was crying, saying Pavle! Pavle! over and over again.
"Will you hurt your sister then, Pavle? Is that what you want?" Baba continued to ask.
"It's lonely here, Baba. I want Senka."
"Then wait for me, child. I will be with you soon. Wait for Baba."
But the Pavle-ghost continued to cry while Baba continued to reassure him. Everyone was crying in earnest now, with Baba repeating the words: "Ja ću biti sa vama uskoro." I will be with you soon.
Finally the cries of the ghost-child subsided into soft whimpers as his family continued to cry his name. Then Baba raised her eyes up to Harry and Harry immediately understood. He raised his wand and dropped down the outer Shield but kept the ghost-form pinned to the ground. The kind, gentle face of Baba was gone, replaced by grim determination. Then Baba leaned forward and scooped a handful of earth with her sun-burned hand. She brought the hand to her lips and whispered an incantation Harry did not catch. Then she straightened up and looked directly at the trapped soul of her grandson. She looked like one who was about to stab her own heart. And then she spoke. "Nama ljubav te, moj dete! Ja ću biti sa vama uskoro. SačekaJte baba..."
Harry did not need for Baba's words to be translated for him. He felt he already understood, felt the meaning in her words. The young boy's eldest sister kept sobbing, crying softly and saying her brother's name over and over again.
Then Baba threw the soil against the ghost-child but instead of falling to the earth, the clumps of dirt clung to the ghost-child's body while Fr. Lockefeer began to bless the ghost-child in Latin as he too began to sprinkle it with Holy Water. The child opened his mouth and screamed and writhed with the painful wailing of a hurt child. Harry looked down to the ground, wishing he could plug his ears. The soil began to devour the ghost-child, and it began to slowly fall to the ground, diminishing and disappearing right before their very eyes, until finally nothing remained but blackened soil.
For a long time, nobody spoke, nobody moved. There were no sound except the cries of the women. Harry and the rest felt somewhat shamed with what they had been made witness to. Though they hadn't done anything wrong, they still felt somehow guilty. Harry looked at the small family, all huddled together, one in their grief. He then turned to the priest who looked for the first time since Harry had met him grim and stoic. Harry then turned his back and started to walk back towards the house. As he did, he passed by the Handler and the Auror who stood hanging back some distance away from the family. They would stay to ensure the family was safe.
He didn't feel or notice the priest accompanying him but when he got near enough to the house where the outdoor light's from the house illuminated the surrounding area, Harry wasn't surprised to hear the priest speak from his side.
"Harry, can I talk to you for a second?"
Harry, naturally, did not speak.
"Harry, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Father," though the truth was he was far from being fine. Harry was still reeling from the nightmare the Drekavac forced upon him. Harry wasn't sure if it was the Drekavac voicing its own heartache or his own subconscious forcing him to face what he had done to Ginny.
"Look, there is something I need to talk to you about," said Fr. Lockefeer then he looked towards the side of Harry's neck, where the string of the mokeskin he kept hidden was peeking from underneath his collar. Despite his tiredness, in both heart and mind, Harry was instantly alert.
But the priest waved Harry's unease aside with a dismissive wave of his hand. "We've heard some things. And the pope wanted me to give you something."
Before Harry could say "Wha-?" Fr. Lockefeer pulled out a crozier and passed it before Harry's eyes. A bright light suddenly burst from the staff the priest was holding and Harry was blinded. He sensed the light disappear almost at once, but its afterimage continued to burn in Harry's retina and Harry couldn't see.
"What did you do, Father?" Harry spoke with studied calmness, but the boiling anger underneath was unmistakeable.
"Relax, just wait a few minutes." said the priest, a smile in his voice.
Slowly , Harry's vision returned. Even as it did, Harry began checking his magic for any changes, but felt nothing.
At last, Harry regained his vision and he looked hard at Fr. Lockefeer, waiting for an explanation, but the priest was unperturbed.
"In case you need it," the priest said simply. Then he extended a hand to Harry which Harry was loath to take, not sure if he had been done ill. But his instinct was telling him that Fr. Lockefeer would never do him harm, and Harry chose to trust that instinct and so, in the end, he took up the priest's offer of handshake, and they bid each other farewell. And then Fr. Lockefeer good-naturedly clapped Harry on the shoulder and with a final nod, Disapparated. Harry stood there for a time, staring at the space where the priest had been standing, rubbing his eyes, feeling for any changes, but he still felt fine. He was about to enter the house when a voice from behind called out to him. It was the Auror. Harry patiently waited by the door for the Auror to draw near.
"Mr. Potter!"
"Is everything alright?"
"As much as it could be," said the Serbian Auror, referring to Baba and her family. "But I just received word from the Ministry. You're wanted there."
"Did they say why?"
"They just said a friend of yours from England has arrived. Another Auror, your friend Mr. Weasley. He said he needed to talk to you immediately."
Harry nodded and wondered what could have made Ron running to Serbia at this time of the night. Then he looked towards the field where they had trapped the Drekavac but the Auror spoke up as if in answer to Harry's thoughts.
"The family won't be coming back anytime soon, Mr. Potter. If you want, I'll say your goodbyes for you."
Harry nodded once more then took out his phoenix wand. He conjured a rose made of glass crystal that emitted rainbow-colored lights from its center, making sure that the crystal was unbreakable, the lights undying. He then handed the crystal to the Auror.
"Will you please give this to Senka?"
The Serbian Auror nodded and carefully took the crystal from Harry's hand. Harry then went back to the house to retrieve his things from the attic, remembering all too well that he and Kingsley had an agreement that, unless it was extremely necessary, nobody be sent after him.
Glossary:
"Izvinite. Ne razumem" – I'm sorry. I don't understand.
"Nama ljubav te, moj dete! SačekaJte baba..." - We love you, my child. Wait for Baba.
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